Urban playboys

Emap has relaunched low-on-readers-and-ideas magazines Arena. It still doesn't have any ideas by the sounds of it.

It has David Beckham on the cover and claims that it is targeting 'urban playboys' with expensive tastes. Editor Giles Hattersley says the magazine will "resonate with and reflect the lifestyles of young men today -- the 'me generation' -- who earn more, dress better, party harder and are better educated".

Do people still use phrases such as "party harder"? Unless you are talking about bankers, which must be why Arena has put Beckham on the cover of this relaunch. Can someone praise the magazine's editor for his originality... oh wait.

The new Arena sounds like GQ. Why would you try to reinvent GQ?

It seems that London's magazine publishers can now only produce two kinds of men's magazines. Either acres of flesh or GQ.

Arena was once quite a decent magazine, but that was a long time ago and it doesn't look like it is about to return to its glory days any day soon. Surely someone can come up with a magazine that appeals to men that is also intelligent. Urban playboys? Oh please.

Spaced goes US

Simon Pegg's 'Spaced' is to be made into a US sitcom by Fox, which sounds great, but oddly no one bothered getting in touch with the creators of the British original.

Fox has given the green light to pilot of 'Spaced' which featured Pegg and Jessica Stevenson as two people who pretend to be a couple in an effort to rent a new flat.

The building in which the flat rented was full of various oddballs, but was very funny, pretty geeky (in a good way) and full of pop culture references (plenty of 'Star Wars' much like Kevin Smith's 'Clerks' - no bad thing). It led Pegg, sidekick Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright onto the excellent 'Shaun of the Dead' and the not quite so good (IMHO) 'Hot Fuzz'.

The Fox show is being developed by someone involved heavily in 'Will & Grace' (Adam Barr), can that be a good thing? Also involved is McG (best known for producing on 'The O.C.' and for producing movies such as 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle' - I'm sure he is a comedy genius). Mmm.

Oddly though, the producers have not been in contact with either Wright or Pegg, which seems odd. On his MySpace page Wright has this to say.

"The interesting part of that is, no one has been in touch with me at all. Haven't deigned to get in contact. So my involvement is indeed very unclear. Would love to know what you all have to say about it.

"P.S. I can confirm too, that Simon was never contacted either. I don't really want to get involved at all, but it infuriates me that they would a) never bother to get in touch but still b) splash me and Simon's names all over the trade announcements and infer that we're involved."

British shows have enjoyed mixed fortunes on their crossing to the US with 'The Office' being a notable hit (Ricky Gervais gave his full backing to that), while other efforts such as 'Coupling' bombed badly.

The shame is that Pegg & Co only wrote two seven episodes series, giving us just 14 episodes on Channel 4. There was talk of a third series but, with movies to make, that seems unlikely ever to happen.

If 'Spaced' is like the US version of 'The Office' it could work, but that show was so much about the personal relationships between the people involved (acting and writing wise) that it is going to be hard to reproduce it -- particularly the way the US sitcom machine works (writing rooms and 26 episodes a year). It could end up with the only connection between the two shows (other than the name) being that they will both be about two people who rent a flat but not a couple and that's about it.

Virgin Media biker birds

Virgin Media is putting its tech support on motorbikes, which must be why it sent out these images of women in their underwear?

Who had this throwback idea? It looks like it belongs on the cover of some sexist boy racer magazine.

Unless Virgin is actually sending these women round? No offence, but Kelly doesn't look like she knows much about cabling. I could be wrong.

There is, of course, a green(ish) reason for the move: bikes are faster, get to jobs quicker and might improve the woeful Virgin Media customer service, which no longer bothers me having jumped ship to Sky.

Oh wait apart from this one thing: I have rung that stupid company three times to come and pick up their junk (modem'set top box), but nothing.

Each time you call there is a 15/20 minute wait. Please wake up.

All change at the Observer?

Roger Alton has gone and I'm sure he will be much missed. He produce a great paper with so much to like. Annoyingly, we had been looking at writing a story about Alton's possible departure yesterday following various bits of speculation, but could not quite stand it up. So it goes.

There has been much talk about Alton's future for some time, part of which is thought to have centred on disagreements between The Observer and The Guardian, and the forthcoming move of the two papers to King's Cross, which will herald greater integration.

On Sunday I had blogged about how all was not well at Farringdon Road, home of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, according to two reports in the Sunday Times and another in the Mail.

The reports centred on the latest stage of the Observer and Guardian's disagreements over the war in Iraq among other things. It looks like things will be heating up ahead of the February publication of the book 'Flat Earth News' by Guardian journalist Nick Davies.

The Observer famously supported the war much to the chagrin of journalists at the Guardian, which opposed the war at every stage.

No surprises over who are the flat earthers Davies is writing about.

Davies, who is a friend of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, will in part of his book look at why The Observer "broke with the traditional values of the left" by being supportive of the Iraq war.

The book will also claim that former Observer political editor Kamal Ahmed was asked by Alastair Campbell to help "sex up" Labour's dossier on the case for Iraq while on a trip to Washington with Tony Blair. The document was written in February 2003 during the diplomatic build-up to war.

The book is likely to get seriously panned in The Observer following the withering response last month to the publication of Observer journalist Andrew Anthony's book 'The Fall-Out', in which he questioned his own liberal views after 9/11. The book was slated in the Guardian by Decca Aitkenhead. She accused Anthony of having "sold out" along with Nick Cohen and others she disagrees with. Sticks and stones.

The spat follows earlier sniping between the two papers, which are both owned by the Guardian Media Group, centring on the Observer's medical coverage (of the MMR controversy), which the Guardian has taken pot shots at.

According to the Sunday Times, Davies is seen by some on The Observer "as Rusbridger's agent, who will attack the paper from within the organisation over its aggressive line on Iraq". That seems a bit conspiracy minded. Clearly Alton feels under fire and enough so to say this:

"Davies has got the wrong end of the stick. I've spent more time with Kamal than I have with my girlfriend, and he wouldn't do that. I feel as if I am being interrogated in that Rendition film. Lots of people disagreed with our stance on the war – it's called debate. I've never thought that much of Davies. It's bollocks."

However, Alton was said to be even more unhappy about possible lost autonomy as The Observer and The Guardian were more closely integrated in their new home.

He had concerns about The Observer losing its distinct voice as various departments are merged (sport/business and foreign news). It would be a crying shame if it did. The paper is distinct and it is that distinction that has helped it perform so well (under Guardian Media Group ownership it has to be said).

GMG must ensure that The Observer does not disappear into some indistinct seven-day operation. That would be a waste.

The madness of print

There's something about print, about launching newspapers, that makes people aspire no matter the odds. That seems case in Spain where a new daily is about to launch – and it is not a free paper.

With the freesheet battles blazing in the UK, and newspaper sales falling generally, it looks increasingly like the odds of successfully launching new national dailies are ever diminishing.

The last to try in the UK, the Sportsman in 2006, ended in disaster with millions lost and a circulation of just 40,000, but such tales of disaster have not stopped the publishers and editors of Público, which recently launched in Madrid and believe they can beat the odds in a generally moribund market.

This might be in part because unlike the rest of the West, Spain is not suffering a decline in newspaper sales. In the ten years to 2005 sales are up 2% on the back of Spain's economic boom. This has happened in concert with a free newspaper market, which has grown to around 5m in the last five years.

Público is a full-colour daily that sells for €0.50 (half that of its rivals) and is placing hopes of its success on targeting a young 25-45 age group with a bold left-leaning popular paper.

Ignacio Escolar, the newspaper's editor, told the New York Times that the Spanish newspaper market had been a failure over the past century and that following the fall of fascist dictator Franco in 1975 Spain had "set up a press that was highly politicized".

Público is different in other ways as well. There is no coverage of bullfights, no death notices and no ads for prostitutes, which are all familiar features of the Spanish press.

Unlike the UK where broadband penetration is high, it is still relatively low with 15 of every 100 households connected, which has to help Público, as does the lack of a tabloid newspaper market.

There is no popular equivalent of the Sun or Daily Mail; there isn't even a paper that sells a million copies out of the established big-name titles that most of us are familiar with such as El País (with which Público will compete head to head for liberal/left readers), ABC and El Mundo. It is these facts more than anything else that underscore how different the Spanish market is.

Jaume Roures, one of Público's backers and an executive of Mediapro, told the paper: "Freesheets have encouraged a lot of people to read every day, and we believe they are potential buyers of a second paper."

Strident women on ad attack

They've had enough. Those breast enlagement ads? Those ads for Heat, Grazia, Nuts, Zoo and so on? They have to go and they could find themselves under attack from a new group on Facebook where women have decided enough is enough.

Started earlier this week by Kirstin Smith the group "somewhat strident but who cares" already has 395 members and seems to have struck a chord. Its okay, don't feel excluded men can join too.

I have to ask you all a favour. Recently I’ve been feeling increasingly oppressed by the media in general. I am highly aware of these things immediately making me feel shit about myself, to the point where I am spitting with rage. Up to now I’ve not done anything about this for fear of falling into some kinds of ‘always strident, never funny’ category, but I don’t care anymore.

I’m bothered by magazines and adverts in particular, like those cosmetic surgery ads on the tube, or ads for Heat, Grazia, Nuts, Zoo and so on. So basically I’m starting small. If I print up stickers that say things like:

‘By women who hate women. For women who hate themselves’
‘Reading will cause self-hatred’
‘Fake boobs are vile’
‘You are normal. This is not.’

Would you be willing just to carry a few around in your bag and put them on things that you find especially offensive? I’m open to suggestions about what’s on them. I’m also looking into a greener option than stickers, or recycled stickers.

The Radiohead download - how much did you pay?

Today is the day when anyone who cares can download the new Radiohead album, 'In Rainbows', and pay as much as they like. I'm coming clean, how much did you pay?

I paid £5. I dithered for a while and then thought I had underpaid. I tried to go back, but although the system allowed every detail to be edited it did not allow you to change the amount you had first opted to pay. Oh well. I was only going to up my payment (donation?) to £7.

I don't feel too bad about "underpaying" as it were. As I understand it, when they were on a label and I splashed £8.99 for an album the band only got a pound with the rest going to EMI. By paying a fiver, I'm at least ensuring everyone in the band gets enough to take a bus ride (as long as they have an Oyster card...).

Come on, own up. How much did you pay?

Howell spells out ITV priorities

Rupert Howell has been talking about his role as ITV's new managing director of brand and commercial. He wants to see the brand 'actively nurtured' rather than the passive attention it has had as it moves into new areas. Speaking at a MediaTel event yesterday, Howell also said he is aiming to get ITV into "some sort of virtuous cycle" rather than the "vicious circle" that it's been in. Not sure what that means, but if it has anything to do the low quality repetitive crap that ITV produces he could be onto something.

"I'm going to be responsible for how the brand is deployed and stretched into new areas and new opportunities… and how we can monetise that," he said.

He also stressed that chairman Michael Grade chose him as someone who could look at the whole picture of ITV with a broader perspective.

"When Michael was appointed, for me that just transformed ITV's potential fortunes in an instant, and I think that's been self evident in the year since he's been there," he said, adding that it was Grade's presence at ITV that lured him and the new director of content, Dawn Airey.

"Where ITV needs to focus now is on its content and Michael is beyond passionate about content, and his view is... if you can invest in the content and produce better content then everything else falls in line behind that."

Online is going to be a key feature of Howell's new job and he will be looking at how the company is going to optimise online revenue.

He said there would also be a focus on youth, but not a the expense of older viewers.

"We suffer in the advertising and media industries with an obsession with youth. There's a lot of misconceptions about who advertises want to reach. ITV will through its content be pushing towards stronger profiles in different age groups and categories, [but] let's never forget where the bulk of the disposable income in this country lies, and that's something I will be reminding advertisers of when I talk to them."

On why ITV is still around, Howell was clear that it came down to the numbers: "The reason why ITV has continued to be successful even when it's been having less good times, is because it delivers effective results. Television delivers the numbers, it always has and always will."

Always?

Web gets serious about citizen journalism

Last week, it was the Huffington Post. This week it's social news media site Newsvine, which has been snapped up by MSNBC.com.

The hunger for social media in its many forms and the desire to mash that up with professional media shows no sign of stopping.

The Huffington Post story was slightly different. That blog and news site attracted Betsy Morgan, a senior executive at CBS, to be its first chief executive. It was not only a big hire for the site, but it was someone from mainstream media.

Newsvine was launched last year and backed by a venture capital company. Incidentally the same VC firm, Second Avenue Partners, that also backed another social media newsite FanNation.com, which was acquired by Sports Illustrated in February.

Newsvine, founded by Mike Davidson in March 2006 and snapped up like many social news media (such as Del.icio.us, now owned by Yahoo!, and StumbleUpon.com, owned by eBay), carries news from a variety of sources that is voted on and discussed by its community.

Davidson says that the site's mission, which has also famously broken news (beating AP to the Virginia Tech massacre by 22 minutes), has never been to displace mainstream media but to "create a social ecosystem around the news".

"Our vision has always been to create an environment where mainstream media and independent media live together and frankly make each other better," Davidson said.

Currently the site is getting around a million unique users a month.

But while Newsvine might not be replacing mainstream media, the professionals want some of what social media has.

MSNBC, an 11-year-old joint venture between NBC Universal and Microsoft, wants to incorporate some of Newsvine's features into MSNBC.com. Namely that is community, but it is working out how to do it.

It will be interesting how these marriages make out. How the amateur social media news men sit alongside the journalism school graduate professionals.

While community is the key and user-generated content one of the great social media freebies, it could also drag the real product down if it is not done right, but if it is done right, and the professional is merged with the amateur, the results could very powerful.

Time will tell, but one thing that is clear immediately is that what is news is no longer exactly what the BBC or The Times or anyone else says it is, with powerful communities like these creating their own news as users rate and promote stories.

Charlie Tillinghast, president of MSNBC and publisher of MSNBC.com told the New York Times that stories filed by Newsvine users would have to be verified before appearing on MSNBC.com.

"But we would never say, 'We're not going to put that up because it came through Newsvine.' In fact, just the opposite. We see Newsvine as an excellent source of stories for MSNBC.com." a chief executive from mainstream media.

Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in Halo

There is a line in the movie 'The Kingdom' where Jamie Foxx whispers 'We're going to kill them all'. They pretty much do. Churches seem to have picked up on the idea, if in a virtual way, using 'Halo 3'.

The Xbox 360 uber-game 'Halo' has become an unlikely recruiting tool for the Protestant church in America, which are using the game to capture those hard to reach recruits: teenagers.

Ministers have not so bizarrely hit on the idea of 'Halo' gaming nights in church, twigging that if you want to talk to teenagers you have to talk their language and their language is loud, involves much virtual violence and the skilled use of thumbs.

This has given The New York Times the chance of an amusing headline: "Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church".

You can see the flip, the church has, having long led the call against violent games, is now seeing them as a hot recruiting tool pretty much as church hall bingo was to an earlier generation.

Gregg Barbour, the youth minister at the Colorado Community Church in the Englewood area of Denver, is hoping that the teens will stay for his Christian message once they have helped save tough Marine, the Master Chief.

"We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell," Barbour wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

News of churches holding nights where teenagers can go along and blast away comes as the latest outing for the game, 'Halo 3', is released and has already racked up $300m in sales.

The nights have apparently been a big hit and heavily attended with multiple games consoles and dozens of teenagers flocking around big-screen TVs in shoot 'em up heaven, so to speak.

The Southern Baptist church recently sent email messages to 50,000 young people about how to share their faith using 'Halo 3'. At Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., Austin Brown, 16, said, "We play Halo, take a break and have something to eat, and have a lesson," explaining that the pastor tried to draw parallels "between God and the devil."

Some parents and religious figures worry that the church is playing with fire in giving youths access to adult-themed material (you're supposed to be 17 to buy 'Halo', as if that would stop anyone).

Daniel Heimbach, a professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, for instance argues that churches should reject 'Halo', in part because it associates thrill and arousal with killing.

"To justify whatever killing is involved by saying that it’s just pixels involved is an illusion," he said.

But others are undecided. The evangelical organisation Focus on the Family hasn't made up its mind and said it was trying to balance the game's violent nature with its popularity.

The figures speak for themselves. The vast majority of people who play videogames do not go and commit any kind of violent act. Personally (and with no religious inclination) the 'Halo' idea sounds a smart move because as well as being violent the games are very social (online and off) and this taps into that, and only underscores that it all comes down to community of one kind or another. Next up, Wii nights.

The AOP Conference 2007

Final session at the AOP 2007 conference. Guess it had to happen, but they seemed to turn off the wireless network at half past four. Not helpful. Anyway 'Editorial change in the digital era' is the title and it looked at how publishers need to use their journalists and work with them to manage digital change. Again this is all about the community, which is a theme that (no surprise) came up time and time again during the day. There is a lot of work to do.

1630 - Josa Young, executive editor of Conde Nast: Says her role has changed little in moving from print to online, because it is all about the user experience. It has to be good, (the content, the interaction, whatever it is).

Conde Nast, she says, will never lose that critical eye, the professionalism that comes via its writers, but at the same time she underscored the point that the company was everywhere on YouTube and on Facebook. Anywhere Conde Nast can engage change.

Pete Clifton, head of news interactive of the BBC: If you want to find Clifton he is tucked away on the seventh floor of the BBC. Says there has to be integration, but the corporation has a way to go. This is despite its huge budget and sprawling investment that is the envy of commercial rivals. Disappointing to hear really, particularly in light of all the phone scandals.

He says it still happens that when big news stories break the first BBC news interactive knows about it is on the TV; reporters are still going overseas and producing nothing for the site.

Things are changing, although the way he put this was that the begging is starting earlier when correspondents are starting to be told (asked/begged to) what the website needs. But clearly a begging culture can not be good.

The BBC even has a unit (since integrated within BBC News) that badgers people to write for the site. This is on top of its own online writers. Progress is obvious. It has had successes from some, but others are simply not interested.

Cited a good example of Andy North, the Baghdad correspondent who did a recent big photo-story online that worked very well. Delivering something that video or words alone could not. Not everyone is embracing digital change at the BBC, that much is clear, which is why for the moment, Clifton says, you have the seventh floor.

However, he says it should, in a few years, be gone and integrated.

Andrew Hawken, editorial director of online at BSkyB, pretty new to Sky, been there a year after joining from MSN.

Sky is in expansion mode. New motoring site (something for Haymarket and Emap to look at) is one that is on the way.

He says that one of the ambitions is to turn Sky News into a true multimedia news room. But what are the consequences?

Well, Hawken says that Sky News is no longer an afterthought. Experienced journalists are coming over to the news site, which is nice as it means the website is getting the cash that previously was only available to the news station.

But while the people move they need new skills as well and new language: Flash, Java, HTML. This means a change in decision making, which means looking at real-time analytics data and making decisions based on that. You just can't do that on TV.

Hawken showed a video of the new Sky News room where online journalists and TV journalists sit together.

Having just listened to Clifton at the BBC it seems that things are moving ahead more swiftly at Sky that at rival the BBC in terms of integration and putting people together in one to provide that seamless organisational structure that in turns creates content that is in tune on TV, in print and online.

Hawken says that some of the new things that Sky is looking at include having reporters filing live by Twitter and using photo site Flickr. Very interesting to see Sky doing this. Shame about all the shouty graphics on screen (that could be just me).

Last night, Sky launched it user-driven news show. 'Sky.com/news'. It kicked off with the top clicked stories of the day. Want to know what it was? The return of the Downing Street cat. That's user-generated content for you. There is definitely a theme here today. Earlier the Sun's Picton spoke about how user-generated content led to Peter Doherty heroin cat story.

Last up today Karl Schneider, editorial development director, Reed Business Information, and former Computer Weekly and New Scientist editor.

Change is the driver and the biggest change in terms of content is the move from traditional content to non traditional; as publishers embrace community interaction and multimedia.

Schneider talked about how Reed was giving its journalists better tools to get content online faster as it looks to a web first model of publishing.

The big mindset change, which is the most important of anything talked about, is that the role of the journalist is no longer just creating content, but pointing to content as well. This could be in a forum, in a blog or a podcast.

He used the example of Farmer's Week using the forums in the recent foot and mouth crisis to get information from their readers, but also to build and develop that story in the forums. They used it to provide a service to readers, passing on tips and the readers reciprocated.

1615 - The panel on social media. What are they going do about it?

In case you are wondering, bingo is the answer. Bingo is very social, Picton had said it has been huge for the Sun. MySpace bingo? They probably have it.

Patrick Fuller from WhatCar? made the point that unlike social media sites, editorial sites are about a number of things that give them character and are about a group of people at (pistonheads, for instance) have come together.

Pickard followed this up saying that the Guardian community comes together because it is about people who have a number of things in common.

But she also made the point that media owners have also have put their hands up to Facebook and embraced it. The listed the groups that Guardian readers had started up online that were Guardianesque, such as Guardian Northerners.

She saw the Guardian embracing those, but at the same time realising that they could not monetise them -- not surprising really, considering how much a piece of Facebook real estate costs.

But looking to the future, I would have thought that Facebook is looking at how it can work with brands/publishers to allow them both to monetise their content and users.

15:45 - First afternoon session Online Collaboration with Meg Pickard, head of communities at Guardian Unlimited, and Pete Picton, editor of the Sun Online, talking about MySun and... Kelvin MacKenzie Online?

Picton said that the big debate at the Sun/News Corp is what kind of publisher are they? Do we lock people in or send them out? Clearly as a publisher the first impulse is to keep them, but it's not easy. Not with aggregators sending people all over the web.

That said, the more News Corp buys, new-media-wise, the more it allows its sites to keep users within one of its domains or another, be that the Sun Online, the New York Post or even, soon to arrive within News Corp, the Wall Street Journal online.

Pickard asked the question is user-generated content "as well as" or "instead of" other content. Seems like another no brainer to me. It has be as well as, but many sites still have not gone very far down this road.

Pickard raised the point about the education process needed for the audience supplying user generated content. They, she said, need to be told how to act and what to and what not to do.

Coupled with this, she said, was the changing world that journalists face. She talked about how journalists have to learn those new skills as well, as their content comes up against that user-generated content, because professional journalists find themselves competing more and more with the amateur or "citizen journalists", but journalists have to deal with that instant criticism.

She said she could see, particularly in terms of video, that the paper could find itself leading on user-generated content. If we look at Burma and the blogs and video coming out of there, it is already happening. "Witnessing experience" is one way of describing it Pickard said.

Peter Bale from MSN asked about moderation in terms of libel and defamation (The Guardian had a recent case of anti-Semitic comments posted about writers)

Pickard said the Guardian had tackled this by having people in several countries to ensure that there is round o'clock coverage.

She raised an example of a user who, having seen something, did not tell the Guardian until a day later when the offending comment was still there. She said that it was another example of the responsibility the community had to act. Bit lame really, if you have an offensive comment online for 37 hours someone should have noticed. Clearly she has shaken things up since she joined six months ago.

Picton said the Sun has 35 round moderators working around the clock (but unpaid).

15:15 - Pete Picton, editor of the Sun Online. Talking about user-generated content. Picton spoke about how The Sun has dealt with its readers and getting them involved with the Sun Online a year on from the launch of MySun.

The Sun has always had the advantage of readers who are always writing and letting the paper know what they think. That obviously has dangers as well as plusses, but with MySun (the Sun's take on sibling MySpace) it has hit the spot and, a year on, it has been a major success putting it far ahead of its tabloid rivals online.

The content is coming, but it is not just blogs and forums. Picton pointed to big stories that had come to the paper via MySun including the cracker of Peter Doherty's dog's on crack.

Next up and, you heard it heard first, is Kelvin MacKenzie online. No more details, but the former Sun editor is going into the site and being exposed to the paper's readers. Is that a good thing?

15:00 - Online collaboration, Meg Pickard, head of communities at Guardian Unlimited.

Pickard talked about four stages of online collaboration, but makes a good point in saying that the act of consumption, contribution, curation and creation.

1. The consumption is obvious. The publisher creates, and the public reads. But it is getting less obvious as reading is now an act of creation in itself, because it affects the way information is presented, for example by pushing it up most read lists.

2. Contribution - That's easy. Buzz word central: Users submit their material to the wider product - "user generated content.

3. Curation: User-curated content is when users tag or recommend items, or annotation of sources. She focused on user curated content, which is not something I'd much come across. By that she mean the social data interplay. People engaging with our content. This could be people recommending it to others, rating it or putting it on Delicious.

It allows passionate people to become evangelists. She pointed to mash-ups as another example where content is brought together.

Lists is another. Shortlist could be on to something. She pointed to Amazon's recommends list (one of the earliest examples of user-generated content).

4. Creation. Finally, a very high-level of behaviour. Creation can happen in a number of different orders.

What this means is the publisher does not necessarily dictate the order of things and instead users do via their interactions.

Pickard says that it all suggests that context (the format/interest group/people) is king rather than content. Content instead becomes part of a contextual experience.

Moving onto the holy trinity of community development she listed: Human solutions, technical solutions and editorial solutions.

For publishers, the editorial element of this trinity is key: How do you manage it? How do you interact with it?

13:10 - Now for Duncan Edwards, chief executive of The National Magazine Company, who says that the company has a raft of investment and launches planned in the coming months with Cosmo sites, Harper's Bazaar and All About You.

He admits that the company sat on the sidelines between 2000 and 2005, then after reviewing its decision about not taking part, it started to invest as it became cheaper to get online and the digital ad market started to really take off.

Although he says that the company did not regret not taking part online in those five years, but since deciding to invest online it is now pouring a lot of money in. But it is doing this selectively following a review that began in spring. Edwards says they had to answer the question of where could they put their resources?

The answer was that not every magazine was going to get its own sites because clearly some were better suited than others. It's a no brainer. In the end, it went for five existing properties including Runners World, which has been a real success for NatMags, particularly as an online community.

Harper's Bazaar is on the way and it will use the infrastructure of Handbag. Bazaar is planned to launch before the end of the year.

NatMags is working on a new Cosmo site for next year, in association with Hearst in New York. It will also use content ideas from HandBag.

It is planning to relaunch All About You as a portal for women aged 35-plus. It will include content from Prima, House Beautiful, She, Good Housekeeping and Coast, which will have their own mini sites.

The rest of its investment going into its pure play online brands like Netdoctor and its powerhouse online women's brand Handbag.com, which has spun out things like MyHandbag, the social media part of the women's site. Handbag TV will follow in October.

Edwards went onto say that in terms of online ads, there does not appear, in the case of display ads, to have been a big loser. Maybe he says a reallocation of spend (isn't that a loser?).

Editorially, he says the print journalists are spending a lot of time online in the forums. I bet that's true for mags like Prima, but less true of the likes of Bazaar.

Interesting, content dropped from magazines like Prima, like dress patterns, is now coming back online.

What it all says is that the relationship with consumers in terms of community is vital.

12:30 - Next up, as part of the Beyond the Banner session, is Unilever's digital and new media marketing director, Caroline Slootweg, who has been behind some very innovative developments at Unilever.

Slootweg says the challenge is to push mostly conservative brand teams to innovate.

She says there has been a real shift among advertisers in the past year. She admits though that they were late to the game.

For Unilever, digital she says was always just an aside. A "sitelet". It has to be bigger she says and really support the brand -- continued presence.

Unilever is starting to innovate in new areas such as gaming. Casual gaming is huge for women (check the Wii) and Unilever tapping into that.

She points to innovation with Dove and allowing women to create their own 30 second spots and upload them.

Breaking out of the confines of digital. Digital, she says makes people anxious and it makes them think they need to know lots of stuff when they don't.

"I banned, six months ago, the term website." Instead, she says, brand teams need to think what they wanted to do -- not about a website.

Case study: Suave

"The web is inherently female: socialising, chatting, shopping. That is what all the new innovations are about MySpace and Facebook.

"Mommy blogging" is another phenomenon she points to. Women are at home and many are blogging. Unilever took advantage of this in a really interesting way with its 'In the Motherhood' webisode series.

'In the Motherhood' was created for the Suave shampoo brand an was an online series about moms. It starred a name actress, Leah Remini, and was based on moms submitting their experiences. The 10 best ones were made into comedy webisodes. It was done with MSN.

Unilever launched it on 'Ellen Degeneres Show', then got it on 'The Tonight Show' and 'Entertainment Tonight'.

It had 4,000 submissions and 50,000 votes. Not bad and it's really quite funny as well.

Slootweg went onto say that digital agencies should focus on creative and not building stuff, which is why it built the motherhood site with MSN.

She admits Unilever is not good at creating the continuous flow of content because it is used to creating three-month campaigns and moving on, which is part of the reason for working with production companies and MSN for the likes of the Motherhood series.

Next up Duncan Edwards, chief executive of the National Magazine Company.

A broadcaster goes broadband

Questions for Henry:

12:00 - He says the ad world still has to come with ITV.com since ITV has decided that it is going down the free route where content is consumed free, but he says that all depends on the relation with advertisers.

And at the moment it is not happening. No clues as to how he is going to make this £150m.

He said the biggest challenge is how do you take 50 years of content and do something with it online.

Guardian reporter asks how are you going to update Friends Reunited. Henry says traffic is robust. It is not languishing he says.

He says he knows the challenge is to take FriendsReunited to the next generation. He won't say how, but it is well in hand. And it needs to be.

11:45 - Jeff Henry, director of ITV Consumer, shares the results so far, and the challenges ahead for ITV’s ambitious £20m online venture. The verdict has to be that there is much to do.

ITV has a long way to go. Henry says the broadcaster wants to be the leading provider of free entertainment in the UK.

ITV is looking to make £150m in online revenues. But it has a lot of questions to answer, such as quality of programming for one and what the hell is it going to do with Friends Reunited, which has been eclipsed and found left wanting by its newer and niftier social media rivals.

Free content is not enough. We're currently watching a video about a piece ITV did on Second Life. If it is looking to that Dodo then you can see the scale of the problem.

User Generated Content could be somewhere, however, ITV could really go.

Henry points to that quality piece of TV that has for so long been part of ITV's line-up - 'You've Been Framed', where viewers sent their videos in. Now we have 'Britain's Got Talent'. Yes it is awful, but people like it.

'Britain's Got Talent' clips were a hit on sites like YouTube, but ITV has to make money out of it. 30m views but real benefit. Why? Because all the content was on the video aggregator that is Google's YouTube.

He points to the launch of the new ITV.com site, which has seen traffic grow as it tries to find new ways to expand the site. F1 has been dynamite this year, mostly thanks to Brit wonder Lewis Hamilton. Interviews and fresh content has really driven traffic.

10:45 - Peter Bale, executive producer at MSN.co.uk. Bale (ex of the Times) is arguing that content is not cheap, that it is still valuable and has a big role to play in terms of aggregation.

At MSN, like Google, he is talking about working with publishers/content streams about helping them with revenue streams. Such as revenue sharing with video firms, which is still an area that no one knows how to monetise.

But with 60 content partners (soon to grow to 100) there is not a lot of cash to go around. Add in to that the UGC.

Amusingly, he admits to no longer being a Google lover.

He says that publishers needs to be very aware in what Google is going with news agencies that it is a publisher and a danger for the likes of The Times and the Guardian.

Cohen fires back that Google is an aggregator - just with a "different business model".

Waldman asks for a show of hands to ask whether publishers are better off with the aggregators. People are shy. But there is a slightly larger smattering of those who think we are better off.

It seems hard to call it any other way. At this point at least, but if Google continues its move into owning content and now sending users to content sites, then that could change.

10:30 - Duncan Dunlop, general manager, Oodle UK on the changing classified market. It's another aggregator.

Sees the lead base business as the future, but also has a dig at content publishes, which is Dunlop says is a business under threat.

Points to the US car market, which has recently flipped to go totally lead base.

10:15 - Meet the aggregators

A big part of the future. All about how to get your content out there. Joshua Cohen, business product manager, Google News is speaking. They don't want to own the content they just want you to have it – becoming the biggest aggregator along the way.

"So why should you (publishers) like us?"

He does answer the question people always ask. What kind of company is it? The definitive answer is a technology company that is also in the search and advertising business. So not strictly just a "technology" company.

Simon Waldman points out Google's move about it move into hosting content since it started hosting AP news (so really it is a publisher as well).

Cohen says it still about sending the users to publishers sites, but that the news wires have a different business model. He dodged the question basically and didn't answer why basically Google is now a publisher wanting to both court and compete with publishers, which could be a hard act to beat.

930 - First up has been Caroline Little, chief executive and publisher, Washington Post.

She has been talking a lot about the global and local issue about websites are both playing in small local markets and global ones where the Post in some respects goes up against UK sites like the Guardian.

Widgets not surprisingly has also been an issue. The Post has just run a competition asking for its staff to come up with Facebook widget ideas. They got more than 30. It could have been something to do with the iPhone on offer. The best were RSS ideas. Not surprising really as the Post is all about news.

Talking about the collaboration between the paper and the Washington Post sit, which still has a way to go. Part of that seems to be that the as an old media organisation it is still led by the values of the old media organisation that it is part of.

The Huffington Post/blogs come of age

The Huffington Post is not exactly your run of the mill blog (it doesn't even like the lable), but it is a blog all the same and the fact that it has appointed a chief executive shows how it, and this aspect of Web 2.0 generally, is fast maturing and becoming an established part of the media landscape.
The Huffington Post, which lists the likes of former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, Norman Mailer and John Cusack among its contributors, has appointed the general manager of CBSNews.com, Betsy Morgan, as chief executive.

It's a big move and a significant one. The Huffington Post might be the fifth most visited blog on the web, according to Technorati with its 3.5m unique users a month (2m less than CBSNews.com), but it is two years old and still a blog.

But it says a lot about where the industry is going and the power of sites like The Huffington Post and other blogs like Gawker and Techcrunch have become big business with their own teams of journalists and editors.

Morgan, who is 38 and has an MBA from Harvard says the move was too good an opportunity to pass up. She also underlined where the power of the The Huffington Post lies. What the site does well, Morgan said, was to "take a news story and build a community of debate around it".

It is the community that has developed around The Huffington Post and that has allowed it to grow into a powerful force in online news and commentary.

The Huffington Post has its niche in liberal and left-of-centre political, but it is a large niche that sees it compete on some levels with the likes of the Guardian, which with its bloggers and news, positions itself as the world's liberal voice.

As sites like The Huffington Post grow they can only further challenge established sites like The Guardian, among others.

Morgan acknowledges that when mainstream news sites have more visitors there is "a bigger opportunity" and that it is a "different brand from a mainstream brand".

Different, but with growing similarity, as the more sites like The Huffington Post and Gawker hire their own teams (Huffington now has 40 staff) to grow their audience, the more they resemble the old media, but they have the advantage of growing from a community base.

Site co-founder Kenneth Lerer admits as much when he said that the goal of The Huffington Post was to "do for internet news what CNN did for TV news". Of course CNN, along with the BBC, is trying to do for internet news what it has already done for TV news, like its much talked of Citizen Journalism initiative (aka social media and blogging).

FT fiddles/stuff burns

Executives at FT.com knew they would have to do something when Rupert Murdoch talked of ending the subscription model at the Wall Street Journal Online and now they have, but have they fudged it?
Murdoch talking of ending online charges at the WSJ.com was always going to put the proverbial cat among the pigeons. It has had an effect.

He clearly knew which way the wind was blowing. As two weeks after he made his comments the New York Times said it was to end its strategy of charging online, the game was really up for paid-for content.

Dow Jones is not quite in Murdoch's hands and being the global media 800lb media gorilla he is it could be that he was looking to spook Pearson into making a snap decision and dumping its subscription model early.

In the meantime Pearson seems to have taken the cautious option and opted to open the door a little to the idea of free content with its plan to offer 30 page views a month before asking users to subscribe.

The figure of 30 is not random says FT.com boss Ien Cheng.

"We have studied carefully how people come to the site. We have always believed that the journalism we produce is worth something to our core users. This new model allows us to keep to that principle while making sure that our material is also made freer to the web universe."

It could later go the whole way should it choose, but that is dependent on Murdoch, who has admitted himself that dumping subscription charges in the short term "would be an expensive thing to do" with the fillip of long-term gain via more users and advertisers.

It is smart for Pearson to act now and change its model, but equally wise to adopt a wait and see approach with rival Murdoch.

Whatever happens the FT's move only confirms that the days of charging for content are more or less over and whether it is later or much later the Financial Times will eventually dump paid-for access. It won't have any other choice.