12 month ago
plasticbag : After Our Time also has a wiki for more rigorous collaborative annotation of "In Our Time" - I haven't had much of a chance to interrogate this yet, but conceptually at least it's a lovely idea. I do rather wish the BBC had done it (or something like it) though. Ah well.
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12 month ago
plasticbag : My old department at the BBC has launched a blog concerned with its R&D activity and exploration of new technology... - It looks like Tristan and Chris have really managed to take the team that Webb and I used to run to new heights. Really want to know more about what they're up to at the moment.
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12 month ago
plasticbag : Revenue from print advertising is in radical decline with online advertising taking up much of the slack.. - If I was a betting man, I'd say that you could expect broadcast television advertising to be the next to be dramatically hit, in favour of targetted advertising packaged around on-demand download video.
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12 month ago
plasticbag : It's worth reading through Engadget's full list of posts on the Kindle from Amazon - That the future of content is digital distribution over the standard web is not a shock to me. Television is the obvious next step here too. I don't think it's here yet, but the mainstream ebook reader is definitely now on the horizon.
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12 month ago
plasticbag : Jeff Jarvis reports on the fun he had in London - It was really nice to finally meet him. We had a great conversation about future journalism, the web of data, the XO from OLPC and the BBC. Really lovely evening. Never seen Paula squee so much either!
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12 month ago
plasticbag : Vimeo.com has the world's best Log In screen... - Cal reminded me about it the other day, and since I'm in the mood for a good bit of vibrant web design action I decided to post it. Feels nice to be posting things again, by the way.
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12 month ago
plasticbag : John Gisby's headed over to Channel 4. He's a nice chap who I rate and wish all the best at his new job. - Channel 4 seem to be assembling quite an interesting team of people, including quite a lot of my favourite ex-BBC-ers. Very different structure by all accounts. Interested to see what happens there.
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13 month ago
plasticbag : ITunes Plus appears to be dropping its price around the world to be inline with normal iTunes songs - Difficult to know why anyone would buy the other ones really. To be honest, it's probably easier for them to just get rid of the Fairplay versions completely.
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14 month ago
plasticbag : Has anyone got any idea of how many people are actually using the iPlayer? - First talked about in 2003, supposed to be publically launched to everyone a really long time ago, and still—frankly—quite a bad idea, particularly in the context of Joost, is there anyone out there who's actually using it?
Simon Willison : BBC iPlayer now supports streaming Flash for Mac and Linux - BBC iPlayer now supports streaming Flash for Mac and Linux. Absolutely fantastic—it Just Works, you hit the homepage and you can be watching video in seconds. No need to even sign up for an account. I imagine IP ranges are used to block access from ou
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14 month ago
plasticbag : Mr Hicks has proposed a nice informal cover design contest for the Radiohead 'In Rainbows' digital download - Not a lot of transformative insights yet, but quite like the idea and would be delighted if someone came up with something dramatically better than the finished official version...
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15 month ago
plasticbag : Last.fm have a gorgeous new app for doing audio fingerprinting to sort out the metadata around music - The double-translation of similar track names to audio fingerprints is a bloody fascinating way to get good solid real-world identifiers around objects like songs. I'm installing it immediately.
Simon Willison : Audio Fingerprinting for Clean Metadata - Audio Fingerprinting for Clean Metadata. Last.fm have started using audio fingerprints to help clean up misspelled artists and duplicate track information.
philgyford : Last.fm – the Blog · Audio Fingerprinting for Clean Metadata - Help Last.fm identify tracks, albums and artists better, in return for a future free API. Pretty slow going on my ageing PowerBook though. (via Plasticbag)
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15 month ago
plasticbag : Awesome! Fake Steve Jobs has said what I've been arguing in TV circles for bloody ages. - I mean he's a bit aggressive and stuff, but long-term there is limited future in broadcasting. The future's in content production. The sooner some of them figure that out the better! It's all about the rights, bitches!
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15 month ago
plasticbag : Amazon are going to be launching a DRM-Free MP3 Store in mid-September - Of course it's going to be relatively sparse to start off with, but I can't help thinking with Amazon behind it the sales will be sufficient that record companies will eventually change their tune.
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15 month ago
plasticbag : Rumour is that Heroes is no longer going to be sold through iTunes in the US - If this is because of rising tensions between iTunes and the industry over pricing, then the only thing that the industry has to do is find and support a plausible alternative, not demand more control over the iTunes model.
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plasticbag : Anywhere.FM - Fascinating idea. You upload your music to a central repository, and have a web interface to it wherever you are in the world that you use instead of iTunes. Full network joy ensues. Lots of possibilities here...
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19 month ago
plasticbag : Joost has got a bunch more funding, including some from traditional broadcasters... - I'm sort of conflicted about Joost. It's a beautiful bit of work - so good in fact that I think it might actually thrive in the marketplace despite the fact I think it's sort of slightly the wrong model for navigation and exploration of media...
# copy21 month ago
plasticbag : It's not every day you see a brand new sort of interface on the web, but that's what you get at oreseg.com - It's an online video portal with a difference. Not sure what I think about it, but the interface is certainly thought-provoking...
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21 month ago
plasticbag : Very much on the rumour mill - but I'm sceptical about it's truth: Are last.fm about to be bought by Viacom for $450 million - I've said it for ages that someone should try and buy them. I heard rumours in the past that they'd turned down overtures from a few large companies. They're certainly a huge potential player over the next few decades...
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22 month ago
plasticbag : There's an interesting article on BBC News about music executives and their frustration with DRM systems - It's an encouraging sign when people who work for record companies believe that DRM (at least in its current forms) is getting in the way of people buying music rather than saving their industries...
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22 month ago
plasticbag : TechCrunch's social music overview is pretty light, but interesting nonetheless... - There's a few names here I haven't heard of. iLike is a nice little plugin I've been using for a while but which has very little traction in my communities. Last.fm remains my staple music community...
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22 month ago
plasticbag : The BBC Trust is asking for people's opinions about the BBC's proposed on-demand services - If you have a strong opinion either way, you should probably express it to them.
Jon Hicks : BBC Trust - On-demand Services' consultation - Fellow Brits – please tale time to fill in the BBC consultation survey. Don’t let them deliver a restrictive Microsoft only solution!
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22 month ago
plasticbag : Ofcom are throwing a wobbly at the BBC's download plans and this is one time I'm very definitely on the BBC's side - We have to face it, the role of the 'broadcaster' in the distribution of television is on the decline as other methods come into play. Radio's safe. TV's changing and on demand will get larger. Hobbling the BBC in this area is the kiss of death to the org
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22 month ago
plasticbag : Andrew Leonard of Salon responds to the David Carr post I wrote about earlier and in not enormously flattering terms... - And he's also got a point! saturation in the marketplace doesn't mean that everyone writes about Britney, it means that people specialise and there's more choice. The capitalist would argue that market failure is the biggest threat, not competition...
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22 month ago
plasticbag : There's an interesting discussion going on on the microformats list about how to depict television and radio programmes - The standard confusions and complexities apply - the distinctions between a broadcast and an episode (where the episode corresponds to something on a tape that can be replayed), and between episodes and the brands that link them...
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22 month ago
plasticbag : David Carr talks in the New York Times about the benefits and costs of new web-native ways of reading and writing to the business of writing newspapers... - Now this is a really good article. It balances the value of 'most read' pages and blogs with the risks towards popularisation and ratings-grabbing while accepting that one way or another they're here to stay. No head in the sand.
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