Remember this?
Well now there’s this.
So I did this to see if it helps in any way.
Thinking that either slopping this in your iPod and listening to it might take your mind off a boring 10-minute walk or listening to me huffing and puffing in light drizzle might make you think “I can do better than that loser”.
Had a little wander around a little bit of Soho on Wednesday to see what I could see that might be of use to someone thinking about a London Social Media Café. I only covered Brewer St, Wardour St, Dean St & Berwick St and the thoroughfares in between (you know the places you’re most likely to trip over Charles Frith at 5am… allegedly)
I took some pics of the ad boards from commercial property agents. Lots of upstairs offices. One or two boarded up or broken down café type spaces including one with a To Let sign in the window.
Left me wondering whether LSMC could operate in what is existing office space. Obviously you’d lose the passing trade, non-social-media traffic but still not sure how much that would be anyway. Also, don’t know if that sort of thing means a change of use and therefore requires some government interference, or looking at it in a more practical way, what you can get away with without upsetting Westminster CC.
Bonus pic: Before I got that far, I went and snapped the New Piccadilly which is now closed and boarded up. Anyone (Russell?)have any pointers to stories or info on whether the signage or any innards have been preserved?
Battersea Power Station was all lit up last night, apparently for some night shooting on “Rory’s First Kiss” which turns out to be a fake title for the new Batman movie rather than Snogging in South London. No bangs, flashes or maniacal laughter was audible from this side of the river, but apparently the crew will be around for another week so maybe there’ll be more.
I was invited yesterday to see a demo of Mippin which is being launched today by Refresh. Very, very simple stuff to read web content on your phone. I like.
I remember being interested in their previous (and still going strong) product, mobizines (Scott describes mippin as mobizines on steroids) but was put off by the restricted content available and the java client. These Refresh guys have taken the good idea from it – we want to be able to read cool stuff as easily on the phone as you do on your desktop – but they’ve moved away from the horrors of transcoding a 15″ experience in its entirety down to a variety of small mobile screens and gone for the fact that most sites already produce content in a presentation-independent form – their RSS feed.
As a service, you can look at it two ways – as a “publisher” I get to include my RSS feed in their database, then if I want to I can opt to splice ads into the feed (in the same way that feedburner does) from which Mippin takes a small cut. Bigger publishers will want to customise the way that their feed is displayed and they can do this too.
As a “user” I can subscribe to the feeds I want and I can search for terms (or URLs) to find new stuff – so for example putting the URL for this blog into the search box returns a picture and title and a link for each post. A click on the link takes me to an uncluttered version of the post. Perhaps a little too uncluttered – the links have been stripped. But there is another link there to go to the original post (and you can pass it on by mail, sms or twitter – nice) There’s a kind of history page too so I can go to my regular reads. I see it primarily as an RSS reader for my phone. So of course my feature requests are to make it behave a bit more like an aggregator – I’d like a river of news view. I’d like to be able to define groups of subscriptions and get a river of news from each. I’d also like to be able to turn off ads, oh yes and I’d also like a zeitgeist tagcloud to be able to see what’s hot. Scott was boasting that moving from downloadable client to browser meant that their development times have been slashed, so I expect to see my requests implemented well before Christmas 🙂
As an aside, the experience is still dependent on the browser though – I want a really good free browser for my Windows Mobile Smartphone – IE just doesn’t cut the mustard, although I’m also tempted by a Nokia 800 or an iTouch.
Disclosure: I was given two cups of delicious coffee (and offered more). There was cake. Mike Butcher ate some cake, but I stuck to coffee.
It seems that London’s opera critics think that Sally Potter’s Carmen is, well, a bit crap. I can’t comment, I haven’t seen it yet – but I still love the blogging and videoblogging over on the ENO’s mini-site. A couple of the critics have been a bit sneery about the whole 2.0 angle on this but I think they’re missing the point – the show may be gimmicky (err.. I don’t think opera folk call it a show, but you know what I mean) but the blog isn’t – I really think it’s taken a big step in a new direction for the Arts, opening up the creative process and the backstage, as the production progressed, rather than filming a fly-on-the-wall and then stitching it all together later. This shows up “what *were* they thinking?” as lazy rhetoric – you could have seen what they were thinking by following the site. The real question for the critics is “if they’ve been talking about what they’re going to do for so long and in such detail, why did the bits you don’t like in the production come as such a surprise to you?” and why weren’t you writing something about it back then?
I really hope that the ENO has the courage to keep that material up and to carry on with this experiment now and into future – it adds a layer of interestingness before you see the show as well as afterwards – it’s icing on the cake. As I say I haven’t seen the show, so I don’t know if this is an occasion to peel the icing off and give the cake to the dog or whether this is professional critics talking out of their arses again. Now is the time for the Carmen folk to get the conversation really going – fight back or surrender, doesn’t matter which, but say something.
The thing is that critics are part of the problem with opening up performance to a wider audience. The good news is that their power is diminishing as we gain the opportunity to hear people we know and trust talk about what they like and don’t like. I much prefer getting recommendations from my friends and I look forward to seeing some ordinary people’s reaction to Carmen, people who don’t have any prejudice against ENO and don’t already have a fixed opinion about how this opera needs to be done in London today.
I went to a C4 Education screening last night entitled “TV is dead?” My answer – read my blog (two years ago! – funnily enough about the same time as I started thinking about blogging for theatre) The bit in the programme where, if I’d been at home, I’d have been shouting at the telly, was when someone from the Beeb trotted out the old line that in future, as media professionals, they would be the people that we could trust to sift out the crap. NO, BBC, STOP! I don’t want your opinion on what’s crap and what’s not, I want you to make excellent programmes that no one else can make. More “Dr Who”, “Comics Britannia”, “Windscale”, “The Mighty Boosh” (oh God! *More* Storyville, not less!!!!) and fewer animals stuck up trees and celebrities who can’t tap dance.
Phew!
I really liked that younger people were included in the debate in a fairly unpatronising way, though friends and other regular readers know what I think of panel sessions.
Missing from last night was any recognition that the internet is about social interaction not content delivery (just like TV has always been) and so you should be concentrating on making stuff that people want to interact around rather than worrying about how they get it and whether everyone’s paid exactly the right money (whole other rant on that one – tell us straight – how much money gets spent on protecting rights? – how much more or less is it than the amount of money you currently lose to “piracy” – how much more money might you actually make if you weren’t so tight arsed about it all – *hint* watch Radiohead very carefully)
Also missing was any glimmer of understanding that advertising might not work any more. The real question here is “TV Advertising is Dead?” And it comes in two parts – 1. People don’t want to be interrupted or fed commercial information any more, they want it self-service and 2. The current advertising sales model is based on pulling the wool over the eyes of advertisers with extrapolations from sample audiences – what happens when you (and they) start to get real audience numbers in real time based on actual attention data from your viewers/subscribers in a form that makes comparison with other online media forms more like-for-like?
Thanks Adam for pointing to Michael Billington’s piece on theatre criticism.
I wish I had more time to respond, but in the few minutes before I get in the shower, I would add these points:
A great number of the theatre directors I’ve spoke to about in-house (marketing, if you like) blogging they have seen it’s *primary purpose* as circumventing what they see as piss-poor print-bound criticism which can kill a show’s sales just because the critic had a hangover.
Mr Billington should have a look here for an explanation of how to deal with that “relentless din”
I sat in front of Mr Billington at a press night last week. He was very well behaved, as you’d expect. The same can’t be said for one of his peers who threatened to disrupt the beginning of the show because the seat he’d been given didn’t suit his taste.
Is anyone doing (new)media literacy classes for these poor old hacks? How can we help them distinguish between the different types of blogging in theatre, spot the good stuff in among the rest and understand that you don’t have to read them all, any more than you have to read every column-inch of a newspaper.
I just love the Carmen blog from the English National Opera.
It’s exactly what I was talking about here
Well done to the folk at interesource who got it going, but super well done to the ENO people who seem to have taken to it as naturally as I’d hoped. I was really grateful to get to talk to John Berry a few weeks ago and hear his take – I came away understanding that ENO was an obvious place to do this – democratisation of access to opera is one of their cornerstones. We also talked about ‘bootstrapping’ online and offline relationships and I thought I saw a small lightbulb go on.
There’s a ton of cool video on the site – perhaps too many talking heads (but who am I to talk!) but some fantastic music and behind the scenes action. Go look.
I think it’s a great example of post-geek bloggery – as I’ve been saying for a while, make your own fly-on-the-wall documentary of what you’re doing rather than getting a crew in to follow you around and then stitch you up after the event.
When I’ve pitched this idea to other people, the perceived barriers have been (lack of) editorial control and shining the light on the creative process too early. I don’t know what the process has been for creating content here, but I can’t imagine that Sally Potter has had to get her blog approved by a committee every time she writes.
One suggestion – a more obvious place to find CC-licenced images for bloggers to use to illustrate their posts about you 🙂
Well, more like I have some compassion for him – but “I have compassion for the fool” sounds like something Martin in the Simpsons would get punched for saying (more Simpsons later).
I went to the Frontline Club last night, actually, thanks Euan for reminding me that I *paid* to go to the Frontline Club and hear Andrew Keen speak about his book what he wrote. I got to meet Richard Sambrook and Graham Holliday and had a quick drink and catch up with Euan afterwards so it was worth it actually.
Andrew is a man who clearly gets something out of being (metaphorically) beaten up by one half of the audience while the other half looks on, amazed and puzzled by the rage of their usually rational fellows. I couldn’t help thinking that this is probably a situation Andrew has found himself in again and again. I felt very much like I was watching an unconscious videotape of the world according to Andrew Keen aged four and a half. He behaves like a picky child. “Don’t want this. Don’t want that. Don’t…. want” So, to save you from reading his book or paying to feed him in some other way, let me summarise what he doesn’t like:
community
libertarians
democracy (he spits the word “democratisation” when he reads from his book)
hippies
Dave Winer
people ‘stealing’ stuff on the web
people having the chance to ‘criticise’
people making economic choices
free markets
state regulated markets
anonymity
humility
Glen Reynolds
Tim O’Reilly
Jeff Jarvis
foocamp
By the way, when I asked him the question “So what *do* you want” I included liberty rather than libertarian – yes I do know the difference, but I’d slipped into troll behaviour too – I’m not immune to it, that’s why I have compassion for him.
He said that he wants “an information economy that reports objectively and employs trusted and respected professionals”.
Other classic quotes:
“Who am I to say that people in China shouldn’t blog”
“Journalists should be more arrogant”
“If you’re being paid and someone is editing you, then you’re a professional journalist”
“I don’t like the idea of humility”
“Tell me a blogger who’s better than Polly Toynbee”
stop. sniggering.
The story I took away is that he went to foocamp and got the wrong end of the stick. From the reports I’ve seen, foocamp does not represent what the majority of us are doing on the web no matter how much Tim O’Reilly would like it to. Its exclusivity goes against all of the openness that makes our experience here worthwhile. foocamp’s greatest contribution is the Barcamp movement which was created in reaction to it. Does Andrew know what Dave Winer looks like when he gets mail from Tim?
When Euan called him a troll, and then asked him if he knew what that meant, he said “No”. I said “Liar” I kinda hope the mic picked it up, though that’s not the behaviour I aspire to.
Struggling with my conscience, I whispered to Adriana next to me “How do you handle trolls offline without resorting to physical violence?”. The Simpsons, of course, has the answer – Treehouse of Horror VI – The Attack of the 50ft Eyesores in which Homer steals a giant donut from a collossal Lard Boy advertising statue prompting Lard Boy and several other promotional likenesses come to life and terrorise Springfield. Lisa asks an ad man what to do – he explains that the advertisements need attention to stay alive and so aided by a nifty jingle performed by Paul Anka, the townsfolk’s attention is ironically drawn away from the misbehaving mannekins who all fall down dead.
Tom Coates thinks Andrew should go on the naughty step. My positive experience of parenthood has come from encouraging the desirable, ignoring the undesirable, and getting them in the kitchen making some donuts.
Sorry for using his shock tactics to grab your attention, but as I rode home from listening to the troll, Andrew Keen, I realised there was something I could agree with him on:
He says Web2.0 is just a mirror for our culture and society.
I see a new-found confidence, optimism and freedom. I see happiness and laughter. I see a breathing out, a loosening of the belt, a relaxing, a kicking off of the shoes. I see humility and humanity. I see maturity.
He sees threats, groundless criticism, a loss of authority. He sees immaturity and people making outrageous statements in order to gain attention. He sees selfishness and self-centredness. He sees confusion, stealing and interference.
You look in the mirror and you see what you are.
More in the morning…
I’m late. I’m on my way to podcamp uk in Birmingham but forgot that the Victoria line is subject to many and various improvements. This was my first mistake of the day. I think. Maybe I made some others before that, but if I did, their consequences haven’t come home to me yet.
So I waited patiently for the replacement bus service. Watching the thin clouds roll by over Pimlico Tube Station and being patient. The woman next to me suddenly shrieked at the man over the road “Is the bus coming today then?” He smiled, “To Victoria? Yes.” “Not tomorrow then” she muttered. By the time it arrived there were five or six of us. Two hipsters who had probably been up all night assumed their place at the front of the queue, just behind the shrieking woman. A west-end cosmetics sales girl joined me in silent acceptance, and I went upstairs.
I thought as we made our way up Belgrave Road that at least the bus wouldn’t be stopping at every stop along the way, that perhaps the bus would be quicker than the tube with not having to go up and down escalators. I gave inner thanks when the grumblers grumbled their way down the stairs while the driver took a convoluted way into Victoria bus station and pulled out my phone to twitter:
“Late already on my way to podcampuk, forgot that victoria line is down. Oh well, sun is shining & i’m on the bus :)”
Considering while I did so whether to make that #podcampuk or whether it should start #podcampuk or whether that was the right tag to use anyway. Then I realised that I’d made my second mistake of the day almost immediately after coming to terms with my first. I had assumed that the bus would be covering the whole of the Victoria Line but it turned out that only Brixton to Victoria was down and so the bus was shuttling between. I asked out loud but no-one on the upper deck seemed to understand English except a kind German, possibly Austrian or Czech guy who said “No, we go now to Brixton” as we whistled down Vauxhall Bridge Road. So…when…was.. he going to…. turn off… to Pimlico? Err… at the junction with Grosvenor Road? At which point all the folk who had secretly been glad that we’d missed out a station started getting shouty. “WTF! I’m already late” announced one particularly loud African behind me and all I could do was laugh. We were going back almost exactly to where I had started. A return to Pimlico station wasn’t good enough, we were going to get there by going past my front door. The driver, clearly lost, turned into A. Street and, realising his mistake, started to reverse back onto Grosvenor Road and retraced his route. Rumbling and grumbling came from upstairs. The one-way system around Pimlico tube meant that he had to go all the way up to Warwick Way (he put his foot down) while the Polish builders and early-bird travellers of many other nationalities shouted at him that he didn’t know where he was going or what he was doing. They’d tell him the way, they said. He tried to explain that the signs were not in place, and that the route was always changing, but quickly settled down to: “Yes, I know, I’m wrong, I made a mistake, I apologise” The best form of defence is surrender. I hopped off when we arrived at Pimlico and dashed across the road to get on the next one going back to Victoria. We went straight up Belgrave Road. The NAO clock said 07.05 and my train had just left Euston at 07.00
At Victoria I approached a pair of men in Underground vests marked “Happy to Help” – happy perhaps but sadly unable to help in English. I realised that actually I just wanted to talk to someone to explain what had just happened to me, perhaps admit my mistake, have a laugh about it. But no, I just got advice that the No. 73 goes to Euston. I could have made myself later by insisting on having the conversation I wanted but perhaps it was best to just go downstairs and get on a train.
Finally sitting on a tube, I watched a crowd of 19-year-olds (eek! maybe younger!) wandering in a substance-related haze, shouting at each other trying to find the way out. Times have changed. When I were a lad none of us would have been anywhere near as chatty – our drugs were depressants. We had just as late nights, but not nearly such noisy mornings.
Euston at 07.28 – next train to Birmingham at 08.17 so time for an overpriced Americano in Caffe Ritazza (where I wrote the bulk of this) before squeezing into a second class seat (where I wrote the rest) with handy access to screaming toddlers, tutting pensioners, a lady knitting a lilac cardi sleeve and chatty sub-sloane gels with their arses hanging out of their jeans.
Perfect Path 