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Posts tagged ‘twitter’

14
Aug
bitly

BBC and Bit.ly create bbc.in

What do you get when you take one of the worlds greatest content creators and mix it up with best url shortener?

You get bbc.in that’s what – If you head over to Bit.ly, or even through Twitter herself (got to be a women with all that gossip and bieber love in the trending topics) you’ll get something other than a bit.ly/[id] as the shortened url. Read moreRead more

13
Jul
androidsm

Making Android a useful life tool

I’ve been using Android for about three months now after getting my HTC Tattoo and for the first two and a half months it basically involved trying to make it do what I want.

It isn’t the greatest mobile phone in the world but it is small and has all the functionality I need from a phone. Read moreRead more

6
Apr
d11s01ep00_wal_23_generic

Losing the ability to just sit back and be immersed?

There may be a couple of spoilers for Doctor Who: Eleventh Hour starring Matt Smith in this blog post – if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled don’t read on.

Like many of the posts I’ve been writing recently, this one started life in another form – in this case as a Facebook status update.

Read moreRead more

20
Sep

It’s not all about the money

Everytime a public organisation comes up with what is basically a good idea, something that will provide interesting content for free for the public in an easy to use way – somebody, usually somebody running a private company – jumps up and down and screams about it hurting the ‘commercial sector’.

I can completely understand a newspaper group getting a little anxious when they’ve got a big new service ready to launch, advertising in place and then someone like the BBC, the Government or another publicly funded body launches an almost identical service with tax payers money – but how often does that actually happen.

Most of the time the excuses for objecting to a cool new public service site, channel or project is that it would stop the private company from being able to create something similar in the future – thus cutting off a potential revenue stream.

But for me that is where the argument completely falls down – in most cases the public service version would be advertising free and as the commercial version would probably be advertising funded – I don’t see where the competition is?

OK so there would be a little bit of competing for eyeballs but I like to think that people are smart enough to rely on more than one source for their news and information – I use Twitter and Facebook even though Facebook is fast becoming Twitter.

I read every major newspaper website, I read more than one blog, even if they’re on the same subject and belong to several forums covering the same subject area.

What I’m saying is – why does it matter if the BBC runs a service similar to one a commercial company might run when the commercial company will live or die by advertising revenue (charging for things on the web doesn’t work unless its a mobile app) and the BBC won’t be taking advertising?

Equally why shouldn’t a local council create a local online television service to let people know what is happening in their town if they can afford it – although if they’re cutting other services I would suggest maybe thinking again?

In fact, scrap the example above as that really just seems to be about promoting the council – what councils should really be doing, and this would help local newspapers – is filming all council meetings and then providing a feed – for free – to all the newspapers, radio stations and other media in their area.

Those media services could then broadcast that feed on their sites, cut up videos/speeches to publish with articles and even be able to properly cover local council meetings without having to send a reporter – it could just be on a TV in the background in the newsroom.

This would provide local news services with free content, would allow them to have a journalist doing something else and would hopefully encourage greater transparency in local government.

If councils have the money to launch a TV service or newspaper promoting the council – surely that money would be better spent actually covering council meetings.

In fact, maybe that is something the BBC could help fund with some of the ‘digital switchover money’ instead of giving it to ITV or other broadcasters.

It could be an extention of the digital democracy project but instead of it all being broadcast on the BBC – it could be part of BBC Parliament with a branding free feed offered to each of the relevant local newspapers, websites, blogs and radio stations.

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8
Sep

Out of the Tweet

UPDATE

I’m now back @upyourego on Twitter – thanks to the people at Twitter for fixing it.

Out of date

I’m not one for going big on the whole posting about what I’ve already posted on twitter but instead doing it more comprehensively on my blog.

I’m actually more likely to do it the other way around – I’ll write something on my blog and then post a link and a few details to Twitter.

However, I’ve not been doing much in the way of personal postings to Twitter for a while – in fact its since just after the whole Twitter hacky takedown thing a month or so ago.

I first signed up for Twitter while it was in invite only beta – according to Twitterholic that was 32 months ago but I’m sure it was November not February – either way I’ve been using it a while.

Someone or more likely some machine posted a spam message to my Twitter account @upyourego (I won’t bother linking as it doesn’t work anymore) and since then my account has been suspended.

I’ve been told by Twitter I can have it back as I changed my password and removed all rights I’d given to third parties – but I still haven’t got it back and nobody bothers replying to me any more.

So I’ve set up a new twitter account @musicego that I guess I’ll have to build a following at again – I was up to 600 on @upyourego before I was locked out by Twitter.

Of course I have been actively twittering @jsyintroducing during the Jersey Live music festival and managing the @bbcjersey account as well for BBC Jersey.

So that’s why I’ve been quiet on Twitter for so long.

Of course if anyone from Twitter does read this post – PLEASE free the @upyourego one :)

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26
Aug

Covering a music festival – socially

A weekend for me is usually a fairly predictable affair; I wake up on a Saturday and spend the day looking after my (nearly) six year old son while my wife goes shopping with our eight year old daughter and toddler.

Then on Sunday we spend the day together as a family – go the park, sometimes to the zoo and usually have a Sunday roast at around 2pm – like I said, all pretty predictable.

But one weekend a year, the first weekend in September to be exact, I spend nearly a full 23 hours interviewing, listen to, photographing or filming bands.

The first weekend of September is when the Jersey Live music festival happens at the RJA&HS Showground in Trinity, Jersey.

This is the sixth year of the event and the sixth year I’ve covered it for the BBC in Jersey.

For the first four years I spent the weekend gathering content and then pulled it all together for the BBC Jersey website, BBC Radio Jersey and a bit for BBC Channel Island News (then BBC Spotlight Channel Islands) on the following Monday.

Then last year I tried an experiment – instead of holding all the content and publishing it on Monday – I’d publish as I went along – socially.

2816227820_468f2e56da_bActually the original idea was to publish it all to the BBC Jersey website – updating a series of features and galleries as the weekend went on.

But it didn’t really work out that way due to an error with 1) logging into the BBC FTP server and 2) intermittent WiFi in the press tent.

So our coverage sort of went social by accident and by that I mean photos on Flickr and updates on Twitter – with slightly longer reviews posted to our MySpace blog.

This year we have a whole new look BBC Jersey site, a new publishing system and no way to update the site remotely on a non-BBC laptop.

So I’m planning to go social from the start and will be tying the whole thing into the various social media pages for my show – BBC Jersey Introducing.

As with last year I’ll be posting photos to Flickr as I come out from the front of the stage, or as I get back from wandering the festival site taking photos of people.

Then I’ll write 140 character reviews of the bands on the various stages I visit (as will the other two people covering the festival with me) on Twitter as well as using our Twitter stream @jsyintroducing to write any interesting festival facts or stories.

I’ve also set up an Audioboo account for BBC Jersey Introducing where I’ll have the phone next to me when I interview bands – so you’ll be able to hear (albeit slightly lower quality) interviews as I do them.

I’ll then be pulling the mass of content together using Tumblr so it can be found in one place and having that re-post the mass of content to the BBC Jersey Introducing fan page on Facebook.

I’ll then be able to use all of the above to help me write the various reviews, articles and create the galleries that will make up the bbc.co.uk/jersey coverage of the festival.

It will also help me piece together my first ‘post festival’ show on the following Saturday as the highlights will be on Twitter and Facebook.

And obviously I’ll be trying my best to respond to any comments or feedback on any of the various social sites while running around the Showground in Trinity.

So if you’re not going to Jersey Live but want regular updates on what’s happening just follow @jsyintroducing on twitter, become a fan on Facebook at jerseyintroducing, follow my boos or keep track of the whole thing on Tumblr.

Or you can still do all of the above from a half decent mobile if you’re AT the festival – you might even hear about a cool band just starting you might not have gone to otherwise.

Then again you could just enjoy the event and catch up with our coverage on the BBC Jersey site on Monday – they’ll even be video.

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28
Jul

A full on summer

I’ve been working in Jersey for about nine years now and seven of those have been spent at the BBC doing everything from live blogging elections (first one was seven years ago) to photographing a street carnival in the form of the Battle of Flowers.

There is also the Jersey International Air Display – one of the largest free air displays in Europe.

In the last few years a number of new, cool events have started up in the island – some with a message like the Human Rights Film festival and OxJam – others cool, fun and funky.

First there was the Jersey Live festival, now in its sixth year and featuring some of the hottest musical acts in the world. This year headliners include Basement Jaxx, The Kooks, Doves, Dizzee Rascal, 2ManyDJs and Passion Pit.

More on Jersey Live (I’ll write a whole post on the festival later): Official | Twitter | Facebook | My Podcast

Then last year two new events joined the funky fold in the form of Grassroots, a more acoustic, green festival taking place the first Sunday in August and featuring mainly Aussie singer songwriters – this years headliner is Newton Faulkner.

More on Grassroots: Official site | Twitter | Facebook

And the Branchage Jersey International Film Festival – a cross arts festival that puts films on in places you wouldn’t normally expect to see them – like The Wicker Man at the 12th Century Mont Orgeuil Castle in Gorey.

Anyway – here is the promo video for this years festival:

Last year I reviewed four films over the three day weekend and went to see about six. Although because of BBC rules the reviews had to be more features than reviews.

This year I’m hoping to do at least as many reviews and will also be co-hosting a live music event tied to the BBC Introducing brand – not done anything ‘live’ in front of actual people before – so it could be fun or it could be horrible.

I know I’m talking to a few thousand people when I present my show – I’ve seen the stats – but it just isn’t the same, sitting locked away in a stuffy soundproofed studio talking to a microphone isn’t really the same as standing up, amplified voice in front of a few hundred!

More on Branchage: Branchage Site | Branchage Facebook | Branchage Twitter

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15
Jul

iPlayer deep links and sharing

One of the things I’ve always found that makes watching television online more special than watching it … well on a television, is the social aspect of it.

The ability to watch with a group of people and talk about it while it was happening – I did it with the Eurovision song contest on Twitter and again more recently with #bbcqt (Question Time) as well.

This social element makes for a much more enjoyable, and in fact worthwhile experience – especially when you have no shared televisual interests with your wife!

Where a show requires, or warrents more concentration – like Top Gear – there is still the social element of going to the message board, or Twitter and finding out what other people thought of the show, share what you thought about the show and then join the with the overal melee.

The first of these two social video approaches is the simplest to discuss. Basically you all agree to watch the show as it goes out on television or at the same time on demand and talk about it while it is happening.

But the second can be a little more complicated. OK so you can write about something that happened and then share your thoughts on that moment – but what about people that haven’t seen it yet (outside the UK, watching on demand) but still want to get an overview?

Or if you say ‘don’t look here unless you want to be spoiled’ it would still be nice to have a more visual link to something that happened – screen grabs help and in an age before heavy duty BBC takedowns – so did YouTube – but both require a fair amount of effort and technical knowledge.

Well now there is a simpler way. The ever increasingly brilliant (partly because of the speed they can get changes through on a BBC product, partly because of the product itself) iPlayer team have added another cool feature to the on demand system.

They’re allowing you to deep link to an exact point within a programme without having to tell your mates on that message board “yeah go to this url and scan through about 25 minutes in.”

Instead you can send them a url, and in fact a BBC short url (no need for bit.ly or tinyurl) that includes a timestamp that will then open the iPlayer video at that exact point.

I know this has been available for YouTube videos for a fair while now but the fact that the BBC have made it happen in the iPlayer really is something to celebrate.

It really is very simple. iPlayer boss Anthony Rose said: “To use this new functionality, just click the Programme Information link below the video playback window in iPlayer to reveal the new Send to a Friend options.”

And of the Short URL system he went on to say: “We created our own “short URL” system to save you the trouble of having to use a 3rd-party service, and also to ensure that your users see a trusted bbc.co.uk link instead of one of those obfuscated short URLs that could take you anywhere.”

Aside from the ‘highlight’ of a programme on a message board for discussion, another area were it really is interesting is when it comes to music.

For example during the festival season I’d be able to write about an amazing (or piss poor) performance of a band and give you a link directly to that performance in the bigger video.

In fact I have a prime example. the BBC Three Intimate stage at T in the Park this year included performances from Franz Ferdinand, Little Boots, ting Tings, Glasvegas and Doves.

I want to share the Doves performance with you so I can give you a time stamp, you can click it and it will play on the iPlayer from that point – in face 8m42s.

What I haven’t worked out yet is how to embed iPlayer video with a timestamp so instead have a need to embed the entirity of that 55 minute long T In the Park video – well worth watching in full though.

UPDATE: I managed to work out how to embed to start at a specific timestamp you just need to put ?t=8m42s after the human readable part of the URL path.

I’ll try and incorporate a timestamp element into the PIP embed code tool when I get time.

The function will also be coming to radio eventual. Anthony Rose: “The new direct link functionality is available at the moment for iPlayer TV programmes. We hope to add support for radio as soon as we can.”

I’ll break down the short URL for you as well while I’m here – as they’ve designed the thing to be human readable, as they have with the new, longer main iPlayer URLS.

So what you’re sending someone is http://bbc.co.uk/i/lpm89/?t=15m14s

So lets get rid of the bbc bit and look at everything after /i/ (which is obviously the iPlayer bit). The first bit is the PIP in a shortened version – basically ditching the b00 of the full URL and isntead leaving you with lpm89.

then you have the timestamp and it is about as simple as they could have made it. t= (time equals) 15m (minutes) and 14s (seconds) or the bit where Tom Reilly is on.

On the subject of social television viewing – I’m going to write something about the new 4ip product – Test Tube Telly – at some point later this week when I’ve had a chance to play with it properly.

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16
May

Loving the Eurovision

I’m a big fan of the Eurovision song contest – so much so that my new music, bleeding edge BBC Introducing branded radio show will be taking a Eurovision theme this week.

Don’t get me wrong I won’t be playing Boom Bang a Bang or even Dum Tek Tek (Turkish tip for Eurovision top spot that means Boom Bang a Bang).

But I will be playing songs from around Europe – namely the four countries with a reasonably large population pressence in Jersey – just so I can keep a bit of a local angle.

So my ‘alternative’ Eurovision picks covered four countries: Ireland, Poland, Portugal and France – oh and I dropped in one from the UK for good measure.

Iowa Super Soccer for Poland, Xwife for Portugal, Fight Like Apes for Ireland and Naïve New Beaters for France. And my UK tip came in the form of Frank Turner.

And looking now at the Google tips for Eurovision success (based on search results from different European countries) France (Patricia Kaas) is the only one in the top ten – not including Jade from the UK who is ninth – Frank Turner was only a wildcard throw in as I normally play UK artists anyway.

Here see for yourself – the top five are Turkey with 375 votes, Norway with 351, Greece with 264, Sweden with 205 and Ukraine with 173. The Google forecast puts UK in ninth with 70.

This is based on the number of searches for each countries entry from around Europe – with each country awarding a number of points based on the number of searches to each of the finalists.

MOSCOW - MAY 15: (L-R) Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ja...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

It excludes searches for an entry from within that singers country – so a search for Jade Ewen from within the UK won’t count.

Personally I don’t care whether we win or not – although it would be nice to see a ‘Home Eurovision’ in 2010 – even if it will probably end up costing around £3 million.

Although if the Aussies could vote then Greece would get 12 points – at least that is the way it’s shaping up on the SBS Unoffical Scorecard – although that is only based on the semi-final – might be interesting to keep track of though.

Anyway – if votes are awarded on how actively people are pushing for their country on Twitter – then I’d put Norway first, Hungary second and Ukrain in third. Although that is only based on a quick search.

Graham Norton, Irish actor, comedian and telev...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been a fan of Eurovision since I was a small child – watching it while my parents made sarcastic comments in the background – I loved the comedy, the glamour (or more often lack of) and VERY OCCASIONALLY the music – but most of all for the spectacle and … Terry Wogan.

But this is the first year we won’t have Terry in the hot seat – his place is being taken by another sarcastic Irishman – this time in the form of Graham Norton. Personally I think, based on interviews I’ve seen – he’s going to fill the boots admirably.

This is the first year though that I’ve watched the semi-finals – I always avoided them in the past because for me Eurovision is a social event and my wife would only tolerate the final.

But thanks to the wonder of Twitter I was able to watch it and engage with other Eurovision fans from around the world – including some (like @ewanspence) who were in the Eurovision arena.

I was there for both semi-finals twittering along and the two hours went by really quickly – I’m now going to spare my wife the “pain” (her words) of the whole final and Twitter along to that as well.

My Eurovision follow tips include: @bbceurovision, @sara_cawood, @ewanspence and @thoroughlygood. Anyone you can think of I’ve missed? Oh and feel free to follow me @upyourego.

NB: Main page photo credit: cc by CharlesFred

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