RSSMix.com Mix ID 26239

Revisiting Tumblr - Stop the Presses: How to Save Newspapers by Ted...

Video: Stop the Presses: How to Save Newspapers by Ted Rall (via tedralltoons) http://tumblr.com/xle7kb06b

BBC - dot.Rory: Data czar to politicians: I'm watching you

The fashionable new way of reaching voters is via social networks - or what's being called peer-to-peer campaigning, where you get your supporters to tell their mates on Facebook how great you are. But the Information Commissioner again urges caution, stressing that these kind of campaigns are not a way of getting round the need for consent. "Arguably, where you ask an individual to forward your message or promotional materials to an individual who has not consented to that contact, you are encouraging them to break the law in order to promote your part or point of view."

BBC Website To Get Deep Integration with Facebook and Twitter.

The social media features will make an appearance upon the launch of iPlayer 3.0 which will have its users actually register on the BBC site. Part of the registration will include including logging into your favorite social media service, which will in turn make it possible to see what your friends are watching on teh BBC.

Local news aggregator Fwix signs deal with New York Times Co

Coventry Conversations: The Birth of BBC News Online | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog

He also spoke of the problem of deciding what a story should look like online, whether going on the internet meant that people were looking for three Ceefax sentences or something more in-depth. The BBCs 1996 Online News Concept outlined goals that are beginning to be met only recently: valuable text, high-quality pictures that load fast, high-quality audio, full screen videos and full interactivity.

UK Freedom of Information Blog: New guidance for access to health records requests

Nestle staff chat about the Greenpeace Kit Kat video on Vimeo

Curious that my Nestle/Greenpeace video has had more views on Vimeo http://bit.ly/bFv1uZ than YouTube http://bit.ly/aekCG3 #kitkat

YouTube - Nestle staff chat about the Greenpeace Kit Kat video

Curious that my Nestle/Greenpeace video has had more views on Vimeo http://bit.ly/bFv1uZ than YouTube http://bit.ly/aekCG3 #kitkat

Net downloads cause 'millions of lost jobs' The Register

I said earlier that there's a bigger, and more subtle problem than squabbling over substitution ratios; it's that substitution studies tend to be self-fulfilling. They don't estimate how much a business sector could grow if it engaged with new technologies. The DVD market is a classic example. More recently, games developers have fought an onslaught of piracy by focusing more on social networked games, and closed platforms.

How to write a blog post - in 12 easy steps

Canwest Digital Media Online Editor Ottawa Ontario

dentify and develop great stories for multi-platform presentation; Champion the integration of social media and journalism; Co-ordinate the flow of content from the news desk to the websites; Work as part of a team spread across multiple offices; Carry out special duties as required; May be required to work early morning, evening and weekend shifts. Key Qualifications Degree in journalism or a related field; Proven journalism skills - news judgment, news writing and a passion for the craft; At least two years in a news environment, preferably with some online and editing experience; Highly-developed verbal, written and social media communication skills; Basic Photoshop skills; Self-motivated, goal-oriented team player who can thrive without direct supervision and adapts to constant change.

Homepage - Birmingham City Council

Oh, the Birmingham Council website has changed... http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/

TV. Now it's personal. - Blogging for food - Blogs - Brand Republic

Jeremy Tester from Sky Media described the plans at this Thinkbox seminar as a work in progress, but the vision is simple. Sooner rather than later, TV ads will be personalised. And this is applicable to saved content too. Record a show to watch later, the theory goes, and ads can be served into that show that are different to those output live. Amazing stuff.

Comment on Greenpeaces Kit Kat video: behind the scenes at Nestle by links for 2010-03-18 Onlinejournalismtest's Blog

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:03:39 -0400

[...] Greenpeaces Kit Kat video: behind the scenes at Nestle | Online Journalism Blog A little fun on OJB: Greenpeace's KitKat video: Behind the scenes at Nestle http://l.csommer.de/a0peam (tags: via:packrati.us) [...]

Freesteel

Bogus Piracy Report Misleads EU Legislators | TorrentFreak

Comment on Help correct the damage from the medias irresponsible coverage of the cervical cancer vaccine by gamma knife

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:24:07 -0400

malcolmcoles, yeah really you share the gr8 topic here.........i think media should be play the responsible role toward the disease like cancer.

Comment on Leak-o-nomy: The Economy of Wikileaks by Leak-o-nomy: Die konomie hinter Wikileaks Medien-konomie-Blog

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:57:12 -0400

[...] This interview in English. / Erscheint als Crosspost auch auf Carta, Onlinejournalismblog und Re-visto/ Julian Assanges Hacker-Roman ber den International Computer [...]

Greenpeaces Kit Kat video: behind the scenes at Nestle

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:24:39 -0400

Background;

Transcript:

Nestle staffer 1: “Greenpeace have done a viral video attacking our sourcing policy. I do so hope people don’t pass it on and it becomes a huge viral hit.”

Nestle staffer 2: “Yes. I know what will stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit: get YouTube to take it down for alleged copyright infringement.”

Nestle staffer 1: “Yes, that will definitely stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit. That is a good idea and I hope you get all the credit for that.”

Comment on Must user-generated-content threaten quality journalism? by Mel Taylor

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:34:01 -0400

looking forward to seeing some heavy hitters in the sales & business department, step up in these hyper-local & online journalism efforts. even the most trafficed sites, with the most powerful journalism, will likely not survive without revenue & profitablity. here is a look at the hyper-local revenue plan we are attempting to follow: http://bit.ly/9Xbq4h

Comment on Starting a blog? 12 ideas for blog posts by Generating Post Ideas Ben1989s Blog

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:56:47 -0400

[...] our personal sites and looked at ways to come up with posts for our sites. A useful tool was on the online journalism blog which had a post suggesting 12 ideas for blog posts. We then did an exercise which involved finding [...]

Comment on Im launching an MA in Online Journalism by What is scrutiny and how can it get better? | Podnosh

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:23:52 -0400

[...] this is the sort of thing I do for fun, but there was a serious purpose at hand. As part of my MA in online journalism, but also as part of my work at Podnosh Ill be looking at how the web can be used to improve [...]

Comment on The BBC and linking part 2: a call to become curators of context by Must user-generated-content threaten quality journalism? Attorney Don Hecker Broadcast

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:57:20 -0400

[...] can be seen in the debate between Paul Bradshaw and his students, and the BBC staff regarding UGC content and external links. It seems while hub head Matthew Eltringham spoke about the relevance of content, what he was [...]

Comment on How to create basic mashups with Yahoo! Pipes by Online Journalism lesson #10: RSS and mashups Attorney Don Hecker Broadcast

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:57:00 -0400

[...] This was the final session in my undergraduate Online Journalism module (the other classes can be found here), taught last May. Its a relatively brief presentation, just covering some of the possibilities of mashups and RSS, and some tools. The majority of the class is taken up with students using Yahoo! Pipes to aggregate a number of feeds. [...]

Comment on The BBC and linking part 1: users are not an audience by Attorney Don Hecker Broadcast The BBC and linking part 2: a call to become curators of context

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:56:22 -0400

[...] I blogged about the frustration of Ben Goldacre at the refusal of parts of the BBC News website to deep link [...]

Comment on FAQ: What do you see in the future for investigative journalism? by Attorney Don Hecker Broadcast The Human Journalism project in Spain

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:55:48 -0400

[...] and organise online, supported by citizens, foundations and philanthropists. So we can say that non-profit journalism is not only an American or English [...]

Must user-generated-content threaten quality journalism?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:13:28 -0500

The BBCs User Generated Content (UGC) Hub does not further meaningful civil participation in the news, and the routine inclusion of UGC does not significantly alter news selection criteria or editorial values. So concludes Jackie Harrisons study on audience contributions and gatekeeping practices at the BBC.

The study found many of the previous barriers to news selection have been removed or are not applicable to UGC.

User generated content has been absorbed into BBC newsroom practices and is now routinely considered as an aspect of, or dimension to, many stories. In this sense the traditional barriers which formed the gatekeeping criteria of the 1990s have been altered forever.

Harrison sees the changes to selection criteria as a real and worrying threat to quality and standards at the public broadcaster. Her study raises interesting questions about the value of UGC and how it should be measured. She fears the growing tendency to utilise audience content, often for convenience, risks an increase in soft news at the expense of quality journalism, and worse, the degradation of public knowledge.

Harrison does not see the hub as progressing civil debate or public engagement on a meaningful level, and she anticipates future use of UGC may grow more opportunistic. This is obviously at odds with the active debate and participation the hub set out to foster, and which has dominated previous ideals of audience participation.

Selection and moderation

In an earlier study, Harrison looked at what caused some stories to be used by the BBC and others to be rejected. Here she reinvestigates these reasons in the context of UGC, finding that in many cases UGC can, if not make these previous concerns irrelevant, make the case for automatic rejection less compelling.

While the hub is subject to resource-intensive moderation and methodical processes to ascertain UGC authenticity and quality it is, like all news organisations, still learning how to most effectively utilise audience participation.

There are growing and unresolved tensions for journalists in balancing the BBCs traditional journalistic standards while fostering open communication, promoting free speech, and at the same time protecting the site and the audience against possible offence.

Inevitably, this gives rise to judgement calls which are necessarily subjective.

Harris suggests two questions then arise from this:

Does UGC reflect public opinion and
two, are they simply generating noiseof little value, and,
is it a public service broadcasters job to provide a platform for all sorts of views including unpalatable or unpleasant non-majoritarian comment and, if it is not, why not?

BBC journalists told Harrison, The difficulty with opening up the floodgates to participation is that the full spectrum of opinions must be considered to further the aims of the global conversation.

Should we be concerned, as Harrison seems to be, that material gathered at the hub is not always deemed of particular quality? Or does the value, as Stuart Purvis suggests, lie in the telling, the fact that new and possibly previously unheard voices are given a platform?

We are right to expect quality content from the public broadcaster, but opinions on what that means differ widely.

This can be seen in the debate between Paul Bradshaw and his students, and the BBC staff regarding UGC content and external links. It seems while hub head Matthew Eltringham spoke about the relevance of content, what he was really talking about was quality content. If the BBC opened up linking to contributors’ sites, would it have to do it for all contributors, and what kinds of complications would this pose?

The future of UGC

Perhaps we should not be viewing the growing tendency for soft journalism through UGC as a degradation in quality, but part of the evolution of the BBC. Unless of course, it does come at the cost of investigative, serious journalism, which clearly the BBC has a mandate to invest in.

Harrison rightly points out the hub is only one part of the newsroom, but a part that is increasingly relied upon as an additional source of information, shared between departments at the BBC.

What the study doesnt address is how successful the UGC hub has been in engaging people who have previously not interacted with the BBC, or who have not taken part in public debate in general. I suspect it is unlikely to have encouraged society’s voiceless. We must assume at the least, that people taking part have access to technology, which is of course, one of the major difficulties of the idea of the new electronic, egalitarian public sphere.

The hub does represent a deliberate and conscious effort to seek audience interaction and better serve the public interest, though what this will mean for the BBC, and for the public, in the long-term is still unclear.

It will be interesting to see how the hub develops and where UGC can go. Is Harrison right in predicting it will grow more meaningless or, more drastically, has meaningful civil engagement in the news already met its untimely death, as Steve Borris declared?

Online Journalism lesson #10: RSS and mashups

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:53:12 -0500

RSS and mashupsView more presentations from Paul Bradshaw.

This was the final session in my undergraduate Online Journalism module (the other classes can be found here), taught last May. It’s a relatively brief presentation, just covering some of the possibilities of mashups and RSS, and some tools. The majority of the class is taken up with students using Yahoo! Pipes to aggregate a number of feeds.

I didn’t know how students would cope with Yahoo! Pipes but, surprisingly, every one completed the task.

As a side note, this year I kicked off the module with students setting up Twitter, Delicious and Google Reader – and synchronising them, so the RSS feed from one could update another (e.g. bookmarks being published to Twitter). This seems to have built a stronger understanding of RSS in the group, which they are able to apply elsewhere (they also have widgets on their blogs pulling the RSS feeds from Twitter & Delicious; and their profile page on the news website – built by Kasper Sorensen – pulls the latest updates from their Twitter, Delicious and blog feeds).

The BBC and linking part 2: a call to become curators of context

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:00:07 -0500

A highlight of my recent visit with MA Online Journalism students to the BBC’s user generated content hub was the opportunity to ask this question posed by Andy Mabbett via Twitter: ‘Why don’t you link back to people if they send a picture in?’ (audio embedded above and here).

The UGC Hub’s head, Matthew Eltringham, gave this response:

“We credit their picture … we absolutely embrace the principle of linking on and through. I think the question would be – if Andy sends in a picture because he happened to witness a particular event, how relevant is the rest of his content to the audience. I think we’d have to take a view on that.”

It was a highlight because something clicked in my head at this point. You see, we’d spent some of the previous conversation talking about how the UGC hub verifies the reliability of user generated content, and it struck me that this view of the link as content could risk missing a key aspect of linking: context.

In an online environment one of the biggest signals in how we build a picture of the trustworthiness of someone or something is the links surrounding it. Who is that person friends with? What does this website link to? Who gathers here? What do they say? What else does this person do? What is their background, their interests, their beliefs?

All of this is invaluable context to us as users, not just the BBC.

While we increasingly talk about the role of publishers as curators of content [caveat], we should perhaps start thinking about how publishers are also curators of context.

Curators of context

And on this front, the corporation appears to have an enormous culture shift on its hands – a shift that it has been pushing in public for years, with varying degrees of success in different parts of the organisation.

BBC Radio, and many BBC TV programmes, for example, use users’ pictures and tweets and link and credit as a matter of course, while some parts of BBC News do link directly to research papers.

Yesterday I blogged about the frustration of Ben Goldacre at the refusal of parts of the BBC News website to deep link to scientific journal articles. In the comments to Ben’s post, ‘Gimpy’ says that the journalist quoted by Goldacre told him in “early 2008″ that linking was “something which must be reviewed”.

In May 2008 the BBC Trust said linking needed major improvements, and in October 2008 the Head of Multimedia said linking to external websites was a vital part of its future.

And this month, the corporation’s latest strategic review pledges:

“to turn the site into a window on the web by providing at least one external link on every page and doubling monthly click-throughs to external sites: making the best of what is available elsewhere online an integral part of the BBCs offer to audiences.”

Most recently, this week the BBC’s announcement of 25% cuts to its online spend motivated Erik Huggers to make this statement at a DTG conference:

“Why can’t we find a way to take all that traffic and help share it with other public service broadcasters and with other public bodies so that if our boat rises on the tide, everyone’s boat rises on the tide?

“Rather than trying to keep all that traffic inside the BBC’s domain we’re going to link out very aggressively and help other organisations pull their way up on the back of the investments that the BBC has made in this area.”

To be fair, unlike other media organisations, at least the BBC is talking about doing something about linking (and if you want to nag them, here’s their latest consultation).

But please, enough talk already. Auntie, give us the context.

UPDATE: More on the content vs context debate from Kevin Anderson.

The Human Journalism project in Spain

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:07:07 -0500

The journalist and photographer Javier Bauluz is the only Spanish winner of the Pullitzer. He has published a preview of his next project, focused on journalism and human rights, at periodismohumano.com.

“The responsibility of the crisis: the greed of a few and the lack of controls from whom should control them, the representatives of the people and the toxic journalism that reports the reality only in terms of the media corporations’ political and economic interest”.

Such is Bauluz’s view of the current media crisis.

He then describes a picture well-known to anyone who has ever worked in big media: “There are more and more tired journalists, many hostages in their newsrooms, doing and saying what they’re told”.

With this perspective in mind, Bauluz thinks that the only solution to reconstruct journalism is for groups of colleagues to get together and organise online, supported by citizens, foundations and philanthropists. So we can say that non-profit journalism is not only an American or English idea.

“First it was an option, now it’s a need,” argues the Pulitzer prizewinner.

Using the Wordpress platform (and its open source benefits), periodismohumano.com will see daylight in the following weeks with the Universal Declaration of Human Right as their only flag and with all content available in all possible formats:

“If you want to save whales, you’re a member of Greenpeace; if you want doctors in Somalia, you’re a member of Doctors Without Borders; if you want quality information, you’re a member of Periodismo Humano (Human Journalism)”.

Video journalism in Africa guest post

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:00:00 -0500

Ruud Elmendorp, a video journalist in Africa, writes about his experiences in the job

“Monsieur le journaliste? Votre interview avec le ministre est a deux heure.”

Mister journalist? Your interview with the minister is at two. Thank you, I say to the lady on the phone. Finally I managed to arrange an interview with a minister in Rwanda.

Some hours later I set up my tripod and camera, and start asking my questions. There I am with a small digital camera – and myself only. The minister is told that I am a correspondent for Dutch national television – normally the type of media you would expect to come with a camera man, reporter and a boom operator for the sound. The very kind and distinguished minister doesn’t give a wink about my solitary presence, and comments profoundly on the issues I raise.

Just because he’s used to it.

Before 2000 I was the typical television reporter coming with a crew. When the small digital cameras entered the market I took the challenge to do it on my own. As early video journalists we for some reason were forced into an innovative and creative approach. We had to do something different to the traditional crews, and so we did.

That was before I moved to Africa.

Here I saw that almost every television person is a video journalist. Most local television channels cannot afford full crews, and they depend on one-man-bands. No need to come up with other approaches or styles of storytelling. The video journalists bring news just as the traditional crews do.

The camera which is still mostly in use is the good old Sony PD150 or 170. However over the last years there has been a slight shift towards lower end HDV cameras, although they will be switched to DV or DVCAM and 4:3 aspect.

Here we’re talking about major national channels, because there is also a group of other video journalists carrying older and smaller cameras. These VJ’s are freelancers for the local channels or stringers for BBC or CNN. They really know their stuff, make reasonable shots, and know which questions to ask.

Being a VJ is about logistics.

In many African countries you have to a be a video journalist to move around. In remote areas it’s difficult to travel with a full crew, or you have to rent an expensive 4×4. A VJ can hop in local transport, or even board humanitarian or military flights taking the last and only, lucky-for-you, seat.

There are so many times it happened to me like that, and on arrival you’d discover that none of the traditional crews had made it there. That’s of course best, and it happens often.

It’s the same with borders. A video journalist can easily cross since the camera will be stowed away in your backpack, and no customs officer will bother. No need to fill out temporary import forms, or to pay deposits. They just consider you a tourist.

Being a VJ is about press freedom.

In several countries in Africa the press is free, as long as it doesn’t criticize the government or other big entities too openly.

It means that when things get dirty, it will become difficult for journalists to get there.

The fun part about it is that you will not openly be denied access. They let you go through friendly but lenghty accrediation procedures. If you get accredited at last, the event you were looking for will be long gone. Most journalists by then will have moved to other things to report on, and that’s what they’re aiming at.

Still, in the end your accreditation will only be a piece of paper, or a stamp. On the way you will find roadblocks manned by police officers who of course never heard of it, and can only let you pass after paying a hefty bribe.

The video journalist would be long back from shooting that same event, by being one of the passengers on local transport.

Being a VJ in Africa is about being able to report on matters you think are important.

http://videojournalist.nl

The BBC and linking part 1: users are not an audience

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:01:15 -0500

Ben Goldacre is experiencing understandable frustration with the BBC’s policy on linking to science papers:

Jane Ashley of the website’s health team, says that when they write an article based on scientific research:

“It is our policy to link to the journal rather than the article itself. This is because sometimes links to articles don’t work or change, and sometimes the journals need people to register or pay.”

In email correspondence defending their policy, Richard Warry, Assistant editor, Specialist journalism, adds:

“Many papers are available on the web via subscription only, while others give only an Abstract summary. In these instances, the vast majority of our readers would not be able to read the full papers, without paying for access, even if we provided the relevant link.”

This just doesn’t stand up. Here’s why:

An abstract alone is actually very useful in providing more context than a journal homepage provides
It also provides useful text that can be used to either find another version of the paper (for example on the author’s or a conference website),
It provides extra details on the authors, giving you more insight into the research’s reliability and also an avenue should you want to approach them to get hold of the paper.
Even for the ‘vast majority’ who cannot pay for access to the paper, they will still be taken to the journal homepage anyway.
Believing that the time spent pasting one link rather than another is better spent on providing “authoritative, accurate and attractive reportage” is a false economy. Authoritative, accurate and attractive coverage relies at least in part in allowing users to point out issues with scientific research or its reporting.
Catering for a ‘vast majority’ belies a broadcast media mindset that treats users as passive consumers. The minority of users who can access those papers can actually be key contributors to a collaborative journalism process. If you let them.

If it helps, here’s a broadcast analogy: imagine producing a TV package which captions a source as ‘Someone from the Bank of England’. That’s not saving time for good journalism – it’s just bad journalism.

Linking – and deep linking in particular – are basic elements of online journalism. Why can news organisations still not get this right? More on this here…

Prints advertising problem tying one hand behind its back

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:09:56 -0500

Last week Karl Schneider, Reed Business Information’s Editorial Director, spent an hour chatting with students in my Online Journalism class. Most of it is available on video here, but of particular interest to me was a point Karl made about how Reed separated its online advertising into a separate company very early on, and are now reaping the benefits (embedded above).

“Because we had print businesses to protect we spent at least as much time worrying about not doing something on the web that would undercut the money coming in in print as worrying about ‘How do we make this new stuff grow’ … One of the big revenue streams for us was recruitment ads … So when we started to do online jobs one of the big challenges was ‘How can we do this without damaging all of the money tied up in print?’ And very quickly we realised that if we worry about that, we’re going to be rubbish at online job ads, because we’re always going to be operating with one hand tied behind our backs. And we’ll be competing against pure-play onlines who won’t have that worry.
“So what we ended up doing was setting up our online jobs advertising operation as a separate business and allowed it to compete head-to-head with our print business, and it caused all sorts of internal arguments – but it was absolutely the right thing to do because we’re making more money now out of online jobs than we ever did from print jobs. Less per job – there’s a lot more job ads – but it took separating it off [as a separate business] to do it.”

I’ve written about this problem before. Although on paper there are economies to be made by combining print and web ad sales, that’s not a strategy for future growth.

Instead, it appears to result in a prolonged addiction to the dying cash cow of print ads (and, anecdotally, a frustrating experience for advertisers wishing to move money from print to online). Judging by the recent research into magazine ad sales (PDF) in the US (image below), the magazine industry may need to listen to Karl’s experiences.

RSS feeds, advertising and selling attention

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:36:09 -0500

Media organisations who only offer partial RSS feeds might be interested to look at a couple of posts from 2 websites with different experiences of monetising their feeds. First, Jason Snell of MacWorld:

“RSS doesnt generate revenue directly. There are ads in RSS, sure, but theyre cheap and lousy and dont have remotely the return as ads on web pages.”

Then, John Gruber of Daring Fireball (cached here if you find it as slow as I do):

“The ads in most sponsored RSS feeds are indeed cheap and lousy. The ads in DFs [Daring Fireball's] RSS feed are neither. Theyre priced at a premium, and have attracted (if I do say so myself) premium sponsors.
“If youve got a model where revenue is tied only to web page views, switching to full-content RSS feeds will hurt, at least in the short term. The problem, I say, isnt with full-content RSS feeds, but rather with a business model that hinges solely on web page views. The precious commodity that we, as publishers, have to offer advertisers is the attention of our readers. Web page views are a terribly inaccurate, if not outright misleading, metric for attention. Subscribers to a full-content RSS feed are among the readers paying the most attention, but generate among the least web page views.”

Snell’s response: “What works for [Gruber's one-man] kind of site doesnt necessarily work for our kind.”

It’s also worth noting the tertiary benefits of full RSS feeds. Offering full RSS feeds makes it more likely a developer is going to create something useful out of it (expensive development time for free), bringing more readers and attention to your advertising or, in the case of the BBC (which may have licensing issues holding it back), fulfilling its public service remit.

Do you or your organisation do anything interesting with your RSS feeds? Are they full or partial? I’d love to know.

(Note, OJB uses the <more> tag to to ensure the homepage isn’t dominated by a single post. Unfortunately, this results in partial RSS feeds. Some day I’ll sort this.)

The first Birmingham #data Coffee

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:57:54 -0500

On Thursday I’ll be hosting Birmingham’s first ‘Data Coffee’. Guests include The Times’ Jonny Richards, Talis’ Zach Beauvais and a whole bunch of MA Online Journalism students.

There’s no agenda for the day – just turn up with questions and we’ll pick each other’s brains. I’m bringing my Mac and an intense desire to get to grips with Python.

It’s at Coffee Lounge on Navigation Street (free wifi). We’ll start to gather around 10 with the bulk of the day taking place from 12 onwards.