Editorial Intelligence - a quick run down of services and alternatives

From the desk of admin ·May 13, 2008 at 7:02 pm · Filed under All WW, Internet / Technical, Media, Political Blogging

Yesterday I had a look at Monitoring the Commentariat for free. Iain Dale has translated that as:

“Matt Wardman thinks he can put Editorial Intelligence out of business.”

Now there’s another challenge. In the spirit of enquiry and to encourage enterprise (!) I thought I’d do a quick minute rundown of Editorial Intelligence’s services and a few of their potential free competitors.

I’m hoping to return to this subject, but I’m not making a promise.

e.i. Daily Summaries and Digest

Summaries

A summary of all the arguments and opinion published each day in the UK in print and on blogs to bring our clients – by 9 am each weekday.

10 categories:

* All Comment summarised
* Business & Finance
* Environment
* Human Rights, Law, Justice
* Education
* Health, Family & Welfare
* UK & International Politics
* Security & Defence
* Culture, Media & Sport
* Science and Technology

Topic/Keyword searches, updates and feeds can be set up on many services, or via your own RSS reader. If you must have a Daily Summary by email, you can set up as many automatic emails as you like by using services such as those offered by Feedburner.

Digest

Daily Digest is your short cut to knowing the leading comment arguments of the day, in print and on blogs.

It seems to me that politicshome.com cover a lot of this, in a human edited form.

e.i. Commentariat Database

Profiles of the UK’s key print and blog commentators by sourcing their published work and compiling detailed records of publicly available information about their publishing, broadcasting and speaking histories and websites, blogs, agents and publication deadlines.

Wikipedia pages compiled by the wisdom of crowds, profiles on newspaper pages, many commentators have their own websites now.

e.i. Insight Club Networking

Monthly forums for invited guests on a wide range of pressing social and political topics of the day in association with leading partners.

In London especially there are a lot of events of interest to commentators - from seminars at professional societies and the RSA to events at the Frontline Club and public lectures organised by think tanks.

All of these events are published freely as podcasts.

e.i. Training and Workshops

Workshops exploring the role the ‘Commentariat’ play in shaping public opinion and public policy.

As a service dependent on the experience of individuals, this is quite robust to unpaid competition.

e.i. Stakeholder Bulls-ei

Identifying which individuals to contact – not just among the media but amongst other key stakeholder groups, such as within politics and academia and public life.

As a service dependent on the relationships of individuals, this is quite robust to unpaid competition.

e.i Topic Tracker Reports

Track any topic, any keywords and provide actual analysis of how often and how a subject has been commented or, plus contextual political analysis about how the comment has been accompanied by activity in parliament, think tanks, key universities and other stakeholder groups.

Let me quote from my previous article:

The Internet is stuffed with automatic tools to help you get to grips with the flow of comment, including aggregators, specialised search engines (www.technorati.com, Google news and blog search), and services to try and judge what is important (www.technorati.com again, www.wikio.com).

Have a look at some of the options I have put on commentariat.org.uk.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Who, exactly, is the more out of touch here? Politics Decoded with Garbo

From the desk of garbo ·May 13, 2008 at 11:04 am · Filed under Columns, Politics Decoded

This wouldn’t have happened under Blair

Who’s ever idea it was to campaign in Crewe and Nantwich dressed up as “toffs” in tailcoats and top hats should immediately be sacked by the Labour party. Given that this is such a crucial campaign in fact, I am surprised that Brown has not intervened himself… then again I think the cross party consensus is that he should be sacked anyway. You can be sure this would not have happened under Blair.

Focus on the issues

Whoever the dimwit was who came up with idea clearly is so out of touch with reality that they shouldn’t be in charge of their own sleeping arrangements let alone the government’s local election campaign. What are the big issues at the moment? The 10p tax rate has peed off a few people, the credit crunch, the Northern Rock crisis, 42 day detention, incompetent leadership of government, the list goes on. So what are these puerile goons doing? Dressing up as a bunch of pratts acting like a bunch of pratts.

Crass and Childish

Do they not realise that people are seeing see Labour party officials acting in a crass and childish manner, not Tories. They don’t think – “Ahhh, you know what? The government may have cocked up just about every major decision in the past six months and are now acting like a bunch of buffoons, but at least they aren’t toffs”. No. They think, you guys have had one too many chances and the best you can do is make a cheap and irrelevant joke about the opposition?

It is Labour who is out of touch with the masses, not the so called toffs

Did these people not see Boris steal the Mayoral election from Livingstone, who had it in the bag until he started to call Boris names and embark on similar tactics? Worry about your own campaign, it is in need of much concern after all. The fact is people see politicians as a class above us the rest of us anyway regardless of party affiliation. The days of working class heroes running the Labour party elite are gone. Right now it is the 10p tax abolishing, out of touch Labour party who have really upset the working classes, not David Cameron. Do they not see the irony here? Far from the so called toffs being the problem for the working classes, it is the decisions of the government in the past few months that have hit them hardest.

Pathetic

The real problem for Labour is that while Dave is an old Etonian of vast privilege and wealth he is still seen as far more in touch with the electorate than anything the Labour party has to offer right now. Puerile, unimaginative, name calling campaigns that do not address the concerns of the electorate is the best this government has to offer? Pathetic.

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Blogging: Collaboration and Creation. Cartoon by Gaping Void

From the desk of admin ·May 13, 2008 at 10:30 am · Filed under All WW, Cartoon, Daily, Humour

Cartoon: Gaping Void

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How to Monitor the Commentariat for Free

From the desk of admin ·May 12, 2008 at 6:11 pm · Filed under All WW, Comment, Media, News - Current Affairs, Online Media, Political Blogging

Yesterday I said in passing that I thought that it may now be possible to deliver relatively easily much of the value added by subscription services designed to help organisations “get to grips” with the published commentary - based on the insight that the supply of news and comment is no longer an expensive commodity. I have had a go myself today, and this article is to introduce the results.

I said (in the context of Editorial Intelligence’s “Power of the Commentariat” Report):

Editorial Intelligence’s service was quoted as an example of a site helping people get to grips with online comment. I disagree - it is expensively paid for and therefore helps maintain an “in-crowd”.

I’m wondering if the Editorial Intelligence Model is now way past it’s sell by date - given that summaries of most of the stuff written by commentators and columnists is now syndicated via RSS. I wonder whether MySociety could build us something better for the whole world - not just those who can afford the subscriptions - to use if someone gave them £5k and a month.

Once I saw this morning that the domain commentariat.org.uk was available, I couldn’t resist having a go at a couple of aspects of this opportunity myself - just to see what could be done in a few hours.

At the moment I am providing these facilities:

• The brief summaries of each article or story made available for syndication on other sites.
• Search across all these summaries.
• Categorisation by author, feed and media organisation.
• Direct links to the original stories.
• A tag cloud.
• Archives navigable by date.
• Regular updates.

This is based on a sample of around 30 RSS feeds, and is therefore a strictly limited trial. A more comprehensive service would need to monitor perhaps 400-500 feeds and would take some investment (perhaps £100 a year on a better hosting service than I use at present).

The site is not intended to be a discussion site - in accordance with the Code of Practice I published last summer, it is better thought of as a combined “contents list” and “index” which exists to help visitors find out what has been published, and then to drive traffic to the original articles.

I’m not sure where this is going (there are dozens of other things that can be done quite easily), but I would welcome any comments you might have.

Later on I will publish an article looking at the possibilities for “alternatives” to other expensive services offered by “editorial guidance” companies.

Go and visit “Commentariat: Dispatches from the Glass Bubble“.

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Blogging: Get some Organised Chaos: Cartoon by Gaping Void

From the desk of admin ·May 12, 2008 at 10:43 am · Filed under All WW, Cartoon, Daily, Humour

Cartoon: Gaping Void

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The Power of the Commentariat. Or Perhaps Not: Blog Platform

From the desk of MattWardman ·May 11, 2008 at 8:31 pm · Filed under All WW, Audio, Blog Platform, Columns, Internet / Technical, Media, News - Current Affairs, Online Media, Political Blogging, Review, Uncategorized

A couple of days ago I drew your attention to a seminar to launch a report by Editorial Intelligence called “The Power of the Commentariat”. Or rather, they have launched half of it and expect the public to buy the rest from Amazon.

It’s an interesting document and I’d like to do a review of the whole thing. I have asked Editorial Intelligence for a review copy of the whole document. If one is not forthcoming, I shall review the half of the report that they have seen fit to release.

Listening to the podcast of the seminar, there are a number of moments of “Don Quixote” incongruity. However, if you want to skip the fun, and just hear what I think - then go to the next section.

The Emperor with no clothes gives advice on dress sense

Golly, Polly!

Polly Toynbee whinged complained about bloggers launching “vituperative” and “personal” attacks on her. Perhaps she thought noone had read her vituperative and personal attacks on numerous targets.

Has anyone read Polly on Boris these last few weeks, or Polly on the Archishop of Canterbury six months ago, or on any number of different people at different times?

That’s why she’s such good value for bloggers. If she didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her.

Charles “how dare you intrude into my private life” Clarke

Charles Clarke complaining about doorstepping by journalists.

This is a politician in a cabinet which passed all manner of unnecessary restrictions on liberty from the right to demonstrate, through DNA profiling of the innocent with no effective redress, via compliance with Extraordinary Rendition, to an Extradition Treaty allowing British Citizens to be yanked out of their daily lives by foreign judges to face trial in the United States on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

Forgive me, Mr Clarke, if my sympathy for you is limited.

Again, Charles Clarke on the unfairness of anonymously expressed views

Charles Clarke complaining about anyone putting forward a viewpoint anonymously.

Er, sorry, Mr Clarke - but I thought that anonymous briefings (and bullying) were used relentlessly by the New Labour administration (of which you were a key part) as a tool for media manipulation.

What do they think of bloggers?

Quite a lot of ill-informed nonsense, but some people “Get it” (Danny Finkelstein and others) or nearly get it (Julia Hobsbawm among them).

Bloggers are dreadful horrible nasty vindictive followers of Guido Fawkes

Columnists are specifically described as being of “different types”, but bloggers are apparently all the same and we are all “followers” of Guido Fawkes (wonder what Professor Norm, Tim Ireland, Natalie and The F-Word would say about that).

And, regardless of the vitriol poured on him, Guido has done some superb work - my favourite is the the exposure of Peter Hain’s attempt to drive a double decker bendybus through the rules and principles supposed to govern elections in his own party.

He had also entertained us from time to time by getting the things hilariously wrong from time to time (one word: Newsnight).

Bloggers are all the same

A very, very funny comment.

Anybody who says that has not mastered their brief to comment on bloggers. It has a “whole class of Japanese students out on bicycles in Cambridge for the first time going the wrong way round a traffic island, knowing they are wrong but being too scared to go back” feel about it (ack. Bishop of Maidstone). I’d suggest working harder and getting out more.

Bloggers are Masculine

This was a statement from Julia Hobsbawm in the closing conversation. Certainly most are, but there is no male monopoly - even in politics.

My thoughts?

The Commentariat (as represented in this podcast) seem to be having a few problems getting to grips with the blogging medium - in particular coping with the diversity.

How can they cope with the plethora of blogs? Have they “got to read” all of this? (yes you do - at least enough of it enough times to develop a familiarity sufficient to make a sensible judgement).

The Internet is stuffed with automatic tools to help you get to grips with the flow of comment, including aggregators, specialised search engines (www.technorati.com, Google news and blog search), and services to try and judge what is important (www.technorati.com again, www.wikio.com).

The UK Political Blogosphere is also heavily summarised if you know where to look. How many columnists heave heard of the Britblog Roundup, the Scottish Roundup, the Welsh Blog Index, Cassilis’s roundup of think tanks, and the numerous other “signposts” that are published every week? Hopefully at least some know about these various “roundups”.

If they aren’t familiar with these tools then - again - it’s a matter of getting out more and working at it a bit. That’s not exactly difficult.

And I haven’t even mentioned RSS and RSS Readers (Google Reader, Feed Demon to name one online and one offline reader).

Even Danny Finkelstein - who writes a fantastic blog at Comment Central - quoted the “Cover it Live” chatroom service (btw, Danny, it IS moderated) as potentially useful. The fact is that chatrooms have existed for years and years and years; when I was diagnosed with Diabetes a regular chatroom meetup was one way I learnt to cope - that was in 2001, and they were old then. The problem here is mainly that there has been too much conservatism to use them appropriately. There are dozens of tools out there - sites just need the minimal knowledge to use them and the willingness to take a slight risk as to what will happen.

if I was a struggling columnist floundering in a sea of blog comment, I would make a point of taking Jemima Kiss or Chris Vallance (or me!) out for a long, expensive lunch to quiz them on how to read blogs the easy way.

Wrapping Up

Guido and Iain have commented on the Power of the Commentariat “do”.

And Guido is making a feature of holding columnists to account. A good idea, but it needs more than just him.

Iain has commented more sympathetically on the report itself.

In the meantime you can listen to the podcast here, and download half the report here.

Editorial Intelligence’s service was quoted as an example of a site helping people get to grips with online comment. I disagree - it is expensively paid for and therefore helps maintain an “in-crowd”.

I’m wondering if the Editorial Intelligence Model is now way past it’s sell by date - given that summaries of most of the stuff written by commentators and columnists is now syndicated via RSS. I wonder whether MySociety could build us something better for the whole world - not just those who can afford the subscriptions - to use if someone gave them £5k and a month.

The thing that the Commentariat actually need to do is to shatter their “bubble on a pedestal” from the inside before it gets shattered for them from the outside.

I’ll follow this article with a review of the full report, or half the report - depending on what is made available to me.

You can get the first half at the link above, and the second half of The Power of the Commentariat for a charge of £20.

And a slight apology - I have not linked absolutely everything in this article as I am away from home.

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Are you a Born Optimist? Cartoon by Gaping Void

From the desk of admin ·May 11, 2008 at 8:30 am · Filed under All WW, Cartoon, Daily, Humour

Cartoon: Gaping Void

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