Ben LaMothe

I am a web and social media strategist with Jacksonville, Florida-based advertising and marketing consultancy Renaissance Creative, and a postgraduate student at City University London, where I am currently writing a dissertation about how mobile phone applications impact the ways news is distributed and consumed. I am based in Jacksonville, Florida.

My immediate background is in journalism. However more recently I have begun to work in the fields of social media marketing, community management, media blogging and web development. I previously worked as a web and social media specialist with corporate PR and marketing consultancy Glasshouse Partnership, where my primary role was devising web, social media and blogging strategy for corporate and individual clients.

I have also worked as a social media consultant for United Business Media, and as a web intern with Telegraph.co.uk, where I assisted in the re-launch of their blogs.

The economics of free web content

It is the hot topic in media circles: should news organisations give away their content on the web for free? This week saw a few posts by influential bloggers and media commenters on the subject. Here's a round-up.

The next newspaper crisis: shoddy website design

Since the floor has fallen out of print circulations at many newspapers, editors are paying greater attention to the layout of their web sites. What they're finding isn't pretty.

For years if a newspaper had a website, it most likely served as a digital dumping ground for the print product. Design and functionality wasn't a key concern because most readers still got their news in print. Times have changed, but unfortunately many newspapers remain unprepared.