Disqus - Latest Comments for RickWaghorn

Re: Local video news on the web: It’s the independents that count, not Archant or the BBC

RickWaghorn — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:43:15 -0000

In fairness to Ofcom...

Sent: Wed, 21 May 2008 14:14
Subject: Dinner invitation from Ofcom

Dear Rick,

As you may know, Ofcom recently published a thrill-a-minute consultation document as part of a review of public service broadcasting. (If you’re in the mood, an exec summary is online in handy blog-like format: http://ofcompsbreview.typepad.com/summary/ )

Ofcom recognises a vast array of organisations and individuals produces public service content on the Internet. I’m keen that the next stage of our review accurately reflects the views this broad constituency. In case you’re wondering, that includes MyLocalWriter and its kin.

I would therefore like to invite you to participate in a dinner and discussion hosted by Ofcom about how the reach and impact of online public service content might be improved. In other words, how to ensure people can discover content which meets their needs as citizens, as well as consumers....

Re: The future of media: Lightweight, post-industrial and technology-driven

RickWaghorn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:24:18 -0000

Think you're spot on with the dawn of a post-industrial landscape...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=30

All the best, etc

Re: Tomorrow’s world? Future’s digital revenues compensate for print ad decline

RickWaghorn — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:43:26 -0000

Of course Jeff “Link To The Rest” Jarvis would love it. Indeed, looking at Future’s deal, the big, fat, obvious question that forms in my mind is: why isn’t Conde Nast, EMAP or IPC doing this already?

Exactly... why not indeed...

Re: What’s in your budget for 2009?

RickWaghorn — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:13:35 -0000

The other small saving grace for B2B publishers is that they have got geograpy on their side - as in they haven't got any.

Trinity, JP, Archant have geography by the bucketload; hundreds of little local, fragmented monopolies that the Web really, really doesn't do.

It hates them.

If I live in Norwich and want to sell my bike, my car, my house... I'm not going to sell it through an advertising medium/vehicle that stops just south of Thetford.

It's that kind of geography which is this ever-tightening noose around the regionals neck.

IMHO.

Re: 100 jobs could go as Trinity's Liverpool titles to print in Oldham - Press Gazette

RickWaghorn — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:59:37 -0000

Cloud Cuckoo hits one nail on the head... the other point to ponder is where you re-gain that lost hour on the M62...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=135

Re: The media & private equity: A boom financed by dodgy loans?

RickWaghorn — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:24:52 -0000

RBS clearly has other, bigger skeletons rattling around in its closet right now. But this baby doesn't look too clever either...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=142

Re: Anyone up for nationalizing Johnston Press?

RickWaghorn — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:17:15 -0000

This makes for an interesting read - the same question being asked, and answered, across The Pond.

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-feds-...

All the best, etc

Re: Roy Greenslade: 'No reason why we need sub-editors' - Press Gazette

RickWaghorn — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:06:54 -0000

Whatever happened to the view that two pairs of eyes are better than one?

It costs twice as much.

Alas, Roy is spot on.

And I speak with a very real interest; my wife's a provincial newspaper sub.

Re: Archant saves half a million by trimming 2cm from papers - Press Gazette

RickWaghorn — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:47:32 -0000

'The group added there had been no reaction from the public...

Sales of the Evening News are down 8% on last year. Sales of the Ipswich Evening Star are down 11%.

No quite right.

No reaction from the public.

Re: Regional press bosses go lobbying alongside the subsidy jockeys of Channel 4 & ITV

RickWaghorn — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:46:42 -0000

It'll be intriguing to see what they come up with...

Won't it just?

My money would be on immediate consolidation (bigger silos, not better networks...), planning applications to stay firmly put and obligation on BBC/ITV to 'buy' their content in off the 'Secret Seven'.

Cos that will save them.

But then we weren't invited to tea at Claridges...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=256

All the best, etc

Re: Hard cases make bad law: Polly Toynbee on state aid for the regional press

RickWaghorn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:53:13 -0000

An action plan for Ms Toynbee... bottom up, me thinks, lies the solution.

Just ask the people of Darwen.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=268

All the best, etc; must do that beer :)

Re: News is what matters, not newspapers

RickWaghorn — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:16:11 -0000

I'd like to think that I produce pieces of meaningful journalism - and with 100,000 page views so far for the month of January so far, I've got some half-decent traffic numbers on my side as doing pure journalism - minus the time/distribution constraints of a printing press - works, albeit in the little world that is provincial football reporting.
That said, however, commercially it is a tough nut to crack and whilst I hunker down for a reasonably tight spring, I suspect the answer - for me, at least - will ultimately include at least five income streams which, together, may yet get me there. For somewhere in the midst of banner advertising locally bought and sourced; straight subscriptions for premium content; affiliate advertising; premium text alerts; a soccer betting portal; the ability, in theory, to do discount 'bulk' subscription deals to every office worker sat in Norwich Union just as the Daily Mail might drop papers off in Little Chefs; and, finally/possibly/eventually, servicing electronic sports desks with syndicated match reports, I ought to be able to fund my work-from-home living... as, in theory, ought a mini, 'news' team syndicating their copy back into bigger news hubs. But it ain't easy, trust me.

Re: Multimedia - let’s give credit where it is due

RickWaghorn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:07:10 -0000

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=143

Re: Is Crowdfunding the Future of Journalism?

RickWaghorn — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:30:43 -0000

... or else you hand small niche publishers a DIY ad system that enables them to source their own advertising... and keep 90% of their revenue...

Here we go, Lichfield, UK pop c75,000... new local news blog... one strip of www.addiply.com ... six days later and Philip and Ross are already pulling in c$80 a month from their 13,500 uniques... covers their hosting...

www.thelichfieldblog.co.uk

Beta trialling in $ form out of Berkeley's www.OaklandNorth.net and www.MissionLocal.org - all we;ve got to do now is to teach the Berkeley J-School kids to sell... that way you can afford to put a cherry on top of Adrian Holovaty's EveryBlock... ie a hyper-local 'beat' reporter.

All the best, etc

R

Re: I am not a newpaper gravedancer, but if ever I was tempted in that way, I know which grave I'd start at

RickWaghorn — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:10:24 -0000

Reading their 'F*ck you...' parting shot, it strikes me that Messrs 'Steve Rivera & Geoff Grammer's mastery of Wildcats basketball...' should be put to rather more constructive use than simply giving the bird to all the Wildcats bloggers out there who valiantly try to cover the team without the level of influence, access and knowledge that Rivera & Grammar bring to the party...

Or did.

As that paper 'unbundles', those boys should get off their ass and cash in on their 'mastery' whilst their 'brand' still has any value and worth and their contacts book is still fresh...

As Mr Shirky has long maintained: 'People want a good read...'

It's as simple as that; that's not rocket science.

So give them a good read about their favourite basketball team in an organised, networkable format that can then tie-in fellow 'beat' reporters from the Rocky Mountain News, etc... be small, but give yourself the chance to be big... source local advertising, cascade down national advertising... look to syndicate your original reporting and not let AP or whoever market your wares as their own..

The only people who are going to help journalists in this current climate are journalists themselves.

Messrs Rivera & Grammer, your opportunity knocks... or are you going to let all that 'mastery' count for nothing?

Rick Waghorn
www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity

Re: Connecting The Dots Of The Web Revolution

RickWaghorn — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:31:55 -0000

To answer Steve's question... ie 'What we then have to ask is how do we credit original thought and how do we link back to the creator of that original thought...

Or at least potentially, particularly now they've got $350,000 of Knight funding up their sleeve...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=73

Almost made missing out on a trip to Vegas worth it.

Re: How Google Stole Control Over Content Distribution By Stealing Links

RickWaghorn — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:56:59 -0000

Walter...

How about seeing local news as a mobile phone app...

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=250

Directly connects the user with the local news content that they require... and then in-build local advertisers into that app; takes out Google as the AdSense middleman...

Re: The End of Newspapers, in Chart Form

RickWaghorn — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:28:09 -0000

Jeff's follow-up Tweet is interesting...

Craigslist didn't kill newspapers. The market did. It cut out monopoly middlemen & their overpriced ads. http://bit.ly/Xnwgh...

Because that's we're currently offering the J-School kids at Berkeley the chance to do - 'cut out the middlemen and their over-priced ads... by giving them a 'tool' that enables them to source and price their own ads; a bottom up, street level solution to a self-publishers needs... in mindset at least, similar to Mr Newmark.

Who needs to be enfeebled by a middle man or a third party when you can be empowered by a tool to do-it-yourself?

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=291

All the best, etc

Rick

Re: About Me

RickWaghorn — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:01:59 -0000

Mark,

I'm following your Twitter feeds with interest... be nice to chat; already speaking to Kent Goldman at FirstRound... but lunch at Zuni's would be fun.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=302

All the best,

Rick (Waghorn)

Re: The Time Must Finally Be Now For Grassroots Media

RickWaghorn — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:48:44 -0000

Very interesting article, Patrick. Trick for me is to provde people with the tools to monetise their hyper-local content better... and offer them rather more by way of a reward than a school diploma.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=272

Think times may, just, be a-changing.