Puffbox

On Saturday, we see a carefully choreographed, dignified procession of a condemned man to the gallows. Neatly edited news footage, crucially without a soundtrack. On Sunday, we see a very different perspective, courtesy of a mobile phone. Posturing, bickering, chanting of rivals’ names… it comes across like a penalty shootout rather than an execution.

The world of news management is dying. Too many people, with too much kit, in too many places.

Incidentally, well done to the BBC for publishing its policy on images of the execution. But it implicitly sets an interesting precedent. If we can show gruesome images on News 24 because it’s an active choice, an opt-in thing – and incidentally, I think that’s the right approach – then it becomes harder to justify not publishing the most gruesome images (if you have them) in the ultimate opt-in medium, namely video-on-demand. Genie, bottle, etc.

I have to hand it to Sky News – suddenly, out of the blue, they’re making some interesting – albeit still a bit rough – moves to improve their much neglected website. Perhaps most interesting of all is their Green Britain initiative:

Starting on Monday, January 8, Sky News will spend a week creating a snapshot of climate change in the UK. We’ll have a series of special reports, exclusive interviews, and lots of practical advice on how you can make a difference. And you can help us! We want your videos and photos to add to the big picture!

OK… so far so good. So what can we expect? Well, judging by the fact that there’s an internal-only link (to ‘http://cma/’) on the project’s only page, not a huge amount. (Frankly that’s unforgivable on a page receiving regular on-air promotion, and a spot in the primary navigation. Robert Nisbet’s clip is actually here – and I don’t think the camera crews need fear for their jobs just yet.)

But there is the promise of a ‘special climate change map’, which – one suspects – will follow the (rather clunky) example set in their Ipswich murder coverage. Users willing and able to generate content are invited to submit their masterpieces by email – oops, not very sysadmin-friendly.

Clearly this isn’t to be the first example of BSkyB’s cosy new relationship with Google, which promises:

a multi-platform User Generated Video (UGV) portal powered by the first global deployment of Google’s syndicated video content tools. The site will allow users to edit, upload and share their own video content, including the facility to upload and download from a mobile phone.

Actually, as mentioned here previously, I reckon Sky could be extremely well-placed to surf the wave of user-generated material, arguably better than the Beeb. At the very least, this Green Britain project should be a useful learning experience along that road. But I’m intrigued to see just how much decent material they actually receive. It’s no effort to knock a blog together… but editing rough video footage into something watchable is another story.

Apologies for the quiet spell over the last couple of weeks. In addition to the standard festivities, I finally bit the bullet and had laser eye surgery, bringing an end to 25 years of shortsightedness. All went perfectly, and I’m really enjoying being able to see without mechanical assistance. Of course, that means I’m going to have to remake the header graphic on the old blog… 🙁

This morning Suffolk Police announce the detention of an unnamed 37-year old man. By this evening, we know all there is to know about former special constable, Tesco employee and part-time taxi driver Tom Stephens. Even down to the address of his Myspace profile (now offline, thankfully). Suddenly this brings a whole new dimension to the ‘social networking’ thing. The Daily Mail website has details of what was there before it got removed. (Er, did I just link to the Daily Mail? Wow.)

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject: Sky News has done a Google map with embedded video (served by their new mates at Google Video) in the popup windows. I’m not sure I like the execution: the code looks like it was hacked together in Word (surely not?), the design could certainly have been much much better, and the use of the Sky News (wide rectangular) logo for the pinpoints is a bit daft. But I’m all for the innovation.

If you haven’t heard of microformats yet, don’t worry. Initially I couldn’t get my head around the concept, but they’re a brilliantly simple idea which could have significant benefits in time. And there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t embrace them immediately, if you’re doing or commissioning any coding. Let me explain.

Modern webpage coding is based on CSS stylesheets and ‘classes’ in the HTML code. Classes are defined in a shared stylesheet file, and the HTML refers to the classes, rather than any specific formatting. So for example, you might have a class ‘subheading’, which is defined in the stylesheet as ‘big red and bold’. If you decide one day that red isn’t your thing any more, you change it to ‘blue’ in the stylesheet, and every subheading on the website now appears in blue. Fabulous.

Usually, designers make up the class names off the tops of their heads. With microformats, the idea is to use a standard set of class names for common things. So for example, the microformat ‘hCard’ is a way to mark up contact information. Following the standard, you use the class name ‘tel’ to identify a phone number, or ’email’ to identify an email address. (This online hCard creator is a great ‘worked example’ for those with some HTML knowledge.)

The plan is that software will be told to look for these standard class names, and will be able to recognise (for example) when a web page includes someone’s contact details. You will then be able to offer one-click exporting from the web page to your Outlook contacts. I’m consciously using the future tense here because, although Microsoft and Yahoo are doing some things with microformats, and although there are a couple of Firefox extensions which proves the concept, we’re still a long way away from the mainstream.

So why care now? Because, quite simply, it doesn’t cost you anything to start using the conventions now. So what if nobody spots that it’s a microformat? You will almost certainly be marking up your code using classes (er, won’t you?), so you might as well use these particular class names. It will cost you precisely zero, has absolutely no technical implications, and might pay off in the long run. And then how smug will you feel? 😉

I expect the microformats for ‘business cards‘ (also extended into a full CV microformat) and event calendars to be the ones most likely to take off, but there are quite a few others. If you fancy trying them out, the Tails extension for Firefox is less obtrusive, but Operator is maybe a bit slicker.

I suppose it’s good news for the blogosphere to see Tory MP and former leadership candidate John Redwood joining our ranks. I’m not sure he’s as relevant or as influential today as he used to be, but he’s a big name recruit.

Redwood, incidentally, is the chair of one of David Cameron’s various ‘policy review groups’ – which are, depending on your point of view, a way to tap into the experience of the party veterans; or a way of keeping the potentially awkward old gits quiet. There’s a mini-network of blogs supporting these: for example, Redwood’s own Economic Competitiveness Policy Group. All seem to be WordPress-powered (again), and include ‘social web’ links to del.icio.us, digg, newsvine and Yahoo. The addresses were registered this time last year, but the sites themselves only seem to have sparked into life in the last few months.

I know nobody’s reading this for my thoughts on politics per se… but I was left feeling very angry last night as we saw the government media machine burying one bad story beneath another. The morning’s news was dominated by Post Office closures, and previewing the Diana report, both big stories in themselves. Then suddenly they slip out the news that Blair has been ‘spoken to’ by the cops. Oh, and just in time to really annoy the evening news bulletins, the Saudi case being dropped ‘in the national interest’. Plus, in case you missed it: ‘the government has reaffirmed its commitment to airport expansion plans despite opposition from green groups.’ All this coming, conveniently, immediately after Blair’s two ‘holding to account’ opportunities (the monthly presser and PMQs). It smells.

Do you think Apple’s getting a bit too cocky with its ‘cool’ sales pitch?

[youtube=http://youtube.com/w/?v=z3p7UyWEsGw]

Anyway, should you be buying a PC? Or a Mac? Simple answer is no, unless the kids are going to kill Santa otherwise. There are some staggeringly good deals out there just now: I’ve seen a few surprisingly good laptops advertised for as little as £299, and plenty under £400. So what’s the catch?

Simple. Lots of big things arriving in January. Microsoft is (finally!) releasing the new version of Windows on 30 January, and it needs some pretty serious hardware to get the most out of it.  Meanwhile, Apple is expected to make some big product announcements on 9 January.

If you buy something now, it’ll work fine for years. So much these days is happening via the web anyway, so the operating system doesn’t matter anything like as much as it used to. But you’re going to feel short-changed if you spend money this month, when you see what’s coming next month.

IBM and Yahoo have joined forces to offer a free search engine, which will index up to half a million documents. All you have to do is supply the hardware. Three clicks to install, various tuning functions, and what looks like some nice interface design, on both the front and back ends. Did I mention it was free? Mmm, nice.