As diligent students of British politics understand, most votes under our first past the post system make no real difference to the result of a general election. The ones that count are those cast by swing voters in marginal constituencies. The Conservatives have been confident in their assertions that, despite a narrowing gap in nationwide opinion surveys, their lead among these defining voters in the marginals is big enough to make the crucial difference. A carefully targeted poll in this morning's Times suggests their confidence may be misplaced.
I'll tell you what this blog post doesn't have: A link to the Times webiste, any mention of Muse, talk about scientology or the night sky.
So what am I rabbiting on about today?
Well, as we're starting our print module now, which is based on magazines, I thought i'd draw attention to quite a snazzy little online publication made by the radio station, talkSPORT.
It's a freebie and on the face of it, it looks quite light on content. But you'd be wrong. It has all sorts of things in it and pretty much everything is interactive. It has quizzes, embedded videos and everyones favourite... reviews! It also has women but that would be quite chauvinistic of me to go on about that so I won't mention it....
I love and I think it is epic.
We'll be taking a closer look at interactive magazines (and maybe even building our own version) in the online section of convergent journalism in the new year. The online page-turning idea has been around for years without ever having really taken off. And even the rich-media versions haven't put the concept into the mainstream. But there are still plenty of publishers giving them a go. I quite like the Wired one, produced by Ceros, the same outfit that does the talkSport one. It'll be interesting to see, for example, how the traffic to talksport's main web site compares with traffic to its interactive mag.
Weirdly enough, I was dreaming about interactive magazines last night. (Christmas break is obviously needed so that I can regain my sanity)
The content's not my cup of tea, but I like how they've done it. So much better than anything Muse could have done...
I completely agree. Then again, I wouldn't pay to watch them design an online magazine. They can't even make a decent music video.
Becci's inevitable response: They can't even write a decent song!
Consider the burden lifted. Thank me later.
My favourite bit of this issue is the Global Sport section (26 & 27). Great fun.