James Thornett The views and opinions expressed here are my own and not those of the BBC, my employer.
Posts Tagged ‘websites’
Please Rob Me
Fancy a bit of easy (ish) burglary? Obviously I’m not condoning this law breaking act in any way, but should you be inclined then new website Please Rob Me will be just up your street. By gathering information from location aware online apps and posting twitter updates from people who are willingly advertising the fact [...]
Guardian Local due for 2010 launch
The Guardian have announced a move into the provision of local news on the web in 2010 with the launch of Guardian Local in three UK cities.Sarah Hartley, the Guardian local launch editor said: “While researching developments at the grassroots of community journalism, I’ve been impressed by the range and depth of coverage from local [...]
Microsoft to partner with local newspapers for MSN Local News Map
Microsoft, through their MSN Local portal, are hoping to provide local news on a map, in partnership with local newspapers across the UK. Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, said: “We are hoping to take feeds from local newspapers and tag every piece of information to a map. Hyper-local news online has never been more [...]
Northcliffe Local People media briefing
Northcliffe explain the launch of Local People “a network of websites for people to get together and discuss the issues affecting their communities“.
Birmingham Local Blogs Wire
Following my recent post on Will Perrin’s Talk About Local initiative, Jon Bounds has pushed ahead and created a Birmingham Local Blogs Wire by feeding a selection of blogs about Birmingham through Yahoo! Pipes. You can read all about the thinking behind the Birmingham Blog Wire here. Robin Hamman (@cybersoc) and I spent many an [...]
Setting the power of postcodes free
Ernest Marples Postcodes Ltd, whoever they may be, are encouraging you to use their free API to geocode your UK postcode data, with a plea to the Government and Royal Mail to make this ‘official’. Sites already using the service include:- Jobcentre Pro Plus — Search for jobs in your area PlanningAlerts.com — Get alerts [...]
Northcliffe launches community sites for local people
Another attempt to provide local communities with a voice online has recently been piloted by Northcliffe Media in South West England. From journalism.co.uk Northcliffe and its digital arm Associated Northcliffe Digital have begun the roll-out of its ambitious plans for a network of hyperlocal websites. The new platforms will be evenly distributed between areas with [...]
4iP funds local community website project
Talk About Local is aiming to “empower 3,000 people directly in 150 places across nine English regions with a focus on the most disadvantaged areas.” by offering free advice, training materials and support to anyone who wants give their community a voice online. Run by Will Perrin, the project is starting up in the West [...]
Local (radio) websites from the BBC
I don’t normally blog about specific BBC projects or work that I’m involved in on the ‘day job‘, you can catch all of that information on the BBC Internet Blog. However, as my recent trips to Canada (photos pending) and Cornwall have left me feeling very out of touch with the online world then what [...]
Guardian allows users to geo-tag content with launch of new Open Platform tool
The Guardian has today launched Open Platform with the hope of freeing up their data and allowing users to build other tools and services using Guardian content. Of particular interest is the work on a crowd-sourced solution to geo-tagging. “Stamen and OpenStreetMap developed a service that they hope will encourage Guardian readers to “geo-tag” the [...]
ITN puts news on the map
Following Trinity Mirror’s experiment with the Liverpool Echo, journalism.co.uk has reported on ITN’s use of Google Maps to provide users with geo-located news stories. The simple interface currently allows you to specify a minimum number of stories, a central location point and a time period over which you are interested in news content. Upon entering [...]
Mapping and poverty (Blog Action Day 2008)
The 2008 theme for Blog Action Day is Poverty, a subject that hasn’t been out of the papers in one form or another for a long time. I thought I’d start with a fairly obvious Google image search for “poverty map”. Geographic.org appears to come up trumps with the fairly straightforward World Poverty Map (2000) [...]
How to plan your next holiday
After I published a post on my personal blog about the lack of decent tools on the web to help plan a holiday a friend pointed me in the direction of Opodo’s new AirTools service. It’s not quite the complete answer but it’s certainly heading in the right direction. Within a very short time of [...]
Trinity Mirror launches local wiki website
Coming hot on the heels of their Liverpool Echo news map, the Trinity Mirror have launched a wiki site for the North East of England. The website, www.wiki-north-east.co.uk, is aiming to be “a collaboration of editorial articles and user generated content for and about the people, places and events of the North East.“ Read an [...]
Trinity Mirror launch beta local news map
As reported by The Guardian, Trinity Mirror have today announced the launch of a map-based local news service on their Liverpool Echo website. Chief Executive Sly Bailey said that the service was a follow-up to the development of a series of hyper-local websites across the group. “As a next step we’re launching a map-based news [...]
Going for a run?
This morning I ran 6.6306 miles. The first mile was very much downhill but the 6th mile was a very steep uphill climb. During the run I burnt 937 calories*. This is all good news**. What is even better news is that I know all of this information without having spent a single penny on [...]
MapTube: Create, combine and share your data on maps
Seeing a recent post from The Map Room reminded me that I had neglected to finish an earlier post I had started about MapTube, a website for sharing maps created with the GMapCreator software, released by University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). The main principle of MapTube is that shared maps can [...]
New web application to add contextual mapping to your website
MapMyPage is a new web application that allows you to add contextual map information for any locations mentioned on your web page. An explanation of how it works is on the site: MapMyPage uses its own proprietary technology in combination with MetaCarta’s GeoTagger and the Google Maps API to identify locations in web pages and [...]
ITV Local adds crime information
More activity from websites looking to improve their coverage of local crime information. This time it’s ITV who are launching a crime section on ITV.com, tying crime data and related news to the eleven regions in the ITV Local network. ITV is working with the charity Crimestoppers to add crime information to the site in [...]
Everyblock experiments with council meeting minutes
Tom Loosemore recently posted about the ability to search video footage from House of Commons debates on theyworkforyou.com, pointing out that: The accessibility and searchability of the web transforms our ability to hold our elected representatives to account for their actions in Parliament. Now hyper-local news mapping site Everyblock has launched in two new US [...]
Media coverage of the BBC Local Video PVT
Here is an updating list (thanks to the miracle that is del.icio.us) of links to media coverage of the BBC‘s application to provide a local video service on bbc.co.uk. (Disclaimer: I am involved in this application as part of my day job at the BBC.) The PVT began on 24th June 2008. my del.icio.us
BBC Trust begins public value test into local video proposal
The BBC Trust has today started its public value test (PVT) of the BBC’s local video proposal. (Disclaimer: I am involved in this proposal as part of my day job at the BBC.) The Trust has published BBC management’s application as well as supporting documents, a service description and a full timetable for the PVT. [...]
ITV Local has 4 million video views in May
Media Guardian reports that ITV’s web video figures rocket. ITV Local, which offers news, weather and entertainment content to different regions, recorded four million video views in May. The four ITV regions where video has taken off the most are Meridian, which accounted for 16% of views, Central at15%, Anglia with 11% and London at [...]
Huffington Post goes local
From Media Guardian article – Huffington Post starts local news push. The Huffington Post is planning to expand into local news across the US, founder Arianna Huffington said last night, beginning with a site edited for the community of Chicago. Huffington said the Chicago site would aggregate news, sports, crime, arts and business news from [...]
