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Happy to be proven wrong

phillipadsmith — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:38:36 +0000

I've had my attention pretty narrowly focused on finishing up a couple of projects for the last two weeks, which has meant being a little out of the loop (which is refreshing, actually). But it was nice to come up for air today and find this little note from a client waiting in my Inbox: read more »

Five reasons why e-mail still rules the roost

phillipadsmith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:38:04 +0000

So, I'm going to call bullshit on the recent Wall Street Journal article titled "Why Email No Longer Rules...". The article's title is striving to be sensational -- and I guess it worked, as I surfed over to check it out -- but, from that point on, it falls flat and doesn't manage to land one good argument in favour of the idea that e-mail is going away any time soon.

Here are the main points the author tries to make:

New ways of communicating -- always-on, connected, real-time ways -- are faster and "more fun" than e-mail.
According to some research by Nielsen Co, more people are using social network sites than e-mail. (Though, I don't see how that is possible, given that most -- if not all -- social network sites require that you supply an e-mail address to sign up.)
In the "land of the stream" (social networks), there are (or will be) more sophisticated filtering available to help manage the information flow.

Frankly, I think all three points are bunk. Here are five reasons why e-mail is still the king of Internet applications: read more »

The 40 online metrics that you should be tracking

phillipadsmith — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:12:45 +0000

One of the things that I love the circulation-guru Jon Spencer for is his devotion to the Church of Measurement. In the recent post about how publishers can build a Twitter following, Jon raises a number of good points about how organizations can measure the efficacy of their social media efforts (should they want to). But, beyond Twitter, what are the other valuable metrics for publishers to track in the age of the Internet??

I happen to be a bit of a metrics addict myself, so I thought I would build on the idea of circulation metrics and try to introduce the metrics that I encourage the publishers I'm working with to track. There's no magic here: just a list of metrics that have been cobbled together over the years that -- if measured the same way every month -- can provide an organization with the information necessary to make good decisions. read more »

Top five resources for folks making the transition from print to online

phillipadsmith — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:36:07 +0000

I recently received some questions from a friend who's applying for a position as an "online editor" along the lines of "What do I need to understand about Web sites to bring value to an online position?" and "What do I need to know to communicate effectively with my Web-development counterpart?"

These questions come across my Inbox often enough to justify a quick summary of what I think are "Top five" resources for folks making the transition from print to online. These aren't editorial resources, specifically, they're mostly technical in nature (as that's my "thing"). read more »

Ignore the social media gurus. Just follow the Walrus magazine on Twitter.

phillipadsmith — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:23:33 +0000

Okay, here’s an objective for your organization, or publication, this year:

On Feb 23rd at 6:57 AM, the Walrus Magazine — a general interest magazine about Canada — joined Twitter and had zero followers.
On Feb 24th at 7:23 PM, I wrote a blog post about being impressed by their approach. They had less than 50 followers when I wrote that post citing their witty and fun take on how to “do Twitter.”
Today, they posted this Tweet “Alright, let’s get to 4,000 followers, shall we? RT this and be entered to win a free subscription.”
Now they have more than 4000 followers. (Translation: more than 4000 real people who want to hear from them: marketing, promotions, contests, and all.)

The person behind the Walrus Twitter account is a someone I know in Toronto; a writer, editor, and a generally witty and smart person, but not a “social media guru” (by profession, at least). This person also has a “regular” — i.e.: important and traditional — job at The Walrus. I mention that to emphasize that the “Twittering” is part of the job, not something done on the side.

With some focus, the Walrus has grown its following in just six short months. They have gone from zero to more than 4000 followers. If ever there were a model of how to “do Twitter right” for a magazine, this is it.

If your organization or publication is interested in marketing with smarts not $s, take note. (And fire your “social media guru.”)

UPDATE: It was pointed out (on Twitter) that another Canadian magazine — Best Health Magazine — has managed to grow their following to more than 7,000 in just ten months. Ain’t Canada great? read more »

LittleSis and Huffington Post: New era of data-driven investigative journalism

phillipadsmith — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:36:16 +0000

Okay, so I'm weeks behind on this one, but didn't want to skip it because it's such an inspiring project.

Per the LittleSis Web site "LittleSis is an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans, collaboratively edited by people like you." The initiative was co-founded by an old friend from my Billionaires for Bush days, Matthew Skomarovsky, and he's been working on it in some capacity ever since. read more »

A new Twitter activism tool

phillipadsmith — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:00:26 +0000

Cross-posted from www.phillipadsmith.com

I'm about a month late on this, but I still think it's more than worthy of a quick post. Jim Gilliam worked with Jesse Haff from Brave New Films to create an impressive new tool for online activism called act.ly.

As you might note from the cute Web address, act.ly is kind of a mashup of a URL-shortening service with Twitter integration, but the beauty is in its reinvention of the traditional (aka boring) online petition.

Have a cause to promote online? Why not try act.ly and see if your targets have their heads around social media yet. Kudos to Jim, Jesse, and the act.ly team for innovating online activism. read more »

I believe in Open. Can you help me promote it?

phillipadsmith — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:55:14 +0000

I passionately believe in Open, but I need your help to sell my case to the rest of the New Internationalist co-operative. You see, each year the co-op determines the subject of the next ten issues of the magazine at an annual general meeting, and they do it in a very co-op-y way, with lots of discussion, and consensus-building, and then -- when that all fails -- by direct democracy. Its a beautiful thing to watch. read more »

Ten things to love (or hate) about Bricolage. Part II.

phillipadsmith — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the New Internationalist Tech blog.

Okay, here we go — because you’ve all been so anxious for it — the second part of the infamous "Ten things to love (or hate) about Bricolage."

Ten things to love (or hate) about Bricolage

phillipadsmith — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the New Internationalist Tech blog.

Behinds the scenes at www.newint.org and blog.newint.org is a tireless workhorse -- a system that just keeps giving and giving -- and that system is Bricolage. Bricolage is the open-source enterprise-class content management system (CMS) that greatly simplifies the complex tasks of creating, managing, and publishing New Internationalist's archive of content and media assets. read more »