BBC’s Paul Brannan speaks on the mobile surge

The BBC’s editor for emerging platforms, Paul Brannan, talked to University of Westminster students on Tuesday and explained how the future of media was literally in their hands.

The future is mobile... (stock.xchng image)

He described his position at the BBC as being like a “midwife”, cajoling the institution into its final technological pushes.

This time the push is mobile.

Brannan detailed a news landscape where print is at its lowest circulation since 1946, and the sub-editor is “going out of fashion.”

There may have been a few thuds as print-pushers like myself keeled over in their seats, but the news wasn’t all bad.

Suggestions of a print market upturn in the past five years seem to say that the market is settling – redefining its place through ‘digital Darwinism’.

Convergence

Coining a Nokia marketing phrase, Brannan touched on ‘the age of the fourth screen’. Come again? Well thats techno-speak for mobile media convergence (I include PCs here).

His message boiled down to the coming together of media content and information in single devices, and how awareness of it marks the way forward for journalists.

The MoJo Toolkit underscored his point, though ‘wobble-cam’ asides from Brannan suggests that the format is still very much in its infancy.

As a closer, Brannan emphasised not only knowing the tools, but honing the underlying abilities that give them purpose including clarity of writing, accuracy and enthusiasm.

Google to throw the book at everybody

Google have made a major breakthrough in ending their series of copyright conflicts with the US Authors’ Guild and Association of American Publishers.

This means that the search-engine giant is one step closer to providing a unified online book database.

The Guardian’s Bobbie Johnson speaks about the outcome, keep an ear out for the ‘37% cut’ remarks…

Mitchell & Webb on journalistic information overload

Taken from BBC 2’s ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’

The pair take on some of the pitfalls that can arise from the pressures of generating content in a 24/7 media environment. (Sorry broadcasters).

BBC News (Alien Invasion):

BBC News (What do you reckon?)

Sky Sports 4 (Football, Football, Football)

Virtual murder – Real consequences

A 43-year old woman has been arrested in Tokyo, Japan after ‘killing’ her online husband.

The reaction apparently came about after the woman was divorced in the Korean-made online role-playing-game MapleStory.

The jilted woman is said to have hacked the account of her virtual ex-husband in retaliation, stealing his log-on details, and erasing his avatar.

The arrest took place on Wednesday after the man had complained to police. According to the BBC, police continued the investigation by taking the woman 620 miles to Sapporo where her virtual ex lives.

She is said to have told police, “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.”

The offence carries a maximum five year jail sentence and/or a $5000 (£2500) fine under Japanese law.

Obama touches gamers…figuratively

Not content with hijacking the airwaves and column inches, the U.S. presidential campaign has found it way into the games that we play.

Obama Campaign Poster in EA's Burnout: Paradise (EA Image)

The Democrat advertising campaign, has already found its way into nine Electronic Arts titles, including the multi-million selling Madden, NHL and Burnout franchises.

The news was broken by the Associated Press last week with an EA spokesperson quoted as saying, “we’re simulating a real-world environment, so our racing games, our sports games lend themselves to that.”

What she failed to mention were the very ‘real-world’ profits EA are set to earn by trafficking these campaign messages.

This has received mixed opinions amongst the gaming community. Should politics and pleasure mix? The move does smack of a curious blend of marketing genius, tempered with Dad-getting-down-at-the-disco cringeworthy.

Though there may actually be method to the madness with reactions leaning more towards bemusement than outright hostility. One post over at Gamespot sums up the attitude best

Im voting for the guy, but geeze. Its obviouse that he should be the president if his team can think of this idea. McCain doesn’t even know how to use a computer. How the hell is he going to advertise on Videogames ROFL.

So sayeth the 18 to 34 year old male. Obama may be onto something afterall.

Ross Kemp’s reign of terror

While in the midst of fantasising about having brought a handheld games console to Mayor’s Question Time at the London Assembly yesterday, a funny thing happened.

Assembly member Richard Barnbrook became coherent enough to ask a question;

In seeking to tackle the root cause of violent street crime in London amongst some of the younger generation will the Mayor condemn the gratuitous open depiction of knives and guns on the covers of DVDs and computer games and the television glamourisation of street violence such as the series Ross Kemp on Gangs?

DVD boxes, computer game cover art and Ross Kemp are bringing chaos to the streets of London. Salvation is at hand, close down HMV and censor Mr. Kemp’s holiday snaps today, and slash youth crime rates tomorrow…obviously.

Lets not even get into classical artwork.

The Bayeux Tapestry, promoting inner city youth violence for over nine centuries...

Out of the mouths of babes, or at least BNPers.

Unfortunately this kind of naivety is often pervasive in contemporary politics. With something as fluid and little understood as media influence on human behaviour, why not attribute the worst? Constituents are nothing if not used to ingesting token answers to social vagaries.

Mayor Johnson’s reply implied that although these factors may aggravate those with certain behavioural tendencies, so can a lot of things. A response stemming more perhaps from political cautiousness, rather than any informed even-handedness.

A piece over on the police999.com website draws a more grounded conclusion from the issue,

The usual suspects have been blamed: poor parenting, broken homes, violent video games and television shows, alcohol, and poor schooling.

But another theory stands out – disenfranchised youth feel they have nothing to lose. With no prospect of establishing a career or buying a home, these youths are disconnected from society.

Now if only those in a position to effect change were a little less disconnected from their society…

BBC iPlayer in your pocket

The BBC has revealed plans to give users it’s iPlayer in portable format.

The technology seems to be largely indirect at present, with files being downloaded to your PC (or Mac) before being “sideloaded” to your handheld of choice.

Support is on the horizon for an “over the air” option for more recent smartphones, i.e the Nokia N96 at present (the iPhone appears to be out in the cold because of licensing issues at the moment at least).

Read the full story here.

Sega back in the game?

The Register has broken the news that Sega are planning to dip a somewhat scorched toe back in the hardware market for the first time since the Dreamcast was canned back in 2001.

More surprising still is that the new console is due to be a hand-held effort going by the name of Sega Vision. A format Sega has historically had little success with.

Anyone who bought a Game Gear back in the early 90s will have memories of a battery devouring, arm cramping behemoth that played a mean game of matchstick Streets of Rage.

The biggest draw however was that colour screen. Revolutionary at the time, it formed the back bone of Sega’s ad-campaign.

Ambitious, but technically hobbled, the Game Gear never came close to the brute sales or iconic status of Ninendo’s Game Boy.

The Vision appears no less ambitious than its predecessor.  It has as been touted as MP4 and MP3 capable, as well as having an integrated camera system, 2GBs of memory and an e-reader.

All of this in a unit the size of a credit card you may gasp? It may be too good to be true. Confirmation has yet to be made over at Sega.com, and rumours of a hoax have begun to circulate already.

Check out The Register article here, and watch this space.

Apple’s cart remains un-rocked

The National Music Publishers Association’s (NMPA) proposal to raise royalties by 6 cents on tracks sold via iTunes has collapsed. Read about it here.

The decision comes after Apple’s 11th hour gambit on Wednesday with it’s threatened closure of iTunes.

Surprise surprise. With Apple predicted to corner more than 80% of the digital music market this year such a flexing of it’s muscles is hardly unexpected. ITunes is the popular face of the (paid) music download scene, and now it would appear, a source of revenue the music industry is reluctant to antagonise.

This latest consolidation of it’s position places Apple uncomfortably close to the reins of the online music industry as a whole. A situation causing a few big name grumbles already.

Is this thing on?

An inaugural post eh? This blog has come about through my conscientious participation on the MA Journalism course at University of Westminster.
Although tutor David Dunkley Gyimah’s cajoling may have been involved too.
I will mostly be blogging about technology, and how we interact with it. Be that as entertainment or communication, enlightening or just plain aggravating…