Jimmy Leach

Would you give tuppence for Jeremy Clarkson?

2009-11-12T12:20:19Z

For those looking to monetise content online a small survey just out makes fairly depressing reading.

The survey (by Continental Research) suggests that only 5% would pay for a long-term (monthly or annual subscription) to newspapers or magazines, while 63% would not pay at all. Twenty one per cent would pay micropayments, ie by the article, pay-per-read, as it were.

So far, so unpromising. Even more so when it comes to what those who would pay per article would hand over. Thirty five per cent would pay tuppence per article, 22% would pay 5p and the chart decline steadily downwards. One small glimmer is that more of the under-34 age group would pay (26% would make micropayments).

It’s a small survey (500 people) asking about a hypothetical situation, but it doesn’t offer much sustenance to those hoping to make a direct link between content and payment, and its also likely that people would only pay for ‘favourite content –those big name columnists earning some small justification for their money.

But if you thought that was depressing, have a look at the columnists that people would pay for. In order, most popular first, it would be:

Jeremy Clarkson

Charlie Brooker

Richard Littlejohn

Giles Coren

Simon Heffer

Gordon Smart

Lorraine Kelly

Peter Hitchins

Jane Moore

Melanie Phillips

The power of the brand

2009-11-10T15:23:23Z

A wee lecture about the history of the brand, that's been paid for by a brand trying to reinvent itself (Black Magic), but it's quite interesting nevertheless. Although it does seem to insist that brands are manufactured, that is, that they are based on physical products. In the world this brand (The Independent) is in, its more about the intangible nature of our brand - less about the physical newspaper, and more about its presence in less tangible, digital arena.

Still worth a watch, the man cares.

Murdoch: Have I missed something?

2009-11-10T10:56:09Z

Clearly I’m not the brightest individual.

Rupert Murdoch announces plans (now delayed) to charge for content. Fair enough – I think he’s wrong, but rich, famous blokes with opinion tend to be listened to more than the likes of me. Although if he ploughs on, he’ll be a little less rich (no need for him to fret, he has a healthy lead on me still in the money stakes).

Then it gets a bit odd. First he announces plans to charge Google for linking to his content. Not quite understanding perhaps that there's no compelling reason for Google to pay.

And now he’s considering blocking Google entirely from linking to their content. And I’m assuming that by ‘Google’ he, in reality, means all search engines.

So, in short, he wants to make it difficult for people to find his content online, then he’s going to charge them for the privilege of reading it (when broadly similar content is widely available for free elsewhere).

It must be me.

The electrocution of Didier Drogba

2009-11-09T14:00:24Z

Manchester United's Jonny Evans has electric studs in his boots. Applied to Drogba's poppy, they create a curent which makes him wiggle like an occupant of Old Smokey. Nemanja Vidic deserves praise for not bothering to conceal his amusement.

UniQ tackle Hazel Blears

2009-11-04T12:10:21Z

Uni-Q is a new online show - best described as ‘Question Time’ meets ‘TFI Friday’ - providing a forum for 16-25 year olds to pose questions to MPs and other high profile figures. Created by a group of University of Hull politics graduates as a way to engage young people in politics, Uni-Q is the first programme of its kind to tour universities and colleges across the UK. And it's being backed by the Independent, which is nice.

The first edition include former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears in her first media appearance since her rather controversial departure from the government earlier in the year.

More on how to join in with future UniQ programmes here.

The most read bloggers on the Independent

2009-11-03T13:19:33Z

You wouldn't believe the tension, the bitching, the glee and the misery as I unveil the top ten most read bloggers on the Independent for last month. And you'd be right to, because it wouldn't be true - but our bloggers pay more heed to this than they would admit.

1 - Eagle Eye

2 - Ian Burrell

3 - Sean O'Grady

4 - Guy Adams

5 - John Rentoul

6 - Today in Politics (Andrew Grice)

7 - Mixtape

8 - Catherine IB

9 - Jack Riley

10 - Erin Norman

Obama, gadgets and sinning women - what you read last week

2009-11-02T13:12:10Z

The usual melange of the serious, the frivolous and the kinky. These are the top ten most read stories on the Independent website last week.

Obama: Twelve months on, the star falls back to earth

The 50 best gadgets

Alaa Al-Aswany: When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists

Private viewing – the pick of the property market

Ain’t life fadtastic: The A-Z of fads

The most embarrassing defeats in sport

The funniest football chants

The ten best sex toys

The fabulous world of Nick Knight

The most notorious spitters in football

Fancy a conference in Barcelona on the cheap?

2009-10-22T14:22:55Z

For reasons best know to the organisers, I'm speaking at a conference next month called the Personal Democracy Forum. It's in Barcelona - why would I refuse?

Aside from their schoolboy error in inviting me, there's a stellar cast of the great and good of geekery such as Mick Fealty, Steve Moore,Matthew McGregor, Rishi Saha, Tom Watson, Tom Steinberg and a lot of very clever types from Europe and the States.

It all promises to be jolly edifying (schedule here) and, if you avoid my bit, very educational.

You can register here - and I can do you a deal. Mention me, and you'll get 20% off the registration. Normally my name adds to the bill, but this time you can get a 50 euro discount - use the discount code jleach09 in the promotion code box and carry on. The discount should appear at the checkout.

Can't say fairer than that.

You won't pay for news

2009-10-21T11:46:42Z

I missed this yesterday, but Media Week have reported a survey which shows that nine out of ten UK consumers won't pay for news stories online.

The study of 2,000 consumers makes grim reading for Rupert Murdoch who is expected to launch his 'value-gates' (chortle) on the Sunday Times in the next few weeks. According to this survey, 91% of UK consumers wouldn't pay for news online and 90% would be unwilling to pay for news analysis. It doesn't bode well for the future either - of those aged 16 to 24, 86% would never pay for news online, while in the 45-54 age sectors, 96% said they would not pay. 5% would pay for content on a piecemeal basis and 4% for a subscription.

And this, don't forget, is a UK audience. The Auguest ABCes showed the Times website at short of 19m unique users. The norm in the market is for a 60-40 split for overseas to UK users. Let's assume that the overseas users have even less interest in paying for news. So you're left with targetting 7.6m. And four per cent of that figure (ie those who would subscribe) is less than 300,000 users.

So you'll have to charge those poor souls quite a lot to (a) make up for the lost in advertising revenues and (b) to cover News International's current losses (reported at £2.1bn).

Good luck with that.

And incidentally, the Media Week report highlighted another issue - the site was bust and gave an error page the first few times I tried. What will any site do for a subscriber when that happens? Issue mass (if tiny) refunds?

Another public sector web launch goes awry for a pennyworth of tar

2009-10-20T11:27:42Z

Crime maps seem to have been on the agenda for ages. Not least because both the data and the maps already exist. The one in Chicagohas been held up as the very acme of layering public data on maps. Although that may be because they have lots of crime...

So the Met Police have launched their version today which raises two questions:

What on earth were their expectations? If Lambeth can be said to have an ‘average’ number of crimes, what on earth are they comparing it to? Midsomer? My experience of south London, over a fair number of years is that while it ain’t Baltimore, it’s not exactly a peaceful idyll either.

And the second is – why didn’t they spend a little more on hosting? People have been talking about this for ages. People are interested in their local area. People are worried about crime.

People will use this website, in droves. So when they do, try not to look foolish by having your website crash or, at best, going reeeeaaaaaally slowly.

At the Independent, we’re not necessarily fine ones to talk about perfect hosting solutions, but if you’re launching a biggie, like the Met were, this sort of message is pretty grim:

Due to very high popularity users may experience temporary intermittent issues accessing this site.
The issues are being worked on and will be resolved as soon as possible.

A scalable web hosting system (which expands and copes with higher demand) might be a more costly option, but those with the budgets are fooling themselves if they think the saving is worth it.

Will Rafa be sacked? Place your bets

2009-10-20T09:35:01Z

Rafa Benitez may be defiant, but things are a little rum at Anfield at the moment (though to their credit, the beachball remains not guilty). Sam Wallace has it pretty much right when he says that Liverpool appeared on the brink of a breakthrough last season - and have gone backwards since... So will the board get tired of under-achievement and over-reliance on Gerrard and Torres? Or will the fanctions and uncertainty at board level save him. Or perhaps things will improve on the field. That's always a possibility.

Anyhow, place your bets on Rafa's fate:

Why we've gone a bit Google

2009-10-08T11:03:31Z

The relationship between newspapers and Google has been a pretty tetchy one at times. If anyone cares, I’m more keen on the traffic that Google can deliver than worried about how they deliver news content in their own environs.

But today, we’ve gone a bit a more Google, as we’ve changed our search function to a Google version. You can now search the site with their famed engine rather than our old (rather less ‘precise’, if we’re being kind) search engine.

Now, it’s not without issues – Google’s off the shelf search isn’t great at changing to date order and other tweaking functionalities like that, but the initial search result is so much better that we thought it worth a change.

We also added the ‘search the Independent text – just as a reminder that it’s a general search engine. It’s so close to the weather info that many of you were searching for weather, not for anything else.

It’s not the final answer to our search issues, but we think its two steps forward (wth maybe half a step or so back for the lost ability to re-order searches).

Let us know.

Venezuela bans pot-smoking Family Guy

2009-10-07T12:35:14Z

Stewie Griffin, the overly-erudite baby from the cartoon series Family Guy (the one who wants to murder his mother) has found himself on the banned list in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has claimed that the clip is an example of how the U.S. government promotes pot smoking and the legalisation of drugs generally. This may have something to do with a U.S. Congress report that said a huge rise in cocaine traffic from Venezuela was helped by local police corruption and the Venezuelans' refusal to work with the U.S. So the big red button has been pressed - and Family Guy is no more in that part of the world. "There's no subliminal messages here," said Justice Minister Tarek El Assaimi of the pro-spliff showtune(well, quite, you'll notice that when you watch), as he warned that the government would fine any TV station that continues to broadcast the show. "It's an animated cartoon where you can observe perfectly how they promote consumption of marijuana."<div style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; "> </div> More on this at the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com">Huffington Post.</a> <lj-embed id=""><embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/2879976/a_bag_of_weed.swf" width="400" height="345" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" name="Metacafe_2879976" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> <font size="1"><a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2879976/a_bag_of_weed/">A Bag Of Weed</a> - <a href="http://www.metacafe.com/">The funniest movie is here. Find it</a></font></lj-embed>

Who are the top bloggers on the Independent site?

2009-10-06T14:47:20Z

Triumph and bitterness; boasting and recrimination. The monthly revelation as to which bloggers are most read is always an emotional day. The odd surprise in the top ten for September means that there will be more rending of garments and ululating than normal.

1 - Guy Adams

2 - John Rentoul

3 - Jane Merrick

4 - Catherine Townsend

5 - Cyclotherapy

6 - Today in Politics

7 - Catherine IB

8 - Sean O'Grady

9 - Ian Burrell

10 - MixTape

Google launches new themes for Chrome

2009-10-05T16:09:59Z

To me they look a little harsh on the eye and the beauty of Chrome has always been its stripped-down nature, but for those who like a bit of colour in their lives (and enjoy the odd migraine perhaps), Google has released the artistic themes with which you can adapt your browser. I'll keep it plain, meself, thanks, but its there for those who like fripperies.

The Sun and Labour - what did Twitter think?

2009-10-01T16:43:01Z

The ever-splendid Tweetminster, and the equally estimable Alberto Nardelli in particular have been looking at the sentiments in the Westminster Twittersphere (ahem ...) on The Sun's endorsement of David Cameron over Gordon Brown.

Their stats show that there were 248 tweets from MPs, Journos, commentators, PPCs (prospective parliamentary candidates, keep up) and news sources on Twitter from those centred around Westminster.

Not surprisingly, journalists and news sources clearly felt the endorsement was relevant - but less so for the endorsement itself, mainly for the fact that the Sun will focus on attacking the government for months, and perhaps for the fact that The Sun felt empowered to make their stance so clear so early.

The sentiment on Twitter more generally was very much polarised: 54% were strongly against the Sun, with 34% happy with the endorsement and 12% of tweets neutral - but this is skewed data as Labour has a larger presence on Twitter (remember Cameron's 'twats').

But most importantly: people on Twitter don't actually seem to care about the story, this is evident in the very small number of tweets (less than 100 in 24 hours since the campaign was launched) containing the #feelingblue hashtag, which is the Twitter campaign that the Sun launched alongside the endorsement.

It may just be that Peter Mandelson is right - people don't care about what the Sun thinks as much as they used to, and the mood is on the internet is perhaps more important. Of course there's no guarantee that the wider verdict will provide any more comfort for Brown either.

Delete: Do we need to re-learn the ability to forget?

2009-09-30T14:19:53Z

Tomorrow's paper features an extract from the book Delete by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, in which, to quote the blurb, je looks at:

the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we've searched for and when. The digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten, and this has profound implications for us all.

He traces the importance of forgetting has played throughout human history, from the ability to make sound decisions unencumbered by the past to the possibility of second chances. The written word made it possible for humans to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology and global networks are overriding our natural ability to forget--the past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse.

It's a fascinating theory and one you can test yourself by quizzing the author. Either email websubmissions@independent.co.uk (please put "Viktor" in the subject line) with your questions or twitter users can also send questions by tweeting with the hashtag "#Viktor". We will post a selection of Viktor's answers to readers' questions online next week at independent.co.uk/books.

How Twitterers viewed Gordon

2009-09-30T09:17:45Z

Interesting reactions to Gordon Brown's speech yesterday on Twitter as monitored by the ever-excellent Tweetminster. And as reported pretty much verbatim here ...

Of the 4894 tweets during the speech, from all MPs, PPCs, Journalists, bloggers and news sources, (bearing in mind that the bias of twitterers in politics is towards Labour) shows a split of positive, negative and neutral terms were as follows:

Very Positive: 53.4%

Neutral to positive: 25.1%

Neutral to negative: 21.5%

The most positive reactions were for the scrapping of ID cards; pledges for electoral reform and the restructuring the House of Lords; comparisons to Conservative policy; Sarah Brown’s presence on stage; social policies; foreign policy pledges and support for the armed services; and amongst Labour supporters, their history, track record and mentions of the NHS drew great support.

Confusion and negative comments were almost entirely focused on the announcement of Family Intervention projects, specifically references to care homes for teenage mothers.

Neutral to positive reactions were largely verbatim reporting of the main points of Brown’s speech.

The new information habits of the digital age

2009-09-29T09:43:06Z

Interesting video (the latest in a short series) from those clever people running the Media Convergence Forum. It's aimed at those working in the murky worlds of marketing and branding, but is essential viewing for those in, say, the media industry, trying to understand why, for example, the newspaper might not be quite the daily essential it once was.

Feargal Sharkey on Labour's success against music piracy

2009-09-28T13:48:30Z

There's one take on the music industry and its compelling need to charge for content (even if the market won't pay), and there's this one on copyright protection direct from the Labour Party conference, where Feargal Sharkey, who some remember as an Undertone, but is these days the head of UK Music. In this AudioBoo clip from our mates at Tweetminster, Sharkey is rather complimentary about the steps taken by government (Lords Carter and Mandelson mentioned in despatches) in the digital space. Have a listen.

Anyone fancy writing a quote for David van Day's autobiography?

2009-09-24T15:59:56Z

To be fair to them, they may be expecting a rough ride from critics who may not be naturally warm to the man, but publishers of David van Day's autobiography are emailing randomly (it's a long time since I reviewed a book) asking anyone they might reasonably claim to be from, say, The Independent if they would write a quote for the back cover. Once someone has agreed, then they'll send whatever chapters Mr van Day has so far penned. Say its great, and then we'll send you a couple of chapters

We are publishing David Van Day’s autobiography – and wondered if you would write a short comment on the book (to be printed on the cover), something short would be great. If you are willing to do this, please let me know and I will send you over the chapters we have so far…

Suggestions welcome as to how I should reply

Debategraph joins up with CNN

2009-09-22T19:27:36Z

The excellent Debategraph have taken another leap in the creation of genuine debate and collaboration with a step forward in their online offering and a step sideways (ahem...) in partners.

I always quite enjoyed the Debategraph interface precisely because it was a bit of a bugger to get your head around - if you're going to make a point, it's going to be a good one since you needed a certain amount of intelligence and doggedness to get through (which is why you never got much input from me). They've improved that interface significantly (shame!), making it both more friendly and more accountable. You can track users and their arguments much more easily, and the whole thing is much more engaging, and much more likely to prompt intelligent debate (too often that rarest of things on t'web).

And they've also got new friend in media circles. No longer just happy with us, they've teamed up with the more glamorous CNN, more specifically Christiane Amanpour where they'll be adding quality user-generated content to some pretty high falutin' interviews and reports. Hark at them.

The success that the estimable and charming David Price and Peter Baldwin have done from deepest Somerset and the Blue Mountains in Australia has been hard-earned and done for all the right reasons - they genuinely want to raise the standards of political debate on the net. Good people doing good things. Hopefully, this new collaboration with bring them a huge new audience and help to a greater understanding, and mapping, of some high-end intellectual jousting.

We'll still be working with them on new maps and debates (I hope), and you can add to the still oh-so-pertinent one on the future of newspapers here. And if you want to know how to use their new front-end, have a squint at this (sonorous tones by David Price).

Is it too late for Labour online?

2009-09-18T11:41:17Z

Blue State Digital were the people who delivered Barack Obama’s social media strategy and therefore, in the world according to geeks, they delivered the man to the White House.

And when BSD came to the UK last year, the assumption was amongst many, that they would be working with the Labour Party to try and deliver the same level of digital delivery.

It seems not – in an interview for PR Week, Thomas Gensemer, normally a hugely enthusiastic figure, is rather downbeat, and the bitterness of rejection doesn’t seem too far away when he says that Labour have ‘lacked senior level buy-in’ and are unwilling to embrace digital marketing. He even adds that its too late now: ‘An unspoken secret of the Obama campaign is that the work started in 2005.'’

Labour social media chappy Mark Hanson disputes this and is quoted saying ‘It's not right to say there's no senior buy-in, as both politicians at cabinet level and top-level staffers are directly engaged in using new media and using it properly,'

US politics is very different to the UK so perhaps Labour’s digital types have decided they know their own market better, but its difficult to conceive that Gensemer and co couldn’t have added something to the mix (and its worth noting that he’s not wildly impressed by the Tories either). More likely its down to finance – if your reputation is as high as Blue State’s then there’s no need to be cheap, so a cash-strapped party has decided they can’t afford it. But can they afford not to?

Diversity's sickening crunch - but not in the Downing Street edit

2009-09-17T14:24:04Z

The Diversity dance troupe (winners of Britain's Got Talent) danced outside Downing Street today. All went fine (though to a rather underwhelmed audience of parents and civil servants it seems), except for a rather sickening fall from Perry Luc Kiely, who did a spectaculr backflip - and landed face first on the road. Watch til about two thirds of the way through. Look out for the little feller with the big hair. He dances on for a while before retreating to a chair to let the pain wash over him. To be fair, Gordon and Sarah Brown seem to whisk him off straight into Downing Street to recover.

The official Downing Street version is rather kinder. The little man's decision to chew tarmac is left out of their edit and you can't even see his forlorn little figure behind his colleagues as they finish the routine without him. A kinder edit, perhaps, just not as funny.

The Independent iPhone app - an update on the way

2009-09-15T11:09:33Z

The Independent iPhone app has done pretty well, I'm very happy to say, and we've also had a lot of feedback.

In the light of that, we have submitted a new version of the Independent App to Apple for review. This version incorporates the key suggestions we have received in feedback, including a "mark all as read" button, unread story icons on/off on app icon and on main menu page, the option to auto delete all non bookmarked articles after a day and the ability to click on pictures within the "Ten Best" stories to launch a browser to view the picture stories.

As soon as the App is approved you will be able to download the update. Our thanks again for your feedback and for helping us to improve the App experience. More improvements will be released in later update versions.