Puffbox

Simon Dickson's gov-tech blog, active 2005-14. Because permalinks.

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  • YouTube goes widescreen, HD

    A quick glance at Steph Gray’s digitalgovuk catalogue reveals the perhaps surprising number of government departments now using YouTube. (It’s almost a case of who isn’t using it.) So it’s worth paying attention to the drip-drip-drip of interface changes happening at YouTube, and ensuring your content is handled accordingly.

    The biggest shift is the introduction of a widescreen video player. The YouTube.com page layout now expects videos to be 16:9; but it will put black blocks either side of any 4:3 content. Thankfully though, the ’embed’ code recognises the different dimensions, and adjusts the width/height of the embedded player accordingly: so you won’t get ‘letterboxing’ (either way) on embedded clips.

    What you may get, though, is a nasty surprise when you hover over the upper third of the embedded player: a YouTube search box sliding down, obscuring your footage and tempting your viewers to find something more fun. It’s especially nasty if you’re embedding clips at a reduced size. By way of example, here’s a recent clip of our Prime Minister. Try hovering over his hair:

    Two ways to turn it off. Either add &showsearch=0 to the end of both the embedding URLs – param value= and embed src=; or if you add &rel=0 to the URLs to switch off the ‘related clips’ at the end, that stops the search box appearing too.

    If you’re producing any video clips from now on, I’d say it makes sense to do them in widescreen. And I’d advise against buying a video camera unless it can deliver widescreen… and HD. They’re currently testing HD quality video, as this clip shows: you may have to click on ‘Watch on HD’ to get the full effect. The difference is startling.

    The 10 minute restriction on length is still in place – not that that should worry you, as the optimal length of a video is somewhere between 1 and 3 minutes; but for a little while now, you’ve been allowed to upload files up to 1GB. Remember, Google stores whatever you upload, and downgrades it on-the-fly as necessary when someone watches it. So use that extra capacity: it may not matter much now, but you’ll be glad you did later.

    (It might also be a good time to look again at your home ISP’s monthly download limit: with all this HD video popping up, you could find yourself downloading a lot more than you realised.)

  • Delicious list of UK gov 2.0

    Steph Gray‘s latest production at DIUS is a work of genius and beauty. It’s a collaboratively managed catalogue of ‘web 2.0’ innovation in UK government, central and local… powered not by a wiki, but using the bookmarking tool of general preference, Delicious. Brilliantly simple, simply brilliant.

    Basically, if you ‘tag’ anything with the term ‘digitalgovuk’ (via your Delicious method of choice), it’ll show up in Steph’s collection. Add some extra tags for added granularity, and they’ll show up in the site’s tag cloud. The site is powered by Delicious’s wonderful RSS feed functionality, with bells and whistles in the form of commenting, thumbnail previews and even a Lightbox-style ‘suggestion box’ popup, powered by Uservoice. I’m in awe.

    Use it, people.

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    DCSF's new Drupal site

    Hooray for another high-profile UK government website based on an open source content management system: the new National Strategies website from DCSF, built on Drupal. It’s big, bright, bold, and once you’ve registered – a remarkably painless process for a government site, without any apparent checks on your membership of the target audience – it offers significant social functionality: commenting on articles, bookmarking pages to your own personal homepages, group discussion, page rating, sending links to Delicious and the like. Nothing exceptional for a Drupal site, perhaps, but pretty impressive for HMG.

    There’s particular significance to this particular launch, though. The National Strategies, and much of this ‘2.0’ functionality, were due to be part of Schoolsweb, the ambitious plan to rationalise all schools-related sites into a single mega-portal, to be built on the same Stellent-based infrastructure as Directgov (known as ‘The Club’). It was initially scheduled to launch in late 2005, with eight-figure budgets quoted; the last public reference I’m aware of was in February 2008, when Jim Knight responded in a PQ: Work is currently being taken forward to bring these sites into a single new website for schools – ‘SchoolsWeb’. (Note the present tense.) And as I noted some time ago, the guys who did the visual design work for Schoolsweb are still quoting it in their online portfolio, with the caveat: ‘We are currently supporting the project through a challenging build phase pending the full launch of the website shortly.’

    To paper over the cracks, a temporary signposting website was launched at www.schoolsweb.gov.uk, labelled ‘Schoolsweb Locate’ – but even that has been taken away now, replaced by a slightly clumsy redirect to the long-established ‘Standards Site’.

    On this evidence, one would have to assume that Schoolsweb, as initially conceived at least, is dead. In its place, we have a feature-rich online community built on open-source tools, and making use of pre-existing functionality – either in its core platform, or via plugins. My understanding is that the Drupal site came together in a matter of months, and seems to offer most (if not all) the functionality envisaged for Schoolsweb.

    Somewhere in there lies a great case study just waiting to be written.

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    Independent launches blogging platform

    The Independent‘s new blogging platform, Independent Minds, launched yesterday in a partnership with the now Russian-owned Livejournal. But unlike the Telegraph’s MyTelegraph site, it puts the journalists’ blogs on the same platform as the readers’. It’s a dramatic improvement (as you’d expect) on the very clunky, and frankly half-hearted blogging efforts they were doing on Typepad; and they also promise a strategic decision to ‘centre more on the writer than on the topic’ as they did before. The blogging content gets some high-profile space on the Indy’s homepage.

    On the face of it, it’s a fairly basic re-skinning of Livejournal’s community features; the deeper you click, the less it feels like an Independent site, and the more it feels like plain old Livejournal. Nothing wrong with that; it makes sense to use a well-established and relatively beginner-friendly platform. It’s a natural move for Livejournal as the new owners are reportedly keen to expand their relatively modest UK user base: their statistics page shows they have 315,000 UK-based users.

    Hmm… the Independent? Livejournal? There wouldn’t be a Downing Street connection there, would there? Former No10 web boss Jimmy Leach is now the Indy’s ‘editorial director for digital’; and Ben Wegg-Prosser, ex-head of the Strategic Communications Unit is Director of Corporate Development at Livejournal’s Russian owners, SUP. The two also worked together for ages at the Guardian (I think).

    It’s another signal of blogging’s steady progress into the newsroom: speaking of which, it’s well worth reading BBC man Jem Stone’s write-up of Robert Peston’s talk to the BBC’s College of Journalism yesterday. ‘Central to everything that I do at the BBC,’ he says.

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    Liveblogging the budget

    It was described earlier as the biggest moment in modern political history that wasn’t an election: probably a bit much, I’d have said. But it’s no surprise to see so many websites ‘liveblogging’ today’s Pre-Budget Report: the TUC, the Spectator, Liberal Conspiracy, Iain Dale, among many others. Sky News is doing something especially interesting, with its ‘Unplugged’ online broadcast offering live commentary and analysis: effectively a live video-blog, I suppose.

    Which rather begs the question, what should the Treasury themselves be doing? The Chancellor standing up in the Commons chamber, and (sorry) droning on for an hour or so, throwing numbers around like confetti, then BANG! a huge wad of paper lands on your newsdesk as he sits down – it’s simply not an effective way to communicate. There’s too much to take in, too many big numbers, too much jargon, in too short a space of time.

    I’m wondering if the Treasury shouldn’t be running an enhanced live video stream, with bullet points appearing as the Chancellor makes his announcement; and graphs / charts / etc in a second window. I’ve worked in the TV channel gallery on Budget day; it’s chaotic, as a hapless producer tries to make sense of it all, picking out the headlines in real time. Meanwhile, of course, the Treasury staff are sitting on copies of the full text of the speech, with all the advance notice they need to make a really good job of it. It’s not as if they aren’t doing the production work already, with a consumer-friendly leaflet being a regular output each time.

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    Barcamp is back

    At the time, January’s BarcampUKGovWeb felt like a breakthrough moment. Civil servants, specialist consultants, activists and volunteers coming together – on a Saturday, crucially – to share ideas and experiences, with the common objective of improving government web activity. And you know what? Looking back on it, you can trace so many good things from the past year, be they tangible deliverables or just personal connections, back to Barcamp. It worked.

    So let’s do it again. 🙂

    Announced last week by Tom Watson, we’ve set a date of Saturday 31 January 2009 for the second UK government Barcamp, and it’s great to see so many people rushing to sign up already. It’ll be the same basic Barcamp mix of talks, demos, discussions and (no doubt) drinks… with an expectation that everyone comes prepared to contribute, and ideally, to lead a session of their own. The more informal, the better: just stand up, and tell us about something you’ve done lately. And the truth is, in the past year, we’ve all done a tremendous amount worth talking about. This is our chance to share what we’ve learned.

    If you’re reading this blog, you’re the sort of person who should be coming along. Simple as that.

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    An MP's guide to blogs

    Labour MP for Newport West, Paul Flynn has apparently ‘been stripped of a Parliamentary allowance for making fun of other MPs on his blog‘, if you read today’s BBC piece on the subject. Flynn himself tells the story slightly differently, on said blog.

    I’ve had a similar run-in with my own MP, Newbury’s Richard Benyon (Con). Back in September, the first posting on his new blog made some undeniably party-political comments: he talked about Labour being in a state of ‘desperation’, and his boss David Cameron ‘[continuing] to look like a Prime Minister in waiting’.

    Good old political knockabout, nothing wrong with that… except his website proudly declared on every page that it is ‘paid for from his Communications Allowance’, which is explicitly not to be used ‘to promote, criticise or campaign for or against anyone seeking election’. To his credit, he made swift if superficial amends: I don’t see from a technical viewpoint how it’s possible for www.richardbenyon.com/blog ‘not [to be] connected to www.richardbenyon.com’.

    The point is this: as both Flynn and Benyon have said, playing by the Parliamentary allowance’s rules would have meant a ‘totally non-political, fence sitting and boring’ blog. With the cost of setting up a basic blog being so low, indeed zero in most cases, it doesn’t make sense to take a chance with the ‘Byzantine complexity of the House of Commons rules’ (to quote Mr Benyon, although frankly I’m not buying that; the rules couldn’t be much clearer).

    If you’re an MP, and you want to start a blog, here are the facts:

    • Most political blogs live on Blogger.com, a hosted service owned by Google, and free of charge. It’s not the most sophisticated platform in the world, but it does allow you total freedom to customise your pages… if you so wish. It’s good enough for Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale, generally seen as the #1 and #2 in the UK; they’ve gone to considerable lengths to design their sites. Others, like Lynne Featherstone, John Pugh, David Jones or Andy Love really haven’t.
    • Personally, I find WordPress.com a better blogging tool; but in its free, hosted incarnation, it’s limited in its scope for (full-on) customisation. See Tom Harris‘s top-rated blog, or the Lords Of The Blog group effort.
    • But there are other free alternatives. Adrian Sanders runs his blog on MySpace – hey, why not? Tory MEP Daniel Hannan has a blog on the Telegraph‘s website; and whilst his is technically on the ‘columnists’ side of the fence, rather than the ‘public’ my.telegraph.co.uk service, there’s nothing to stop you doing that either. It’s not ideal, but maybe it suits you and your situation.
    • If you want extra functionality, extra control or extra customisation, you’re looking at spending some money – but frankly, it needn’t be more than the price of a (very modest) dinner for two. Typepad used to be the service of choice for those who wanted to take things more seriously; their ‘pro’ service costs £75 a year, and gives you all the customisation and room for expansion you’re likely to need. Paul Flynn‘s site lives there, as does ConservativeHome, and the blogs of lobby journalists Benedict Brogan and Paul Waugh (among others).
    • These days, the (generally) preferred option – certainly in these parts! – is to download and run your own copy of WordPress. It’s free, and it’s the best; but you’ll need to pay a few quid to put it somewhere – say £22.99 a year from Eukhost; and running it yourself does take some effort. Tom Watson, John Redwood and Richard Benyon use it, as does the remarkably popular PoliticalBetting.com; but for a simple blog, it’s probably overkill. When you want to do something more, though, it’s perfect: ask Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and Jim Murphy.

    There’s absolutely no shame in using the free options; and if you decide you need more, for whatever reason, you’re looking at a couple of hundred quid, tops… with most of that going to the friendly geek who sets it up for you. I dare say many MPs could find that kind of sum down the back of their sofa.

    Spending a portion of your Communications Allowance on a blog is just The Wrong Thing To Do. And frankly it calls into question the purpose of the ‘totally non-political, fence sitting and boring’ Allowance in the first place. £10,000 times 646 MPs, times 4 years in a typical Parliament equals… no, don’t, it’s a terrifying answer.

    PS: By sheer coincidence, I note that the British Computer Society held its MP Website Awards today: winners were Derek Wyatt, John Hutton, Alan Johnson and  Kerry McCarthy. All Labour, for the record.

  • Ordnance Survey ban Google Maps

    If the police are infringing your copyright, I wonder who you call?

    The Free Our Data blog has done some sterling work lately, highlighting Ordnance Survey’s recent warning that it was a ‘breach of Crown copyright’ to display ‘any data created using Ordnance Survey base data’ on a Google Map. Yes, they did explicitly mention Google Maps.

    It’s now been confirmed by OS that the Metropolitan Police are breaking the terms of their OS licence, by plotting crime data on a Google Map. You might remember, I noted the significance of their use of Google Maps when it first launched.

    As the Guardian guys noted last week, ‘the OS is perfectly within its rights – indeed, it’s asserting its rights as required by its terms of business’ to make an issue of this. But it’s a perfect illustration of why OS is fighting a losing battle; and if the rules are going to prevent the government delivering on a timeboxed promise (specifically, the end of 2008), don’t be surprised if the rules get changed as a matter of urgency.

    The Pre Budget Report is on Monday, by the way. Check the small print.

    PS: It’s well worth reading what Ed Parsons – ex-OS, now the Geospatial Technologist of Google – has to say on the subject.

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    Two weeks with my T-Mobile G1

    The release of the first ‘Googlephone’ running the open source Android couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

    My Nokia E65 had served me well, but was getting a bit temperamental. I’d already handed all my email over to Google, and was keen to do likewise with my calendar needs (bye bye Outlook!). Plus, Google tends to just get it right, where Apple’s track record is a bit patchy in my experience. Of course I was going to get a Googlephone; and with my contract’s minimum period having just expired, why wait?

    Let me straight away: I like it a lot. A heck of a lot. But it’s not without its faults, some of them significant.

    The screen is beautiful, the interface is beautiful, the unit itself is pretty (rather than iconic). As you’d expect with Google, everything integrates neatly. When you power up for the first time, you’re asked for your Google Account details – and yes, thankfully, that includes ‘apps for your domain‘ accounts. Instantly, you’re looking at your Gmail inbox, with all the same contacts, and your Google calendar. Change something on your desktop PC, and it reflects instantly to the phone – and vice versa. That’s enough to make you love the phone itself.

    The keyboard is small but usable with practice. The web experience is excellent, with the browser firing up instantly. Google Maps is as good as you’d expect, with or without GPS. Oh yeah, and it’s good at making phonecalls too. Google’s contacts app has come in for criticism, much of it justified; but its integration with Gmail gives you a headstart, importing from Outlook was easy, and courtesy of Gravatar, I’ve managed to add photos for a remarkable proportion of my contacts with zero effort.

    But there are faults, some of which will resolve themselves over time. Others won’t.

    • Zoom. For me, the key to the iPhone is the multi-touch operation, which the G1 doesn’t have. So if you want to zoom in on a photo or a web page, you’re pressing zoom in/out buttons. It feels so primitive already.
    • Camera. Three megapixels is respectable, and the quality is fine. But jeez, is it slow to snap… almost unusably so. I’m seriously considering carrying a proper camera again; and that’s really not good enough.
    • Lack of homescreen widgets. If you’ve ever seen Nokia’s Widsets, you’ll recognise the horizontally scrolling desktop on the G1. Some aspects are cool: it scrolls beautifully, you can add shortcuts to individual contacts, and there’s widget functionality. But the selection of widgets is shockingly small: an analogue clock, a picture frame, a Google search box, and that’s it. No calendar view. No to-do list. No weather widget. I’m hoping this is just a temporary weakness, forgiveable since Android’s only been properly public for a matter of days. But still…
    • Lack of ‘send’ functionality. I’m amazed it doesn’t include the ability to send contacts or calendar events via SMS, Bluetooth, email or anything else. Yet.
    • Media playback. There’s a respectable ‘Music’ app, and there’s even some Flight of the Conchords in there to start you off. But if you’re hoping to stream anything other than YouTube, or playback video, you’re going to have to visit the Android Market and hope for the best. For now, you’ll be disappointed.

    There’s quite a lot to play with in the Android Market: a selection of weather apps, the barcode-scanning programs are fun, there’s a fantastic Twitter app called Twidroid, and who can resist (proper) PacMan? The big names are starting to appear – among them the Telegraph and MySpace, and others will follow no doubt (including MySociety, I hear?). Again, early days.

    Android is unquestionably going places, and there’s an undeniable thrill at being in at the very start, watching it all evolve. But I’d recommend steering clear of the ‘free on 18 month contract’ deals. Although there’s no mention of it in the T-Mobile publicity, my local shop sold it to me for £50 on a 12-month contract; by which time I bet better devices will be available, and no nastiness with unlocking / jailbreaking.

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    FT's bloggy new look

    Is it just me, or is the new Financial Times website design, being rolled out progressively this week, heavily influenced by blogs – and remarkably reminiscent of the Downing Street site?

    Whilst other sites seem keen to cram ever more into their homepages, the new FT homepage makes the site feel really quite small. Just ten ‘top stories’ in a list, sorted in order of importance; headlines and very brief excerpts, with timestamps, categories and related articles. There are still plenty of sections and subsections; but the primary navigation is mainly hidden behind dropdowns (Javascript-enhanced HTML blocks rather than traditional form dropdowns, incidentally). The page layout is (broadly speaking) three columns: fat, thin, thin – a configuration we’ve grown familiar with in the blogosphere.

    Gawker.com shares my take, and concludes: ‘the online medium continues to assert its precedence over print; even the rich love blogs; and bloggers all deserve to be paid more money’. No argument on any front there. 🙂

    It’s further evidence, in my mind, that the divisions between ‘blogs’ and ‘proper websites’, ‘blogging tools’ and ‘proper CMSes’ have disappeared, if they were ever there to begin with. Let’s just ignore the labelling. Blogs and blogging systems evolved as a means for writers to get news items up on the web quickly and efficiently. Guess what – journalists want to get their news items up on the web quickly and efficiently. So do (should?) press officers.

    In my own work, once the decision is made to use a blogging tool (ie WordPress), certain design decisions are basically inevitable. But it’s very interesting to see the FT choosing to make many of those same design decisions, without any (apparent) requirement to do so.