links for 2010-12-08

There has also, I’m told, been an issue with a lack of cross-Whitehall consultation, with one Whitehall source saying that DCLG ministers had thrown “an unnecessary clock of secrecy around the bill”.

I have blogged critically about secrecy at news-industry gatherings, but that criticism simply doesn’t apply here. The discouragement of tweets was an encouragement to engage in the discussion, not an enforcement of secrecy. I understood that we were free to tweet occasionally and to blog and tweet our impressions and key takeaways. An event with a hashtag and hundreds of tweets is no secret. I have blogged about News Foo, as have David Cohn and Alex Hillman (please add your link in the comments if you’ve blogged about it). Social media accounts were so plentiful that Mo Krochmal, who didn’t attend, see curated a strong account using Storify.

Groupon has partnered with location-based ad sales house and platform JiWire to offer hyperlocal deals on a national scale in the US, before extending to the UK.

The group-buying discount service is extending its deals to a neighbourhood level, based on a shopper’s location.

We’re inviting journalism students from any UK university to come up with ideas for new news businesses – whether it’s a platform, a product or a service. We’re putting together a panel of industry judges and the business idea they like the most will win £1000 in cold hard cash to turn it into reality.

It is hard to come up with a better metaphor for the changing of the times in newspaper publishing. The new 13,000-square-foot space, which includes a community reading room, free WiFi with workspaces for community bloggers, and a newsroom cafe, reflects the publisher's audience-driven strategy.

The community newsroom is also — and not just symbolically– the collapsing of the wall that has traditionally separated a publication and its readers.