Michael Fabricant’s tweets: policy or playground? Many of my Twitter followers have today seen my passionate side as I exchanged tweets with Michael Fabricant over his use of the social networking site. He’s a little unfortunate in that he’s the only one of Lichfield’s four candidates to be active on Twitter. Labour candidate Steve Hyden is but hasn’t tweeted since February. That gives Mike a boost when it comes to engagement with constituents, which is great, but I have a bee in my bonnett. Like many voters, I think, I’m fed up of the playground politics that we often see. By that I mean politicians...

Spotify are digging their own grave by not going social There’s a phrase I picked up from somewhere a while ago and now use it quite a lot. It’s; No involvement, no commitment. The basic premise is that if you don’t feel involved in something then you’re less likely to be committed to it. Take work, for example. If you don’t feel as if you’re an integral part of the place you’re less likely to give two hoots about getting in on time, meeting deadlines etc. This basic idea seems to be behind so many things, including social media. For me, Facebook works because it makes it so easy for friends...

Do you work or achieve? I’m a thinker and most of my best thinking happens in the shower (must be the lather). This morning, after waking up early and spending a couple of hours catching up with some reading links I’d saved for later, I found myself in the shower at about 9:30am. That’s not uncommon on an average day for me. My friends often rib me about getting up late because I don’t have a ‘proper job’ which is fair enough, ’cause most of them are slaves to the 9-5 routine. However, I do often continue working well into the evening, often finishing around...

Video: Amateur photographer arrested & how we now have to arm ourselves against the Police via guardian.co.uk This video demonstrates how easy it is to be arrested for doing something that most people would consider a completely innocent activity; that of taking photographs in public. It especially resonates with me having been on outings for The Lichfield Blog where either I or semi-professional photographer, Nick Brickett have taken photos of public events much like the one Bob Patefield was photographing. He obviously has a good understanding of some of the powers the Police have. The most shocking to me were the statements he made as he was led away to the...

My comments on the POWER 2010 Pledge I’ve just signed up the POWER 2010 Pledge, having voted on the specific issues I feel are important to me. It is not a requirement that you agree with all of the 5 priorities voted for as the most important by the majority of those who have participated, but just that you agree with the majority. I do agree with the majority but I wanted to share the comments I added when I signed up to the Pledge. I support the POWER Pledge because it represents a true grassroots desire from the people of Britain to change politics in this country. It gives Government the opportunity...

Getting clever with digital advertising is they key to making online pay for local media… BookArmy – though it avoids saying so – is an offshoot of Harper Collins. The two enterprises point in completely different directions. As it was explained to me, the point of BookArmy is to get as many avid book readers engaged as possible and learn as much as possible about their likes and dislikes. At some point in the future (the theory goes) publishers will no longer need to spend a fortune on marketing Max Hastings’ next book by lavishing money on Waterstones or in print. They will go to BookArmy and say “We know you have a database of the 80,000 people...

Local media predictions for 2010 Hah, look at me giving my predictions for local media. What the hell do I know about local media?! Anyway, at news:rewired Heather Christie jumped on me (metaphorically, not physically – that would have been weird) and asked me my local media predicitons for 2010, along with panel-mates Sarah Hartley of Guardian Local and Joanna Geary of Times Online. The sound didn’t turn out well so I thought I’d post my predictions here for all to read. Hyperlocal will find it’s business model. That’s right, folks you heard it here… again, probably. If...

New hyperlocal Wordpress plugin: OpeningTimes.co.uk I received a tweet the other day from the wonderful Andy Mabbett. It read; http://opening-times.co.uk/ is very #hyperlocal oriented. They’re on Twitter: @opening_times / @willperrin @getgood (widget, @philipjohn ?) So I toddled over to the Opening Times web site and had a gander, found some XML there and thought to myself, Hmm that’ll only take five minutes. It took twenty but I created a very simple widget for Wordpress that displays search results for an area you specify. Here’s a screenshot: A screenshot of the opening times widget You can download it now...

OpenAustralia plugin for Wordpress I’m delighted that after my release last week of my TheyWorkForYou.com plugin for Wordpress, Henare Degan has created an adaptation which provides the same functionality but using OpenAustralia, an Australian version of TheyWorkForyou.com. You can download the plugin from Henare’s github, just click on “download” at the top and select “ZIP” then follow these instructions on how to install it. Hopefully as I build more features onto my TheyWorkForYou plugin, Henare and I can apply them to the OpenAustralia one too. Fantastic!

GroupsNearYou.com Wordpress plugin This is the last one this week, I promise. For Talk About Local I have just developed a Wordpress plugin using the GroupsNearYou.com site. The plugin creates a simple widget which shows the groups in your area, based on a postcode that you provide. I made a demo video and wrote instructions on how to set the plugin up which have been posted over on the Talk About Local blog, as well as instructions on installing the plugin. All that’s left to do now is download the plugin (ZIP).