November 2007 Archives
November 30, 2007
RBI: A Laptops Open Company?
I'm at our company editors' conference today.
It's interesting to compare it to last year's conference and, in particular, what you can see in this picture:
From a small handful of us having laptops open last year, now quite a large number of the attendees. The pic looks a little like ones I've taken at tech conferences…
We're a little closer to being a true web company…
links for 2007-11-30
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A thought-provoking look at the worst aspect's of The Guardian's blogging experiments.
November 28, 2007
links for 2007-11-28
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The downside of the popularity and ubiquity of free Wordpress themes.
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[Facebook] bears the hallmarks of the kind of pump-and-dump service that sees us as sticky, monetizable eyeballs in need of pimping. The clue is in the steady stream of emails you get from Facebook: "So-and-so has sent you a message." Yeah, what is it?
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Short version: they run ads against your content, but only occasional users see them.
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Are professional bloggers killing their interest value for revenue?
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Nice example of the problem with Facebook Beacon
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How the geeks conquered the media…
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Drupal 6 is getting OpenID. Ooooh.
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Coming out of the disillusionment phase, then…
November 27, 2007
Loving This Thing
OK, so the 18 month lock-in ain't great. And only having one network isn't making me happy. But there are lots and lots of reasons why this wee iPhone is changing my thinking. Post in progress…
Thought of the Day
"Every time I make a mistake, I'll be able to think - mmm... at least I didn't write off an A340-600."
So says Paulo, commenting on this post by Flightblogger (of whom, more will be written shortly). It's a reassuring thought when things go wrong...
So says Paulo, commenting on this post by Flightblogger (of whom, more will be written shortly). It's a reassuring thought when things go wrong...
November 25, 2007
A Test from an iPhone
just testing the mobile posting interface for Movable Type from an iPhone. I wouldn't want to write an essay this way - but it works!
November 19, 2007
Saved by Starbucks
The problem with having a job where you help other people blog, is that is leaves you too little time to blog yourself...
However. I'm enjoying a quiet little catch-up with my RSS feeds in a Starbucks located, in a slightly sinister manner, just off the A3 in the middle of nowhere.
It's been almost literally a life-saver, though, as I was dangerously close to nodding off at the wheel while on the drive back to London.
However, now that I'm well-caffeinated and my blog addiction is fed, I can set off for sunny Lewisham with a somewhat larger chance of making it home alive...
November 18, 2007
Social Networking in Plain English
I'm probably the last person to have come across this, but it's still useful:
MySpace Not DeadSpace
Despite all the current focus on Facebook, the game's far from over for MySpace.
November 17, 2007
iTunes needs a new icon
Look at this icon.
It's the iTunes icon, as seen in the latest version of the Mac operating system.
Can you see anything wrong with it?
Think about it.
It's made up of two elements: a CD and a representation of music notation. That made perfect sense back when iTunes was principally a way of turning your CDs into music you could store on your computer, before the word iPod had been coined, let alone turned into a cultural icon.
But now? Now in the age of digital downloads and podcasts and videos and iPods and Apple TVs and digital media generally, doesn't the CD feel, well, a little archaic? Do today's teenagers even associate music with CDs anymore? It's rather like every CD sold in the 80s coming with a little picture of a vinyl LP on it…
November 14, 2007
When Silence Falls
Apologies for the protracted silence. A family member has gone straight from a hospital stay into a bout of chemotherapy, and I've been designated carer through it. Time for bloggy activity had been limited. However, I will try to get my report from last week's Blogging and Politics event held at The Telegraph's Victoria office up later on today, providing that all goes well at the Norfolk and Norwich.
In the meantime, I leave you with debate chairman Iain Dale painted in party colours by a temporary glitch with the projector…
November 5, 2007
NUJ: Forget The Customers, and They'll Forget You
Just over a week ago, my mother-in-law got her birthday card from me. This would be a good thing, if it wasn't for the fact that it was nearly a month late. It's tardy arrival isn't some blatant signal of my failings as a son-in-law, but a direct result of industrial action by the postal workers. Around three weeks passed from posting to arrival, which pretty much screwed the thought behind the action. This was a deeply counter-productive move on behalf of the union. While they're campaigning to preserve terms, conditions and pay in a declining market, they're messing up their customers so badly that I'm strenuously looking at ways of not using the post, if I can't trust it to deliver. In their battle with management, they forgot about the customer. And that will cost them.
All of which, of course, brings us to the NUJ. My union. The union which I have been a card-carrying member of for over a decade. And, which, after the last week or so, I'm embarrassed to be associated with. Why? The latest issue of Journalist, the union's in-house rag, contains some early reports from its Commission on Multi-Media Working. The response from all ends of the political spectrum has been pretty uniform, from The Guardian's Roy Greenslade to The Telegraph's Shane Richmond and many others besides. The report is a horrible, luddite and reactionary response to the changes in the market. (I particularly liked Kevin Anderson's dissection of just how offensive some of the comments are to those of us working in new media and Antony's view from outside the journalism world.)
So, just how did the NUJ get it so wrong?
Continue reading NUJ: Forget The Customers, and They'll Forget You.
Facebook's Future (a brief thought)
Facebook will be unto Social Networking, as AOL was to the Internet.
Even children get bored of playing in walled gardens after a while…
Making Comments into a Community
Techcrunch UK highlights some emerging companies that are attempting to build blog comments into something more of a community feature. Six Apart are working on a community solution for Movable Type.
There's something interesting developing here…
November 3, 2007
Six Years of Blogging
As of today, I've been blogging for six years (although this blog is a couple of years younger than that).And what an interesting six years it has been. Back then, my Livejournal was just something that a bunch of friends were doing, and that would be interesting for me to take a look at as well. I was blown away by how easy it was to publish, and suddenly saw the implications for publishing in general and journalism in particular. Six years on, blogging is my job, as a direct consequence of my decision to set up a Livejournal all those years ago.
The smallest decisions can have the most dramatic consequences…
My first step into the blogosphere is still visible on my Livejournal. Try not to laugh too hard.
November 1, 2007
Podcast Interview with The Archers
Ah, I'm very jealous of some of my colleagues on Farmers Weekly right now.
You see, I'm a huge fan of The Archers, a daily drama on BBC Radio 4, for the US readers of this blog. It's been an addition for me since my teenage years. My little dose of audio crack…
Well, four members of the cast were at the Farmers Weekly Awards last night, an event organised by Farmers Weekly. As you can see from the pic (at least, if you are as much of a fan as I am), the people present were stalwarts Trevor Harrison (Eddie Grundy), Timothy Bentinck (David Archer), Felicity Finch (Ruth Archer), and Charles Collingwood (Brian Aldridge).
And the mag's web editor, Julian Gairdner, took the opportunity to interview them. The lucky bastard.
You can grab the FWi podcast in iTunes, or stream it on Podomatic.
Wikipedia Oops
Looks like one of my colleagues has been misbehaving...
