Tasha Harrison

While the newspaper industry continues to debate the pros and cons of paywalls, Stewart Kirkpatrick, former editor of scotsman.com, has launched the first ever web-only daily. Named after Scotland’s oldest newspaper, The Caledonian Mercury, caledonianmercury.com challenges the perception that the internet will spell the death of the newspaper. By offering high quality journalism, it hopes to attract readers and advertisers through the quality of its content.

There has been much debate about whether such a venture can succeed given the damage the internet has done to the industry. With sites like the BBC and Sky News continuing to offer free news will there be a place for niche news sites? I think the problem that the Caledonian Mercury is going to have is that it is competing against many other niche news sites that won’t have the same overheads – the Scottish publication is going to be paying journalists, including many former staff from the Scotsman.

There are also question marks over the professionalism of the design. Built in WordPress, the site doesn’t exude the same professionalism as the majority of its competitors. Simplicity is always a good starting point, but the curious logo and tag clouds give it more the image of a blog. Perhaps this is what they had planned, but in the longterm it is a concern that they just come across as another blog.

It’s a great idea, but I’m worried that their approach may just prove that blogs will replace newspapers for well written and thoughtful commentary.

Ever wondered about retweeting? Are you new to Twitter and can’t decipher the strange codes people talk in.

Here is my three point guide to retweeting:

1. An example of a retweet is:
   
   RT @tashaharrison This is a great article http://bit.ly/45t783
2. You can comment on a retweet like this:
   
   RT @tashaharrison This is a great article http://bit.ly/45t783 <– the point he made is worth thinking about
3. You can also reference someone else’s tweet by writing at the end of the tweet:
   
   This article is really interesting and worth thinking about http://bit.ly/45t783 (via @tashaharrison)

Retweeting is a great way of sharing information with the people you follow. It is generally how articles and news are able to travel so quickly to so many people on Twitter.

As we draw closer to the general election we should be prepared to be bombarded by the usual political marketing/propaganda. After the excitement of the Obama campaign we shouldn’t be mistaken for thinking that Cameron or Brown may look at how to leverage social media. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Both have used Youtube, perhaps not very successfully, and Brown does have a Twitter account, as does his wife Sarah.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a politician’s use of social media is Andrew Marshall, the Councillor for Swiss Cottage. He has a blog and Twitter account in which he posts updates about key issues affecting his constituents. This has recently been highlighted by his reaction to the bad weather, where he has asked people to update him on road reports and problems he may not be aware of. He is not trying to sell people a political ideal, he is simply using social media as a tool to improve his communications and make him a better councillor. Essentially, he is building trust.

This is how far:

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