Irish Political News

Accessibility and Useability are two features which are necessary for a website in 2008 to be successful, but not sufficient on their own. Bendy Girl asked about the accessibility features of the designs I am looking at for the Wardman Wire: I like the light background too, I always find dark backgrounds difficult on the eye and [...]

Further to my previous post about the new front end design for the Wardman Wire, I've tried it with a "light" stylesheet rather than a "dark" one.

Here is a screenshot which also includes a "video" module, showing Tim Ireland's video in support of the Campaign for the Iraqi Interpreters.

Over the weekend I've been playing with a new alternative front end for the blog. It is designed to give a more "newsy" view than the "time-based" view of the traditional blog format, and to help make it easier to keep track of the amount of material that we are now publishing. The idea is that there will be a more "magazine" style page on www.mattwardman.com, and the existing design will stay on www.mattwardman.com/blog/. Here is a screenshot of the prototype

Smartclient ftp setup: "Cannot install as Smartclient ftp setup is currently in use."

Ha ha ha! Very funny - I don't think.

Good package if you can get it to install, though.

Iain Dale reports that a Group Blog has started from the House of Lords, which seems to be Clive Soley expanding his existing project sideways - admirable. This is from Clive Soley, Lord of I’ve forgotten where: In 2003 I started a blog as an MP. I regarded it as a success and it certainly attracted some interesting debates. It was important for me because it enabled me to talk direct to people without first finding a media outlet. I saw it as a meeting room without walls. There are problems for an elected representative however. The more successful your blog is the more time consuming " and time matters for MPs! You also have to decide whether to answer all the points or just those from constituents or just let the blog run itself with occasional inputs from the MP Over the last 12 months I have let my blog http://clivesoleymp.typepad.com/ drift into gentle decline with only occasional posts. But down in the Westminster forest something was stirring. I had talked to the Hansard Society and to the House of Lords Library and Information department. The result? A new Lordsoftheblog http://www.lordsoftheblog.net/ has emerged blinking into the daylight! The Hansard Society has been a good midwife! Nine Lords are participating and I think that number will grow. The idea is, in effect, a group blog. We all make (hopefully!) two posts a week and no doubt each Peer will decided how and when to respond to comments. I hope it will give people a greater insight into the working of the House of Lords and enable Peers to inform people of their views and their actions, their votes and their policy aims. MPs and Peers need to find new ways of engaging with the public. A blog is not the complete answer to the feeling of alienation from the political system that many feel today but it is part of the answer. In the 1950 trade unions and the church played a bigger role in informing people about their political rights and duties. That has gone and the conventional media has been unable to replace it. There is no shortage of opinion today " almost everyone with access to the internet can have their shout but Peers and MP are legislators and what they think and do is more than opinion " it is also news. So we now have one more way of telling people what we are doing and why. Hopefully it will also give the public a chance to talk to us more directly even if we cant promise to answer all their comments or to do everything they would like us to do. My thoughts The welcome: I wish it well. Like Paul Burgin, I hope it helps make the workings of Parliament better known. And the niggles: Like nearly everybody else they have put it on an international dot Net domain, (http://www.lordsoftheblog.net/) which guarantees that it will be harder to find for people searching on Google UK. Welcome to the political blogging ghetto, M’Luds. In their case, the House of Lords profile may help. A serious one. Why do establishment blogrolls all consist of the same “Great and the Good” boilerplate. Has no one any imagination or willingness to spend some time looking for interesting hidden blogs (no, I don’t necessarily mean this one - I mean interesting real life blogs). You have some leverage to help demolish the walls of the political blogging playpen - please use it to link to blogs that don’t get enough attention. Why not a rotating schedule of those not in the Iain Dale 500?) I like the Terms and Conditions clause 5: “Dont submit comments which are substantially material from another website, publication, news feed or blog.” Someone will have some fun with that.For a start, the T&Cs themselves appear to be substantially material from the Food Standards Agency, WorkJam, DirectGov or the Department for Communities and Local Government Webchats (among others), and I claim my ?5. OK, two of those are Hansard Society Websites -but even so! I wonder whether corporate consultants (as opposed to micro-consultants who are far better value when not being discriminated against by the tax system) charged a 4 figure sum to write those T&Cs originally. Wrapping-Up Anyway, I’ll be following Lords of the Blog to see how it goes. Tags: lords of the blog, nine lords a leaping, clive soley, Lord Soley, Lord Norton, Lord Tyler, Lord Lipsey, Lord Dholakia, Baroness D’Souza, Lord Teverson, Baroness Young of Hornsey, Baroness Murphy

It seems to me that Steve Job’s application of Ockham’s Razor will continue. The keyboard will be abolished and we will all have to communicate with our Macs in morse code using the single mouse button. Hmmm. Tags: steve jobs, ockham’s razor, mouse button, macintosh, mac

Today “Parliamentary Roundup Thursday” gains another report. In addition to Sadie’s “Westminster Watch” report, today Will Patterson - who writes the J Arthur MacNumpty blog and contributes to the Scottish Roundup - has done the first weekly roundup with news from the Holyrood Parliament. For now I’m calling the column “Holyrood Herald“, but we may come up with a better name (suggestions are welcome). Over the next several weeks a roundup from the Welsh Parliament (”Senedd Scan“?) will be added, and I’m working on similar roundups from Stormont and Brussels/Strasburg. The Roundup of the Papers will be out in the early evening today, and will be - shall we say - idiosyncratic. As a final note, I have added mobile websites to the Scottish Politics and Welsh Politics blog aggregators, and to the Comment from the Senedd Welsh Assembly AM Comment “blaggregator”. The links are, respectively, http://m.politics-scotland.co.uk/ http://m.politics-wales.co.uk/ http://m.senedd.me.uk/ These are experimental at this stage, so there may be some glitches - and I welcome comments. Tags: daily roundup, holyrood herald, will patterson, mobile phone political feeds, scotland, wales

If you visit http://m.mattwardman.com/ there is a version of the Wardman Wire formatted for mobile phone use. I’d be interested in your comments on whether it works on different devices - and how well. To create this version, I have used a service called Mowser that simply reprocesses your RSS feed. Tags: mobile feed, wardman wire mobile, mowser

Tom Watson has picked up on my proposed Guidelines for Civil Servants: Matt Wardman has a different take on the issue. Hes saying theres no need for any guidelines. For Matt, the civil service code will suffice. Id be interested to know if current blogging civil servants think that code provides the clarity you need to blog sensibly without fear that youre doing something wrong. I’m arguing for a strongly minimalist approach: 99.9% of Civil Servants are sensible and professional people of integrity. Civil Serf is an exception in not behaving professionally. Exception control for the 0.1% in this case should be by disciplinary action of the 0.1% under the Civil Service Code, not by creating guidelines for the 99.9%. Blogging guidelines are only an unnecessary result of a need to be seen to take dynamic action. A multiplication of guidelines like rabbits will only serve to generate more boundary quarrels, and waste more time in argument about whether the letter of the guidelines has been breached or not. And then there will have to be a review of the guidelines to identify the weak points. And a policy commission to evaluate the results. And then there will be even more guidelines. And they will have to be put under version control, and distributed to all the Intranets etc etc etc sod it go to 5 and continue in circles. In summary - Ockhams Razor just shredded the guidelines. Or the need for them. Just follow the Civil Service Code. And there is a further debate going on in the comments. Involving blogging Civil Servants themselves is an excellent - nay essential - idea. (more…) Previous in series

There are 7 ways I can think of to blog about your employer: Don’t Persuade them to let you. Be anonymous, but not anonymous enough. Ask, and risk a “no”. Be anonymous and notorious. Do it as part of your job. Employ yourself. In this article I describe each option, and my assessment of the pros and cons - where they occur. If you do blog about your employer, any option (except number one) should make your life more “interesting”, for a time at least. (more…) Previous in series Next in series

The site for the 18 Doughty Street online TV station is off the internet. I had expected the site to be preserved as an archive, but as the Feral Pigeonnotes: Am I the only one to notice that 18 Doughty Street has totally disappeared? Iain Dale told us it was going to get bigger and better. They even had a wordy statement on the website before it too went bye-bye. Where did it go? I was trying to find a show from last year that talked about Recess Monkey posting prematurely on the death of Margaret Thatcher, which later turned out to be a trick played on the editor of the left-wing blog. How can a TV station just disappear like that? I think it’s absolutely bonkers to let the site go off the air - the archive site that was left was doing a good job in preserving access to the output of an experiment that produced some quite significant material. To my thinking, the best material of all were the extended interviews with politicians, and some of the more idiosyncratic voices that had a real platform for the first time. Fortunately some of the archive is preserved, so I will post a daily video from the collection until I run out of material that I think will be of continued interest. They may be in popup windows, however, as I think the videos are wider than my blog template would permit. We’ll see. Tags: feralpigeons, 18 doughty street, mike rouse

It’s Sunday, it’s sunny and I’m at the computer typing because I’m grumpy. This morning the Grobserver has another “top bloggers” list - the most powerful 50 bloggers in the world. This one is as self-absorbed as all the others, being a (drum roll, hold breath, straighten shoulders, salute the Grobserver) list of (taran-tara): The world’s 50 most powerful blogs I hate this sort of list in the national media. The last one I looked at was the Evening Standard’s moronic “New Media London Top 50” list in October 2007. That included Tom Coates, Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie and Alex Hilton. They are all good bloggers, but the “well informed media people” who compiled it had missed out Pete Cashmore of Mashable who was no. 8 on Technorati at the Time. They may say: but we didn’t know, he’s geeky and we’d never heard of him. Precisely. Now you know why such lists should not be compiled by individuals of species homo-sapiens-sapiens genus metropoli-mediatartus. Some Features of a List of Top Blogs Quotes measurements as if they mean something, but instead just succeeds in looking ill-informed by using different measurements in different places. So what if “Page Views”, “Hits”, “Visitors”, “People”, “Unique Visitors” all sound different - it doesn’t matter, ya? Geographical blinkers, like some racehorses and George Bush. 16 of the 50 most powerful blogs by Brits or based here? I don’t think so. Quotes blogs that have usually previously appeared in the MSM (apart from the “author’s darlings” selection included). The Grobserver List While I’m being grumpy, I note that only one of the authors of this list appears to have a blog. Hmmm. (For the record, Anna Pickard. Hi Anna.) A few questionable inclusions Marbury is in - it is a 3 month old British commentary blog on the US Election. PoliticalBetting, perhaps Britains best political website with much US Election coverage, a specially organised night during one of the primaries, and 1 million page views a month, is not in. Nor are blogs such as the Daily Kos or dozens of other top US Political Blogs. The FWord is in. An excellent niche blog - but the world’s most powerful 50? Come on, boys and girls. Private and Secret Diary. It’s a one man Norfolk version of the Archers, which isn’t even in the Technorati top 50,000. Why? Bean Sprouts. Good blog, but technorati ranking of 27,000. 409 visitors a day (OK call it 800 as Sitemeter misses around half). 84 RSS subscribers. Most powerful 50 in the world - what are you on? These 4 shouldn’t feel got at if you find this list. All damn good blogs that are being misdescribed by the Grobserver (as are about 20 others). If you’d said “50 blogs which we find interesting” you’d have no problem - but why all this “world’s top 50 most powerful blogs” self-puffery? “Power Bloggers” List Recipe for people with Contacts Here’s my recipe for the next list. Keep the list down to 50 or so (don’t exhaust the meme). Take a few (say 20-25%) obviously top blogs (careful to leave a different equally good selection out for next time). Add in an eclectic selection from the Technorati Top 1000 (or top 50000+) - need to be able to do different lists for next year/next month/next week/this afternoon. Add a sprinking of niche blogs very few people have heard of but which the compilers think deserve to be influential. If it’s for the Grobserver, remember to spell at least one blog incorrectly to fit with editorial policy - for example “Peteite Anglaise“. Wrapping Up Next time please save the money, save the administration, save the hassle, and save me the stress. Four suggestions: Try (just once) my algorithm above. Don’t use such an idiotic headline. Give the byline to Max. Don’t mention hills in north London. OK. You can go out to play now. Tags: guardian, observer, grobserver, Jessica Aldred, Amanda Astell, Rafael Behr, Lauren Cochrane, John Hind, Anna Pickard, Laura Potter, Alice Wignall, Eva Wiseman

Looking at Mike Rouse’s new website mikerouse.net, and there - nestling in the bottom corner under “Contributions” - is Mike’s “Wardman Wire Column“, under the title “Not a Number“. The colour scheme will wake you up of a morning. You have been warned. Hmmm. I wonder if mentioning this site will help him get a job. Tags: mike rouse, wardman wire

Hopefully to everyone - since this article is to introduce a whole new set of political websites and RSS Feeds that I have been working on since before Christmas. I have also added them all as a toolbar to all the sites. The most significant additions are websites and RSS feeds for blogging members from: The Westminster Parliament The Welsh Assembly The Scottish Parliament The European Parliament As far as I am aware, these feeds are not available from elsewhere - at least with such memorable addresses (see below). Niche Blog Aggregators I’ve been developing niche aggregators since last year, and I’ve now added a toolbar to a number of sites above. I explained my ethos in full here. Briefly, I only use the Excerpt from each article and link directly to the sites concerned - to drive traffic to each blogger’s website rather than keep visitors on the aggregator, and build a combined RSS feed from each website. List of Websites Here’s the full list of websites included in the toolbar above. The Wardman Wire - Matt Wardman on Politics, News and Culture Poliblog Perspective - The Nuts and Bolts of Political Blogging Daily Roundup by Matt Wardman - Matt Wardmans Daily Roundup of News and Comment in the British Media English Political Comment Aggregated - Political Comment from English Bloggers Euro Political Comment Aggregated - Political Comment from Euro Bloggers Irish Political Comment Aggregated - Political Comment from Irish Bloggers Scottish Political Comment Aggregated - Political Comment from Scottish Bloggers Welsh Political Comment Aggregated - Political Comment from Welsh Bloggers Comment from Westminster MPs Aggregated - Comment from Westminster MPs Comment from Senedd AMs Aggregated - Comment from Senedd Ams Comment from Holyrood MSPs Aggregated - Comment from Holyrood MSPs Comment from Brussels MEPs Aggregated - Comment from Brussels MEPs Feed Addresses This is a full list of the 12 feed addresses. http://feeds.feedburner.com/mattwardman http://feeds.feedburner.com/poliblogperspective http://feeds.feedburner.com/dailyroundup http://feeds.feedburner.com/politics-england http://feeds.feedburner.com/politics-europe http://feeds.feedburner.com/politics-ireland http://feeds.feedburner.com/politics-scotland http://feeds.feedburner.com/politics-wales http://feeds.feedburner.com/uk-parliament http://feeds.feedburner.com/senedd http://feeds.feedburner.com/holyrood http://feeds.feedburner.com/europarl OPML File You can get it as an opml file here. This was exported from Feeddemon, so it should be compatible with most RSS readers. Put me in / Take me out Email “mattwardman [at] gmail [dot] com”, and I will consider adding you to the relevant aggregator. The only tricky one will be the English Aggregator, as there are a large number of English Political blogs. If you want your personal blog removed from any aggregator, then I will do so without question for private individuals. I will need more persuasion to remove Elected Officers, as I think inclusion is a matter of public interest; I also stuggle with the concept of any Member of Parliament wanting less publicity. I may also get slightly grumpy with anyone who calls a stream of weekly press releases a “blog” ! Wrapping Up If you know of any Members of Assemblies or Parliaments who I have missed, please drop me an email and I will add them. Please also do so with any bugs you discover. I have not developed a site for the Stormont Assembly, as I do not know of any members there who maintain blogs. There’s some tuning to do with these sites on content, but they should be quite stable. I hope they are useful - especially in saving some time for bloggers keeping up to date. Tags: matt wardman, blog aggregator, senedd, holyrood assembly, scotland, wales, england, house of commons, europe, brussels, ireland, politics, current affairs

When I started talking the Daily Roundup podcast, back in January I said: I have been running a short alpha trial across my sites and a number of blogs of friends and colleagues who are kindly helping to test the system - these are currently highlighted at the top of the page. It seems to work reasonably well, although it has been interesting figuring out a way to collect credible statistics. I see the alpha trial as continuing for another week or two. The trial has been running for around a month now, and I have done about 25 podcasts. The three key points are: It has taken me roughly 1 hr on a good day to prepare the roundup and podcast. This is too much time to spend every day for one person without making it a really major priority, but has a lot of potential. There is a good deal of advantage in doing both a written roundup and an audio podcast - perhaps as much as 25% on the total time. I am doing one more podcast for tomorrow with reflections, and I will be looking for a small number of collaborators to look at continuing to produce the podcast. If you may be interested, please drop me an email. I’ll be writing a more detailed set of comments as my Blog Platform column tomorrow. Tags: daily roundup podcast, daily podcast, daily paper roundup, matt wardman

Last week the Independent had a survey of a number of advertising agencies , and mentioned their slogans. I thought it would be interesting to see what bloggers think of them - we all come up with our own slogans (except the Wardman Wire, which doesn’t have one - yet). The agencies included are: We are fallon, JWT, DDB, Leo Burnett, M&C, SAATCHI, Saatchi & Saatchi, CHI & Partners, BBH, TBWA\London, Ogilvy, Group UK, rkcr y&r, Wieden + Kennedy, Euro RSCG London, WCRS. I’ve included the name of each agency, the slogan, and the paragraph of “blurb” they use to introduce their advertising services. The poll is at the bottom - who would you trust ? First the slogans and blurb to compare, then the poll. It is open until the end of February (i.e,. 11:30pm on the 29th). We are fallon Slogan: none They say: “We choose not to have a fixed positioning point. In an increasingly open media and creative environment, where more is possible every day, we feel that it doesn’t make sense to pre-pack what we do. What we do, and how we do it, is fundamentally bespoke and about building the confidence to do something different.” JWT Slogan: ‘Time is the new currency’ They say: “The power of brands can be measured in their ability to attract people’s time. Time is what’s most valuable to people all around the world, and the way they spend it is predictive of the way they spend their money. Our role is to ensure that more people spend more time with our clients’ brands, in the knowledge that their money will follow.” DDB Slogan: ‘Co-creation’ They say: “Co-creativity is a process that puts consumers at the heart of the solution. It’s agnostic about where the best idea comes from " online, branded content, advertising, an event " in fact, it is increasingly likely that it is through combining all of these and more that the most creative and influential ideas will be gained.” Leo Burnett Slogan: ‘Creating ideas and building brands that truly matter to people’ They say: “We help our clients to create well-loved brands that have a genuine role in people’s lives. Our approach is driven by the belief that creativity can profoundly affect human behaviour, and that marketing communications, at its most effective, is a two-way conversation between the brand and the individual.” M&C SAATCHI Slogan: ‘Brutal simplicity of thought’ They say: “The slogan comes from the idea that it’s easier to complicate than simplify. Simple messages enter the brain quicker and stay there longer, so brutal simplicity of thought is therefore a painful necessity.” Saatchi & Saatchi Slogan: ‘Nothing is impossible’ They say: “From the outset the Saatchi brothers broke the rules, challenged industry norms and created work that was groundbreaking in every respect. Brands are faced with the danger of becoming commodities that lack differentiation, but we believe that bold and infectious creativity can drive loyalty beyond reason for brands.” CHI & Partners Slogan: ‘Big ideas for ambitious brands’ They say: “The idea is to show that we offer more than just ads. We deliver big ideas that can be brought to life wherever the consumer comes into contact with the brand. These big ideas act as a platform for one strong advertising campaign after another.” BBH Slogan: ‘When the world zigs, zag’ They say: “Our first ad was a poster for Levi’s black denim: a flock of white sheep heading one way, with one black sheep going the other way. The message captures our approach to life.” TBWA\London Slogan: ‘The disruption agency’ They say: “All brands have ambitions to outpace the competition, but too many go through life copying their competitors. We aim to uncover the clichs, assumptions and conventional wisdom that hold a category back, then look for opportunities for brands to grow by disrupting those conventions.” Ogilvy Group UK Slogan: ‘To be most valued by those who most value brands’ They say: “The slogan was coined in 1993, but its roots go deeper, to David Ogilvy’s belief in the power of brands, as long as they stay relevant and continually refresh their appeal. Our view is that branding is a genuinely useful concept that helps good companies defeat bad ones, so the clients we most want are those who share this belief. We don’t apologise for this idealism, since the most successful brands tend to have longstanding ideals at their core, which can be dramatised in myriad ways over time.” rkcr y&r Slogan: ‘Brand energy’ They say: “We believe that only brands with the energy to constantly delight their audience with new ideas and innovations will survive, so we’re structured in a way that ensures creative energy flows as freely as possible. There are no departments, no gatekeepers between creative teams and clients, and minimal hierarchy.” Wieden + Kennedy Slogan: ‘Creating strong, provocative relationships between good companies and their customers’ They say: “We believe that great brands lead from the front. They provoke, inspire and change the cultural landscape. The most successful brands have fans, not customers, and the relationship between a brand and its fans is based on dialogue, not monologue.” Euro RSCG London Slogan: ‘Contagious ideas’ They say: “We live in a world where consumers can more judiciously edit what they consume, [and can] mould and reconfigure ideas relatively easily and be far more expressive to their friends, family and colleagues about what they like and don’t like. Contagious ideas live beyond the space in which they first appeared by creating word of mouth, word of keyboard or media interest.” WCRS Slogan: ‘A brand’s best friend’ They say: “Our slogan was based on a very simple belief; that if we could make a brand successful, then our own success would follow. It’s very focused on the client. Other agencies have a house style that they use for all their campaigns, but we believe every brand should have its own voice.” Who would you trust? On this evidence, who would you have to write your blog slogan? Which agency would you let write your Blog Slogan? We are fallon? JWT? DDB? Leo Burnett? M&C SAATCHI? Saatchi & Saatchi? CHI & Partners? BBH? TBWA\London Ogilvy Group UK? rkcr y&r? Wieden & Kennedy? Euro ESCG London? WCRS? View Results  Loading … Blog Slogans: An Exposition I have collected a number of blog slogans together - from blogs I have read recently, and from this week’s Britblog Roundup. What do you think? Meral’s Musings : Female, Liberal Democrat Councillor. Candidate for the Greater London Assembly, for North East London (Islington, Hackney & Waltham Forest) My take on current affairs and life. A Somewhat Old, But Capacious Handbag: Things I like, things I’ve made, and suchlike mental pocket lint. Stop! Honour Killings:International Campaign Against Honour Killings Northwest 6: News about West Hampstead for Ravenshaw, Broomsleigh, Glastonbury and Dornfell Streets Rolled-up Trousers: Osama Saeed putting a bit of stick about mind the gap: a Cardiff-based feminist network Diamond Geezer: life viewed from London E3 Unmitigated England: A Country Lost and a Country Found As a Dodo: The obituaries you’d like to see. Surreal Scoop: News of the world as it should be, perhaps before it happens. Stephen Pollard: Never Knowingly Understated Amused Cynicism: La libert consiste faire tout ce qui ne nuit pas autrui Small Differences…: …and not a little narcissism Between the Hammer and the Anvil: the inevitable result of asking a stupid question Mr Eugenides: Trying to hold back the rage Chicken Yoghurt: Chicken Yoghurt is the boulevard of broken dreams of Brighton-based writer, Justin McKeating. Iain Dale’s Diary: Politics, Gossip, Humour, Commentary Labourhome: Back to the Roots Conservative Home: No other slogan Liberal Democrat Voice: Our Place to Talk Bloggerheads: Welcome to the Hard Shell Cassilis: No other slogan Harry’s Place: Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear The F Word: contemporary UK Feminism Political Betting: No other slogan John Redwood’s Diary: incisive and topical campaigns and commentary on today’s issues and tomorrow’s problems Mike Ion: “Aspire not to have more but to be more.” Oscar Romero Wife in the North: Just how grim can it get up north? Very. One woman’s lonely journey into the Northern heartlands. Our Man in Newcastle: Back Home Again Pickled Politics: Current Affairs for a Progressive Generation UK Polling Report: No other slogan. Disgruntled Radical: Crumbs from the breakfast table of an unreconstructed Liberal Tygerland:occasionally acerbic, cultural and political comment ORDOVICIUS: blogito, ergo sum Blood & Treasure: A man of excellent naturall Parts; but very Sarcastick and the greatest Buffoon in the Nation A Pint of Unionist Lite: “Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang ourselves united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted!” Paul Smith’s Blog: The cosmos interpreted by some conscious matter of the cosmos. Cllr. Gavin Ayling: No separate slogan. What You Can Get Away With: No separate slogan. Phil Tayor: Ealing councillor sounds off revolts.co.uk: The definitive source for academic analysis of backbench behaviour in Britain. Your Friend in the North: advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you Jeremy Hargreaves: No separate slogan. Disgruntled Radical: Crumbs from the breakfast table of an unreconstructed Liberal Greenbanana PR: Connecting ideas, thoughts and comment because if youre green, youre growing Ellee Seymour: MCIPR, PRESS CONSULTANT, JOURNALIST, POLITICAL AND PR BLOGGER. ProActive PR The Poliblogs: The Ultimate Round-up of the Political Blogosphere Which is your favourite? Wrapping Up I’m not going to comment on agency websites, except to note that at least two say “under construction”, and that there are (to me as a web designer) a depressing quantity of “flash ‘n’ splash” pages in evidence. My top 4 slogans (for today) are - in no particular order: Harry’s Place: Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear. Your Friend in the North: Advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you. Between the Hammer and the Anvil: the inevitable result of asking a stupid question. Paul Smith’s Blog: The cosmos interpreted by some conscious matter of the cosmos. If you have a good suggestion for a blog slogan for the WW, drop it into the comments. Tags: advertising, public relations, advertising agencies, blog slogan, blog quip, We are fallon, jwt, ddb, leo burnett, m&c saatchi, saatchi and saatchi, chi and partners, bbh, tbwa, ogilvy group, rkcr y&r, wieden and kennedy, euro escg london, wcrs

The Spy Blog are reporting that Wikileaks (dead link at time of writing: Sun 17 Feb 8am GMT) has been partially closed down by a restraining order issued by court in California. From Wikipedia: Wikileaks is a website running on modified MediaWiki software which allows whistleblowers to anonymously release government and corporate documents, allegedly without possible retribution. It claims that postings are untraceable by anyone attempting to do so. It was launched in December 2006 and, as of November 2007, had contained over 1.2 million documents I have summarised the article from the Spy Blog below. The Key Points As I said above, Wikileaks publishes aims to publish documents anonymously for whistleblowers. This was the site which hosted the leaked UK National Identity Scheme document annotated by NO2ID. Guido published some points at the time.quotes at the time. That document is still available here. The domain WikiLeakS.org is no longer online, due to a Temporary Restraining Order issued by the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, aimed at a Domain Name Registrar, rather than just the actual publishers of controversial material, who happen to be outside of US legal jurisdiction. The plaintiffs in the California case are a Swiss Bank bank - Bank Julius Baer. There is a published list at the Wikileaks blog of around 30 alternative domains for accessing the Wiki Leaks service. This morning I checked and most of these links are still accessible. WikiLeakS.org have also had legal threats in the past from our friends at Schillings. Schillings are acting against WikiLeaks.org because of their publication of a prospectus to potential rescue investors of the Northern Rock plc bank scandal, something which is now obsolete, but was of interest to all UK taxpayers and investors. See the Censorship Threats from Lawyers category archive of blog postings on the WikiLeak.org blog, which comments on the technical, legal and ethical aspects of the WikiLeakS.org project. Read the article on Spy Blog for all the information. [Update 10:30am] My Thoughts One of Spy Blog’s comments looks at how threats to Internet infrastructure are a fruitful channel for those attempting to restrict Internet content: Even if such companies win in court, the expense of kegal advice is such that it could cost them far more money in legal fees, than they are getting from a cheap domain name registration or webhosting package, so they are tempted to cave in to such shyster demands for censorship. My preferred analogy would be threatening a library for including a book you don’t like. In the UK, infrastructure companies (such as Fasthost in the Usmanov case) face a potential business risk from losing the litigation, which outweighs the actual business benefit from the service they are supplying to the allegedly offending client. Therefore business logic leads to the closing down of the relationship with the client, and a loss of freedom of expression. This is what must change. To remain safe, you need to make sure that no stage of the “referral chain” to your website can be threatened, and that includes the Domain Name Server (DNS) as well as the webhost itself. Those wanting to be thoroughly pseudonymous need to apply exactly the same process, and even then it will not be perfect. Tags: wikileaks, spyblog, censorship, usmanov, schillings

[Update on the typo: Yes, I know it’s a typo, but I quite like it so I’m leaving it. Also, this “teaser” article is in about 4 different places, and I’m busy this morning.] I came across a comment on Problogger that is one of the best summaries I have seen of things you can do to make your blog “sticky” - i.e., helping visitors find other articles of interest, and encouraging them to stay. His tips are a balance of common sense, marketing nouse and a varied bag of tricks. This is a good approach whether you are attempting to put your views across to your reader, or encouraging them to stay and view more adverts. It is from Ross Hill, a student who runs an “Interview” blog called Hatchthat. Since I cannot improve it, I’ve quoted the comment directly over at Poliblog Perspective. Read it all. Tags: blog tips, make your blog sticky, sticky blog, keep readers, defogging blogging

I bet you all thought this was about Gordon Brown. Not so (on this occasion). Heh.I came across this “audio disclaimer” from Dave Slusher at the Evil Genius Chronicles. Dave was already making podcasts when I did my first few back around Christmas 2004, and I would call him an “old fashioned live-and-let-live techie”. This is an historical exhibit that encapsulates the time. Here he describes his attitude to his programme. Enjoy. Download audio file (20080122-evil-genius-chronicles-egc-disclaimer.mp3) Tags: dave slusher, evil genius chronicles, disclaimer, podcast culture, geek culture, geekery

I promised to post a few more detailed thoughts about the Daily Roundup was going. Why a roundup? My aims with doing a daily audio roundup are these: To experiment with internet audio programmes again - I was in on the early days of podcasting back in 2004. To provide a service in a niche that nobody else is currently addressing. I think that UK political blogs need to find some sources of revenue, in order to allow the time and resources to be put in to compete with the Mainstream Media bloggers who have come onto the scene in the last 18 months. I want to see if I can build enough of an audience to (eventually - probably very eventually) create a sponsored programme. The “magic number” for serious sponsorship is (apparently) 10,000 listeners - which looks frightening at first glance; we shall see. I am already experimenting with a written roundup article, which provides a readily available set of notes - so that I am able to use the material twice. Why a Daily Podcast? A short daily programme works on a quicker “heartbeat” than a weekly show. That - in itself - is a strong differentiating factor, as few (any?) UK podcasters have attempted to maintain a daily frequency. It is also possible to build (or find out that I can’t build) a reasonable audience in a shorter time. As a final point, that 10,000 listeners I mentioned above can be seen as a weekly or monthly figure - which looks a little bit more achievable if it is divided by 6 (for 6 shows in a week) or 25 (for 25 shows in a month). (more…)

No no no no no no NO !!! That is NOT how you do banner adverts. Good web design does not include the concept of “Grey Space” created by putting an offset 250 pixel high advert above your top frame, pushing your entire web page down and leaving the most natural point for the eyes to land as grey as one of Mr Major’s lounge suits. May I suggest you get a web designer, and put the responsible party in the stocks? Click on the image to see the whole road accident. Tags: daily telegraph, web design cockup, cool site of the day, ugly websites

Sunny has upgraded Pickled Politics: Wordpress upgrade by Sunny at 8:27 am Ive done a big upgrade of Wordpress and have had to wipe all the previous files for various reasons. So if something doesnt work properly, please list it below thanks! And the first thing that doesn’t work is …. the comments function to report problems. Oooops. On a more serious note, there’s something strange here - PP (like the WW) is on Dreamhost, and it’s usually a doddle to play around with Wordpress installs on there unless you have an off-the-wall setup). Tags: pickled politics, sunny, oops

I’m currently doing a little work with a couple of the columnists who have been coming on stream with the Wardman Wire in the current period, and I have started to create our editorial guidelines. I’m therefore thinking about a number of questions around the nature of group blogs, and the process has raised some interesting questions. At what point does a group blog become a web magazine? Traditionally, blogs are distinguished by the architectural or technical features, such as “articles arranged in reverse date order”, “accept comments and trackbacks”, “syndicate content via RSS feeds”, or even “can be registered on Technorati“. I wonder if - in fact - we need to answer this question in editorial, managerial or subject matter terms: Is a group blog distinguished from a web magazine by the freedom given to the contributors? What is the difference between a group blog, a collection of individual blogs or a manually edited blog aggregator? What makes a blog attractive to read? I’ve also thinking about writing style this morning, and the factors that make a blog “easily digestible” - so that it is possible to appreciate the essence of the argument without having to ignore too many annoyances. If a blogger has something interesting to say, and a thought process that is logical and worth time for engagement, then what are the qualities of the writing that make a blog “sticky”? I’m not ready to post my own detailed reflections yet, but I would welcome others’ input on this debate. My Own Writing Style The only person that I am aware has commented on my writing style on this blog is the famous Blogpower curmudgeon known as “Baht At” - who could probably also be described as “Bah Humbug”, given the … er … incisive style of his reviews. He commented “decently written” - which is probably all I would hope for. There are two resources that I have found useful and challenging: The first is the Economist style guide, which lives here. The other is a Tim Worstall comment: So you wanna be a writer? OK .. write ! Tags: group blog, editorial guidelines, webmagazine, what makes a blog, plain english  

The BBC provides an archive service, which lets visitors track changes in the bbc.co.uk Homepage retrospectively. The archives go back to May 2005. Here, for example is a screenshot of the Home Page as it was when the Cutty Sark fire was reported at 8.05am on the morning of 21st May 2007. The service enables you to navigate through the BBC site by time as well as topic - if, for example, you remember that “something was on the website before I went to work” on a particular day. This is the description of the service: The Home Archive is a new service, developed to produce a comprehensive library of how the BBC Homepage changes throughout each day. It was developed by Matthew Somerville (the BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites) and was an initiative begun on backstage.bbc.co.uk. Here, you are able to see the latest changes that have gone through on the Homepage, section by section. Also if you click on the ‘Time’ links on the left hand side of the main column you can see a ’snapshot’ of how the page appeared at that time. The archive goes back to July 14, 2005 and if you click on browse by date you can view how the Homepage changed throughout each day and also how it looked at a particular time. Not every change on the Homepage is recorded, however, for example, changes to the weather forecast. Everything else is tracked though, including when the page changes to breaking news or sport or when the main promotion slot changes to full page. The links: Homearchive Service Browse Homepages by Date A useful service. One caution: the archive updates run about a month behind the current date. Tags: matthew somerville, bbc homepage archive, bbc backstage blog