This document summarizes how UK local and regional newspapers are responding to changes in online media consumption. It finds that newspapers are experimenting with social media like blogging and microblogging on Twitter, focusing more on hyperlocal content through community sites organized by postcode, and utilizing multimedia content across platforms like video and audio on mobile. It also discusses organizational changes newspapers are making, like restructuring newsrooms, appointing multimedia editors, and setting up community teams, to adapt to these new demands and opportunities of online and social media.

1. Sarah Hartley MEN Media 1 Scott Place Manchester M3 3RN 0161 211 2418 What’s happening? May 2008

2. What’s happening? What’s coming up Where the web is at How UK local/regional newspapers are responding

3. Where the web is at Web 2.0 here to stay

4. Where the web is at Life is social People consume content from where they are. There’s interaction with the provider PLUS Interaction with other users. Technology is mobile. A many-to-many model.

5. Where the web is at Life is mobile. More mobiles than people in many countries. Britons send more than one billion text messages per week. Mobile has turned people into content creators.

6. The challenges we face How to reach audiences. How to reach advertisers. How to move staff from print to digital. How to maintain relevance. How to be useful to people’s lives.

7. What others are doing Four themes Social (Hyper) Local Multi-media, multi-platform Organisational change

8. UK regional/local newspaper activity Experimenting Mashing up Identifying core purposes Re-structuring Training

9. What others are doing Social Blogging, lots of blogging Birmingham First TM use of multi-author blogs Consultation and involvement of existing bloggers. Designed to reflect Post interests. eg. Automotive Success without sport

10. What others are doing Social Blogging Liverpool business community Professional and UGC shared platform Launch of “club”

11. UK regional/local newspaper activity Social Micro-blogging with Twitter. Evening Leader in Wrexham doing sports updates.

12. UK regional/local newspaper activity Social Micro-blogging with Twitter Plymouth Herald breaks news Follows with online

13. UK regional/local newspaper activity Social Micro-blogging with Twitter. Liverpool’s election night coverage.

14. UK regional/local newspaper activity Social Using Twitter for news feeds. Carlisle News and Star, Birmingham Post

15. UK regional/local newspaper activity Social Taking the content to the user on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc.

16. UK regional/local newspaper activity Hyperlocal All groups looking at geo-tagging content. Northcliffe enhancing its CMS to enable geo-tagging across the group's 'Thisis' websites. Archant to geo-tag all copy to postcode level. TM to start geo-tagging for community sites.

17. UK regional/local newspaper activity Hyper local Award-winning community sites for Teesside. Defined by postcode. 140,000 UU. Built on a blogging platform. 80% unique UGC, 20% re-purposed. Small business advertising.

18. UK regional/local newspaper activity Hyperlocal Award-winning community sites in Hull. Launched in January 1,000 registered users. More than 50,000 visits, 280,000 page views. 2,000 user-generated posts since its launch.

19. UK local/regional activity Hyperlocal Glasgow launch of 36 sites started in March. UGC news, events, pix and video. 14,000 users since launch quoted.

20. UK local/regional newspaper activity Multi-media, multi platform Video, lots of it. Mostly TV style Exeter Express and Echo trial report. Just part of the mix. Pushing into mobile with text alerts.

21. UK regional/local newspaper activity Multimedia, multi platform Video Small amount of “made for web” Westmorland Gazette Less presenter led

22. UK regional/local activity Multimedia, multi platform Video Limited use of UGC Opportunity in this area Skycast using for football Starting to move into news

23. UK regional/local activity Multimedia, multi-platform Video Live streaming experimentation going on in Qik, Bambuser Early adoption in Seesmic Video going social

24. UK regional/local activity Multimedia, multi-platform Audio The Northern Echo Interviews and headlines Social element with RSS, myYahoo and myMSN

25. UK regional/local activity Multimedia, multi-platform Audio The Lancashire Evening Post Talking newspaper Subscribe on iTunes

26. Multimedia, multi-platform Live streaming experiment Liverpool Blogging, micro-blogging, video, mobile Going live today “ Tuesday is a way of trying to reconnect with past, present (and hopefully future) audience. We'll test the technology and hopefully change some mindsets - internal and external,” Alison Gow.

27. UK regional/local activity Organisational Re-structuring of newsrooms. Multimedia editors appointed in every TM centre. Northcliffe ‘handed back’ websites to the print staff. Newsquest this month announced print/online/mobile restructure in Scotland. All groups adopting “web-first” strategy. Training schemes across groups.

28. UK regional/local activity Organisational Setting up of community teams. Journalists and co-ordinators. Teesside a dedicated team of seven.

29. UK regional/local activity Organisational Establishment of “data” teams. Specialist journalists for mobile services.

30. To conclude A time of experimentation for all newspaper companies. A mix of media across a mix of platforms. Exploring the opportunities of social media. Facing the new demands with new structures. Local is important. Personal is more important.

31. UK regional/local newspaper activity Any questions? Contact me: Sarah Hartley, blogger ( and head of online editorial ) M.E.N Media, 1 Scott Place, Manchester. 0161 211 2148. [email_address]