To re-engage an audience with branded publications we need to provide multiple touch points. This will us help us build a relationship with and recognise the importance of our audience,

As publishers instead of thinking ‘what do we need?’ we should be thinking ‘what do our audience need?’ David Cushman recently wrote in his insightful post 2020 vision that “By 2020 a person’s worth will be valued by what they share, not what they keep.” If this is how we are to be valued as individuals it should also be how we are valued as publishers.

We need to serve our audience and share our content with them if and when they need it. In order to do that we need to share in a place they are comfortable accessing our content and where they find value in it.

There is nothing wrong in expecting people to pay for a service, but it needs to be on their terms, they need to book the appointment knowing the price. We shouldn’t react by giving them the same thing they are already getting but now make them pay for the privilege, that would be relationship-breaking, not relationship-building.

I’ve had The Guardian’s iPhone app now for a few weeks. I don’t use it everyday but I do use it more than any other news application I have for several reasons.

1. The content is of a reliably high standard.
2. I paid for it and I want to get value from it.
3. It is almost perfect for the medium.

I know when I use it that I am going to get a variety of content on one page which I can spend 5 minutes looking at and feel I’ve been effectively updated about the world in which I live.

I don’t want it to replicate the amount of content I would get on their website homepage or in their paper. That isn’t what this is for. It’s a referential touch point which gives me access to their brand when I’m on the go, it’s mobile.

People will pay for content, the argument is over and we now need to work out how we grow an audience that will pay for our content on multiple devices in multiple formats.

This particular mobile app is effectively getting an early adopter audience ready for the next thing on the horizon. It shows me that the Guardian are acutely aware that this is a transitional platform which will breed an audience who are ready to pay for digital editions on a yet to be released piece of hardware, which will allow their audience to subscribe, perhaps for 30p a day, to download the paper on a device which they can then read at their leisure through the day, if and when they like.

The more touch points we can provide our audience with the more likely they are to grab hold of our hand and keep hold, forever.

The important thing to think about though is that is 5% of web users who are already well settled in to accessing news for free. I dont think the paid for debate is a web debate and it doesn’t center around these users, as previously mentioned I think it is more of a device debate and centers around the sort of technology users will be accessing news and other content through.

As soon as the Apple tablet is launched the game will change and a new generation on super mobile computing will be born.

With new devices come new expectations from end users as to what they expect from the technology they have invested in.

As we have already seen people will pay for applications and content on their iPhones as it brings value to the device. I believe this new sort of device bridges the gap between you iPhone and your desktop which will change the way we think about paying for content.

The actual piece of journalism itself is not by the citizen but an BBC journalist. The article as a result becomes a collaborative effort between the citizen and journalist.

This video has probably been uploaded using the BBC’s upload system which can be found here. It’s also the sort of video that might well have been sent via ShoZu which I looked at recently.

While the image quality of the recording in this video is a bit lacking it adds a real life element to the story which makes it more engaging and meaningful for the users viewing it. I have to say I am slightly disappointed that the person who submitted the video has not been asked to give his/her account of the scene when they arrived instead relying on others statements. The submitter also has not been given any credit, which they always should be, it’s a motivator for others to do the same.

The video really brings the story to life while not having the ability to show professional footage of the scene. It’s also fantastically cost effective. I am sure this story will be shown on TV using footage taken from a helicopter which will probably cost thousands to film. If you have somebody on the scene with a camera phone it’s free (or probably £50 if the owner of the footage asks).

People pull their phone out all the time now to take pictures and videos of things they see happening around them. Those videos are being used more and more on TV and the Internet. The first instance of mobile video and pictures being used heavily was the 07/07 terror attacks on the London underground lots of people who were on the tube being evacuated pulled out their phone and recorded their experience.

Over the coming years I am sure collaborative citizen journalism will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of web based news as people become more and more familiar with it’s use they will want to become actively involved in its production and delivery.

Links:
- No Casual Operation: Inside a Citizen Journalism Newsroom
- CBS launches citizen journalism upload site
- Value of citizen journalism
- Citizen-Journalism Site Relaunches With New Features – nowpublic.com
- Bleacher Report Takes Citizen Journalism to Fox Sports

I could access wap sites on it when I was at work (at Halfords, good times) and I used it to check what was on TV. So when I returned from work I knew what I wanted to watch. I didn’t use it much beyond that apart from football scores.

Now 9 years on I have Nokia 6500 Classic. I love it for several reasons:

- It does everything I want it to do (everything I know I want it to do*)
- The battery last a good amount of time
- It’s realy slim so it fits in my pocket with no fuss
- I have dropped it several times and it hasn’t shown any sign of breaking
- The sounds quality is really good
- It looks really cool!

I has a couple of browsers built into it. One made by Nokia which serves Wap sites and Opera Mini which rebuilds website to fit them on a mobile screen.

I can’t however say I use it’s content delivery capabilities a dramatic amount more than I used to old my first phone.

I would not consider myself somebody who needs (thinks I need*) the news in my pocket or needs to update my facebook status from my mobile.

>>>>>>>>>> Goes off on one slightly

I have never updated my facebook status. Why do I need to tell all my friends that “David is going to watch the UFC on Saturday” Facebook is fun and I think it’s great for keeping in touch with friends and sharing photos etc but letting people know what I am doing during the day, it’s not for me.

From the brief amount of experimentation I have had with twitter I can see the benefits of status updates if the are contextualized and perhaps made from mobile devices. In business for example it would be productive for managers to have an idea of where their team is and what they are doing. Not so they can spy on them but so they can effectively manage them and make sure everybody is working but is also not overworked. Anyway I will probably do more thinking about this another time.

>>>>>>>>>> Stops going off on one slightly

Websites In Your Pocket

When do I use mobile sites?

- When I am at a live sports event. Half time at The Emirates I can get detailed stats about the game I am watching that I can’t get unless I go to see the TV’s and buy a pie or phone my dad. Brilliant!

- When I am not watching football and am stuck somewhere without Sky Sports News and want to know what’s going on in the premier league. I always use the BBC. Brilliant!

- I recently downloaded the Ladbrokes live betting application which gives me live odds on football and lets me bet using funds from the same account that I use on the Internet. Brilliant!

- When I at a train station and cant work out the timetable. Type in starting station, type in destination, get told when next train leaves. Brilliant!

- When I am waiting for a train and want to check the news I look at the BBC mobile site. Brilliant!

Even though I would not consider myself a heavy user of mobile websites when I do use them they are helpful and enabling services which I love using because the give me exactly what I want.

Where it all falls apart for me is the experience of moving between Networked and Mobile platforms. They are words apart and organized in a very bizarre fashion.

* If the experience of using my mobile device to access content like news and video was more cohesive and unified with the Internet then I would use it to access media more regularly and mobile for me would become as frequent a way to consume media and participate in the online community as the Internet allows me to do now.

The movement between on two platforms needs to become seamless, I should not need a new sign in name a new account or need to pay for the service. If it’s free it should be free everywhere if it’s paid for it should be paid for everywhere.

The two platforms are destined to come closer and closer and with advanced XHTML coding some sites will become much easier to mirror onto mobile through Opera mini and the like.

I also see mobiles carrying more widget based applications in future which grab certain element s of websites and port them onto mobile sites which provide users with more genuinely engaging experiences. Like those few which I currently enjoy.

- This is my first mobile post it’s thread I intend to think about more in the future. This is a kind of rough starting point as to where I think we are at the moment.

You can also send videos and pictures of news events directly to the BBC or ITV if you are near a major news event when it happens. It’s really easy to set up and is a really great way for users to actively engage themselves in citizen journalism.

The biggest motivation for users to take part in citizen journalism is perhaps that they can earn money from the clips they send in. Scoopt are ShoZu and looking to pay users for their efforts. Big Pictures are also bound to get on board with their ever unquenched thirst for celeb spot pics.

Systems like this will be pivotal in delivering the news in the future especially as camera phones become more developed with higher quality video cameras. Content providers will potentially have millions of citizen journalist in every corner of every country on the planet.

If news agencies and content providers can can leverage the potential of citizen journalism successfully tapping into this sort of technology then the possibilities to build large user groups who regularly submit content is massive especially if they have a monetary motivation.

Here is a video I uploaded directly from Nokia 6500 Classic to my YouTube account via ShoZu. Although this example is a bit dull it was done in no time and was really easy.

From my experience of ShoZu so far it’s going to make the process of being involved in citizen journalism and sharing content made on your mobile very easy which will no doubt get more people involved.