The Great Debate UK
The 2010 general election and new media
Matthew McGregor is the Director Blue State Digital’s London office. The opinions expressed are his own.
The 2010 general election will be the first closely British election in which the internet will be an important factor. The last truly close election in 1992 was fought in a way unrecognisable to campaigners today. In 1997, most of us had yet to use email. In 2005, YouTube was barely three months into its existence.
So how will new media impact on the contest between the parties — and how will independent organisations use the potential of online media to insert themselves into the process?
Perhaps the most obvious difference for members of the fourth estate will be the encroachment of bloggers on the “old” media’s hallowed turf as the arbiters of what constitutes the news of the day.
Are mobile networks at risk of a meltdown?
- Steve Nicholson, CEO at The Cloud. -
Five years ago the thought that we could be on the move accessing applications such as You Tube or Facebook, or watching TV or listening to music using our mobile phones was no more than a dream – today it’s a reality.
If we take a step back and assess the journey of the mobile phone over the past few years it has been nothing short of epic. It has progressed from a piece of technology for the modern business person to a must-have item.
from Commentaries:
Gut feeling: How Google CEO valued YouTube deal
Let the second-guessing, the mock horror, the disbelief, the crowing begin.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has acknowledged he realized upfront that he was overpaying to acquire YouTube, to the tune of $1 billion, judged by any conventional measures.
The many critics of Google's $1.65 billion deal to acquire the video-sharing site three years ago will claim this confirms everything they have always said about the deal. Not quite.
Do you know what people are saying about you?
-Connie Bensen is Director of Community Strategy and Architecture at Alterian, working cross functionally to provide strategy and best practice in social media. The opinions expressed are her own.-
It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners, terrestrial TV took 13 years, the internet took four years… In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users. We are in the midst of a digital revolution that is shaping the way we communicate and these social media technologies are continuing to grow a pace in 2009. Now more than four out of five online users are active in either creating, participating in, or reading some form of social content at least once a month.
from For the Record:
Citizen journalism, mainstream media and Iran
Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.
The recent election in Iran was one of the more dramatic stories this year, with powerful images of protests and street-fighting dominating television and online coverage.
