SoGlos.com Blog

SoGlos.com founders named leading innovators in journalism and media

SoGlos.com’s founders Michelle Byrne and James Fryer were today named amongst the UK’s leading innovators in journalism and media by journalism.co.uk.

The influential website for journalists compiled the ‘J-List’ as a rundown of the individuals it sees as those helping to build the future of the industry.

Michelle and James are both extremely proud to be included alongside the industry’s cream of the innovative crop – with fellow J-Listers including industry commentator Charlie Beckett, the Times' Joanna Geary and TheBusinessDesk.com’s Marc Reeves.

Don’t miss the full J-List over at Journalism.co.uk for yourself.

SoGlos.com scoops Website of the Year award

Whilst we were delighted to have been shortlisted, you can imagine how overjoyed the team was when SoGlos.com was crowned Website of the Year in the EDF Energy South West Media Awards 2010. 

SoGlos.com beat off stiff competition from finalists BBC Bristol, Northcliffe’s This is Bristol and DMGT’s Tiverton People to win the coveted Website of the Year Award 2010.

Representing Gloucestershire’s only finalist in the search for south west’s best website, SoGlos.com was praised for being a ‘good role model for others’.

The judges also highlighted the online magazine’s 70,000 monthly readers, 14,500 weekly email newsletter subscribers and foundation of high quality journalism married with technical innovation at the awards ceremony held in Weston-super-Mare yesterday.

SoGlos.com co-founder and editor Michelle Byrne said: ‘This prestigious award win is testament to our small but dedicated team’s work over the past three years – and we’re particularly thrilled to be victorious as we were representing Gloucestershire against media giants including the BBC, Northcliffe and DMGT.’

The sixth annual EDF Energy awards run in association with journalism website HoldtheFrontPage saw a judging panel comprised of Alan Geere, Tim Williams, Peter Cook, Karen Ainley, Neil Gallagher, Nigel Bowles and Claire Byrd select winners representing the best journalism across the entire region.

Visit the award-winning SoGlos.com at soglos.com.

Reflections on Journalism.co.uk news:rewired event

Celebrating Journalism.co.uk’s 10-year anniversary, the inaugural news:rewired event on Thursday 14 January 2010 saw around 150 journalists, trainees, journalism students and academics descend on City University London – including SoGlos.com’s co-founders Michelle Byrne and James Fryer.

While the day – structured around individual sessions, where delegates could pick ‘n’ mix from topics including everything from social media for journalists to crowdsourcing – saw plenty of informative talks and heated debates, James Fryer had the honour of giving a presentation about SoGlos.com as a media model, during the final ‘new journalism and making money’ session of the day. The session was also filmed by the BBC:

SoGlos.com News Rewired Journalism.co.uk Presentation

View more presentations from SoGlos.com.

While joining the small but seasoned panel – including online entrepreneur and (now) former head of digital media at Telegraph.co.uk Greg Hadfield, reputed media law lawyer Caroline Kean from Wiggin and CEO of B2B publishing company Sift Ben Hadfield – was no mean feat, a presentation of five dos and don’ts of online publishing garnered a good response from the discerning audience – judging from the flurry of Twitter activity at the time, and subsequent coverage.

Freelance media, technology and journalism writer Patrick Smith has produced a rich roundup of James Fryer’s presentation, as has Adam Tinworth on his blog One Man and His Blog, and Alex Waters on the Journalism.co.uk site – with additional commentary also coming from The (e)Grommet, Jon Slattery, Iain Hepburn, Freelance Unbound and Alexandre Gamela.

Having attended sessions held throughout the day, James Fryer and Michelle Byrne’s personal highlights included Adam Westbrook’s stunning multimedia work, Malcolm Coles’ humourous examples of online publishing bloopers, and hyperlocal insights from Guardian Local’s Sarah Hartley, the Lichfield Blog’s Philip John and times web development editor Joanna Geary.

While award-winning videojournalist David Dunkley Gyimah’s upbeat presentation proved the perfect mid-afternoon pep for conference delegates.

It was a little disappointing to not hear about more examples of independent online media launching in the UK, but news:rewired nonetheless packed a good practical journalism punch for everyone in attendance – with, no doubt, wide scale hopes that the event will become an annual calendar highlight.

Visit newsrewired.com directly for full information and commentary, and check out the essential catch-up guide on Journalism.co.uk.

SoGlos.com Q&A on news:rewired

In the run-up to the anticipated news:rewired event later this month, SoGlos.com's deputy editor James Fryer has has the pleasure of taking part in a Q&A with Journalism.co.uk's Laura Oliver - published on the news:rewired website over the festive period: Speaker Q&A: James Fryer, deputy editor, SoGlos.com

SoGlos.com at Journalism.co.uk news:rewired

We’re delighted and honoured to announce that SoGlos.com’s deputy editor James Fryer will be joining an acclaimed line-up of speakers – representing media from the BBC and Guardian to the Times and Telegraph, no less – at the inaugural news:rewired event in London this January.

Taking place on Wednesday 14 January 2010 at City University, where SoGlos.com’s editor Michelle Byrne incidentally studied the newspaper journalism postgraduate course a few years back, the event is being organised by Journalism.co.uk as an opportunity for working journalists, trainees, journalism students and academics to learn from those with first-hand experience in the industry.

The keynote speech will come from George Brock, head of City University's journalism department, with speakers then being organised into three main subject areas.

Multimedia speakers will include freelance journalism and multimedia producer Adam Westbrook, CEO of AudioBoo Mark Rock and internet consultant / media blogger Malcolm Coles.

Those speaking about collaboration including Demotix commissioning editor Andy Heath, Guardian Local launch editor Sarah Hartley and senior developer at MySociety.org Francis Irving.

While the making money speakers will be Sift CEO Ben Heald, head of digital media at Telegraph.co.uk Greg Hadfield, partner at media law firm Wiggin Caroline Kean and SoGlos.com’s very own James Fryer.

For anyone with an interest in the UK media industry, don’t delay in booking your ticket for what’s sure to prove an engaging insight for would-be and established publishers alike: newsrewired.com

Gloucestershire Design Network launch

Following on from the fantastic Digitalks event which took place last month – where SoGlos.com’s deputy editor James Fryer had the pleasure of speaking – 16 July 2009 will see regional creatives descend on D-Fly once again, this time for the official launch of the Gloucestershire Design Network.

Promising an informal get together for anyone working in the design sector, for drinks and laid back discussion on all things design, the SoGlos.com team looks forward to being part of the brand new initiative to promote the region’s design talent.

Reflections on JEEcamp 2009

Doubling in size since last year’s event, the Paul Bradshaw-organised JEEcamp 2009 attracted around 70 attendees – descending on the Birmingham-based ‘unconference’ in a bid to unravel the future of journalism – including SoGlos.com’s founders Michelle Byrne and James Fryer.

Kyle Macrae’s keynote speech was a highlight of the day, with the seasoned entrepreneur giving a heartfelt and honest insight into his experience with Scoopt – a UGC-driven website offering members of the public the opportunity to upload and have their newsworthy pictures sold into the media.

While after years of hard graft the website was acquired by picture giant Getty – before sadly bring shut down earlier this year – Kyle’s insights on the issue of scalability, and realising the profit-generating potential of the model he founded, provided cautionary food for thought, in despite of what may have at first appeared a dream scenario for the budding entrepreneurs in attendance at JEEcamp.

Later in the day and it was James Hatts’ turn to reveal his insights 10 years into running the community-focused website SE1, which covers news in the eponymous postcode district of London. Although James cited plans to launch into neighbouring areas of the capital city – a development fuelled by reader demand to see the popular hyper-local model spread its wings – it was a surprise to hear that the family-run business had never been profit-driven or -motivated.

Deputy editor James Fryer was also fortunate enough to present during the unconference, giving a brief insight into some of the lessons learnt during SoGlos.com’s two-year history as an independent online arts and entertainment magazine for the county of Gloucestershire. It was great to see Martin Belam summarising some of the key points in his Guardian online article, which also provided a succinct round-up of the day as a whole.

Michael Haddon referenced SoGlos.com in his Telegraph online article, while SoGlos.com has also had the fortune of being covered by Kasper Sorenson of Created in Birmingham.

While the enthusiasm and optimism for the future of journalism and the undeniable impact the Internet would continue to have on media was unsurprising – considering the crowd! – what was a little astonishing was the absence of more real life examples of independent publishers and professional journalists alike making a commercial impact regionally.

Kyle Macrae’s thoughts on SoGlos.com as a model which could be rolled out across the country – giving journalists the power to embrace a tried and test model – might not be too far from the mark. Watch this space...

Gloucestershire goes Twitter crazy

While the SoGlos.com team first delved into the world of Twitter in 2008, we too were left wondering ‘what exactly is the point?’ and ‘doesn’t Facebook already do this?’ before being tempted to close the door on the Twittersphere forever.

The last few weeks, however, have seen the social networking cum micro-blogging platform take Gloucestershire, the UK and indeed the world by storm – as everyone clambers aboard to answer just ‘what are you doing?’.

You’ll usually find SoGlos.com’s journos glued to their desks writing about glorious Gloucestershire, and the online magazine has already been gathering some followers via http://twitter.com/soglos. But it’s also great to see other early adopters from across the county – including Gloucester City Council, Gloucestershire Tourism and The Cotswold Chef, for example – joining in on the action.

We’re waiting with anticipation to see which Gloucestershire individual, organisation or business is going to start Twittering next.

JEEcamp, looking back.

SoGlos.com had the pleasure of attending the first-ever JEEcamp on Friday 14 March - a Journalism Enterprise and Entrepreneurship 'unconference' organised by  Paul Bradshaw (who you might remember covered SoGlos.com's launch last year) of the Online Journalism Blog.

The event saw a number of leading journalists, bloggers, commentators and innovators in attendance, discussing the challenges facing today's new media publishers, particularly in light of digital media replacing the role of conventional print publications.

Rick Waghorn's keynote speech proved particularly insightful, as the online entrepreneur discussed everything from business models and funding through to the challenges faced in his work on Myfootballwriter.com - regularly cited as one of the most  innovative regional developments in UK online journalism (and for good reason too).

Martin Stabe (who also covered SoGlos.com's launch last year) from Press Gazette offered attendees a wealth of commentary as he formed part of a panel which also included the no-holds-barred Mark Comerford and Scoopt innovator Kyle MacRae - all taking questions posed by attendees in addition to those tuning-in to the unconference over the web.

All in all the day's proceedings provided plenty of food for thought in terms of journalism past, present and future, with interactive sites such as Nigel Eccles' news-forecasting Hubdub and Tim Hood's celebrity-quizzing Yoosk garnering particular attention. The SoGlos.com team will be discussing everything in more detail over the coming weeks, particularly as plans for a number of innovative new features for the online magazine are shaped up...

http://www.SoGlos.com scoops a Google PageRank 5

It’s a testament to the SoGlos.com team that, less than six months after going live on the world wide web, the online magazine for Gloucestershire has been awarded a PageRank of 5 by the world’s leading search engine Google.

While geeks will be well aware that PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used to measure the relative importance of websites on the net, all the rest of us need to know is that PageRank is used to represent how important, trusted and authoritative a given website is – reflecting factors such as how often the site is updated, which other websites link to it and how well the site is built.

To give you an idea of how two other popular Gloucestershire websites rank with Google – thisisgloucestershire.co.uk also has a PageRank of 5, while BBC Gloucestershire has a PageRank of 7 – thanks to its links from the main bbc.co.uk site which boasts a whopping PageRank of 9.

If you’re curious to see what your own PageRank is, then you’ll need to use something like the Google Toolbar. Once download and installed, go to the settings and tick the box to be shown the PageRank and Page Info of each website you visit.