paidContent: What Publishers Can Learn From Online Retailers
Thursday, 8 September 2011, 18:37
FT panel looks at what online retailers and online publishers can learn from each other. Social media still trumped by other referral sources; email personalisation is vital; testing small UI changes can have huge benefits for conversions …
TheNextWeb: The FT dodges Apple subscription fee with new Web app for iOS devices
Friday, 10 June 2011, 10:51
"The Web app will be bolstered with additional content over time, including blogs, special reports and illustrative graphics. A new ‘Clippings’ service allowing users to store articles for late reading is also in the works. "
Comment is fre: My twitterspat with Paul Kagame
Tuesday, 17 May 2011, 14:39
Ian Birrell: "By the time I went to bed, the foreign minister still tweeting furiously, our twitterspat had gone global with supporters on both sides weighing in. Digital gurus speculated this was another Twitter first: a head of state directly en…
Comment is free: My twitterspat with Paul Kagame
Tuesday, 17 May 2011, 14:39
Ian Birrell: "By the time I went to bed, the foreign minister still tweeting furiously, our twitterspat had gone global with supporters on both sides weighing in. Digital gurus speculated this was another Twitter first: a head of state directly en…
Financial Times careers: Investigations and Special Project Editor
Friday, 6 May 2011, 10:40
Deadlines is 11 May: "He or she will have a strong background in investigative work, and Pulitzer-sized ambition. A strong background in computer-assisted and database reporting, a proven track record at some of the world's biggest news organ…
The Independent: The Pink ‘Un powers on
Monday, 4 April 2011, 17:47
"It's the 10th anniversary of the Financial Times introducing subscription charges for access to its digital content.""
Reuters: FT won’t give up subscriber relationship to Appla
Monday, 4 April 2011, 17:12
"The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of new customers who sign up via Apple's iPad, the managing director of FT.com [Rob Grimshaw told Reuters in an in…
The Guardian: How live blogging has transformed journalism
Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 18:19
"The reward is huge traffic spikes, hundreds of comments – so far in March, live blogs (including minute-by-minute coverage of sporting events) on guardian.co.uk account for 3.6 million unique users, 9% of the total – and the wrath of some tra…
New Media Age: FT website to match pink paper
Friday, 25 March 2011, 14:49
"The revamped FT.com site will show articles on a pink background – currently only the landing page is pink – and will also feature bigger graphics and videos, as well as 'more intelligent' linking on articles to steer readers to rel…
New York Times: Financial Times Digs Gold Out of Data
Monday, 7 March 2011, 09:18
"John Ridding, the chief executive of The FT … said improvements in collecting and mining customer data were a big reason digital sales accounted for 24 percent of The FT’s revenue last year, a big jump from 19 percent a year earlier and a con…
The National: Publishers put future at fingertips with iPad papers
Sunday, 12 December 2010, 22:55
FT iPad Production Editor Sanjay Gohil: "We are faced with a crossroads with a younger generation used to electronic media and an older generation that remains loyal to print."
TheMediaBriefing: FT.com’s Rob Grimshaw on mobile, customer data and multimedia journalism
Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 11:27
"In the second part of our exclusive interview with FT.com head honcho Rob Grimshaw, we tackle some of the specifics behind the FT's digital strategy. That includes: how the site uses customer data, why mobile is so important and how the profits from those 189,000 paying customers are re-invested back into multimedia journalism."
FT.com: Investigation reveals EU funding mess
Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 09:00
"Cynthia O'Murchu, the FT's investigative reporter, explains how the FT and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism pulled together an eight-month expose of the murky world of EU structural funds."
Moving on: a new job
Friday, 15 October 2010, 10:47
It’s my last day at Emap and Retail Week today. On Monday, I’ll be joining the the Financial Times as a producer on FT.com’s interactive desk. It’s a great opportunity to finally practice practise the area of journalism that has most fascinated me in recent years — the visualisation of data and integration of multimedia elements in online journalism. I’m very excited about it. Expect the focus of this blog to shift a bit towards tags like Flash, HTML5, graphics, visualisation and data.
As excited as I am about that, I’m going to miss working at Emap. Over the last two years, I’ve been hugely privileged to work with an amazing team of journalists in the retail group here, and particularly some great digital editors in Andre Rickerby, Keely Stocker and Kate Donovan.
We relaunched four websites — Retail Week, Drapers, Retail Jeweller and Professional Beauty. We successfully pioneered implementing Emap’s much-discussed paywall strategy. We vastly improved what we do in terms of search engine optimisation, email newsletters, and video content. We launched and integrated a brilliant rich data product and have several others in the works.
There’s so much left to be done here — I’m sad to be leaving two very exciting projects in the pipeline. But they will soon be in the very capable hands of Victoria Thompson.
