This week Gorkana invited us to their brilliant breakfast briefing to discuss what we do at MSN UK and how PRs can make their stories a success on the portal. It was a great opportunity to share some insights and hear feedback. Thanks to everyone that came along.
Gorkana took notes from the session along with videos which you can view here.
This week I presented at the Content Strategy event in Richmond – discussing how we approach ‘Search’ in our editorial workflow at MSN. My main point was that search is now so much more than ‘just’ SEO, especially now that search engines are taking more account of our social media activity when ranking pages.
And if you add to the mix the way that trending topic tools (Tweet Deck for instance) can shape the type of stories you choose to publish that day – then the lines between search and editorial begin to blend.
That’s why good ‘Search’ in the wider sense reinforces good editorial practise and promotion. You don’t have to compromise, they can all work together in harmony to hit your online objectives.
Great to see so many questions raised and thanks to everyone for their input. My edited presentation below.
I’m pretty impressed by this – got tweets back from Jeff Brazier and Fearne Cotton both in the same day. Soon my plan for world celebrity domination will be complete. MWAA HA HA HA HA HA!
PS: Best of luck to Jeff who’s currently battling it out on Dancing On Ice. We think he’s the best and that’s not just because he writes a regular Jeff Brazier column for MSN Entertainment!
Last night I attended a brilliant session by the Online News Association in London where participants demoed some very flash technology currently being used in the field by journalists. Some great ideas were circulated about the impact of technology on journalism but I just had to grab some footage of the Parrot AR Drone which was demoed by Tom Cranstoun from the BBC. The fold up Apple TV also looked a bit nifty.
The future of journalism or just a big boy’s toy? You decide!
Here are some ONA UK photos from the night.
And here’s me!
Jacek Utko gave a great speech at this year’s AOP Summit, championing design as a fundamental way of driving engagement online. His presentation is very inspiring but, take a step back. Is pushing the design envelope really the answer to all our needs? Haven’t we been here before with Flash? Push it too far and you soon get style over substance.
However, he does demonstrate why printed newspapers are still relevant. Web Producers around the world will sigh: ‘If only I could get that kind of layout with our CMS.’
Good to see a designer at a predominately sales/editorial event.
So the iPad marketing campaign begins. Why do Apple insist on these screenshots that look nothing like the actual product. Certainly not the only company that does this but still annoying…
Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.
This week I hit the jackpot when my boss agreed to lend me his iPad so I could check it out for myself. Conclusion: not impressed.
Obviously, it looks really slick and sexy, it’s light, viewing large images on it looks fantastic and the tactile nature of it’s touch point surface is really beautiful. But, ultimately, I think it’s just a really expensive toy. Kindle is probably better for reading, you can port your present iPhone anyway into a larger screen for about 80 quid, and the fact that Apple have blocked Flash is just frustrating.
Obviously, a lot of the apps available at the moment are dedicated to iPhone and don’t map smoothly over to iPad. Then again, the Driver app I played was really cool. But I don’t want to use this as a mobile games controller – there’s already better alternatives out there for cheaper.
So, all in all, a bit confused by the hype. Maybe with some more bespoke apps (why no Spotify?) and flash integration it may improve over the next 6 months. Best thing about it was being able to get my 2 year old to navigate around old Sesame video clips on YouTube. Therefore potentially a great educational tool they could roll out in schools.
A revolutionary new paradigm? I’m afraid not. But, it does look sexy!
I’ll let Public Enemy play us out.
How good is this? To get a such a rock n’ roll legend to come in to talk about their music and past, play guitar and the occasional record – what a scoop for Absolute. Produced by Somethin’ Else also. Top team that.
There needs to be more of this!
Random thoughts and observations from an MSN Content Manager. Mostly about entertainment, mostly good fun!
I last listened to:Copyright © Steven Wilson-Beales
Content strategy, music, thoughts
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