So the 12 week run of This Just In.. is over, it went pretty quickly, don’t you think? I’ve loved it, especially as most of my work on it was in the build up to the launch, which meant I’ve been able to enjoy the fruits of Phil Gilbert (@Sundaydefensive) and the Zeppotron team’s daily comedy pretty much as a regular punter.. I think they did a great job and overall the site has been well received, in particular the impressive range of videos created for it.

Not that it’s all been plain sailing; this project has shown that, even with all the amazing social tools at our disposal, superb content and broadcaster backing, it’s still difficult  to launch a new web property and quickly build a following behind it. It’s been a great example of how personal recommendation and sharing is now the most important thing if you want to get your message across online. What might be classed now as ‘traditional’ digitial media marketing just doesn’t seem to cut it in the same way as it once did; sure it can still drive traffic but  that does not always translate into engagement and followers. However, get someone on board that really understands Twitter, as we did with our guest editor Rufus Hound (@RufusHound), and you can double your audience in a day.

So perhaps the site was a slower burn than hoped, but overall the numbers were good and towards the end of the run we had more than 2000 people following everyday on Twitter, and the YouTube channel continues to draw in great numbers – over 82,000 views so far (with plenty of scope to go much higher over the few months). And  we did have some bone fide viral hits (William Says, and the Bees – 40,000+ YouTube views between them!).Will This Just In… return? I hope so, it would be great to see this service running all the time and there’s certainly lot’s we could do to improve the experience and draw in an wider audience next time around.. The site did achieve its primary goal of introducing new talent to a wider audience and has been a great recruiter for Channel 4 so we’re hopeful of a recommission ..and of course it has generated an enormous amount of daily LOL’s and ROFL’s.. speaking of which here is my favourite clip from the whole project: Oggy Hawkins’ brilliant Egoland, starring Boris Johnson and Lady Gaga (together at last!).. enjoy.

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