I wrote a thing about some things what I had made

A week is a long time in politics.

This time last week I was hammering out story after story for Mirror Online, UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d, covering the General Election in a shift that lasted from 6pm on the Thursday night until noon the following day, saw three party leaders resign, and the internet mourn the loss of Ed Balls.

Today, ermmmm, not so much.

If you are reading this blog, you’ll probably have seen some news coverage about Trinity Mirror and some lovely things that people have written about it. And this guy too.

Here’s what I said to Buzzfeed and the Guardian when they came knocking for my immediate thoughts:

“I’ve had the most amazing fun over the last couple of years. Watching millions of people play things like ‘Are you hated by the Daily Mail?’ or read articles like ‘7 toilets that we’d rather have as justice secretary than Michael Gove’ from a national newspaper group has been brilliant.

I think traditional media organisations have struggled to find a character or tone that really reflects what the web is like, and all of my projects at Trinity Mirror were an attempt to do that.

And they were all experiments.

We initially set up both UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d with everybody on three-month contracts, to try and replicate the energy you need to make a start-up work.

The fact that they lasted this long and will be missed by the people who enjoyed them is a testament to the talent of the teams themselves, who I love like family. I think Ampp3d and UsVsTh3m have just produced a brilliant range of coverage of the general election and the aftermath, and I’m very proud of that.

It was great that Simon Fox was prepared to take a risk on funding something like this, and Chris Ellis and Malcolm Coles were very generous in giving me the time and space to build things the way I wanted to.

We’re going to stop doing them, which is sad, but I’d always much rather try something new than sit on my hands fretting about the future of digital media without actually trying to influence or change it.”

Anyway, I’m off to watch #BBCQT without having to worry about the coverage of it for the first time in ages. It will feel weird without @ampp3d. And with no @DIMBLEBOT tonight either.