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Feb
8

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Ramp up the versions

Category: Blog, Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

It was recently announced that the Office is being re-made for Chile – this is the latest in a long line of local remakes of the Ricky Gervais creation in fact it’s the latest in a long line of re-formats giving the BBC money.

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Nov
23

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Is broadband essential?

Category: Web Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

I was reading the Jersey Evening Post the other day and there was a letter to the editor about the new goods and services tax, I’m not going to talk about GST but instead about a question underneath the image put next to the letter.

The image was a picture of a girl at a computer with a caption saying “Is broadband essential?” I thought about this for a minute, wondered if I could live without broadband, stored it in the back of my head and moved on.

For the rest of this post read broadband as internet – broadband is cheaper than dial-up, 85% of all British web users are on broadband connections and so dial-up is something I’d never consider, not even on the radar as a viable option.

Anyway, I forgot about it until this morning when I read a comment on my, feb up with blogging, self flagulation of a rant by the ever fabulous glasses friendly Raindog.

Thought you’d been quiet of late. I have the same problem. I just blog when I find an interesting designer or agency site now. It’s always better to be doing something irl anyway. That said, I’ve been without internet for a week and I feel like I’ve lost a limb.

Now I’m not saying going without the internet is worse than losing a leg – that would be rediculous BUT I don’t think I’d be able to survive without the net. And when I say survive I mean live a normal 21st Century life – not that I’d actually die if I couldn’t check my e-mail.

But stupid descriptions aside, now that you’re feeling like a scolded 8 year old – I can get to the point of the post.

My bank account is all online, my wifes bank account is online, I communicate with my family online and I use the internet to make contacts with people, research stories and stay in touch with friends around the world.

It’s also how I catch up on TV shows I’ve missed, listen to the radio (in podcast form) and loads of other bits and pieces.

So, when working out my monthly income and expenses Broadband is put in the essential column, it is as important a part of 21st Century, developed world life as food, gas and electricity. It should also be available to those in developing countries as well.

If I had to drop things because my expenses where higher than my income Broadband wouldn’t be on the list.

First thing to go, despite screams from my children would be Sky. Next I’d drop my blog and pay for subscriptions and DVDs. We’d then look at cutting back on food or buying cheaper stuff instead of organic and big brands – then finally, as a last resort, if it was that or heating I’d drop the broadband.

Fortunately I’m not in that position but broadband is a vital part of life in this millenium – it’s the future of television, radio and communication and should be available to every home in the world.

Oct
21

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Not to adblock?

Category: Media, News, Technology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Every time I read the comments under a story, Digg post or forum thread that has even a small mention of adverts on web pages there is always at least one, but often MANY MORE, posts from people saying “I never see adverts” or “I use AdBlock so it doesn’t bother me” or annoyingly “what ads?”.

I can sympaphise with people that block ads, some websites go well over the top with the flashy, noisy, introcive banners and other sites aren’t using particularly trustworthy ad servers – so you could end up with all sorts of crap loaded on to your computer if you’re not careful.

But there is another side to this as well. I don’t normally contribute to threads about adverts on websites because my point of view seems to be the polar opposite of many others.

If you read some of these threads you get the feeling that they think everything should be free, there should be no adverts and they shouldn’t have to do anything to get what they want.

Content isn’t free though – ok it might appear to come online for nothing – this blog for instance doesn’t cost you a sausage and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to pay to read my ramblings – but it still costs me to host it, the domain name costs money and although I do it for passion – it still costs time to produce.

The same applies to other sites, especially newspapers and magazines where the content is written by professional writers who need to be paid, has heavy bandwidth that costs a small fortune and often includes images that have rights costs associated with them.

With this in mind I posted this simple comment to a thread on a message board about adverts on a popular magazine website recently “I don’t mean to sound harsh or anything but don’t you feel guilty about using adblock?”

My argument FOR leaving AdBlock off is a simple one – its the ads that cover the costs of running the website – it’s been made fairly clear that people aren’t prepared to pay for content online so the advertising model has been flourishing as a way of covering the costs of paying journalists, bandwidth bills etc.

At the moment not enough people use adblock for it to matter but if it does spread and nobody is seeing ads – do you think content on sites like topgear.com or guardian.co.uk will stay free for long?

I personally make a point of looking at ads on a site and if it interests me – clicking on the ad – after all – if I’ve enjoyed the content provided by that site – for free – then I think I owe them a little of my time in return.

If a website doesn’t get enough money to cover costs it will be forced to drop staff or cut services – nobody wants to see that from a site they enjoy.

Also – with advertising revenue and sales dropping through the floor in the traditional newspaper business – online revenue is going to become ever more important – that means showing adverts.

Good quality content doesn’t come cheap. Top writers charge a lot of money for their words, great photographers go to great legnths to get the photo and expect to be rewarded – musicians deserve some reward for their craft, talent and art – and so do film makers.

If everybody had the same attitude as some on forums, comments etc then nothing would get made. I do think we pay too much for some content – £15 for a DVD when it first comes out is rediculous – especially as the creatives behind the film see very little of the profit made in the end – Music is even more of a telling tale with most of the money going to the labels.

But we’re starting to break free from that now – musicians are releasing their own music and getting more of the final profit – indie films are becomming more popular and finding wider markets and soon we’ll see authors doing much the same.

Back to websites – A question I was wondering was “would you pay a monthly subscription for your favourite website in order to have the adverts turned off?”

For example – its very likely that people outside the UK are going to start seeing adverts across bbc.co.uk soon – the idea being that with half of the sites users coming from outside the UK, or people that don’t pay the licence fee that covers the sites costs – those people should contribute something.

Would you pay a monthly subscription of, say $5 to be able to view everything on bbc.co.uk without adverts?

Another question I was thinking about was “If a way was found for sites to be able to block access to anyone with AdBlock enabled – would you disable adblock to view the site or stop using it completely?”