Also: GCap joins podcasters | Thailand lifts YouTube ban | Babelgum's film festival | Yahoo's new social network | The Facebook bit | The GooglePhone bit | Sony shuts its downloads service | US wireless cities in jeopardy | Chinese airline announces web and mobile service | The start-ups radar | A site grabber
Live blogging conferences is one of my favourite professional preoccupations, so this post by Dale Dougherty on O'Reilly rang true. He writes in praise of Scott Beale, who blogged the arson attack on Burning Man's burning man. Rather than posting separate entries as the story developed, he added bullet point-ish updates with each new snippet so the event was chronologically organised. (See also - the legendary Engadget Mac product launches.)
"This story on Scott's blog had a real beginning and I could follow it, having the sense of how it developed. I was able to catch up on what I missed and it was satisfying. If this story had been covered in today's newspaper, much of the detail would have been collapsed and summarised - and that summary, if I want it, I'll be able to find in Wikipedia. While a newspaper is unable to give me a choice between a chronological view and a summary, the web could. Scott's story hints at a better way to tell a news story, better than traditional methods practiced by or imposed upon journalists."
Scott Beale's Burning Man coverage on Laughing Squid
In short, he says this live blogging technique is a whole new opportunity for online news and more site need to explore it: how to visualise breaking news, and how to go back to add to a week-old story.
"It's a reverse Reuters, which, instead of pushing the same story of a single event to many channels, it organizes the flow of multiple stories of events coming from many, different sources. However, I want an editor or reporter sorting through that flow and organizing the story for me, much as Scott did." (O'Reilly)
GCap joins UK Podcasters
You may or may not know that GCap produces more podcasts than any other radio or media company in the UK, so it makes sense to add weight to the industry by joining the UK Podcasters' Association. GCap is the first media company to join the 17-month old trade body, which represents about one third of UK podcasters. GCap podcasts its own shows from Xfm, Capital and Classic FM, but also produces podcasts for The Sun and other third-parties. (UKPA)
Thailand lifts YouTube ban
Thailand has lifted its five-month ban on video sharing site YouTube, but only because YouTube has agreed that any clips that appear to be offensive to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The ban was imposed after 12 clips "insulting the monarch" were posted on the site. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance said that YouTube's move to collude with authorities "could potentially be open for abuse, and thereby only exacerbate concerns over free speech on the internet". (Reuters)
Babelgum's film festival
Babelgum, otherwise known as Joost's ugly sister, has announced its own film festival which means inviting aspiring filmmakers to upload their work, and possibly be selected for the dedicated film festival channel. Spike Lee is listed as an honourary judge. NewTeeVee is quite scathing about the festival, firstly because it claims to be promoting short films but entries are accepted up to 45 minutes - that's getting rather long for a short film. Secondly, entries must be exclusive to Babelgum, which means if they select it, filmmakers can't show it elsewhere for the duration. Lastly, there's no after-festival party and that means no free booze. I think that hits the nail on the head. (NewTeeVee)
Yahoo's new social network
Yahoo has been itching to move properly into social media, hence the Facebook acquisition offer last summer and subsequent speculation that it wants Bebo. Or anything, in fact. The latest is that Yahoo is testing a career-orintated social network called Kickstart, and is currently getting feedback from students about the site. The basic idea is that the site connects students with alumni at key companies. Users have a profile page and access to a university group page, but the feel is more LinkedIn than Facebook. TechCrunch reported a while back that Yahoo has developed Mosh, a possible replacement for Yahoo! 360, but the project is only accessible internally and has not been confirmed by Yahoo. (CNet)
The Facebook bit
Poor old Mark Zuckerberg. No sooner than you come up with $10bn of red-hot internet real estate than a meerkat farm of old college mates pop up to claim their share of the glory. The latest is Aaron Greenspan, who says he came up with a Harvard networking website before Facebook and before ConnectU, whose creators are currently suing Zuckerberg for ripping the idea.
Greenspan's houseSYSTEM went online in 2003, and in emails to college mates he described the system as "the Face Book" for locating other students. When he suggested the project be merged with Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg declined saying "it's probably best to keep them separated at least for now".
Greenspan doesn't seem to be out for legal action though - more publicity. He's written a book, and moved to Silicon Valley to start his own business. Although, in its new form, CommonRoom has only 1,500 users, he has venture funding in the pipeline and appears to be working the Facebook connection for all it is worth. Which could be anything up to $10bn, I guess. (New York Times)
The GooglePhone bit
Google executive Rich Miner is said to have been orchestrating demonstrations of a prototype GooglePhone, although the audience members have been tighter lipped than the proverbial duck's. Dan Roth from mobile speech recognition firm Nuance is under a non-disclosure agreement, Mike Philips of speech recognition start-up Vlingo won't confirm he is working with Google either. Venture capitalist Paul Ferri did say he has seen it, and Murali Aravamudan of video search firm Veveo gave a carefully-couched "we'd love to work with Goolge" response.
Those that have seen it describe it as simpler and less flashy than the iPhone, and more Blackberry-like (please no), though one version had a Swatch-style clear case so the innards were on show. Others talk of 3D on-screen buttons and horizontal scrolling.
From what we know, Google have developed the operating system and standards for various mobile applications that will work on a number of phones, including some being developed with HTC. So it is likely that Mr Miner has a handful of different prototypes in the security briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. (The Boston Globe)
Sony shuts its downloads service
Sony has closed its three-year-old digital music downloads service, Connect, because it can't compete with iTunes. Sony had been using its own proprietary file format ATRAC for the service and for its Walkman products, but has announced it will close the site and switch all Walkmans to Windows Media technology. The official reason for closing the service was given as a "decision to embrace a more open platform will enable us to provide [users] with a better music enjoyment experience", which manages to be candid without actually mentioning Apple directly. (Variety)
US wireless cities in jeopardy
Those dreams of wirelessed cities in the US hang in the balance because of wrangling over the cost of the set-up. Earthlink had offered to cover the cost of construction but has now backed down, and wants city authorities to pay in locations where contracts have not yet been signed. So San Francisco, ironically, remains without a city-wide wireless network while Adelaide, I seem to remember, has had one for about two-and-half years. (Wall Street Journal)
Chinese airlines announces mobile and web service
China's Shenzen Airlines are introducing technology that allows passengers to use their mobile and access the internet, although not until mid-2009. The technology is from a Swiss firm called OnAir and has already been signed up by European and Asian airlines, but Shenzen claims it will be the first to roll it out. (AFP) The start-ups radar
Curiosities pop up on killerstartups.com from time to time, and this is one: a new site that specialises in finding words or phrases to complete that tricky stanza you've been stuck on. RhymeZone.com - bound to be bookmarked by greetings card writers the world over. Just a shame there isn't an algorithm for creative thinking. Or maybe that's just as well. (killerstartups)
A site grabber
JD Lasica over on Social Media flags up a tool that captures a whole web page, not just whatever fits in the window. And Paparazzi is free. Hurrah. (Social Media)
