There’s something truly surreal about a day when the lead story on the local evening paper is actually ‘man edits local paper’. And anyway, it’s a half marathon, not a full one – but I guess that’s not such a good headline. Inside, there’s an apparently serious suggestion in the paper’s leader column that the town of Reading should be renamed ‘Redding-on-Thames’ for search engine optimisation purposes.
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You’re not as funny as the real PC guy, you’re not as cool as the real Mac guy… and no way does she represent the typical Linux user.
Here we go again, folks – it’s discount time over at your local Thresher off-licence, with 40% off all wine. This caused a fuss, then a news story, then a backlash, as people realised that Thresher does a permanent 3-for-2 deal on wine anyway. But people… 40% off is still better than 33% off. And you don’t need to buy in multiples of three.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about Thresher just now, given the very large Gordon Ramsay stickers in most branches’ windows. I find him quite amusing generally, and his tell-it-like-it-is style is something I can really identify with. But I’m racing against him on Sunday morning (I think), at the Reading Half Marathon… and it brings out all my worst competitive instincts.
An interesting take on blogging from Nick Robinson at the BBC. As the Chancellor was delivering his Budget to the Commons, Nick was delivering his thoughts to the blogosphere at a specially created Budget 07 ‘blog’.
But look again – lots of short updates in a very short space of time? You might call that ‘microblogging’… perhaps a classic use-case for last week’s darling of the blogosphere, Twitter?
If I’d had more time, I was going to register the Twitter ID ‘gordonbrown’, and twitterise the speech. But, like, I’ve got a day job. (And I’m quite proud to say I published my 600-word write-up of the speech within 30 minutes of Brown sitting down. ๐ )
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.
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.
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.
In a BBC story headlined ‘No 10 hits out at Brown accuser’, reporting comments by the Chancellor’s former permanent secretary:
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.
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.
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).