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Free press: old media’s new conqueror?

By Marjorie Meyer

Guess what is the most widely read daily newspaper in France?  Le Monde?  Le Figaro?  Libération?

Guess again.

A recent survey proved that it is actually 20Minutes, a free daily paper that gets the Gold medal, with 2.4 million readers each day.  L’Equipe, a daily sports paper, with 2.3 million readers, gets the Silver medal, while the Bronze medal goes to Métro, another free daily paper.

Are the French just becoming stingy or is this a phenomenon happening in all countries?  Why is it that two free dailies have claimed places on our winners’ podium?

Maybe it’s because you just can’t get away from them.  The free press is invading our streets, metros and shops.  You can’t even pretend not to see them as they are usually hawked by distributors in the morning and evening at most stations.  Recently, Matin Plus even won the right to be distributed inside the metro as well as in the supermarket Monoprix in the Paris region.

I must say that I really dislike some of these free press titles even if I don’t have to pay to read them (the content tends to be more gossip than news).  But on the other hand, some titles are really well done, and offer interesting articles (for example: Sport, A Nous Paris, and Economie Matin).

I remember when the first free daily showed up in the editorial market, some people said that it would help boost the sales of traditional titles, with the argument that readers would pay to get more substantial information on subjects they were interested in.  However, for the most part this has proved to be nonsense, though special events such as the recent Presidential Election have been beneficial for the hard news magazines (a circulation increase of 11.2%).

On saying that, a similar argument is currently being made for the continuing relevance of traditional TV news ie. what’s its place in a world where people increasingly get their news online (or so it’s alleged)? The response is that broadcast news still sets the headline agenda because of its ubiquity, and that the internet is used for more in-depth research into stories of interest – which kind of parallels the argument above.

So, maybe the free press is to the newspaper world what TV news is to the internet, and that perhaps old and new media have more in common with each other than was previously suspected?  Or maybe the ease of access to the medium is becoming more important than the medium itself?

No hiding place online for dressed up pigs

By Eilidh Beaton

I feel sorry (not really) for shoddy retailers these days.  The internet, particularly since the advent of Web 2.0, has brought with it a plethora of online outlets for frustrated customers to air their grievances.  Whereas in days gone by, businesses simply had to worry about word of mouth gossip, now if they slip up, the whole world knows about it pretty fast.  Customers can blog about it, open a discussion about it on a forum, or warn friends about it on their Facebook homepage.

Not only this, but everybody’s a critic in the twenty first century – and more often than not, perspective punters will take the advice of Joe Bloggs in East Dulwich over an out-of-date review by a 'legitimate' critic.

And yet, too many companies still think they can get away with treating customers like ejits.  Take for example the bathroom myself and my fiancée bought from Bathroom World at this year’s Ideal Home Show.  We were wooed by the snazzy stand, slick customer service, and of course, the fabulous bathroom on display.  Everything seemed kosher, so we parted with our hard earned cash and went on our merry way. 

That was in April.  We finally received our bathroom in October, after three botched deliveries, and countless email and phone chases.  Throughout this tedious and frustrating process, we were fobbed off and treated like irritating pests that were making a fuss about nothing.  Clearly, Bathroom World had no internal communication, no centralised system, and crucially, no one who actually gave a damn.  The website is impressive, the showrooms are shiny, but scrape away the top layer, and the rest crumbles to dust. 

Virgin Media is another recent example of an organisation that’s gone down the style over substance route.  Customers want to believe in the hype, the personalised marketing messages and the funky brand.  However, talk to anyone who has actually signed on the dotted line, and they’ll tell you about the dodgy TV reception and broken down broadband.

One of the things I love about PR is when a client has a decent product or service and actually has something worthwhile to say about it.  But as a wise man once said, you can’t dress up a pig.  It’s about time that those companies who are all mouth and no trousers started placing more emphasis on quality and delivery, rather than just reeling in customers and hoping for the best. 

Technology Vs Button Moon

By Jacqui Depares

A new study examining the habits of primary school students has concluded that childhood innocence has well and truly been lost. 

Aside from the expected ‘wave of antisocial behaviour, materialism and the cult of celebrity’ inherent in the ‘yoof’ of today, kids are apparently feeling the effects of too much exposure to technology.  This, the report suggests, could be one of the reasons why some children are bad at communicating with people. 

Hmm, let’s get some perspective on this.

Technology has provided some incredible resources for children.  Access to a vast library of online information at our fingertips, the ability to connect with other children across the world, to name just two.  Yes, there are some very obvious downsides to technology - inappropriate content on the net being a major one - but surely these are outweighed by the plus points?

Or are they?  Cast your mind back to when you were a kid (that may be a challenge, but give it a shot).  At primary school, I only had access to a BBC computer (how retro) and that was only when I was eight.  Free time was all about playing in the park, going round to a friend’s house or catching a cheeky little episode of Button Moon… ahh, Button Moon.

But before I take a complete detour down memory lane, the point to be made here is that times have changed and society with it.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that my generation is better off than the children of today - it just means that the way we can now communicate is different. 

Human interaction should play a massive role in children’s day-to-day activities and is a vital part of their development.  However, the fact is that technology is now an integral part of everyday life and hence it's impossible for children not to use it.   

Excessive exposure to computers, the internet, video games etc can be at the cost of a social life with ‘personal’ interactions.  But as with all things, what is needed is a healthy balance between the two - with kids encouraged to embrace the online world of tomorrow, while not forgetting the very real world of today.

Just the facts and only the facts...

By Markus Eichelhardt

Media agency Universal McCann recently published the results of a global study that showed that Brits are the leading nation when it comes to the use of SMS.  According to this study, every single UK mobile phone user sends out an average of 100 texts per month. Well, congratulations!

Of course, I was certainly happy to further read that us Germans aren’t doing badly either.  Here, the average user’s score is 65 – with an upward trend.  However, the average American user only does 32.

Somewhere between the Brits and the Americans – could be worse, I thought.  But, while I love statistics as much as any German, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that these findings were meant to tell me something beyond just the raw facts.         

This strange feeling wouldn’t vanish until I remembered that I was once taught to esteem knowledge as a value in itself rather than to vulgarly interpret it in terms of national characteristics!

Refreshed by this insight, I decided to make a modest contribution to the happiness people might feel when they learn about the number of texts that whizz around the planet each year. 

So, here’s the rest of the numbers:

The worldwide amount of messages has an upward trend.  In Q1’07, it was 620 billion messages, which is an increase of 50% in comparison to Q1’06. Total revenue gained with mobile data increased 23% to $34.4 billion. 

But perhaps the most interesting finding is that Brits make greater use of their mobile phones to send texts than to actually make phone calls.  An average British user only makes 76 mobile phone calls per month.  In contrast, the Russians and the Greek do 137.  When it comes to the use of multimedia functions, Brits return to the top - 90% already used their mobile phone to take photos, 27% already downloaded video clips and 8% already took TV offerings – but at least 33% will do so in the future.

What does this say about our British cousins?  I’ll leave that interpretation up to you...!

Geeks to change from hard to soft?

By Laura Cooper

I meant to write this blog a week or so ago, but unfortunately my crazy and chaotic social life got in the way.  Of course, this is apparently not a problem for all you IT professionals out there, who have been accused by government-backed initiative ‘e-skills’ of lacking the necessary social skills needed to survive in business.

According to research carried out by e-skills, 30% of employers are having problems recruiting IT graduates with the necessary business skills and 40% say there is a lack of interpersonal skills, compared to only 3% who struggle to find the right technical skills.  The new scheme by e-skills will work with universities to create a new business-savvy course for IT geeks, which will also focus on the ‘softer’ skills as well.

I imagine classes such as ‘how to strengthen your handshake without damaging your mouse hand’ and ‘how to make small talk without using words like control, alt or delete’ will be on the agenda...

However, my favourite part of the article is the sentence ‘The socially backward computer nerds made fun of in the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd are the kind of workers who managers believe can stunt business growth’ – umm, somewhat of an understatement if you ask me, but surely there can’t be that many IT professionals out there as bad as this?  Can there..?

Should Facebook face up to its responsibilities?

By Shazia Mowlabaccus

New research from Nielsen/NetRatings shows that Facebook has overtaken MySpace in the UK in terms of unique visitors.  Hardly surprising, as it seems as if nearly everyone I know or have ever known is a member, regardless of their location or age.  Non-members are coming under increasing pressure to join as more and more people use the site to discuss and plan social events, nights out and generally socialise - the longer they leave it, the more they become socially excluded!

But as the world and their dog continues to join Facebook, it seems like a lot of people don’t realise the risks involved.  While Facebook’s privacy settings can be easily tailored, this is not clearly conveyed on the site.  As a result, users who do not change the default privacy settings on their profile can end up revealing large amounts of personal information, such as mobile numbers.  And networks, like the London network which boasts 1.2 million members, allow others access to members' profiles if these settings remain unamended... 

Facebook’s decision to allow limited user profiles to be available to search engines, prompted the head of privacy at Facebook to attempt to reassure the public and highlight the fact that 20% had changed their privacy settings.  But this leaves 80% of members who have not taken any steps to secure their personal details.  Not really that reassuring!

Users’ blasé attitudes to data security and identity theft in general have meant that this wealth of information is now being harvested in a number of dubious ways, and will no doubt continue to be used by fraudsters and con artists. 

However, legitimate organisations are also now taking advantage of this laissez-faire online culture to vet prospective employees.  And already, we’re hearing about how this can lead to companies jumping to unfair conclusions just because people join silly groups or post stupid or drunken photos/videos on their profiles.*  But the result of someone’s weekend really shouldn’t impact on how they are seen by potential employers. 

The wealth of information currently held by social networks and the massive growth of them raises concerns about their power and the erosion of privacy.  Not everyone is IT savvy or aware of the risks, and so I believe that social networking sites should be taking more responsibility and doing more to secure their members' information.

*Obviously I have none of the sort!