Ma.gnolia: Bookmarks in Future Media

Inside CNN's R&D department, Jemima Kiss, Guaridan PDA Blog, July 18, 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:37:59 PDT

CNN's parent company Turner has a team of ten people in its R&D broadcasting systems department, most based in the Atlanta headquarters with one in Hong Kong and one in the UK... [Bob Schukai, vice president of wireless and broadband technologies for R&D] says the department has autonomy when it comes to concepts and projects rather than having to think about business models form the outset... R&D also work with editorial teams.

Report: Futurescape: Digital entertainment, online television and social media R&D: 2008: The Birth of Online TV

nico_macdonald — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:53:52 PDT

In-depth analysis of new American and British online television shows – scripted comedy and drama. Includes sample material.

'BBC ournalist Wheeler dies at 85' BBC News, 4 July 2008

nico_macdonald — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:14:21 PDT

Veteran journalist Sir Charles Wheeler, the BBC's longest-serving foreign correspondent, has died at the age of 85 after suffering from lung cancer. [Very moving excerpts from Wheeler's journalism. Includes interesting comment on why UK media report what happens elsewhere in the world.]

Associated Press: A New Model for News Research Report, June 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:43:54 PDT

A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption, A Research Report from The Associated Press and the Context-Based Research Group. Conducted by the Associated Press and Context-Based Research Group, an ethnographic research firm with a global network of cultural anthropologists. Research conducted in six major metropolitan areas around the globe. Study published at the World Editors Forum. Findings noted in press release: Among the key findings was that the young subjects of the study experienced news fatigue, meaning they were overloaded with facts and updates and had trouble connecting to more in-depth stories. Participants yearned for quality and in-depth reporting, but had difficulty immediately accessing such content... Several participants viewed news as a form of social currency.

PDA: New York Times, and what to do with that API, Jemima Kiss, Guardian, May 27, 2008

nico_macdonald — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:18:22 PDT

The New York Times is working on an API that will make the whole website "programmable, organisable", adding layer of mash-ups to NYTimes content.

'Platform for free speech ... or hate?' Sean Dodson, Guardian, May 19 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:32:05 PDT

Set up as a means for readers to publish their opinions, sites such as My Telegraph raise questions at the heart of the online debate... a year on from launch, the Telegraph's experiment has put it in the front line of a sensitive but important issue for online newspapers - how to manage and develop user-generated content... Some publishers "post-moderate" - in reaction to readers' or editors' complaints or monitoring... some "pre-moderate"... Ilana Fox, editor of My Sun, says: "About a year ago BNP members started posting on our message boards. What we found was that our community rallied round and took the BNP to task."... Meg Pickard, the Guardian's head of communities, says: "We're all facing the same challenges with developing and managing user-generated content, although we're approaching it in different ways ... While it's easy to dwell on the negative aspects of managing user-generated content, in general most interaction on newspaper sites is civil, and we feel privileged to host and inspire such an interesting range of vibrant conversations."

Comment is free: This lethal peepshow, Mark Lawson, Guardian, May 9 2008

nico_macdonald — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:50:40 PDT

Journalistic values are often revealed by attitude to foreign news... Unusually, though, this week's [UK] Sun front pages have alternated between two foreign stories: the Burmese cyclone and the Austrian cellar scandal... [B]y no imaginable checklist, other than gruesome prurience, is there any need for us to know so many details of what happened in [the Austrian] underground dungeon... The point of journalism is not just to show, but to tell: to explain what is going on... The risk is that... future nations struck by flood [or other horror] become of interest simply because of the horrible fascination of their narratives, becoming genres in a schedule of entertainment. [Cites Marshall McCluhan.] [W]hen it comes to the Austrian monster, sometimes, in the global village, we should mind our own business.

Video: 'The future role of public service broadcasting' Sir David Attenborough, 30 April 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:20:27 PDT

8m: We took ourselves and our responsibilities very seriously. We thought our schedules ought to be very varied and cover as wide a range of interests as possible... We thought too that we could play a key role in modern democracy by enabling a stockbroker in Surrey to understand what a fisherman in the north of Scotland might be feeling – and vice versa. We would be able to broaden horizons, introducing people to subjects that they might have never encountered and bringing them new pleasures and delights. 32m: Today, there are increasing numbers of technical advances that allow viewers to repeat programmes at their leisure and view them when the mood takes them... But broadcasting is something else. It is that miraculous advance, still not a century old, that allows a whole society, a whole nation, to see itself and to talk to itself. It enables people, no matter who they are and where they are, to share insights and illuminations, to become aware of problems and collectively consider solutions... [The broadcast medium] should be a place where all kinds of people, with all kinds of interests and insights, can share them with society as a whole... It can only be done by a coherent network, one that measures its success not only by the size of the audience it manages to gain for an individual programme but – very importantly – by the width of the spectrum of interests it manages to represent.

'Better Reading on the Small Screen' Technology Review, May 06, 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:29:35 PDT

As mobile phones become more sophisticated, they are bidding to replace laptops as the business traveler's tool of choice. But trying to view and navigate documents on a phone's small screen remains frustrating. A new research project [the Seamless Documents project] at Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) aims to solve that problem, while making it easier to transfer scanned documents to a phone in the first place. [Quotes Ben Bederson, University of Maryland.]

Comment is free: Auntie's bloomers in a twist, David Cox, Guardian, May 3, 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:38:20 PDT

To preserve its vast empire, [the BBC] needs a high licence fee. To retain public support for this increasingly resented impost, it must maximise its audience. Hence, populism must be pursued ever more frenetically, and seriousness must be sacrificed to pay for it. ¶ In the past, it was creative competition from rival suppliers of public service programmes that drove the BBC to conform to Sir David's requirements. The arrival of ITN woke up BBC News, World in Action put a bomb under Panorama, Five showed up the corporation's arts coverage and Channel 4 taught it how to be bolder... Only continued creative competition of this kind will prevent public service broadcasting from lapsing into cosy mediocrity... Ofcom's chief executive, Ed Richards, has spoken of "a public service trust or agency" that might channel money to organisations other than the BBC if they're prepared to fulfil public obligations. Some people argue that the current proliferation of distribution platforms might enable not just existing broadcasters but universities, museums and other such bodies to participate in such a process... [But as money for the PSP would come from the BBC's funds] a radical rethink of the way it functions is therefore needed... Currently, much of the potential income which the corporation could extract from the enthusiasts in its audience is probably going untapped. It ought to be enabled to get its hands on this revenue... The BBC's popular services should be turned over to subscription funding, something that will become technologically straightforward once digital switchover is completed... To pay for its public service programming, it could apply to the distributing authority along with other broadcasters.

'Three cheers for Gutenberg - and long live dead trees' Simon Jenkins, Guardian, January 6, 2006

nico_macdonald — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:51:25 PDT

My first word-processor was faster to use and had a longer battery life than anything produced since. In these crucial features, each new computer has been less efficient than the last. I just want a PC version of the Model T Ford. [Supposedly the] world of newspapers is once again on its last legs, its words going on screen and its advertising online... On my first day as a trainee at the Times... I was warned by an old hand that... [r]real journalism would be on television... [Today we are told c]olumnists must "blog or die"... [In reality] America's serious newspapers are declining because they are dull, worthy and uncompetitive. [Discusses the impact of the News International move to Wapping and the related impact on editorial innovation across the industry.] [In the UK] the growth in serious newspaper sales is unique. [Newspapers] have shown that they can grasp each new technology, including computers, and bend it to their will.

Audio: Start the Week, BBC Radio 4, Apr 28, 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:24:58 PDT

32m: John Lloyd "Politicians have really lost... channels of communicating other than the media... The media really are the message bearers of politicians. They have very little choice but to take the media seriously because _that is their medium_."

Comment is free: Jeff Jarvis v Michael Tomasky, Guardian, April 24, 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:53:01 PDT

Guardian America editor Michael Tomasky and Jeff Jarvis on the ethical questions around journalistic blogging

PDA: Publishers need to mimic tech firms, says FT.com chief, Jemima Kiss, Guardian, April 22, 2008

nico_macdonald — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:15:52 PDT

Ien Cheng, publisher and managing editor of FT.com, has a vision for the digital incarnation of the Financial Times. In his world, publishers need to remodel themselves on technology companies, working more quickly and more responsively to keep up with the webby world... "We need to learn from the web start-up and pure play web company approach that has technology much closer with the business. Publishers can't just thnk it's the it department over the wall that they throw stuff to." [says Cheng]... "The challenge for us is to become not just a publisher but a technology company in order to support that publisher."

'Auntie's favourites' John Lloyd, Financial Times magazine, March 2 2007

nico_macdonald — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:45:27 PDT

By carrying on as if there were no BBC bias, or as if only rightwing obsessives (as both Aitken and North have been called) care about it, the BBC is prejudicing the best argument for its survival as a state-funded institution (which I support). ¶ Sooner or later, politicians will suppress their fears and take it on. Only if it engages in a painful and eviscerating examination of its biases and its power... will the BBC deserve a protected future... If it cannot do that [then we] should then use public funds to spread that essential democratic service to competing suppliers.

'From our home correspondent' Iain Hollingshead, Media Guardian, March 31 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:51:37 PDT

[N]ow that "letters to the editor" are no longer the only point of contact between newspapers and their readers, is that letters pages still appear to flourish on the broadsheets... relatively novel facility of commenting at will online... appears to have led to a renewed respect among journalists and readers for the old-fashioned skill of careful editing... The contrast between the quality of debate on the letters pages and the online free-for-all is certainly marked. It's not just the Guardian's Comment Is Free that attracts long threads of whimsy... Letters pages also retain a special ability... to set the news agenda [and call people to action]... But while letters pages appear to have benefited from the rise of... online commentary, they haven't yet adapted convincingly to the internet itself... comment may be free, but editing the gems and sifting through the drivel is expensively time-consuming.

''Comment is Free,' but designing communities is hard' Nico Macdonald, Online Journalism Review, 17 August 2006

nico_macdonald — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:43:37 PDT

The Guardian's attempt to build an engaging group blog further illustrates the cultural differences between running a newspaper and an online conversation. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060817macdonald/

'Analysis: Think tanks fill up on broadband' Nico Macdonald, Silicon.com, April 13 2004

nico_macdonald — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:58:21 PDT

Reviews recent thinktank reports on broadband, and concludes that they have a good handle on the issue. Critiques the assumption that the PC-based Web browser should be the locus of delivery for information, communication and services, the misconception that broadband is all about speed and cost, and the fetish for greater bandwidth tomorrow, while pointing out the benefits of always on, the possibilities of asynchronous delivery, and the need for information appliances. The absence of models of broadband adoption is commented on, and the lack of leadership in the development of 'content' challenged.

Online documentary: Reuters: Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War

nico_macdonald — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:39:45 PDT

Includes Profiles, Timeline (matrix of images and events), Maps (Oil, Population, Fatalities and Journalist Safety) and Resources. Excellent use of images, information visualisation and graphic design.

'IPTV lacks consumer pull - BBC' Total Telecom, 14 March 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:06:52 PDT

U.K. broadcaster the BBC said IPTV still requires a critical unique selling point (USP) that is attractive to consumers... "The USP from the consumer's point of view is exciting content," [said Rahul Chakkara, controller of TV platforms at the BBC]... Chakkara insisted that IPTV services need to be as engaging and easy to use, with same quality of service and experience associated with regular broadcast TV... "When I get home... I want my television and I want to relax and put my PC to the back of my mind," he said... Chakkara said that IP has broadened the horizons of the average consumer.

'BT Vision to integrate BBC iPlayer' Total Telecom, 14 March 2008.

nico_macdonald — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:42:26 PDT

BT has revealed plans to integrate the iPlayer Internet television service offered by U.K. broadcaster the BBC with its IPTV offering, BT Vision... Watson also revealed that BT hopes to launch a dedicated movie subscription service for its IPTV customers... "We want to turn video-on-demand from a complementary service into the dominant form in which television is consumed," he said... "If not carefully packaged, video-on-demand can appear cold and un-engaging – just a list of content – so for it to be compelling the whole experience needs to connect with the user."

'The BBC - now it's personal' Telegraph, 28/02/2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:44:10 PDT

[The BBC's home page] has changed completely, and the "conversation" about the future direction of the BBC's identity - on the web and beyond - has begun in earnest... With the new version, users can choose to whether to learn about news, sport, weather, lottery results, the World Service and many other aspects of the corporation's output. ¶ "We looked at our search engine data and saw that people were consistently asking the same sort of questions, and the BBC had all the answers - we just couldn't get the information to people." [says Tony Ageh, the BBC's internet controller]. ¶ Ageh envisages a day when a search for Fawlty Towers will give information about John Cleese, Monty Python, Andrew Sachs, the opportunity to watch clips where available, and the chance to find out where and when the show is next being broadcast.

Starbucks Deal Brewed with AT&T Has Hints of Apple, Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS, 12 Feb 2008

nico_macdonald — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:34:26 PST

Analysis of possible deal between Apple, Starbucks and AT&T around instore WiFi and 3G iPhone. Discusses Starbucks becoming a second living room, focused on media downloads from in-store servers.

'Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize' Noam Cohen, New York Times, February 25, 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:48:48 PST

[Joshua Micah Marshall of the Talking Points Memo Internet-only news operation has won a George Polk Award for legal reporting for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys.] “I think of us as journalists; the medium we work in is blogging,” he said, something that can involve matters as varied as the tone of the writing or the display of articles in reverse chronological order. “We have kind of broken free of the model of discrete articles that have a beginning and end. Instead, there are an ongoing series of dispatches.”... Dan Kennedy, a media critic who teaches at Northeastern University, has followed the site from its inception. What Talking Points Memo does, he said, “is a different kind of journalism, based on the idea that my readers know more than I do.”

'Beyond the digital divide lies a new world of intimacy' Libby Brooks, Guardian, February 21 2008

nico_macdonald — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:20:18 PST

The rush to blame the Bridgend deaths on social networking reflects adult ignorance of the role of technology in young lives... [Despite police cautioning on the relationships of social networking sites and the Bridgend teenage suicides] innuendo nonetheless has taken root, playing as it does to adult fears... [The discussion of the] Bridgend deaths... only exposes adult ignorance about the integration of technology into young people's lives. [References forthcoming Dr Tanya Byron review of the impact of new technology on childhood, submissions to which] have also addressed the more nebulous questions of how the internet is mediating children and young people's capacity for intimacy, their conceptions of privacy, and the public construction of identity... This is the first generation to grow up beyond the digital divide. [Gives examples to show that teen social networks tend to be based on pre-existing networks.] Deciding who to trust, and what to reveal about yourself, can be just as complex offline. [Gives example of way kids maintain multiple identities online.] [Children's media expert Sonia Livingstone] has found that young people have not discarded privacy but rather that their definition of it has changed... Children and young people have always sought spaces beyond adult surveillance... At a time when children are more captive than ever - whether because of adults' risk aversion, extended schools, lack of outdoor space - maybe we ought to celebrate the way they have ducked under the wire and created a whole new version of intimacy.

'Two-way street' Oliver Bennett, Design Week, 07 February 2008

nico_macdonald — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:07:30 PST

Web strategies used to be a real headache for glossy magazine publishers agonising over cannibalisation and revenue models... a complementary approach to the integration of on- and off-line products works best... The glossy magazine is still finding an accommodation with the Web... Perhaps it's a category problem. Magazines, high-end glossies in particular, are made for leisure... Yet now, the need to bring magazine sophistication on-line is moving apace... [Gives examples. Quotes Tomaso Capuano, designer of The Times' quarterly, Luxx.]... 'Magazines are finding it harder to lure people away from websites,' says [John Weir, director of on-line publishing company Excite]... 'A magazine has different attributes to a website, and the Web is littered with failed sites that tried to replicate print media' [says David-Michel Davies, director of The Webby Awards]. 'We couldn't afford to give [photography] that much space in print,' [says Wallpaper art director Tony Chambers]. To avoid it being a dump, you need very strict editing processes, just as in other areas, which brings the publishing ethos full circle'... 'Websites are more like newspapers, newspapers are more like magazines, and magazines are more like books.'

'Mobile firms plan London TV pilot' BBC News, 12 February 2008

nico_macdonald — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:17:00 PST

Orange and T-Mobile have announced a joint pilot project of a multi-channel TV service for mobile phone users [using TDtv]... TDtv is a multimedia broadcast and multicast service, developed by NextWave Wireless, which operates in the 3G spectrum bands... Paul Jevons, Orange's Product and Innovation Director, said: "Orange... is continually looking for unique insights and innovative content to ensure that Orange Mobile TV continues to grow... T-Mobile UK Technical Director, Emin Gurdenli, said: "This solution would be ideal for broadcasting live, large sporting events such as the 2012 Olympic Games to high population densities."

'No topic is so surrounded by myth as the golden age of the press' Simon Jenkins, Guardian, February 8, 2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:20:54 PST

The cliche is that newspapers are so rotten and in decline that they merit no defence against the internet barbarians at their gates. So claim recent diatribes from John Lloyd, Alastair Campbell and, on these pages, Nick Davies. They are all talking rubbish... After a week in which the press [revealed many scandals] I wonder what sort of press these gentlemen prefer... [In fact, newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s] were dreadful... As for much-vaunted investigative journalism, there was none (outside the News of the World)... nobody seriously buys or runs a paper to make money... What is extraordinary is that... the product probably [is] better and certainly bolder... [Without the Wapping revolution] most titles would have closed, as in union-dominated America... Questioning analysis of public affairs by the press has greatly expanded. Papers are no longer the party publicity sheets of News Chronicle/Daily Herald/Daily Express nostalgia... [We should make a] distinction between press standards and press performance... It is the other institutions of democracy, notably cabinet, parties and parliament, that have atrophied and opened the accountability vacuum which the press has filled... The fault, such as it is, lies not with newspapers but with politics.

Live iChat, broadcast TV for Apple TV?, MacNN 02/07/2008

nico_macdonald — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:20:32 PST

Apple has filed for a patent describing expanded Apple TV/Front Row functionality, including live iChat and broadcast TV programming as part of potential future Front Row features

Video: BBC Innovation Labs 2008: Mobile Brief - Jason DaPonte

nico_macdonald — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:12:01 PST

Jason DaPonte talks about creating mobile interactivity at events, as the BBC covers (sporting) events from large to small. Rich coverage. Looking at telephony and non telephony devices functions, eg: Semacodes, RFID, small and big screen. Looking for interaction patterns. Not just serving people who are there. Building up excitement before, extending event after.