tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77643264483182875292012-01-10T21:17:12.624ZScience: peatlands, climate change, carbon market & biogeochemistry. Marketing: web & SEO. Pragmatic environmentalist.Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.comBlogger381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-47596418597394653592012-01-10T21:17:00.000Z2012-01-10T21:17:12.630Z

Here is a really simple way to search through someone's Twitter feed / stream with Google, to find a specific word or phrase. To search a Twitter stream or feed simply type " site:twitter.com/USERNAME " into the normal Google search box - without the quotation marks and replacing 'username' with the Twitter address of the person or organisation your're interested in. After this type the word or

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-28485940481562750672011-11-09T21:03:00.000Z2011-11-09T21:03:55.280Z

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) starts on 28 November, 2011, and takes place in Durban, South Africa. There's already plenty of discussion about the meeting on Twitter and this is likely to increase a lot during the event itself. To make the conference easier to follow on Twitter people will be using certain

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-70065448275769383932011-11-08T21:31:00.001Z2011-11-08T21:35:24.024Z

Australia is to impose a fixed price on carbon emissions for the biggest polluters in the country. The top 500 emitters will be charged $23.78 per tonne of carbon equivalent they produce from July 2012 and a full emissions trading scheme will be in place from July 2015. Such a move means Australia will have the most comprehensive carbon price scheme outside Europe. Indeed, their current price

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-19914938559098607542011-10-23T20:19:00.000+01:002011-10-23T20:19:40.777+01:00

Sir David Attenborough breaks his silence on climate change in his new BBC natural history series, Frozen Planet. According to an interview in the Guardian, the 85-year-old talks about the threats posed by man-made global warming in the last episode of the series. Sir David Attenborough says he has been reluctant to talk about climate change before because he admits he felt un-qualified, not

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-27150547402929752102011-08-09T07:58:00.001+01:002011-08-09T07:59:30.204+01:00

This is a press release from Bangor University about my research on peatlands in the Kyoto Protocol and future climate change legislation. Scientists find gold in British bogs The price tag of Britain’s bogs could be set to soar, making them just as valuable as prime farmland. A review by scientists at Bangor University has highlighted the growing importance of peatlands in carbon trading

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-5253341747458211452011-07-11T22:21:00.001+01:002011-07-11T22:22:08.157+01:00

My first scientific paper has been published: "Peatlands: our greatest source of carbon credits?". It's a review of the legislation on the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol and how peatlands fit into the picture. I look at developments in the more recent COP meetings which affect peatlands and how future climate-change legislation may take advantage of these huge carbon stores. The paper also considers

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-8277045897122604232011-05-21T15:28:00.000+01:002011-05-21T15:28:13.198+01:00

I am now around half-way through my PhD at Bangor University, in North Wales. The general research area of the PhD is biogeochemistry, as I’m looking at the physical, biological and chemical processes in peatlands. More specifically, I’m studying the carbon cycle in peat and the potential of using these types of wetlands to capture and store as much carbon as possible. The more carbon that

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-27377465520731557312011-01-18T10:19:00.001Z2011-01-18T10:27:53.322Z

Google’s legendary Matt Cutts recently explained how he would start an online business with just £10. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team, gave the advice to future entrepreneurs on a Google Webmaster help video published on YouTube. In answer to a question on how £10 could be used to start a business Matt Cutts said he would use the money to buy a domain name and as much hosting as

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-64296962895909084962011-01-11T19:03:00.001Z2011-01-11T19:05:52.675Z

It's been quite a while since I've logged in to my Blogspot dashboard and I'm really impressed at the developments. The most important improvement, at first glance, seems to be that you can now easily create and link to static pages. The templates also seem to be a lot cleaner with the most important widgets, or gadgets, fitting seamlessly into them. I'm sure these developments have been out

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-21942559454850928352010-08-06T15:45:00.004+01:002011-01-10T17:39:58.043Z

Google is abandoning its much-hyped Google Wave service after launching it just a year ago - but with a lack of any integration with Google's other services, it's not hard to see why Wave failed. In their own words Google Wave was a “web app for real-time communication and collaboration”. It promised to be a new way of emailing and sharing online content, all within your normal web browser.

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-41727811721969450872010-03-16T17:37:00.003Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.460Z

I try not to go on about how great I find the iPhone and hardly ever say 'there's an app for that'. However, on the whole the iPhone is a great piece of kit and I do seem to have an application for just about everything. Doing plenty of freelance journalism and PR work I find it invaluable, but I can see an even bigger use for it in reporting live events. You can instantly email or tweet,

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-27852195055273773042009-12-21T22:23:00.002Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.461Z

Many thanks to Journalism.co.uk for including me in their latest Freelance Frontline. >> Freelance Frontline: Updates from Linda Jones, Richard Johnson, Joe Griffin and Christian Dunn I gave in my notice as digital editor at NWN Media several months ago and have now started a PhD in geo-engineering looking at the carbon cycle in wetlands. Throughout my studies I'll be doing some freelance

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-79169933386825408022009-03-05T22:59:00.004Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.463Z

Every journalist who has to put copy online should have some basic knowledge of HTML code - even if it's just knowing the correct tag for creating a hyperlink or bold text. This video by jimmyrcom takes things a little further and not only looks at HTML but also CSS. Even though most online journalists and editors won't need to know too much about this, as everything is done for them by their

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-52541557764266807772009-01-25T20:15:00.007Z2011-01-10T17:46:27.730Z

Please excuse the plug - but as part of my expanding web management portfolio I’ve just re-launched the PhotoActive website for former Sunday Times photographer Philip Dunn. We’ve completely changed the look of the website, www.photoactive.co.uk, and it now has a blog and forum integrated into it, as well as a far clearer navigational system. We’ve set up various affiliate packages with

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-41381641965389102182008-12-17T08:58:00.006Z2011-01-10T17:47:33.955Z

After a few minutes playing around I've found out how to add Google Friend Connect to my blog on Google's Blogger site. It was really simple after I found this video on http://googlingsocial.com explaining that you don't have to use the code that Google says to add to your site - as it's already on your Blogger site. For my Blogger template I changed the width to 200 pixels and the height to

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-81496758120065320092008-11-30T18:58:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.465Z

Walking into a major newsagent-type store in Chester I was amazed to find that the large newspaper stand had disappeared. In Chester’s WHSmith there used to be a newspaper stand with all the major nationals and regionals, plus a host of specialist and foreign titles, slap-bang in the middle of the store as soon as you walked through the doors. Now though, it’s been replaced with promotional

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-64727601004654061442008-11-13T21:11:00.002Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.466Z

I was asked to put together a couple of articles on 'writing for the web' by Journalism.co.uk The emphasis of these was not the very technical SEO (search engine optimisation) side of things, but on the practical skills and techniques the average reporter, or online editor, needs to make sure their stories are found by interested internet surfers- and then actually read. By interested readers I

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-24053927835052446422008-10-10T08:38:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.468Z

The Evening Leader's UFO spotters' map has hit the headlines. Well, it's been mentioned in holdthefrontpage.co.uk and journalism.co.uk. Basically, I used the site Dipity.com to create a timeline and map of all the recent UFO sightings our newspaper has received. Then I embedded the widget Dipity provides on a custom page on our site. I been aware that other news sites have been using Dipity

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-31189441308101990092008-07-15T22:45:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.470Z

It's been a while now since Sky relaunched their news site, but I have to admit I'm very unimpressed. I know the new Sky News website is supposed to be full of new features, making it easier for viewers to comment on stories and such like. But that doesn't take away from the fact it doesn't look very good. In fact I kept refreshing my browser thinking there was a bug on their page it looked

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-52138850519073037942008-06-03T09:00:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.471Z

Very interesting article looking at how the head of Johnston Press, Tim Bowdler, sees the future of the regional press. The main point seems to be the need for a complete change in 'mindset'. I still find it amazing that many people involved in the regional press seem to think that if they just keep on going as they always have done everything will be ok. Do they know something I don't, or do

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-326052447939145032008-05-21T09:16:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.473Z

I agree with the comments by Trinity Mirror's Sly Bailey about being careful of allowing the BBC to steamroll into the online regional newspaper scene. I've written about this before but I think it's a very important issue at the momment in the regional newspaper world, and it's good to know the issue is being disccused at the highest levels. Just about every traditional news organisation is

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-89643671205655879512008-05-19T13:03:00.002+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.475Z

I've just put together some golden rules for our newspaper websites. Here's a few of the ones I came up with for our reporters and news editors from different newspaper titles. 1. All stories to be reported online first Hard news stories should be reported online as soon as they happen. A full story does not have to be written up straight away, just the main facts of the story. The story can

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-12130951095897407492008-05-02T07:44:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.476Z

Christian Dunn now has a new personal Twitter feed. Please feel free to follow me at www.twitter.com/christiandunn

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-50255028465039833402008-05-01T22:44:00.001+01:002011-01-11T18:33:00.478Z

What are the benefits for a news organisation using Twitter? I've been aware of the micro-blogging website Twitter for a while, but never really taken it seriously - partly, perhaps, because of the name. 'Twitter' just doesn't do it for me! However, there seems to be a bit of a Twittering craze at the moment so I decided to have a look at it properly, and find out how I could use it to my

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-65244309276936995732008-03-18T22:00:00.002Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.480Z

I wrote the majority of this post whilst waiting for a physiotherapy appointment on a Pocket PC - or some might call it a Smartphone or even a wireless PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Whatever you want to call it, it's big and cumbersome and awkward to use as a phone when you just want to make a quick call - but it packs in so many features that you can easily forgive it this. A full Qwerty

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-76100449473533677992008-02-28T22:24:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.482Z

The Manchester Evening News has combined its web traffic and print circulation figures. The MEN took a bit of a hammering in the latest ABC statistics for their year-on-year sales, but I expect their free paper policy had a lot to do with this. However, it appears they’ve understood that people are still interested in their product it’s just that their methods of ‘using’ it are different.

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-89047780883565249982008-02-28T21:01:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.484Z

A ‘virtual courtroom’ initiative my website has been working on is proving very popular. We’ve teamed up with the area’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to produce videos of a mock trial. The viewer watches a series of them as if they were the magistrate in a domestic violence case and then gets to choose the sentence for the ‘criminal’. Have a go yourself - http://www.eveningleader.co.uk/

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-32588059669697419412008-02-17T22:55:00.001Z2011-01-10T17:58:31.853Z

Google phone heralds scramble for mobile web - Times Online Interesting article from the Times about the web on mobile phones.

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-78071570250387847482008-02-14T12:38:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.485Z

I was asked to write a report on Geotagging. The more I looked into it the more I began to see the potential in getagging content and stories, especially for increasing a newspaper website’s ability to get ‘hyperlocal’. I’ve copied a bit of the report below. Geotagging What is geotagging? Geotagging refers to the process of adding specific data to web content which allows it to be

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-11885274696622771992008-02-12T14:36:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.487Z

With unprecedented job cuts in the American news industry a worrying report shows widespread concern for the future of journalism in the USA. Job losses, falling ad revenues, tumbling share prices and a constantly depleting readership or audience – things aren’t looking good for the traditional news providers across the Atlantic. This article for the Press Gazette reports that 43 percent of the

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-30748514564873436732008-01-28T13:39:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.489Z

Members of the regional press have slammed the BBC’s plans to launch a network of 60 ultra-local websites. The UK Press Gazzete has revealed the BBC hope to create a raft of new sites using the latest “online localisation and mapping technology”. In October last year the BBC dropped their plans to broadcast ultra-local TV following pressure from regional newspapers. The problem that people in

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-68932965039087248762008-01-15T22:09:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.490Z

Yet again Sky News demonstrated just how the internet should be used to break a story. At around 1.30pm today, January 15, Sky News’ Breaking News section stated that two anti-whaling activists were being held ‘hostage’ after boarding a Japanese ship.The story consisted of one grainy picture and less than two paragraphs of text.Most sites such as the BBC had, to the best of my knowledge, no

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-34146833750595026522008-01-10T19:29:00.002Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.492Z

Seeing a spike in your website’s traffic is very satisfying, especially if you’ve managed to engineer part of it yourself. I’ve found the news aggregating site http://www.fark.com/ is one of the best ways to do this. Just about every news organisation in the world, including BBC, The New York Times, Sky, The Sun etc, send their unusual and quirky stories to Fark – in the hope that the site’s

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-81368322997038323582007-12-19T13:28:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.494Z

The page, which is still a beta site (working-test site), has become very ‘widget-ised’ with large, clear, moveable sections. These can be set up to give a more personalised landing page with news stories relevant to what you’re interested in – or the region you’re from. The BBC site was starting to feel a little tired compared to some of their fresher looking news-providing competitors, so the

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-67676230400751483592007-11-25T11:25:00.002Z2011-01-10T18:04:06.544Z

Ever wanted one of your videos to go 'viral'? This article has some really good advice on how to engineer thousands of views for a video. Most news providers now have YouTube account which can be used to attract visitors back to the main site. If you can brand the video with your website and leave viewers wanting more there's a chance some of them will investigate further. Some of the best

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-19943934093169265852007-11-22T22:22:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.495Z

The Guardian, Mail and Telegraph websites have all reported record traffic in October. ABCe figures show the Mail had 13.53 million unique users during the month; The Guardian, 18.4 million and the Telegraph 11.1 million. Times Online saw their unique users dip by less than one percent to 12.44 million, but the Sun suffered a slide of 13.87 percent, down to 9.19 million.http://

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-88564289690689819772007-11-19T23:10:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.497Z

This is a really good use of a Google map embedded in a page by the Shropshire Star. http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/11/how-much-are-you-paying-for-fuel/ It really adds something to the story - which after all is the best thing about the Internet: the variety of ways it allows you to illustrate and get news across to your readers.

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764326448318287529.post-40958550845142735882007-11-07T23:12:00.001Z2011-01-11T18:33:00.499Z

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=39361&c=1 There really doesn't seem to be any sign of things improving for newspaper sales at the moment. This piece from the UK Press Gazette describes how Americans are increasingly turning to the web to get their news. Some people may argue that they wouldn't be doing that if the newspapers weren't putting their content online

Christian Dunnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01400254373292530140noreply@blogger.com0