Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

SEO Week: How Broadband Genie makes money from online content

Can you make money online through editorial content? In a series of videos filmed last year at UCA Farnham, Chris Marling explains how broadband comparison site Broadband Genie achieves £1 million in annual revenue through clever use of SEO and targeted consumer editorial content. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86zLGUemjs0 The Broadband Genie business model The Broadband Genie web site makes […]

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Journalism job ads: not for actual jobs any more #3

Here’s a fine example of a cool-sounding TV presenter “job” that many young journalists would scramble for. The catch? It’s that attractive “Voluntary” salary. Which is code for “no money” – though they do offer food and travel expenses. As well as devoting one day a fortnight to filming and presenting the show, any young […]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Journalism job ads: not for actual jobs any more #2

After last week’s unmissable, $30 a month opportunity to write for a potential audience of 24 million, how about this ad for a “Home based internet researcher”? For some reason, though the deadline hadn’t passed when I first grabbed the ad, the ad was dropped from Journalism.co.uk before the stated closing date. Maybe 63336 Limited has […]

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Journalism job ads: not for actual jobs any more #1

That is, not for actual jobs that have a salary attached. Not even minimum wage. Try this one for size:  “Freelance writers for online magazine” This is an ad for “The world’s most comprehensive independent online magazine: written and edited by professionals, trusted by over 24 million readers monthly!” This is what it wants from you: […]

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Editorial integrity – the view from India

If you thought editorial integrity was being undermined in the UK, take a look at the Times of India.  Indian journalism blogger Sans Serif has an interesting post on an investigation by finance journalist Sucheta Delal on the way the Times of India not only sells news coverage in the paper, but also uses that coverage to […]

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

The ups and downs of internships

I posted a while ago about the graduate journalism show at UCA in Farnham. I was impressed by several of the final year projects, and mentioned the F1-focused piece by Adam Leveridge. As it happens, a little while after the show Adam landed a nice internship with a web content company called Adfero. It’s the […]

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Journalism: a trade, not a profession

Star responds to my enquiry about her media recession with an interesting viewpoint from the US.  She says:  I am seeing the profession of writing–and I do consider it a profession–being downgraded by digitization and outsourcing. I’d disagree, in as much as I consider writing for the media or marketing (which is what we’re largely […]

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

How to write a good brief for People Per Hour

I’ve written before about online creative freelance marketplace People Per Hour.  I noted that one key problem with the site is the hopelessly inadequate briefs supplied by potential employers. So, if anyone reading this is thinking about trying to source freelance writing using the site, here’s how to prepare your brief. It’s clear about what […]

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Why free is not just about the money

Very interesting piece by Stan Schroeder on Mashable on the different implications of free online content. “Free” is not just about price – it’s also about simplicity and ease of use.  Some content will be difficult to charge anything for. Unfortunately for journalists, it’s news. Forcing charges down people’s throats is a bad way to […]

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Can a donation model fund web content?

Media owners and publishers are, to say the least, anxious about the financial viability of journalism, given the web’s capacity for undermining the usual business model for content (buying stuff) by, basically, giving it away free. The UK government is even thinking about annexing part of the BBC licence fee to support regional news on […]