In a natural progression from being well connected with the print and broadcast media, Montage has turned its networking skills to getting to know some of the most influential bloggers on the web. The first to be featured is Dizzy Thinks aka Phil Hendren.

Phil Hendren is adamant about the importance of his blog, which he built due to the lack of proper Parliamentary reporting.  Some of the stories that the mainstream media have picked up on his blog have been matters of records in a system that is so huge, they would be lost otherwise.

He rejects being a political ranter. "I've been described as a 'sane Richard Littlejohn' by Iain Dale,"  jokes Phil.

Phil is a professional Unix and Linux systems administrator in the ISP market, who also just happens to be an active Tory. This may explain his vigour in attacking the Labour governent, but to be fair, he can't stand IT failures on either side of the House.

Phil explains his area of interest: "I guess I specialise in monitoring what is being said in Parliament, the press output of the Government News Network, along with FoI monitoring and submission."

He will sometimes pick up on general news stories and trends.  Many of his biggest media hits have been technology related, however, and these include:

• Blairites registering Alan Johnson leadership domains in their attempt to stop Gordon Brown
• Breaking an exclusive on Silverfish, the Labour friendly media company that  prepared Brown's leadership website, even though the Electorial Commission denied a leadership campaign by Brown at the time.
• Discovering the Justice Ministry web details weeks before an official announcement about the Home Office had been made.
  

Montage would like to thank Dizzy Thinks for his time in putting this blog together and we watch with interest.

 

 

 

Bookmark & Share

© Add This

Del.icio.us	Digg
Reddit	Google
Furl	StumbleUpon
Live	Technorati
Ask	Yahoo MyWeb
Facebook	More...

Political and journalist bloggers (frequently opperating under an alias) are growing in number and stature across the blog sphere. So much so that politicians, corporates and PR agencies are now taking them very seriously. These leaders of news have scooped many a high profile story and leave traditional jounalists in their wake, as they are not tied to print deadlines and can break a story when they want.

The key advantage that bloggers have had is their "freedom of speach." Hang on a minute you might say don't we all? Well if you are a newspaper or broadcaster, you must stringently abide by rules and regulations policed by the Press Compliants Commission and Ofcom.

Well who are these mavericks on the web? Here are Montage's Top 3 firebrands, who give us the heads up on a breaking news story:

1 - Guido Fawkes is perhaps the most prominent political big hitter of the blog sphere, so much so that he made it to number 81 in the Media Guardian 100 of most influential media people, ahead of Chris Evans and Gordon Ramsey.

Guido the alter ego of Paul Staines, runs his "attack blog" to make headlines outside of the traditional news establishment and focuses on "plots, rumours and conspiracy." He has taken advantage of stories that print media have been unable to print such as naming the alleged mistress of John Prescott, while the BBC and Fleet street as gagging orders placed on them.

2 - Dizzy Thinks  is described as opinionated arrogance, with the right way of the thinking. This ranting conservative blogger has many fans and enemies. Apparently, Guido doesn't read Dizzy Thinks. Channel Four news described Dizzy Thinks as an interesting example of when politics and technology collide. Montage actually spoke to Dizzy Thinks (aka) Phil Hendren, who is a Tory. He apprently does alot of work with the 18 Doughty Street, which has been described as "resistance TV" hosted online as videocasts, that airs policitcal opinion and breaking news.

3 - Political Betting is a well researched and thorough blog that comments on front page political news. It has scored some high profile hits in the media recently and has been widely regarded as one of the key voices in bringing the question of David Cameron's leadership to notice.

Most recent example of this blog driving the news agenda, is this recent piece in the Times Newspaper.

I would be interested to know any top media or political bloggers that my readers have found interesting and informative so please let me know. Post these on a bookmark below, there are plenty to choose from.

Community websites are not new. There have been network websites, notice boards and chat rooms around since the early 90's, however, the advent of "web 2.0" has spread their appeal to millions of consumers online, which means they can no longer be ignored.

So how do you decide which on which of the 43 community websites (Wikipedia) is best to promote your cause? Well clients always like big numbers so let's focus on the numbers of users worldwide for the main sites (April 2007 - Comscore):

• Myspace 66million users
• Facebook 23million
• Bebo 9million users

On the numbers, Myspace wins hands down, but as the community website phenomenon grows we are seeing distinct trends of the type of user that uses each of the big three. The Daily Telegraph recently broke the big three into different crude categories,  the wealthy on Facebook, average Joes on Myspace, and children on Bebo.

It's hard to categorise "communities" but here at Montage we have come up with a likely newspaper readership of each to give you an insight:

• Myspace - Sun, The Mirror, News of the World and Hello/ Loaded / Heat Magazine
• Bebo - First News, Beano and NME
• Facebook - Guardian, Times, Telegraph, TES & GQ

Well, it seems straightforward as to which of the "big three" you should use to target.  At Montage, we would advise on targeting your customer base carefully, as there are a number of specialist communities on the web that can be used.  As you would with a traditional PR campaign, a focused effort in key media will be a better spend of your time and therefore budget.  

For example, one of our clients, Lucy Bristow Appointments, has noted a poistive uptake regarding several vacancies on their Facebook site already, after only setting this up on the 22nd of June 2007! Facebook is great for targeting graduates, as there very high number of students and academics that use this website. The reason for this is that Facebook was orginally set up for students only but now accepts professionals and businesses alike.