My Digital Notebook

Making sense of it all

I’ve begun 2010 thinking a little about social media shelf life and the longevity of digital publications. Just how long will someone last on a particular social media site before they abandon it? How long could/should/might a blog trundle on?

These, I think, are interesting questions. We’re always told how to set things up on the Internet, but we’re very rarely told when to finish something. When is it time to stop?

When it comes to blogs, it seems, far too many are launched with the assured expectation that they are going to roll gloriously onwards into infinity. Therefore they usually evolve to the same familiar rhythm – which often means beginning in an explosion of energy before generally trailing off into obscurity.

I’ve already blogged here about the enjoyable experience of completing the Camervroom blog. It was a happy experience for a number of reasons: that I was experimenting with new technologies, that I was working from unfamiliar surroundings, and (importantly) that I knew that it was a temporary thing.

Camervroom had a very simple narrative arc. It started with the preparations of the car, continued with launch and the journey and concluded at the finish. There was one wrapping up post from my home in Islington and then that was it. Finished.

To end a blog off in that manner was satisfying. A little like finishing a book and slipping it back into the bookshelf, or sending a completed publication away the printers.

You’re left with a sense of achievement and the knowledge that you can take whatever it is that you’ve learnt on to the next project. The nagging blogger’s noose – the one that tends to appear after you’ve exhausted your first creative spurt – is gone, and because your blog is based over a shorter period of time you can ensure that it conforms to that most important of blogging essentials: that it stays niche.

Ok, jumping from one project to another means that you’ll forgo the benefits of pouring all your efforts (and Googlejuice) into a single domain, but as long as you keep your Twitter feed reasonably well updated then it will be easy to signpost new work and take your readership around the web with you.

This, I suppose, is why I think that Twitter will endure. It is the nerve that runs through all of our online projects, knitting them together and giving them context.

It’s understandable that many established (and very good) bloggers are, through page rank, brand recognition and emotional loyalty, wedded to their domains – it doesn’t mean for those that are just starting out that it is the only way.

Moving from one carefully crafted web project to another is an underused alternative approach to digital publishing that might well suit those who are looking for a dalliance, and wanting to avoid a millstone.

Something to think about, at least.

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Image Credit: PhotoGraham

I’ve already written about paid search and politics, but a far more obvious digital tool for politicians over the next few months is social media.

It’s an obvious and efficient way of politicians (and budding politicians) engaging with their constituents or target audiences to get their message across. Some good examples being:

Ed Fordham’s website

Alastair Campbell’s Blog

Iain Dale’s Diary

Tom Watson’s Twitter Feed

Watching each of these grind into motion over the last year has been interesting and this week it has been satisfying to get a bit of social-media-political-attention for myself.

Clowns and Parks

I live in Islington, just off Pentonville Road. Opposite my flat is Joseph Grimaldi Park, named after the man who invented the identity for the modern clown and who, Joe Frankenstein contends in a recent book, was the very first celebrity.

For interest, here is a snippet about Grimaldi:

Grim-all-day

A man goes into the doctor’s. ‘Doctor,’ he says, ‘can you help me? Life doesn’t seem worth living, and I am shrouded in constant gloom.’ ‘My good man,’ says the doctor, taking a look at the melancholy face before him, ‘there is only one cure for you. You must go to see Grimaldi the clown.’ ‘Sir,’ replies the patient, ‘I am Grimaldi the clown.’

Depressed or not, Grimaldi was a sensation and two centuries on his bones lie in the park opposite my flat.

All good and interesting until workmen arrived a month ago and dug it upside down.

After weeks of muddied shoes and sharp clatters from beyond the window, I wrote on Twitter:

“Oh. And congratulations to Islington Council for transforming the lovely Joseph Grimaldi Park into something that resembles a bowl of porridge”

It was about as much as I had time to say on the subject. It wasn’t a concern but it was an irritant. The kind of latent issue that a councillor/politician would never get to hear about in a letter or at a public forum, but which they might just find out about if they took the time to study the Internet.

And well done to Bridget Fox for doing just that. Within the hour I received an @tweet informing me about plans for the park and estimated deadlines and this morning it was followed up by a blog post.

If you glue those two things together it adds up to about as much direct engagement I’ve had with a politician for years. Mostly my fault, I know – but a lesson for politicians nonetheless. If you want to dig beneath the surface (pun intended) and engage with the apathetic masses – then social media is a pretty good way to go.

I suppose it would be glib and rather self-absorbed of me to suggest that I was going to vote for a politician because I’ve appeared in one of their blog posts. But in a world of beeping computers, identity numbers and automated messages it is comforting to communicate with another directly. And when it comes down to it, that might just make the difference.

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Image Credit: Rich Lewis

By Harold’s Planet.

A memorable day for the British media

A good day for the British media. A good day for press freedom. A good day for the Guardian and, especially, its editor, Alan Rusbridger.

Briefly written, here’s what happened.

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I’ve little to add that hasn’t already been mentioned elsewhere, but here’s a thought.

Today we saw old and new media working together. Newspaper editors and journalists were interacting with bloggers and twitterers. There were articles, blogs and tweets – all repeating the same message over and over and over again.

There was an unfamiliar sense of unity. The idea that if the media worked as one it could defend a principle that it felt strongly enough about.

And after years of new and old media growling at each other from different corners of the same room, this was something new.

An important principle has been defended – and that is the most important point of all. But perhaps it is worth noting that some bridges might just have been built in doing so.

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image credit: Ricky David

Digital You

A short post, but a useful one (I hope).

Any digital identity needs consistency and coherence. So whenever we have a new starter at work I always ask them to secure their online profiles across the most important social media sites.

But which ones? Um. These, I reckon:

1. Wordpress (importantly)
2. Tumblr (for blogging)
3. Vimeo (for video)
4. Flickr (for images)
5. Delicious (for bookmarking)
6. Twitter (pointless little messages)
7. Audio Boo (for audio recording)
8. Posterous (for blogging)
9. Friend Feed (an aggregator)
10. You Tube (for video)

So there you go. You’ll notice that facebook isn’t on the list, as to my mind it isn’t really too useful for work. I just hope your name isn’t Peter Moore, or I might just have annoyed you.

But have I missed anything obvious?

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image credit: JMC Photos

This made me laugh. A song made entirely of sounds from Windows 98 and XP. Enjoy.