I’m kicking off the second semester of my MA in Online Journalism this week with a session on audio. As part of the preparation for that I’ve been looking at ‘micropodcasting‘, speaking to Mark Rock, the founder of Audioboo, and Christian Payne – better known as Documentally - who is a great user of the micropodcasting form. I thought it might be useful to post their thoughts here:

I asked Mark Rock what sort of boos (recordings) proved popular on the site. He listed the following:

• “Celebrity boos are the biggest here – witness @bobbyllew, who got retweeted from the site 45 times at the weekend.
• “Next come people who embed the player on their website – such as the Arsenal blogger - http://audioboo.fm/boos/94714-united-reaction
• “Finally interesting content – people who are using it for a purpose, such as my one! http://audioboo.fm/boos/94707-alex-walters-on-the-state-of-journalism.”

Asked what types of recordings people make, Mark provides this overview:

• “Micro podcasts. Chris does short photo tips: http://audioboo.fm/boos/51850-are-you-missing-daily-photo-tips-daily-photo-tips-with-chris
• “Interviews: http://audioboo.fm/boos/94682-talking-with-the-taxman-about-poetry-sort-of-jason_cobb-with-billybragg
• “Promotion of other content: http://audioboo.fm/boos/94834-bullet-proof-crocodiles-and-more-on-today-s-outlook
• “Educational support: A lot of use in schools – http://audioboo.fm/boos/94818-the-dark
• “Business info. Lots of realtors as well as big firms like BDO: http://audioboo.fm/profile/bdo
• “Audio projects. This guy has setup the firstpages tag to get people to read the 1st pages of books: http://audioboo.fm/tag/firstpages
• “Radio. Lots of radio stations using it for content - http://audioboo.fm/profile/BBCLondon949
• “Capturing the moment. Lot of personal social usage - http://audioboo.fm/boos/94794-sharing-my-thoughts-11-f-king-frustrated
• “plus ambient, children and more.”

On the whole I find short soundbites are more welcomed than long ones. As regards interviews, for me casual conversation tends to spread more outside of the podcast itself i.e others feel more at liberty to join in in the comments, twitter etc.

As far as editing goes, a top ‘n’ tail should be more than enough for a micro blog. It should all be about ease of posting and the immediacy of it going live. A non edited piece of audio sounds more intimate and less premeditated ‘programmed’.

All my types of Boo are really ‘personal journal’. It’s been rare that I have been talking on behalf of anyone else and so as far as the audio goes it’s just another way of documenting my journey. An audience is a bonus (sometimes) for me. I boo to document and remember the moment. there are countless categories available should you want to tag certain styles.

As for tips, he says: “Be random.”

More importantly than anything (in my opinion) I feel a micropodcast should be and could be anything from one episode or boo to the next. It is the element of ‘anything could happen next’ that keeps me subscribed to the boos I listen to. I want to be taken to new places, though not on any scheduled flight – more of a magical mystery tour.

We have production studios in our pockets and they go with us everywhere. Why create a studio environment when there are so many great places/sounds/conversations/situations and moments to share?

Since the middle of last week a group of people on crowdsourcing platform Help Me Investigate* have been asking questions about The London Weekly, a new freesheet that was due to launch in the capital.

The team behind the publication – ‘Global Publishing Group’ – had boasted £10.5m investment and a 50-strong team. But the public face of The London Weekly, the lack of advertising for those jobs, and lack of registration for the company, raised some eyebrows.

The paper did indeed launch on the Friday, although the distribution was limited (despite a promised circulation of 250,000) and the production values poor. More questions were being asked.

By then the Help Me Investigate group had already dug up quite a bit on the publication – in particular, a number of links between The London Weekly and the Invincible Group. My particular favourite was ‘Joe-T’’s discovery that Jordan Kensington, the founder of the Invincible Group, claims to own a primary school named after Mother Theresa. The untraceable ‘Editor in Chief’ listed on The London Weekly website also happens to be ‘Agnes A. Theresa’.

Another discovered that the ‘Investor Relations’ page on the Invincible Group’s website has been copied from the Ryanair website (even down to ‘Latest Passenger figures’), while others discovered recently created Wikipedia entries edited by just one, new, user.

The investigation is still trying to track down all of the 50+ staff listed on The London Weekly website, most of whom appear to be freelancers who have had little or no involvement with the paper, or names with no apparent online presence.

In addition, we are now looking to contact advertisers who have appeared in the paper to see what they know about the publication.

Meanwhile, James Ball has written an open letter to The London Weekly laying out the questions raised by the investigation so far. It’s pretty lengthy, and gives a perfect summary of what has been dug up so far by various people.

If you want to join the investigation – whether that’s simply to browse, or make a simple phonecall – post a comment below, send me a tweet, or use the form on Help Me Investigate.

*Disclosure for non-regular readers: Help Me Investigate is run by me, Nick Booth, Colin Meek, Jon Bounds and Stef Lewandowski.

A couple weeks ago I blogged about how people often confuse using technology as a tool with using technology as part of a broader strategy. While that post focused on the objectives of news organisations in using UGC, I thought it might be useful to write a short follow-up post about strategies.

It’s very simple. Often, I find that people will say their strategy will be to ‘use Twitter’ or ‘use Facebook’ or ‘use Flickr’. They are then surprised (or, for the sceptics, vindicated) when they ‘get no results’.

The following is a simple list of translations from tools to typical strategies:

Of course, as detailed in that previous post, the tools should come after the strategies, and the strategy should come after the objective, but I thought this might be a useful way to clearly communicate what you really want when you ask for a ’social media strategy’.

I’ve only mentioned 3 tools, because after that you get the idea. If you can add any other strategies for these or other tools, I’ll happily add them in (I’d love to hear them too).

Thanks to Jashpal Mall, whose conversation sparked this post.

Property Week has launched what it claims to be the first online, interactive business magazine, Property Week Global Interactive.

PWGi, which is free to read, will be published four times a year alongside the original Property Week Global, and emailed to its newsletter subscribers.

The site loads in a page-style format, with links to video, audio and animation.

The magazine is fairly fool-proof once you adjust, but editor Lucy Scott helpfully runs through its features and how to use it. The user clicks the corners to turn the page and on the page to zoom, while a calendar-style contents page allows you to flick to any section of the magazine for a full story. The reader can also choose to to share the story or download it as a PDF.

However, aside from the reading options, the various clickable icons and the ability to view the content in any order in your own time, there is little real particpation on offer.

The publishers have relied on Ceros technology and Flash to offer interactive, three dimensional-feel content, but the result is strangely static.

While the magazine is ascetically pleasing and the layout impressive, I felt a little overwhelmed by the various flying images and garish colours.

The question is, what value is there in the interactive magazine format that cannot be found elsewhere?

Is this something that could last or will it be seen as a gimmick?

The penultimate session in my 10-class module in Online Journalism from last year covered a range of areas. There’s a little bit on audio slideshows, a lot on community, and related to that, I covered wikis too. I’ve split them into 3 presentations for ease of use. This year (the module starts again on Monday) I’ll probably take an axe to all of this…

It should come as no surprise that “augmented reality” – the technology that overlays virtual layers of data upon the real world – could be useful for journalism. If Yelp’s augmented reality application downloaded to your smartphone can generate a digital screen with ratings and reviews of a restaurant even as you enter it,  it’s not hard to envision a time in the future when your handheld could offer real-time news from your surroundings, almost as it unfolds.

Not surprisingly, news organizations are jumping on the bandwagon. In the past couple of months, Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper in Europe unveiled fancy “augmented reality” editions. Robert Downey Jr. came to life on the cover of Esquire, and videos and animation augmented text through the pages of Wallpaper. Last summer, Popular Science used a GE-powered augmented-reality feature with 3-dimensional wind turbines on its cover.

While all of this is “cool,” allowing publications to improve reader experience and perhaps, revenue, by providing interactivity and entertainment, none of them specifically utilized the potential of augmented reality to enhance delivery of serious content, as the Guardian’s Mercedes Bunz eloquently pointed out. While these publications have provided a good prelude to how the technology can be utilized, news organizations should segue into actually doing journalism with augmented reality instead of merely offering it as dessert.

Event reporting

One of the obvious uses of the technology would be in the reporting of live events. This has particular relevance in planned or staged events, which can range anywhere from international climate summits to polling booth stats to reporting from live games, and by extension, perhaps, award shows and concerts. Similar to the superimposed first-down line on NFL football fields, which has often been used to describe how augmented reality can overlay virtual information on real objects, stats about the distance of a quarterback’s pass, the speed of a tennis player’s serve, exit poll results on election days, or data released at international summits can be virtually generated so people can view them on their smartphones even as the event transpires.

Mixed media
Another way to utilize the technology more relevantly for journalism is a method employed by the company Moving Brands for its paper, Living Identity. Holding up the print edition of a story in front of a webcam in this case generates a live feed of the latest news and updates about the content in question. Such an integration of various forms of media might indeed be one of the biggest benefits of the technology – allowing users to engage and interact online through special tags and markers in the print product would enable news organizations to not necessarily charge for online content, but offer additional features accessible only through the print version. This might be an avenue to generate profit for an otherwise dying print product.

Localizing content
Augmented reality thrives on hyperlocal content, as seen by applications like Yelp’s Monocle and Mobilizy’s Wikitude, which can offer a user facts on a restaurant or site of interest, based on his location. Such applications utilize a smartphone’s GPS coordinates in conjunction with localized data garnered from the Web in order to provide information. If you can wave a smartphone in front of the Niagara Falls to get stats about the popular destination, why not point it in the general direction of a location of interest and generate a digital screen of the latest news from the region in question? It would be nice to see publications invest in providing local, breaking news through applications downloaded on smartphones, for instance. This would also allow national publications to “localize” themselves. Some radio stations already do this by providing news and traffic updates based on the location of a user’s handheld device.

User-generated content
Another important point to note is that many augmented reality apps are based on social sites, so much of the content for data points is user-generated; Wikitude even allows users to integrate to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, thus making the application socially aware. This concept brings up a whole host of possibilities for news organizations to not only provide more local information to readers, but also to seek user-contributed content. The New York Times, rightly taking a leaf out of the books of these companies, plans to implement augmented reality for its movie and restaurant reviews. While it’s at it, what the Times might also consider is reader input. It would be cool to whip out a mobile phone and see what Sam Sifton has to say about a restaurant, but in keeping with the ways of social media and technology, it would be somewhat wanting if users aren’t allowed to offer their own views and ratings.

Explaining concepts and background
Augmented reality also allows an interactive, engaging way for publications to explain background and concepts for issues they report on. Mainstream media entities like the Times and the BBC, and independent online startups like Flyp media have effectively used multimedia to elaborate on complex principles – from climate issues to African history.  Augmented reality could add a new dimension, quite literally, to this format of content delivery, without a reader having to navigate hyperlinks or popup windows.

In addition, it can enhance charts and graphical representations of information and localize them to make them more pertinent to a reader. Layar, the first-ever augmented reality browser, has developed an application that can help users track bailout money that was given to US banks by the Obama administration, for instance. News organizations would do well to augment their reporting in similar fashion; reading about a big bank miles away from where readers live can be informative, but knowing that a local company received federal money is often more relevant to people.

Apart from content, however, augmented reality’s more important potential might be in the area of revenue generation. Despite being a brainchild of technology, one essential factor in case of both the Esquire and Wallpaper augmented-reality issues is, of course, that readers need to have a print edition of the magazine to be able to experience the features. In addition, the features are interactive and engaging, and regardless of whether they offer exclusive information, they have the potential to keep readers riveted.

Advertising and revenue generation
Much has been said about the success of rich media ads in driving purchase intent; augmented reality can and is providing more effective strategies for advertising. In addition to making advertisements fun and engaging, publications could also use the technology to provide targeted advertising, which would be less rather than more disruptive for the user.  In a simple case, only users interested in purchasing that BMW would hold up the print ad in front of their computer screens to generate a virtual car that shows off all its features, for instance (though who in their right mind wouldn’t want a digitally-generated Z4 to zip in front of their very eyes?). The great potential of this technology for advertising is already being seen, as more and more brands jump on the augmented reality bandwagon. In fact, companies have perhaps implemented it most innovatively and effectively in order to help consumers get a real sense of the values and functions of their products.

With the growing number of paid smart phone apps, news organizations are beginning to understand that the audience is more likely to pay for technology than for content. Augmented reality (and mobile phones) have a long way to go before the technology can become mainstream, but it certainly has the potential to be one of several revenue streams that the media can begin to employ.

What augmented reality can do above and beyond everything else is make information relevant and tangible to a reader or viewer. For years, media puritans have worried about the Internet causing fragmented communities, and taking citizens away from their local communities. Smartphones enabled with augmented reality might be the answer to bridge that divide, as they provide a necessary interface between the real and virtual realms, offering as they do virtual information in a very real world. Geotags and location-aware digital maps not only unleash Web 2.0 information in front of the user, but also keep him or her firmly rooted to the ground he’s standing on.

Given that I start teaching the undergraduate module in online journalism again next week, I thought I should finish uploading the presentations from last year. The following is the presentation for my session on video.

The superinjunction obtained by England Captain John Terry was overturned on Friday – and the case raises some interesting issues (cross posted from John Terry: another nail in the superinjunction coffin):

• Ecen when the superinjunction was in force, you could find out about the story on Twitter and Google – both even promoted the fact of Terry’s affair – via the Twitter trends list and the real-time Google search box.
• No one got the difference between an injunction and a superinjunction - the former banned reporting of Terry’s alleged affair, the latter banned revealing there was an injunction. They weren’t necessarily both overturned, but there was a widespread assumption you could say what you liked about Terry once the superinjunction was overturned. This wasn’t necessarily the case …
• The Mail and Telegraph seemed to flout the superinjunction – as did the Press Gazette which decided if wasn’t bound as it hadn’t seen a copy. This seemed risky behaviour legally – which makes me wonder if the papers were looking for a weak case to try to discredit superinjunctions.
• This superinjunction should never have been granted. What was the original judge thinking?

Google and Twitter ignored the superinjunction

Tweets from while the superinjunction was in force

The superinjunction was overturned at about 1pm or 2pm on Friday. Needless to say, the papers had a field day over the weekend.

But if you wanted to find out the story on Friday, it was relatively simple to do so. I typed John Terry’s name into Google on Friday at about 11.15am – long before the injunction was lifted – and saw the screenshot, above.

Google’s real-time  search box revealed tweets about John Terry and Wayne Bridge (and there were some giving full details of the affair – including the stuff that didn’t come out until Sunday). Later on Friday, Google pulled the real-time search box – whether this was algorithmic or for legal reasons, I don’t know. But if, spurred on by the clues Google was offering, you typed both Terry and Bridge into Google or Twitter search, and it was simple to find the full story.

And by Friday lunchtime, both John Terry and Wayne Bridge were trending topics on Twitter, raising the profile of the issue. If you clicked on either to see what was being tweeted, you’d have found out about the affair instantly.

Shortly after, a judge ruled there were no grounds for the injunction, super or otherwise.

Guardian links to Twitter search for John Terry

As an aside, I noticed that the Guardian, in its coverage of the superinjunction, even included a link in one of its pieces to a Twitter search on John Terry.

They’ve removed it now (well, I can’t find it anyway and probably for the best. You should either have the balls to run the full story or not. I don’t think publishing a link to a twitter search is a reasonable half way house.)

Confusion still reigned

Once news that the super injunction had been lifted, no one knew (or perhaps cared) where they legally stood on Friday afternoon (as I’ve pointed out before about blogs and reporting restrictions).

It was reported that the superinjunction was lifted – but not whether there was a separate injunction relating to the facts of the case (ie could you report that JT had obtained an injunction, but not say why?).

Despite this, everyone went ahead and shouted about it all over the internet. If there was a separate injunction, it was finished.

You can see the confusion in the comments on this Guardian story from Friday afternoon

Seastorm: I’ve no interest in gossiping about EBJT, but I am a little confused….is the paper concerned now allowed to go ahead and publish the allegations?

Busfield (replying to seastorm): The judgement means that we can now report that there was an injunction. The judge then says that the newspaper concerned will have to make its own assessment of the risks involved in publishing whatever the allegations may be, which will involve considerations of the laws relating to privacy and defamation.

Gooner UK (replying to seastorm): Nope, the removal of the superinjunction means that newspapers are allowed to publish the fact that an injunction is in place, and name the parties involved, but they are still not allowed to publish the subject matter itself.

The injunction still stands, it’s just that we now know an injunction is in place. A superinjunction is so damaging because it means we (the public) are deliberately kept in the dark as to the very existence of an injunction.

And bear in mind that an injunction is in theory an act of last resort anyway. A superinjunction adds another level to that, which can be very dangerous in terms of press freedom.

Busfield (replying to Gooner UK): my understanding, and I am not a lawyer but I have spent much of the day talking to one, is that both the super and the injunction have gone. It is up to the paper concerned to decide whether it can publish its story without breaking the laws of defamation and relating to privacy.

The background: two papers ignore the injunction

It’s also interesting that two newspapers decide to ignore, or sail very close to the wind with regards to, the superinjunction – ie they ran stories that appeared to be in breach of it.

Mail reports injunction’s existence

As the Press Gazette reported on Friday morning (ie before the superinjunction was lifted):

A new “super-injunction” has been used by a Premier League footballer to stop national newspapers reporting his alleged marital infidelity.

The Daily Mail identifies the man only as a married England international.

The Daily Mail today reports, in apparent defiance of the order: “So draconian is Mr Justice Tugendhat’s order that even its existence is supposed to be a secret.”

(It’s interesting that the Press Gazette felt able to run the story about the existence of the superinjnction stating “Press Gazette has not been served with the injunction.” – I would have thought that this was also sailing close to the wind. It knew there was a super injunction, and I’m surprised its lawyers didn’t make an attempt to find out the full details.)

The Mail’s piece had a couple of nods and winks to Terry’s role:

A married England international footballer was granted a sweeping injunction to prevent publication of his affair with the girlfriend of a team-mate … It could be anyone from the captain of the top team in the land …”

What, like the captain of England and Chelsea, you mean?

As does the Telegraph

On top of this, the Telegraph had run a piece, too, according to the Guardian:

Yesterday [Thursday] The Daily Telegraph technically breached the “super” part of the superinjunction by reporting that the courts were hiding the identity of a footballer and allegations about his private life. (This piece appeared in print but is no longer online).

Maybe since the Trafigura injunction, newspapers have been looking for a way to kill off superinjunctions. If they wanted a weak super injunction to pick on as a way to discredit them, this seemed a prime example.

Whatever their reasons, nothing seems likely to happen to the Mail and the Telegraph for breaching or nearly breaching this one – unlike in the Trafigura case, it seems unlikely John Terry is going to successfully sue anyone over this issue.

Conclusion

The Mail sums it up well:

In a scathing ruling, the judge made it clear he suspected Terry was more afraid of losing the commercial deals than anything else.

He said the footballer appeared to have brought his High Court action in a desperate move to protect his earnings – rather than the woman with whom he had been conducting his affair.

(And given this, it’s hard to see how the superinjunction was ever granted.)

There are legitimate reasons for injunctions and even superinjunctions.

But judges need to think very carefully before granting them. And the British courts and the right to privacy should not be used to protect the commercial interests of the “father of the year”.

The Future of News gathering first organised by Adam Westbrook has its first West Midlands meetup next week (organised by The Lichfield Blog’s Philip John. I’ll be there, along with leading Portuguese blogger Alex Gamela, Brummie alpha blogger Jon Bounds, Andy Brightwell of Hashbrum and Grounds Birmingham; top journalism blogger Nigel Barlow and Pits n Pots‘ Mike Rawlins, among others.

It’s taking place from 6.45pm on Monday February 8 at Birmingham City University. Places are free but limited – book at http://www.meetup.com/The-West-Midlands-Future-of-News-Group/calendar/12461072/

This article – an overview of the local media scene in the UK – appears in the latest issue of Government Gazette.

The local media are currently trying to ride through a perfect storm of change, from a decline in readers that long pre-dates the internet, to advertisers fleeing their pages in droves and a new medium that steadfastly refuses to give them the profits they enjoyed in print.

It’s a complicated picture, and anyone who pretends to blame one company, or one business model, for their demise, probably wants something.

Digital media – and in particular the internet – have in a very short space of time transformed the way the business of publishing works. Fundamental to this is the difference between atoms and bits, the disintermediation of the web – and the rise of a currency that most publishers don’t even know exists.

The great decoupling

The first big change that local media are facing is the ‘decoupling’ of elements that they previously packaged for profit: a platform, content, and advertising. Online, those elements have become increasingly separate.

Unlike print, publishers don’t own the platform. Users have already paid for access to the internet, and for mobile phone contracts. Furthermore, the content publishers so carefully packaged for mass market appeal in print, is a virtual pick and mix online. If someone wants to read one story, or cartoon, crossword, or TV listings, they no longer have to buy everything else that went with it. If you want your sports coverage from your local paper but your politics from a national and celebrity news from an American website, then you’ll do just that.

But finally, and most importantly, advertising and content are becoming decoupled, on two fronts: firstly, because the web is a place full of tools, advertisers can choose to advertise against actions rather than content. This is why Google is successful – it does not sell advertising against content, but against searches. Likewise, sites like Autotrader and RightMove allow advertisers to reach potential customers when they are actively looking to buy.

But secondly, because advertisers can create their own content, and communicate with audiences without the need for publishers, they have started reducing their advertising spend in favour of communicating with potential customers directly. In some cases publishers are adapting by offering content production services themselves – for example, producing video ads for local businesses.

Cutting out the middlemen

It costs a lot to print and distribute newspapers. That’s why most towns and cities have only one newspaper. With only one newspaper serving a community’s information needs, basic laws of supply and demand have dictated the price of advertising to a local community. It has been a hugely profitable industry that has become increasingly concentrated in ownership and lumbered with associated debt. From highs of around 30% the margins are now closer to 10% – still better than Tesco, but the debts remain. And for most publishers the reaction has been to implement efficiencies wherever they can – moving out of city centre offices, publishing less frequently, and laying off enormous numbers of staff.

In contrast, it costs very little to publish online, and the distribution infrastructure is controlled by no one. The commercial and the communal share the same space, and for those who are trying to make money, competition is fierce.

As a result, for a local advertiser, the difference between buying an advert online and in print couldn’t be more pronounced. The enormous competition online, coupled with low cost bases, means advertising is cheap. In fact, competition is so fierce that display advertising – the idea of selling an advert next to some content – has been overtaken by other forms that promise more results: pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, for instance, only costs an advertiser money when someone clicks on an advert (this is the model that Google uses). Pay-per-action (PPA) only costs an advertiser money when someone takes action by, for example, booking an appointment.

Most local advertisers stuck to print. But recent research suggests the recession has increased the rate of change with increasing numbers of businesses looking to move advertising online for its low costs and measurable results.

The difficulty for local publishers, however, is that the profits are so much smaller than selling print advertising. For ad sales staff paid commissions based on the price of the advertising they sell, there is very little incentive for selling web ads.

The local get more local, and the nationals get local too

The buzzword of 2009 was ‘hyperlocal’ – a fuzzy concept that could range in scope from a single street to tens of thousands of people. Johnston and Newsquest have both offered community-level detail on their Yorkshire and West Midlands titles respectively, while Trinity Mirror’s hyperlocal project involved offering postcode-level news on their branded websites that also linked to local blogs. Northcliffe, meanwhile, launched Local People, a collection of forums, listings and the facility for user generated content – but little news.

Meanwhile, publishers at the national level have been eyeing up the local opportunity, with players including ITN, ITV and the Press Association partnering with video production companies, universities and regional publishers in their bids for the Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC) proposed by Ofcom to fill the local news gap left by ITV. While there has been much talk of the online opportunity in these consortia from Ofcom, the reality of the bids suggests that this will be an opportunity missed.

In contrast, The Guardian is set to launch ‘beatblog’ operations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds in early 2009 that focus entirely on the opportunities that the online platform presents. Integral to the operations will be working with local bloggers and other online contributors, while the sites will integrate with MySociety and other services that provide civic information.

2009 also saw the launch of MSN Local, which aims to provide a local information service based on a range of data that can complement news stories elsewhere on MSN.

While large newspaper chains close offices and lay off staff, dozens of ‘hyperlocal’ websites have been springing up around the country to cover areas that local residents feel newspapers no longer serve – or never did. Many feel strong civic obligations and regularly attend the council meetings that local journalists no longer visit, while there’s a noticeable absence of the human interest and crime material that fills their print contemporaries.

My own operation – Help Me Investigate.com – launched in Birmingham in an attempt to find a way to pursue investigative journalism on a local level with the involvement and engagement of local people. It had a number of successes, most notably the uncovering of a £2.2m overspend on Birmingham City Council’s new website, and is in the process of expanding to other cities in 2010.

The business models for these startups are varied. Some are run as volunteer operations, while others see a commercial opportunity in a news operation without the costs of printing and distribution, and self-serve ad sales solutions such as those offered by Rick Waghorn’s Addiply – currently being trialled by Trinity Mirror in the north east. AboutMyArea has a franchise model; others sell products or services (such as consultancy).

Ultimately the internet has opened up a new market for local news and local advertising – with new rules. Some entrants are better placed than others to take advantage of the new forms of advertising, new forms of news production, distribution and monetisation that that presents. It’s early days yet.