Oops. Apparently the DirectgovKids site I mentioned a fortnight ago has only been launched today. But unless she’s hiding behind semantics, Beverley Hughes (or more accurately the DfES press office) is having a laugh if she really thinks ‘this is the first time children in the UK have been communicated with directly by Government through an online site.’ I can think of a handful without really trying.
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The Hugh MacLeod thesis in a nutshell
You know what? I think I might just print this out and hand it to people. I can’t imagine a much better summary of the forefront of marketing thinking.
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Anger at annual review of local e-government
SOCITM, ‘the professional association for public sector ICT management’ aren’t doing themselves any favours by publishing so little information about their annual e-government survey, Better Connected. I’ve seen very little mention of it, and it was published almost a fortnight ago. Indeed, virtually all the coverage I’ve seen so far has been critical of the report and its methodology:
Better Connected is failing to accomplish anything other than paint a gloomy picture of play and upset Local Authority rulers and those of us really making an effort. When does it get positive?
BC’s assessment of the accessibility of local authority websites is fundamentally flawed. Admittedly this is a reflection of the use of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 as the instrument of measurement, but it’s flawed all the same.
Socitm clearly doesn’t have its members’ interests at heart with the publication of this idiotic report. The time, effort and resources wasted in its production would have been far better spent helping web managers improve things rather than creating a meaningless yardstick with which to beat them.
Ian Dunmore, Director of Public Sector Forums (quoted by 24dash)
Way to go, fellas. Hiding your report behind a paywall, with absolutely nothing in your website’s News section (including this startling press releases area) is no way to win friends or influence people.
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They do see the irony, right?
In a BBC story headlined ‘No 10 hits out at Brown accuser’, reporting comments by the Chancellor’s former permanent secretary:
Tony Blair’s spokesman praised Mr Brown’s record and said it was “in the interests of good government that civil servants should not become the story”.You don’t have to look too deep to find the irony there. There’s a very good piece by Nick Robinson about all this, by the way. Apparently, Turnbull thought he was speaking off the record. There’s no such thing any more, your lordship.
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BBC News does its own Google Maps style nav
An excellent Google Maps-style interactive on the BBC News website, showing an aerial map of Baghdad with dots marking the worst atrocities, each linking to the appropriate news story; and coloured polygons showing the changing ethnic makeup of city sectors. Literally a new dimension to your understanding of the story.
I’m expecting to see a lot more of this kind of map-based navigation, as people become more familiar with the Google Maps API. There are some good examples out there already, like Flickr’s geotagging. I’m also hoping to do something similar with a major client, as we spec up a publishing solution for lots of regional offices.
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New UK gov statistics reflect technology at home and work
Ooh, The Digital Age… sounds all sci-fi, doesn’t it. Actually it’s the latest ‘Focus On‘ report by National Statistics, this time looking at the use of ICT (information and communication technology) in the UK.
If you’re looking for a common thread, it’s probably the growing digital divide, as the ‘haves’ become more and more reliant on it, leaving behind a diminishing rump of ‘have nots’. Nearly half the households in Great Britain have digital TV and internet and at least one mobile phone… but 8 per cent don’t have any of those. But there’s loads of statistical goodness in here, so you’re best off having a good browse around for yourself.
(Quick disclosure: I originally conceived the ‘Focus On’ concept during my time at National Statistics. But that was ages ago. And what you see online now was only meant to be phase one. But I digress…)
Meanwhile, technology has been given a boost in the annual review of items making up the ‘shopping basket’ for calculating inflation. DVD recorders, satnav and DAB radios are in; VCRs, ‘ghettoblasters’ and portable TVs are out. More in this press release (PDF), or if you’re brave, in this lengthy article (PDF).
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Govt web teams told to back off
Personalisation is one of those concepts which crops up every so often; and certainly in the new media field, it simply hasn’t realised its undoubted potential. As I’ve mused here before (somewhere), I’m personalising my own online experience through RSS aggregation, moreso than any single website’s personalisation function.
But ‘personalisation’ is the buzzword behind today’s ‘Building on progress: public services‘ paper by the Cabinet Office. And I’ve spotted a couple of web references in it. One’s really just an aside, quoting the example of a school which ‘has introduced a parents’ website where they can access up-to-the-minute details of their children’s progress, homework and achievements.’ More interesting is the statement in paragraph 5.20:
The Government should support the development of new and innovative services that provide tailored advice to specific groups (for example the netmums.com website which provides a discussion and advice forum for mothers). These are outside government’s direct influence, but government has a role to play in supporting them – for example by ensuring that they are not undermined by government programmes or websites with similar objectives, and have easy access to publicly available information.
There have been pointers in this kind of direction before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it expressed in such stark terms, with emotive words like ‘undermine’. This is a clear statement to departments that other people are often in a better place to address their audience than they are… and you should go out of your way not to tread on their toes.
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Broadband: what goes up may also go down
I mentioned last week that my broadband had suddenly halved its connection speed for no apparent reason. And after further discussion with the Tiscali support desk, it appears I’m some kind of idiot.
I got a call from their second-line guy midway through yesterday’s Arsenal game (thanks). He was very nice about it all, and pointed me to a website called samknows, which tells you stuff about your local telephone exchange. Very good site to have to hand, actually. And according to Sam, I ‘cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL’ – and I ‘may be able to receive 1Mbps ADSL’. Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain – and didn’t really seem to believe – that I had been getting 2Mbps quite successfully until a fortnight ago. Perhaps I was hallucinating.
So here we are: connecting at 1.1Mbps or thereabouts. It’s actually fast enough for almost everything I do… and if anything, it seems to be a bit more reliable. I’ve had occasional issues getting online at peak times, which this seems to have cured.
But take my advice, people. Get a screengrab from samknows.com’s availability checker while you can… and have it ready in case things grind to a halt for you, too.
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Current TV is actually rather good
I’ll be honest… I didn’t think it would or could work. But I’ve just sat for I’m-not-sure-how-long watching Current TV, and it’s remarkably compelling. Famously backed by Al Gore, it bills itself as ‘the first TV channel created and controlled by the people who watch it; featuring the latest trends, subcultures and stories affecting twenty-somethings in the UK and Ireland.‘ And this twenty-fourteen-year-old is quite gripped.
Basically, it’s a steady supply of five-minute-ish documentaries – some, but not all, made by amateurs. There’s no ‘schedule‘ in the conventional sense… certainly not on the Sky TV programme guide anyway. So you flick it on, and you don’t know what’s coming next. If you aren’t the slightest bit interested, who cares – something else will be on in a minute.
But perhaps even more interesting is the website. Not only do the viewers produce the material, they edit it too. Registered site users can ‘greenlight’ or ‘redlight’ a video that’s been submitted, affecting its overall rating. Positively-rated stuff makes it to broadcast, negatively-rated stuff doesn’t. And yes, money changes hands.
It isn’t the manic free-for-all it might have been. I feared it would be like the front page of YouTube… or a 24-hour edition of Jackass. It isn’t. It’s intelligent, it’s amusing, it’s surprisingly good. The revolution can be viewed on Sky channel 229, or Virgin channel 155.
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Stunning cashback deal on 3 mobile phones
I’ve been aware of cashback website Quidco for a while, but only just bothered to sign up to it – because some of the deals on offer are eye-popping. For example… I’m about to reach the end of my current mobile phone contract. And being the online type that I am, I’ve been keeping an eye on 3’s X-Series with unlimited internet access.
The X-Series deals just got a little bit better: for an equivalent of £32.22 per month (over 18 months) you get a free Nokia N73 smartphone, plus web, email, instant messaging and Skype. If you want the newer E65 phone, which really does look lovely, that’ll cost you £50 up front, plus £40 per month. Included in the tariffs are 750 x-net minutes and 150 texts, or 300 mins and 1000 texts. Characteristically generous from 3. But – if you go through Quidco, 3 will give you £100 cash back. Not a typo, folks – that’s a full one hundred.
I’m currently playing my existing network off against the 3 deal, but so far, they can’t even come close. And that’s before I mention the £100 cashback deal. Looks like I’m switching in a few weeks.