There seems little point in commenting on how crappy the UK’s Daily Mail is

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There seems little point in commenting on how crappy the UK’s Daily Mail is… But, still – the angle on this story makes me a little sad. It’s a sequence of photos from a Foundation for AIDS research gala in LA, featuring rock icons Sinead O’ Connor and Debbie Harry. It’s truly lovely to see them, but the captions and the copy… So sexist, so ageist – so middle England conservative conformist.

The gist of it is – “Look at these two weird old women. I mean, they were weird when they were young, but at least they were good looking. Now they’re old and weird. Yuck.” Ad nauseum.

If it had been two guys – David Bowie and Morrissey, say – can you imagine that same angle being used?

Oh – and the name of the foundation and what it does – doesn’t appear until mid-way through the piece. The writer knows he’s about to descend to a level of churlishness that would be unseemly if the true context was revealed.

Me? I’m glad we live in a world with people like Sinead and Debbie in it. Not just because of the music they’ve produced (and let’s not forget, they’ve both made incredible work) but because they’re upsetters. They push culture forward by challenging it. They worry Daily Mail readers with their “ill-advised” outfits and “erratic” choices. We need more people like that.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/VwvBPW7qj9v

The day of the supermodel seems truly over

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Flicking through Glamour magazine, the day of the supermodel seems truly over. Brands are now fronted by actresses, pop starlets. Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Emma Watson. When did that happen? When did the Naomis and Kates stop being enough?

It’s an interesting cultural shift. I wonder what it says about perceived brand aspiration. These things happen in response to research, feedback and audience response. So, does that say the target markets value more than just conventional beauty now? Does conventional success have to be a component too?

Perhaps Naomi’s assistant beating tantrums and Kate’s coke habit shone too bright a light on what it is supermodels actually do. Nothing.

At a time when many are feeling the pinch, perhaps conspicuous consumption has to be tempered with a smattering of talent.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/HMZbLJ3HUFq

Looking for awesome Adobe Edge examples!

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Looking for awesome Adobe Edge examples!

Are you an Adobe Edge developer, animator or designer – or just doing interesting things with Edge?

No one’s laughing at you now huh? Least of all me. I want you to get in touch with me about an opportunity to get your work seen very widely indeed.

If you’re already using the Adobe Edge preview, you know that it’s stuffed full of all kinds of aceness – and that Flash should be looking worried.

Then, the we-kinda-knew-it-was-coming moment happened yesterday, when Adobe announced their cessation of mobile Flash development. Kaboom. Suddenly Adobe Edge is looking very important. Fortuitous for me, as I’m writing a book about Adobe Edge.

Go me.

But, also, go you! I’m looking for cool, wonderful, cutting edge, boundary stretching, super-duper examples of what people are doing with Adobe Edge. Some of them may be featured in my book.

If you’re one of those guys, get in touch. Go to my profile and send me an email – or link me up in the comments if you’re less shy. If you know one of those guys, send them the link to this post. I want my book to show folks what the next generation of the web could look like.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/gLGWVsxZCFs

Not your Dad’s iPad

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I’ve just come from reading a blog written by a radio journalism student. He recounts a stimulating first week at university where a series of industry luminaries rhapsodised about their lovely telly careers. The media, they said, is so marvelous. This special, special club.  Being in it and part of it.

And then they all concluded by telling these young, enthusiastic neophytes that, basically, everything’s changed now  – and we’re all screwed.

Anyone who wants to get into the media should probably just give up. Right now. Do not pass Go. Do not collect anything.

What this young student’s lecturers should have said was that there are new ways of content production and dissemination coming to the fore.

Digital journalism, online and tablet publishing, they’re not harbingers of doom. They’re merely harbingers of change.  And things will continue to change – so right now the best thing a young content provider can do if he or she wants to be paid is to become a digital entrepreneur.

The people making money online aren’t posting stuff on the Huffington Post for free – they’re running the Huffington Post. They’re in charge of disseminating and publishing content and taking the revenues.

Here’s the secret. The net enables anyone to do that.

All you need is a computer or tablet. Sometimes, all you need is a phone.

Writers – there’s no end to how you can get your work out there. From WordPress to G+, there are platforms available to publish and build audiences. Photographers should go iOS and haul themselves onto Instagram, by hook, crook or click.

Even broadcasting – especially radio – as a distribution model for content can be replaced by digital means. Podcasting, UStream… If you want to make radio find a niche, make it, disseminate it yourself and narrowcast. Download Garageband, plug a mic into your iPad and you’re good to go.

If you want to make TV, you can do that now. With a digital camera for a couple of hundred dollars – or a smartphone that shoots HD – and a Vimeo account.

These are the production models of the future. Content made on the move and consumed on the move.

It’s not the current cohort of young creatives who should be worried – it’s those many, many journalists and producers and photographers who can’t change or, more likely, who refuse to change.

They should keep taking the tablets and let the rest of us get on with building tomorrow’s media.

My Google+ Manifesto (Redux) I will post about the things I love.

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My Google+ Manifesto (Redux)

I will post about the things I love.

I will post about the things that excite me. I will share creative and interesting posts from other users. I will express strong opinions and will occasionally change them. I will post my half-baked ideas and my hopes for the future.

I will do this because the Google+ community is a fantastic place that helps me form ideas and opinions. I will do this because knowledge is power and information should be free

I will express myself in the best way I can in the time that I have. Sometimes I will wax poetic and use polysyllabic adjectives. At other times I will speak plainly and my posts will be terse.

This is not a race to the bottom. I do not forget that the history of art, culture and literature is as rich as the history of science and technology – and that the words we write now are the literature of tomorrow.

I will post about the things I love.

This is who I am. You may be someone different. That’s OK.

(with apologies to +David Shellabarger author of the original)

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/T3VezS6fRnt

Counter Stats

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I’m a little late to this resource, seeing as it’s been around since late July and I’ve already wittered about wanting Google to bake in some kind if public circles feature (which they inevitably will). Until then, there’s Google+ Counter – a G+ stats site with public, curated lists of folks to follow.

More meritocratic than Google’s recommended lists – it’s still not quite the one click subscription model I crave, but it’s very, very useful for finding interesting and active G Plussers. And, you can create your own lists too.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/VbmiixjNLUH

Wacom Inkling – WANT

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I shared this on Twitter yesterday – the Wacom Inkling, coming to the UK for a very reasonable £125 in October (unusually, an almost direct translation of the dollar price).

It’s a combo ballpoint pen and line-of-sight receiver that enables you to draw on paper, then upload the drawing direct to your computer. Huh? Yeah – there’s a bit more to that pen than meets the eye… it records your movements and translates them into digital information that rebuilds your sketch. You can upload the results in vector or bitmap format – and it even does layers. Neat. It’s already on my wish list.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/GmXta3bUddb

What do you get if cross Lou Reed with Metallica?

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What do you get if cross Lou Reed with Metallica?

It’s not a joke, it’s a genuine question. I’m desperate to know. They’ve made an album together, for serious, and it’ll be released on October 31st.

I don’t have much time for Metallica, tbh. When you’ve been weened on Killing Joke and Extreme Noise Terror, they seem a bit tame/lame/all the same.

Still, putting Lou Reed in the same room as these hacks sounds like a kick ass idea. Make them subordinate to his pretension and grunting and craggy gurning. And at least the lyrics will be interesting.

It’s going to be gothic, isn’t it? That’s happens when you cross metal with art-school. cf. Bauhaus, Specimen, Marilyn Manson. I’m not complaining.

Also, the web site looks like fun. It’s just being built and published as they gather content for it. That noise? Funny you should ask. It’s not the crashing, Pro Tools compressed squeal of rhythm guitar. It’s the sound of UX designers, screaming.

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/MFWWBqmCTge

Going Public You know what Google Plus really needs?

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Going Public

You know what Google Plus really needs? Public Circles. Like Twitter lists – but for Google Plus.

I say so because this morning I read a piece about Google Plus that made me twitch. Over at Forbes of all places. Titled “A Eulogy for Google Plus” (http://goo.gl/4a8Zr) the expectation of balance was low – but the level of misunderstanding in the piece was quite staggering.

In the author Paul Tassi’s estimation, G+ has failed because people are still using Facebook. Um… yeah? And?

Dunno about Mr. Tassi (actually, I do, because he describes in detail his failure to engage with G+), but I use Facebook and G+ in very different ways. Facebook is for friends and frivolity. For casual commenting and keeping in touch.

More than that, Facebook places you at the centre of your social universe. It’s for broadcasting first. It encourages a view of social networks as platforms for dissemination, rather than consumption, with you in the middle.

On G+, the balance is a bit different.

I use G+ to interact with people I don’t really know and follow content I’m interested in – a bit like Twitter, but with more depth. For me, it’s the Twitter of blogging. The balance is tipped in favour of consumption.

Facebook is for broadcasting first, following second.

G+ is for following first, broadcasting second.

Which brings me back to my original idea. Public Circles. If G+ had curated lists of people – like Twitter – then perhaps that difference would be more explicit to those who are trying to use G+ like Facebook, looking at a stream full of tumbleweed… It would go BOOM.

By the way, I am aware of a fast and dirty hack at www.plus-lists.com that enables you to do something like this. It’s a tool to export your circle data and convert it to V-Cards. Too many stages, too techie and too clunky. But this is the feature we need…

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/6SVF3Pf3YYX

HP TouchPad pricing announcement to come tomorrow…

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HP TouchPad pricing announcement to come tomorrow…

It’s possible the UK could be getting cut price TouchPads after all, with news that a customer service announcement is due tomorrow morning.

I’ve been following 16GB TouchPad pricing in the UK since HP announced they were scrapping the tablet. So far, the lowest price is £280.72 delivered from N-Genius, via Amazon. Amazon’s own price is £307.99 (before PP – I use Prime). That’s a drop of £40 from yesterday. I know because I’ve had one sitting in my Amazon basket since Friday…

In the States, it’s gone bat plop mental. $99 at BestBuy, Walmart and other outlets, with most online stores already claiming to have sold out.Staples beats ‘em all stupid, with a price of $49 (using a $50 rebate coupon).

When I tweeted about this, I was helpfully spammed a link to www.bundlebox.com – a service that offers none-Americans a US PO Box address. Add two to two – you could use it to order a TouchPad from the Americas, for under seventy quid plus PP.

Me? I’m not too keen on using these PO box services as you’re not covered by UK selling regs when you buy through them – and good luck negotiating US State regulations if your box arrives with a big dent in it – or with a couple of bricks inside.

I expressed this concern over the Twitters too – and was joyously challenged to try ‘em out by @BundleBox.#wetakegreatprideincustomerservice they helpfully hash tagged. Er… nope, I replied in tweet form, for the reasons expressed above. I need legally binding guarantees, not fey promises of customer service.

In reply to that, I discovered two things:

1.@bundlebox on Twitter is probably a hive rather than an individual because they didn’t reply in context. Instead they back-pedalled a bit, admitting that:

2. They are struggling to fulfil demand for TouchPads internationally. Most online sites are sold out, and some BundleBox users who bought from Best Buy have had their orders cancelled. Source: http://goo.gl/tCTdv

Harumph. So – even if I did “try ‘em out”, chances are, still no cheapo TouchPad.

But, hark, the Twitter vine yields one last juicy grape. Via follower @benhunt22 I’ve discovered that HP in the UK may still have a surprise of the price dropping kind in store. His Tweet claims:

“News is they will let us know by 9 AM to 10 AM tomorrow morning. Source: HP customer services”.

And so, we wait…

UPDATE:

Another Twitter user @heathrown(Scott Barkla) had the same message from HP UK customer services over the phone today. He tweeted:

“No UK liquidation deals on the HP Touchpad before tomorrow morning between 9am and 10am. Source HPUK customer service today.”

Article source: https://plus.google.com/100320175239277283592/posts/hbx56QuyFzt