SHHHH! It Might Be Called Quiet News Day, But They Can’t Keep Hush About Our Shaun

Monday is the day when I sit down with Shaun Milne, hopefully a guest or two and we record our weekly media podcast, Quiet News Day.

Since we both have plenty of other stuff keeping us busy, it can be a bit last minute pulling together the running order and agreeing the outline content.

As a result much of Monday morning is spent speed-reading over the main issues – and so it is was I happened across Mr Milne being quoted in the latest edition of public relations bible, PR Week.

His blog, Milne Media, has long been established as a must-reads for anyone in the newspaper industry. He’s also broken stories about broadcast news and online reporting.

Now his commentary is regularly being picked up and requoted in the PR Week “Best of the Tech Blogs” column and as you might expect, I am in awe.

In the most recent edition of the PR magazine they’ve not only quoted Shaun again, they’ve sandwiched him between two of the biggest hitting social media commentators in the UK.

On one side there is a quote from the blog of Stuart Bruce, the Labour-leaning founder of comms agency, Wolfstar.

On the other is a comment from the blog of Neville Hobson, one half of the seminal For Immediate Release podcast, with American-based co-host, Shel Holtz.

Now, it’s fair to say that I am a fan of the For Immediate Release podcast. I never miss an episode and it is pretty much the only  broadcast (I include TV, radio and other web-based shows) which I can’t do without. It is a must-have weekly fix.

Indeed, when I first approached Shaun and suggested we should do our own QND podcast podcast together it was with For Immediate Release as the main inspiration.

So, to see Shaun quoted on the same platform as Neville Hobson leaves me mightily impressed. When that platform happens to be the most important trade title in the UK PR market, the wow factor goes up another notch.

Coincidentally, PR Week chose to quote from a posting by Neville on the lack of niche business podcasts in the UK.

I’m sure he might be quietly pleased if he learns there is one more to add to that small list in the shape of Quiet News Day and that it was inspired in great part by his own For Immediate Release show.

But not as pleased as me, to see my QND co-host sharing such lofty company.

Shaun on the other hand was typically modest when I asked if he’d autograph my copy of PR Week saying only: “Och, this could damage my career. I don’t want people thinking I’ve moved over to the dark side.”

Exactly the kind of cheeky commentary which makes Shaun worth listening to – and you can do just that by subscribing to the Milne Media blog and to the Quiet News Day podcast at www.quietnewsday.co.uk or via iTunes

Early reports make grim reading for new look Scotsman website

It seems many people are having their say on The Scotsman’s new-look website. I think I’ll let the dust settle first before making up my own mind.

The opinion I’d probably trust over any other would be that of  Stewart Kirkpatrick, who took as his budget a collection of copper coins, buttons and pocket fluff, yet still managed to turn scotsman.com into a giant of the online news world.

Since departing to become a technical guru for hire he’s remained extremely diplomatic about his own thoughts on the new look site. However, he has pulled together a random sample of posts and feedback comments from users, which you can read on his Sour Alba blog, by clicking here.

I’m afraid it doesn’t make very good reading. The particularly damning comments are those from users claiming they now prefer The Herald’s website. Even just a few months ago that wasn’t just unlikely, it was unthinkable.

Then again, who’s to say what is unthinkable in the media these days? A few years ago I wouldn’t have believed the Scottish Sun would be comfortably and consistenltly outselling the Daily Record. If that can happen in the world of traditional newspapers, then we should be ready for just about anything in the brave (if somewhat flighty) new world of digital media.

One of the reasons I’m going to delay opining on the new Scotsman site is because I simply haven’t used it, other than to have a very, very quick scan. The other main reason is that in the world of Web 2.0 calamities can be turned round pretty quickly. Indeed the whole world of New Media is built round the concept of “conversations”, letting businesses get near instantaneous feedback from customers – the theory being they can then evolve very smartly indeed, according to both negative and postivie feedback.

It’s fairly well known that in the US, as part of that new media conversation, countless big businesses now put their new products out to bloggers to refine as part of the process of bringing them to the market. In my limited understanding, when this refers to software or web products, it is called beta testing.

Indeed, the biggest business of them all, Microsoft , is currently engaged in beta testing of the upgrade to its Vista Operating system (called Service Pack 1, or SP 1). You can read more about that as narrated by influential (and British) PR blogger, Neville Hobson, by clicking here.

I know The Scotsman carried out beta testing of sorts on their new site, though I am vague on the details. My hope would have been they’d have caught most of the big gripes and gremlins at that stage. Which means it doesn’t augur well that there is still so much negative feedback among core users. Nor is Johnston Press a firm renowned for its forward thinking attitudes.

Scotland has precious few genuine, new media pioneers or flagbearers. However, Scotsman.com was one of them. To see it turned into a glorified weekly newspaper website (which seems to mb the opinion of many users at the moment) would be a tragedy.

Though, just to finish on a positive note (and to keep that evolution analogy running), it’s exactly that kind of unexpected extinction which can sometimes let a new species evolve in quite extraordinary ways. So maybe if scotsman.com really has had its day, it will be exactly what’s needed to bring through the next generation of Stewart Kirkpatricks.