Category Archives: Financial Times

Comment is fre: My twitterspat with Paul Kagame

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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 engaging with a journalist. ... Several observers criticised Kagame's Twitter tantrum as exhibiting a lack of dignity. I disagree. It is admirable to see a leader engaging so personally with new means of communication – although it is telling there is no one he thinks worth following. And there is something rather splendid about a president so passionate about his country he confronts foreign critics in this manner. The exchanges underlined the revolutionary nature of what is fast becoming the most important journalistic tool around."

Comment is free: My twitterspat with Paul Kagame

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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 engaging with a journalist. ... Several observers criticised Kagame's Twitter tantrum as exhibiting a lack of dignity. I disagree. It is admirable to see a leader engaging so personally with new means of communication – although it is telling there is no one he thinks worth following. And there is something rather splendid about a president so passionate about his country he confronts foreign critics in this manner. The exchanges underlined the revolutionary nature of what is fast becoming the most important journalistic tool around."

Financial Times careers: Investigations and Special Project Editor

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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 organisations, international frontline reporting experience, in-depth knowledge of multimedia and an interest in mentoring and coaching would ensure a successful application."

The Guardian: How live blogging has transformed journalism

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"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 traditional readers who clamour for a straight-up-and-down, conventionally written article. One blogger even described live blogs as the 'death of journalism'."

New York Times: Financial Times Digs Gold Out of Data

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"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 considerably higher percentage than many other publishers can claim. ... Mr. Ridding said The FT was considering joining Google’s new One Pass subscription system, which will take a commission of 10 percent and share customer data with publishers. An iPad without The FT in its digital newsstand might be a losing proposition for both parties. Yet if Apple sticks to its position, Mr. Ridding said, “it would be a shame, not just for us, but for the broader ecosystem that has developed in recent years around these devices. It requires some thought before harm is done."

TheMediaBriefing: FT.com’s Rob Grimshaw on mobile, customer data and multimedia journalism

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"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."

Moving on: a new job

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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.