Media Factory in UCLan

UCLan’s digital media and journalism is very famous in the UK, and there are many students who come here for studying digital media and journalism. And there are many experts come to UCLan to give lectures. Media Factory was built in 2008, has now become a base for multimedia and factory.

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A research UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking

JP Digital Digest: UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking: "research"

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UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking

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JP Digital Digest: Thinking about paywalls? Read this first...

JP Digital Digest: Thinking about paywalls? Read this first...

This is a really article, I got some ideas from it. Steve Outing talked about paywall, and he gave some tips for paywall, and he thought paywall will only work in certain markets.

Here is some tips for protecting newspaper:

1. Offer paid subscriptions to the newspaper that also include free access to a digital-replica edition.

2. Offer paid digital-replica edition subscriptions that mimic the paper in electronic form, for those second-home owners in the area and others who want to keep up with...news and developments and prefer not to receive the print edition by mail when the news is several days old.

3. Continue to keep all your Web site content -- including locally produced news -- free to all. And yes, that includes print subscribers who might be tempted to save money, cancel the print edition, and rely on the free Web site.

4. Have your Web manager focus on better ad targeting, in order to identify out-of-area users as potential tourists interested in hotels, camping, excursions, etc. and show them relevant ads.

5. Most importantly, devise other reasons for paying print and/or digital subscribers to keep paying -- primarily by value-added online, digital, mobile and even physical extras not available to non-paying users of the Web site.

Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Digital skill survey results

I made in survey around the university about digital skills (survey form see Appendix). It called ‘Survey for Digital Skills, including thirteen normal digital skills, and two questions for each skill. I asked students which skills do you think are essential and hard to grasp. This was a basic survey, because this can be seen what important and difficult digital skills are for students in the basic technology.

I made a total of 40 questionnaires in March 22nd to 24th. From the survey I found:

1. Male thinks digital skills are more important then female, and 90% of men think that the majority of computer skills are very necessary.

2. With the increasing of blog, more people think and blog-related skills are become more important.

3. Mobile technology proportion also increased.

4. People tend to think that life is not a necessity for difficult skills, and general skills will be able to meet the needs in daily life.

5. The proportion of digital skills in Essential part (total 100%).

HTML: 10.5%; Blogging: 20.4%; Publishing: 18.7%; Advanced linking: 13.4%; Mobile skills: 6.9%; Others: 8.6%

6. The mark of digital skills in Hard Part (100 for each).

HTML: 62; Web design: 80; SEO: 67; Video-shoting: 52; Video-editing:70; Photoshop: 74; Flash:78; Others:20

Should we put paywall to mobile?

Google and Twitter (Wray, online, 2009)responded for the argument. They though the charge online could not work in this digital media era. As a website of searching and sharing, the Google and Twitter will not work as the “free” time, and they referred to the power of sharing. But, if someone bought an article on The Times, and he may sharing on the Facebook or Twitter, so that the Murdoch can get money form other readers.

The social bookmarking and blogs are the biggest challenge for charging online content. A Research reported that 90% consumers won't pay for online news, and 86% of the 16-24 age claimed they never to pay online (online, 2009).

Moreover, The Guardian said that they have no new paywall, and they will not join the Murdoch’ charging online (online, 2009). It means that reader will read on the free online news not on the charge online news, and Murdoch will lose readership and advertising.

The media company could consider about the mobile charging. Like the FT, FT as new apps to IPhone, there are three articles are free, and other article are paid for, but the FT still get loyal customers (online, 2009).

A survey showed that IPhone users are happier to pay for online (Wray, online, 2009), and China mobile gained 10 million customers for mobile news (online, 2009). It means that the market of mobile user is a place the charging online should be work.

Picture via Wikimedia Commons