ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/17/who-is-winning-the-election-battle-on-social-media

Who is winning the election battle on social media? 

This article is about consumers taking part with the election through social media. 

• Though successive elections since the mid noughties have been described as the first to be contested on social media, the coming poll on 7 May has seen the political parties and hopeful candidates engage with Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and other platforms like never before.
• The party’s official Twitter account @uklabour is also way ahead in terms of Twitter mentions (with 388,109 tweets and retweets), again with @ukip second (212,418) and @conservatives third (158,158). Notably, the three politicians whose individual Twitter accounts make the top 10 mentions list are @nigel_farage, @ed_miliband and the Plaid Cymru leader @leannewood. 
• Precise details of each party’s organised campaign - and the amount they are spending on them - are difficult to come by, but in a measure of the importance of social media to the campaigns, it was reported earlier this year that the Conservatives have dipped into their considerable election war chest to spend more than £100,000 a month on Facebook for advertising and to secure paid-for “likes”. The BBC suggested Labour was directing its resources elsewhere, with an estimated spend of less than £10,000 a month on its own Facebook presence. 

This is good for engaging people with politics, especially the younger generation as they are the main consumers of social media. 

Ignite

Ignite presentation

ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/08/fortune-magazine-takes-on-six-former-gigaom-journalists 

Fortune magazine takes on six former GigaOm journalists 

This article is about Fortune hiring six journalists from a tech site which recently closed down.

•  “Fortune has always covered how technology is changing the workplace – 85 years of publishing prove it – but things are changing faster and more dramatically than ever before. 
• Time CEO Joe Ripp had reportedly been in negotiations to buy GigaOm before deciding to hire the journalists, many of whom were senior writers for the site. 
• The writers joining Fortune will focus on the magazine’s digital platforms but will also contribute to the print magazine and appear at Fortune events. 
• Fortune has been seeking to increase the amount of content it produces to attract more visitors since it lost referrals from CNN when Time Warner split its broadcast and publishing divisions into separate companies. 

ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/12/tanya-burr-vlogging-blogging-youtube

Tanya Burr: ‘Vlogs are like being inside someone’s house. It’s an insight into people’s lives’

This article tells us about how Vlogs introduce the audience inside the lives of vloggers. 

• what first gave you the idea to start vlogging?
  Well, back in 2009, I loved the idea of being a makeup artist, so went to college in my home town, Norwich, to learn. They’d just started uploading tutorials on to the internet, mainly to help students – how to do a smoky eye, stuff like that. They told me I should start a YouTube channel as a creative outlet, to practise makeup looks and get people’s opinions. That’s how it all started. 
• 
  
• You have 2.9 million YouTube subscribers, 1.6 million followers on Instagram and 1.3 million on Twitter. What’s the secret?
  I really don’t know. In the comments, people say I make them feel good, I’m relaxing to watch and they like my positivity and outlook on life 

Vlogs are a way to make people relate to them which is good for social media as this is how you gain attention. 

•  

ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/11/buzzfeed-denies-deleting-critical-articles-to-appease-advertisers

BuzzFeed denies deleting critical articles to appease advertisers

This article is about Buzzfeed lying about deleting articles to please advertisers. 

• The articles were removed because of editorial concerns, the site’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith told staff in an email on Friday. He said both had since been reinstated because their deletion had been against BuzzFeed’s policy. 
• Both of the deletions, Smith wrote, “involved the same thing: my overreaction to questions we’ve been wrestling with about the place of personal opinion pieces on our site”. 
• An update to that article included a denial from BuzzFeed that advertising concerns had anything to do with the decision to delete. 

Even though Buzzfeed face criticism for their actions they are allowed to delete or post as they please. 

ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/apr/07/democracy-will-die-if-professional-journalists-go-to-the-wall

Democracy will die if professional journalists go to the wall

This article is about how journalism is dying as there is no need for it anymore due to technology. 

• “The job of the professional journalist is as dead as the elevator operator”. That’s the view of Michael Rosenblum, speaking a week or so ago at a conference on mobile journalism.
•  there are 3bn people around the world with smart phones that are “remarkably powerful platforms for journalism”. People can write on them, snap pictures, shoot video and then upload it to the internet for free. 
•  If the job of the professional journalist really is dead, then so are we all because it means that democracy itself is under threat of extinction. 

I agree that journalism is dying as people now create news stories via citizen journalism due to the movement of technology at this time. 

ndm

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/10/why-would-google-be-interested-in-buying-twitter

Why would Google be interested in buying Twitter?

This article is about Google's rivalry with Twitter based on the usage by consumers. 

• Twitter is valued at about $33bn. Google has around $60bn in the bank, though a lot of that is stashed overseas to avoid taxes on repatriation; a share- or debt-funded acquisition might be simpler. 
• Twitter, whose users send out 140-character “tweets” visible to anyone who follows them, has something the search and data specialist does not: a thriving, engaged social network. 
• Some think Google’s problem with “social” is that its data-driven culture tends to be blind to the tweaks that make people love social networks. But as mobile use becomes dominant, social networks offer the most valuable advertising space. In the fourth quarter of 2014, 69% of Facebook’s advertising revenue came from mobile ads, up from 53% a year before; and revenues were up 49%. 

If Google bought Twitter this could possible make them the biggest media giant.