Is reading this post an elitist activity? Social media may pay lip service to the concept of communities and interactivity, but the comment box at the bottom of the page may really be a members-only club.

Internet use is an elitist activity (Photo: Dots and Spaces, Flickr)

According to William Morris, chairman of the International Council for Press and Broadcasting, a boom in blogging and user-generated content hides the fact that “much of new media is an elite forum”. At this week’s Voices Online conference, organised by the Next Century Foundation, Morris warned of an online “knowledge gap” developing in the Middle East.

I have written about the debate for the Daily Telegraph, including comments from Demotix founder Turi Munthe, Slugger O’Toole creator Mick Fealty, Iran blogger Potkin Azarmehr and leader of B’Tselem’s Shooting Back programme Oren Yakobovich.

You can read my post in full here,  courtesy of Communities Editor Shane Richmond.

Blogging may not be an exact science, but if it was, Paul Staines would surely be its professor. He is the man behind the Guido Fawkes blog, detonator of the “digital dynamite” that was the e-mails between Damian McBride and Derek Draper, and his blog racks up more than 100,000 hits a day.

Paul Staines, who created Guido Fawkes as an "overdeveloped caricature"

At the Voices Online blogging conference yesterday, Staines divulged his top tips for bringing in blog traffic. “You’ve got to make non-mainstream media more mainstream,” he said. “You can’t write about highfaluting boring stuff all the time. You don’t see newspapers only writing about serious things.”

His three commandments for blogging brilliance are:

• “Don’t comment on comment” -  the “most boring” of all sins

• “Update regularly” – with original material

• “Don’t forget novelty” – keep content fresh and varied

And if anyone knows what works, it’s Staines: he also told the conference that he would never become a newspaper journalist because he “couldn’t take the pay cut”.

He added that the Guido Fawkes character is an “overdeveloped caricature” of himself, invented because “it’s quite good branding and I didn’t want to embarrass my wife”.

For more of my coverage of Voices Online, you can read about why the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow thinks blog readers are like ‘particularly aggressive sub-editors’, how an ‘internet black hole’ is operating in the Middle East and why Guido Fawkes and Mick Fealty disagree about Twitter, all on Journalism.co.uk.

Is hyperlocal the future of news? Seamus McCauley revealed to me yesterday that the company behind the Mail Online and This Is London is developing a new generation of local news sites that will combine citizen journalism, blogging and Facebook-style networking.

Make the news and make friends with hyperlocal sites

McCauley, a strategic analyst at Associated Northcliffe Digital, said during his visit to City University that hyperlocal news is Northcliffe’s “hope for the answer” to the current media crisis. I broke the story in full on Journalism.co.uk, but I am now making the case for Northcliffe to support a hyperlocal website for my own hometown.

Berkhamsted perfectly fits McCauley’s brief, with a population of 16,000 but limited coverage from a local newspaper that also stretches across Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Kings Langley and the surrounding villages. Inspired by the success of Ed Walker’s Preston blog and Robin Hamman’s St. Albans blog, as well as my work on hyperlocal project the Hackney Post, I am hoping to persuade Northcliffe to add Berkhamsted to their list of 30 hyperlocal trial towns this summer.

The best hyperlocal journalism uses reporters’ tools and tricks to build on to the local knowledge that already exists in every town or city. There was a story in The Times last week about Susan Galbreath, an unemployed 40-year-old who secured a scoop that Fleet Street’s finest would have been proud of – and solved a murder in America’s deep south. Galbreath had no journalism knowledge or experience, but relied on the guidance of British reporter Tom Mangold and a wealth of local knowledge that “percolated up from the street”.

“The local Mayfield newspaper displayed almost zero interest; the regional paper didn’t want to know either. Local TV did its headline bites and moved on. Investigative journalists live in big cities and cover big cases. Mayfield is a very small town – a black girl raped and strangled, not the first, won’t be the last, no celebs involved, hey ho.”

The truth is that no matter how many flip cameras, BlackBerries, N95, iPhones, dictaphones or microphones we cram into our pockets, even the hottest hack would have struggled to scoop Galbreath without an intimate knowledge of the people, places and peculiarities of her hometown. Similiarly, Galbreath would have had difficulty structuring her investigation without Mangold’s investigative expertise. But could combining the two help the press claw its way out of peril?

If you have experience of, or opinions on, hyperlocal reporting, please leave a comment and share them with me.

This well-travelled Wordle is this blog’s equivalent of a clutch of passport stamps. Drawing on live data from my new FEEDJIT widget, it reveals where in the world visitors to this site have come from during the last 12 hours.

A Wordle of where you are in the world

The United Kingdom and the United States dominate (the latter due in part, I’m sure, to yesterday’s blog about a certain dog), but a steady stream of traffic has also arrived from Italy, Spain and Norway.

Others passing through my page today alone have been web tourists from Germany, Indonesia, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Istanbul, Australia, Venezuela, Kosovo, India and Slovenia: proof, as if we needed it, that online journalism knows no geographical bounds.

Bo, the new First Dog

The newest appointment to the Obama administration has been a long time coming. Covert conversations, visits to a clandestine training centre and even a change of name all preceded this weekend’s White House arrival.

Less than 24 hours after wagging his way into Washington, the latest addition has already been interviewed for his unofficial website and given his own blog by The Telegraph. Six-month-old Bo is now America’s First Dog, and probably the most publicised pooch in the world.

But the presidential puppy has also highlighted the most effective form of promotion for the digital age: strategic product placement. Google Trends data reveals that searches for Bo’s breed, the Portuguese water dog, have increased by more than 30 times in the last four months. After a slight rise in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the dog was first rumoured to have made the Obama’s shortlist, interest soared in February 2009 when Michelle Obama confirmed the family’s decision.

The top ten sources of this traffic are all US cities, with Boston in pole position, but the statistics also show a surge in searches from Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In other words, getting something into the White House taps into the most lucrative advertising market in the western world.

The Obama effect: Google Trends for the Portuguese water dog

This is the Obama b(r)andwagon at full throttle, and the power of presidential product placement is not limited to pets. In January, when Sasha and Malia donned outfits from American label J. Crew for their father’s inauguration, web searches for the brand rocketed to their highest levels since records began in 2004. Most importantly, this traffic translated into a tangible boardroom boost: clicks through to J. Crew’s product pages increased by 3,000 per cent and the company’s stock jumped by 10.6 per cent.

The close attention paid by journalists to the First Family means that any brand touched by the Obamas finds itself on what Time magazine dubbed “the world’s biggest showroom floor”. The number of internet users worldwide searching for “BlackBerry” reached its all-time peak at the same time as the President’s addiction to his BlackBerry was reported in the media. Searches for Kenya, where President Obama’s father was born, also increased after his election. However, the Obama effect lasts only as long as the product continues to be pushed by the press: web searches for Labradoodles, the other breed shortlisted for First Dog, quadrupled in January but have now fallen to almost pre-Obama levels.

The Obama family welcomes Bo

When I worked in PR, we operated on the assumption that the editorial endorsement of a product is worth three times as much as a traditional advert. The level of interest in the President’s choice of pet suggests that when this coverage implies the approval of a popular public figure, its value increases again. For branding agencies to make themselves relevant beyond the recession, they need to find a way of harnessing this promotional power of suggestion: and journalists must ensure they are commercially clued-up enough to pursue stories on the basis of public interest, not just increasingly clever public relations.

It’s not a good time to be a journalist. We stand accused of writing the world into recession. Jobs and entire news organisations are disappearing around us. Those lucky enough to still have a salary are working longer hours for less money. And yet there are still those of us who refuse to give up on our dreams of making our mark in the media.

Lara King and Alison Battisby at the British Press Awards 2009

Last night, I remembered why. My City colleague Alison Battisby and I attended the British Press Awards as guests of Women in Journalism, and spent the night mingling with Fleet Street’s finest at Grosvenor House. After an evening in the company of some of the most impressive journalists of the decade, it was hard not to be inspired by their sensational scoops and influential investigations.

We chatted to Guardian blogger Dave Hill after he had received his award for Digital Journalist of the Year. He complimented our hard work on the Hackney Post and urged us to continue developing the site beyond the constraints of our course. We also swapped training tales with Tom Harper, a former City student who won Young Journalist of the Year for his work on the Mail on Sunday, and caught up with Stephen Wright, chief crime correspondent at the Daily Mail, after he had bagged both the Specialist Journalist of the Year prize and the Cudlipp Award.

Jon Snow presents the British Press Awards

The night was hosted by Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow, who insisted that the much-maligned media masses still have a role to play in the brave new world of news. “Without us, the internet will crumble. We are the key to the future,” he told 700 dubious journalists. But his emphasis on “content, content, content” and the need to pursue journalistic excellence with more determination than ever struck a chord.

It was a good night for…

• The Times: It scooped Newspaper of the Year for its transformation under James Harding, who refused to indulge his “inner Kate Winslet” in his pleasantly punchy acceptance speech. Camilla Cavendish also won Campaign of the Year for her excellent work in making family courts more accountable.
• Geeks: Journalist of the Year Gillian Tett credited the financial crisis with making geek journalism a sought-after style, and guest speaker Vince Cable said the recession had made celebrities out of “people otherwise regarded as boring anoraks, like me and Robert Peston”.
• Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross: Their behaviour may not have been award-winning, but Miles Goslett’s coverage of “Sachsgate” in the Mail on Sunday won Scoop of the Year for follow-up it received everywhere from the papers to Parliament.

It was a bad night for…

• Jon Snow’s jokes: “What’s the capital of Iceland? One krona.” “What’s the difference between a pigeon and an investment banker? A pigeon can still put a deposit down on a Bentley.” And so on.
• A. A. Gill, Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan: All were booed emphatically, simply for having their names read out.
• Bob Satchwell: The executive director of the Society of Editors was so moved by the performance of classical cuties Escala that he declared his desire to return in his next life as a cello.

For full details of the winners, visit Press Gazette. And if we remember Snow’s emphasis on “content, content, content”, perhaps Alison and I will be able to add our names to the list one day.

Over the last three weeks, I have jostled amongst the crowds at a job centre, ventured behind the scenes at a bookies, waved microphones at market traders, sought out a secret millionaire, explored the world of estate agents, lingered in lingerie shops, produced my first podcast, quibbled with QuarkXPress, learned how to ride out a recession and chatted to two of the capital’s funniest comics. Welcome to life on the Hackney Post.

The fruits of our labours at the Hackney Post

It has been described as “a new hyperlocal Twitter-driven newspaper for Hackney in the 21st century” by one reader, and cited as an example that local news is still “pretty alive” by another. The truth is that the Hackney Post is what happens when twenty soon-to-be qualified journalists put their talent to the test as a year of journalism training at City careers towards completion.

We have produced a weekly newspaper and a round-the-clock website serving one of London’s most buzzing boroughs, as well as a Twitter feed, a YouTube channel and a Flickr stream. I have worked as production editor, business reporter, feature writer, sub-editor and multimedia journalist, covering everything from the economy to entertainment. At a time when regional news is becoming an endangered species, our endeavours on the Hackney Post have proved just how many stories there are to be dug up in even the quietest corners of every city.

Unfortunately, with only three weeks to work on the project, we still have a long way to go before we can challenge students such as those at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, who spend their whole year producing community news site Mission Loc@l under the leadership of Lydia Chavez. For now at least, the Hackney Post has been put to bed for another year.

For highlights of our work, visit my Portfolio.

Hackney Post reporters Josie Ensor, Lara King and Katherine Faulkner

You know that spring is in the air when the days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and everyone stops organising social events on Wednesdays. The fifth series of The Apprentice starts tonight, which means forsaking all others for a midweek date with Sir Alan Sugar until June.

Anita Shah gets fired two hours too early by Telegraph.co.uk

I was looking forward to watching the first episode until I made the mistake of turning to Telegraph.co.uk for a news fix this evening. The paper’s Twitter feed directed me towards a bold headline that announced “Anita Shah ‘gutted’ to be fired by Sir Alan”. The story went on to explain that  “last night’s episode on BBC One, in which Sir Alan revealed someone had ‘bottled it’ before the cameras had started rolling, saw the hard work start immediately” before giving a blow-by-blow account of the first show.

Which is all very well, except the story was published online almost two hours before the programme was actually screened.

Journalism may be about getting the story fast and getting it first, but The Telegraph’s online editors were too quick off the mark with this one. Needless to say, the link to the story had gone dead within an hour, but it still features on the paper’s Twitter feed.

At least television newsreaders have the decency to tell you to “look away now” before they show you a spoiler. Still, let’s hope they do the same before the show’s final so that I have time to put a bet on.

Saturdays are on the verge of overtaking Sundays as my favourite morning of the week. It has nothing to do with the length of the lie-in, the quantity of tea consumed or what’s on T4. Instead, it all rests on what there is to read over those extra cups of Earl Grey.

Six new sections: the redesigned Saturday Times

Thanks to the heady combination of The Observer, the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday, I have always considered the day of rest to be my favourite day of reading material. But since its relaunch in January, the revamped Saturday Times has been giving these Sunday stalwarts a run for their money (and not just because it’s cheaper).

In its new incarnation, the paper’s previous skinny supplements have been amalgamated into one big Weekend section, Mail on Sunday style. It has also introduced the excellent Saturday Review to cover arts, books and culture, and The Times Magazine has had an injection of popular culture (and pink headlines) with the punchy new Radar pages. It’s even managed to do all of this without compromising the calibre of writers that made me love the paper in the first place.

But one of the most interesting additions is “Crunch time: A story in data” in The Times Magazine. Every week, Jonathan Richards and Julian Burgess devote a page to a colourful, computer-generated representation of raw facts and figures, whether as a graph, a chart or a Wordle. More often than not, these digital visualisations create stories that would never have made it into print if they were reduced to words: the relative size of Britain’s shopping centres to Wembley’s football pitch or the distance covered in ten seconds by pedestrians in different cities don’t mean that much until they’re given a graphical lease of life.

"Crunch time: A story in data" from The Times Magazine

We all know that journalists have to be multitalented, multiskilled, multimedia wizards to survive  as part of the modern press corps, and journalism training today is dominated by breaking and reporting news online, whether through blogging, podcasting, vodcasting or social media. But this is a rare example of how digital devices can be employed to excellent effect in something other than news reporting. It shows how data and digits can fit alongside features, work wonderfully with good old fashioned print and give statistics some sparkle.

What it needs to keep sparkling, though, is a constant stream of new ideas and interpretations. In its seven-week lifespan, its creators have already resorted to using a Wordle twice (slightly old news, Saturday Times?), so let’s hope the team behind “Crunch time” has enough computing creativity to keep the concept going.

You might have found this blog by searching for journalism. You might have been brought here by my observations on politics, multimedia, the law, public relations or the European Union. But statistically, you probably found it looking for a Lamborghini.

Click me baby one more time: search engines love Spears

That’s right. Despite the hours that have gone into carefully crafted blog posts on everything from Andrew Marr to marmosets, the vehicle most likely to bring traffic to my blog is the Lamborghini Gallardo. I unwittingly parked one in a post about celebrity blogging in December, and since then around 800 visitors to my site got here as a result of searching for the supercar. In second place in the search statistics comes Lucinda Ledgerwood from The Apprentice, and taking a feeble third place is my own name.

Now that search engines are big business, getting Googled is no longer as simple as making sure who, what, why, where and when appear in the first paragraph of your story (which most journalists do when they tell a story over the dinner table anyway). When it comes to search results, here are a few tips for coming top:

• Step 1: Think like a searcher, not a sub-editor. If you’re logging on to Lycos to find out what Ashley Cole has got into trouble for this week, you’re not going to tap in any of The Sun’s latest Cole puns, no matter how catchy they may be. Make a list of all the words related to your story that people might actually search for, and cram as many of them into your headline as possible: but forget about redundant words like “he”, “I” or “the”.

• Step 2: Include abbreviations and acronyms in your headlines instead of fully fledged titles. According to Google Insights, searchers are six times more likely to look for “TFL” than “Transport for London”, and “NFL” wipes the floor with “National Football League”.

• Step 3: Turn to your thesaurus. Think of synonyms for your keywords and run them through Google Insights to find the lingo that search engines will love. “Movie” is almost twice as popular as “film”, but “holiday” will easily beat “vacation”.

• Step 4: Once you’ve compiled all your keywords, find popular related terms and phrases with Wordtracker. People searching for “SEO” are also including words like “tools”, “tips” and “services”. If they’re relevant to your article, throw them in to increase your traffic.

• Step 5: Include common misspellings. If you’re anything like me, this will go against every grain in your pedantic body, but the mighty SEO has spoken: Google Insights reveals that “David Beckam” is one of the most popular search terms related to “David Beckham”.

• Step 6: Optimise your images. Search engines are a bit like your blind old aunt who wants to know everything that’s happening but just can’t see, so they need you to painstakingly spell things out. Make sure the image’s caption, filename and alt text all contain key search terms.

• Step 7: Finally, make sure Google can hear you scream by positioning all of your keywords to good effect. Your super SEO headline should appear in your page’s <title> tag and within a <h> heading tag. Make sure these two co-ordinate with what’s in the body of your text to increase your relevance to search engines.

Of course, if I was taking my own advice, I might have titled this “tools and tips for SEO”, or “how to improve your Google ranking”. But according to Google Insights, the above headline will bring more of you here… even if you may not find exactly what you’re looking for.