Blog – Page 10 – Blackball Media

Blackball Media sweeps up Swan

With the football transfer window drawing to a close, Blackball Media is pleased to announce the signing of Nigel Swan, who has joined the team as Head of Video.

Nigel, who moved for an undisclosed fee, has been working as a freelance videographer for the past three years and will lead the video team at Blackball Media.

“It’s a really great time to be teaming up with Blackball Media,” said Swan. “It’s great to be part of a team that’s expanding in video and is as excited as I am about the future of online motoring production.

“With demand for high quality online video getting stronger, it seems the perfect time to join forces. Many corporate and editorial teams are nervous about video production because of expensive film crews and freelance videographers charging the earth, but working with Blackball Media means we can tailor a video package that offers an excellent level of production without the need for clients to dig deep.”

Blackball Media has produced video for a number of car manufacturers to support product launches as well as dealer groups across the UK. The company also works with leading websites Motors.co.uk and MoneySuperMarket.com to produce consumer-orientated videos.

Swan has been involved in the motor industry for more than 13 years and started at Haymarket, working on Whatcar.com and What Car? magazine as staff writer, before moving on to the road test team.

After three years, he moved up to help develop the video road test team as project co-ordinator, a producer role that involved everything from writing scripts to logistics, editing, presenting and the important job of lifting bags in and out of the boots. Swan also played a key role in kick-starting videos for Autocar.

After eight years at Haymarket, he moved to MSN Cars as web producer, gaining a stronger grasp of web production, and two years later decided to plunge into video freelancing, producing a mix of social media, b-roll, and corporate films directly for blue chip clients.

Swan’s role as Head of Video at Blackball Media will see him continue his previous client video commitments as well as overseeing in-house production. He brings with him not only his editorial experience, but a long list of talented support crew, including presenters, voice over artists, sound engineers, cameramen, video editors and scriptwriters.

If you have video needs and would like to know how Blackball Media can help, contact [email protected] or call (023) 9252 2434.

Tackling the content thieves who rip us off

Blackball Media writers work very hard to provide our network of websites and magazines with unique and entertaining stories. On the whole, I like to think we achieve it.

I’ve invested a lot in my team of writers and in turn they invest a huge amount of time in producing content. That’s why it annoys me all the more when our stories are blatantly ripped off and stolen by others.

It happened with an exclusive we broke on AOL Cars – but this time I wasn’t going to let it go quite so easily.

You may remember, towards the end of 2012 I broke a story (after a four month investigation and 20 Freedom of Information requests) that none of the overhead speed cameras on the M25 had caught any drivers in the last 12 months.

It transpired that none of the cameras were actually on – and my exclusive was followed up by countless national newspapers and radio stations, all of whom credited the source of the story.

STOLEN

However, on the morning we published the piece, I found my copy – word for word – cut and pasted on to a fleet website. The site looked genuine, it had a lot of content, had phone numbers, and other news stories, but they had blatantly stolen my piece and pasted it as their own.

I spotted it on Twitter – expecting their tweet to link back to my AOL story, but it didn’t, instead linking to their website.

Furious, I rang them and asked what they were up to. Answering the phone was a wide boy who accused me of “not being in the job very long” and that I was “wasting my time and his”. Turns out it wasn’t his site at all – it was run by a friend of his and he just answered the phone as his mate “works full time”.

When I accused him of stealing by piece and asked for “his mate’s” number, he laughed and hung up.

Pleasant chap.

Now, I’m nothing if not persistent, so I did some digging. It’s very easy to find out who registered a website – WHOIS, lists the name and address of those who bought the domain unless they opted out.

The idiot behind the fleet site hadn’t done that. Within minutes I had his name and home address and was looking at it on Google StreetView to see if he was worth suing.

He wasn’t.

So I popped over to LinkedIn instead. Soon I knew where he worked and it turned out he just so happened to be a fleet salesman at a franchised car dealership… so I picked up the phone to, let’s call him by his real name, Dean, at his dealership viagra europa.

CAUGHT OUT

“Good morning, XX Motors, Dean speaking, how may I help you…”

Oh. My. God. He’d only gone and answered the bleeding phone.

“Hello Dean, my name is James Baggott. I understand you run a website called XX and this morning you’ve stolen my exclusive story from AOL and pasted it on your website.”

Dean: “Er.”

“Now, before I contact the extremely large and incredibly deep-pocketed legal despartment at AOL about your blatant infringement of our copyright and put a claim in for your house at XX Drive, I want to give you the opportunity to remove my piece from your site.

“Does your dealer principal know you’re running a website with a side line in fleet sales? And more to the point does he know you’re stealing content from others in order to run that site?”

Croaky-voiced Dean: “Errr, no he doesn’t.”

“Ok, well if the story isn’t removed in the next hour, I’ll be giving him a call as well as the car manufacturer you’re representing too.”

Dean: “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it now.”

About 15 minutes later the site was down for maintenance… and it hasn’t reappeared since.

The internet has made it all too easy to steal stories. People don’t realise that pinching posts from other websites has a consequence – because more often than not they get away with it.

Unfortunately, copyright theft is too often seen as a forgivable misdemeanor, but it shouldn’t be. Publishers spend large amounts of money on employees, equipment, taxes and offices to let others simply rip off their output.

Sadly, we’ll never put a stop to stories being stolen, but every once in a while it feels good to make a stand. If more of us did it, perhaps people would think twice before hitting CTRL C, CTRL V…

Blackball Media is hiring!

porscheaston

WE’RE recruiting! Offering new roles to work within our offices, based on the picturesque south coast of the UK.

The current roles available are:

Account Manager

Industry: Automotive – Media Sales

Location: Gosport

Reporting to: Sales manager

Hours: Full-time, 37.5 per week

Duties & Responsibilities

Outbound Account management and Telesales to a portfolio of clients and prospects, generating revenue through Ad sales.
To effectively present the product and proposition to Potential Clients and Media Agencies.
Secure appointments with relevant Agencies / Clients with a view to building a successful business relationship.
To Effectively develop the client relationship to maximise revenue opportunity
Maintain and grow client base through delivery of “industry leading” account management and customer service to customers.
Provide constructive feedback to the Business on any key operational issues identified with the proposition to help develop the business.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FULL ROLE PROFILE

To apply, send your CV to andy[at]blackballmedia.co.uk quoting either role title, or call us on 02392 522 434 with any questions.

Why Blackball Media’s website took five years to arrive

It’s only when I said it out loud in the office to a few colleagues that I realised just how stupid it sounded – Blackball Media has been trading for five years, pretty much to the day, and only now are we launching a website.

For a company that specialises in publishing – mostly of the online variety – that’s simply an embarrassment, but one that’s simply been the cause of too much else to do.

When I launched Blackball Media back in January 2008, it was out of necessity. I needed a company to process the business bits and bobs behind my idea for a motor trade magazine, Car Dealer, and Blackball Media was it.

Where did the name come from? Well, I’d like to come up with a jazzy reason – something about Blackball Media not conforming, or something equally agency-like, but I won’t – because that’s not us.

I’ll give you the rather boring and real reason – my daughter suggested it because I like playing snooker. Should I have revealed that? Who cares. It’s the truth.

WEBSITE

Anyway, back to this website. It’s here because the work Blackball Media does has grown over the last five years. No longer is the company simply the vehicle behind the award-winning, highest circulation, brilliant motor trade business publication Car Dealer any more (biased? Me?) ohne rezept viagra. The company now provides a variety of services.

Our clients include AOL – who we provide car content for on a daily basis – as well as two Japanese car manufacturers who rely on us to provide news and services for their dealer networks. Using an economic calendar or a ekonominis kalendorius while trading is proven to be helpful.

We’re also working hard to build on our contract publishing services – we’re currently producing a magazine for a global leasing company – as well as investigating further opportunities to provide car content to trade and consumer websites.

This new website’s aim is to showcase the brilliant work my talented team, hidden away down on the south coast, do every day and this blog will aim to bring to life some of the fun we have along the way.

I’ll try not to bore you too much…

James Baggott

Managing director, Blackball Media