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Tuesday Jul 29, 2008
School's Out
This summer you could imagine students meeting up and talking about their studies during the year: "I've just done a physics course at MIT, checked out an 'Introduction to Psych' at Yale and followed up with a well established course in non-violence at UC Berkeley".
All these courses are online and freely available in exploratory developments by US universities in the last two years to open up the content of their academic offerings. MIT, then Berkeley and then Yale. In the UK we've had the less impressive, but totally worthy Open Learn - an initiative from the Open University.
Taken together the depth of this content offers a glimpse into a more open and free learning world. This is ace and my only question really is why have we had to wait until 2008 for these kind of open learning initiatives to ripple outwards online? When you think about it, the academic world doesn't have the same excuses most of have had.
- They have had loads of warning: many academics have been using internet-like tools since the 1980's.
- They have had the resources: many academics have had access to the technical equipment, infrastructure and know-how for many, many years
- They have had the motivation: many academics will do anything for an opportunity to share their passion and knowledge for their own area of interest and expertise
Why then haven't academics been in the vanguard of this transformation in the use of communication technology to broaden learning opportunities? It's a puzzle and the truth is I have no idea why not. 40 years ago in 1968, universities and educational establishments became a hotbed for new ideas and social change. In 2008, it's seems to be venture capitalists with fuzzy business models spearheading social change through developments in today's technology.
My personal theory for why educational establishments have been left behind by the communication and information revolution is the following:
It's all about how learning has traditionally been conceived by the educational institutions: education is something 'they' do to 'us'. As a result this makes the institutions' model of learning incompatible with the free and open platform offered by emerging technology. Hence the near absence of formal academic-led developments in free and open learning resources on the internet. It's corporates that are making a running with things like: Authors@Google, Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope and Ted Talks. But if educational institutions wanted to play the game, they could knock these out of the park, couldn't they. Couldn't they?
One sticking point seems to be that institutions and establishments need and want rights protection and the ability to monetize learning aka the education industry. It's no coincidence that the big US universities have financed their initiatives thanks to donations from wealthy foundations rather than using money from the central pot. Impressive as the above resources are that are currently available, surely we're only just scratching the surface of what's possible.
We don't need no edukashun. We want, what I think humans have always cherished: a free and open space to learn and share that learning (long before Pink Floyd made the point).
As for the future, the internet will be full of bolder and more mature free and open opportunities to learn and share knowledge, previously the domain of education institutions. The only question is who's going to lead the way and how we all access and benefit from this new meta learning environment.
Posted by Patrick Daniels ( 3:02 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Jul 24, 2008
Future of a free internet
Yesterday an article appeared on the BBC news site about the big ISP's in the UK signing some kind of deal with the UK Government to combat piracy. This morning it was headline news across BBC radio and television. Fergal Sharkey was asked for the music industry's view, but no one asked us consumers.
It's shocking and disappointing how a public broadcaster like the BBC frames the debate in such outdated and simplistic terms. It's at moments like this that it's possible to see just how out of step big media companies and organisations are with the issues that the rise of new media has thrown up for consumers. Their focus tends to always be on the issues new media throws up for themselves- not us. To coin a phrase: it's about privacy, not piracy stupid.
Rarely is consumer privacy raised as an issue in the music industry's war on piracy. Will ISP's be expected to handover personal data of their customers? How will illegal file sharing be defined when, for example, anyone can download mp3s of any music they like from prominent websites like Facebook and YouTube? What sanctions will they take against file sharers? Will young people increasingly see the internet as a constraint on their liberty, rather than liberating?
It's interesting to contrast the broadly sympathetic coverage that the BBC has given to the music industry's efforts to clamp down on file-sharing (hey, it's not just music that people share these days), with it's coverage of the development of deep packet inspection (deep packet what?) by the advertising industry "a system that tracks where people go on the web, and builds up a profile so it can serve up adverts based on what that person has seen" (BBC's Click presenter Spencer Kelly).
Yeh, deep packet inspection (DPI), it's the biggest issue in net neutrality at the moment and most people haven't heard a thing about it outside of the tech pages in old style mainstream broadcasters like the BBC. For the last two years the technology has been secretly trialled and is set to come on stream officially in the next month or so.
Both these issues raise questions of consumers' privacy, and both developments seem to suggest that consumer privacy should be sacrificed in the interest of corporate needs.
In May 2008 on BBC technology programme 'Click', the BBC interviewed Kent Ertegrul and Alex Hanff. Ertegrul who heads up Phorm- a company looking to profit from DPI technology- had his "most notable foray online as the founder of PeopleOnPage, an ad network that operated earlier in the decade and which was blacklisted as spyware by the likes of Symantec and F-Secure".
Alex Hanff wrote his dissertation on the privacy issues of DPI technology with special reference to Phorm and has headed up the campaign against DPI in the UK. Hanff previously hit the headlines after being sacked from his job for airing pro file sharing views on BBC's Newsnight. He's also been the recipient of a lawsuit by Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros back in 2005.
The head to head brought together the opposite ends of the spectrum in the modern privacy debate- that encompasses corporate spyware developers and file-sharing facilitators. It's a mainstream debate that is currently marginalised by mainstream broadcasters. But anyone interested in the future of freedom on the internet should be sitting up and taking plenty of notice.
Thursday May 22, 2008
First thoughts on Google Friend Connect
Once upon a time, about five or six years ago years ago, Google was just my search engine. It allowed me to find things previously hidden on the vast and ever expanding world wide web. Then my friends discovered Googlewhacking – searching for a two word phrase that returned just one search result – and all the amusement that could be gained from entering a first name or a message board username into Googlism.
But, up until now at least, Google has not been my social network. Then, on Monday, Google announced a new service: Google Friend Connect.
The press release from Google states:
"With Google Friend Connect... any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming - picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.Sounds good doesn't it. Sounds like a way to increase word-of-mouth promotion of your site, as members invite friends to join them on your website, as their actions – such as posting comments – are added to their social networking profiles. And there are advantages to users as well: a single log-in for any website which uses the Google FriendConnect service, for example, means no more remembering so many different passwords.
Visitors to any site using Google Friend Connect will be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends, or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more."
I can see this working on some websites. Google gives an example of a website about guacamole where users can rate recipes and give comments. I wouldn't care if my friends on Facebook knew what I thought about adding chillies to the dip.
However, on other sites, perhaps I'd rather be anonymous. I was thinking about TheSite.org this morning, and about how it's a great way for young people to find the information they need in a totally anonymous environment. Now say, I was to 'join' a website similar to TheSite.org using Friend Connect. When you set up a user profile, Google Friend Connect gives you the option of choosing a nickname to use on that particular website, and to nominate which social networks you'd like to broadcast your activity on. Say, I join the hypothetical website wanting to make a comment about a travel article – something I don't mind my friends knowing about, so I use my real name as a nickname and choose to link my activity on the site to Facebook. Then later I come back to the site and log-in. There's a 'settings' link where I could change my nickname and my social networking options, but I'm not automatically reminded about it. And say, I (being a hypothetical 'I' as well) then make a comment on an article about mental health or drugs – and suddenly this appears on my social networks: and then my friends know, and family members know, and colleagues know, and the whole benefit of the anonymous internet has been lost.
I was a member of MyBlogLog for a couple of weeks last year, before I started feeling uncomfortable about my icon appearing on the blogs I visited. While I thought it was unlikely that other users would want to follow my avatar through the blogosphere, building up a picture of my browsing history, there was always that chance...
When it comes down to it, I guess I'd like to keep my website browsing and my social networking separate. That's a personal choice and it's one that, as Google FriendConnect spreads, more and more of us might have to make. But installing the FriendConnect code on a website in the first place is also a choice, and one that is, despite the obvious marketing advantages it may bring to an organisation, worthy of further contemplation.
If you've got thoughts on any of this, feel free to leave a comment below.
(You don't have to use your real name).
Posted by Natasha Judd ( 4:45 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]
Friday Apr 25, 2008
A Love-Hate Relationship: When Old Meets New
In this mini-series, we explore how old media covers new media issues. First up, we look at the Daily Mail who seem keen for us to see the internet as a highly dangerous and sinister environment whether it's health, money, sex, education, you name it - it's one bad place to be.
Here's some headlines from the last couple of years.
Internet addiction 'should be recognised as a clinical disorder
Internet addiction is a serious public health problem and should be officially recognised as a clinical disorder, a psychiatrist claims.
Sorry, you can't have the internet... you're over 70
After walking the Great Wall of China and making plans for a trip to Russia, Shirley Greening-Jackson thought signing up for a new internet ...
Jailed terrorists are using the internet to contact supporters...
Terror suspects held at one of Britain's most secure jails are secretly accessing the internet to contact ...
School's bizarre ploy to beat internet perverts - masking pupils...
A primary school has been accused of being alarmist for covering up the faces of pupils on its website – apparently to protect them from ...
Coroner launches probe into 'internet suicide cult' after SEVEN ...
A coroner yesterday launched an investigation into the link between the internet and young suicides - as an MP hit out at websites for ...
Menace of the internet sites urging teenagers to starve
Children surfing the internet are being targeted by thousands of ... not go far enough and called for the groups' web pages to be removed. ...
How one in four teenagers has met a stranger on the internet
Ninety per cent had access to the internet at home. But few of those interviewed said they use the Web to help with their homework or studies. ...
The internet is destroying the world as we know it
For those unfamiliar with such terms, Web 2.0 is the name given by the computer industry to the "second generation" of the internet that has now been made ...
How the web stole our children: Chilling report reveals under-16s...
"Rob and I are at our wits' end on how to stop Daniel using the internet as much as ... Millions are left to surf the web on their own, with six out of ten ...
Sex pills drive rise in illegal internet chemists
Britain is now the second-largest host of unlicensed internet chemists ... said the web boom was worth at least £2 billion annually for six ...
Internet credit card fraud 'up to £500m a year'
UK credit card and debit card fraud on the internet is much greater than ... Earlier this month a report by web security company Symantec revealed that bank ...
Entwistle 'trawled internet for escort girls'
Neil Entwistle tried to find women through internet escort services, police sources revealed last night.
The classroom 'cancer risk' of wi-fi internet
Britain's top health watchdog has called for an inquiry into the use of wireless Internet networks in schools because of concerns they could ...
The world of real party animals: The internet gatecrashers who ...
Not if more recent internet postings are anything to by: "Yeahh it ... for the characters, and web-only mini episodes have been screened. ...
I bought my baby on the internet
You know how it is with shopping on the internet - the sheer ... Desperate to become a mother, she spent night after night surfing the web. ...
Google is watching you! The internet colossus is amassing an...
Virtual Global Taskforce Internet Safety .... Under this Big Brother-ish concept, the details of every web search we launch and every e-mail ...
YouTube massacre: Schoolboy gunman posts threat on the internet...
The internet video phenomenon: Giving killers a voice in the world of ... Eric Harris, and the same track was on Auvinen's web posting. ...
Downloads of Net porn hit record high
Yesterday, the Internet Watch Foundation, the online child abuse watchdog, warned the popularity of Web porn is leading more people into ...
Web will transport two million Brits to their Oz convict cousins...
Virtual Global Taskforce Internet Safety ... Web will transport two million Brits to their Oz convict cousins ...
Madeleine's parents subjected to 'spiteful' internet hate campaign...
The parents of Madeleine McCann have become the subject of a hate campaign on the internet.
School's bizarre ploy to beat internet perverts - masking pupils...
Virtual Global Taskforce Internet Safety .... but putting children's pictures on the web in any context these days has to be thought through ...
Grandfather builds gun-toting robot from Internet and kills...
A grandfather who wanted to end his life built himself a gun-toting robot with plans downloaded from the Internet and used it to kill ...
Probe launched after air stewardess performs topless mid-air...
The video was leaked onto the internet by members of the French crew and has sparked a major probe at several European airlines to discover ...
With all that danger, they have their own online safety guide:
Internet safety for you and your family
How can you keep you and your family safe online? Follow our guide.
But at least there are funny curiosities as well:
The piano-playing cat who caused an internet sensation
The latest star to shoot out of YouTube knows the benefit of practice to make you purrfect.
And finally, at least it's not all doom and gloom. There was one upbeat story involving the internet:
Queen becomes instant internet sensation after launching royal...
The Queen's YouTube channel has become a surprise internet hit, with almost 400000 people watching it in its first two days.
Tuesday Apr 22, 2008
The curtain falls
The world is getting larger...
The internet is a wonderful invention and I'm not just saying that because it pays my wage - honestly. The idea of a global communication system allowing for the transfer of knowledge, experience, information and ideas is tremendously exciting. It's hard not to argue that it's been the biggest step forward for humanity for as long as anyone can remember. One thing I've always found most compelling is that sense that national and regional boundaries are no longer the barriers they were. Language is still the same problem it ever was but at least I don't have to actually travel to Japan if I'm looking for a limited edition release of the latest series of Gundam – it's all available at the touch of a button. I can speak to someone in the centre of Basra about their situation at the moment. I can get involved with distributing videos about the solidarity movement in Guatemala. Discussion is unbound, distribution is cheap and anything and everything is available (for good or ill).
Except that's all bollocks now, isn't it? The idea of a global internet linking together the world is being consistently eroded. As the media industries finally try to use the internet suddenly walls are being erected all across the web. As governments realise that the internet provides the opportunity to discuss and criticise anything (including their own policies) they are increasingly repressive in their actions to curtail usage.
TV over the internet is a growing industry. It's been common for about the last 5 years, mainly through pirated shows being streamed online for subscribers. What's changed has been the decision of television networks to try this out and the first thing they've done is to make sure it can only be seen by the people they want to see it.
On some level I can understand where they are coming from. If you're still selling the rights to LOST in Australia then you probably don't want them to watch it at ABC.com but the logic doesn't hold. If I had to wait to watch an episode on Sky One then maybe it would make sense yet I don't have to do that. I can go ahead and download whatever I want for free. It's a bit irritating and takes a while to download and it's not as good as being able to stream the show but in the end I'll get it.
So by restricting access from my country to free ad-supported videos online the television and film industry isn't helping to combat online piracy – it's encouraging it. To be honest I still don't quite understand what the main issue is – every ad I've ever seen advertised on a US show is for the same rubbish that gets sold here. It's not like mass produced corporate pap is only sold exclusively in the US (though they do it particularly well).
In the end it's a desperate need to hold on to outdated regional distribution contracts that is holding back the TV industry from ending pirating of TV shows. A proper centralised distribution model, with ABC or the BBC finding their own nation by nation advertisers would end this and it'd end most of the major trackers of television shows. If you can get a show quickly and easily legally, you don't go hunting eztv or mininova for the latest release.
But there's a more insidious and related change continuing to happen on the internet and it's driven by far more unsavoury individuals than short sighted media executives and greedy network heads. The restriction of information, debate and news throughout the internet continues to grow. In some cases it's evident and obvious, an extension of already restrictive practices. Turkey's short term ban on Youtube, lifted only when Google removed all the content the regime objected to, is just the latest expression of a restrictive government. Blocking Youtube sits alongside their persecution of gay rights groups, peace campaigners or novelists who dare to mention Turkey's history of genocide against its Armenian population. This isn't a huge surprise but recent moves by the UK government go almost as far.
The conviction of five Muslim men in 2007 for reading 'extremist' material on websites was absolutely one of the most abusive acts by a UK government in living memory (though the decision has thankfully now been reversed on appeal). It was as if Big Brother had finally arrived, egged on by baying politicians and right wing newspapers looking for any scapegoat they could find to justify (or create) their own fears.
Let's be very clear on this – on our discussion board there has been regular discussion of issues around terrorism and extremism. If I choose to Google some of the names and some of the postings by an extremist group then I won't get into trouble. That's because I'm white – the security services don't care what I'm looking at.
This case stands as an example of a government that has decided to restrict what information can be read and then decide to prosecute and persecute individuals based upon their race and religion. Like the other examples of restrictions on internet freedom this is another action that divides and restricts freedom online. And every step against freedom online is a step that encourages the very worst and knee-jerk reactions to events.
And finally the great example for governments across the world – a beacon for all who want to control what their population hears and sees. Enclosing around a sixth of the world's population the Golden Shield project and the other elements that make up the 'Great Firewall of China' stands as an example to all regimes that it is possible to control what your people see. It's something that other governments seem to envy rather than fight against, especially with the complicity of western corporations willing to sacrifice users to the Chinese security services to ensure their business. It's hard to imagine that the small freedoms granted by the IOC pressure will remain more than an hour after the Olympic closing ceremony.
It should be the place of government to ensure liberty and freedom not to take an active hand in measures that restrict these freedoms. We may not be arresting people for reading about domestic violence figures online or imprisoning bloggers for daring to talk about the situations they see in their own lives but we are on the same continuum, heading in the same direction. Any action to restrict access to the internet encourages restrictions on individual freedom. The decision of government to support attempts by the music industry to force ISPs to become policemen of the internet and ban people from going online is just one step in this direction.
What is developed to stop piracy can soon be turned to stop political movements. It should be the job of government and individuals across the world to strenuously protect the benefits of the internet. Democracy is built on free access to information to make decisions not on hearing only the permitted side of the story.
This curtain continues to fall still further – not made of iron this time but of bits, bytes, mistaken good intentions and cynical political measures. This digital curtain dawn closed by the greed of those desperately holding onto outdated business models and repressive regimes risks everything the internet could have been – a true global freedom of information.
Posted by Jim Valentine ( 9:50 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Feb 13, 2008
Recruitment in a digital world
How do you recruit in the digital age?
Youth media consultancy/training company/friends of YouthNet 'MediaSnackers' have posted a recruitment video on YouTube which makes a call for new training staff. It's innovative and a great use of the medium - and is posted below for you to see.
It should also work: what MediaSnackers want is people who are totally in touch with emerging media and online tools - those frightened off by this kind of recruitment device are already effectively deselecting themselves. Also, potential candidates will be partly judged on how creatively they respond to the advert, using video or other digital mechanisms to apply. As a way of separating out the properly keen from the can't be arsed, it is an excellent approach.
Unrelated note: the Guardian tech podcast this week covers NGOs, charities and not-for-profits and chats to star charity-new-media evangelist Beth Canter. It's an interesting enough show, but I can't help but note a slight whiff of condescension, that because it's not commercial it's somehow not 'proper'.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 2:23 PM ) Link to this post Comments[2]
Tuesday Nov 20, 2007
Top tips for using social networks
Over on TheSite.org blog, Helen from our online communities team has posted five top tips for using social network sites.
It's all great advice and firmly angled at ensuring social networkers don't get in to trouble by posting the wrong things in the wrong place. I like this on 'real contact':
"It's easy to let social networking become the main way for getting in contact with friends instead of an enhancement to your relationships. It's good to try and be aware of which friends of yours would much prefer a text or call from you than a message online. You might even be that person. It's common for people to misunderstand things they read on people's profiles, or only have half the story and imagine the rest, so if you don't have contact with them in real life or if you've no intention of giving them a call or meeting up with them to get clarification, then remember to take things with a pinch of salt."
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 12:38 PM ) Link to this post Comments[2]
Wednesday Sep 26, 2007
Can't we just turn the internet off?
Science fiction writers – and more recently overpaid futurologists – have often talked about a totally networked, always-on world, where the offline and online are so seamlessly intertwined that the words themselves become redundant.
Whether you view this as a utopian dream or an oppressive nightmare, there's no doubt we are hurtling head-first in this direction. There's also bound to be some collateral damage along the way, as people, organisations and communities try and manage this rapid change.
Some recent examples of the new and the old colliding:
Just not tennis
The Lawn Tennis Association – the doyen of stuffy and conservative sports governing bodies – has suspended two junior players for posting pictures and stories on Bebo. The two players were doing what most teenagers are doing on social networking sites – boasting of parties and drinking, posting pictures of their mates and generally being... teenagers. But this, according to the LTA, breaks their contracts which require them to 'act professionally'.
The silly little people
Three council workers in Wales lost their jobs for spending too much time on E-Bay during work hours. By all accounts, the council – unlike many organisations – had been pretty lenient and only cracked down because the employees had gone too far – spending two hours a day on the site. But the eye-popping bit to this story is the response from a union official who said that the council had put "temptation in their way".
More from his statement:
"People get very involved in eBay, Sky Sports and their favourite soccer teams. It happens in many, many offices. Obviously we cannot justify people spending a couple of hours of working time looking at these sites - but temptation was put in their way. We plan to push for the authority to make changes to its IT system, to help prevent workers landing themselves in hot water."
So there's no personal responsibility expected here. The drones need to be given no rights and no opportunities to get themselves in trouble. We know best.
Run! It's Facebook!
The corporate fear of lost hours – and productivity - to Facebook continues to build into a worldwide panic. In the UK, a third of all employers are now apparently blocking it in the office. Which, if you like madey-uppy figures, COSTS UK PLC 132 MILLION POUNDS A DAY!!!
As many rational observers have pointed out, workers have always found ways to skive at work and it's frankly unrealistic to expect staff to work every minute of every working day.
But what this is an example of – like the others above – is a society not coping with change. Traditional corporate responses ("just don't let them do it, ban it, stop it...") are still the first reactions of many, but now, and in the future, it's just not going to work. The organisations that understand that – and recognise the opportunities (as well as the risks) are the ones that will succeed.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 10:09 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Thursday Sep 20, 2007
The internet - predicted in 1969
Picked up this video through the Guardian tech blog. It's 1969 (or is it?) and we're predicting a future networked world where people are using computers for radical things like shopping, finance management and watching videos of the kids. There are a few differences though....
And while we're on videos, here's one that does a nice summary of the big internet stories, virals and sudden online celebrities of the past 15 years.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 2:04 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Aug 02, 2007
Calling all you (custard) pie eaters
I'm a big fan of Flickr, and nowadays the non-profit world is full of organisations and individuals using it in all kinds of inventive and effective ways (stand up NSPCC, Beth Kanter and Greenpeace, amongst many, many others).
This made me chuckle though - Frederico Duarte is using Flickr to track the spread of "Pastel de Nata" cakes – Portugese Custard Pies to you and me. If you spot a Pastel de Nata, be sure to snap it and send it to Frederico's group on Flickr.
Funnily enough, at YouthNet we're using Flickr as a tool to build up our stock of pictures for www.TheSite.org. So, if you're a David Bailey in the making and fancy seeing some of your images on the UK's (perhaps the world's?!) greatest information, support and advice site for young people, you can find out more here.
Cheers to the Doors of Perception e-newsletter for the tip on Frederico's project.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 4:56 PM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Monday Jul 16, 2007
Old media still has a pulse: it's just different
The internet has killed off old media. Newspapers are disappearing; magazines are shutting down; record stores are closing; radio and TV stations are desperately tying to figure out how to survive in a YouTubed world.
Right? Maybe not.
This week, a couple of signs of life have been noticed in the dusty, non-digital media world:
-- Vinyl record sales are up, particularly among younger people apparently looking for something physical to own and cherish - which they're not getting from an external hard drive or iTunes subscription. Meanwhile, Rough Trade is opening "the UK's biggest record store" in London's Brick Lane this weekend. The owners reckon "shoppers crave expert advice, broad choice and excitement when they buy music" and that isn't on offer from high street stores or online sites.
-- Teen girls' magazines might be dropping like flies but other, niche publications are springing up in their place. This week Grace Magazine launches, a magazine run by the Church Times with the aim of offering young women an alternative to the celeb news and gossip of the normal women's output. Also trying to offer an alternative, but in a very different fashion, are feminist magazines like KnockBack and Uplift!
What old media seems to be learning from new media is that fragmentation of audiences and the expectation of personalisation mean once-size mass audience products aren't going to always work. Instead, niche magazines and shopping services run by passionate people that know their audiences and can offer – literally – the human touch, can still survive.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 4:39 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Jul 06, 2007
Where's your mobile?
Ask an average person in the street how exciting some research into where we keep our mobile phones is, and chances are you'll be met with a fairly sarcastic response.
If this keeps you awake at night, you can now sleep easy thanks to some great research brought to my attention in the Doors of Perception e-newsletter last week. Called "Where's the Mobile?", the research by Jan Chipchase explores where people carry their mobiles, and why, and I think it's pretty fascinating.
Some of the findings back up what you might expect, for example:
- "60% of men sampled carried their mobile phone in their trouser pockets, and of these most carried them in front right trouser pockets - positioned to be reachable by their dominant (right) hand."
- "61% of women sampled carried their mobile phone in a bag usually a hand bag."
In addition, "30% of pocket carriers and 50% of bag carriers sometimes or always miss incoming mobile phone communication."
In other words, going on this research, women miss more calls than men.
The research goes on to look at where people carry their keys and wallet (which, together with a mobile phone, make up what Jan calls the "mobile essentials"), and highlights some really interesting variations in this according to geographical location.
So what's the point of this? Well, for starters, if you're trying to communicate with mobile phone users, it might pay to think about how you deliver your message. For example, if the majority of women are likely to miss calls to their mobiles, have any companies or charities tried targeting them with SMS rather than voice calls?
Here at YouthNet we're also really interested in how people use their mobiles, especially since we launched phase II of TheSite.org on mobile (www.thesite.org on your mobile or www.thesite.org/mobile/home on your PC).
These issues that sit across cultural (in this case the clothes we wear and how they affect where we keep our mobiles) and technological (the specification of our mobile handsets and the speed and capacity of the mobile networks) spheres will become increasingly important for anyone looking to communicate with their target audiences on a meaningful basis.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:39 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Thursday Apr 26, 2007
Googleized
It's become fashionable to criticise Google for spreading itself too thinly and not concentrating solely on its core search product. While its revenues continue to soar and its share price goes up and up, the naysayers reckon too much diversification could be the company's downfall.
But perhaps Google are playing a longer game than they are sometimes given credit for. They now offer office software, for example, (including a new powerpoint-type product) that means you can run your life on Google products. None of the applications are as sophisticated as those offered by Microsoft, but in some respects the functionality is better and, more importantly, they are free.
The ease with which Google applications can be stuck together is also useful. Tom Smith has used Google Page Creator (yet another new tool) to build a website for a small running club that combines a blog, calendar, information pages and discussion. The interfaces are so user-friendly that the site, built in a day, can be maintained by club members with no previous technical experience.
You might dislike Google's growing dominance. You might prefer to see Microsoft's hegemony overthrown rather than replaced. But it's hard to deny that Google is making great products that are opening up access to the web and, in general, making life easier. So what if they're getting rich on the way?
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:25 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Apr 17, 2007
I've Got Social Web Angst
I had a bit of a funny moment this morning whilst working my way through my bowl of muesli at my desk. It was triggered by Fiona, our Chief Exec, passing me a clipping from today's Guardian Comments section. The clipping showed an interesting article by James Harkin about the psychological effects of social networking (as in the web 2.0 meaning of the term), and you can read it here.
Whilst I was looking for the article on the Guardian website, I came across another piece called "Farewell to Facebook" by Alex Stein. Both of these articles are interesting, and both adopt a cautionary tone about the perils of social networking.
What's interesting is both articles are written by people who, judging by their pictures, are not what is commonly taken as the typical social networking demographic.*
This got thinking about a seminar I went to last week, about how non-profits can use the social web. It was a great seminar - really interesting and very good to see what other people are up to in the non-profit world.
I couldn't help but notice though that the youngest person there was probably one of my colleagues, our Communities Development Officer for the community section of TheSite.org. In fact, most of the delegates were probably over 30 years old. I know there's a good reason for this – the work related nature of the seminar meant it was more relevant for a slightly older demographic.
One of the discussions at the seminar was about the risks of user created content and the importance of moderation. The conversation moved onto Tim O'Reilly's proposed Bloggers "Code of Conduct", and what was acceptable in terms of moderation of comments and posts.
At this point someone in the audience compared the conversation we were having at the seminar to conversations on blogs. Their point was that fruitful conversations occur when all parties have followed the thread of the conversation, and if that doesn't occur then of course it'll descend into anonymous abuse, name calling or potentially much worse. I disagree – the web should be the opposite of an exclusive online "club" (eg. you can only contribute if you're clued up), and a truly valuable conversation doesn't need two highly educated people - but that's beside the point.
My point (and believe it or not I do have one), is that the vast majority of people (myself included) that talk about web 2.0, the social web, the read-write web, whatever you want to call it, are not primarily in the age demographic that drives it, as quite a few readers of Alex Stein's article recognise judging by the comments. (*I know there are plenty of people outside of the 16-24 year old age range that are completely immersed in all things 2.0, and I know that often the demographic of sites like MySpace isn't quite what you might expect, but I still think most people would agree that the Social Web is predominantly driven by young people.)
That's an obvious point that people must have mentioned before, but shouldn't we be a bit worried about it?
Or is this the way that most big (massive?) social changes happen – the people doing it just get on with it, whilst the rest of us observe, take notes and come up with names for what we're seeing?
Given that this time, the social change we're seeing arguably is the people that are doing it, doesn't that make it different?
Having talked to quite a broad range of people about "web 2.0", I would say that most of them don't know what I'm on about, a few of them don't really relate to the term "web 2.0" at all, but happily live their lives predominantly online, and the others are, in the nicest possible way (and I include myself in this), geeks, who are passionate about technology and social change.
So, my questions are:
Does any one outside of "Web 2.0 World" care about this stuff at all?
Does the majority of "the people" that is at the heart of this huge cultural social shift know they're part of it?
Does it matter if they don't?
Phew, existentialist crisis over.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 4:36 PM ) Link to this post Comments[5]
Tuesday Apr 03, 2007
No laughing matter
The point at which moderators intervene in a forum is frequently a matter of judgement rather than the simple application of rules. Comment posters tend to enjoy sailing close to the wind and testing the tolerance of whichever blog or board they use. I was briefly a mod on TheSite.org's boards a few years ago and found myself continually having to ask more experienced moderators whether certain comments were acceptable or not .(They almost always were.)
A forum or blog's owners are, of course, responsible for the comments posted by users; they have published them. So I was surprised to see The Guardian happy to allow numerous jokes about paedophilia in the comments about a column by Zoe Williams.
The column was defending Ryhs Ifans' right to tell such jokes so I suppose the moderators were put in a tricky position. It appears that some jokes were removed but I'm pretty sure none at all would have been allowed in the printed edition of the newspaper, so I wonder what the justification is for permitting them online.
Perhaps it's simply that people are more used to seeing uncensored material online and are prepared to tolerate it. There is also the question of intent. As Zoe Williams article about Rhys Ifans argues, no one thinks for a moment that he is in fact defending paedophilia - his point is to challenge the taboo. The same, presumably goes for the joke tellers among the commentors.
I'm not convinced though. Some taboos deserve to be challenged in jokes. Others, including paedophilia, surely deserve their taboo status. That's not to say the subject should not be discussed, or conventional wisdom challenged, but not as a gag. And certainly not one where the punchline is that sex with children is acceptable (which is how the jokes attached to The Guardian column work), however obviously ironic the teller is being.
Real satirists choose their targets carefully. Chris Morris, for example, mocked the media's hysterical and self-serving attitude towards paedophilia. That was a taboo worth breaking.
Posted by Tom Green ( 5:40 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Mar 29, 2007
Homepage horror
There’s an increasing amount of consensus about web design these days, but the launch of the new-look Wired.com suggests that getting the homepage right is as difficult as ever.
The looks and feel of most sites is largely determined by the needs of accessibility and usability. There are lots of things that can be tweaked, but essentially there has to be a clear text area and straightforward navigation.
The homepage is the one place that sits outside of these conventions. It is the most important part of the site and the page that everyone in the organisation will have an opinion about and a stake in.
The particular challenge for Wired is the organisation of a huge amount of diverse content and, in my opinion, they’ve not done a very good job.
First impressions, which count for a lot online, are that it just feels wrong. There are big photos, shout-y headlines and a page that doesn’t fit on my lap-top screen. The navigation runs across the middle and, for those who’ve not been to the site before, there’s no explanation of what the site is about.
Trying to make sense of the categories is also difficult. What is the distinction between ‘Culture’, ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Gaming’? While the long list of blog posts at the bottom of the page threatens to be overwhelming.
The editor has defended the redesign but I’m not convinced. His case for the headline sizes is particularly weak.
*Why are the new top headlines so big? Because we believe design is a direct reflection of editorial point of view. Big headlines give us the chance, rarely used online, to change emphasis dramatically in real time, based on the events of the day. When big news hits, we'll play it big, so you'll be in no doubt about what we think is really important.*
Other news sites seem to manage to change emphasis without taking up two-thirds of my screen width with big black letters.
I reckon BBC News still sets the standard for news sites. Very clear, very easy to use and packed with both content and innovative tools. The one problem is finding anything on it that is more than a couple of days old – the search is rubbish.
Wired looks to me like a site designed by print people rather than web people. Maybe I should go back to reading the magazine.
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:58 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Friday Mar 02, 2007
Please forward this post to 10 of your friends
One of the mildly irritating trends of the early internet is making a return: the chain letter petition. And it's all the fault of Tony Blair.
Chain letters were a big thing in the mid to late nineties. Basically a gentle form of spam, chain letters arrived in your email inbox with one consistent trait: they always urged you to forward the email on to five, 10 or 20 of your best friends.
Some of these chain letters were nauseating but limited in their ambition – "we want everyone to smile at a stranger today" – while others were more serious in tone, like the ones containing elaborate stories of abduction, mass food poisonings or health scares. A basic Google search would prove them to be bunkum, and thankfully most people I know are savvy enough now not to be fooled by these.
But it's another type of chain email which is making a return – the email petition. These ones were traditionally focused on something terrible going on such as torture in Afghanistan or deforestation in Brazil and invited recipients to put their name to a petition calling for change. "Add your name and town to the list below and forward to 10 of your friends. If you are the 200th person, send the full list to xxxxx at the department of xxxx and then start a new email." Did anyone ever think that this would make one spot of difference? Obviously some people did, as the emails kept coming and the lists of signatories kept growing.
At some point the penny must have dropped for most people; these petitions were often bogus in their intentions and totally hopeless in their potential to enact change. I haven't been asked to add my name to any lists for a few years now – until last week when three requests came in.
The common link? No10 Downing Street's new petition site (which Jim has posted about before).
Does someone really think that I'm a rabid rights-of-car-owner supporter? Or that I care about photographers' need to take pics at live concerts? Or that I think cars are the devil's tool and that I might like to support a public transport cause?
No, I don't think so; it's not personal enough for that. The recipients aren't carefully selected - I even wonder if the sender has fully read the contents of the email themselves.
All three emails followed the traditional format of chain letter petitions: civilisation is on the edge of meltdown and can only be saved if we all sign this petition NOW! (and please forward this to everyone you know so they can sign too).
And this is why you get 2 million people saying road pricing is a bad idea without really understanding the policy. And it's also why half of them seem to be emailing me asking me to put my name to the list.
From YouthNet's point of view, it raises another question. When we receive these emails, we often also get asked to publish the requests on TheSite.org's discussion boards. But why (and how) could we make a judgment on whether repealing the Hunting Act is more or less important than building cycling lanes? The real fascination of this new petition site is how it shows the spectrum of viewpoint and for us to pre-filter is missing the point and setting us up for a fall.
All those that agree, please add your name and town in the comment box below. Just don't email me. Ever.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 11:38 AM ) Link to this post Comments[6]
Monday Feb 12, 2007
'Senior Ministers' unite against democracy
The writers of the BBC's The Thick of It must be rolling on the floor with laughter tonight. In their recent Christmas special they showed the horror of modern politicians at blogs or anything online that made them vulnerable to public comment. It seems life hasn't taken long to catch up with art.
Touted as a great leap forward in e-democracy the number 10 website has been allowing people to set up their own petitions and try to rally support for them, with an understanding that the government will then be prepared to at least consider the results.
Well the problem seems to be that it is working, people are looking at petitions and people are signing them. This kind of horrendous abuse of democracy has clearly ruffled a few feathers, with Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander forced to defend new government policies on road tax that one petition targets.
That petition has already seen over 1,000,000 people sign up to it, and to be clear, that requires a UK address and email verification. So will the government listen to this petition or will they find a way to ignore it?If it is ignored it means that the whole scheme has been little more than a wheeze, a fop to the idea of e-democracy that was never intended to do anything more than pretend people could use the internet to participate in their government. If that's the case then expect it to be replaced by a nice little website asking people to leave personal statements about how nice Tony is in real life.
But if it does work, well, this could be the start of something that really matters, a way of creating an instant and significant response to political proposals that provides a permanent record of real public opinion. Agree with the petition or not, it would be a significant step forward for the possibilities of net activism.
Hopefully the later will be true, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it. If over a million people marching can't stop a government policy, it'd be a surprise to see a million clicks manage it. Posted by Jim Valentine ( 9:50 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]
Monday Feb 05, 2007
Times Online relaunch
Schadenfreude is wrong, of course. Even when the suffering is being endured by part of Rupert Murdoch's globe-encompassing media empire.
But anyone who has struggled to launch a new or redesigned website could have been forgiven a smile this morning if they clicked onto The Times Online. At time of writing the homepage looks fine, albeit painfully slow to load. The section homepages are OK. But dig a little deeper and you get pages like this.
Update: read more about the relaunch and the explanation that it was vastly increased traffic that caused the problems. Of course it was!
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:40 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Jan 02, 2007
We need a Bureau of Technology Naming Conventions
What's in a name? Probably not that much, mostly. But knowing what to call something can become a real issue when you're trying to get something across clearly to users of your site, especially when what you're talking about has a dozen different names.Here's one for you: portable digital media players. Catchy term, isn't it? Well what else do you call that collection of devices that you can use to play music and movies on the go? Sometimes, by lazy or ignorant journalists, they're all just called iPods – but this isn't right as there are plenty of other companies making devices players that aren't Apple. What about calling them MP3 players? Well this is no good either – MP3 is only one file type. These players increasingly play all sorts of files. So when we encourage users to download podcasts, what do we suggest they put them on to?
Here's another one: forums. Or discussion boards. Or BBS. All these are used to describe thread-based online conversation tools. There's no one name used consistently for these things. All names are used, potentially confusing the users (do you know the difference between chat, instant messenger and discussion forums?) Some companies even try and invent their own names, which no one else bothers to use.
And what about video-casting, vlogging, video-blogging and vlodcasting? Or IPTV and broadband TV? All potentially similar things; all likely to have users scratching their heads.
On the surface, this is probably not overly relevant. But if publishers like us want to see higher take up (and mainstreaming) of some of the new tools, then people need to know what we're talking about.
What we need is a Big Brother-styled Bureau of Technology Naming Conventions. It can decide what these things are called. Even if what it comes up with is stupid, at least there will be some consistency.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 3:21 PM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Tuesday Dec 05, 2006
Side-stepping the studios
Attending the Digital Hollywood conference in London about the digital future of broadcasting last week I was struck by the fact that, despite all the technological change, the major Hollywood studios are still very much in charge.
The success of a new technology, whether it be video on demand or mobile TV was measured by speakers according to how many studios were on board.
Services like BitTorrent might have tweaked the media megaliths’ tails, but increasingly they are being brought into the mainstream media fold (see YouTube, for example).
So, even though it’s now possible to make feature films for micro-budgets, and more and more people (especially young people) are not watching TV, the same execs seem set to determine what turns up on our large and small screens. The broadcasting networks decide the TV schedule. The Hollywood studios, with a few exceptions, dictate what’s showing at the multiplex.
A glimpse of how things could be done differently came at the Digital Hollywood conference from one Tim Sparke. He’s the managing director of Mercury Media, a company that, along with Aggregator TV, is setting up a new broadband documentary channel called joiningthedots.tv. He told the conference that he felt people had become bored with mainstream media and were looking to broadband for an alternative. When they launch next year, he hopes to attract around 15,000 subscribers. Not only will they be able to get a wide range of documentaries online, they will also be able to invest in programmes that have not yet been made – what Sparke calls “the democratisation of finance”.
If joiningthedots.tv succeeds it could be replicated to provide other types of programming. We’ve got used to interactive media. Why shouldn’t that extend to being involved in actually commissioning and financing films?
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:57 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Nov 23, 2006
The new digital divide
It's not often that a web page makes me laugh out loud. But this one did. Do you think they really meant it to look like that?
It's much rarer to come across truly un-usable sites these days, but a new report from usability guru Jacob Nielsen argues that major problems remain, creating a significant digital divide.
Traditionally the digital divide has been seen as economic – those who can't afford online access are unable to share the benefits enjoyed by those that can. But Nielsen argues that, in the developed world at least, this will soon not be a problem.
Dell's cheapest computer costs $379 (with a monitor) and is about 500 times as powerful as the Macintosh Plus I used to write my Ph.D. thesis. While it's true that a few people can't even afford $379, in another five years, computers will be one-fourth their current price. Would that all social problems would go away if we simply waited five years.
Usability is a more intractable problem, Nielsen says - especially for those who are old or have poor literacy skills – but this, too, is improving.
The biggest challenge, Nielsen insists, is what he calls the empowerment divide: "...even if computers and the Internet were extraordinarily easy to use, not everybody would make full use of the opportunities that such technology affords." And, he continues, it's a difficult problem to address.
The Internet can be an empowering tool that lets people find good deals, manage vendors, and control their finances and investments. But it can just as easily be an alienating environment where people are cheated. Members of the Internet elite don't realize the extent to which less-skilled users are left out of many of the advancements they cheer and enjoy.
Ultimately, I'm extremely optimistic about the economic divide, which is vanishing rapidly in industrialized countries. The usability divide will take longer to close, but at least we know how to handle it - it's simply a matter of deciding to do so. I'm very pessimistic about the empowerment divide, however, which I expect will only grow more severe in the future.
Posted by Tom Green ( 12:08 PM ) Link to this post Comments[2]
Thursday Nov 09, 2006
Password to life
Facts of modern life: taxes, death and... passwords. How many are you expected to remember? Bank access, online accounts, email and much more; nowadays the universally accepted format for giving remote access to your personal information is via a pre-registered password.
It's like some new weird law of the internet that as the more areas of our lives go online, the more passwords we have to remember. It's almost like the price we pay for entering the matrix where information becomes personalised. As if to confirm this, the whole password phenomenon has become the subject of an increasing body of research.
Up to now there aren't that many remedies offered to dealing with 'authentication anger': saving passwords on your computer, getting your long forgotten password emailed to you or my personal favourite, just using the same password for everything (although this of course should never be advised). One authenticationally challenged friend who employed this method, topped it off by making that master password their own name- the canny double bluff solution to the modern blight of "forgotten password syndrome".
Behind all this is the double-edged nature of the impersonal side to the internet. In many situations, we take advantage of the impersonal potential of the internet: joining in discussions anonymously, indulging our curiosity for the risqué or even, sadly, ending a relationship. In others, the impersonal side counts against us: proving we are who we are to a computer system, losing money fraudulently or even having our identity phished and 'stolen'.
But does the internet really have to be like this? For many websites, logging in is arguably much more valuable to the entity behind the website than it ever is to the user. Harvesting personal information for marketing and other commercial purposes is a rapidly growing business. For example, no registration is required to submit a question on YouthNet's askTheSite service- even though this could undoubtedly offer us tantalising information about our users. There is a lot to be said for respecting internet users' confidentiality in this way.
With our online identity growing increasingly, how providers of web services protect their users' confidentiality is only going to become more of an issue. Personally, I'd also add/plead for less automated authentication- burying ourselves in passwords is rapidly losing its viability as an option.
If I get asked what my imaginary pet's name is again I'll probably explode :-)
Posted by Patrick Daniels ( 12:10 PM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Thursday Oct 19, 2006
Podcast listening makes me lonely
Podcasts, along with blogs, social networking, wikis and video sharing, are seen as key developments of the new, fancy Web 2.0 approach to the web.An ethos of all these services is one of user participation, a DIY system where users can easily become creators. Another binding factor is that of multiple niches; that no matter what you're interested in, you'll find content around that interest - and other people interested in it too (ala the Long Tail).
Now, I love podcasting. There's a bunch of audio shows that I download every week, copy on to my MP3 player and listen to on the bus on the way home from work. But I do have one big problem with it. Instead of being a connecting thing, where you meet others with mutual interests it instead feels like a totally solitary experience.
No one I know (in the real world) listens to the shows I do. Fragmentation and personalisation means that we all stick to our own interests and there's no chance for water cooler conversations.
Each week, I listen to s US tech show called This Week in Tech. Not even the techies in my office would listen to this as the angle of the show is more about the business of IT than IT itself. It is also Very, Very American, something many Brits can't acquire a taste for.
I also listen to a couple of podcasts from my home country New Zealand, and there aren't many people in London who would choose to do that. And I look out for NBA podcasts, particularly if they're talking about the Houston Rockets. Yup, that's niche listening and unsurprisngly, no one in my offline networks remotely cares about Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and co.
But I'm missing the point, I hear you say. The internet also enables me to go online to talk about these shows and the issues they bring up. True, but I just don't get round to it. Podcast-capturing software means you don't even have to visit the sites where the communities are; the software just pulls the files down automatically so I have no reason to visit the online homes of This Week in Tech or bFM. And even when I have, you come across frightening reminders that user-gnerated content isn't always the most readable content. Also, just because me and a Texan 16 year old both follow the Rockets, it doesn't mean I want to be his friend. Which is probably a good thing, right?
I'm not necessarily pining for the old days of three TV channels and everyone listening to the chart show on Radio 1, but there's something great about sharing media experiences with colleagues and friends - something I'm not currently getting with podcasts. Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 3:17 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]
Tuesday Oct 17, 2006
What the well-dressed young person is wearing today
According to The Daily Mail this is a new gadget from Toshiba "that enables the wearer to experience a full 360-degree view on a 40 centimetre dome-shaped screen."
The Guardian's Jack Schofield is not convinced.
Exactly how do they think you can see a 360 degree display? At best, given a dome-shaped fish-eye screen, you might see 180 degrees or even more, but most of us don't have eyes in the backs of our heads. (Projecting a real 360 degree display from a point source is a bit tricky, especially if there's a human head in the way, but so is making spherical LCD screens.)
Let's hope he's right. Here at YouthNet we're only just getting to grips with putting our websites on mobile phones. Making them visible through 360 degrees might take a little work.
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:21 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Monday Oct 09, 2006
Google and YouTube to own the world
Moments ago Google announced that they were buying YouTube for US$1.6 billion in stock. It's quite incredible how YouTube in little over a year has become the hottest thing on the internet. In Saturday's (paper) copy of the Guardian I counted four articles that mentioned the video-sharing site.
But is anyone that interested? Does this news really matter to the people who don't obsess about blogs, podcasts and the long tail business models (and if this research is right, then that's almost everyone)?
Well yes, it does matter. Just because people don't know what podcasts are, it doesn't mean that radio people aren't running scared. Or that video sharing isn't making TV broadcasters gulp with fear. Or that anyone who is involved in top down, non-digital media isn't thinking about their careers.But this is just an issue fo media-folk, right? Wrong. Anyone who wants to get messages out needs to understand how and where people are moving (or in some cases, moved). This is a big thing for charities and non-profits too. I spent last Thursday with a bunch of people at NCVO looking at social networking and how charities might benefit (or at least cope) with the new, distributed, peer-to-peer world. The key point for me was that the opportunities are massive for charities willing to dive on in.
And if they don't, others will. The US government is already posting just-say-no drug videos on YouTube. The enemy has struck first; now it's time to respond. ;-) Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 9:06 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Sep 13, 2006
David Miliband and the death of wiki
One of my regular moans is that politicians are, without exception, totally out of touch with the real world. I don't think they all are when they first enter politics (although some are), but after a year or two cocooned in the bizarre, sheltered world of Westminster, they start talking in strange ways and bit by bit, shed any personality and honesty they may have once hadIt's hardly surprising then that politicians are respected about as lowly as cockroaches and estate agents (OK, not quite as low as estate agents). Young people, in particular have no time for these self important men and women in suits and voting turn-out is depressingly low among this age group.
So what to do about it? At YouthNet, whenever given the chance, we tell politicians that they need to rethink the ways that they engage with the public. Come to where they are; talk in normal language, not wonk-speak, speak honestly and most importantly, LISTEN.
One of the ways they can do more of this is through the internet and other emerging technologies. We've had some good discussion on TheSite.org with politicians who have opened themselves up more than usual and we intend to do more of these sorts of things in the future. The politicians involved should be encouraged to do more.
And some are. David Miliband has been blogging for a few months and has even set up a wiki on the Defra website, asking the public to feed into the government's views on the environment (wikis are collaborative online documents which anyone can edit - more here). OK, so this is all toe-dipping rather than a big government dive into the New World, but it's a start.
Still, Miliband has been slated for it in some quarters, mainly because the consultation is too limited, too controlled - some of the comments and thoughts of the public have even been deleted. It's a tricky balance: if you open up and agree to consultation, you can't choose what comments you like or don't like. But doesn't some responsibility lie with the public to at least be civil? Respectful of the process?
Maybe not. Perhaps Miliband should take the rough with the smooth. The danger though, is if these consultation exercises get too heated or noisy, then the politicians will use this as an excuse to retreat back in to their ivory towers, relying just on managed focus groups for their public involvement. Which is hardly a big conversation, whatever way you spin it. Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 8:41 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Sep 01, 2006
Happy BlogDay 2006
In case you didn't know today is BlogDay 2006. It was set up to encourage all bloggers to recommend five blogs, so here are mine:
And of course our very own do-it.org.uk blogs
So does anyone have any other recommendations?
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 12:33 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]
Tuesday Aug 22, 2006
When bad web design (almost) works
At first glance, MoneySavingExpert.com looks like a site created to demonstrate the "don'ts" of web design. Flashing graphics, scrolling text, a multitude of fonts and colours, tinted backgrounds – all that makes websites hard to use is here. The site is dotted with what seem to be cheap adverts and you can almost hear the rushing sound of spyware surging onto your hard-drive.
The truth is, however, that MoneySavingExpert.com is the leading personal finance site in the UK. The man behind it, Martin Lewis, (no, not Martyn Lewis) writes newspaper columns and hosts TV shows. More importantly, his site is excellent. Packed with concise and useful information and hosting a forum that is fizzing with helpful advice.
So why is the design of the site so bad? It might be that Mr Lewis and his web designer, Darren (scroll down), are still stuck in 1995. But could it be that the look and feel of the site is in fact, extremely sophisticated? Its obvious amateurism creates the impression of something created by an honest friend – no money wasted! The colours and graphics make it cheerful and upbeat – we can help you! And, when you look more closely, there are in fact no adverts and no spyware – you can trust us!
Or maybe it just shows that web design doesn't always matter quite as much as some people would have us believe. A million users a month say that MoneySavingExpert.com's content is what counts.
Posted by Tom Green ( 8:26 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Aug 18, 2006
Happy WAP-ping
Ever since mobile phone companies paid £22.5 billion for 3G networks in the UK people have been questioning whether mobile internet really was the next big thing.
Despite the companies' best efforts the results have been disappointing. Mobile internet page impressions averaged about 1.5 billion per month through 2005, but growth appears to have slowed. And, according to a survey (PDF file) earlier this year, only 11% of British mobile phone users have accessed mobile internet, compared with 28% worldwide.
The same research suggests that "One in three (33%) British mobile phone users want to surf the web on their mobile phones, but only if it is like the true Internet environment."
Well, they aren't going to get that. I had my first proper go on a WAP phone this week (I know, not exactly an early adopter) and it is very much text-based with only around 50 words fitting onto a screen.
Nonetheless, having previously been sceptical about mobile internet, I found myself converted. The connection was quick and, on a well-designed site, it's easy to browse. The BBC, having previously paid WAP little attention, seems to agree. Last night I saw them promoting their WAP sites on TV and, according to a recent report "page views [for BBC sites] for WAP usage are growing at 100% year on year", with the biggest increases coming from Africa.
YouthNet, too, will soon be publishing content on mobiles, partly because young people are more likely to have a phone than a computer.
The key factor determining future growth will probably be charges. Digital TV took off when Freeview was offered for nothing; broadband became widespread when prices began to fall dramatically. Will the mobile phone companies, saddled with their 3G debts, be able to offer users similar encouragement?
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:40 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]