November 2009 Archives
November 30, 2009
Africa in the FIFA World Cup: Part 1 - The thirties
Africa in the FIFA World Cup
A series of posts looking at the history of African teams appearing in the World Cup, from Egypt in 1934 to South Africa hosting in 2010.
November 27, 2009
London IA Mini 4: Max Gadney - "The glass-bottomed boat"
Early in November we held the fourth London IA Mini conference evening. Zebra People sponsored the night, which was hosted by EMC Conchango. In the first part of my round-up of the evening, I had some notes and a video clip of Max Gadney's opening talk. BBC History archive - 'What is the way in?' Max was talking about how information design needs to be really useful for the audience, and not just about 'designing for ourselves'. As a commissioner...
November 26, 2009
London IA Mini 4: Max Gadney - "Information isn't beautiful"
On November 11th we held the latest in our series of London IA Mini conference evenings. The hosts were EMC Conchango and our kind sponsors were Zebra People. We had a top selection of speakers - Max Gadney, Richard Sedley, Jason Mesut and Oliver Reichenstein. Today I wanted to post some of my notes and a video clip of the talk from Max. Max Gadney His talk had been billed as a 'challenge' to "much of current practice in data...
Google's recursive lunar image swirls
Google Image Search has been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons, but I've been concentrating on playing with a Labs version of Image Search - Google Image Swirl. It is an interesting variation on the usual grid view that has become the industry standard. I'm not sure that I'd use it exclusively, for a start the data indexed is limited, but it does give you a different way of researching images. And you can generate some...
November 25, 2009
'Winterval' myth still going strong on Catholic Online
This is a bit of a shame. I spotted a story on the Catholic Online website, which opened with the statement: "Birmingham City Council has changed the name of this year's light-switching-on event to the generic 'Winterval'." [My emphasis] I left a comment pointing out that if you visit the Birmingham City Council website - yes, that website - you'll see a massive banner advert for Christmas in the city. In fact, you can even go to birmingham.gov.uk/christmas for an...
November 24, 2009
"Free vs Fee – the Future of News": Notes and take-away quotes - Part 2
I blogged last week some points I'd taken away from an SLA Europe meeting entitled "Free vs Fee – the Future of News". The event comprised of some short presentations and then a Q&A session with Andrew Hughes of the NLA, Acquire Media's Laurence C. Rafsky, Jeremy Lawson from Dow Jones, and new media lawyer Laurence Kaye. Today I wanted to post some more of my take-away notes from the event. A fractured industry approach to the future Andrew Hughes...
November 23, 2009
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop in The Guardian's archive
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to have the chance to see some of the surviving members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop play live at the Camden Roundhouse, and to attend a question and answer session with them beforehand. Photo by Stickpeople Almost certainly the biggest impact the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had on popular culture was Delia Derbyshire's electronic realisation of the Doctor Who theme. However, that didn't hit the nation's screens until 23rd November 1963, 46 years ago...
November 20, 2009
"Thierry Henry and the net" piece on Guardian PDA blog
Having gone on and on and on about comments on The Guardian site this week, I was a little bit nervous what might happen 'below the line' on a piece I wrote for the PDA Blog yesterday: "Thierry Henry and the net: Fifa report whitewash and anger on Twitter". In the end I seem to have got away with just a couple of comments along the lines of 'Journalist gets paid to write article that claims people discuss current affairs...
November 19, 2009
"Free vs Fee – the Future of News": Notes and take-away quotes - Part 1
A couple of weeks back I went to an SLA Europe meeting entitled "Free vs Fee – the Future of News" with a panel featuring Jeremy Lawson from Dow Jones, Andrew Hughes of the NLA, Acquire Media's Laurence C. Rafsky and new media legal eagle Laurence Kaye. The centre-piece of the discussion for me revolved around an entertaining story told by Laurence Rafsky. He spoke about a fictional young lad who had set up his own little enterprise. Every day...
November 18, 2009
"1966 and all that..." - Contrasting England's 1966 and 2018 World Cup bids
Tonight we'll be finding out the final qualifiers for next year's World Cup Finals in South Africa. Press attention has also been focused on England's bid to host the 2018 or 2022 edition of the tournament. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the reason FIFA abandoned their continental rotation system and introduced this double round of bidding was because they didn't get to go on lots of exotic junkets during the bidding process for 2010 and 2014. Imagine the...
'Smug foul-mouthed juvenile overpaid twerp' Russell Brand graces The Sun's front page today
You remember Russell Brand? In editorials over the last 12 months or so, The Sun has said he was a 'foul-mouthed' 'smug' 'juvenile overpaid twerp', guilty of 'disgusting stupidity', a 'sick tirade' and peddling 'unforgivable smut'. And then it put him on the cover today picking his favourite Sun front pages. So not that unforgivable then. I honestly don't know which of the pair looks more opportunist....
November 17, 2009
Comments are free...to inform and to entertain, as well as infuriate
"As a blogger I'm not afraid of the comment box, unlike many journalists of whom we shall not speak..." - Zoe Margolis The 'outing' of Belle de Jour, like that of Night Jack and Girl With a One Track Mind before it, has raised some interesting debates around the issues of anonymity and privacy when blogging. Zoe Margolis, the one-track minded sex blogger, wrote a piece for The Guardian on the issue, and immediately set about playing a very active...
November 16, 2009
Olympic Memory Marathon: Part 3 - My Olympic memory
On November 7th I took part in the Olympic Memory Marathon, a video project by artist Simon Pope capturing 104 Londoners talking about their experience of the Olympics, whilst he walked the length of a marathon through the streets of the boroughs hosting the 2012 games. These are the memories that I related to him. I've never been lucky enough to go to an Olympics, but I have visited several of the stadiums where the games have been held....
November 13, 2009
Olympic Memory Marathon: Part 2 - "I am one of the 104"
At the weekend I took part in an art project for the London 2012 Olympics called the "Memory Marathon". Artist Simon Pope walked the distance of a marathon whilst talking to 104 people who lived or worked in the London Boroughs hosting the next games about their memories of the Olympics. Yesterday I blogged about the workshops leading up to the event, and today I wanted to write about my experience on November 7th, the day of the "Memory...
November 12, 2009
Olympic Memory Marathon: Part 1 - The project and workshops
"This is an unusual project, and I can tell that by being here you are unusual people" Our facilitator wasn't wrong - within a couple of minutes of arriving at my first workshop for the Olympic Memory Marathon I was being accosted by a wonderful fiftysomething out of work actress assuring me that didn't do porn (but that she did get asked), and by another guy tipsy enough that he gave the impression of not remembering why he was...
November 11, 2009
"Waltham Forest is calling for back-up" campaign lays down a welcome mat for criminals
I became a crime statistic last week, when my bike was stolen in Walthamstow.Again.It has prompted me to blog about something that has been irritating me in the Borough for some time. On the day I discovered my bike was missing, I'd been in Selbourne Walk The Mall, where volunteers were out in force trying to get me to sign a council petition. "Waltham Forest is calling for back-up" is a politically motivated council campaign calling for more police in...
November 10, 2009
PM's private call published by The Sun, but PCC has no interest in a 'public interest' debate
Information trends for 2010
I'm still waiting to hear why publishing the PM's private phone call online isn't a breach of the PCC code on privacy and phone tapping.
"My first term" - a seventies pull-out in a noughties local paper?
I'm the kind of person who still buys a local paper, and this week in the Waltham Forest Guardian I noticed a feature I found distinctly odd. "My First Term" is an 8 page pull-out compiling school classroom pictures from a variety of nearby local authorities. The geographical range covered is quite wide, including Walthamstow, Woodford Green, Loughton and Waltham Abbey. Initially, I couldn't help but be surprised that, in these days of media paedosteria, the paper was trying to...
November 9, 2009
London IA Mini IV on Wednesday night
After last month's "London IA in a pub + talks" experiment, on Wednesday we are back to having one of our regular London IA Mini events, this time hosted by EMC Conchango near London Bridge. We've got a great line-up of speakers. Richard Sedley, director of the cScape Customer Engagement Unit will be giving a debrief from the Design of Persuasion conference in Brussels, and talking about "some of the more common uses of social psychology in website design and...
November 6, 2009
Ecommerce Expo: Part 5 - Product information management and site search optimisation
Over the last week or so I've been posting a whole series of notes and quotes from the recent Ecommerce Expo, looking at multi-variant testing, optimising shopping carts, social commerce, semantic ecommerce and ticket-touting brand building and online marketing. In this last part I want to look at two presentations, one about information management, and one about internal site search. "Product information management: The next Ecommerce opportunity" - Steve Lovatt, Pinder You simply can't argue with a presentation that has...
November 5, 2009
Ecommerce Expo: Part 4 - Marketing at Seatwave, and semantic ecommerce with Smart Information Systems
Last week I started posting a series of notes and quotes from the London Ecommerce Expo in Earls Court which I attended in October. I've written up Mike Tomlinson talking about multi-variant testing from British Airways, Trenton Moss of Webcredible discussing optimising the purchase process, and Andy Leaver from Bazaarvoice talking about 'social commerce'. Today I wanted to look at two other talks that I attended. "Building a new business in a brand new category"- James Hamlin, Seatwave I suspected...
"UFO hits wind turbine": World-class journalism from News International
I've got no qualms with the News International corporate site claiming that each of their newspapers is a leader in their field - the audience figures speak for themselves, especially in print.I just wonder, if I'd been putting the banner graphic together, whether I'd have picked The Sun's thoroughly debunked "UFO hits wind turbine" front page as the image to set against the claim of 'world-class journalism'......
November 4, 2009
Ecommerce Expo: Part 3 - "Social commerce prioritisation: Where should we start?"
I've been posting a series of the notes and quotes I made at the London Ecommerce Expo in Earls Court. So far I've featured a case study in multi-variant testing from British Airways, and a presentation by Trenton Moss of Webcredible about optimising the purchase process. Today I wanted to turn my attention to 'social commerce'. "Social commerce prioritisation: Where should we start?" - Andy Leaver, Bazaarvoice Andy Leaver of Bazaarvoice opened by making a point that Google may turn...
November 3, 2009
Ecommerce Expo: Part 2 - "Persuading users to buy & eliminating checkout drop-offs"
Last week I started blogging about my visit to the Ecommerce Expo in Earls Court, where I attended some of the free seminar sessions that were on offer. If you can pick your way through the more obvious sales pitches, then there are usually a few worth visiting. I first posted about a case study from British Airways on multi-variant testing. Today I wanted to write about Trenton Moss from Webcredible, and his presentation on optimising the checkout process. "Persuading...
November 2, 2009
Carbon, clippings and checking out Wave - more cool stuff on guardian.co.uk
Last week, when I was writing about the Jane Bown interactive gallery on The Guardian site, I mentioned that there were several other things done recently that had really impressed me. In no particular order, and stressing again that these have been nothing to do with me, here are another three things that stood out over the last few weeks. Quick carbon calculator I remember a conversation I had a while back with Simon Willison where he was explaining the...