To an interesting party tonight courtesy of the folks at BBC Backstage, who were kind enough to manage to get me into this party at moderate last-minute. Lots of fascinating people, some even saying that the party reminded them of the last web boom. (I was part of the boom, but not part of the scene back then). I enjoyed meeting many people - some, who were talking about their latest web projects, seemed slightly put out when I asked them what their business model was. It appears that ‘build it, people will come and we’ll figure something out’ is the plan. In which case: be afraid, be very afraid.

The BBC’s Matthew Cashmore was mucking about with something called Twitter - and insisted I join. That’s me, then, at http://www.twitter.com/jamescridland. I have no idea what this website is supposed to do, other than a rather less useful equivalent of a custom message in my Google Talk. Interestingly, it does connect to GoogleTalk, but it ignores my status message - I have to send it messages instead. I’ve been told it’s really addictive. I don’t get it. But then, I don’t get MySpace either, so clearly I’m getting old. (However, I do get Flickr, so maybe I’m still vaguely cool).

Good to meet a lot of very clever people. Having posted in the BBC Backstage mailing list a few times, some knew my name, which was quite flattering; some had read my blog (in particular my Indian High Commission rant, which is now an article of its own right); but actually the highlight of the night was one chap coming up to me, seeing my email address name badge, and wondering what my relationship was to Dave. I was proud to say that he was my brother. The conversation then was about the clever things he’s doing with email. Thank heavens I read his blog.

I’m a firm believer that the BBC Backstage project is one of the cleverest things that the corporation is doing - possibly THE cleverest. What I’m keen to do is, through the stations I work for, be able to similarly contribute data. The BBC’s size and resource probably means that it can set the standards; but commercial radio should be able to use the same API standards to ensure that the whole of the UK’s radio data, for example, is available to those wanting to use it. After all; commercial radio is the market leader for people under 55: it’s arguably more important for commercial radio to make their data available in this way. Perhaps this is one of the roles for the RadioCentre in future.

Many fascinating people; many business cards swapped, and a jolly good time had by all - certainly by me. I’m now the proud owner of a BBC Backstage t-shirt, a copy of Make magazine (splendid magazine, not read that before), and assorted pens and other stuff. The team should be congratulated. So I will. Congratulations, team.

(Later: have spent far too long working out how tagging works, so I could tag this as ‘bbcbackstage’. Done it now, I think.)

Caught a little of France 24 last night - France’s mostly government-funded propaganda machine international news channel. Tremendously unappealing programming; done without any panache or joie de vivre. Technical problems abounded, but so did simple boredom. Really not impressed. (You can watch it online - perhaps I might recommend this page which contains all available channels in the UK).

One channel that is surprisingly excellent is Al Jazeera. An outstandingly professional channel, with a very different outlook on world news; the clever gimmick is that the channel comes live from different news centres across the world (Malaysia, Doha, London and Washington DC) seemingly dependent on peak times. The channel’s well put together, the onair identity consistent and clean, and the presenters mostly familiar (though the US guy with the beard does scare me a little). The channel appears to be put together specifically to lay any fears of news bias to rest; it’s certainly far less reactionary, and biased, than Fox News. There’s a particularly good media programme on there called ‘Listening Post’, which is well worth catching. Curiously, some of their clips of US-based TV come from YouTube, which seems an eminently sensible way of getting their material!

John Naughton comments on Jeremy Paxman’s grumpy technophobic outbursts. Of course, Paxman’s pretty famous for doing this - and he’s not alone.

Tonight, John Pienaar notes that a recent song about him being a porn star in the 1970s (he wasn’t, it’s a joke) is now on YouTube - but then adds “I don’t really know how you dial things up on YouTube”. Staggering - if true. (Incidentally, either Pienaar has a head twice as large as his co-presenter’s, or someone needs to understand how to use PhotoShop a little better).

Christian O’Connell frequently talks about his web-team being net-nerds, is disparaging towards them, and pretends he doesn’t know what podcasts are; yet in ‘real life’, he owns a BlackBerry and is as in-touch and net-savvy as most people. Elsewhere, older speakers at media conferences joke about not being able to send texts or even set the video - leaving that for “the younger generation”.

Somehow, it’s seen as trendy to be ignorant about technology. Perhaps there’s a feeling that it somehow means you’re closer to your (similarly ignorant) listeners. It’s clearly dangerous to assume that your listeners or viewers are tech-savvy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the cleverest thing to pretend that technology is too complicated or, worse, that new stuff just doesn’t matter: you stand just as much chance of alienating your audience.

If Terry Wogan can get to grips with emails and text messages, then so can everyone: Paxman included. But I doubt Paxman doesn’t understand it; just that he sees it as useful to his on-screen persona to pretend.

(I did wonder why the BBC is filming its top talent using mobile phones - then realised that the only people allowed to touch cameras are in the cameraman union, I suppose…)

DAB radio, plus live television, in a mobile phone? It’s surprisingly good…

The Virgin Mobile ‘Lobster’ phone (click for a photo) is an HTC-made Microsoft Windows mobile phone. I’m running a pre-production model (in fetching Virgin red), running Windows Mobile 5.0, OS 5.1.195. My experiences may not tally with the production model (in rather more sober and boring black). The phone is for sale at Virgin Mobile stores for £199 (pay as you go), or free with a contract from £20. Access to the TV channels are an extra £5 a month for pay-as-you-go, or free whilst on contract.

The phone software, with the exception of the ‘TV’ application (of more later), is virtually identical to my Orange SPV C600: with full Windows Mobile functionality, like an internet browser, text messaging, and other typical Windows things. There’s a special Virgin homescreen layout, some attempt at personalisation (like a custom start-up/closedown graphic and a home screen, but no further) but apart from that, there’s no major differences between the two. It ought to be mentioned that the camera application is rather better than on the SPV, but I don’t know whether this is a change in the standard Windows build.

In terms of the hardware, this phone uses the micro-SD expansion card, rather than the SPV’s mini-SD (micro is smaller than mini, it appears). The screen appears rather better, though it’s difficult to explain quite why. The main difference is the bulge on the right-hand side, containing the TV button (replacing the camera hotbutton on the SPV). Apparently, this is where the DAB chips have been added to the circuitboard. The headphone output is still a 2.5mm jack at the bottom of the phone, and there’s also a mini USB connection too.

The only other change is the headset: it’s not the standard one you get with a, for example, SPV. This headset appears better built, with a chunkier and sturdier plug, and thicker wire. It’s the antenna for the DAB receiver, so it might be that this is specially built for the phone; certainly, the test unit I had last year also had a special (and rather bodged) headset.

So, to the DAB functionality. From the additional software, “powered by Movio” (actually, powered by BT Movio, a section of BT), you can scan for new channels, and get a full listing. For me, I get four TV services and 49 radio stations.

Hitting ‘TV’ brings you to the ‘TV Guide’ section of the software, which shows the four channels available and the current programmes showing. The four channels available (nationwide) are BBC One London, Channel 4 Shortcuts, E4, and ITV-1 (London). BBC One London is in full and free. E4 and ITV-1 generally shows a simulcast of the main channels, but at some times of the day you get a notice that the current programme is unavailable for ‘rights reasons’ - which, at the time of writing, includes all of E4’s daytime music programming, all advertising, all of GMTV, and quite a few other programmes too: it’s unusual to be able to get all four channels in full, in my experience. Channel 4 Shortcuts shows short clips of Channel 4 shows, including the IT Crowd, on a rather too-short loop. It’s early days, and apparently BT have space for more channels, but it would probably be rather more interesting to show a rolling news channel, which is made for quick grazing. (Last year, the service showed Sky News, which would be welcome). The TV Guide also includes a fairly comprehensive electronic programme guide, which is provided over-the-air on DAB.

Clicking on a channel name opens a screen with a larger logo and a Windows Media ‘buffering’ sign, which disappears fairly quickly to be replaced with a passable picture. The framerate appears quite low - probably no more than 10 frames a second - and the picture quality does break up in fast movement; this isn’t picture quality to write home about, but conversely it is pretty good at coping with variable signal quality - on occasion, you can sometimes lose the picture but keep the sound. Watching live television in a moving taxi is an interesting experience, but works very well.

The radio stations are arranged alphabetically, and are (mostly) shown with logos. The DAB receiver copes well with the broadcast EPG services on some multiplexes; my unit currently shows programmes on the Digital One channels (like Virgin Radio), as well as those on some of the CE stations (notably Capital Radio and Xfm). Acquiring the EPG appears to happen while listening to a station on that multiplex; I guess that it’ll show the BBC EPG if I listen to that multiplex for long enough.

Clicking on a radio channel opens a screen which shows a larger logo, and the DLS (’scrolling text’) in full in the screen. The audio quality is as you’d expect from DAB - indeed, the headphones don’t do it justice - but what’s noticeable is, when walking outside, the reception is rock solid. Whether walking to the sandwich shop from work in central London listening to 6music, or walking home from the tube listening to LBC, there was barely any indication that I was listening to a radio and not an MP3 player. (Indeed, the reception quality is rather better than I’ve experienced with an FM radio). Radio listeners are also requested to ‘press the red button’, which initiates the inbuilt Internet Explorer browser to unerringly tell you that sorry, there’s no content yet. (That’s my job to fix, for our stations anyway).

The software also allows you to, with the headphones still in, listen to the radio on the loudspeaker. Surprisingly, this is a useful feature: allowing listening to the radio, in particular, while leaving the phone on a desk or table.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this is the best hand-held DAB Digital Radio that I’ve ever had - even forgetting the extra coverage put into place on the Digital 1 network by BT to boost the signal. It’s refreshing and welcome to see the scrolling text without it, er, scrolling; and full and natural support of the EPG is welcome and unusual. The interactive capabilities are interesting; the audio quality is excellent, and while the software can be fiddly, it’s has the capacity of replacing my iPod in certain situations - if the programming’s good enough.

And therein lies the problem. The TV channels aren’t really up to scratch. Yes, BBC One’s nice; but the others rarely show anything I’m interested in, or, worse, don’t show anything at all thanks to the rights issues. I can’t see too many people sitting down for half an hour of Coronation Street on this thing; and it would seem to me that the television offering needs changing - to offer more grazing-friendly programming. Sky News or BBC News 24 would be a great addition. The absence of GMTV on the phone shows what disarray the commercial broadcasters are in - why cede peak commuting time to the BBC alone?

Last year, when this service was in pilot test, the TV channels were ‘Blaze’, a made-for-mobile music channel; Sky News, and Sky Sports News. Better for grazing, though - so all the more interesting that around 65 minutes of watching the TV a week was supplanted by around 95 minutes of listening to the radio a week on these devices. Even when they added a porn channel (no, really).

If you’re on the lookout for a phone, you can’t go too wrong with Windows Mobile phones these days (I’m on my third), and this phone also has an excellently capable DAB Digital Radio inside it. Just don’t buy it for the TV. Just yet, anyway.

Later… Just a day after writing the above, came an announcement that ITN will be producing a channel for the phone. Excellent. And it took three hours from the announcement to the station being delivered flawlessy to my phone. Excellent.

Mark Ramsey is a pretty interesting chap: pretty miserable about HD Radio, and quite bullish about the future of radio.

In a recent post, he discusses how CBS have totally ruined a sixty-second television podcast… by putting a thirty-second ad in it.

Sales people aren’t podcast specialists. If they’re told that there’s a podcast which lots of people get, which they can sell advertising in, then they will. It’s the salespeople’s job to sell an ad. And they’ve done it - they’ve sold an ad on something which is so brand new, it has no track record of being a success. Surely, this is something for them to be congratulated about?

But the truth is that the geeks - who understand the world of the internet - rarely inhabit the world that the broadcast salespeople inhabit. They simply don’t understand each other. To someone that uses podcasts on a daily basis, it’s mindnumbingly obvious that a thirty-second advert doesn’t live in a sixty-second podcast. To a salesperson who doesn’t use podcasts at all, if they can get a couple of thousand dollars by selling ads in a podcast, or - more likely - get the airtime deal they want by giving away the podcast inventory, then that’s job done.

This is the classic case of two worlds colliding. But would a television salesperson survive if they simply didn’t understand the world of television? So, why should they survive if they are responsible for, but don’t understand, the digital world?

My little ‘mobDAB’ invention, documented elsewhere on this website, has got quite a few people thinking about it, which is nice. However, having thought more about this, I have a new variation - my nattily-entitled Broadcast unicast hybrid system.

It’s probably full of issues, bugs, and regulatory problems; but it might just work. Comments welcome (if only to test WordPress’s commenting system!)