December 2010 Archives

Today is the eighth anniversary of the first currybetdotnet blog post, and in what has become a tradition, here is a list of the ten most popular posts this year.

One last post about news:rewired before I head off into the Xmas hinterlands. One of the morning sessions I attended featured Ed Walker, Neil Perkin and Anthony Thornton talking about building an online community from scratch, and here are my notes and thoughts.

The BBC College of Journalism were filming all of news:rewired last week, and they've now put up all the clips from the linked data and semantic web session.

At news:rewired last week some of 'the wannabe hacks' were providing live blogging, tweeting and coverage with Storify. Catching up with them meant I finally got a chance to chat to them about their site in person.

A fascinating section in Joanna Geary's news:rewired keynote last week looked at brand loyalty, and how people happily have tattoos of company and band logos inked onto their bodies, but you never see someone with a masthead tattoo. An important feature of how we develop digital news products is now how we interact with our audience.

As part of my series of notes from the news:rewired event I attended last week, here is what I made of the search engine optimisation session, where, frankly, Malcolm Coles just talked filth...

I love events like news:rewired for sparking lots of ideas and conversations, joining lots of dots within the industry, and generally re-kindling enthusiasm for doing digital news. Over the next few days I hope to be blogging my notes from some of the sessions, including these thoughts on why it doesn't have to be all new, all of the time.

There was a lovely short post from Joe Leech a couple of weeks back about organisations showing their underpants in their navigational structures on the web. It is unhelpful for users, and totally works against them achieving task based goals. But I think news is different, and I'm actually rather fond of flashing The Guardian's pants at the world...

A few more links to things mentioned in yesterday's news:rewired session about linked data and the semantic web.

Today I've been at news:rewired in London, talking about linked data and the semantic web in a panel session with my Guardian colleague Simon Rogers, Martin Moore from the Media Standards Trust, and Silver Oliver of the BBC. Here is a linklog special of all the things I mentioned in my talk...

I was in conversation with a friend a while back, and he was talking about the life lessons that his headmaster had tried to instill in his pupils. He had urged them to consciously pick strong character traits, and also told them to find a newspaper that suited them, and to read it every day. With the demise of print expected, does that still seem like sensible advice?

Not much activity on the blog for the last couple of days as I've been in action elsewhere, posting a couple of articles to the Guardian's website about the top search terms of the year, and a review of the linked data sessions at Online Information.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference, and here is the second part of my notes from a session featuring Richard Wallis, Chris Taggart and Noel Hatch, looking at linked data in the context of local government in the UK.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference, and here are my notes from a session featuring Richard Wallis, Chris Taggart and Noel Hatch, looking at linked data in the context of local government in the UK.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference in London. Here are my notes from a session given by John Sheridan, looking at how they have turned nearly 800 years of UK legislation into digital linked data online.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference in London. Here are my notes from a talk by Iain Fletcher of Search Technologies, who explained how the fundamental of understanding your data was key to providing a decent enterprise or site search experience.

Last week I went to the Online Information conference in London, and here are my notes from day 2, and a session entitled "Social media in action: driving forward information management and knowledge management", which looked at implementing social media tools within the workplace, and featured Gordon Vala-Webb, Helen Clegg, Hugo Evans & Angela Ashenden

In early November 2010 I gave a presentation at the London UKUPA meeting for 'World Usability Day'. In it, I took the day's theme of 'communication', and examined how twenty years of digital technology had smashed the boundaries between media organisations and their audiences. In this five part series, I've written that talk up as an essay, covering how the media now have to deal with users on a much more personal level, involve them in product design, and build tools to enable story-telling. This is the final part.

In early November 2010 I gave a presentation at the London UKUPA meeting for 'World Usability Day'. In it, I took the day's theme of 'communication', and examined how twenty years of digital technology had smashed the boundaries between media organisations and their audiences. In this five part series, I've written that talk up as an essay, covering how the media now have to deal with users on a much more personal level, involve them in product design, and build tools to enable story-telling. This is part four.

In early November 2010 I gave a presentation at the London UKUPA meeting for 'World Usability Day'. In it, I took the day's theme of 'communication', and examined how twenty years of digital technology had smashed the boundaries between media organisations and their audiences. In this five part series, I've written that talk up as an essay, covering how the media now have to deal with users on a much more personal level, involve them in product design, and build tools to enable story-telling. This is part three.