Friday 26 October 2007

Friday, friday

Nearly time for our next class - and I'm planning which assignments to hand out this term. There will be four, and my usual policy is to give them all in the second class, with a deadline at the end of term. This means that students can fit the specialism work around the rest of the course more easily, and also gives them an idea of what it's like to have a long lead time for a piece - the danger is always that you simply leave it until near the deadline and then have to rush.

Also wondering if everyone will have picked up on the news about Microsoft and Facebook, and whether anyone saw me talking about it on the BBC News at One :-)

10 comments:

seeker said...

Ok, so here opens the floodgate of assignments...i was hoping it'd be pleasantly beyond the second class...but alas, all hopes in vain!
Anyway, the good part is the assignments (and i hate that word) seemed interesting...so lets see where it goes when i actually get down to it.
About this Friday's class, and paying online for newspapers, I doubt whether personally I would do that actually. i am 'habituated' to reading print in paper (read dead trees, pigments, etc etc)! besides, i hate giving out my card no online...besides the fact that i hate plastic money anyway! But on a more serious note, and rightly as Bill pointed out, habits do change and I've learnt the hard way about 'never say never'. So maybe, one fine day you just might find me reading papers only online...but that day is yet to come...
And Google apparently has the lowest attrition rate in the media fraternity. but everything seems to be done through technology...i wonder where and who these people are who never quit their jobs at Google...are there any people at all??!!!
PS: Bill, PLEASE, could you mark me a copy of the mails that you sent out last week...i haven't got a single one...n hopefully not missed out on something significant...just wanted to keep abreast...:)aindrilamitra@gmail.com...google seems to be more dependable that city!!

Ahmet Gormez said...

I'd never pay for a newspaper web-site because I know I'll always find some free. So why should I pay?

I can see that you can pay for an SMS but you don't want to pay for Guardian... That's right, because you don't pay online for an SMS... There are a lot of people who has fears for paying online with a credit/debit card (including me). So I see as the 2nd problem for paying for the website of a paper

Bill said...

Ahmet has a good point - one of the issues facing online news is the lack of effective payment mechanisms especially for small amounts of money, and concern over credit card security is definitely a barrier.

Audrey said...

The "payment for on-line content" debate continues. I emailed a random selection of friends and colleagues and of the fifteen or so who responded, only two said they pay for on-line content.

One is an Irish friend living in the UK and the other is an uncle living in the US. Both pay 30 euro to access The Irish Times online for the year. (This is a reduction of almost 50% on the previous annual fee).

I assume that Irish people are more willing to pay for online newspapers than their UK counter-parts because the state broadcaster RTE has a woeful news website. Its very different to the UK, where the BBC's website is often the first port of call for news updates.

The survey elicited some interesting information from a friend who works at a social networking site but more of that later....

Xpress said...

At the moment it's true that giving out your credit card info on the net is not very "safe", but there are alternative options. One such option is going through paypal, owned by ebay, which is very trusted and you only enter your info once with them. Then you can buy somthing online with paypal and you don't have to give out your credit card details to the particular site. But paypal is not a method of payment that is used everywhere, unlike most credit cards. But things are changing!

Moses said...

I didn't know that was what paypal was! i always refuse it because i thought it was a way of storing your number online to the site/company. another payment problem i have is that I always use my credit rather than debit card to pay for things on the net. This just means that I have an alarmingly high credit card bill each month! Which brings me onto the fact that when you pay for things online, it seems like it's toy money. Take itunes, how many times do you just download a few albums at once and don't take a second look at the price? I find it's a way of leaking money.

seeker said...

Ok, so last Friday's class was actually quite futuristic I must admit. The death of TV and I just bought myself a TV set last week...so much for that! Anyway, the thing is what Bill said I think is very true...the day is not far off when convergence will become the buzz word, in fact it already is on its way. Can you imagine a world without a comp, a mobile ph etc etc etc...I can't. And I could very well do that a decade back. So, i guess, anything is possible. What's left to be seen is how the broadcast news channel deal with this challenge. What should be their strategy? Go online completely...become the web giant...I guess its for the future to tell...

Audrey said...

Having worked in a film distribution company for a while I saw first hand the different ways films were being made available to the public.

Suddenly broadcasters such as Channel 4 and ITV were fighting over Pay Per View rights, Subscription Video on Demand, Near Video on Demand. While most of this was film related viewing I have no doubt that similar parallels exist in the world of television.

Its a reflection of our busy lives and our desire to take more control: being able to watch what you want, when you want, where you want.

seeker said...

I really enjoyed yesterday's class...it was an open discussion and in the process so many new perspectives came out. Honestly, I really do not know what the future of citizen journalism or user-generated content is, but it definitely seems to be the buzz these days. And like Bill mentioned, it's just a matter of a 'big mistake' or scandal that will decide the future of user generated content. My concern really is that whether or not media institutes giving undue importance to citizen journalism? was journalism not good enough when it was restricted to journalism professionals? And whether or not people would actually be so interested in user generated content if media organisations don't endorse them? What has really brought about this revolution? What makes citizen journalism programmes get prime-time slots? Is it because the idea is just novel, or does it really give something over and above normal journalists' purview?

Pandora said...

I would pay for the use of a site but only if I were able to have a free 14 day trial before committing. I am atonished by the number of worldwide newspaper related sites that expect you to sign up without knowing what you are signing up to - I would never buy a new pair of shoes without trying them on first. For the sites that do this, the advantages would be that even if the user does not end up subscribing they will have been able to gain valuable marketing information.