I know they’ve become quite the retro-cliché, but Public Information Films are a fine example of Government agencies passing information directly to the public – without spending an awful lot of time and effort second guessing the media. And I’ve just found an archive online — that you can watch, download, and use (subject to normal Crown Copyright rules).

Some might contend that they’re only remembered due to the limited options we had on TV then, much as people will claim of ‘Morecambe and Wise’ “anyone could have got 20M viewers, there wasn’t anything else on”. But unsuccessful TV programmes didn’t get 20M viewers even in the 60s (in fact Eric and Ernie’s dreadful first series was watched by a tiny amount of people, despite there only being 2 channels). The best of the PIFs are remembered fondly because they were well made and got their message across — and that’s something that can be done with social media tools today.

It’s interesting that they get shorter and shorter (generally) from 33mins(!) to snappier advert style as the years go on, the makers having learnt from the commercial sector. In the same way organisations now can look to the big YouTube hits and other social objects (Lolcats for example) and use some of the best techniques.

If you remember ‘Clunk-Click‘, ‘SPLINK‘ there’s a good chance you’ll have taken on the message too.

Here’s my particular favourite, Tufty the Road Safety Squirrel (I even own the LP):


[Link]

Launched today in the West Midlands, MyNeighbourhood.info is a official version of those map mash-ups of crime statistics that have been produced for some time now. The interface isn’t the most intuitive (in fact I’d call it downright unfriendly), and the mapping window is tiny:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

It’s also difficult to see the use of the site as it stands is. Interesting the data might be, but in its flat form it doesn’t “do” much.

Freeing the data to my compared and overlaid with other types of information (more than the “bus stops and police stations” that can be toggled here) would produce so much more — imagine house prices, cctv density, education standards, regenerations spends and other info combined. What truths would we be able to see?

Nice start, many more possibilites.

Using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) link

Lloyd Davis on why PR people have to think differently when dealing with bloggers - “I’m not thinking “I wonder what to write by the end of today to fill that page?” I’m thinking “How can I find enough time to write about all the things I’m excited about”" [link]

At WordCampUK over the weekend I found myself increasingly thinking about the moral questions that relate to how we behave on the internet. Not the same questions about whether we’re nice to each other, or lie or steal, that’s just a virtual version of the real world — more just how far you’re willing to push your idea/content/site on other people.

I’ve already decided that, to me, crossposting is a moral dilemma, it’s up to you to decide how much you’re willing to “shout” — if you’re willing to send links your blog posts out via twitter, jakiu, Facebook status update etc. then they’d better be really good, or people will start to get annoyed. I like to give the choice about which stuff I produce that they see, so as well as keeping different subject areas separate, I don’t push anything automatically at people. There are RSS feeds avaliable, they’re clearly labled, you can chose to subscribe (or come to the sites) or not — it’s up to you.

During an interesting talk on WordPress and SEO, I found my mind wandering from the subject of how to optimise your WordPress installation so people can find your content by searching for it (a good thing of course) to whether the “deliberate” search engine optimisation being explained is something I’m comfortable with at all.

While I’m all for tagging, indexing correctly, logical naming, and easily navigable structure, (I’ll call that Semantic SEO, making your meaning clear with formats and data) anything else seems to be gaming the system — cheating.

The talk covered subjects such as paying for content to be written and put on the web that used links to you with your selected ‘keywords’ as anchor text — “journalists are cheap” we were told — playing ‘link-builders’ to get links to your site around the web.

If “journalists are cheap” then they’ll write cheap words, useless words, words that will drive the quality of the web down. If links are bought then they aren’t the “peer review” links that Google based their original algorithm on (the concept that people would link to stuff that was good, the best stuff gets the most links).

If you prize traffic that is coerced into arriving at your site, that has to be your decision. I’d much rather an honest web where the best content, the best services rose to the top. This is why I am being driven from conventional search to more social search options. I’ll often only Google now for a company or product name after checking out the advice of people I trust on twitter. Search engines are being conned, and until they stamp out the link-buying, the splogging, they’re going to lose traffic — and utimately if your sites are doing the conning you will too.

I know that the practices are tempting, I know the argument goes that “our competitiors are doing it, we have to to keep up”. I don’t buy it. Do the best you can, create the best content, host the best discussions, link the best links, provide the best service people will recommend you, with links and by social-web-word of mouth.

Don’t put anything on the net that you don’t think increases its value.

Charlie Brooker on SEO “”Search engine optimisation”, it’s known as, and it’s the journalistic equivalent of a classified ad that starts with the word “SEX!” in large lettering, and “Now that we’ve got your attention” printed below it in smaller type.”" link

If you’re interested in the super, open source, thingy WordPress — I hate to call it a blogging platform as you can do so much else too — you could do a lot worse than come to WordCamp UK next weekend. There are a host of talks, but it’ll be a great opportunity just to hang out with WP affictionardos and bloggers.

I’m planning on spending a lot of the weekend “broke out” around and about the venue, and I’ve organised a meet-up on the Friday and also a proper do (with a geeky quiz, prizes to be won) on the Saturday (I may even do some stand-up ).

You can book tickets here

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Prompted by Mark Steadman’s comment on one of my many blog posts on the evils of crossposting, I’ve turned off the tweet digests that were (to be honest) overwhelming the nonsense blog of mine that is /ramblings.

Mark said:

“What’s your opinion then of WordPress plugins - like the ones on your own site - that post a digest of your Twitter and del.icio.us activity each day? Thankfully you’re not the kind of guy to tweet that stuff, but isn’t that just the same kind of cross-posting?”

With delicious digests or link dumps I can see added value; the posts give time based (and theme based when you’ve been surfing around a subject) context. This can mean that they mean more when posted to a blog rather than as separate links.

That said if a blog does nothing but republish delicious links then it’s worthless.

The delicious feeds and links that you see on this site are carefully (as much as one does) chosen to be in context — and aren’t by any means everything I save. You could subscribe to my entire delicious feed, but unless you’re my mother or my psychiatrist I think you’d be bored (and my mother would be bored anyway). I wouldn’t advise anyone to subscribe to my delicious feed en masse — I use it for a wide variety of destinations (as well as to store links for myself); things tagged “work” come here, those tagged “birminghamuk” go to BiNS, I occasionally do link collections on a subject, and others links go to other places too.  It’s just a mash of my surfing mind, not useful to others.

As for the Twitter digests posts, I can see the point of a post (for your own records as much as anything) but it needs to be carefully positioned so as not to swap the point of your blog. Of course I first set it up “because I could”, I don’t think I would these days if I hadn’t already.

In fact, I’ve turned it off and switched to archiving to my email, thanks Mark for making me think about that.

• /Message: Twitter Spam: What Can We Do? - "Could we somehow take advantage of our network to help Twitter find and eliminate spammers even quicker?" Idea about auto reporting, but twitter could do it without reporting ? if a user is blocked by a %age of people the follow shouldn't they just go

• Whispering grasses, your ISP may not be on your side - Birmingham Post - Lifestyle Blog - From my Birmingham Post blog: A quick take on the Virgin "three strikes" letters situation, including a fairly good quip about Windsor Davies