Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Monday 22 June 2009

"Moray Firth Live" - who they?

I've just been followed on Twitter by something called Moray Firth Live (their 'Twitter' link).

In their Twitter profile page they link to their website; click on the About link from there and you get this:


MorayFirthLive
About

Moray Firth Live is a local news aggregration service for the area around the coast of the Moray Firth from Thurso to Fraserburgh.

We aggregate headlines and links to local news services.

We also have our own journalists and photographers who want to hear from you. We can cover local events in words, audio and video, and update them accordingly.

We are a community news vehicle and encourage local people to get in touch with their news, pictures or videos. Remember, we don’t know what’s going on unless somebody tells us, then we’ll spread the word.

A WhoIs search for the domain registry "morayfirthlive.com" reveals it to originate from an address in Forres, with the person behind it having his Twitter page here and the website link from there taking you here (a blog, at the time of writing, last updated on 9th March 2009); the about page from there gives this information:



Marc Hindley is a technical entrepreneur. He has worked between journalism and IT for the last 20 years, and now is lead developer with web design agency Canary Dwarf. He also runs Moray IT Services, which provides computer support for small businesses and is slowly moving into niche markets such as data security and VOIP.

I his journalistic capacity, he supplies the leisure marine publishing industry with news and pictures through Moray Firth Press Agency and is planning to opena small media consultancy, Clava.

He writes three monthly newsletters, WebSense, MediaTech and GreenIT, and two blogs at www.marchindley.co.uk and www.canarydwarf.co.uk/blog/.

Combining his skills, he advises publishers on new technology, particularly wireless newsgathering and digital/print convergence.

So, now we get to it. Wouldn't it just have been simpler to say who is behind MorayFirthLive in its own 'about' page, rather than the opaque (and somewhat 'grandiose') nonsense that is there? If that had been done I wouldn't have had to waste valuable time doing a bit of 'forensic' web research. In any case, I shall be 'following' the Twitter page for Moray Firth Live at least for a while to see how it develops. I'm not sure what the real 'value added' will be, given that there are a number of bloggers along the Moray coast already doing this 'grass-roots' news gathering, but let's see how it goes.

3 comments:

  1. Mr Hindley despite the use of ‘we’s’ on his numerous web sites in mainly a one-man band (Sub contracts in expert advice).
    Good luck to him but sad to see that he needs to pretend to be corporate to drum up business, but then the web lets you do that.
    I wonder how many other local web entrepreneurs are in the same category, pretending to be mega successful but living in quite modest abodes whilst scraping a living?
    Marc is an ex Highland News chief sub editor, you would never know this from looking at the number of typos he quite happily puts up on the web for all to see, not very professional

    ReplyDelete
  2. I find it incredible of the abuse from this post. Who decides if Marc puts "We" "Us" or whatever, i see no encouragement, this is a fantastic project. Since you say he is "scraping a living" shouldnt you be encouraging him to do well, I for one follow his Twitter posts a couple of times a day and go through the website regularly, nowhere else can i see news this in depth from the Highland area.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi 'media'

    I've published your comment even though it relates to a post beyond the time when comments may appear without prior moderation.

    It would appear that your comment does not relate to my article, but to the first comment on it. However, if it does relate to my original article in any way, please be advised that this is my blog and I write what I like here, without much fear an certainly with no favour. I did in fact consider certain aspects of the comment your comment seems to relate to be to some extent objectionable and 'uncalled-for', but I try to allow 'free speech' here provided the 'Terms of Use' of my blog are not violated (see top right of blog for a link), although sometimes the judgement is fine.

    Finally, whilst I thank you for commenting here, it did amuse me a little that when I clicked on your profile name the result was 'Profile not available', specially incongruous given that your profile is 'media'. So for all I know you are actually an anonymous poster who created a profile solely to comment here, or you might even be directly connected with 'Moray Firth Live'. Anyway, it's not really important ... Go in Peace :)

    ReplyDelete

Welcome to my comment area. Whilst all comment is welcome you are requested to respect the views of others. To read full terms for use of this facility, please visit my 'Terms of Use' section, linked to under the 'About this Blog' heading at top right of the blog. Note added 12JUL2010 - All comments will now be pre-moderated before they appear in this blog; this is a measure to prevent 'spam' commenting, which has become frequent of late. Thank you.