Puffbox

It feels rather strange to be welcomed to the new Labour Party YouTube channel by a man who – by all accounts – has barely a few weeks left at its head. A late, possibly desperate effort ahead of the local elections next month? (And I wonder how Peter Hain and Hazel Blears managed to find time in their busy schedules – deputy leadership, anyone?)

[youtube=http://youtube.com/w/?v=gul2U43solE]

But perhaps even more strange is Tony’s justification for it: ‘The purpose of coming into the YouTube channel is to enable you to hear, unmediated, fresh, first-hand, what it is we’re about.’ That’s quite a startling turnaround from the media manipulation of Mr Campbell’s days, no?

They’ve hit the ground running, with a healthy spread of ministerial faces pitching to the YouTube audience. By and large they aren’t bad at it, but although it isn’t obviously scripted, they’re sticking mainly to a ‘talking head’ approach, which feels just a bit patronising. One or two of them seem to realise this too. I’m afraid it just isn’t anything like as engaging and natural as most Webcameron content.

I’m going to be among the bloggers and other miscreants getting a guided tour of the (Daily) Telegraph offices tomorrow evening… if any of my loyal readers are also attending, do grab me and say hello. And if you want to do a little revision beforehand… this photo slideshow with commentary on the Press Gazette’s Fleet Street 2.0 blog is excellent. A really effective way of getting the story across. Video would probably have been more ‘authentic’, but possibly less effective.

Big news from Bucks: the Buckinghamshire Advertiser has a new website, powered by blogging platform Movable Type. This is enough to get Six Apart quite excited, but in truth, it’s been pretty heavily customised so you can’t really just say ‘they just chucked it into MT’. Martin Stabe at Press Gazette has more on Trinity Mirror’s experiments including some hyperlocal blogging on Teesside. I mentioned this blogs-instead-of-proper-CMS’es theory over a year ago here and here… and if anything, feel even more strongly on the subject.

Anyone know of a UK-based equivalent of ‘web 2.0’ online invoicing services Freshbooks, SimplyBill or Blinksale? Or failing that, anyone have any positive experiences of using these services from the UK? I really don’t want to set up a manual process to do this sort of thing myself… but it seems nuts to be working around US-centric services, or (even more insane) sending printed invoices from the US.

I mentioned last week that I’d been approached by Nike to appear in their current campaign to promote the (fantastic) Nike+ iPod gadget thing. Well, the results appeared on Good Friday, and can be seen here on Nike’s own website, or here on Runner’s World. And whilst the line about ‘meet living proof that rules are for breaking‘ is very much their wording rather than mine, I’m just a little bit proud of it. Oh, and if you’re interested… see the red gash above my right eye in the main photo? That’s where my daughter came crashing down on my head, teeth-first.

(You know what? Reading that back before I hit ‘publish’, I sound really rather casual about the whole ‘I’m in a Nike advert’ thing. I can assure you, I’m not.)

Google Maps has now added a ‘My Maps‘ feature, whereby you can create your own annotated maps, with text, photos and video in the ‘bubbles’. It makes the process very easy, but I hesitate to call it a ‘mashup’ – surely that has to require two live data sources (like this)? A few nice extra touches though: the ability to draw polygons (which isn’t easy to do manually); the ability to export in KML format for Google Earth; and (according to O’Reilly) integration with local searching. Possible uses: catchment areas, ward/constituency boundaries… etc etc.

I’m helping to put together a business proposal for a new client, based around blogging (although we’re trying not to use the word). I wanted to explain how blogging tools generally encourage a more natural, personal, engaging style of communication. But I can’t decide if this is as a result of:

• the flexibility inherent in the typical blog platform; or
• the inflexibility inherent in the typical blog platform.

Flexibility, because you’ve generally got a rich formatting, WYSIWYG-ish, Word-style authoring interface. The ability to create and add new subject tags at will. You can do more or less everything yourself, with no need to work through the IT Department. Being able to reskin your content with (relative) ease.

Inflexibility, because they work a certain way, and you’re stuck with it. One content type (admittedly with minor variations available in certain systems). You don’t waste time thinking about how you would customise a certain aspect, because you can’t customise anything. Call it ‘freedom through restriction’ or something. Anyone know of a smarter description than that?

Speaking of inflexibility… if you’ve never heard Barry Schwartz speak about ‘the paradox of choice’, you really should spend twenty minutes watching this (or listening to it).

I’ve just become the very proud owner of a Nokia E65 mobile phone, on 3’s unlimited data X-Series deal. Since most of my phone use is data, rather than incoming or outgoing calls, it seemed like the sensible option. And I have to say, the E65 is gorgeous! A good solid slider action, a wonderfully crisp screen, and loads of functionality (including Skype and MSN Messenger).

The only initial headache was getting it to sync with my PC – which, when you keep all your appointments and contacts digitally, is a serious issue. Try as I might, I couldn’t get Nokia’s PC Suite v6.82 to work with my PC. I could connect to the phone, and send files over to it, but the sync’ing application refused to work. Then, hurrah! Nokia release v6.83 this morning, and it works perfectly first time.

One tip for anyone thinking of 3’s X-Series tariffs… the X-Series site implies that you have to buy the handset for £49.99, and sign up to a £40 or £45/month tariff for 18 months. But if you go via the 3 online store, and construct the deal manually by choosing the E65 from their list of all handsets, you can have any tariff you want, and probably get the handset free too. Just be sure to add X-Series as an ‘add-on’ when you reach the shopping basket screen. That’s what I did, and I’ve got a phone in my hand to prove it worked. Haven’t seen my first bill yet though…

David Wilcox has an interesting roundup of opinions as MPs allocate themselves an extra £10,000 for improved communication. I know there are quite a few readers of this here blog who share my interest in better political comms… would anyone be interested in pooling our efforts, as volunteers or (better) on a professional basis? Not to put too fine a point on it – we all bang on about it on our blogs, but now there’s a £6m pot of money available to do something about it. Feel free to email rather than comment if confidentiality is a factor. Hello at simondickson dot co dot uk.

 Long-time readers of this humble blog may recall I mentioned the Nike-Apple joint venture to produce an iPod add-on for runners. The nikeplus is a £20 gadget in two parts: one goes on/into your running shoe, the other slots into your iPod. Then, when you’re out running, your iPod talks to you over the top of your music, telling you how far you’ve gone, and how fast. When you get it home, you can upload your data to a website, or (if you know how) download the raw XML and play with it to your heart’s content.

Suffice to say, it’s my current favourite gadget of all time. It has changed my life, and that’s no exaggeration. The availability of detailed data for every run is a real motivator; it shows that you’re making progress, and it makes you feel terrible if you ever slack off.

So anyway, last week, I got an email from Nike’s advertising people. They’re running a campaign to promote the nikeplus, and would I like to take part? I’m not really sure how they picked me out of all the users of their website, but it sounded like fun… so why not? This morning a photographer came round, and we went down to the local canal to take some action snaps. Then this afternoon, I did a quick ‘phone interview’ with one of their copywriters.

It looks like the article will run on nikeplus.com, as well as branded areas of Runners’ World and Men’s Health. If I understood correctly, I’m going to be their featured runner for ‘pace’ – which is very generous, as I’m quicker than average, but hardly Olympic class. And I’m pretty sure that most runners would frown upon my ‘run like mad til you’re shattered, then limp home’ approach to pacing. I’m rather nervous to see what they make of me.