I was recently invited to talk to regional editors at a Society of Editors conference held in the Midlands. It covers a couple of the major projects we’ve been working on at Talk About Local which are all about using mobile technologies to explore useful community information.

The first example is an Augmented Reality prototype we’ve been developing which means publishers of any size – from solo bloggers to news organisations – can easily move geo-tagged content into an AR environment.

The second is the ongoing evolution of the geo-tagged, mobile first suite of publishing tools n0tice and the launch of its whitelabelling service.

It’s a mark of the fast-changing pace of these sort of technologies that this slideshow was already outdated within a day of me presenting it. In terms of publishers using AR, The Independent last week launched its innovative use of the technology. Talk About Local’s William Perrin reviews that here: http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/tag/the-independent and in the video at the end of the page.

When it comes to the n0tice development, the day after the presentation saw a major launch for the technology when Guardian Witness went live. Obviously I couldn’t mention this to the editors at the time for risk of spoiling the announcement from Joanna the GW team, but the full details of how publishers can now use these powerful geo-tagged tools for their own products are here: http://vip.n0tice.org.

You southern scoundrel……..I don’t know how you have the nerve to show your treacherous smarmy two faced southern face up here at all.

While officially bowing out today, the Guardian’s former northern editor Martin Wainwright has made public a letter in which he is roundly abused by an anonymous critic of his work.

Picture 11 in this gallery.

It was sent in 1999. It’s an example of the pre-internet communication with readers which just about every journalist will be familiar with but which sometimes gets forgotten in the rush to denigrate online commenters and cry ‘troll’ at every opportunity.

Being on the receiving end of such vitriol could lead you to reject the views of those who spew them, but Martin’s approach – as can be seen by turning out to meet the author in this occasion – has been to attempt to understand the other person’s viewpoint.

Martin makes the point in his farewell gallery that The Northerner blog which he has steered for the past two years has been a place for “discussions we are able to have as equals.”

It’s a point well made. By taking that approach of equals, rather than experts, to the comments and having the authors regularly joining in the discussions ‘below the line’, the civility present on the blog has been a hallmark since the initial team of four of us started it in 2010.

So, as the one “they call Martin” heads off for a well-earned retirement, here’s hoping The Northerner continues to be the place for healthy, but reasoned, debate he worked so tirelessly to establish.

I was an avid GoogleReader user – for many years – so I’m one of the people this is going to inconvenience. However, I had already started migrating some feeds to a platform I’ve been working on called n0tice.com – in part to test it, but also because it was easy – plus, for hyperlocals, it’s got the added advantage of geo-tagging.

One of the things I used GoogleReader for was simply to monitor the activity of some sites and blogs I’m interested in keeping an eye on but didn’t want the bother of visiting several times a day. As an alternative I set up feeds into a dedicated Noticeboard and simply let it run, checking in via mobile or desktop every now and then.

It’s not the same as GoogleReader but, if collecting, folling and sharing RSS feeds is what you need, it makes all that possible. See www.northerner.n0tice.com for an example – RSS feeds of the bigger news sites covering the north of England where I’m based. There’s some ‘how to’ here and happy to help anyone getting started too: http://n0tice.org/2013/01/04/using-feedwax-com-to-curate-information/.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

It’s all about data journalism – from sourcing information, work on verification and different outcomes including mapping and other visualisations.

The work comes at an important time for the development of an open data culture for the city. Late last year, Istanbul’s links with representatives from Manchester’s digital community kicked off discussions about the challenges and benefits of opening civic data sets during a visit from Julian Tait and Adrian Slatcher.

Now, in this separate initiative, we will pick up on that conversation again and look forward to hosting a panel event with representatives from Istanbul city council as well as prominent editor and columnist with national newspaper Milliyet, Mehves Evin tomorrow evening.

During the two days of workshops and coaching, there will be a liveblog running which you can see at the Uclan Made blog here:http://uclanmade.blogspot.com/2013/01/djcamp2013-coming-to-you-live-from.html
and I’ll hope to do more updates here and on the Flickr group for MADE Turkey here.

The hashtag for the event is #djcamp2013.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

….despite having to get up at 4am on a freezing cold morning, I really enjoyed it and was bowled over by the positive reaction.
The reaction confirmed to me that I am onto something here and that there is a real appetite to learn more about storytelling.

You can see results of the Digital Storytelling Breakfast Session” on Storify here.

Revamped YEP
The New Year’s bringing with it lots of new looks it seems. The Manchester Evening News is expected to reveal a new look website later this week and yesterday saw the new look print edition of the Yorkshire Evening Post hit the streets.

Not too much has changed – we still aim to deliver the best news and sports coverage around – but there are now even more reasons to enjoy your YEP.
As well as an array of new sections and features, there will be a special daily pull-out covering everything from fashion to football, as well as the city’s best entertainment guide.
One of the main aims behind this revamp is to make the paper more interactive, with readers’ views, photographs and stories playing a bigger role than ever before. We want to hear your views; after all, it is your paper for our city.

Hard to know how it’s been received as there are currently no comments posted – what do you think of the changes?

Diary date for digital
Prolific North announces Manchester Digital’s Skills Summit conference and TalentDay, the largest sector-specific careers fair in the north, has announced it will take place on February 20 and 21.

The event, now in its third year, brings together digital businesses, education providers and students in the region looking to enter the digital scene.TalentDay, held on February 20, is expected to attract 1,500 students looking for work within the digital and creative industries.

* Please note that this blog (and foodiesarah.com) are currently in transit to their new home under the careful care of the webteam at Squegg in Stockton. You shouldn’t notice any differences but please let me know if anything appears out of sorts.