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It’s not all about the money

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: September 20, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
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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Out of the Tweet

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: September 8, 2009Posted in: General, New MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
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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Covering a music festival – socially

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: August 26, 2009Posted in: General, MusicTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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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A full on summer

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: July 28, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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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iPlayer deep links and sharing

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: July 15, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , ,
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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Loving the Eurovision

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: May 16, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , ,
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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Bands: Don’t go with Facebook

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: April 23, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, GeneralTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Bands: Don’t go with Facebook

There is a blog post on Mashable written by Stan Schroeder which basically explores and asks whether you would be prepared to pay Facebook for your own persistant URL – so mine would be facebook.com/upyourego.

In my case the simple answer is no. I’d much rather set up upyourego.com/facebook and give that out to people with a redirect to my Facebook profile.

I’m not a big fan of facebook, I’ve got a profile and have to use it as people seem to insist on getting in touch with me through it – but I personally wouldn’t pay for a vanity URL as I DON’T WANT people to find me on there – unlike Twitter, Flickr, MySpace et al where I actively hunt for friends (god that makes me sound sad!).

But, I do present a new music show for the BBC, a show that involves playing music by unsigned bands with no label promoting them and usually no website – so after playing a track I give the bands myspace address.

We Are Scientists

This is great because it means people can find out a lot more about the band easily, can listen to more of the bands music and find out when they’re playing next.

It also acts as a great way of cutting some of the waffle about the band ‘to find out more go to myspace.com/greatband’. In fact for the rest of this article I’m going to use an actual MySpace profile for a group in Jersey I’m into right now.

Brobots: myspace.com/brobotsyeah

However an increasing number of bands are turning to facebook as their platform of choice – basing this on the fact that as ‘they’re are a lot of people on facebook’ they’ll be found easier.

Unfortunately this creates a problem for giving out that domain name, for selling the band on air and for the band selling themselves at gigs.

DSC_0139

If the band have Facebook as their prefered social site of choice it means to promote the bands home online I have to say something along the lines of ‘to find out more or hear other tracks from ‘insert band name’ go to Facebook and do a search for ‘band name’ and it is probably the fourth one down

Instead of the much friendlier – go to myspace.com/brobotsyeah.

So from that point of view only – I’d say it would be in the interest of a band, comedian etc to pay for a premium URL – just to make marketing easier. But personally, if I was advising a band I would tell them to YES get a Facebook fan page and fill it with links to all the other social sites online that work with bands much better.

Or just stick with MySpace – after all the people listening to the music and will be really into it, the people playing the music on the radio and finding new bands to play at their club night – still use MySpace.

In face almost all my band communication and a large chunck of production for my show is done through MySpace.

And when a band only have a Facebook profile I’ve started setting up tiny URLs for the bands that only use Facebook and giving that out on air instead.

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Been a bit slow lately

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: April 13, 2009Posted in: General, New MediaTags: , , , , , , , , , ,

slow_mOK so hands up who hasn’t been blogging very much recently – yup my hands are up and you’re right, things have been a little on the quiet side around her recently.

There are a couple of reasons for this including a lack of time, Easter holidays, a new computer I’m trying to bed in and a few issues with my host.

I’m not complaining about my host at all, not specifically as I find them helpful, good value for money, fast and reliable – however, my blog has been causing a few issues.

Not the editorial but the technical side. I received an e-mail from my host (Fasthosts for anyone interested) suggesting that my site is causing the rest of the shared hosting server to slow down.

The problem is that I’m on death row. This site has been moved to a ‘probation server’ which is probably why things have been running a little slower AND if I don’t fix it within a reasonable period of time then upyourego.com and associated e-mail accounts will be deleted.

So instead of blogging I’ve been working out what’s wrong. The description of the issue didn’t really help me much:

The site creates 10 PHP processes as soon as the application pool is recycled and we found the server after the pool had recycled with a total of 20 PHP processes running a result.

These PHP processes, all owned by your domain, were busy doing things, with varying amounts of server CPU utilisation. At one point I saw 2 processes using 40+% each, but in general the total of all the processes doesn’t seem to fall below 40-50%.

With a little help (ok a lot of help) from people on my Twitter friends list I’ve so far installed WP Super Cache and removed any plugins not essential for the running of this theme.

I also removed an image of Terry Wogan that seemed to be getting a rediculous number of hits.

I’ve now sent an e-mail back to Fasthosts asking them if they can check again to see if the problem is fixed. Failing that I’m going to delete the blog folder, re-install Wordpress and start again with a basic theme and no plugins.

I’ll keep you posted but this is just to say sorry for any errors you might spot over the next few weeks.

Ideally I’d just moved to a dedicated server, the basic package from Fasthosts is only £65 a month BUT I only just make enough in ads from my blog to cover the cost of the basic hosting plan at the moment – so can’t cover the rest yet.

Normal service WILL resume shortly. In the meantime I’ll try and post an iPlayer pick today to make up for it.

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Zero to 1000 in 10 minutes

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: January 27, 2009Posted in: General, New MediaTags: , , , , , , , ,

rustyrockets

OK so I just witnessed something a bit weird – the opening up and first postings of what will soon become one of the highest profile Twitter accounts.

It’s great that @Wossy (Jonathan Ross) and @stephenfry (Stephen Fry) and even @bobbyllew (Robert Llewellyn) are on Twitter but now that @rustyrockets (Russell Brand) has joined the BritTwit fellowship – things are going to go mental.

Russell Brand
Image via Wikipedia

I watched Jonathan Ross post at around 10.25pm “russell now has proper twitter account ! Would you like his name ?” which was quickly followed by “@rustyrockets” three minutes later.

Between that moment, which was quickly followed by this post from @rustyrockets “i have come to join you pleas be gentle with me as ive been feeling vulnerable… yet implausibly, sexy” and now – he went from 0 to 1700 followers.

It seems to have settled down a little bit now but at one point – a refresh every second saw an extra 20 or 30 followers.

There’s even a TwitPic from @Wossy – I guess Russell was at his house. Oh and “Hello Daily Mail Hack searching for Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand in the hope of finding another pointless story”.

Of course this comment from @Wossy might mean a limited number of posts from @rustyrockets “my kids just told russell that twitter is for oldies. he is cursing me now.”

But somehow I doubt that would have an effect – although interestingly not long before that @bobbyllew was talking about his daughter describing Twitter as being like “MSN for old people”.

Is Twitter really for old people? OK so I’m now in my late twenties – so what are the, oh god I can’t believe I’m about to post this but, what ARE the kids using nowadays?

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