Mark Pack

At one level the legal threats by Facebook against the Daily Mail are fairly straight forward: newspaper runs horror story about a firm, firm says story is all wrong and threatens to sue for libel. At another level though this story highlights how much difference there is about correcting a story in the online sphere. The [...] »

There are many reasons people have for posting comments on this site or others: because they’ve got something to add to the conversation, because they want to correct an error, because they like taking part in a debate, because they’ve got a question to ask or a myriad of other reasons. For those seeking public office, [...] »

The Hansard Society has a new report out which asks the public what they want out of politicians and the political system online. Although many studies have looked at what politicians do or don’t do online, those looking at what the public actually wants are rather rarer. That makes this a particularly welcome report and is [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: The question of people's attitudes to privacy has been in the news following Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's comments that, "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people" and that sharing, rather than privacy, is the new "social norm". However, the British public still [...] »

Newly created last year, unitary Cornwall Council is taking its first steps in drawing up a social media policy as part of a wider communications review. Although the initial paper is rather timid in its conclusions ('here are some ideas we must think about') this point struck me as particularly well made: In considering how the [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: A great photograph will boost not just a story's chance of being covered in the press but also the likely size and placement of its coverage. Now there is a new add-on available: social media. The media loves a story with a social media angle. Recently the Daily Mail andThe Telegraph both credited [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: The news that Habbo Hotel, the extremely popular social network for teenagers, is launching a tie-up with Facebook is not only significant in itself but a sign of things to come. It's immediate significance is in ease and convenience: Facebook users will be able to use Habbo Hotel without having to register [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: According to the Telegraph and Daily Mail, consumer power has chalked up another victory thanks to the power of Facebook: Facebook campaign forces Pears soap makers to abandon 'disgusting' new recipe (Daily Mail) Pears Traditional Soap abandons new recipe after Facebook campaign (Daily Telegraph) The Telegraph is a little more circumspect than the Mail [...] »

Back in March I blogged about the benefits of using NutshellMail to keep on top of social networks. The free service has just been updated, with some very useful extra features added. But first, why use it? What I wrote in March still applies: One of the most common reasons I hear people give for not joining a [...] »

Last week I used Google's search data from the UK to look at the relative popularity of different social bookmarking services. The same can be done for social networks too, and here's what the data says: Facebook dominates, as expected, though the tail off in search traffic in the UK in the last few months could [...] »