Straight To The Point

Please Rob Me

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:29:00 +0000

Fancy a bit of easy (ish) burglary?

Obviously I'm not condoning this law breaking act in any way, but should you be inclined then new website Please Rob Me will be just up your street.

By gathering information from location aware online apps and posting twitter updates from people who are willingly advertising the fact they are not at home, a list of 'opportunities' presents itself.

Found via ITPro, and as quoted in their article:

Seriously, would you put an advert in the local paper saying ‘I’m leaving my house tomorrow at 10am and won’t be back for 3 hours’ or such like?

I’m guessing the answer is no, yet plenty of people are quite happy to do the equivalent online in the name of being social, or playing a game. It really does beggar belief.

Blog redesign

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:01:00 +0000

I'm slowly creaking my way through a redesign of the blog over the next few days, largely to make more room for my twitter posts which are far more frequent and up-to-date than some of the longer articles... things have been very busy of late!

If you spot anything broken or have any suggestions then please let me know.

Thoughts on Local Social Summit 2009

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Last week I attended the first Local Social Summit in London - a day aimed at exploring the space where local content meets social media with attendees from a range of start-ups, directories, media companies, advertisers and media owners.

If you're interested in any of this type of stuff then all of the days presentations are available on SlideShare.

The two most insightful keynotes of the day were on a related theme - the impact and usage of social networking sites in comparison to how people, particularly the young, conduct their social lives in the 'real world'.

The first, 'Decoding Friends: A Generation Y View' by Robert Barnard was a research based piece with some interesting numbers:

15-29 year olds have an average of 43 online 'friends' based on recent research in UK, US and Canada.
Only 12% have more than 70 online friends
Numbers of face-to-face and online friends varies through different stages in life, whereas 'phone friends' remains fairly constant.

LSS'09 Keynote Decoding Friends

View more documents from Local Social Summit.

Following this, Bernie Hogan, a PhD from University of Oxford, presented 'Making Sense of the Networked Audience: The Case of Facebook' which provided some different numbers but similar conclusions:

A list of 12 reasons why someone might become an online friend with another individual
"Nearness is now a social property as much as a spatial one"

LSS'09 Keynote Decoding Friends

View more documents from Local Social Summit.

There was plenty of interesting discussion throughout the day and a chance to hear how a diverse range of companies are all moving into the local/social space looking for new revenue stream.

Some particular points of interest from the day:

"Obama had the same percentage of votes from young people as Bill Clinton - don't overestimate social media"
Heavy social network users are more likely to use newspapers and are more interested in local news than international.
MapZen - a free iPhone app coming soon from CloudMade that allows users to easily add points of interest to openstreetmap.
Yellix - a mobile app to help phone calls, e.g. Live directory look-up of unknown caller numbers so no more unknown callers.

And if you haven't heard about Flutter then you should take a look now:

My input involved a 5 slide presentation on the BBC's local services, a reflection that BBC Local Radio started doing local-social over 40 years ago, and then a lively panel debate on how local do you need to be to be effective and finding the right balance between content providers and content aggregators.

@straight2tpoint Twitter feed

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:16:00 +0000

After months of confusing my non-work friends with local media postings from my @jthornett twitter account I thought I'd set up a new feed based around this blog and all things related to local media and location services.

The most recent tweets from @straight2tpoint are now displayed on the right hand side of this blog but please follow me on Twitter if you want to keep right up to date.

It still feels slightly schizophrenic to have two different versions of me on the web but hopefully it will make information updates and conversation more focused and relevant to the right audience - or maybe it will all go horribly wrong, let's find out!

The Perfect local Media Company in 2014

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:59:00 +0000

Tomorrow's Local Social Summit '09 in London promises to be an interesting and thought provoking day.

I'm speaking in a panel discussion on Local Content & Monetisation although coming from the BBC angle my focus will be more on local content and social opportunities rather than commercial monetisation.

Some key questions I'd like to discuss include:

How local is local? What level of localness is most effective?
How will the market find the right balance between content providers and content aggregators?
The web makes the whole world social, so when does local matter?

The final item of the day will be hosted by Praized’s Seb Provencher and is titled, What does the Perfect Local Media Company Look Like in 5 Years Time.

The slides make for an interesting read and ask some really good questions... I'm looking forward to the session.

The Perfect Local Media Company Sebastien Provencher Lss 09 Presentation November 2009 Final

View more documents from Media Viking.

Guardian Local due for 2010 launch

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:01:00 +0000

The Guardian have announced a move into the provision of local news on the web in 2010 with the launch of Guardian Local in three UK cities.

Sarah Hartley, the Guardian local launch editor said:

"While researching developments at the grassroots of community journalism, I've been impressed by the range and depth of coverage from local websites and blogs. This experimental project reflects both the shifting nature of journalism and the reality on the ground."

Recruitment is now underway to find professional bloggers (job title: Beatblogger) to work on the three initial services in Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

The successful candidate will be a confident blogger, know their yelps from their tweets, have a passion for local news and understand how to build relationships with the local community. A journalism qualification is desirable but not essential.

The future of local media is, erm, regional?!?

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:50:00 +0000

The Future of Local Media conference in Salford took place today, the same day that Ofcom released it's response to a Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) consultation on delivering TV news in the nations and regions.

Ofcom also released a research report on Local and Regional Media in the UK.

Thus Stewart Purvis, Partner, Content & Standards at Ofcom, started proceedings with this presentation on Local and Regional Media in the UK: the view from Ofcom.

Quite correctly the report touches on different levels of localness, suggesting that audiences generally percieve a hierarchy that looks like this:
UK -> My Nation -> My Region -> My Local Area -> My Community.

I like this, although I might be tempted to take out 'Local Area' and replace with My City/Town or something more specific. The word 'local' is far too ambiguous to be a useful definition.

At least this hierarchy removes the awful terms 'hyperlocal' or 'ultra-local' - 'community is a term that is much easier to relate to my surroundings.

Apparently the research showed that there are 69 media websites covering the Salford and Greater Manchester area... wow!

When it comes to the crunch, declining revenues from the traditional advertising model, there are some overdue numbers on how specialist online sites are taking all important audience away from traditional newspaper earners - think rightmove for property, Auto Trader for cars and totaljobs for recruitment.

Then a statement that "Local journalism is important because it underpins democratic participation in the UK" and it does this using four key methods: Informing, representing, campaigning and interrogating.

Next up, a panel debate on the proposal for independently funded news consortia to take over ITV's public service provision of regional news.

The basic story is that ITV are no longer required to provide regional news programmes from the point of digital switchover in 2012 and have said that, due to the cost, they will not continue.

Ofcom is keen on independent news consortia being formed to provide this news on channel three with funding being provided from... well, nobody is sure yet but that's where the debate on top-slicing the BBC license fee starts.

Alex Connock, Chief Executive, Ten Alps - "We would take advertising slots on Northern Irish TV tomorrow if possible... without any news subsidy".

Ruth Spratt, Managing Director, MEN Media, unconvincingly tried to explain why additional public money is required to supply a regional news programme on channel three given that their Channel m is currently fully operational on existing funding.

John Angeli, Head of Content, Press Association - "It's not just about nightly news programmes, it's about content on all platforms".

The Press Association want to be suppliers of text, audio and video content for everyone to use across all platforms.

Helen Thomas, Head of BBC Yorkshire, talked about the success of the local content on the local television trial in Hull in 2001 and stated that, going forward, "The BBC is open for conversations on potential partnership discussions.".

Michael Jermey, Director of News, Current Affairs and Sport at ITV then explained how ITV are intending to end their provision of regional news across the UK, thus saving them an estimated £68 million in production costs, but are intending to keep some ownership of the branding and look and feel of any regional news programme that takes that slot.

The current regional news time slot is estimated to be worth around £30 million in potential advertising revenue (totalled across all of the UK) which could be an incentive for independent consortia to come forward and produce a regional news programme for the channel 3 slot.

Oh, but Michael says ITV are intent on keeping any potential advertising revenue, saying that allowing independent news consortia to advertise in the slot and earn revenue would be the equivalent of top slicing ITV and this will not happen.

Michael Jermey, "We consider it our airtime, we keep the revenue".

Thankfully lunch arrived to save us from a discussion that, frankly, belongs in the past and should not be a part of the future.

Taking stock over lunch there was one thought on my mind... this is supposed to be a conference on the future of local media, not a debate on how to maintain regional television for another 15 years.

The afternoon began in much brighter spirit with Will Perrin, founder of Talk About Local, finally turning the conversation around to the subject of local and the future.

public service news - starting with the internet - william perrin salford

View more presentations from william perrin.

Kings Cross Environment is where it all started for Will, 800 stories in an area about 1 x 1.5 miles allowing local people to campaign, interrogate, inform and represent their small part of the UK.

The Kington Blackboard demonstrates where Talk About Local is going, aiming to train 3,000 people across the UK in the next few years in the tools, methods and techniques to set up websites for their own local areas.

Pits 'n' Pots, a website for Stoke On Trent, was hailed by Will as a perfect example of holding local democracy to account.

Want a local TV station on the Internet... try local.me, a simple model that Will and others have set up to quickly demonstrate how easy, and cheap, it can be.

So onto another panel discussion.

Robert Hardie, Content Strategy Director at Northcliffe Media said that "The Internet provides a mechanism for those people that have a story and want it published. We need to find a business model to fund journalism that can dig out the stories that people don't want published."

Neil Benson, Editorial Director, Regionals, Trinity Mirror followed that by saying that Trinity Mirror wants to expand their websites from the core business of news and sport journalism into local hubs with a much broader range of information.

Their postcode based pilot in Teeside was hailed as a success with "200 bloggers writing for free", although Neil later acknowledged that "we find it harder to work with community groups and small local organisations."

Why? Because, he said, "we are hard to work with".

So, Steve Barnett from the University of Westminster asked from the back of the room, do we need professional journalists working for newspapers and broadcasters to reveal the local equivalent of the mp expenses scandal, to uncover police corruption, find the dirty hospital wards, and so on.. or can very local community sites do this?

Those that provided an answer could see a future that is already starting to exist now, where sites like Birmingham: It's Not Shit are starting to contribute to democracy in the UK, to inform, represent, campaign and interrogate.

Those that stayed silent were still trying to work out where they can find new sources of funding to prop up decades old business models that are about to die out.

Using maps on news websites

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:19:00 +0000

Paul Bradshaw posted some thoughts yesterday on the use of maps on news websites, a subject often discussed on this blog.

Most recent 'highlights' are discussed such as MPs expenses, although Mapumental from MySociety is not listed, nor is my favourite longstanding example of a local news map, the London SE1 News Map.

There is a good list of the advantages in using maps:

They provide an easy way to grasp a story at a glance
They allow users to drill down to relevant information local to them very quickly
Maps can be created very easily, and added to relatively easily by non-journalists
Maps draw on structured data, making them a very useful way to present data such as schools tables, crime statistics or petrol prices
They can be automated, updating in response to real-time information

However, the post doesn't really get stuck into the difficulties and disadvantages of this approach. I've outlined a couple of points below which I believe are major barriers to a successful map-based news website.

User Experience / Usability
User research suggests that most of the audience still see a map as a route-finding device, a answer to "show me how to get from A to B" or "tell me where this building is", whereas news has long been consumed in a linear fashion, "Give me the big story of the day, what's the second most important item, and so on".

Mapping functionality is also quite complicated for a lot of web users and you cannot rely on the audience easily understanding how to pan, zoom, scroll a map, or cope with the differences in graphical pin-points, hover panels, embedded audio/video content.

Web users generally want to get at information quickly, particularly time-sensitive journalism content, and any design or interface barriers that prevent this can be quite a turn-off.

Geo-tagging or "Where do i put this story?"
It would be simply fantastic to be able to assign a latitude/longitude tag to every piece of content we create so that it can appear at the correct location on a map.

The reality is that this is simply not possible and even if it were possible, further difficulties emerge.

For example, imagine a bunch of stories appearing this week on transfer deadline day relating to one football club making several new player signings, whilst also being in the news for other financial or business reasons. We can easily tag all stories with the lat/long relating to the football club's home stadium, but how do users easily find and navigate between a cluster of stories located at the same point on the map?

Often there is more than one relevant location that can be associated with a news story.
For example, a person from location A, in partnership with another person from location B, is arrested for an armed robbery in location C, and the forthcoming trial will take place at location D.

Can we geo-tag this story with all relevant locations? Does the technology understand the difference between each location? Does it matter?

Importantly, whatever the technology or editorial strategy delivers, how do we communicate this to our audience within the mapping interface? An interface which is already quite complicated and overcrowded with the standard set of mapping tools, place labels, and options for different graphical layers.

Then we have the regional story.
For example, House prices in Devon have fallen by X.

Devon is generally not a point on a map (it might be if the map displayed all of Europe in a small enough image size on screen and it was not possible to zoom in!) and yet we have a potentially important news story that needs to be geo-tagged.

Postcodes introduce a similar problem as they are also polygonal areas rather than specific points. Tagging content with postcode does not provide a dot on the map for that content to be assigned to, it provides a region boundary similar to county, borough, electoral ward, and the many other areas of this type.

News stories can relate to other shape patterns. A news story about a river or a train journey needs a line on the map.

Some of these examples can be solved by providing a single point approximation to represent the story, although this can also be dangerous.

The BNP membership map from 2008 provided several lessons in this area. At one point, whilst trying not to pinpoint exact houses, postcodes where used to make the information less specific. Unfortunately the mapping tool, in trying to be clever with the data, plotted the information at a specific point in the centre of the postcode, thereby seeming to be an accurate house-by-house set of data - but unfortunately pointing at all the wrong points on the map.

What's the big story?
As I mentioned under the usability heading above, audiences have become very familiar with consuming news in a certain way that is very different to the map based approach.

A map is perfect for showing me something that is happening near to me, especially if it's a story that wouldn't normally make the top headlines, but I still want someone to tell me the big news, even if it is a little further away.

And that, I think, is the key target right now. Not simply solving these challenges and aiming to get as much of our content as possible onto a map, but finding the right way to include mapping as part of the consumption of news content.

Speaking at Where2.0 in 2008 Adrian Holovaty stated that 'One question i like to ask myself is, would my site succeed without maps?'.

It's a very good question to keep asking.

Microsoft to partner with local newspapers for MSN Local News Map

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:50:00 +0000

Microsoft, through their MSN Local portal, are hoping to provide local news on a map, in partnership with local newspapers across the UK.

Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, said: “We are hoping to take feeds from local newspapers and tag every piece of information to a map. Hyper-local news online has never been more important and we think this is a really interesting growth area.”

Very interested to see how this compares with Trinity Mirror's beta news map in Merseyside which has improved since it's launch last year but still does not feel very user friendly.

Geo-tagging news content is a really complex task and presenting this on a map defies the usual logic of consuming news in order of importance, can't wait to see how Microsoft tackle this.

(From Telegraph.co.uk)

Northcliffe Local People media briefing

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Northcliffe explain the launch of Local People "a network of websites for people to get together and discuss the issues affecting their communities".

Birmingham Local Blogs Wire

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Following my recent post on Will Perrin's Talk About Local initiative, Jon Bounds has pushed ahead and created a Birmingham Local Blogs Wire by feeding a selection of blogs about Birmingham through Yahoo! Pipes.

You can read all about the thinking behind the Birmingham Blog Wire here.

Robin Hamman (@cybersoc) and I spent many an hour talking through this type of aggregation during his time at the BBC, primarily as method for BBC Local journalists across the UK to work more effectively with the local bloggers and active websites within their patch.

Sadly we never got past the talking part which is why it's really great to see something like this finally come alive, hooray!

Setting the power of postcodes free

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Ernest Marples Postcodes Ltd, whoever they may be, are encouraging you to use their free API to geocode your UK postcode data, with a plea to the Government and Royal Mail to make this 'official'.

Sites already using the service include:-

Jobcentre Pro Plus — Search for jobs in your area
PlanningAlerts.com — Get alerts for planning applications near you
The Straight Choice — Help monitor the claims of election leaflets
voteUK — A mobile service to look up your local polling station (in development)

Northcliffe launches community sites for local people

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:06:00 +0000

Another attempt to provide local communities with a voice online has recently been piloted by Northcliffe Media in South West England.

From journalism.co.uk

Northcliffe and its digital arm Associated Northcliffe Digital have begun the roll-out of its ambitious plans for a network of hyperlocal websites.

The new platforms will be evenly distributed between areas with existing Northcliffe titles and those which are not served.

The sites are intended as platform for the local community and not as a traditional community news site, said Bryan, who said the network would be complimentary to the existing thisis network of regional news sites.

"What we are trying to do is to deliver a network of local sites that are aimed at providing local people in quite small communities a place and a space online to debate local issues," he added.

The sites look nice enough (See Exmouth as an example) and tick all the cliched boxes of current web design... a homepage segmented by round-cornered components, the ability to create a user profile, a twitter/facebook-esque status update, plus the standard newspaper diet of motors, properties, jobs and classifieds.

My concern is that the site already feels very busy and driven editorially by the desires of Northcliffe. There also seems to be very little recognition or attempt to integrate these sites with the existing blogs, websites, profiles of web active people already in the area - surely a key element of getting a foothold in any local community.

If you want to help local people in small communities get involved in their local space on the web then my hunch is that the Talk About Local approach has a better model.

Each website will, I imagine, be focused on solving a very specific local need, in essence doing one thing really, really well.

All this talk of new local websites and no mention of maps, maybe that bubble has started to burst!

4iP funds local community website project

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:11:00 +0000

Talk About Local is aiming to "empower 3,000 people directly in 150 places across nine English regions with a focus on the most disadvantaged areas." by offering free advice, training materials and support to anyone who wants give their community a voice online.

Run by Will Perrin, the project is starting up in the West Midlands with funding provided by the 4iP/Screen West Midlands/Advantage West Midlands partnership.

Talk About Local plans to work with UK online centres to give people the coaching and skills they need to use simple publishing tools such as popular free blog platforms.

4iP's Dan Heaf outlines the two main reasons for funding the project on the 4iP blog.

Firstly, it stimulates alternative voices bringing fresh perspectives to the web. This project is all about giving those without a voice online a chance to get themselves heard. With the emphasis on creating local sites we hope the majority of the sites will be local in flavour helping to fill the gap being left by the retreat of traditional local journalism.

Secondly, by giving voices to local activists the project continues to hold those with money and power to account. Again we hope this will take up and enhance the job once done by local newspapers.

Reading all of this made me think of BirminghamB29 which I started almost two years ago and has been gathering pace of late due to the attentions of pindec and citizensheep in particular.

There's nothing particularly "activist" about the B29 site but as an experiment in local publishing it proves that a truly local site, covering an area small enough to walk around in a few hours, will be of greater relevance and interest than most of the supposedly "local" services offered by the more traditional media.

In fact, my favourite learning from BirminghamB29 site is just how much there is to investigate, to write about, and to get out there and do, in such a relatively small area of the UK.

In case you missed it, the Talk About Local project even gets a specific mention in the Digital Britain report.

4IP and Screen West Midlands are making a major investment in Talk About Local to create hundreds of new community websites by giving community activists the simple skills

I hope that the T.A.L. team don't get overly hung up on the negative, almost political, focus that the 'community activist' tag suggests.

Often the power of a community lies in it's ability to have fun, to play together, and not simply when a group or individual feels that something needs to change.

...and I still wish that the ridiculous use of the phrase 'hyperlocal' could be banished forever! It's not hyperlocal, it's just local.

MySociety unveil Mapumental

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:17:00 +0000

Yesterday MySociety announced Mapumental, a new service designed to help you plan your life better using the wealth of public transport and travel information available across the UK.

Currently in private beta (you can register here) the application has been built with support from Channel 4’s 4IP programme.

Take a look at the video:

Mapumental is the culmination of an ambition mySociety has had for some time - to take the nation’s bus, train, tram, tube and boat timetables and turn them into a service that does vastly more than imagined by traditional journey planners.

MP Expenses Map

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:47:00 +0000

With all of the recent attention focused on UK Mp's expenses it's no wonder that a number of maps are appearing to help browse the data.

One of my favourites is this one using MS Virtual Earth created by Shoothill.

Google Street View in the clear

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:19:00 +0000

Following protests and complaints over the introduction of Google's Street View technology in the UK, the UK's Information Commissioner has today ruled that it should not be stopped.

A spokesman for the privacy watchdog said removing the entire service would be "disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment".

Local (radio) websites from the BBC

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:59:00 +0000

I don't normally blog about specific BBC projects or work that I'm involved in on the 'day job', you can catch all of that information on the BBC Internet Blog.

However, as my recent trips to Canada (photos pending) and Cornwall have left me feeling very out of touch with the online world then what better way to start the ball rolling again than with a response to this excellent post from Matt Deegan on the current design refresh of the BBC's local websites.

Matt is correct, the local sites are going through a refresh this year which is allied to a migration of the sites onto the same content production system that has been used for some time for the BBC news and sport websites.

Currently only Bristol, Norfolk and South East Wales are live with the new templates but we aim to achieve a full roll-out by the end of the year.

There are many good points in the post relating to the presentation of content and information relating to the local radio station for Bristol on the site. I think we'll be taking quite a few of them on board as we continue to develop the visual design of the templates! (thanks Matt)

It's worth pointing out that we have very recently put our local radio programme information into the BBC Programmes system which delivers schedule and programme information integrated with on-demand and live listening via the BBC iPlayer.

It's a complicated set-up and we undoubtedly haven't yet got the perfect balance between delivering on-demand and live audio via the iPlayer, schedules via the /programmes site, and local news and information on the BBC Local website.

And there's plenty of work to do on finding the best way to visualise this wide ranging variety of content, with it's associated set of BBC brands, without presenting a multi-coloured swap shop style experience to our users.

We want a website that appeals to listeners of the radio station, but we also want to deliver a local BBC service to all license fee payers that live in the Bristol area, irrespective of which radio station they listen to.

Olly Benson and Nick Wallis have commented on the regulatory restrictions around what a local BBC web service can provide but I still believe there is much that we can, and should, do.

So in answer to Matt's original question, Have the BBC just given up on local radio websites?, my answer is absolutely not, but it's a more complicated solution than providing a website for the 162,000 people listening to BBC Bristol on 94.9 and 103.6 FM.

Residents complain over Google street view cameras

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Another story from BBC News today on the privacy issues surrounding Google's Street View technology - residents of Broughton, near Milton Keynes, staged a protest and accused Google of invading their privacy and facilitating crime.

Twenty five UK cities went live on 19th March with the Netherlands version also going live on the same date, making a total of nine countries now covered.

Guardian allows users to geo-tag content with launch of new Open Platform tool

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:15:00 +0000

The Guardian has today launched Open Platform with the hope of freeing up their data and allowing users to build other tools and services using Guardian content.

Of particular interest is the work on a crowd-sourced solution to geo-tagging.

"Stamen and OpenStreetMap developed a service that they hope will encourage Guardian readers to "geo-tag" the newspaper's content, positioning every article, video and picture on a map so users can find news, commentary, video and other content related to their area.

The Guardian experimented with geo-location during last year's US presidential election, and hopes the project will help add location information to its vast archive of content."

BBC Trust rejects local video proposals

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:17:00 +0000

The BBC Trust confirmed today that it has refused permission for a planned BBC Local Video service after concluding its public value test (PVT) into the proposals.

Diane Coyle, BBC Trustee and Chairman of the Strategic Approvals Committee, said:

"The Trust is committed to improving regional and local services from the BBC for licence fee payers but a broadband-only local video news proposal is unlikely to achieve what they want.

"Instead, we believe the BBC's priority should be improving the quality of existing regional services. We recognise that the ways of achieving this may vary in different parts of the UK. We have asked the Executive to come back to us with new proposals later this year which will then be fully scrutinised by the Trust.

The final decision can be read in full on the BBC Trust website.

Links (9th February 2009)

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Share your aerial imagery with the world
Google invites anyway to share their own aerial imagery via Google Maps.
London 2012 Map
Already getting excited about the prospect of the London Olympics? Then this map could be just what you need.
Flickr reaches 100,000,000 geotagged photos
Which means that around 3.3% of the 3 billion photos on Flickr have geo data of some form.
Open source mapping for Birmingham
Birmingham becomes the first UK city to be full 'openstreetmapped'.
Sky News sees 'opportunity' in regional news websites
Press Gazette reports that "Sky News is exploring the possibility of launching a series of regional websites around the UK to complement its national TV news channel."

Google Latitude launches

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:43:00 +0000

Google launched it's own Fire Eagle today, enabling you to 'See your friends on a map and get in touch'.

I haven't had enough time to get properly stuck in but from first viewing the Google Latitude user experience is more map-based and the 'sales pitch' is much more end-user focused.

Whilst all the hype around Fire Eagle was it's ability to be the 'glue' between applications, storing, retrieving and passing on location information, Google Latitude seems to be promoted as an application that will directly help you organise your real world existence by knowing if your friends are nearby, if your parents' flight arrived safely, and so on.

They are essentially the same thing in a different package.

I guess the next technological breakthrough will be a device, small enough to put in your pocket, that will include an audio speaker and receiver set such that, upon entry of a particular numeric code, you will be able to converse directly, one-to-one, with anyone else with a similar device.

Then you could find out, not only if your friends are nearby and if that flight arrived safely, but how everyone is feeling, whether they saw the game last night, and if anyone fancies a beer?
Oh, hang on... (photo: Olib)

From a business point of view it makes a great deal of sense for Google to be pushing heavily into this area.

If the great Google machine knows the whereabouts of you and your friends, and builds an understanding of your travelling habits, then, together with all of the other information Google already knows about each one of us, just imagine the kind of powerful, relevant advertising model that could be created for each individual.

Putting sarcasm and cynicism aside for one moment, my major tech prediction for 2009 was thus:

"Determining your present location will become a seamless and automatic feature on mobile devices, enabling some breakthrough location based services to achieve widespread popularity."

Google Latitude is yet another step in the right direction, although they might want to launch an iPhone version fairly soon.

For more information, here is Google's introductory video explaining their new service:

'Kitemark' could distinguish journalism from 'web noise'

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:28:00 +0000

From Press Gazette:-

A 'digital kitemark' to differentiate quality journalism from 'the noise of the web' should be introduced, according to a new report published this week.

“A digital kitemark… would identify and differentiate professional journalism amidst the noise of the web,” the report says.

In my experience websites are already pretty good at providing this differentiation already.

A banner that says Guardian, The Times, The Sun or The News of The World or even Bob's News Blog or Amy's News Blog pretty much signifies the type of journalism and 'professionalism' of those involved.

As for suggesting that the "noise of the web" is inferior, that somebody enthusiastically producing content because they are interested in the subject matter is somehow not as useful or interesting as somebody who has been paid money and told by their boss to write some words on this subject.... huge generalisations I know, but I think somebody might have missed the point somewhere along the line.

Links (16th January 2009)

noreply@blogger.com (James Thornett) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Has it really been almost two months since my last post?! Blimey! OK, let's get back on the road in 2009 with some recent interesting links...

Road Trip Anyone?
If you have a spare 55 days free and fancy journeying from California to Sydney then here are the directions, as supplied by Google Maps. Don't forget to pack a kayak for the 3,879 mile leg of the journey across the Pacific Ocean!
Google Maps add public transport lines
Google Maps have added a transit layer for 50+ cities which displays lines of public transport over the standard map. Makes the London Underground look like a right mess.
UK WiFi Maps
Showing WiFi locations (free and otherwise) in 15 UK cities.
When Networking Fails, Company Goes to Local Search - All Points Blog
30% of Sat-Nav users have been taken to the wrong place
A recent survey by The AA reveals how Britons are using Sat-Navs in their cars.
Geo-tagging for the masses - edparsons.com
Does the OpenDatabase License need CC style Modules? - High Earth Orbit
The public transport network around Birmingham (UK) on a map
Travel West Midlands attempt at using Google Maps to provide an interactive resource for their public transport services in the Birmingham area.
Mapping down to your house
Ryan muses over some of the options for the future of the BBC Local websites.
BBC News uses data wisely in “Mapping UK’s Teen Murder Toll”
The BBC's teen murder map gets plenty of praise from Innovative Interactivity.