Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Davos Question

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Just a few hours left to post a video to the Davos site on YouTube. The point of The Davos Question is to get people offering up ideas of what would make the world a better place in 2008.

I think it’s a fantastic idea, although I’m slightly flummoxed by the execution. The videos are rated by YouTube users (I think that’s where the plan starts to fall down slightly) and the highest ranked will be screened at the World Economic Forum AGM in Davos this coming week.

The downside to this worthy idea is that the software is a bit confusing and, instead of hearing every submission, I find I’m picking and choosing based on video quality. It also, as you would expect, attracts some utter tosh and madness.

But there are some good videos tackling issues such as climate change and poverty. One interesting one talked about using social networking to re-engage people with the democratic process.

Brum Tig: I’m “It”

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In a bid to draw attention to the plethora of interesting Birmingham blogs floating about on’t Internet, Jon Bounds of Birmingham: It’s Not Shit has started Brum blog tig.

The rules, according to Jon, are:

  • Each player starts with an odd, but fun, fact about Brum and one odd, but fun, fact about their blog.
  • At the end of your blog, you need to choose two people to get tagged and list their names.
  • Tag your post “birminghamUK” and “brumblogtig” (the second one is a memetag).
  • People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (with their version of the post) and post these rules (or link to them here). They can tie it in with their particular subject if they so wish.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So my Brum fact:

Did you know that the lifts in the Mailbox each have different voices recorded by people from BBC Birmingham? One of them is definitely John Craven, although I’m yet to figure out who the others are!

(As an aside, over the way in Walsall Art Gallery the “voice of the lifts” is Noddy Holder)

And my blog fact:

According to a colleague, I technically could have been fired for starting this blog. Somewhere in my contract – apparently – there’s a clause about not publishing information about my employer, or something like that.

It was lucky that, when I decided to start blogging a little over three months ago, I didn’t think to look at my contract. It was doubly lucky that, when the people I worked for found out about the blog, they supported it instead of giving me my P45!

I’m tagging Tom Lennon and Bunny Bissoux.

My bank has just sent me a lifestyle magazine!

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Dear Miss Geary

Do your new year’s resolutions tend to go in one ear and out the other? It’s my great pleasure to introduce Sense, our magazine for people who like to make the most of life and their money. From expert tips on managing the work-life balance to creating more space with inventive storage ideas or financing that much-needed extension, I hope it will help to make life better in 2008.

Alongside an exclusive profile of Nicole Kidman, you’ll find top spas put through their pampering paces, a prize draw for a luxury holiday in Thailand and advice on delicious healthy eating. And as you attend to your waistline, there’s help on getting your finances into shape too with an expert look at lending and an easy how-to guide to the stock market…

WTF?! My BANK is profiling Nicole Kidman, giving me home furnishing advice and telling me what to eat?!

Personally, I’m rather weirded out by this.

What I’m going to do with the Flickr feedback

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As the flow of comments has started to slow on the Flickr post, I thought I’d let you all know what I plan to do next!

Over the next few weeks (after I’ve finished my first assignment), I’ll start collating the comments. I think what has come out from the discussion is going to be applicable to a lot of the other things I wanted to looking at for the website project.

I had just assumed (naively, perhaps) that because people were happy for bloggers to link to their work (as long as they were credited), they would also be happy for a site like The Birmingham Post to link to it too.

This, however, doesn’t seem to be completely the case. Most of the concern seems to come from the belief that – as we are a commercial publishing operation – any and all the material we link to on the web must be paid for.

I can understand that point, but I think the distinction between commercial and non-commercial spaces on the Internet needs to be looked at in more detail. Not that I’m going to do that right here and now – the comments have given me way too much to mull over!

In my head, I saw The Birmingham Post website as a place to go for news and opinion, but also as a (sorry to use this word) gateway to Brum’s professional and creative communities on the web. I still see it that way, but I now realise I need to look at how I’m going to do that in more depth.

But please keep the comments coming in, I really want to get to grips with this.

Today and the Internet

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I’ve just heard the oddest piece on Radio 4’s Today programme. [Edit: According to Martin Stabe, it was by a media commentator called Steve Hewlett, which explains a lot. You can listen again.]

I think it was supposed to be a news report but, uncharacteristically of Today, it made absolutely no effort to even try and appear objective.

It came across as an appeal, nay a plea, to Radio 4 listeners and BBC executives to support and preserve the station’s current methods of compiling the news agenda.

It looked at the most read stories on the BBC website last year and made the rather obvious point that, just because they were popular, didn’t mean they were the most important stories.

I would have thought BBC executives would have understood that “most read” and “most emailed” stories are more a reflection on the kind of material people will link to on the web, rather than its importance. Don’t they? From this piece it suggests they don’t.

The tone was one of “big bad web” and there was also mention of 4radio, so perhaps it was a rallying cry to try and encourage listeners to stay loyal.

But, to be honest, if Today had an important point to make about the web, I think I missed it.

Could The Post website use Flickr?

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I have said before that the Birmingham Flickr group is a wonderful thing, and I know that others appreciate it too.(thanks CiB for the link).

There are so many fantastic pictures of Brum on Flickr, I would like to see the new Birmingham Post website showing and linking to them. It would certainly help showcase the talent we have in the city.

Indeed, it is something that was suggested when I asked for ideas for the new site.

But not everyone in the Birmingham Flickr community is going to want The Birmingham Post publishing their picture on our website. We wouldn’t have the right to do so anyway, unless we contacted the photographer first to get express permission, or they had relinquished all their IP rights (which is very rare).

So, what could be the solution? Pete Ashton suggests that The Post creates it’s own Flickr group, which people submit Birmingham photos to on the understanding that they may be used in a certain context on The Post website and will, of course, be credited.

But I wonder, with the plethora of specialist groups out there on Flickr, how keen are photographers going to be to submit to a Birmingham Post group?

Any advice and ideas from members of Flickr, and particularly the Birmingham Flickr group, would be gratefully received.

A passion for fashion: The Birmingham News

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An advertisment for Birmingham Alabama’s newspaper, The News, from 1977. Perhaps we should be doing our own version for The Birmingham Post? “A passion for business and local politics,” it doesn’t really have the same ring to it…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VYBrIhKeUc&rel=1]

[Edit: and what exactly is that man hiding in his jacket that makes the woman laugh when he turns around? I’m intrigued.]

Metatwitter

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Paul Bradshaw defines Twitter in an interview… via Twitter.

The post starts in German, but Paul’s bit is in English:

halbluchs: @paulbradshaw what makes twitter so popular and addictive? is it just a hype or is it more? 03:14 PM January 04, 2008 from Snitter

paulbradshaw: @halbluchs the same things that have made texting so popular: brevity, connectivity, control. 02:31 PM January 04, 2008 from txt

Worth a read, especially for journos who are trying to figure out the best way to use Twitter in their jobs.

Don Was interviews Ozzy Osbourne

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I’ve just spent a rather fantastic hour watching Don Was – of Was (Not Was) fame – interview Ozzy Osbourne about the birth of Heavy Metal, Black Sabbath and that infamous reality TV show:

Ozzy: I only ever watched a couple of episodes, you know. I don’t like to see myself on TV. I’m all errr…whacked. I’m trying to fix myself when I’m watching me. Plus the fact I was that whacked out all the time, I couldn’t understand what the fuck I was talking about. They were thinking about putting subtitles on it – one in English and one in Braille.

Don: So you weren’t trying to play it up at all?

Ozzy: Oh no! You couldn’t be THAT dim!

The interview comes in eight parts. The first, which talks about Birmingham and The Beatles, is below. With all the parodies that exist out there is easy to forget just how lucid, down-to-earth, interesting and entertaining the ol’bat muncher from Aston can be:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xY_om_OGkg&rel=1]

“Academic-ese”

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I had my first seminar of my new course yesterday. It wasn’t too stressful, more an introduction to the module from our tutor.

It was a relief, actually, because I had panicked after printing off an article on our recommended reading list.

I was a student once and I remember how irritating it was when academics invented their own impenetrable language to write papers. But the abstract I read yesterday really made my eyes water:

This paper offers a conceptual framework for filling a void in the research on convergence and for extending research into gatekeeping and diffusion of innovation. It offers the Convergence Continuum as a dynamic model that defines news convergence as a series of behavior-based activities illustrating the interaction and cooperation levels of staff members at newspapers, television stations and Web organizations with news partnerships. The continuum’s components provide media professionals with a touchstone as they develop cross-media alliances.

Conceptual framework? Gatekeeping? Touchstone? Argh! And that’s only the abstract – this thing goes on in a similar vein for another 30 pages!

After reading the paragraph three times, I think it means the paper is offering a guide to what media organisations should do when they want to start using lots of different methods to reach their audience. Am I right? I’m not sure! Answers on a postcard, please.