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Thursday Jul 26, 2007
Girl Guides Move With The Times
The Guardian featured a great bit of news yesterday about The Girl Guides – after surveying 1,000 Guides, they plan to include lessons on managing money, assembling flat pack furniture and practising safe sex.
Reading the article, it's hard to believe some of the badges that used to be awarded many moons ago – anyone up for the "Homemaker" badge for example?
Fair play to Girlguiding UK though, listening to the needs of your audience is central to the success of any advice giving service.
The "top skills that every modern girl should have under her belt" for 16-25 year old Guides were:
- Money management (93%);
- Performing CPR (85%);
- Speaking confidently in public (84%);
- Practising safer sex (80%).
Not surprisingly, money worries and safe sex come pretty high on the list of priorities for users of www.TheSite.org as well – the Sex thread on our discussion boards is always well populated, and the same goes to a lesser extent with Home, Law & Money.
I'm really surprised at the middle two though, and would be really interested to get anyone's thoughts on why they feature so highly.
Is speaking confidently in public really more important than learning to drive, for example?
Does this list reflect the demands placed on girls growing up in the Noughties?
Answers on a postcard please.
Thursday Jul 19, 2007
The eye of transparency rests on the BBC
Imagine being in the audience on a game show, willing on the contestants to win the prize of a lifetime (or just feeling jealous that it's them up there not you – either works).
Having watched one of the lucky contestants win, imagine finding out that in fact, they weren't a member of the public, but one of the production team on the show.
It's not a particularly great feeling, but it's pretty similar to how some people are feeling today, after the BBC 'fessed up to several breaches in editorial policy on various programmes. In particular, interactive competitions on Children in Need and Sport Relief were mentioned as being won by members of the production team, for various reasons (such as calls from the public being "lost").
In the voluntary sector we're pretty obsessed with transparency and accountability, and in a way it's comforting to know that an institution like the BBC is grappling with the very same issues that we're trying to get to grips with (indeed, we were mentioned in a very interesting debate over on Intelligent Giving this week. In fact, whilst we're on Intelligent Giving, this isn't the first time the BBC, in the form of Children in Need, has fallen under the transparency spotlight).
I was particularly dismayed to hear about one of the BBC programmes mentioned yesterday – Sport Relief. Sport Relief ran what to my mind is one of the very few successful SMS fundraising campaigns back in 2002 – at the time it was fantastic to see a new fundraising technique being used to such good effect, and I remember feeling inspired and slightly jealous of the resources and platform at Sport Relief's disposal.
I don't know the details of the breach in editorial standards on Sport Relief, but it would be pretty tragic if those early interactive campaigns that generated significant funds for a great cause were rigged (even if the decisions were taken as a result of huge production pressures).
I haven't been a big fan of endless reporting on funding, in particular when it is purely driven by the needs of the funder, as opposed to a set of mutually beneficial outcomes, but this episode has really brought home how vital transparency is.
It's also shown how important it is to be open when things have gone wrong, and I think the BBC have done an admirable job in coming clean and drawing a line in the sand about the consequences of any future breaches in policy.Posted by Sam Thomas ( 10:57 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Jul 17, 2007
Support YouthNet's Para's
How's this for putting your money where your mouth is?
A crack team of YouthNet employees and young people from across the UK are taking part in a parachute jump on Friday 20th July to raise money for YouthNet.
Led by Wing Commander Jagdev (on the right of the picture), they've set themselves a fundraising target of £3,000. They're making great progress in reaching this goal, but they still need your help!
Here's the shameless plug part – you can donate quickly and easily on their Justgiving page: http://www.justgiving.com/jumpingforyouthnet.
If you're keen to follow their lead and join the ranks of YouthNet's 1st Parachute Division then you can find out more and sign up here.Posted by Sam Thomas ( 11:50 AM ) Link to this post Comments[2]
Monday Jul 16, 2007
Old media still has a pulse: it's just different
The internet has killed off old media. Newspapers are disappearing; magazines are shutting down; record stores are closing; radio and TV stations are desperately tying to figure out how to survive in a YouTubed world.
Right? Maybe not.
This week, a couple of signs of life have been noticed in the dusty, non-digital media world:
-- Vinyl record sales are up, particularly among younger people apparently looking for something physical to own and cherish - which they're not getting from an external hard drive or iTunes subscription. Meanwhile, Rough Trade is opening "the UK's biggest record store" in London's Brick Lane this weekend. The owners reckon "shoppers crave expert advice, broad choice and excitement when they buy music" and that isn't on offer from high street stores or online sites.
-- Teen girls' magazines might be dropping like flies but other, niche publications are springing up in their place. This week Grace Magazine launches, a magazine run by the Church Times with the aim of offering young women an alternative to the celeb news and gossip of the normal women's output. Also trying to offer an alternative, but in a very different fashion, are feminist magazines like KnockBack and Uplift!
What old media seems to be learning from new media is that fragmentation of audiences and the expectation of personalisation mean once-size mass audience products aren't going to always work. Instead, niche magazines and shopping services run by passionate people that know their audiences and can offer – literally – the human touch, can still survive.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 4:39 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Jul 11, 2007
Back 1885! YouthNet's Respect campaign hits Parliament
Regular readers will be aware of YouthNet and British Youth Council's Respect campaign calling for a more positive portrayal of young people in the media and by politicians (previous blog entry)
Today the campaign hit Parliament when Dawn Butler MP tabled an Early Day Motion supporting the campaign.
EDM 1885:
"...acknowledges that only a small minority of young people are antisocial; believes that the media does not give young people enough recognition for the positive things they do; and urges Hon. Members to ensure young people's views are represented in public debate by creating opportunities for their input such as holding youth surgeries and visiting schools, colleges and universities"
What can you do?Get over to this site and ask... no, TELL your local MP to sign up for EDA 1885. Get your friends and family - particularly if they are under 25 to also contact their MPs. The more MPs we have signing up to it, the more effective the campaign can be.
You can also support the campaign if you're on Facebook by joining the Respect Group,
Friday Jul 06, 2007
Where's your mobile?
Ask an average person in the street how exciting some research into where we keep our mobile phones is, and chances are you'll be met with a fairly sarcastic response.
If this keeps you awake at night, you can now sleep easy thanks to some great research brought to my attention in the Doors of Perception e-newsletter last week. Called "Where's the Mobile?", the research by Jan Chipchase explores where people carry their mobiles, and why, and I think it's pretty fascinating.
Some of the findings back up what you might expect, for example:
- "60% of men sampled carried their mobile phone in their trouser pockets, and of these most carried them in front right trouser pockets - positioned to be reachable by their dominant (right) hand."
- "61% of women sampled carried their mobile phone in a bag usually a hand bag."
In addition, "30% of pocket carriers and 50% of bag carriers sometimes or always miss incoming mobile phone communication."
In other words, going on this research, women miss more calls than men.
The research goes on to look at where people carry their keys and wallet (which, together with a mobile phone, make up what Jan calls the "mobile essentials"), and highlights some really interesting variations in this according to geographical location.
So what's the point of this? Well, for starters, if you're trying to communicate with mobile phone users, it might pay to think about how you deliver your message. For example, if the majority of women are likely to miss calls to their mobiles, have any companies or charities tried targeting them with SMS rather than voice calls?
Here at YouthNet we're also really interested in how people use their mobiles, especially since we launched phase II of TheSite.org on mobile (www.thesite.org on your mobile or www.thesite.org/mobile/home on your PC).
These issues that sit across cultural (in this case the clothes we wear and how they affect where we keep our mobiles) and technological (the specification of our mobile handsets and the speed and capacity of the mobile networks) spheres will become increasingly important for anyone looking to communicate with their target audiences on a meaningful basis.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:39 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Tuesday Jul 03, 2007
The homepage is dead, long live the homepage
How important is a website's homepage?
It's natural to think of the homepage as one of the most crucial aspects of web development – get this wrong and you're stuffed. After all, it's the shop window; the entry point for your users and your big opportunity to push key content and services, promote your brand and, in commercial settings, get clicks on your advertising.
But the importance of the homepage is diminishing. In the initial portal-lead days of the web, users delved into the internet through their service providers' homepages. Not anymore. The whole concept of fixed, stand-alone websites is shifting as data is presented in multiple ways. The once powerful homepage is now playing a lesser role.
So why is the homepage not as relevant?
1. The rise and rise of search engines
The majority of traffic to our youth website TheSite.org comes from search engine referrals. And these aren't links to our homepage but to pages deep within the site such as the England smoking ban (over 7,000 referrals from Google last month), drink driving and... threesomes. These people aren't coming through our homepage; they are looking for a specific piece of information. Consequently, our challenge is to create article-level pages that are usable, push the brand and offer further ongoing options for these users to explore other parts of the site. Most of these users will never even see the homepage.
2. Browsing through RSS and other Web 2.0 entry points
Why visit a website to find out what's new when you can just browse through an RSS reader? RSS readers, along with social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and embedded search boxes in browsers all provide direct routes to deep content on websites and circumvent any need to visit through a homepage.
3. Syndicated content through other sites
This goes even further than the first two reasons. Not only are users not coming to your homepage, they might not even come to your site at all. Our content is syndicated through other sites (such as Ministry of Sound) and available through emerging devices such as digital TV and mobiles. Users are accessing our content but aren't coming anywhere near the site.
4. Self-segmentation of audiences
Some of the regular users of TheSite.org are using the site for one purpose – discussion boards. They don't come through the homepage – they go directly to the boards (sometimes 3, 5, 10 times a day). The challenge for us is keeping this self-segmented group aware of changes on the rest of the site.
5. The difficulty of building brand awareness and loyalty
Our brands are not famous. It's the brutal truth that awareness and 'memory' of our sites is low, even though we get pretty good traffic. We get lots of people coming, but not many of them make the mental leap of remembering us next time they have a problem or issue they need advice on. Consequently, they search Google instead of going directly to our homepage and searching TheSite.
And the upshot of all this? Of the 2.5m page impressions we get a month on TheSite.org, less than 2% are for the homepage. This is why we haven't invested heavily in the homepage.
Now ignore all of that
Despite what I've written above, we have just spent three months and a chunk of design, development and project management time redoing TheSite.org homepage.
Why?
The web may be changing dramatically, but the homepage still has a key role to play – and may even play a bigger part as we work on our brand awareness.
One outcome of this brand work should be more new people coming directly to the site through the homepage (rather than through search engines). These new users need to get the full flavour of the site from this first visit and we've built a homepage that reflects the site better. It's more dynamic, colourful and offers inroads to many more parts of the site.
The big opportunity from the new homepage is building loyalty. We hope to convert these new users into regulars, who remember us and visit us directly when they need advice.
