I don’t tend to have a daily dose of news. I’ve done this on purpose, it’s mostly negative and dreary, and there’s little that actually really effects my day to day life.

I don’t even read any news websites regularly (despite managing the build of one the major ones a few years ago). I figure if it’s important news I’ll find out from a real person.

What is seeming to happen though, is I now find out news from Facebook and Twitter. The Social Media networks are excellent real time distributors of news. News often spreads via these networks before it reaches the main media.

Tonight’s example is the Earthquake in Samoa, and the subsequent threats of Tsunamis (what is the plural of Tsunami?) hitting Pacific shores. I saw an RT (retweet) about it, and thought “is this a news event I need to know about?”. A quick Google News search for Tsunami returned several thousand current articles, a hot topic indeed.

So, is Social Media the new News? Is this where we’ll get our news from in the future? Will traditional media change to become more and more current? Everyone predicts the death of newspapers, it’s yesterdays news.

But hell, it doesn’t matter if you drop a newspaper in the bath. iPhone’s aren’t quite so waterproof.

I though it was okay, kinda meaty and saucy at the same time. Just like a builder then!

The other flavours were less nice.

Fish and Chips: reminded me of scampi flavoured Nik Naks.
Cajun Squirrel: kinda hot and meaty, I liked these the most.
Chilli and chocolate: just weird, tasted of neither.
Crispy Duck Hoisin: Sort of ducky, alright
Onion Bhaji: doesn’t taste like any bhaji I’ve ever had…

You have to say though, the sheer size of this campaign was impressive, everyone I know were buying and tasting them.

I’d suspect other companies to follow suit in the future and get the public to choose what products they sell.

Can you think of any other examples of companies doing this? Comment below

.net magazine 189

Back in the mid-90s, .net magazine came along and told all us geeks about revolutionary things like commercial websites, popular newsgroups and dialup accounts.

I read it for a year or two, and then forgot all about it.  Recently it caught my eye in Tesco.  I picked up a copy, and it seemed to have changed, it now seemed to be for people who built websites.

I finally got around to buying it today, and stuck it in my basket along with my Bank Holiday provisions.

It was read in half an hour, and the 130 pages were easily consumed.  It seemed a little light, and somewhat superficial. I think it seems to be aimed at web designers and developers.  Their advertising page claims it is “essential reading for professional web designers and developers”, but I think that’s bigging it up a bit.  I think it’s really aimed at aspiring web designers and developers.

You know, the bedroom web site writers.  (Ignore the fact that I work from a bedroom!  I’ve seen the light since experiencing a gaggle of staff and office overheads!)  Perhaps maybe the small web site building companies, the one man bands who wack together sites for pet shops and butchers.  It features interviews from bigger agencies and online properties, and I’m sure a copy might kick around on their reception coffee table, along with New Media Age and Campaign, I doubt they actually read it.

The advertising was very peculiar: it was 90% for domains and hosting companies!  You can get so much for your clients for so little!  There was also a VERY incongruous an advert for  Solar Hot Water Heating company…

There was a two page advert for subscriptions, announcing I could pay an amazing £12.50 per QUARTER!  I nearly fell out of the bath.  I was kind of expecting that sort of price twice a year, not 4 times a year.  How much was this publication exactly?  I looked at the cover, and there was no price on the front!  It was sneakily on the back cover, in very small print, printed sideways on vertically along the bar code.  

<blink>£5.99!</blink>

Five pounds 99 pence!  How much!?  I’m sorry, but I’m used to magazines being 4 or 5 quid, but not 6.  And certainly not for a skinny 130 pages.  I guess they are hoping that ‘professionals’ will just sink the cost into their overheads, at that price it’s a significant overhead!

I shalln’t be buying it again, but luckily, it’s thin enough to just about read stood in Tesco, to see who’s blowing their own trumpet.

Dutch Bike Rider

@shiraabel tweeted this feature article about the Dutch Bike in the New York Times

The content of the article is fantastic: sharp and informative.

But what I like even more is the way they’ve done it, self-playing audio, picture slideshow, it works really well.

I hit the page and was startled by the audio, but, if it hadn’t started, I wouldn’t have looked to see how to start the audio – because one doesn’t expect audio on the web – we expect visuals.

Before you knew it, I’d listened to the whole thing, and enjoyed the nice photos of very fashionable bicycle riders.

Hell, I was that impressed I bought the newspaper blogged about it.

What do you think?  Do you like the way the NYT did that?  And, do you think men should have fenders (mudguards to us Brits!)?

(And don’t mention that the guy on the audio (David Colman) is a gay man, of course he’s a gay man, he’s writing for the Style section of the NYT!)

How Woolies Became Wellies: One Woman’s Fight for the High Street

A great fly on the wall documentary about how the Dorchester Woolworths became the Dorchester Wellworths.

Dorchester Wellworths Ladies

Give it a watch, and look out for the delightful twins at 52 mins in!

Google has bought similar sites in the past (Jaiku, Dodgeball) and done nothing with them.  I guess the difference now is the popularity Twitter has, it’s a whole new channel – just like YouTube became, so Google bought that too.

Note what Google have done with YouTube – not a lot, it looks all very similar, but more ads are appearing, especially on the player now.  Adwords/Adsense are Google’s real income afterall.

I’m sure it’s all very possible that Google could use Twitter to increase ad impressions.

I keep wondering if there’s a service where if you can’t find what you’re looking for on Google, you could ask the Twitterati for the answers…  Maybe Google could do that and further improve their search results – with human answers.

So will we all be Twoogling soon?

Wired UK Launch Issue

The ‘UK LAUNCH ISSUE’ of WIRED magazine is currently on the shelves of newsagents around the UK.

I had to buy it, I was a BIG fan of the last WIRED UK, when it was published back in the mid-90s, indeed, I was a subscriber.  Many a long train journey was whiled away with the fat magazine, reading of geeky techery and MIT wizardry.

So what’s the new version like?  Well, it looks and feels exactly the same.  Same logo, same fold-out cover on textured stock.  Similar price (£3.90).  It’s now full of ‘men’s magazine’ high-end advertising for cars, watches and fragrance.

I fast forwarded very quickly to the Editor’s page, to see what they had to say about themselves, and about the previous WIRED UK.  On page 19 (what’s wrong with the editor’s page being on page 3 or 5?) David Rowan welcomes us all to WIRED, and bigs it up with proof from the US version of the mag.

BUT!  Not a mention in the slightest of the previous UK version of the magazine!

Time to dig deeper…

It transpires it’s actually the THIRD incarnation of the UK edition!  No wonder they don’t want to talk about it…

Version 1: a failed Guardian/Rosetto&Metcalfe partnership described here by Danny O’Brien

Version 2: an ‘in-house’ UK version which lived from ‘95-’97. Some of the article content is archived here

In 1998 Wired Ventures was sold off, eventually ending up in the hands of Conde Nast, who have only taken 10 years to launch a UK version, aand they’re launching an Italian version at the same time.

Content wise, it’s the same old WIRED content: futurism, fetish and fluorescent ink.  The advertising has clearly been poached from it’s stable mate GQ.

I think I like it, it’s like a men’s magazine with less testosterone: no torsos, tits nor travel.

Oh, and they’ve got a website: www.wired.co.uk, naturally.