Photo: Steve Rhodes, of Bank of America staff trying to stop him taking a photograph in a public place (the pavement). Take on March 19th. Used under licence.

PhotoShopped
Ack. Very splendid blog showing really quite awful photoshop work. Much amusement.

XMPP Pubsub Radio Playlist Bot
Interesting - an XMPP "now playing" bot for a radio station. Not quite convinced it works like this, but XMPP is certainly worth looking at for a distributed way of doing that type of information. Much better than regularly pinging a server. via kael

How to Look and Feel Like a Complete Idiot
Amusing comment from Curtis Poe (a BBC chap). Via Alan Connor.

A Copenhagen beer map
I personally recommend B and J in this map - both great places to eat and drink some unusual beer. And what a good idea.

How do you get your radio these days?
Word Magazine: "We're thinking of doing a piece in the magazine about the state of radio. How are you getting your radio? And what are you listening to?" - interesting comments!

Math links for fun and charity « Let?s play math!
Use of one of my photos: this time a recent one from the London Transport museum. Nice to see it used in a totally different situation.

TechCrunch UK » News Round
What a brilliant new service Mike's started. Excellent, I hope he continues.

This is a tidied and edited list of my del.icio.us postings from February 29th to March 20th. You can subscribe to this list, live, via rss.

As of the time of writing, my Twitter feed has 122 followers. 122 people get my updates. And I must confess to being rather perplexed as to why.

I mean - I try to keep the editorial standards of this blog at least slightly above rock-bottom, but the same certainly doesn’t go for my Twitter feed. Firstly, I phrase my ‘tweets’ slightly oddly so that they also work in Facebook (which I’ve set up to automatically get them); and secondly, because… well. Here’s the last 24 hours or so, and you can make your own mind up…

- is discovering that Google Apps For Your Domain’s start page strips out lots of HTML tags, irritatingly
- is astonished at the poor people-flow designed into Benugo at StPancras. But is enjoying sandwich.
- is amazingly untroubled by a hangover this morning.
- is hungry. Mmm, food.
- is enjoying beerage (Black Sheep Bitter) with a good friend. Would invite you. But I won’t.
- has just discovered that the Midas Touch has shut. Bugger.
- is eating a chilli-con-carne soup (for lunch. Yes. At 4pm) which is officially hotter than the sun.

Yes, this is not the work of an Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. This is, instead, the work of a hurried tapping into an iPhone keyboard or GTalk window. It’s got virtually nothing to do with my day job; indeed, nothing to do with, well, anything much.

So, why do people follow me? I’ve no idea. So I asked, on Twitter, naturally. Here are some of the replies…
- “because you’re a pal”
- “it’s good to keep up with one of the people I most respect in radio tech.. and it’s nice to hear how my pals are doing :)”
- “because I’m nosy, you’re an acknowledged new media guru expert and fellow new/old media colleague of sorts”
- “we shared emails re Media UK then much later met briefly at a podcast conference - Twitter is a useful way to keep in touch.”
…and what’s fascinating about the above is that I’ve not met one of those people, and can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve met the others. While they’re jolly nice people, they’re not what I would call close friends. Not yet.

It’s people who’ve never met me that I find confusing. Why on earth do they add me? I asked one such person this via email. She replied, in part, “I found you after doing a web search for twitter and BBC because I wanted to increase the number of people I was following on twitter so I could better understand what it’s for. That also turned up Jemima Kiss who writes for the Guardian. So, I’m randomly following four complete strangers (all of whom have public blogs though and invite new readers) but it’s good to see how people are using Twitter. I’m sold on the concept, but I agree it might be a bit odd to have strangers following you. I’d like to think it’s not stalking but then again maybe it’s not that clear cut.” (She’s clearly not seen my Friendfeed or my rather more hand-rolled and complete stalkerfeed.)

Of my met-many-times friends, of course, I got sarcastic comments like “it saves actually going to the effort of going to the pub with you”, which just goes to show that clearly NickJ needs to stop spending money on Apple kit, if he can’t afford the beer bill.

But perhaps Ian Fenn has it right. “Somehow these little snippets of others’ lives are reassuring”. I’d agree.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, either visit the Twitter website and register from there, or text “FOLLOW JAMESCRIDLAND” to 0762 4801423 (there are other numbers for the US, Canada and India). I just can’t promise that the updates you’ll get from me will be any good. Sorry.

My media website Media UK also provides a set of media news alerts via Twitter.

Photo: Niall Kennedy. Used under licence.

Photo uploaded on January 26th, by Ibrahim Iujaz. Used under licence.

What HD-2s Don’t Stream And Should?
A rant about streaming. But included in this is interesting: WRXK’s HD2 channel (a new one only for HD radios) is entirely themed around their breakfast presenter. Neat idea.

Interactivity: A lost opportunity for your station?
Some ‘isn’t the US behind us all’ type thoughts from Mark Ramsey; but some useful and interesting figures he quotes.

Tin-Pan Dead End Alley
Adam makes a splendid (and short) point.

The trouble with trust
A rather cogent and interesting speech from BBC DG Mark Thompson; not self-flagellating, but rather, opening issues wider than just “trust in the media”. An interesting read.

Core - A DAB Digital Radio Paradox
“In the UK at least, the hard times for digital are now. There needs to be a wholesale change in the infrastructure cost of digital to ensure its short-term survival and to put it on a sensible economic footing for the future.” Crikey.

An email comes through (to my work address, but I never answer these kinds of things on behalf of my employer, that would be dangerous)…

I am working on a report on the economic implications of Web 2.0 – the collaborative internet – and one of the questions I am asking is: is it a threat or an aid to traditional media? How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world? Would you have a window over the next couple of days to comment on this question in terms of the music industry?

I’ve no particular comment in terms of the music industry. There’s a common misconception that the music radio industry is, in some way, part of the music industry. It’s not. Indeed, there’s a common misconception outside the media that record companies pay radio stations to play certain acts. That’s not the case either; in fact, radio stations pay to play music (between 8 and 10% of their income, usually). Yes, “pluggers” are employed by record companies to ensure that their product gets played; but radio stations are pretty adept at choosing songs themselves.

But anyway.

“Is it a threat, or an aid, to traditional media?”

That depends on what you mean by Web2.0. I used Wikipedia, which has a long definition, partly including this:

The most “Web 2.0″-orientated (applications), which could only exist on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. O’Reilly gave as examples eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball and AdSense.

So, in short, if we think of Web2.0 as being “effectiveness from inter-human connections”, then we need to work out if it’s “a threat or an aid to traditional media”, which begs the question: what is traditional media?

“Traditional media”, in the broadcast sense, might mean a linear broadcast stream. Turn on the radio, and you hear whatever’s on the radio right now: no way to pause it, rewind it, control it in any way other than the “off” switch. And the same’s true of television. Except it isn’t.

Television, we’re told, is becoming less and less reliant on the schedule. Viewers with Sky+, the most popular digital video recorder in the UK, frequently claim that “they never watch live TV any more” - their hard-drive recording specific programmes, allowing the viewer to instantly access these programmes. This ‘disaggregation’ is made possible by the electronic programme guide. The programme title - the main way viewers navigate through the schedules - has never been more important.

Radio, too, is seeing ‘disaggregation’. DAB Digital Radio now also contains an electronic programme guide for many radio stations: it’s not as advanced or as consistent as its TV cousin (and the user interface for EPGs on DAB sets is normally pretty poor) but it holds the key to reinventing part of the medium. Broadcasters, like multiplex-owner “MuxCo”,plan to use the EPG to broadcast innovative new programming using overnight capacity. But radio has also benefitted from the internet. The BBC’s listen-again service is continually growing (in terms of unique users) month after month; and the BBC’s listen-again service is particularly efficient at growing niche programming, with some listening figures for programmes comparable to those off-air. Podcasts, too, add considerable numbers to broadcaster listening figures: and some programmes (In Our Time, Peter Day’s World of Business, The Geoff Show) are disproportionately popular online - once more, niche programming reaching a wider audience. It’s not just the BBC doing this; commercial broadcasters are there too (and, in some cases, in front of the lumbering, sometimes-inflexible beast that the BBC is).

And, while still pretty new, catch-up services (the BBC iPlayer, 4oD, itv.com) are redefining how people watch the television, too. All signs point towards these services being as popular as the BBC Radio Player, in time.

“How might we see traditional media adapt to stay competitive in this new world?”

All the above is ‘traditional media’: dramatically adapted to stay competitive, and relevant, in this new world. Total radio listening has remained steady, despite commercial radio’s suicidal tendencies in the past few years. The addition of more choice in the form of DAB Digital Radio appears to add to total radio listening, which is excellent news.

The report-writers, and the journalists, love an “Internet kills the media” story: unfavourably comparing “total spent on the internet” with “total spent on radio” or “total spent on tv”, as if a 90-word Google AdWords ad is, somehow, equivalent to a glossy thirty-second TV ad.

The reality is that the ‘traditional’ media is continually adapting its products to fit the Web2.0 world. Virgin Radio even went so far as to launch its own social networking site (before the big Facebook craze); the BBC’s Radio Player launched in 2001-ish, far before the excitement of YouTube.

And have we succeeded? Mass media like radio and television has daily access to audiences that even the largest websites would dream about. MySpace, the home of tons of music and youth-orientated websites, is used for 25 minutes a week; yet BBC Radio 1 itself is listened-to, on average, over 10 hours a week - youth commercial station Galaxy reaching over 7 hours a week. And that’s in spite of the tremendous growth of media outlets (see the photo above). If Web2.0 is all about “inter-human connections”, then we do a pretty good job.

Yes, we’ve work to do. It’s why I enjoy working in multiplatform support for radio, keeping radio relevant to today’s audiences. And no, we’re not complacent - partly the reason why we continue to reinvent our brand (by adding visuals to radio on DAB or on phones, for example).

But, I’d humbly suggest, “traditional media” is, in the UK at least, doing a good job of keeping up with the Web2.0s. Things are different in the US and other countries - and much of it has to do with the absence of a strong, forward-looking, public service broadcaster. Even the most rabid anti-BBC person (as I once was) would agree that the presence of the BBC raises the standard of all broadcasting in this country. Mark Ramsey’s hectoring from the sidelines in the US reflects a particular issue there; but not here.

I once joked in a conference: “We’re already up to ‘Web 3.11 for Workgroups’”. And I believe it, to a degree. We’re in pretty good shape. Don’t talk us down.

Photo: giovanni gallucci | new media consultant. Used under licence

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A version of this blog entry now appears on the BBC website.

The nice people at Google AdSense recently asked me to go and speak at a roadshow of theirs at BAFTA. Well, it was a few months ago now, I think, but still, as of today, a video of the event, including me in a suit, has appeared on the Google AdSense blog.

I ought to point out that no, I wasn’t paid to appear; no, I didn’t just say nice things; and no, I even had to ask nicely for the bags that the delegates got. I was only wearing a suit because… I think I was meeting up with future colleagues that morning, and thought I’d fool them that I normally wore a suit. Ah, ha ha ha. Suckers.

I did meet the famous Ivan, who irritatingly still wasn’t wearing a check shirt, but had bothered to shave a bit since his appearance on the blog. That’s him in the video, looking concerningly at me as I said something of not much importance. Seemingly Very Slowly.

Anyway, it’s nice seeing my ‘weekend job‘ getting a little limelight now and again. The chaps at Google were quite nice. There was free internet, and sandwiches, and it was so close to work, I was able to tiptoe off to work and tiptoe back whenever I chose, which was good. However, no free, um, whatever Google might give away for free. Here’s hoping they do rucksacks this year for Christmas presents. I’d like that.