Liverpool are in crisis

This morning it looked like Ryan Babel, the multimillion pound superstar footballer who plays for Liverpool FC had deleted his Twitter account after publicly criticising his manager, Rafa Benitez.

The page was taken off line for a few hours and now has reappeared without the offending tweets. In fact there are no tweets older than one hour.

I was going to write a short post on how football clubs should handle football stars and their Twitter feeds, but now I think the fact that Ryan has deleted his account is even more amusing!

You can find his Twitter feed here Twitter account.

I’m guessing he is knee deep in trouble. Ryan is probably in less trouble than his manager who seems to be cracking up again and reeling off facts.

For anyone who is disappointed at Babel’s page being taken down, you can read his inane Tweets in full. find them here

Ryan, a word in your ear. It is not your Twitter account that is the problem. Try engaging your brain before speaking.

Haiti earthquake

Watch the devastation in Haiti on Google Earth, declared one tweet. Another told the world that those suffering from the earthquake were ‘reaching out to the world through social media.’

Everyone seemed so upset to see the destruction and suffering on Sky News, as they went about their daily business, but 24/7 news coverage and social media can give one the false impression that the world gives two hoots.

I sometimes feel that because we are so much closer to the news these days, we think that we are somehow helping make the problem better just by following the story.

I’ve donated money this evening to UNICEF.org.uk and it would be great if you would do the same and show that we are more than just consumers of media.

As usual I spent Christmas in France. While drinking the finest wines of humanity I also had plenty of time to think about their media. Here are four random observations and thoughts:

1 – The French have banned advertising – this is bad for the BBC
The French government has banned advertising on their state run TV channels. There is more information on this here

Strangely, advertisements are only banned between 8pm-6am, which I guess are the hours when Sarko is watching TV with Carla Bruni.

Although this brings the French model closer to the BBC’s, ultimately this move is bad for the Beeb, as it is another example of western governments cutting back the size and scale of state run TV.

2 – French TV has a lot of talk time
There is an incredible appetite for talk shows in France. Be it a panel show discussing current affairs, daft comedy or quiz shows, the French like talking. A lot.

Many talk shows can last for two or three hours and as a result of the huge amount of talk time, celebrity brand endorsement is a cost effective way of marketing a product or service. Public Relations people take note.

3 – French satire is better
This is a HUGE generalisation, based on the fact that Le Canard Enchaîné is better than Private Eye http://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/ . If you are in France, make sure you buy a copy. It is published more regularly and more widely read too.

In addition, their love of satire doesn’t stop with the print media. Long since the Brits dumped Spitting Image, the ever popular Les Guignols still draws in the viewers with its puppets doing their best to ruin the reputations of France’s politicians.

French comedy might be much maligned, but perhaps they have the edge on satire? After all satire is based on a French word, non?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3vLGmLhsSY

4 – The French are off the pace with social media
I’m going to get beaten for saying this, but the French are well behind the times when it comes to Social Media. This is is in part due to the French reluctance to use English ahead of their own language. The French are very nationalistic when it comes to the products they use, and while the Germans are happy to chat, blog and converse in English, the French see it as their mission to further the French language. This ultimately holds back progress.

Yes there are French versions of Facebook and Twitter etc but that is not the point. The point is that when a new Social Media is launched, usually it is developed in the US. It is not until a year or so down the line that a French language version is launched.

Ultimately this gives PR practitioners an advantage over our counterparts in Paris.

Here is an over view of my top ten Twitter feeds of 2009. This is a completely arbitrary list of my own making and I welcome any suggestions of additions in the comments section of this blog. I might open this up and include more Twitter users, and as you can see I am undecided on number 10.

1 – If you care about the world as we know it, then @newscientist is for you. Their coverage of the Copenhagen climate talks were a breath of fresh air. I’m no scientist but their coverage is always refreshing.

2 – @theeconomist forget boring features on fiscal policy, keynesian economics and Milton Friedman’s monetarism. The Economist brings to life why economics matters. As does @freakonomics

3 – If you care about crap journalism then @tabloidwatch is for you as is @badjournalism

4 – @Bloggerheads and @wikileaks are perfect for those interested in the dirty underbelly of media. Wikileaks can get a little dark for me…

5 – For random acts of internet giving you can’t beat @popurls, @shitmydadsays. Oh and then there is @thedailydust

6 – For everything social media @econsultancy is up there with the best. It’s not easy reading like Mashable but it certainly is a thought leader

7 – Forget Obama @jonprescott is clearly the number one politician on Twitter. You might not like his views but can’t argue with his application of technology which is open, honest and direct.

8 – If, like me, you like to keep up to date with what is happening in the US, the The Huff Post is great reading. @huffingtonPost . The same goes for @time

9 – @boingboing is the work of genius. Uncategorisable brilliance. Maybe this is an obvious choice as it is one of the biggest blogs in the world and nearly didn’t make it onto the list for that reason. However I do love it so…

10 – ? I can’t think of a ten. So I am opening it up to suggestions. What Twitter feed should I be following? Answers on a postcard please.

I have deliberately missed of the big Twitter hitters because with a little Google Searching it is very easy to find the likes of @mashable, @scoblizer @guykawasaki @techcrunch, @bbcnews etc as there are plenty of posts on the most popular Twitter feeds.

I also haven’t included any Twitter users focusing on my home town of Manchester, because so many readers of this blog are from further afield

Here are a few links of interesting “media” stories, which tickled my whistle this morning.

TECHCRUNCH

I recently contributed to a feature for How-Do on Twitter and Mob rule, which was written by @LauraSpence. I wish I had raised a few of the points on realtime news that was written in this article . I also wanted to write a post for my blog on the Tiger Woods story, but I think realtime news has passed me by, as this article sums everything up.

Amazing picture of the Sun

This stunning photograph of the Sun was trending on Popurls.com and appeals to anyone with an interest in nature, and the natural patterns that lie within the world around us. Beautiful, and an example of the internet at its best.

RIP Technics
As a man who has several thousand 12 inch records, and a proud owner of a set of Technics 1210s, I was very said to read this last night, which shows that Panasonic has decided not to make their iconic turntable any more. The geeks among us will read the online chatter which takes the line that only the MK2 will cease production, but the official line is that the MK5 is for the chop too. It could all be a clever PR stunt and I will be looking into this in more detail.

If true, these are dark days for music fans, but the technology has moved on. All I need now is to pay someone to sit and digitise thousands of my records – a thankless task, but I am willing to pay.

The BBC keeping Cyberspace open to the public
This is an interesting read. For me the BBC should be a major battleground for Labour at the next election. It looks like Cameron has signed a deal with Murdoch to cut the BBC down in size in return for News International’s support. This article shows why we need a big BBC. I am sure the public would back a party which fought the corner of the Beeb.

Ikea Facebook row rumbles on
Yesterday I posted about a clever social media stunt by Ikea. Yesterday Craig McGill added a neat twist. Read here for more information

Seth Godin
And finally, something on the internet which annoys me. Seth Godin’s blog is one of the biggest draws in the Blogosphere, but does anyone else think that his content is crap? The Yanks really go for this sort of self help, psychobabble.

So this is why I turn to the internet for news. I went to the corner shop this morning and bought a copy of the Guardian, but I haven’t even looked at it yet. Instead I’ve tapped into five stories which have defined my morning.

WordPress is, for me, the number one social media platform, and it is not just me that thinks this, according to recent reports.

I took my blog ‘self-hosted’ this week, an action which coincided with a report in Techcrunch that highlighted a boom in blogging compared to micro-blogging.   

Personally I think Twitter is responsible for this boom because for millions of users like myself the service is the gateway to finding the best blogs on the blogosphere, inspiring others to take up writing.  Also, the demise of Twitter is much over reported.  Yes, growth in visitor numbers to Twitter.com has flattened, but who visits the site anyway?  Most of us use Tweetdeck or another sort of client.

But, alas, I digress….

I wanted to write this post to celebrate the beauty of taking your blog self-hosted, share some of the highs and lows, and to thank @vinceapplemac who helped me.

Hopefully this post will prove useful to someone else going through the self hosting process. I’m better at developing content than technical geekery, and I guess there are lots of people like me, who could find this post useful.

Firstly, I decided to use WordPress.org as a content management system (CMS), because the tool is itself a form of social media and there is huge interaction with other bloggers on the platform and beyond.  The ‘social’ aspect of blogging platforms are often much overlooked because many just consider blogging as another form of publishing. WordPress.com was simply brilliant because it is so ‘social’. I think .org is even better in this respect, so think wisely before choosing your CMS!

I also chose WordPress.org because it has much wider functionality than WordPress.com, which was so easy to use when I was starting out.  The .org version is even better because there is added fun to be had via a myriad of plug-ins.  The plug-ins cover everything from widgets for buttons to LinkedIn , through to SEO optimisation .  There is a widget for everything. 

Next I bought a domain name, storage space on a server which sounds complicated, but is in fact easier than buying your shopping from Tesco.com.

Being a PR person, I am much better at the content side than the technical aspects, so I sought the counsel of @vinceapplemac , who linked WordPress.org to my domain and migrated the content from my existing blog to the new site.  Vince tells me this process is also easy, but it was a bit complex for me, so I recommend seeking some help for this step.

The next few days were spent setting up functionality, playing around with the plug-ins and reading up on some of the differences between .org and .com. 

I also found this resource which I think people will find useful.  The presentation is for beginners, but I guess some people reading this will be beginners too and might find it useful:

I hope this was helpful for you!

Obama should become more like British politician John Prescott.

In a week when Obama disclosed that he has never sent a tweet in his life, despite having over 2million followers, John Prescott’s web presence should be lauded.

Like him or loath him, in a world where PR tries to control every message, Prescott is keeping it real. His views are his own, his principles are there for all to see and it is this honesty that is part of his charisma.

You might not like his views on Unions etc but if the Tories win the next election, then we will go back to a day when Britain was run by old Etonians, who have some strange views on Europe and anywhere north of Luton.

The rest of the political world should be looking at the approach of John Prescott to social media. As there are some easy wins here. Especially on blogger engagement.

I am sure John would say that he’s not a techy, and I can see ways in which he can make better use of social media tools. (Get on Posterous or Tumblr John! They are great easily for sharing information), but this technical skill matters not.

What works for John is that he can shoot from the hip and by and large be on message. Social media is perfect for politicians who feel able to do that.

John is combative and also interacts with his audience and retweets things he agrees with.

His blogging is insightful and you warm to the guy because he makes statements that he believes in, whether you agree with him or not.

I used to work with a chap who was one of Prescott’s special advisers, Tony Sophoclides, and he told me what a genuinely great guy John is. At the time I didn’t believe him.

Bland political figures are ruining politics and feeding groups such as the BNP, so more open politicians are needed.

Thanks to social media you can now get up close and personal to politicians in a way in which you couldn’t before. In my view all politicians should follow the Prescott model – starting with Obama.

The Sun apologised today for spelling incorrectly the name of Jacqui Janes’, who has just lost her son to the war in Afghanistan. A typo is, of course, just a typo unless hours earlier you have crucified the Prime Minister committing this same error. Then it becomes hypocrisy.

Media hypocrisy is usually a strong narrative, so why was it that when The Sun was forced to issue an apology there wasn’t more of an uproar? Especially as ‘Typogate’ had an intriguing subplot of tabloid exploitation.

One would think that competing media outlets would love to stick the boot into The Sun and run a mocking story about their blunder. Yet only The Guardian has published anything of note.

John Prescott didn’t mention it in his blog today either despite sticking it to The Sun in other ways. This might have been out of respect and not wanting to make political capital out of Jacqui Janes’ situation. This makes sense, although bringing up The Sun’s mistake wouldn’t really be seen as further exploitation of a grieving mum, given the wider circumstances and the scale of the row.

Most notably, those folk on Twitter were comparatively quiet on the subject. Twitter users aren’t known to hold back and the social media site has seen plenty of mob rule recently, what with Jan Moir , AA Gill and all sorts of people receiving a battering at the hands of an angry group of dissenting voices.

OK, so the Tweet on the newspaper’s apology is doing the rounds, but The Sun or Jacqui Janes aren’t even trending on Twitter and haven’t been all day. The apology has hardly registered.

The usual Twitter lobbyists and campaigners aren’t encouraging others to humiliate The Sun and show up their hypocrisy. Could it be that Twitter users are now choosing to use their lynch mob tokens a little more sparingly, given recent criticism of ‘mob rule’? There have been a lot of blogs this week stating that Twitter is maturing, based on the slowing subscription to the service, so maybe this lack of noise is a sign that its users are growing up too? Personally I would have been intrigued to have seen this issue ‘go nuclear’. Old Media versus New. It has been a while since the rabble have been roused.

Or is the abstinence of the Twiterati more a statement on Gordon Brown’s popularity? Maybe Twitter users simply don’t want to defend the PM? I’m not sure this is a major factor.

In any case, The Sun’s apology goes further than being a political issue, and highlights shady tabloid journalistic tactics. For that reason I would have liked to see this story make more of an impact. The Sun is less likely to make an apology than Gordon Brown, and this rare action is worth the headlines.

Everyone will find this database of journalist ‘Twitterati’ useful.

Following journalists on Twitter is a great way to keep up with the news and I use Twitter as an RSS news feed. I’m so reliant on Twitter that I rarely go directly to news sites these days – as my news is fed to me in a stream of live updates.

So when I found this database of journalists I was pleasantly surprised. There have been attempts to capture the Twitter feeds of journalists, and indeed one organisation tried to sell my company a Gorkana style Twitter database for £10,000 annual fee. Luckily social media has the answer and this neat site looks like it will eventually become the definitive guide. http://www.mediaontwitter.com/

A few days ago I received a direct message from another PR agency that shall remain nameless.  The message invited me to look at a blog, so I clicked on the link and two days later my whole Twitter account is blocked, and friends have been receiving messages from me asking them to buy my weight loss pills!   It turns out I’d been hacked and I couldn’t access Twitter.  Luckily the problem is fixed now.

This follows an episode on Wednesday when my phone was hacked!

Posted via email from jamescrawford’s posterous