New.Journalism.Review

Those looking for a decent content management system (CMS) for a website [quick tip: look at open source before opening your wallet] should check out the current issue of .Net* Magazine [Issue 177 / July].

*Note: The magazine is known as Practical Web Design outside the UK.

It has some good general advice, roughly translated as follows:

1. You probably don't need to bother with a CMS if you have a small site which you don't update very often. Just design it in Dreamweaver instead.   
2. Use a CMS if you're running a content-driven site (e.g. one that contains plenty of news), you do regular updates and/or have multiple authors of content.
3. Avoid outdated and expensive CMS solutions i.e. the type in-house CMS solutions really bad web design agencies love to recommend. 
4. You don't need to spend a fortune. Many great CMS solutions are open source and FREE, but the amount of support varies between products. WordPress is so popular that there are loads of community websites offering free advice and tons of how-to books about it, including a recent addition to the Dummies series. But quite a lot has been written about DotNetNuke and increasingly there are books about Joomla!

It reviewed a large number of CMS, but focussed on five main
ones. [.Net gave the star ratings and I've added a few comments]
WordPress [rated five stars....Bang on the nail, in my humble opinion]
ExpressionEngine [4 stars]
MovableType [4 stars.....looking a bit outdated, deserves two stars in MHO]
Blogger [3 stars...what's this doing on the list?]
Drupal  [2 stars........?????? MHO]

Little space was devoted to Joomla!, a PHP-based solution, and has plenty of fans. It's also easier to learn than the feature suggests.

.Net also need to separate out those CMS solutions which are suitable for creating news-based sites and those which are better for blogs.

But nobody can dispute the .Net view that WordPress is king. It can do no wrong in my view and gets better all the time. Security issues aside, the hosted version of WordPress is great for beginners and when you get round to hosting in yourself – it's just really flexible! It's ideal for blogs, but also can be adapted for  content-driven news sites. See some interesting examples of WordPress uses.

There was an ugly scrap this week on the Sky News blog  – Boulton and Co. It involved a silly little competition to name the plane that Gordon Brown flew to the States in. See Plane Stupid – Adam Boulton Blog

In the post, the Sky News blogger described Brown’s plane as a ‘pimpmobile’ – surely not a description that would be used on-air?  And some even suggested that the post was breaking UK political broadcasting impartiality rules.

This raises interesting issues about how UK broadcast journalists handle blog content. I’m sure one day Rupert Murdoch will get his evil way on impartiality and find a presenting slot for Bill O’Reilly on Sky. But until that day comes, it seems that Sky blogs should be IMPARTIAL and that means Boulton and co shouldn’t be taking sides.   

The fuss resulted in an explanation - [What's a Blog For?]. The actual justification for (the not very funny) post seems to be that it was a comment on ‘poor media management’ delivered in an ‘accessible’ way. Well, that’s important comment. 

The NME’s deputy editor, Krissi Murison, gave a superb guest lecture this week. The journalism students asked some good questions about possible advertiser influence in the NME (apparently it’s not a problem), role of women in music (it’s still an issue), the bust-up with Morrissey (no comment – the court case is pending) and a nice little anecdote about a boozy night out with Amy Winehouse (apparently she plays a wicked game of pool). She also spoke about the massive success of NME.com, which really begged further questions about how long the the paper product can last with its disappointing ABCs.

But most students were looking for tips about getting that first job in journalism. She had three main bits of advice: Firstly, Blog: Krissi revealed that the legendary music mag was seeking new opinion writers. Whilst they had their eye on a few established names, they were also actively searching out opinionated new talent. She said that running a blog was also handy for getting into gigs for free and generally getting noticed. We mention this to the students all the time, but it was good for them to also hear it from an industry person. 

Work experience: Really important obviously. It takes some early planning (the NME is booked up with workies until Jan 2009).  But she expressed disappointment with the attitudes of some students that got placements. Her advice – make the most of it.

Send in ideas speculatively via email: Writers that continually send in good ideas do get noticed.

All sound advice…

UPDATE: (3/3/2008)

We have now resolved the case:

The correct address of Customer Concern is as follows:
Virgin Media
Customer Concern
Matrix Court
Llandsamlet
Swansea
SA7 9BB

Tel: 01792 613800 (Ex 6179).
It doesn’t have an email address. But if you have a complaint, you should send it via post (and recorded delivery, so you have evidence).

The background:

A few years ago I used to work as an editor at the now-defunct Internet Magazine (RIP). We ran a column where we attempted to solve our readers’ complaints about their ISPs. Back then, we received a load of complaints about a cable provider known as NTL. Fast forward five years – it appears that whilst the name of the company has changed, its service has still not improved.

We were with Virgin Media at our previous flat in North London. It used to be pretty good. I had a few complaints: technical support didn’t support Vista users when the OS first arrived. It also didn’t offer wireless, but we managed to get a Netgear router working well in the end.

Crucially, the Virgin Media service was reliable because this was a former Telewest / Cable London area.

It all changed when we moved to Surrey and took VM with us. Foolishly we forgot that we had moved to NTL country now!   

[Snip - I won't bore you with the nitty gritty of the problem. Summary: 1) We didn't actually ever connect with VM at our new place. 2) The equipment VM sent us remains in its sealed bag and unopened. 3) We called VM to close our account after 10 days. 4) The bills kept coming and coming 5) This has concluded with a lovely letter from a debt recovery company Moorcroft Debt Recovery with a "Notice Of Litigation"]

Virgin Media criticism

Virgin Media has lots of satisfied customers, but there are also loads of people complaining these days.

I found the following sites full of useful advice.

1) Think Broadband
Virgin Media do not come out particularly well in the reviews. In terms of Customer Service, Virgin Media got just a 47% satisfaction rating (based on 10,000 votes in December 2007). Compare this with Zen Internet at around 80%. It was also ranked poorly for speed, although it does better in the reliability category.I would agree with this. In the time we had VM in North London we got near 100% ‘uptime’.

2) Review Centre
Over at Review Centre, Virgin gets mixed views. I found "Joeyruss’s" comments about the struggle Virgin Media has had merging its NTL and Telewest databases to be pretty informative. One of the problems we have is that VM keeps mixing up our old and new addresses.

3) MoneySavingExpert.com
There is yet more criticism at MoneySavingExpert. This message board posting is by someone with a similar problem to ours -  being billed for services which they attempted to cancel.

For those that want more views on Virgin Media see Broadband Genie.

You may want to try contacting the Acting CEO which ,as of August 2007, is Neil Berkett. I don’t have an address. But The Virgin Media Complaints Department (an unofficial site) has an address for the former CEO, Steve Burch in Sheffield.   

So how do you complain to Virgin Media?

Prepare for battle!

First stop, the complaints section of the OFCOM website. Ofcom is the telecoms regulator and it has plenty of helpful advice about what to do if you have a complaint with your ISP, TV or phone provider. You also may want to read the Virgin Media’s Customer Code of Practice (Including Complaints Procedure) (PDF)

• Calling Virgin Media: For a communications company, it’s pretty bad at picking up the phone! We called the 0845 454 111 number and selected the disconnect option and we didn’t find it funny that they cut us off after 20 minutes waiting on hold. We had more joy with a woman in the Moving / Transfer department, who said she would remove the debt on our bill. Yet this didn’t stop the debt collection agency sending another letter. We once waited 38 minutes before someone picked up the phone in the moving/transfer department.
• Writing: always a better option! We wrote to Customer Concern in Newport. It may be worth noting that this may be the wrong address because VM responded from an address in Swansea! (SEE UPDATE)

This is a direct quote from a standard letter we received in response to our complaint:

‘We’ll try to get back to you within the next two weeks to help you resolve your complaint but we’re really busy at the minute so it could take a little longer.’

And guess what? They sent this to our old and wrong address!

This is where it stands right now.

If this doesn’t get us any joy, the next step, which is to make a complaint to Virgin Media’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). In the case of VM, this is the  Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CIAS) based in City Road, London.

Unfortunately, you have to wait 3 months from your first complaint to VM to start the ADR procedure. This is a problem when a debt collection agency is seeking a CCJ against you if you don’t pay within a week.

eBay.co.uk for Dummies (2nd Ed) by Marsha Collier, Jane Hoskyn and Steve Hill is out this month – a perfect last minute Christmas prezzie for the wannabe eBay trader in your life.   

I know how much hard work went into writing it, because I wrote and edited quite a lot of it. I really welcome feedback, particularly if you think we missed anything really important out. Get in contact via the email link in the top left menu.