Michah Dubirko wrote this entry titled del.icio.us, blogging a while ago. I would take it slightly differently, and compare it to email. Since Del.icio.us applied the feature to send friends bookmarks to their bookmark inbox I've been really tempted to stop sending email too but I don't know if friends are getting them or not?
Author:
Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser.
Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io
The Orange project revealed
Tom sent me a link to the guardian article titled Public get to star in Orange ads. It outlines exactly what the Orange project was about. Because of the registration I'll blockquote the important parts.
Orange has turned to Pop Idol-style auditions to find members of the public to appear in an advertising campaign, with the chosen “stars” encouraged to record footage to be put on websites such as YouTube.
Candidates for the ads, which launch on August 1, were found through a text message and press campaign asking for people to take part in the filming of “a secret project in a stunning location”.
The campaign will form the latest stage of the mobile operator's “Animals” campaign – featuring a raccoon, canary, dolphin and panther – with each designed to represent the usage habits of different types of customer.
People who responded to the ads were interviewed and divided into the each of the animal personality groups. For example, dolphins are fun-loving people like Cheryl Tweedy and Charlotte Church, while raccoons are more like Carol Vorderman or Gordon Ramsay.
The four groups of people will be given a Big Brother-style task and the ads will film the different ways they tackle them.
The campaign, created by the agency Mother London, will comprise one 60-second “introductory” commercial and four 30-second spots focusing on the performance of each animal group.
Orange is hoping the posting of “making of” clips by consumers online will drum up word-of-mouth publicity about the campaign.
The ads are being filmed in Spain.
And to be honest it all makes sense when you look at the questions they asked you for while signing up. But generally its a let down and I'm kind of glad I didnt get on it.
BBC announcements
Rather than comment on what's going on in the BBC, I'll just outline some of the major points. If I feel brave later, I may care to comment.
- BBC Knowledge, Entertainment, Fiction, Nations and Childrens will now be BBC Vision
- There will be a new division which sits inside of BBC Vision to encorage Indies input
- New media is now gone and will now be Future media and Technology (FMT)
- Radio and Music will be platform netrual and will be come BBC Audio and Music
- BBC News and Sports will be part of BBC Journalism
- BBC Finance and BBC People will stay about the same
- Audience and Marketing will be a core part of what we do everywhere.
- Creative Digital Simple Open (CDSO)
- If you don't respect the BBC values, maybe the BBC isn't the correct place for you.
Some observations about the Questions and Answers with Mark Thompson after his higher level speech.
Someone mentions there has always been a Radio and TV division since 1936, whats going on? Mark mentions iplayer, downloading content and talks about how under the divisions people are much more closely aligned. Mark hints at the Longtail of content and how that could inspire programme makers. Mark gets grilled about the 360 degree commisioning process and how it could be unfair to indies. Radio and Music drama could fit in Audio and Music or even Vision, Mark suggests they would sit in Audio and Music. Someone suggets iplayer is kind of dull but also offers a huge training issue which can not be ignored. Bouns are on the menu once again, Mark Thompson and Mark Byford talk about supporting 10% bouns (currently at 30%). Mark Thompson is challenged with a question about local independance and how everythings is heading towards centralisation, Mark mentions how we have 23 CMS to make content for the web. Someone ask Ashley Highfield (head of future media and technology) if the technologies should also learn tradional technology like Radio and TV, he agrees. Mark says the new BBC model will be transisional and that we need to be flexiable, envolve and change.
You can see the offical announcment here now
Exclusive: London Girl Geek Dinner Short Film by Angela Saini of ITN
Sarah Blow beat me to this exclusive, so I'll just quote her.
The London Girl Geek Dinner short film has just been released. Here is an exclusive first look at it prior to it going on FourDocs. It was filmed about a month ago by Angela Saini of ITN who was just fantastic at both directing the video and setting everything up. I hope you enjoy the video and feel free to let anyone else know about it!
I hope to see other short video's and films from the girls over at BlogHer after the conference.
The next London Girl Geek Dinner is to be announced at a later date… it is looking like some time around the end of August/ First week of September. If you want to get updates of our next event feel free to join the mailing list on www.londongirlgeekdinners.co.uk or syndicate with the rss feed on the site!
PS: Many thanks to Angela for doing the film for us and for her support and also to Ian Forrester of www.geekdinners.co.uk for his ever constant support for the girly geek dinners!
Thanks Sarah! I've been sitting on this documentary from Angela for quite some time now. I think its a fantastic documentary and well worth everyone's time to watch. I'm now interested to see what conversation develops following the documentary. You can also now watch get the documentary in Windows Media and Quicktime formats here.
Rocketboom 2.0 with Joanne Colan
Stowe Boyd, sums up exactly what I think of Rocketboom 2.0 Daily With Joanne Colan.
Well, they were able to get off a credible start to Rocketboom 2.0, with Joanne Colan as the Anchor 2.0. She's doing a good job, but its not the same show for me.
Note that she refers to herself as the interim anchor, after ducking all the tomatoes.
Although seeing the bit with Baron seemingly driven mad was pretty funny.
Rocketboom was one of the few video shows that I actually turned to frequently, and it had grown on me. Just like I don't think the Daily Show would be the same without Jon Stewart, I feel the same about Amanda and Rocketboom 1.0.
I would also add one more thing. What the heck was this weeks casual Friday videocast about? I also didn't catch the whole Amber Mac meme being the next Rocketboom host. That would have been weird but you know what could have actually worked. Amber certainly has her style and its very different from Amanda.
The new Odeon website
Something I've been meaning to blog for ages. Finally Odeon the big UK cinema chain has sorted out its terriable website. See its been under a lot of pressure because it was built in like 97 when no one took seriously the issue of accessibility. It had this weird dhtml menu system which only worked on IE and not even Firefox. Someone did make them an accessible version but then Odeon sent in the lawyers and got him to shut it down. Later that year, they opened up an accessable section which didn't work once you wanted to order a ticket. So as they relaunched they have made it so you can actually book without some crazy javascript. However there is one complaint that I do have. The default option is Flash for booking tickets, this really needs changing to something like ajax.
Street installations
This artist has created fake people and animals, placing them all over Washington DC and New York
I think of it as one step beyond the graffiti of the streets. Mark Jenkins has set a range of installations on the streets of Washington DC and New York. The installations are odd to say the least, but you can imagine what kind of react they get from passer-by. But don't worry, you don't need to imagine it, there's tons of videos with reactions on his Notes from the Underground site. Oh by the way, this was nicely found via Digg.com.
SVG support in IE 7.2?
Don't know how I missed this in my aggregator but…
Microsoft publicly stated IE will have core engine support for SVG in IE7.x (most likely 7.2)
Honestly, I like to think this will happen, but I got a feeling there will be a clause. Something like support for SVG only works when using a XAML wrapper. Or you will need to enable it in the preferences somewhere.
But then worst that what I just wrote, it seems Microsofts Chris Wilson is stating that the above claim is bogus.
Actually, I did not state that IE7.X will have SVG support. I did say that I think SVG is gaining momentum as part of the interoperable web standards platform, and as such I expect we will add support for it in the future.
As for “IE7.2″ – I have not heard anyone inside or outside Microsoft say that, certainly not me. It’s a myth.
On the positive side, if Microsoft did some how suprise us all with SVG support, they would be joining the 2D vector graphics party. Firefox had SVG support ages ago now, Opera 9 just launched with even better SVG support and Safari Dev, Konqueror, Seamonkey, Camino and Amaya all have different levels of support for SVG.
Geek and Geekhag podcast number eleven – The Experience
Me and Sarah discuss a few things in this 1 hour podcast. Some things I've talked about in previous blog entries and others are quite new.
- Xbox 360 hacked?
- Sanyo HD Camcorder
- Movie Piracy
- Its the experience that counts
- Snakes on the plane
- Don't copy that floppy
- Geekdinner
- Rocketboom
- Police with guns
- Sarahs now British
Orange are up to something…
Recieved a email from Orange the other day. All it said was…
We’re creating an something. Something secret. Something big. if you’re interested, click here
This leads to a page with the following details.
On July 17, 18, and 19 we'll be working on a unique project at a secret foreign location and would love your help. You will work as part of a team constructing an amazing installation in a stunning landscape. You'll be expected to get your hands dirty – but don't worry, you don't need specialist skills, enthusiasm is enough. The whole thing will be filmed and broadcast on national television, as well as reaching an international audience on the internet.
If you'd like the chance to be selected for the casting session, which takes place on Wednesday 12 July in London, and to be part of filming this amazing experience, click on the 'next' button below.
This opportunity is available to anyone over 18. You must have a have a valid passport, be free from 16 to 20 July and be willing to pay for your travel to the casting session in London.
If you are chosen for the final project then we'll be paying for you to fly abroad to our secret (European) location and we'll put you up in a hotel. However, you'll have to pay for your travel to Gatwick Airport.
Entry form closes at midday 10 July.
And curiousity may have killed the cat, but I've signed up deciding that I can drop out at anytime if I really wanted to. Anyway, I'll have my camera to hand if I do get invited to the casting session this Wednesday. Oh and for those interested, I signed up as a self-confessed work-a-holic.
update I got my orange email today saying I was not selected for the orange project. Oh well, I'm sure it was something very naff anyway.