Author Archive
Type it…..
June 17th, 2009
I forgot I had a blog. Hopefully I will put a bit more effort in from now on.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
(If you’re really arsed you could try Wikipedia as well)
Posted in Misc | Comments (2)
Cloud Gaming March 26th, 2009
I reckon the development of streaming gaming has the potential to revolutionise the way we think about games as entertainment. There are no other forms of media that are so utterly dependant on the hardware that delivers them.
It’s also strange that gaming is the only form of media that provokes arguments about which form of hardware is the best. Not critical discussions but proper arguments between grown men (I do believe there is a gender bias in this). This is a silly situation.
Looking at Onlive’s Web Site I think the imminent arrival of Cloud Gaming is probably not that imminent. I couldn’t stream the introductory video. Either my connection is rubbish or their servers can’t cope at the moment which means a big fail for it working as a concept.
I have no idea what the technical barriers are to getting this working, but if all of the processing can be carried out remotely then we are surely in a position where the only costs to users are the input device, display and subscription. I would say that I’m sceptical about the claim that lag is unnoticeable but that is probably something that can be resolved.
The timing of this has got to be a crucial factor in whether or not it will succeed. Is there a sufficient number of people that accept the subscription model for games? The money paid for access to XBox Live and the truly daunting number of Warcraft players would seem to indicate “yes”. Though the cost will clearly be a deciding factor.
Tags: Games, Warcraft, XBox
Posted in Games, Media | Comments (1)
Yet More Shit About Twitter February 10th, 2009
Does the world need another post about
Tags: Celebrity, Twitter
Posted in Media, Misc | Comments (2)
Play Away February 7th, 2009
I’ve been bothered by the recent decision by the Competition Commission to stop the so called Project Kangaroo. My irritation with the decision is odd as I don’t generally use the existing video on demand services provided by BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Though I do like marsupial based technological developments.
BBC iPlayer seems to work fine and Channel 4 OD requires too much software running in the background. I spend a fair mount of my time trying to avoid ITV so the prospect of watching it on the Internet fills me with a bit of dread.
I think the thing that has annoyed me about the decision is the element of condescension within it. They believe the public (us) will benefit from having to visit three different sites to watch UK TV. The market will, apparently, provide us with a better service through making the whole process more difficult.
An analogy would be to say that manufacturers are restricting competition through allowing us to watch more than one channel on our TVs. The decision appears to fly in the face of all moves towards convergence.
I think there is an interesting parallel with the decision to restrict the BBC from developing local news services. The decision was apparently taken in order to prevent local news providers being subject to unfair competition from a state funded organisation. This ignores the fact that the majority of local news providers are a little bit crap. Maybe the injection of competition would force them to raise their game.
We frequently forget that the BBC is ours. We pay for it. We should use it to provide services that improve the quality of our lives. It should not be considered a publicly funded private organisation. We can use it to make developments that raise the bar for other organisations.
The iPlayer itself has set a standard that other organisations are trying to meet. This standard has been set both nationally and internationally and I think we should be proud of that.
In the judgement the Competition Commission seem to have ignored one vital factor to the video on demand market (well they did in the press release, I didn’t read the whole report). The current market is made up of more than the established media providers. Both Sky and Virgin prompted this investigation and to be honest you’d expect them to moan about it.
The competition for providing media services is really coming from the likes of Bittorrent. It is a simple process to find TV you’ve missed for free and download it. Usually with the adverts removed.
It is this problem that mainstream media providers need to address rather than their own protectionism. Kangaroo would have provided a platform with a revenue stream whilst giving us something that we want.
It’s a short sighted decision and one I’m convinced will be overturned.
Posted in Media, Politics | Comments (0)
Master of Puppets December 14th, 2008
So Oliver Postgate died then. The reaction from the media was the sort usually reserved for a Pope. Nearly ten minutes of coverage on Channel 4 News goes someway to prove that conventional media is still ruled by men of a certain age.
Watching the IT Crowd the other week I noticed a flaw in the basis for the episode (this is loosely connected). It was based around a web site that gave people stock quotes about football, thus enabling the most nerdish to talk with “real men”. The liberal times we live in mean that you’re just as likely to have a mixed gender conversation about whether or not Gerrard and Lampard can effectively play together; and there’s nothing wrong with that.
No, the last preserve of male only conversation is cloying nostalgia for children’s programmes.
One of the weird consequences of Oliver Postgate’s death is that it proved a catalyst for exposing the facade of chumminess the Conservative Party have been carefully crafting. In the absence of policy the principle reason for the Conservatives claim on Government seems to be David Cameron is a nice BLOKE. He’s the sort of bloke you could go down the pub with and he wouldn’t be afraid to put his hand in his pocket.
In all likelihood David probably drinks pints of gold and frequents the sort of places that wouldn’t let me look at the door let alone walk through it.
The veneer of a sculptured “everyman” was cruelly exposed by Radio 5 on Tuesday. On being told that Oliver Postgate had died David Cameron was asked what he thought. He told Nicky Campbell that he didn’t really understand the Clangers and preferred Ivor the Engine. The idiot.
Everyone knows that Ivor the Engine was a bit crap. They had to write a dragon into it to try and maintain their dwindling audience. The Clangers was set in space with chickens. What is there not to understand?
My reaction to the news that Oliver Postgate was very much along the lines of “who is he?” Obviously I know the programmes as well as everyone else, but I’ve never known the name of the bloke that made them. To be honest if you’d asked me last week I would have assumed he was already dead.
The thing that has most struck me this week, as we’ve been shown clips of Bagpuss and the Clangers, is how relevant they continue to be today.
Much of my time recently has been taken up playing Little Big Planet. It truly is the natural successor of all of those children’s programmes from years ago. The irony is that it is the first game that has given a true representation of real life objects, which works because we can use Bagpuss as a frame of reference.
Also, as we’ve heard this week, such classics as Bagpuss and the Clangers were made in a barn using household objects that had been left lying around. Little Big Planet gives us the tools to create similar scenes in the comfort of our own homes.
So in a roundabout way I’m trying to say that Little Big Planet is a fitting tribute to a man whom I’d never heard of until Tuesday.
Posted in Games, Media | Comments (1)
We Don’t Need No Regulation December 13th, 2008
I reckon it is only a matter of time before Bernard Madoff becomes a truly household name. In a sense he’s already fairly famous what with having run the NASDAQ and being fantastically wealthy.
It now looks like there is a strong chance that all of this vast wealth could have been accumulated through the largest fraud ever perpetrated. It should be noted a fraud that has been perpertrated on some of the richest people in the world but as recent experience has probably taught all of us; when the wealthy are ripped off we tend to be the ones who put our hands in our pockets.
The most wrrying thing about this is that the potential fraud wasn’t dicovered through the diligence of regulators. It wasn’t even noticed as a result of Madoff seemingly outperforming the market in a recession. No, it was exposed because Bernard’s sons had the presence of mind to grass him up after he told them about it. It does seem a little bit strange that nobody really paid too much attention to the inconsistent consistency of such odd profits.
Hopefully the conclusion of this investigation/trial might prompt people to realise that not properly regulating financial services is costing us a bloody fortune. The repercussions of this are likely to reach around the world but one UK company already believe that they have nearly 9% of their total value invested with Madoff. I don’t think they’re going to get it back.
Posted in Media | Comments (0)
Second Go at Second Life November 30th, 2008
Just glancing through the Register I noticed they have a story about Reuters giving up on their dedicated Second Life reporter. I remember that there was quite a fanfare when Reuters began their coverage.
I think it is interesting to note that it took a month for anyone to notice that coverage had stopped.
It made me think, what’s going on in Birmingham’s Second Life island at the moment?
I popped in to have a look and I’d have to say that absolutely nothing was going on.
I’d be intersted to see if anyone has any usage stats given that it’s been up and running for a month now.
Posted in Birmingham, Media | Comments (0)
Hold the Front Page November 21st, 2008
I’ve suddenly become massively concerned with the future of printed journalism. It is clear that as a business model print journalism is facing competitive pressure from sources that you just wouldn’t have comprehended 15 years ago. Unfortunately as a reaction traditional media appears to be throwing away that extra value that I think gives it value.
In my day to day life I have dealings with three traditional forms of printed media (4 if you count TV Quick), The Guardian, The Birmingham Post and The Erinsborough News. Essentially I believe The Guardian is alright. They just understand the modern world and seem to have done a pretty good job of shaping it around them rather than the other way. The other two are obviously in crisis. Not a conventional business crisis with plummeting share prices and board room massacres (though there has been a bit of that). No, more of an identity crisis that has made them buy a Porsche and pinch young girls arses in a pub.
The Internet is always cited as the great motivator for change within media. This is true. The Internet has fundamentally changed the way that we look at news. We have become used to news always being current and always being free. I don’t think that this is really a reason to try and recreate the Internet within the printed media.
The great value I see with printed media is two fold. There is a front page and there is a professional narrative. The front page screams NEWS at me when I see it and makes me want to read it. The narrative comes from years of experience creating a linear experience of news. When I look at a paper I know someone has used their professionalism to decide that the news on page 2 is more important to me as a reader than the news on page 15. The Internet cannot fully achieve either of these. No site will devote their front page to one massive story. Really they don’t need to do so in order to drag people in.
Equally reading a web site is not a linear experience. There are many points of entry and the reader themselves chooses the route through to other stories. Clearly clever prominence of links facilitates this to an extent but not in the same way that the editor of a printed paper holds your hand on a daily journey of news.
Both the Birmingham Post and the Erinsborough News have recently lost their understanding of printed journalism. The Erinsborough News removed the last vestige of professionalism by allowing local hotel owner and murderer Paul Robinson to not only buy the paper but appoint himself as editor. Interestingly his stint as editor began by demonstrating some characteristics that were useful. He understood the front page. He obviously understood what his readers wanted (some of them at least). In the few weeks that he has controlled the paper I think it is fair to say that everyone he knows has obviously bought one and read it.
The decline in the Erinsborough News is obviously linked with Paul’s parochial nature. The paper’s obsession with the sex life of the school girl that lives over the road from him is going to have limited wider appeal. Unfortunately early plaudits appear to have conned him into believing that even more microscopic localism is needed. Thus hiring Susan Kennedy Kinski Kennedy as a journalist symbolises the foolish belief that a qualification in journalism now counts for absolutely nothing these days. The front page story about the wheelchair basketball team being banned from the community centre is a new low. Alright they were probably acting against disability legislation but really, do we care? No we don’t and nobody else does either.
The Birmingham Post have followed a similar path. Actually they haven’t, they’ve taken much more crazy steps than put a murderer in charge. In a move that could well wrong foot the entire industry The Birmingham Post have decided to not only reduce the amount of news but also hide it. The Birmingham Post was always a traditional broadsheet with pretensions towards something it wasn’t but still very much a focus on the news and local events. It was out of it’s time but I liked it for it.
I can’t argue with the fact that very few people ever bought it and it probably needed change. The change they settled on was to remove news from the front page. Think about that for a second. It is a newspaper but does not have news on the front page. Obviously there was a meeting to discuss this and I’m pretty sure there is a certain logic that underpins it. The main readers of the Birmingham Post have always historically been dentists, local businesses and council workers. Of these three groups local businesses are probably the only ones that are sufficient in number to be deemed to have economic power (they’re also the only ones that advertise). Businesses send out press releases every day about new things that have happened to them. This is easy journalism. Copy and paste and you have news. All of this news was previously hidden away in the middle section that everyone threw away.
Unfortunately the easy news was being thrown away and the advertisers probably knew this. So in a stroke of genius that Post decided to focus the front page on business news. Essentially press releases.
Now visitors to Birmingham who arrive at New Street Station are greeted with a front page yelling LOCAL SOLICITOR BUYS NEW HAT. It doesn’t tell the world we are a city of business. It tells the world that nothing much happened yesterday (and a certain someone now has a warm head). It is obviously not going to encourage the impulse purchase and those businesses that are featured probably would have bought it anyway.
So all in all I’m scared for the future.
At the end of the day it is probably important to bear in mind that I don’t ever buy either the Birmingham Post or the Erinsborough News. I get one given to me free and the other one doesn’t exist.
Posted in Birmingham, Media | Comments (0)
Money for nothing October 23rd, 2008
I’ve had a Second Life account for bloody ages now. It must be two years at least. In total I’ve probably spent around 3 hours wallowing in the frustration that it has a habit of generating.
Second Life has always had a bit of a problem in that it wants to be Social Networking but it also wants to be a game. In the end it has managed to achieve neither.
The essential problems with it are that it looks rubbish and navigation is a nightmare. I don’t know if it is a result of how long it has been about or if it is an attempt to give anyone access to it. Overall I reckon the graphics are on a par with Duke Nukem which I suppose isn’t in itself a bad thing. Duke Nukem was ground breaking when it came out. Unfortunately it came out in 1996. Second Life was launched in 2003 so it was hopelessly dated when it was released. Charitably Second Life is trying to achieve something different to Duke Nukem. It is trying to create an immersive world where people can interact much like a Massive Mutiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Unfortunately Everquest started doing this four years before the launch of Second Life and it looked and worked much much better.
At the end of the day we can all ignore shockingly poor graphics if the experience itself is immersive. Second Life is by no means immersive. I have never come across anything that makes me more angry than trying to bumble around Second Life. Everything is an obstacle. You bounce off the tiniest of objects. You can’t get over the smallest of bumps. When creating an environment surely control is the most basic thing to get right? I have played some very poor games in my time but Second Life has by far the worst control system.
It may not be a fair comparison but I’m going to make it anyway. Why have Linden Lab not looked at Warcraft? When Warcraft first arrived, three years ago, one of the claims they made was that to play the game you would not need to read a manual. This turned out to be very true. Walking about in Azeroth is just simple. Watch any of the numerous Youtube videos to see just how flexible the control system is. It takes minutes of playing to just forget how you are controlling your avatar.
If you compare the minimum spec for Warcraft and that of Second Life you can see that they are roughly equivalent. In fact you’d probably get away with lower spec graphics card with WOW. Warcraft also obviously deals with substantially greater traffic than Second Life but does it seamlessly.
I accept that this isn’t a fair comparison as Blizzard invested over $100 million in getting WOW right but it should be noted that the effort has paid off by creating an income stream that dwarfs many of the worlds real life economies.
Obviously I’m not banging on about Second Life because I suddenly think that it needs a good kicking after being about for four years. No, I’ve got a reason.
Today saw the launch of Birmingham’s very own Second Life Island.
Why? I have no idea.
Digital Birmingham do ask the question “Is Second Life the ultimate digital experience?”. I could have answered that for them fairly easily.
No it isn’t.
It certainly isn’t Half Life 2, It’s not even close to Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots. Admittedly the concept of Birmingham whoring itself in Metal Gear Solid would have been great.
This is one of those plans that clearly seemed good at the time but the practical application of it holds little value to the people of Birmingham who’ve ended up paying for it.
I’ve just logged onto virtual Birmingham. At the moment there are 68,000 people in the entire world logged into Second Life. Of those 68,000 there are 5 visiting the Birmingham island. I’m one of those 5.
Having had a bit of a walk round the island I’ve noticed that essentially it is a bit of grass with a canal cut through it. Do you get it? A canal? we have lots of canals in Birmingham. No landmarks have been recreated and actually nothing that you would really think sums up Birmingham.
Overall 2/10. Two for…… having a go?
[edit]Since I wrote this last night I’ve come across a few things written by other people that I think I’d like to address.
Jon Bounds wrote this before I started writing, if I’d bothered to read it I’d probably have realised he made most of my points only slightly better, and with more fact.
Dave Harte has posted a response to Jon’s post which makes some points but I don’t really agree with them. I do accept the point that a 3D representation of Birmingham itself wouldn’t be that useful but a tiny Rotunda would be nice. Something that instantly says BIRMINGHAM when you arrive.
There is a practical value to exploring the representation of Birmingham in virtual worlds. I think that Second Life is a poor vehicle to use to this end. It is flawed software with a frighteningly small user base.
I would have liked to see Digital Birmingham explore the opportunity of Playstation Home.
Alright I’m talking about a virtual world that doesn’t exist yet but that means it is an untapped opportunity. Sony are frantic to promote the PS3 as more than a games console. To do that they need to work with partners to add that extra element. You can probably see where I’m going with this. If Birmingham had approached Sony at an early stage they could well have got all of this done for free and demonstrated an innovative approach.
This raises the issue of access to a Virtual Birmingham based in Home. It is true that market penetration of the PS3 is small. It is also true that with worldwide sales of around 14 million, all of which will have Home installed for free in the next few months, you will suddenly see the largest Virtual World developing. There have been 1.4 million PS3s sold in UK to date. On an even spread across the country that would give an estimated sale of 2000 units in Birmingham. That is surely far greater than the number of active Second Life users in Birmingham. There were 5 last night.
Well, that’s what I think.[/edit]
Posted in Birmingham, Games | Comments (5)
WOW : Terror Plot October 19th, 2008
According to Wired the Pentagon have developed a theory on how World of Warcraft could be used to plan terrorist attacks.
The ludicrousness of this claim is truly incredible. In fact the underlying factual basis of it is somewhat reduced by the quote:-
There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds.
So basically there is no evidence to to support it whatsoever and it’s people like me propagating this nonsence that give it credance. Oh, I hadn’t really thought that through.
It does look like there are a number of spies that quite fancy being paid to play Warcraft all day. Good luck to them, it’s probably good work if you can get it.
Posted in Games, Media | Comments (0)