Comments on: Government spends ‘£16m on media monitoring’? http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/ Using the internet to make government more interesting Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:22:05 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Dave Briggs http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/comment-page-1/#comment-2431 Dave Briggs Sun, 28 Dec 2008 11:06:33 +0000 http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/#comment-2431 Hey Jeremy - I think that's the point I was trying (as always, clumsily) to make - using online monitoring won't fill the gap completely but must surely help and could reduce costs a little. As <a href="http://blog.helpfultechnology.com" target="_blank">Steph</a> and I seem to be eternally discussing, there still isn't an ideal product that will monitor, aggregate, clean up and filter online content in one go. Hey Jeremy – I think that's the point I was trying (as always, clumsily) to make – using online monitoring won't fill the gap completely but must surely help and could reduce costs a little. As Steph and I seem to be eternally discussing, there still isn't an ideal product that will monitor, aggregate, clean up and filter online content in one go.

]]> By: Whitehall Webby http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/comment-page-1/#comment-2428 Whitehall Webby Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:53:11 +0000 http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/#comment-2428 I'm not sure its that simple. Good media monitoring requires a fair bit of human intervention/ knowledge / expertise which is where I guess where most of the money is going - salaries. I sometimes take the long train down to Dorset late on a Saturday morning and see a group of young un's systematically going through every newspaper of the day and marking items of interest. No idea who they work for or what they are looking for either but its pretty labour intensive. I've no doubt that online filters could take a fair bit of the strain here but so far my experience is that its a lot more difficult to replicate a pukka cuttings service using online tools, particularly the free ones (I'm aware there are some paid for services around but I haven't used them). For a start the sheer scale of of keywords for my own employer is enormous and when we tried to replicate this using an RSS reader and various filters we discovered the algorithms are not sophisticated enough to truly filter stuff down to what we want. For example, on the keywords we monitor is 'suicide' - stick that into google alerts and the return is enormous. We would need to add several filters to make that search workable and even then it would miss stuff and throw stuff in we didn't want. I'm sure using online monitoring tools will become more mainstream (the fact that you can easily aggregate and syndicate stuff of interest is the killer app for me) but I think its a little way of as yet. I'm not sure its that simple. Good media monitoring requires a fair bit of human intervention/ knowledge / expertise which is where I guess where most of the money is going – salaries. I sometimes take the long train down to Dorset late on a Saturday morning and see a group of young un's systematically going through every newspaper of the day and marking items of interest. No idea who they work for or what they are looking for either but its pretty labour intensive.

I've no doubt that online filters could take a fair bit of the strain here but so far my experience is that its a lot more difficult to replicate a pukka cuttings service using online tools, particularly the free ones (I'm aware there are some paid for services around but I haven't used them). For a start the sheer scale of of keywords for my own employer is enormous and when we tried to replicate this using an RSS reader and various filters we discovered the algorithms are not sophisticated enough to truly filter stuff down to what we want. For example, on the keywords we monitor is 'suicide' – stick that into google alerts and the return is enormous. We would need to add several filters to make that search workable and even then it would miss stuff and throw stuff in we didn't want.

I'm sure using online monitoring tools will become more mainstream (the fact that you can easily aggregate and syndicate stuff of interest is the killer app for me) but I think its a little way of as yet.

]]> By: PaulG http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/comment-page-1/#comment-2417 PaulG Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:50:04 +0000 http://davepress.net/2008/12/26/government-spends-16m-on-media-monitoring/#comment-2417 Huh, huh. They never heard of Google Alerts, clearly - or maybe they pay someone else to stick the right words in Google Alerts ... <a href="http://www.google.com/alerts" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/alerts</a> The most useful tool to watch what others are saying about you, perhaps they are worried about a hostile takeover ... Huh, huh. They never heard of Google Alerts, clearly – or maybe they pay someone else to stick the right words in Google Alerts …

http://www.google.com/alerts

The most useful tool to watch what others are saying about you, perhaps they are worried about a hostile takeover …

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