Category: media-and-expression

My Media Consumption Diet

So Improbulus tagged me for this social meme a while back but I didn't actually notice. The meme was started by Jeremiah Owyang who is also in the Media 2.0 group along with myself. Anyway from the man himself…

I’m hoping to start this meme, that others will join in and share their media consumption diet, in hopes, that we’ll start to learn how they get information or be entertained. I’ve sort of mixed up mediums, and media types, but after some thought, that’s the best way to organize it.

 

Improbulus also asks the tricky question about what is media anyway which I may get into later in this post.

Web: I get all my news from the web, mainly I read news via Greatnews my personal RSS reader, anything I miss tends to get come via email links from friends. I am currently subscribed to over 300 feeds you can check them all out here because I sync with Bloglines. Obviously I keep my private RSS feeds to my personal RSS reader. I did consider switching over to Google Reader with its offline ability but what tends to happen is when I'm offline and looking at my RSS feeds I can read through 1000's of items in a couple of hours. Google Reader with Gears only stores about 1000 max and isn't as flexable as GreatNews.

As you can see in my subscriptions I have many different folders.

  • Cubicgarden – feeds related to myself, this includes my personal lifestream.
  • Design – is a mixture of inspirational feeds with design feeds
  • Development – use to be development blogs but this got a little strained with the design and xml development folders
  • Education – feeds related to educational blogging, I use to have lots more in this about 3 years ago
  • Events – this was my way of keeping a track of what was going on socially but this has been replaced with ical feeds in Outlook 2007, soon to be Plaxo 3.0
  • Friends – Feeds from my friends, I'm trying to update this one regularly but I don't add everyone unless I think there blog is useful
  • Fun – Uhhhhh what do you think?
  • Gaming – This isn't just gaming, but ARG and hardware type stuff
  • General News – This is where stuff like Boingboing, Slashdot, Digg, techmem, etc go.
  • Interest – bit of a misc folder, which I hope to move in the future
  • Internet Law – This is where my copyright, DRM, Creative Commons, type feeds go
  • Lifehacks – This is one is useful but I tend to review it once every month
  • Media – This is where all my lost feeds go, in the future I'll start adding Bit Torrent feeds and other media related feeds
  • Podcasts – I'm planning to move all these feeds out of here in the future but the idea was to have all my podcast feeds in one folder. This is simply not practical because many people attach enclosures willy nilly now.
  • SmartComms – This was going to be a mix of mobile phone type stuff and human social networking type feeds.
  • Tracking – This was always going to be a place for temporary feeds like ebay searches and offers, etc
  • Watched projects – These are feeds for projects, startups, etc. This folder is very useful for keeping an eye on projects which I may have forgotten over some time
  • XML development – this is where my xml and semantic web type feeds go, in the future I'll start mixing regular development with this folder

You will notice in my feeds I don't subscribe to feeds from mainstream media including believe it or not the BBC. I tend read BBC news in Twitter right now but don't follow any other except sometimes the Guardian's technology and game blogs.

Another different thing about my media consumption when it comes to news is Particls. Particls is a personal desktop attention engine. Its seriously amazing and changed the way I read my news. I tend to use it at work a lot just to keep an eye on whats going on during the day. Its alerted me to many things which were related. Its also been useful for sending people upto the minute information.Its a couple of steps beyond a RSS reader and I'm honestly very impressed with it. I would like to see it on Linux but I'm going to try virtualising it with VMware or Xen in the near future.

Right backing out of news. I use Firefox for everything except really really dodgy sites. Opera is reserved for those sites because of the ability to turn off Java, Javascript, etc in a second. However I do tend to browse the web with Javascript and Flash turned off using a combination of Flashblock and No-Script extensions. I use Tabs a lot and once in a while will del.icio.us my spare tabs. I don't use startpages because I use load previous tabs. I use a Dell PC laptop for most of my browsing. I never use IE7 unless its for Automatic updates and will unlikely install any other browser except Opera (yeah forget about it Safari).

Communication – I own a cracking little phone, Orange SPV M700. It has everything including Wifi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS and 3G. I use it a lot for mapping now I have GPS and iGo. I wish I could mount the phone to my scooter so I could use it even more but generally I do walk around new cities with my phone in my hand. Yes its a Windows Mobile 5 phone but honestly I like it. I choose the phone with no keyboard because I own a Bluetooth keyboard and I can type very fast on the on-screen keyboard.

I hate using my phone for making calls but I do mainly using my new Stereo Bluetooth headphones from itech. I don't own a Mpeg3 player, I did in the past but saw earlier on that I could use my phone for music and more often podcasts.

I email a lot and use Thunderbird 2.0 as my main mail client of choice. I have to use Outlook 2003 at work because the BBC uses exchange mail servers. I hate outlook 2003 for email, specially when I've got Outlook 2007 on my laptop. I own a ton of email accounts which I've setup on cubicgarden.com as my way of dealing with spam. I also own about 3 gmail accounts as backup and one hotpop account for unsecure mails. Yes I've setup the others with SSL and TLS using Thunderbird, so no one can snoop on my mail while on a shared wireless point.

To combat spam, like mentioned before I use multiple accounts with different levels of use. I do have a spam system on the mail server and did have a greylisting system a while ago thanks to Miles and Mark. But generally I find the multiple accounts work well and Thunderbird''s spam filter works enough for me to work on email without too many problems,

I do use instant messenging a lot and use Twitter via IM a lot. I use Pigeon (previously called Gaim) and then connect to 4 different networks (Jabber, AIM, Yahoo, MSN). More and more I'm dropping MSN and would like to drop the others except Jabber. This is becoming easier thanks to Google. I also love the idea of im on the phone but recently its been hard to find a im client for the windows mobile platform which doesn't charge a stupid a mount of money. So in the mid term I'm using tinytwitter a java application with twitter as my substute for mobile im.

I do have email on my phone too but just plain old IMAP and POP. No Push email for me. I do however have a work phone (nokia N80) which really sucks and makes for a bad 3G modem for my laptop.

Music and Podcasts : My phone currently syncs with Winamp and I have 2gig of space to fill up every day. I tend to fill up my phone with new podcasts once a week. I do listen to music, but generally its mixed together already. I simply don't buy music because the music I listen to is so expensive and tends to be hard to find. So instead I use a bit torrent site called Trancetraffic.com to get mixes from the likes of Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, etc. I do download singles too for my own remixes but if I was to take up djing a little more seriously would start buying the tunes from somewhere. What Trancetraffic does which all the online stores miss is have a community of active users who you can see what they have downloaded. So I can see how many people have downloaded a tune or through the seeds, etc how  Also if your in any douht the trancetraffic community upload trance packs and uses the forums. So you can really get a clue about which tunes are hot and which

ones are not.

I do have a Last.FM account which was adopted from audioscobbler before it. I tend to only use it to track what I'm listening to and maybe sometimes for a couple of recommendations but generally Trancetraffic does a better job. I don't use Pandora and only listen to streaming radio statio

ns ckground music. I love soma.fm and di.fm for streaming radio.

 

I use Azureus for downloading all bit torrent stuff, which will make sense when you check out the TV section.

On the podcast front I use Juice to download all my podcasts. Thankfully juice supports remote opml files, so I point it at the same opml file as my bloglines account. Juice then downloads any enclosures from any of my 300+ feeds. This might sound over kill but it means I never miss any enclosures ever.Both Azureus and Juice are running on a ubuntu desktop machine under my desk, whcih I treat like a home server. I then use Synctoy on my laptop to sync my music and podcasts across to my laptop everyday.

TV : I don't watch tradional tv but I watch lots of TV shows. What does this mean? Well I don't actually turn on the TV and watch whatever is on. I also don't own a PVR or DVR device so don't actually record anything. I don't watch live TV because I have no reason to do so. Yes I download every single TV show I watch.

I use TV RSS in Azureus to do all my bit torrent downloading. Currently I use a combination of  ShareTV.org, NewTorrents, UKNova and Mininova for all my TV downloading. Some would say my TV viewing is strange at best and are quick to point out the off the schedule nature my activities. Personally being off the schedule is a good thing and this is really on demand. I tend to watch a combination of UK stuff like Doctor Who, Jekyll, etc with American stuff like Lost, Heroes, etc.

The way I actually watch most of the shows is via a 32 inch wide screen TV set and a hacked xbox. The Xbox is running unsigned code by a community project called Xbox Media Centre. The purpose of the hacked xbox running xbox media centre means I can play anything I download on my large screen. In the past I have hooked up my computer to the TV but generally having a computer in the same room as the TV kinda sucks unless you live in a small apartment of course. The xbox isn't exactly beautiful but its small and quiet. It means I can access all the media on my network including podcasts, music, pictures, etc.

I do own a Freeview box (free to air digital tv) and a Ondigital box (same but much older) but they rarely get turned on. And they certainly get no action since the ariel fell down off our roof.

Pictures : So we currently own 2 cameras, not including our mobile phones. One is a Canon 6 megapixal point and shoot (like DLR style) and the other is the Sanyo HD1. Me and Sarah over time have built up quite a few gigabytes of pictures. Every trip or event adds a little more. I tend to store everything and only upload the best ones to Flickr.com.

Recently I've been very slack with Flickr because I'm not naming or adding lots of meta-data to my pictures. This also applied to the files on the server. I hope one day to sort out my collections, sets and geodata. Getting that data back on to the server is another question.

Movies : I sometimes watch films in the cinema, sometimes I download the film and watch it while working away doing something else. It really depends on what film and what mood i'm in. For example just recently I watched Sicko in a cinema after deciding to help micheal moore in his efforts to wake up america to the joys of universial health care. I'll maybe go home (i'm on a plane flying between Exeter and London right now) and download it for my friends who maybe won't watch it otherwise. Being July 4th now too, I did promise to go watch Die Hard 4.0 tonight with a friend but we shall see how jet lagged I am. Generally Die Hard would be a film I would normally download.

DVD rentals I use to do via Amazon a long time ago and before that Blockbusters. I've not rented a DVD in about 2-3 years now.

Gaming : My only contract with gaming right now is the 1up Show podcast which is excellent because it focuses on gaming culture instead of doing long boring reviews. I always feel energized after watching it but I can't afford a next generation console, plus. I'm also not interested in the Xbox 360 because it can't play unsigned code – aka no xbmc! The playstation 3 looks good but at 480 pounds much for me plus I don't see where a Blu-Ray or even HD DVD player would fit into my media consumption diet? The Wii is my next choice but I'm not going to order one quite yet, although I have a wiimote for something else already.

Books : I tend to buy quite a few books because I like to lend them to people who maybe don't like to read on screen. For example I bought the Cluetrain Manifesto in book form so I could lend it to my friend Carl. He still has it but hey it was worth it becuase he wouldn't have read it online. I tried to read at night but it doesn't work for me because I fall a sleep quickly and am usually near a machine I can read the RSS off. I also have a hard time reading a book because of the line lengths and size of the text. It just doesn't quite gel with me. So I could easily sit down and read a PDF on my phone quicker that a actual book. I would love to have a real ebook reader but I can't afford such luxuaries, although I was considering using my old tabletpc as one. I'm a odd guy, I don't really read fiction that much any more, I tend to prefer the visual feedback of TV and Film.

Magazines : I only buy magazines .net and wired when I'm getting on a plane where I can't open my laptop till I'm all the way up in the air.

More to come….

Right my turn to tag some people.

Tom Morris, Miles Metcalfe, Duncan Barnes, Black belt jones and Phil Windley

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Sicko – the Universial Heath care question

Micheal moore in a waiting room

So I just returned from watching Sicko in a Canadian Cinema (don't you know).

The experience was quite different. Although watching from the outside looking in on this massive problem the united states has with its self was the same, you certainly got the feeling that Canadians were shocked at how bad the problem really was.

Spoilers ahead

Micheal Moore this time around does a fantastic job not getting too muddled in the politics and conspiracy areas. Instead uses peoples stories to tell how bad things have got. Even if the stories stretch the truth, they were powerful enough to cast a couple of tears from peoples eyes. Micheal looks at the Canadian, British, French systems, but what really hammer the point home is the visit to Cuba with some 911 helpers. Micheal Moore is a genius for that one which looked to be a stunt too far turned into something very meaningful. The Cheque for the Anti Micheal Moore site owner was clever but could been seen as another stunt or a act of humanity. I thought humanity but I could see how others would think the opposite.

The movie is well worth watching even if you can't stand Micheal Moore. I went to the cinema because I want to support Micheal Moore's efforts in this one but you can also get the film online if you don't like the guy.

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ShareTV just needs a social network and a client

ShareTV.org is my hot tip for the future of TV online.

For a long time I've been wishing that Tioti.com (Tape it off the internet) would get its act together, but it never so I gave up on it about 6 months ago. Since then I've noticed ShareTV and TV nanny move closer into the area which Tioti occupied. TV Nanny I don't kow enough about because I don't really like installing clients on my desktop machine and its only windows based.

ShareTV features

Anyway, back to ShareTV. This bit torrent site focuses on yes you guessed it Television programmes. Its clean cut and lacks a style. This makes it super easy to navigate around its pages and discover new areas without feeling lost. Right from the start they included RSS feeds with direct links to the torrent files. Not only a global one but per programme and the last 30 shows feed. Both of these make it really simple to setup a TVRSS setup using Azureus, UTorrent Democracy or something else. Another key feature of ShareTV is it only selects one torrent of each episode of the programme. Aka you don't have to choose which version of the programme you want to download. This might sound like a disadvantage for those who really like downloading those 1gig 720p HD versions of Heroes but for the rest of us its fine. I'm sure in the near future they will build feeds with all HD episodes which can be used.

ShareTV also indexes currently about 100+ shows including UK shows like Jekyll and Doctor Who (which I'm currently missing due to be in Toronto). They rip the details for each show from TV.com so you can get the full details about a show before downloading it. Recently they have included previews so you can get a idea about a show using a streaming flash player in the page. This is being extended by it would seem them watching links in del.icio.us and Youtube pointing to episodes, so you can actually watch the whole show there in your browser if you choose to. I don't know how successful this will be but thats not the most interesting part.

Recently if you log into ShareTV you can do a whole bunch of new stuff. Voting for a show is new and interesting because you are able to gage per show what people thought of the show. You can vote either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Less interesting is the fact you can add comments to each episode. Tv.com has the same thing, so the duplication isn't  that welcomed. Now its possible to add your favorite shows to a personal list and keep a track of just those. I didn't notice a RSS feed for them yet but I'm sure thats coming soon. Another nice thing ShareTV does is a calendar view of TV shows like a 9 day TV listings, But it looks possible that this can be applied the shows you favorite too. Meaning you get a personalised TV listing guide.

Getting Social

So most of this is exactly what Tioti does but Tioti was a mess.for things like picking torrents. Whats missing from ShareTV is the social aspect. Now I have my personal schedule or TV listing of my shows. I want to share this with other ShareTV friends or buddies. I also want to share my schedule with the world. You know stick it in my blog or even in my facebook profile. Once you ShareTV allows RSS, this will be easier but I still want some simple to share widget too.

Something which bugged me about Tioti was the show tracker, it required you to say I've seen this episode, I've seen that episode. But it was a pain. I suggest ShareTV use that voting feature to assume people have also seen that episode at the same time. Ideally ShareTV would have a public API behind it but personalised RSS would be a start, so the feed would have up to date metadata about if you watched the episode or not. I was at one point thinking about using a iCal feed with the free/busy status switched if you've seen it or not but it seems over kill.

Points system

I forgot to add this to my first post. ShareTV now have a points system for your account. This level of participation is both playful and community building. Some of the core elements I would say for making the site more social.

You get points by participating in the site. The more points you have the higher priority you get when downloading off our tracker or streaming videos.

Action Points Given
Create Account +10 points
Rate Show +1 point per
Place Comment +2 point per
Upload new Torrent +3 points per**
Submit new video clip +4 points per**

** You also get plus/minus points for each vote on the torrent or video you submit, so make sure you submit stuff other members would like

Ideally it would still be great if your bit torrent client or mediaplayer device could say if you've seen the episode – You could imagine something like Last.FM for TV (last broadcast) with plugins for the Xbox Media Centre, Windows Media Centre, Apple TV, Democracy, BBC iPlayer etc. But thats a long way off and seems the demand won't be there till we get over the whole downloading TV shows thing. I actually think shareTV would be a great place to try such a service but even if ShareTV could consume someone elses service that would be great.

I mean it would only take ShareTV a while to add some kind of distributed Digg like system through peoples personal desktop widget engines. Or they could create some simple application using Xul or Air (formally known as Adobe Apollo). Geez if there was a API again, I would try writing the other part myself.

These are the things Tioti promised but never quite delivered (or at least got over complex on). I don't want to be harsh to Tioti and Paul Pod (who I hope to meet in Edinburgh)  but the illustrations of the features of Tioti were amazing and the result has been a big let down. ShareTV is closer to the vision of Tioti that it may actually know and it would be a shame if it went in a different direction now.

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Jekyll, BBC drama at its best

TV recently has been a little slow since the likes of Lost, Heroes, etc have taken there break. But luckily there is some great UK series which are not to be missed. I've already mentioned Doctor Who which finishes next week. But what I failed to mention is this great new series called Jekyll (you can see the trailer here). Its a drama with a chilling edge and well worth watching.

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Video interviews from Xtech 2007

Xtech 2007 in Paris

It was great being at Xtech this year but it wasn't all play. I did actually film a lot and take notes. Ok there were sessions which were a little too early for my liking but that's the way it always is.

Along with all the videoing and write ups about Xtech 2007. I shot a few interviews while at Xtech 2007.

meta-technorati-tags=videos, backstage, bbc, interviews

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BBC watching what others are saying

Imp (her name not a nickname) has an extremely detailed post about the BBC iPlayer. I'm going to reserve all judgment till the final thing comes out, plus I shouldn't really be blogging about work things I guess? Some people have asked if I'm on the trial, well I'm not because to tell the truth, I honestly don't need a PVR like service like this.

Seeing how were talking about the BBC, I thought I'd also mention Ben Metcalfe's post about BBC Future Media and Technology (what use to be BBC New Media). I'm officially part of BBC Innovation and Development (I hope thats the correct name) which is slightly different but not far remove. Its sad whats happened to the BBC, but honestly there is no point crying over the dropped beer now. Its what we do in the future which matters now.

I also do not feel trapped in the BBC, I choose to work for the BBC and although I could maybe go somewhere else and earn tons more money. Its not about that for me. Me and Ben have had this debate many times. He wants to run a successful business, while I'm not interested in running my own business or even being a freelancer. Currently Ben and others seem to think the only way this will happen is if they go to America. Fair enough, but I think there in for a shock as the internet becomes truly more global. And this is not me being bitter, if I wanted to go to the states tomorrow, I could get up and leave (if I can convince Sarah to go back). I was never in the industry to be a rockstar, I find rockstars and popularity very boring. My aim is to only change the world one step at a time.

Next month sees my 1 year anniversary since leaving the BBC. In that time I’ve had a turbulent time – moving to a new country, helping to start a business that I later left because it wasn’t heading in the direction I wanted to see myself go. But in that time I’ve felt a sense of freedom and opportunity that I never felt within the BBC – even when I was given the ‘greenlight’ to do pretty much what I wanted… the constraints placed upon the BBC were always still there.

Funny enough, I found out that Paul Hammond also joined the Yahoo Flickr team recently. Congrats to him, honestly. I actually wanted to get on video why he felt the need to go to the states.Most of the guys I followed into the BBC including Paul, Ben, MattB, Kim, Matt Jones, Plasticbag, etc. Have all gone off and worked for other great companies. They have all remarked on how different things are outside of the BBC. Well currently this is more negative that positive. But mark my words, in a few years that will change and the BBC will be where everyone will want to work.

Lastly while talking about the BBC ( I really need to change the title of this blog post from BBC iPlayer covered like no one else to BBC watching what others are saying) Miles Metcalfe (not related to Ben Metcalfe in anyway) wrote a short entry which I meant to cover a while ago.

informitv reports BBC appoints Microsoft man to control future media. I am reminded of DEC and AltaVista, and why you will have heard of Google, but not AltaVista

In the same story, news that James Cridland will become head of BBC future media for audio and music. I've met James, and he's a nice guy. But he thinks the iPod is a closed platform. Possibly not the sort of person you'd want taking long-term decisions about DRM and BBC audio content, then.

Well technically the iPod is a open platform but its got elements of closedness which makes it not as open as others. I think James will make a great head. The fact he actually reads the debate which happens on Backstage and was trying to setup a backstage like project at Virgin Radio is huge. I know people with large pay packets who still don't understand backstage. I for one will be looking forward to seeing him around and working with him in the near future. I would be lying if the other comment about DEC didn't give me a chill, well observed Miles.

meta-technorati-tags=tv, bbc, catchuptv, pvr, trial, beta, iplayer, imp, benmetcalfe, jamescridland, milesmetcalfe

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Plumbing for the next web at Xtech 2007

I have uploaded my presentation, pipelines: plumbing for the next web fresh from the first day of Xtech 2007 today to Slideshare.

The general view is that the presentation went down well and made sense. However I think people really wanted to see something which worked instead of slideware.

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So having just watched Spiderman 3

spiderman3 poster

So I just saw Spider-man 3 in the cinema, and the general feeling is its certainly reached the end of the line. Please don't make anymore (unless its spider-man begins or something). It had its moments and I certainly saw glimmers of what made Spiderman 1 and somewhat 2 good. However people actually laughed at the corny scenes, the extra money spent on sandman were obviously taken from the story budget and like John Stewart said on the daily show a while ago. The symbiote thing from outer space which turned out to be venom was laughable at best. Don't get me started on how Sandman was created, geez suspend all believe or don't turn on your brain for the next 2 hours. What really killed it for me was the moment when spiderman jumps pass the american flag, long enough for me to grab my camera and snap a shot. Obviously I did't but I was thinking about it.

I can't believe they ruined Spiderman. Sarah went all out on it, and shes right, it was crap. We wasted 7.20 pounds on a film which sucked. I knew we should have seen something else but my mind was pretty much made up after seeing the first 3 shows were sold out. Watching the last hour of the film was something like pulling nails out or like the picture above.

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Want to explore the BBC archive?

Film cans

From Backstage

The BBC is looking for people to join a six-month trial in which 20,000 UK residents will get free access to hundreds of programmes from the BBC archive, including reports of historic events as they happened, ground-breaking documentaries, soaps, action-packed children's shows, sumptuous dramas, and comedy shows that thrilled the nation.

Interested? then you can now register your interest on the BBC Archive site

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Giving F.A.C.T the finger

Priacy joke poster

There’s nothing I hate more than sitting down for a film at a cinema only to have that horrendous F.A.C.T. screen come up to threaten me about what could happen to me if I take a photograph or record the film. Thank you for threatening me right after I’ve bought a ticket and sat down to watch a film and RE-FUCKIN’-LAX for goodness’ sake!

I'm just loving the post Aral post about F.A.C.T and Pete's comment in the same blog post. Here's some quotes.

FACT do a hugely important job in fighting the perpetrators of IP and copyright theft crimes, and these ads are a necessary evil. There are people out there – many of them on this blog apparently that seem to think that its ok to download or purchase DVD’s from unofficial sources. The plain fact is IT’S ILLEGAL. Ok so you know that … but amazingly enough there are people out there who dont know this. Its is these people that the ads are aimed at. Come on it’s only a couple of minutes and hardly worth loosinganysleep over. Just ignore it for f**ks sake … concentrate on your bag of pop-corn or something if t bothers you that much. It really isn’t that bigger deal.

How different is it realy from the speed signs by the side of the motorway – we all KNOW what the limit is… but people need reminding from time to time

– Pete from F.A.C.T

How would you like it if you had to sit through “just a couple of minutes” of video telling you that stealing food is illegal (hey, IT’S ILLEGAL) every time to opened your fridge? How about a message about how stealing music is illegal (hey, IT’S ILLEGAL) every time you started up iTunes. Come on man, it’s just a few minutes, don’t be so anal about it! Oh yeah, and you’d probably love sitting through two minutes of a message telling you that copying other people’s work is illegal every time you start up MicrosoftWord(hey, IT’S ILLEGAL). In fact, if you actually believe what you’re saying you shouldn’t mind sitting through two minutes of legal lecture whenever you start *any* software application that deals with data or IP (which is, pretty much, any software application.) Would even you — a “paid up member of FACT” stand for this? If not, how hypocritical of you.

– Aral

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I’m removing FOWA content

FOWA

I have removed almost all of the Future of webapps footage I shot last week. I was nicely asked to consider what kind of impact this could have on future conferences. I thought about it and agreed to take down the footage which was also fitting with the terms and conditions for the conference. If you have copied the footage off Blip.tv, I hope you will also do the right thing and delete the footage too.

I have however, chosen to keep the video of Mike Arrington up under the interest of public debate and fair use. But all the rest are now gone. I hope you can all understand and will enjoy the next Future of Webapps, as much as I enjoyed the last one. Oh and can you believe the Future of Webdesign is already sold out… Crazy!

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Is the BBC Backstage podcast the first CC licenced piece from the BBC?

Michela Ledwidge asks the question, and we racked our brains and did a lot of searching. I think it might be, but I can't say for sure. If thats not a first, using blip.tv is certainly a first. And to be honest, if it wasn't for the ability to…

  1. Set the license (creative commons attribution 2.5 in this case)
  2. Pipe content to Archive.org for permanent storage and to the benefit of generations to come

We would have never have consider it. Maybe we've been drinking too much of Lessig's kool aid. Although I was a little worried about the Blip.tv EULA. But Mike at Blip says,

As far as the EULA, we don't own all the rights. Don't want them. We need to find a way to make that even clearer. When you upload you give us the rights to create derivative works (for thumbnails and transcoding) and to distribute (i.e. make available for download). Those rights go away when you delete the content from blip.

Another reason why the archive.org angle is very important. If Blip.tv ever pulled a Yahoo/Flickr thing on its users. You could pipe them all to Archive.org and remove them from Blip. Metadata and all..

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The reaction to the first Backstage podcast

Podcast group

The first ever BBC Backstage podcast has caused a quite a stir. Some of it negative and some of it positive.

Generally the reaction to the podcast is positive but Ben did say he felt Backstage shouldn't be hosting such a debate. Its bigger that Backstage and should be taking place somewhere else. Fair enough, but till then backstage is where it will stay for now.

Before coming to Cory's thoughts on the BBC and DRM, I thought I'd better cover some of the other points from others first. Upyourego loves the podcast too and makes a good point about the lack of RSS like Tom Morris. Adam, Brian, Superfly
picked it up and so does Euan Semple, who is surprisingly quiet about it. But some of the comments left are interesting, including one from Cory. Weird Cory didn't post any comments to mine or Ben's
blogs entries.

Corys post to BoingBoing is over the top. I love Cory but he took a few points from the podcast and went to town on them. He threw out most of the other stuff which made it a much more balanced debate. For example,

You can hear the disappointment in the visionaries at the BBC, the betrayal at being sold out by management. The BBC is forcing Britons to buy an American operating system — Windows — in order to watch British programming, made in Britain. The free and open GNU/Linux — whose kernel is maintained in Britain — can't be used for British TV, because of DRM.

Well yes there was something in the air but we're positive about making things right and turning things around. Open DRM is one of many things discussed but Cory doesn't mention this. Tom has a comment which I don't quite get, but I'll ask him tomorrow.

Arstechnica does a much better job at reporting a more balanced view of the podcast. Although the title is misleading – BBC explains decision to go with Microsoft DRM.

The brouhaha surrounding iPlayer makes for some good reading, but more interesting is the podcast. The BBC engineers on the show come off as intelligent, affable folks who don't like content restrictions any more than consumers do. They're also fully aware of recent technologies like Ogg Vorbis, BitTorrent, and SlingBox. For those curious how DRM and rights decisions are made behind the scenes at a major public broadcaster, this is definitely worth a listen.

A couple of good comments follow too.

That's an amazingly insightful podcast! Thanks!

Which company has used DRM longer, the BBC or Apple? Just because Jobs uses DRM and then says “but we shouldn't” doesn't mean a thing. Well, depending on how gullible you are. It's about as meaningful as Google's “do no harm”. Actions speak louder than words.

Currently Digg and Slashdot have yet to pick up the podcast or its reactions. Oh it looks like we'll be uploading the video this week.

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Day Break only available online

Taye Diggs and Victoria Pratt of Daybreak

I write this entry a while ago.

Oh great! What is it with American networks and getting rid of shows before they get a chance to get going? I'm not saying Daybreak was the next Firefly but you know what – its damm ignoying. I mean its only meant to be a mini series between the break in Lost season 3 but come on. Its actually not that bad and I was looking forward to seeing what else would come from the series. Now I have to watch it on ABC.com via a proxy
because I can't see it in the UK, but it even that looks unlikely.

Well I'm glad to say, episodes 7-12 are now out and online. As expected the series was worth watching till the end (not sure if 12 is the last one or not). Go get them while there still online. Its also coming to the UK via Sky/Cable on Bravo. Shame there won't be a second series.

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