Philip John › Comments

"I would like it to not clash with things. Unfortunately, that tends to happen more than I'd like. I really enjoyed my first - the panel discussion - but also enjoy it when there's just a few of us sitting in the pub chatting. Curry is always good, too!In short, I don't know but I've enjoyed everything so far so not sure whether there needs to be much change from the status quo." - Philip John

""The possible solution - establishing a model in which local businesses advertise to local news sites - will be mighty expensive and mighty tricky." - I think Addiply.com might disagree with that, as would I, sitting here looking at £60/mth coming from advertisers on The Lichfield Blog knowing it could do so much more."Current (failing) advertising models rely on wooing advertisers with audiences" - Because advertising doesn't work, or because the current implementations aren't smart enough? If I have over 1,000 unique page views on Chasetown FC articles it make sense that their sponsor might like to advertise to those 1,000 impressions. That's a very basic example, but I don't see many hyperlocals getting clever like that so far (we're not! ..yet)." - Philip John

"I’ve always had a problem with RSS – nobody knows what it is, what it means and frankly, they don’t care. Nor should they. I’ve always favoured using the word ’subscribe’ instead and then helping people to do that. I use Feedburner for The Lichfield Blog and our “Subscribe” widget gives equal prominence to the RSS feed link and the e-mail signup. Saves the hassle of using mailing list software and, if you customise your blog (I’m thinking of Wordpress here) you could even write posts that would only go out to subscribers, which might be useful (maybe for promotions)." - Philip John

A great list of possibly defamatory scenarios - Philip John

"Addiply is already in use internationally, including Italy, USA, France, Netherlands. You can see the network that’s built up on their site." - Philip John

"Thanks Matt!" - Philip John

"Yay, 1 sales lead passed to a Greenwich business today makes more in commission than all other advertising on the site in last 3 months." - Philip John

"Great advice there. I’m working on some tools to make all that a lot easier. For example, I’m working with OpenlyLocal to develop a Wordpress plugin to provide information to both bloggers and readers. There’ll be word on my blog when it’s done!" - Philip John

Excellent run through some basic accessibility changes for Wordpress - Philip John

Blog post covering the Black Country Social Media Café where Philip John joined others for a discussion on the future of journalism - Philip John

"Malcolm, it looks like there may be something missing from your comment so I can’t work out what the problem is. If you e-mail me I might be able to point you in the right direction." - Philip John

"“Hope he doesn’t mind me grabbing the screenshot from his blog post!” Of course not! That little widget is really only a test to make sure the part of the plugin that talks to OpenlyLocal is working. It’ll be one of many widgets and other features that will be included. For example, you could write a post on a local councillor (not sure what your equivalent would be) and the plugin will automatically add a bunch of information about that councillor to the post (such as contact details). Glad to find your blog, I’ll be keeping an eye on it!" - Philip John

"“Hope he doesn’t mind me grabbing the screenshot from his blog post!” Of course not! That little widget is really only a test to make sure the part of the plugin that talks to OpenlyLocal is working. It’ll be one of many widgets and other features that will be included. For example, you could write a post on a local councillor (not sure what your equivalent would be) and the plugin... more... - Philip John

A truly hyperlocal blog, focused around a block of flats in Digbeth, Birmingham. - Philip John

Great example of using data to provide local information to residents - Philip John

EDM 2197: That this House calls on the Government to ensure that transport timetables for rail and bus operators are made freely available for re-use, using an open standards format, thus enabling voluntary and commercial organisations to publish the data on their own digital platforms. - Philip John

"Really? I don't think so… they'll become much, much smaller and largely aggregate content from bloggers, hyperlocals and feed from independent journalists on the ground. They'll be like editors. @DavidHiggerson has some interesting thoughts in that area, actually…" - Philip John

"Oh yes, very! That bit about who covers the regional development agency is very interesting. I'd suggest that existing local media (Northcliffe with Lichfield Mercury) sort-of cover the county-level stuff while regional media (e.g. TM with B'ham Post/Mail or ITV/BBC) do the regional stuff like AWM. That leaves us to cover the City & District Council and community groups like North Lichfield Initiative (a small part of Lichfield City, which is a small part of the District that we cover)… that needs more of a co-ordinated network though, I reckon." - Philip John

"Thanks for mentioning my post, Jeff. Good to know we’re thinking along similar lines. I figured you would be with your involvement in GrowthSpur. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to take part in C&binet with you too, it sounded fascinating. Looking forward to hearing more from you." - Philip John

Excellent "check your facts" post - Philip John

Openness of data is as important for local government as it is for national government - making people more connected to their community and giving them the tools to demand action on issues that matter. Digitalising council records could mean that citizens can find out everything from the council accounts to the number of streetlights and community wardens, to when the rubbish is collected and the hedges trimmed. The work Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt are doing needs to extend across the whole public sector. And I am working with them to ensure that their work embraces local government and local services and that local government responds quickly, consistently and effectively to the challenge. - Philip John

"I don't wanna get all 'self improvement' on ya so I'll just say “self-fulfilling prophecy” and leave you to it. Oh and read 7 Habits by Stephen Covey." - Philip John

"I can see why Krishnan didn’t welcome the idea with open arms but if we’re going to incorporate social media into mainstream media (as Channel 4 are doing) we might as well get on with experiments like this." - Philip John

"I can see why Krishnan didn’t welcome the idea with open arms but if we’re going to incorporate social media into mainstream media (as Channel 4 are doing) we might as well get on with experiments like this." - Philip John

Definitive word from Google's Matt Cutts that Google does not use the keywords meta tag in search results - Philip John

"Newspapers haven’t charged for content for so long they’ve forgotten how it’s done": (via @timesjoanna) - Philip John

Lichfield Twestival is a Twestival local event that aims to raise money for charity through the power of Twitter! - Philip John

Using the same user table for two Wordpress blogs - Philip John

"@Adam – They are used extensively yes, but it’s one of the biggest web usability gaffs around. Don’t take my word for it though, take Jakob Neilsen’s: http://www.useit.com/alertbo..." - Philip John

Interesting social media stats. - Philip John

"Great tips here that make a lot of sense. I have an issue with #3 where you say “a flash platform displaying your best photos” – from a usability point of view, flash should only be used where necessary. Instead, use a custom lightbox system which uses Javascript (ask any good web developer). Also, a little extra tip related to #4: you can always use a service like VisualCV.com rather than a PDF (never a good idea) or Google Doc (can be confusing to some). For #4 you can use a service like usernamecheck.com to check the many social networking sites. You don’t have to claim all of them, but try to cover most bases. Oh and it’s called an Avatar, not a Gravatar. Gravatar is a service which allows you to upload an avatar that can then be used by different web sites. By default, all WordPress blogs use Gravatar. @Tracy – if the reel is video or images you can upload them to your Flickr account and embed a Flickr slideshow into your web site. This means that everytime you upload your..." - Philip John

"It’s a bizarre requirement and you’re right, we don’t have it and neither do the Guardian by the looks of it." - Philip John