Tumblr and Bruce Springsteen

The trouble with all these new media platforms is that I have no idea whether I should post stuff to here or there (Tumblr) or go somewhere else entirely - Pinterest I guess.

Anyway, I do like the quick share functionality of Tumblr, so I've started using it, which you can see here, and recently included a post about Bruce Springsteen and Racing in the Street, which you can read over there, but I'll add the video here, because it's worth sharing widely.

I am a Google Street View driver*

What do I do all day? Drive around all the roads of the UK, or Australia, or Chile. I get up and drive, I drive up and down streets. I see the people stare, I see the children run after me, the privacy people swear, the technology lovers wave.

I stop in bizarre hotels in side streets of villages and towns I'll never see again, I stare out of windows over desolate roads or thriving markets, before climbing in my little white car, mounted with its all seeing eye, and trundle off again, collecting endless images of life. A snapshot of things.

It's a strange way to live, a kind of job, a half life. But hey, you can see your house on the internet now, so I hope that makes you happy.

*(N.B. I am not a Google Street View driver, obviously).

T is for...

Twitter.

2009 has been the year of Twitter. Any end of year review surely needs to reference it. It should. As such I will touch on Twitter here in general sense but save my experience with it for the end of the year (another thing besides Christmas to get excited about). Needless to say though the site has, for those who have involved themselves in it (not all things are for all people of course), been something of a new dawn of internet usage. I say this with a straight face.

People are open, honest, engaging, friendly, argumentative without being ridiculously over the top (see Youtube), endlessly hilarious (in fact if Twitter has proven anything it's just how many staggeringly quick, clever, funny, creative people there in the world who work as everything from paramedics to students and back again) and above all, real. The idea of reality is what the naysayers use to discredit Twitter, suggesting it's for people who don't interact with the world, who sit at a computer all day rather than engage - but nothing could be further from the truth. It's for people who actively do engage with the world, who are happy to meet up with random strangers on the basis of conversing through a few 140 character messages on everything from cupcakes to the London Marathon. I'll touch on my own experience of this in future (as mentioned) but the Twestivals of February and September proved that there is nothing socially inept about the people on Twitter.

Here's an example today of something I saw on Twitter that I thought showed what the site has done to change the internet. David Mitchell, having appeared in the last episode of Peep Show series six on Friday was obviously sent several messages on 1) would there be a seventh series? and b) was an opinion expressed on the TV show about The Wire, his own view. Thanks to Twitter people were not only able to ask these questions in a way that wasn't intrusive or time consuming, but they were able to get answers instantly, straight from the man himself. The site has helped the internet become personable, human, interactive; a real time reaction to what people are thinking; not 'heavily orchestrated campaigns' as those of a certain intelligence believe it to be so, proving they don't understand.

Anyway, I could go on. Graham Linehan (aka @glinner), who's become something of an unlikely champion of the site, the man behind the #welovethenhs hashtag, wrote all the above on this excellent post The Conversation. I couldn't have put it better myself.

And, when something goes wrong, it has a picture of a whale (known as the Fail Whale by those on the site) to indicate this. What's not to like about that? 2009 was also the year of the whale it seems, in my world at least.

War: what is it good for?

Two things yesterday:

1) DSEi: This show is known to some as the Death Show and is not popular with those of certain moral view points. Entry was Kafkaesque, involving several queues to be placed in queues, much anger at how slow the entire process was, and even a bag search before you could go in, to the Excel Centre. Felt utterly bizarre. Once inside I saw many tanks, guns, rocket launchers, an Apache helicopter, and various Asian generals wandering around in full military regalia.

On one side of an aisle you've got weapon manufacturers or suppliers with posters and literature proclaiming their weapons can 'pierce the strongest body armour on the market!' and on the other you have body armour manufacturers and suppliers saying 'can stop the strongest weaponry on the market!' And all beneath the brightly lit, air-conditioned, Subway sandwich franchised Excel Centre. Last time I was there was to collect my marathon entry number. Very different indeed.

2) Frontline Club: Access Denied. A talk about reporting from war zones and the implications for journalists. With Richard Sambrook from the BBC, Adrian Wells from Sky News, Jean Seaton and chaired by Tom Fenton.

It was a very interesting chat, and the floor contributed a great deal too, with those in attendance ranging from Al Jazeera reporters, to the London press official for the Dalai Lama. They discussed the use of Twitter, the difficulties of getting certain stories on the news agenda when they cease to have a news currency, and the challenges of trying to get in to areas you're banned from. Wells told us that Sky News tried to access North Korea by asking to cover the North Korean karate championships (and then do some other things on the side) but were politely refused entry. Darn.

It seemed though, due to the most recurring point, that war coverage, or conflicting reporting, is impossible to cover in a way that will ever please everyone, or cover all the necessary angles. Nothing is ever two-sided and war is surely one of the hardest things to pin down as to the causes, the rights and wrongs, the outcomes and so on - almost all wars are debated hotly by historians to this day, despite years of time passing, collation of huge numbers of documents, and even access to the leaders' writings. What chance do news reporters have, often embedded with military staff who take them where they want them to go, have of getting a 'true' story out? Have they ever been able to?

Twitter and the like may give the populations a chance to present views from inside but, again, it just adds more voices that conflict, disagree, present different ideas, to a picture that is already completely confusing and impossible to view in full, objectively. It seems hard to believe war reporting will ever move to a time when 'black holes' of information don't exist, especially when authoritarian regimes like Iran, North Korea and so on, are so staunch in their position on allowing foreign news teams in.

A few people introduced themselves, when speaking from the floor, as 'news consumers'. So you watch TV?

Ideas

‘You alright Geoff?’
‘Ah Brian, God I’m glad you’re here.’
‘What are you doing, what’s all this paper?’
‘It’s the internet.’
‘The internet?’
‘Yes. It’s printing off.’
‘You’re printing the internet?’
‘Yes, I don’t know how it happened.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know how it happened?’
‘I don’t know alright. I just clicked some button or something and it started printing it off. Just help will you; I need to get it in piles to keep some semblance of order.’
‘Alright, alright calm down. How long have you been here?’
‘About 45 minutes.’
‘Christ, how much paper has it used up?’
‘This is the 47th ream.’
‘Holy crap. And what site are you on now?’
‘Er…*a rustling of paper* www.alansaardvarkadvice.com’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I know.’

Speedy

Did you see Usain Bolt last night? Man. That. Was. Fast.

The collective awe from the stadium and on the internet was palpable, reaching the top of the Twitter trending topics almost as quickly as he'd run; and knowing millions around the world had watched it too, all dumbstruck by the sight of another human being running faster than anyone has ever run before, was somehow exhilarating too.

Meantime, I've written a piece for runners on sirjogalot (a website run by a nice chap I met through Twitter and then subsequently in real life, who also ran the London Marathon back in May) on tips to help break Personal Bests or PBs that includes an obligatory reference to Usain Bolt. Read it here.

Cover judging

Another Guardian blog, this time about album covers and some jokes included too.

Read here and enjoy!

Look at me

One of the scariest Dr Who episodes is, apparently, Blink. I've not seen it but I know that the plot involves statues that attack people by moving towards them if the person doesn't look at them. The idea of living statues must have influenced Anthony Gormley for the fantastic living plinth art installation. I think it's a great idea. It has generated much discussion and because every hour is different there is potentially always something interesting, different and noteworthy taking place.

Not only that, but for those of us who lucky enough / unlucky enough (delete as to your opinion) to live in London, it really is the case that if you find yourself in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square you can pop round and see what's going on. I love the lions in the Square, but I don't detour to go and see them anymore much like the way I use Big Ben as a time keeping device first, a fantastic London landmark second. Because it's ever changing there is always a reason to wander over and have a look.

It's also very much of its time but timeless too (I hope that doesn't sound pretentious). All art is made by people, inspired by events, a reaction to things that have happened, or are to happen, so to place people on the plinth, campaigning for certain things, dancing, playing music, or just standing there admiring the scenery, is at the heart of all art.

But on the flip side, in the world of Youtube and Facebook and Twitter, where everyone is pontificating and sounding off or telling you what they had for breakfast, and uploading videos and photos (often of what they had for breakfast), it's tapping in to this new age of creativity and self-expression. What's also pleasing to note is, thus far, no-one has (as far as I am aware) had eggs or anything hurled at them. Which you could expect to be the case.

I've applied to go on, and hope I get it. Just not at 3am on Sunday night in the pouring rain.

The future of news (it's ducks)

I've said it before - here - and I'm going to say it again. Perhaps newspapers will survive by printing stories so small and trival they achieve a uniqueness that more traditional news cannot possible hope to offer anymore.

Clearly The Telegraph thinks this could work.

Oh dear

As this blog post explains in further detail, both the Mirror and The Telegraph fell for a rather obvious fake Twitter profile of convicted murderer Phil Spector, and turned one of "his" tweets into a full news story. Disappointing and a touch worrying.

There's a hot dog in the crowd

To the Oval for the World Cup warm up game between Australia and New Zealand. Lovely evening, tickets available on the door; although the Oval website is somewhat useless at conveying such information when, you'd think, with so many empty seats they'd have been keen to promote the bloody thing. I digress. A boisterous crowd, including a rogue hot dog that was eventually evicted - see above - kept the spirits high as the match became something of a parade, and that was about it.

Click to enlarge images

Better to travel in hope

So the Champions League final was a disappointment. Barcelona were excellent, United were not. The build up started at 10am on the BBC Sport website, while The Guardian had the decency to start at 6.45pm. Despite of nine hours and 45 minutes of pre-match hype on the Beeb the match was never a proper contest and will not live long in the memory.

Now there is the inevitable avalanche of writing that will appear on the match; reasons why United were poor, why Barcelona were so good, why Ferguson got it wrong, or why Messi is now the best player in the world and so on. But it's just football. It's just a game. Sometimes one team wins, sometimes another. As United won it last year, and AC Milan the year before, So Barcelona have won it this year and someone else will win it next.

See this article that underlines the futility of in-depth sports analysis. And this shows why it doesn't pay to take these things too seriously.

Biscuit Fail

From the ever brilliant failblog.org. Click on the story to enlarge.

Where do we go from here?

Yesterday a friend used the phrase 'Web 3.0'. I think it was the first time I'd heard it said and it made me wonder if we are on the verge of the third age of the internet. Web 1.0, or just Web as it was known ,was a bit rubbish, (in hindsight) a bit beta, but Web 2.0 has been an unqualified success - Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Wikipedia, Google and all its spinoffs etc. that we now use day in, day out, without a second thought as to quite what these services are actually offering us.

Web 3.0 though. What's it going to be? Wolframalpha? Google Chrome? I'll admit I don't know what it will entail, or does entail already, but it seems likely that as we hurtle towards 2010 the phrase Web 2.0 will start to look outdated, especially to the new generation of technology developers who will soon be arriving on the scene, aged 15 - 21, who will no doubt design and develop the next web successes. It should be an interesting time. The future usually is.

An Icelandic horse

For work I regularly have to make use of copy right free images - perhaps from dedicated sites like Morgue File (a staple of university days) - or be perusing the various terms on Wikipedia and Flickr images to see if they are free to use. Being a small company it's important to be judicious with funds you see.


What I like about this is three things:

One - that people are willing to be so open with their images. They take them and uploaded them purely because they will of interest, benefit and use to millions of people around the world. Often in ways they couldn't imagine.

Two - how many talented people there are out there. Some of the photos you come across are truly fantastic, and yet they are in all probability taken by a keen amateur photographer who is happy enough to see the image online.

Three - the best reason though is just the fact you can come across some fantastic, striking and beautiful images completely at random. Earlier today I was looking for an image of Iceland. I found this one, which is a beautiful shot and will be the one we use, but I also came across this (the image above), which is also a wonderful shot and finding it through such a roundabout way makes it all the more enjoyable.

Musical endeavours: Or how 175,000 people came to watch me play mandolin.

Ever since I first heard feedback I thought I wanted to be a rock and roller. Not a nu-waver, or landfill indie-er, but a genuine Jimmy Page, Rock and Roller. So I had guitar lessons and so on and got quite good, but found I couldn't sing, but could play a mean (ish) guitar. But I was no Jimmy Page.

Still, as I grew up and enjoyed playing music for itself, rather than as an ambitious way to make money, I became less bothered by this, and just enjoyed impressing people by playing Wonderwall by Oasis at parties*. Then the internet invented Youtube and suddenly people like yours truly had an outlet to record and share their music. I was intrigued. Around the same time I received a mandolin for my birthday. Being the sharing sort I recorded a brief ditty I had come up with, uploaded it to the Tube (as people were calling it then), and sent it to a few friends through Facebook (remember Facebook, it was really popular), and forget allllllll about it.

Then, about two months later I checked my video again (out of sheer vanity you understand) and, with my eyes shooting out on stalks like a cartoon character, I noticed it had been viewed...15,000 times. Wow. Now, that number is 175,000 and rising. It goes up about 200 - 1,000 a day, sometimes I get two/three comments a day, sometimes just one a week, and most are positive, and the average rating is four AND a half stars. FTW. Watch here if you wish.

It's bloody weird. To have played a made up mandolin piece to over 175,000 people is just bizarre. There's no way I could sell out Wembley stadium two nights running on the promise of a 1m 55sec mandolin piece, I'm fairly sure, but I've played to that equivalent number, right? It's a stretch......but the reality is true. I also think, perhaps, I should go on Britain's Got Talent and see how I do. However, I remain unconvinced that Amanda Holden, that paragon of talent dissection, is a mandolin fan.

The whole purpose of this post though, really, was to tell you that my brother, who clearly wanted to emulate big brother (emulate being the correct word), has become a guitar and piano player (show off) and can sing too. Bastard. He's starting to post his own Youtube stuff now, including an entire song he's covered, playing every single damned instrument on it. Watch below. It gets really good at 1m 45sec when the electric guitar kicks in. But then I would say that, being a flashy guitar solo obsessed guitarist wouldn't I?

Enjoy.



*. Note, this is a joke and I have never, ever, ever, ever done this.

You can always rely on the kindness of strangers

When I first started my fundraising for the London Marathon I thought hard about who I could target for some sponsorship - friends, family, work people, and...well that's it. Ah, but of course, this is the 21st century - I had the entire internet out there to use.

Since those heady day of September 2008 when the Credit Crunch was a funny "and finally" story in the news, I have managed to raise £1,100 for the NSPCC. A charity which, in this six month period, has been proven to be, sadly, still vital in today's society.

Of this £1,100 a total of £55 has come due to online connections: A fiver from @jojo_wood via Twitter, £10 from @danieltwigg through Twitter/ work connections, £20 from the owner of blog site Five-Centers (a blog worth adding to your Netvibes or, if you insist on helping out small struggling companies, Google Reader) and, through some networking on Twitter, £20 by 'offering' to be interviewed for the JustGiving website.

As Marge and the cast sing in The Simpson's episode A Streetcar Named Marge...a stranger's just a friend you haven't metttttttttttttt.' Well you get the picture.

But it proves the internet, far from aiding and abetting the 'death of conversation' or cutting people off as the naysayers would claim, actually brings people together, gets them talking, engaging and helping one another, far more than ever before.

500+ twits together

I went to the LDN:Twestival last night. I'll write more in time, but for now, you can read a blog about it on the Guardian (not by me), complete with a photo in which I am visible. Proof I was indeed there.

Update as promised: Well now if you go on that blog there are many comments, 90% very negative, complaining about the event, the people who attended (i.e. presuming them to all be various forms of insults), and moaning about the Guardian, or Telegraph, covering the event.

Here are some sample criticisms. "the photos don't help the PR whatever angle. the first looks like an end of year uni do in the student union bar" - How do you make a photo of hundreds of people standing around talking not look like a "student union bar" - if that's how you choose to place the reference?

"The only reason for this total non-event being reported must be down to some connection between PR and someone on the Guardian staff payroll. Buck your ideas up, editors. You're starting to look distinctly C4 in attention to fatuous inanities."

Of course this one opens a massive debate about 'what is news'. My argument would be that, as an organised event, one of hundreds that happened across the globe, organised through a website that is rapidly becoming one of the most popular sites on the internet, that has almost raised $1 million for a charity is definitely news. Whether or not you are interested in it doesn't mean it isn't news. If you don't get it, like it, fine, but why such anger?

Pressing issues

There's been some debate about the usefulness of the Press Complaint Commission recently, such as the case against here, and for here. Thanks to the ever-useful Twitter I found a very interesting article here agreeing that the PCC is broken with reference to a recent story on the Daily Mail website. It's a good point very well made.

A twitter poem

Forgot to blog this: Channel 4's Twitter asked for 120 or fewer character poems about Wendy Cope's claim we don't need a poet laurette laureate. Heroically, mine was chosen, among about 15 others, for special mention on their website. Two years of creative writing at Cardiff coming in handy! Third fom bottom here (with a nod to Private Eye).