LBi London

Digital news faces its future

Posted by Michael Exon December 1st, 2011

Will news change after the UK phone hacking inquiry?

It’s sorry days for the British print press, currently under the scrutiny of the Leveson inquiry. The ongoing investigation into who knew what about phone hacking is hardly Fleet Street’s finest hour.

But when it wraps up this week, what follows will be just as eagerly watched by the new wave of news content creators – political bloggers, citizen journalists and online newspapers like Huffpost – as by the traditional newspaper press.

Can you regulate online news?

Any attempts to ‘regulate’ print media after Leveson will need to take account of digital and social news publishing, which are now mainstream practices by news organisations. But this raises big questions.

What about blogs from press contributors, or the personal blogs of journalists? Will these be put under scrutiny of a press watchdog? What about anonymous posts or tweets made from newspaper pundits while off duty? What about Wikileaks, Guido Fawkes, and sites that publish from overseas?

Newspaper editors have been out in droves over recent weeks to protest against calls for new regulation. They’ve been joined by grand old men like Washington Post ace Carl Bernstein and Nick Davies of The Guardian, the guy who broke the phone hacking story for the paper, who’s been called in front of Leveson this week.

Regulation of news providers, abhorrent as it may sound to press purists and freedom of speech devotees, poses some big workability questions. Regulation would require an all inclusive redefinition of exactly what is, and who makes news.

It is clearly impossible to regulate every online article, blog post and tweet published in the name of news, so presumably regulation will be confined to recognized print press institutions. But defining what falls in and out of the regulator’s scope for ‘news content’ could be harder than it looks.

Carl Bernstein sees digital future for news

The lines are blurring. Newspapers are using more streaming media, creating content that is closer and closer to what TV news providers broadcast (TV is regulated separately to print). Distinguishing news by its format is no longer a viable distinction.

Speaking recently at The Guardian’s phone hacking debate in London, Bernstein talked about the future of news. “It doesn’t belong to the old dinosaurs like us,” he said, motioning to the great and the good of the world’s newspapers, “this is the last slap of the dinosaur’s tail.”

What happens now?

Once the inquiry has heard more evidence this week from more big names like Alistair Campbell, Anne Diamond and Charlotte Church, it will pause to reach its verdict. For news  operations of every tilt, there is only one question.

After Leveson, what will tomorrow’s news look like?

See the Leveson inquiry witness list

Tags: Carl Bernstein, citizen journalism, content, content strategy, Fleet Street, Guido Fawkes, Huffington Post, LBi, Leveson Inquiry, online newspapers, phone hacking, political bloggers, social news, The Guardian, Wikileaks

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Raveality at LBi

Posted by Filip Johansson November 29th, 2011

LBi’s third annual Rave, held on Thursday 24th of November, was a party of truly legendary proportions for all in the digital industry.

With plenty of great DJs and live acts, plus some generous sprinkles of magic dust and unicorn-horns, party-goers danced all night to the theme of ‘Beyond Raveality’. Nearly 2000 people came through our doors during the course of the night to be a part of the organised chaos.

By 7PM there was already a huge queue of ravers weaving through Brick Lane. We heard of visitors coming from Europe and even as far afield as Dubai and Australia!

During the night the UK National B-Boy Champions ‘The Soul Mavericks’ performed for the crowd, bringing big whoops from the assembled party people. DJ acts like ‘Will & Joe’ and ‘The Filthy Dukes’ played amazing sets, while LBi’s resident DJs, backed up with go-go dancers, kept the party feverish.

If you weren’t there to experience it for yourself – or just don’t remember – check out our Facebook page for pics of thenight.

Along with the sick beats filling our Brick Lane space, one room kept people moving with some cool use of technology. Riaz Ahmed, a Microsoft Solution Architect at LBi, invited Rave sponsors Windows Phone to set up an interactive installation for ravers to immerse themselves in.

The Windows Phone team got in touch with James Alliban and Keiichi Matsuda who created CELL, an interactive installation that has been supported by Microsoft from the early stages. CELL explores concepts surrounding online identity. It acts as a virtual mirror, displaying persona’s constructed from keywords in place of our physical form. Using Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect to track visitors as they interact with the installation, CELL aims to draw attention to the concept of the digital aura, creating a bridge between virtual and physical space.

LBi would like to thank everyone for coming and making the 2011 Rave a proper ;piss up in a brewery;. It was a truly mind-blowing evening. We also would like give a huge thank you to oursponsors: Adconion, Adobe,incentivated, inoapps, Kozel, RightNow, and Windows Phone.

You are all fantastic!

Now all we need to do is to get rid of that smell of the beer from the basement, and figure out why there are unicorn footprints all over the building.

Tags: digital industry, LBi Rave, rave

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by Sinead Doyle November 28th, 2011

Holiday Travel Infographic

Foursquare has created an infographic showing holiday travel checkins in the US by plane, train, and car, covering a period from Halloween until just after Christmas in 2010. We would love to see how it compares to this year’s data!

Foursquare travel data

JCPenny Santa Tags

American retailer JCPenny’s is rolling out a holiday campaign that’s all about fun and bringing personalised gift tags to the next level with QR codes. The ‘Who’s Your Santa?’ campaign allows everyone who buys a Christmas gift to receive a unique QR code gift tag (or “Santa tag” as they are being called).

The QR code allows the person giving the gift to scan and record a personalised voice message for the recipient. Once recorded, the Santa gift tag can simply be attached to the present and the gift is ready to be delivered with a personal touch.

Stamped

If you like to make and receive recommendations from friends than this new app called Stamped is right up your street. The premise is that you give your stamp of approval on restaurants, books, movies, music and TV shows, and that you’re only recommending what you like best to people who care about your opinion.

Stamped integrates with Google Places and includes built-in functionality with OpenTable, Amazon, iTunes and Fandango. It works like most apps you’re already familiar with and the interface is intuitive with a stylish design.

There’s an impressive and interesting team behind this project and Stamped can also boast that it is the only NYC based consumer project funded by Google Ventures. The board of advisors includes Kevin Systrom, the CEO and founder of Instagram, and Mario Batali, renowned chef and founder of the Mario Batali Foundation.

At the moment Stamped is available on iPhone and iPod Touch. It will be released for other platforms later in the year.

Tags: app, foursquare, Google, JCPenney, QR code, santa tag, Social Media, stamped, thanksgiving, travel

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by Jamie Pither November 17th, 2011

‘Girls who like boys who like boys’ premieres on Twitter

The Sundance Channel is showing the first episode of its new series of ‘Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys’, on Twitter. It’s the first time that Twitter has been used to broadcast a major television show before its release. The broadcast will be accessible to watch via a TwitVid embed on Sundance’s Twitter profile on Friday 18^th November.

Over the last year real time Twitter chatter during television viewing has increased dramatically. This broadcast placement will harness the combination of Twitter as a realtime conversation and media platform, and is a major step in helping to shape how we’ll behave while watching things, in the future.

Starbucks Cup Magic

Starbucks have created a free augmented reality app as part of its festive activities in the run up to Christmas. The app called Starbucks Cup Magic conjures up five Christmas characters that appear in animation on your phone when placed in front of a range of Starbucks products.

Users are also given information on the latest seasonal Starbucks offers through the app and can also create a personalised Christmas card which can then be shared with friends and family via Facebook. Users who activate all 5 characters will be entered into a draw to win Starbucks prizes too!

Foursquare experts, check-in here

The location-based social networking platform Foursquare is now giving users the chance to conquer a series of levels for each one of the core 25 expert badges on offer.

• You now hit Level 1 for checking in five times to a place in a category, or three unique places.
• Level 2 is for five unique places.
• And from there, every level up is five more unique places, so you get rewarded for exploration!

The added levels will help users to identify who the experts of the Foursquare community are and will also help to inform the decisions that users make in the real world – great stuff Foursquare.

Tags: augmented reality, Badges, Broadcast, Cup Magic, foursquare, Level-up, Starbucks, Sundance, twitter

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