I’m trying to work out what to do with this blog and Media UK, and suspect that I will be reproducing articles here that I’ve posted on Media UK as I continue to invest in content for that website. (Your comments would be welcome via email).

My latest post there is about the new positioning statement for Free Radio and why it is so tediously dull and uninspiring – and does nothing for the brand. Please feel free to comment there (which you can do with Facebook or Google).

Truth in numbers.

7,482,000

That’s the amount of people aged between 16-24 in the UK – according to 2010 UK population estimates from the Office of National Statistics (downloaded and the relevant document unzipped here).

So, how many of those are registered on Facebook? Not everyone will be, of course, so what’s your guess? 6 million? 6 and a half million?

The easiest way to find out any Facebook stat is to create an ad on it, and look at what Facebook thinks it can deliver. So, let’s ask for UK only, 16-24 only, and check the box marked “require exact age match” so we’re precisely within those age ranges, and see how many people Facebook will reach.

Oh.

Wasn’t expecting that…

(Hat-tip: Rachel Clarke)

An interesting piece of news – County Sound is rebranding to “Eagle Extra” – featuring community programmes in the evening, though little change during the day.

This is the right thing to do in a world of global brands, and I’m surprised it’s taking some broadcasters so long to work this out.

Read my thoughts – and discuss it – at Media UK.

And yes, that’s a pigeon, not an eagle. I’m not that stupid. (Although…)

Notable about all the places that offer free wifi in London is a requirement to accept the terms and conditions – and, in almost all cases, a requirement to register (excepting Starbucks). The registration of these services is rarely checked – I regularly surf the web as “me@me.com” – and is mostly useless (I’ve never had any communication from any companies as a result of using their free wifi); but I do understand the legal need to get a user to accept terms and conditions to cover the places that offer free wifi from a legal perspective. But it’s clearly not required every time you connect.

These t&c interstitials cause problems for many devices too. If you’ve ever used a Starbucks wifi connection, your iPhone or Android device will automatically connect to “BT Openzone – Starbucks” whenever you walk near a Starbucks outlet – and then become entirely connectionless: since any request that’s going on from the phone will be rediverted to the login page until you get the phone out of your pocket, load the browser up, and click the big green button on the BT Openzone page that says “Connect”.

Further – this can’t go on. These repeated requests from devices in everyones’ pockets are now actually causing a fair amount of load on the registration servers; often, it’s difficult to get to the page that contains the t&cs, but once you’ve done that, the wifi speeds by. And this problem will only get worse.

So, who’s the only company in the UK that are doing free wifi right?

Tesco.

Why are Tesco offering free wifi? Potentially, to enable price comparison checks; or to let me listen to streaming radio, or podcasts, while I slowly amble around the store. And it probably doesn’t cost them anything, since they presumably already need wifi for their stock-checking or home grocery pickers.

So, pop into your local Tesco Extra store (that’s the big ones) and you’ll spot the Tesco free wifi in there. Connect to it, and it asks for your Clubcard number as a method of authentication – it’s a free service to Clubcard users only – and accepting the terms and conditions. And then you’re connected… forever.

Tesco store the MAC address of your wifi device against your personal details. They know who you are from your Clubcard account; and they know you’ve accepted the t&c for the free wifi. So, the next time you go into Tesco, your device will automatically connect to the free wifi and connect to the proper internet without requiring you to agree the t&cs again. Perfect.

That is how to do free wifi. Whether you’re Starbucks, The Cloud, Paragon, or any of the other free wifi providers – please do take note.

Or, better, remove the t&cs entirely.

[UPDATED April 2012: Café Rouge]

I joke that Media UK, the website that I run, has 500 offices in Central London – and then add that half of them say “Starbucks” and half say “Pret a Manger” on them. On Twitter and other places, I’ve noticed a few questions about where you can get a place to work like I do – free wifi in London. Here are my tips:

Starbucks
By far the most convenient working spot is a Starbucks: almost all come with a quiet-ish ambience, power sockets, and a loo. Free wifi is in nearly every store – look for the BT Openzone sticker on the window.
To get free wifi: just open a browser, find “BT Openzone – Starbucks”, and click the green button. (On a phone? Click the “Log into Openzone” button that appears, then click the big green button).
Minimum purchase needed: probably a filter coffee, for £1.50.
Wifi provider: BT Openzone. No timeout.
Tips: Your filter coffee comes with unlimited free refills. (Careful of the caffeine, though). Additionally, bring your own mug and save 25p on whatever beverage you buy.

Pret a Manger
Free wifi is in most stores, though not all. Excepting lunchtime, Pret is a surprisingly quiet and enjoyable place to work. Less power sockets than Starbucks.
To get free wifi: register, free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a filter coffee, which is 99p in most Pret stores, though prices vary.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out.
Tips: Many Pret stores have additional seating behind the tills – not always visible from walking in. Avoid lunchtimes.

EAT
Free wifi is in some stores – look for “FREE WIFI” on the window next to the door. Few power sockets.
To get free wifi: register, free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a filter coffee, which is around £1.60.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out.
Tips: Avoid lunchtimes. Seating can be difficult.

Caffe Nero
Free wifi is now in most stores. Look for the window-sticker.
To get free wifi: register, free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a latte, which is around £1.80.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out. More agressively filtered than other locations: notably, no BBC iPlayer access!
Tips: Generally quieter than others. Their loyalty card is paper: collect ten stamps and get a free coffee.

McDonald’s
McDonald’s appear to come with free wifi in stores right across the world. Rarely any power sockets, louder music, uncomfortable seating, and a clientele of kids. That said, if you’re desperate…
To get free wifi: register, free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a coffee, which is £1.19.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out.

Wetherspoons pubs and Lloyds No. 1
Wetherspoons pubs have cheap food, and cheap coffee; there is no piped music. Pub layouts normally afford some quiet partitioned areas. Power sockets are difficult to find but not impossible. These normally have “A Wetherspoon pub” branding outside, or “JD Wetherspoon”. Some are branded Lloyds No. 1.
To get free wifi: register free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a coffee, which is 79p.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out.
Tips: Wetherspoons pubs can be large, and free wifi may not stretch throughout the pub. Check signal strength on a mobile phone first.

Fullers pubs
One of the largest pub chains across London, Fullers pubs have a “Fullers” sign on the top of their signs. Increasingly these are being fitted out with wifi.
To get free wifi: some Fullers establishments use The Cloud; others use a bespoke system, requiring you to ask for the daily code at the bar.
Minimum purchase needed: probably a coffee or a half of beer.
Wifi provider: as above.

O’Neills pubs
This chain of large irish pubs is moderately unpleasant, cavernous, and don’t sell real hand-pulled beer. But, they do fairly cheap food and some, at least, offer free wifi.
To get free wifi: Connect to “AP PARAGON” – they require your name and email address every time you connect, and they don’t always connect.
Wifi provider: Paragon, from their gaming machines.

Other pub chains also offer free wifi: most don’t offer something as convenient as The Cloud. Caution: some offer “The Cloud” wifi but don’t pay for it, so you need a Cloud subscription.

Pizza Express
This restaurant chain has free wifi, and recently they have advertised with a picture of a computer, a coffee, and a headline “No pizza required”: probably trying to attract the working crowd out of hours. Restaurants can get loud during peak times.
To get free wifi: register, free, with The Cloud.
Minimum purchase needed: if the advertising is to be believed, just a coffee will do.
Wifi provider: The Cloud: no time out.
Tips: if you’re going to eat as well, check for vouchers first (using things like foursquare, Google Shopper, or O2 Priorities).

Café Rouge
This fake-French restaurant chain offers free wifi courtesy of O2.
To get free wifi: register, free, with O2. You’ll need a mobile phone: they send you a text. However, once you’ve registered, you’ll never have any more splash-screens whenever you connect: it’ll always work, forever.
Minimum purchase needed: I’m guessing a coffee.
Wifi provider: O2.

Regus Offices
You may be eligible for a free Regus gold card, which gives you free access to business cafés inside Regus managed offices. I had one last year with a BMI gold card; this year, TripIt Pro comes with a free Regus gold card on application. Regus offices are very quiet, very businesslike, and not (in my experience) very relaxing or creative places to work.
To get free wifi: sign into the Regus office (normally requiring signing in on the building’s reception desk, then the Regus office reception desk). Instructions are posted in the Regus business café.
Minimum purchase needed: none, other than your membership. Coffee is free.
Wifi provider: themselves.
Tips: Regus offices are worldwide, and every one has a business café. Good for travellers. All business cafés also include a printer.

Places with free wifi also include…

London Overground stations
While London Underground stations will be offering Virgin Media wifi (free to their subscribers, otherwise a paid-for service), London Overground stations – the suburban rail stations – are shortly to offer 15-minutes free wifi courtesy of The Cloud.

Carphone Warehouse
Most of the Carphone Warehouse stores appear to have a free and open Carphone Warehouse signal. No good for working in, of course.

Oxford Street
Some of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road appears to be covered with free wifi courtesy of Nokia. I’ve not got this working satisfactorily enough on any device, and it quickly vanishes indoors, but if you need an iPad fix, this might be enough for you.

The City
If the only thing you want to do is quickly check your email, the City of London is blanketed with hotspots from The Cloud that give you 15 minutes of free wifi every day: so you don’t even need to go into a coffee shop.

Stations with free wifi include…

St Pancras Station
This is blanketed throughout with free wifi. Connect to it, then look for the tiny button marked “surf the internet”. It’s accessible in most areas in the station. Tip: Pret a Manger in The Circle also offers free wifi via The Cloud.

Euston Station
You’ll want the Pret a Manger or the Caffe Nero just outside; or the Doric Arch pub close by.

Paddington Station
There’s a Caffe Nero Express near the Heathrow Connect platforms that offers free wifi, but no seating space. Alternatively, go into The Lawns, the adjoining shopping complex, and you’ll find an EAT on the top level (the wifi leaks into the accompanying pub) and a criminally small Starbucks on the mezzanine level.

The wifi-worker’s etiquette

1. Sit on the smallest table in the place – not a big “seats three or four”. Don’t put your bags on the other chair; etiquette for café workers is to let another café worker sit there.

2. Smile at the staff, tip where polite, help them keep the place tidy, always tidy up after yourself. Don’t get away with the minimum purchase all the time; tweet about good service while geotagged (the MD of Starbucks UK is @starbucksukmd; use the server’s first name and the store’s number on your till).

3. If the place gets full, and you’ve been there for a few hours, leave. You’re taking a table that others could use. Take a screen break and a walk, and find somewhere else.

4. Be considerate – don’t be that guy. No loud telephone calls. Turn your laptop speakers off, or use headphones. If you’re plugged-in, never trail the wire so it’s unsafe to others. No looking at anything even slightly naughty. Stream music, fine, but don’t torrent (remember that you’ve probably registered to use the wifi).

5. If you’re café-working in a small local independent place, be a great customer: buy food, buy drinks regularly, tip well, and always be conscious of using a table that a better customer could be.

It’s all the rage to claim “firsts” in the radio industry, and BBC Radio 1 is no exception. Writing in the Huffington Post UK (wha?), the lovely Joe Harland, “Head of Visualisation” for Radio 1, says:

This Sunday at 6pm Reggie Yates will become the first Radio 1 presenter to play not a record, CD, or Wav, but a DVD. … This Sunday, when Reggie proudly presses play on his Pioneer DVJ for the first time, it is the start of something you’ll be hearing – and seeing – a great deal more of from radio stations around the world.

This form of visualising radio – playing the music video alongside the audio – is nothing new, of course. Cameras invaded the Chris Evans Breakfast Show at Virgin Radio in 1998, simulcasting the show on Sky One: while he didn’t play DVDs but rather beta video tapes, the concept was the same.

RMF MAXXX, a station in Poland, did something even closer in the mid 2000s: DJs would self-op their programmes, but wearing in-ear headphones, lit and made-up for TV, and looking directly at the camera (since that was where their notes were, on an auto-cue). It sounded like radio, but looked like television. Videos would play off the station’s playout system: just like the audio.

Making a TV simulcast from the Radio 1 Top 40 – something that Joe specifically denies they’re doing (oddly) – is clearly a sensible, bright thing to do: for all the reasons Joe gives in his post. The Radio 1 brand is, actually, no longer a radio brand but a youth entertainment brand: and that’s a good thing.

However.

The phrase “visualising radio” is, however, being used for two entirely different things within radio, and for two different ends.

First, there’s “making television”. By that I mean producing a live video stream, with cameras in studios, music videos, captions, scrolling tickers and fancy wipes. Putting radio onto a video stream is a great thing to do. KISS is doing a great job, for example, of editing their breakfast show and putting it on YouTube.

If you’ve the resources to make television, that’s cool. Television isn’t a true multitasking medium, like radio is. The benefits of radio’s “theatre-of-the-mind” is laid bare with cameras in studios. Presenters have a tendency to act up to the cameras, and ignore the radio audience. But those are all controllable. Making television from radio is not the wrong thing to do.

Then, there’s “adding visuals to radio”. I’m specifically not talking here about video. I’m talking about things that allow audiences to engage when they want to, and discover more about what they’re listening to.

There are two great examples of this: the RadioVIS-like experience you get when you listen to Capital FM on the Radioplayer. Static slides appear containing news, travel information, now-playing stuff, weather, pictures of the DJs, and more glanceable information. This also appears on radio devices, too.

Another great example of this is the BBC Radio 1 homepage. As you listen, more information appears to let you learn more about what you’re hearing. Images of songs, tweets and Facebook messages from the audience, promotion of other things on the station, and links to video and more. Once more, it’s glanceable information that allows more interaction when you’ve the time to do so.

This is stuff that enhances a radio broadcast – stuff that can be completely automatable, and stuff that reflects what’s on that radio station. It’s not television.

Both of these things are currently called “visualising radio”. I think they’re both healthy for the future of the medium; and very different.

Back in 2009, I posted here that I was losing 14% of my revenue (from Media UK) thanks to people running ad-blockers. I said:

I do find it difficult to understand why running AdBlock or the like is not frowned upon by otherwise honest people. It’s somehow acceptable to write and use Web2.0 services, yet block the very ads that pay for them. If you run an ad-blocker (on your standard, unmetered, broadband connection) it would seem to me that you’re no different to a petty thief.

Howls of protest followed from normally intelligent people; yet the point can’t be argued against.

Today, in an illuminating blog post, Jeff Jarvis says:

There is a furor over piracy as theft but, quite to the contrary, there is a rush to enable the blocking of ad tracking as a virtue.

Jeff’s not even talking about ad-blocking: merely the “do not track” cookie. As he says, an ad-supported service says: You will get my content for free because I will serve you ads and I will increase their efficiency, performance, and value by targeting them to your interests and behavior; if you block the cookies that make that possible, you are robbing me of value.

The EFF is even neatly conflating the two, by recommending that “users who wish to defend themselves against online tracking should use AdBlock Plus” – which neatly illustrates the seemingly acceptable face of ad-blockers. It’s one reason that I can’t now support the EFF: irresponsible advice like this is hardly ensuring ‘freedom’; and will damage the very economy it’s there to apparently protect.

The facts: online companies wants to make content (yes, including ads) more targeted and more relevant to what you want to see. If you inhibit this, ads on sites will be less relevant to you. Less relevant ads are simply irrelevant interruptions, and you will find the ads more annoying and more intrusive. Is that what you want?

The online ad business should be educating consumers about the benefits of relevancy; while also educating consumers that running an ad-blocker is theft. I don’t understand why it isn’t doing so.

Last updated: 21 Feb 2012, for OSX Lion

Everyone has settings that make their computer ‘just right’; and since I spend a lot of time flitting between different computers (and occasionally reinstalling the operating system), I thought I would spend ten minutes writing up what I do to make an Apple Mac good for me – mostly for documentation purposes. (This, of course, has nothing to do with this tweet, no).

System preferences
System Preferences > Trackpad > Point and Click: set to ‘tap to click’
Right-click time machine logo in menu bar > Preferences > uncheck status icon
Click Bluetooth icon in menu bar > turn Bluetooth off
Right-click Bluetooth icon in menu bar > uncheck status icon
Dock preferences (right-click the separator) > Position:left; Auto hide
Remove all applications from the dock by pulling them onto the desktop
Remove ‘Applications’, ‘Documents’ and ‘Downloads’ from the dock
System Preferences > Desktop – set to use my Dropbox backgrounds folder (which uses background images from my Flickr account)
System Preferences > Sound > uncheck ‘play feedback when volume is changed’ to remove that annoying blip noise
System Preferences > Network > Uncheck “Ask to join new networks”
System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General – change “require password” to be 15 minutes after sleep or screensaver begins
System Preferences > Language & Text > Text > uncheck “correct spelling automatically”

Software downloads
In Mac App Store…
TextWrangler (text editor for coding)
Twitter (official client)
Keynote (presentation software)
…other…
Alfred (program launcher and more). In preferences, change to CTRL+SPACE, and “United Kingdom” as locale. Hide menubar icon. Enter licence.
Google Chrome
Cyberduck (fully-featured FTP and Amazon S3 program). Enter licence.
Dropbox (cloud-based disc drive) – in preferences, check ‘black and white icon’
Skype (phone calls and rather useful roaming wifi)… in preferences > notifications, uncheck the sound for ‘contact becomes available’
Last FM scrobbler / radio app
NVAlt – neat notetaking app

…and I believe that’s all the software I download and regularly use.

(What do you do? What have I missed? Let me know in the comments.)

Geoff Lloyd, Absolute Radio dealer-in-whimsy, is a man who knows his stuff.

More stations/podcasts than ever, @guardian cuts its radio reviews from daily to weekly. Wrongheaded. Petition here: inthedarkradio.org/?p=3828

— Geoff Lloyd (@GeoffLloyd) February 20, 2012

It’s sad that – particularly when there are so many podcasts appearing (some of which are rather good), The Guardian’s decided to cut its radio review.

You should probably do the petition thing. I’m off to do that right now.*

* Once I’ve gone home and done a Skype interview I’m already late for
** This could look nicer, this post. Must get around to prettifying this website

One of the delegates to the RadioHack days earlier this week at the EBU’s headquarters in Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland, arrived slightly late. Samuel Vuillermoz from mxlab.ch huffed and puffed into the room, shedding motorcycle gear as he went, clutching a small white box.

The small white box in question? A make-it-yourself DAB+ digital radio. Lots of bits of electronic circuit-board, some small speakers, and colour-coded connectors that makes it a job of less than ten minutes to assemble your own digital radio. Just like the “make your own” radio I built at an early age, but in this case, one that picks up stations from the digital age.

Later in the day, he’d been busy with the lego bricks he’d also brought with him – and built a case for his radio in a fetching if slightly garish set of colours. The radio’s stereo, fully digital, and tuned in without any problem to the permanent, and temporary, stations available on-air.

Lego radio sets aside, the RadioHack event was run by the EBU as a way of opening developers’ eyes to the possibility of hacking with hybrid radio – radio that uses broadcast as the reliable backbone to get the audio, but through the RadioDNS set of applications, uses the internet to improve the user experience.

It succeeded in its goal. Interest in applications like RadioTAG and RadioEPG was high. I overheard one BBC developer recruiting another onto his team back in London for a small project to do with hybrid radio; and an interesting conversation with a number of European radio broadcasters about future possibilities.

Combining broadcast radio and the internet makes better radio: radio with the user interface that users now demand, but the reliability they demand too. It’s been interesting to see developers begin to play with, and understand, the new opportunities this brings. If radio isn’t seen as ‘sexy’ for developers, the additional things you can do with a connection to the internet to accompany the broadcast has certainly whetted their appetite for new and interesting things.

With (almost) solid wifi, copious amounts of caffeinated drinks, and pizza (naturally), the EBU shed their image of suits, stuffy technical standards meetings, politics and a song contest – and, in their third Digital Radio Week, the EBU showed that they – just like Lego – can adapt to the new world. Mathias Coinchon and all the EBU team should be proud.