Wisdom of the Crowds - Information Failures in Amsterdam

I have two recent incidents which make me trust the crowds much more than the civil service here in the Netherlands.

Incident 1.

Travelling back on a KLM plane from Athens we arrive at Schiphol airport right in the middle of a thunderstorm. Schiphol decides it is too dangerous for its personnel to keep the gates open (lightning strikes, etc) and suspends operations. We taxi to a parking area and wait. The captain comes on to explain. Ten minutes later we start seeing other planes taxiing towards the terminal. Captain tells us they have priority at the gate, but that we have to wait until another plane leaves our position. People on the plane start to ask for information about connections. We're told there is no information at the moment, except that connections have probably also been delayed by the storm. People on the plane get out their blackberries and go to departure/arrival info on www.schiphol.nl and discover this information is not true. After another 25 minutes on the ground a very irate captain comes on to explain he's had aan argument with Schiphol and has been lied to. They have not given him priority at the gate and we're still waiting for our gate position to be cleared. After 1 and 5 minutes on the ground we finally start disembarking. No KLM or Schiphol personnel to meet the plane with connection information. Those who don't already know from the Schiphol website (which was working all the time), scramble to find monitors for more info.

Incident 2:

Arrive in Amsterdam Central Station Wednesday morning to discover total chaos with the trams outside? Two trams, the numbers 2 and 13, look like they have "folded" into each other at the points on the left hand side of the station. Five traffic cops are shooing onlookers away. Couple of engineers looking into how to clear the obstruction with the minimum of damage. "All the trams that should be leaving from this side of the station are now leaving from other other side" is the message given by the officials. So the crowds move to the other side. Opposite all of this are the Amsterdam Traffic Offices where you go to get info and tickets. No-one from the staff can be bothered to come outside and explain to people what's going on, which track we can expect to find the right tram, or which halts are now unreachable because the tram routes have been changed slightly. I couldn't believe it, especially when I went into the information office and saw the staff just gazing out of the window. In this case it was a minor incident. But just think if this had been something more serious. Lack of information at times like these can be very dangerous indeed. My conclusion is that, for the moment at least, you get more information from the KGB than the GVB. It fits the image that Amsterdam is a fun and creative city but as this recent survey revealed, the city is rapidly losing respect when it comes to its position as a business centre. Logistics are a nightmare!

Great talks in Amsterdam on Mobile developments

good talks from the recent Mobile Monday in Amsterdam

Tribute to John V. Russell - BFBS & BRMB

I was very saddened to hear that pioneer broadcaster and friend John Russell had passed away suddenly at his home in Cyprus on 6th October 2009. I met him several times when he came to Hilversum to run courses for the Radio Netherlands Training Centre.

A few years back I visited his home on the island to meet him and his wife Sue. We started chatting about his great radio career and I decided this was material that we should share with others - so out came the camera. What I have posted here (in two parts) are sections of the interview recorded that afternoon, where John shared a lot of wisdom about what works and doesn't work in radio. Through the training work he did in later years, many students owe their careers to John. His wit, wisdom and authenticity was a great gift and I hope this video will inspire others as much as it inspired me. John was truly one of the Masters of the Media.

John V. Russell Tribute Part 1 from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

John V. Russell Tribute Part 2 from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Cleese Classics

Confusing UPC Ad

 

UPC is running a huge ad campaign across Amsterdam, obviously written by PR people who hate technology terms. As a result, the ad is nonsense. Under certain circumstances you can get a download speed of 25 Megabit/sec for 25 Euros a month. This ad reads like you get 25 MB storage for 25 Euros, which would be a really lousy deal. And there is no fibre to the home...its fibre to a distribution point somewhere in the street. Does the average punter know anything about fibre optics? If they do, they would know that they meant 25 Mb/sec. Did the people in the bus stop know what was being offered? No. I asked them.

Windows 7 - ads are truly awful.

Microsoft has produced some pretty awful ads recently, but this one encouraging people to organise a Windows 7 Launch Party in October are nothing short of bizarre. It looks like a Tupperware party on steroids. I like Windows 7 which is a welcome relief to Vista, but this is NOT the way to get others enthused.

Picnic 109 FM

Wandered around the Picnic event in the West of Amsterdam this afternoon. It was rather quiet today - the crowds are coming tomorrow we're told. Attended a presentation on the current state of the Arab blogosphere hosted by Al Jazeera, but they were not taking questions from the audience. That will happen in a workshop tomorrow. In the exhibition hall were two guys playing music and with a big sign saying Radio Manuela. Yes, there were on the air. Did I want a music request or to be interviewed? I said no, I had a question. Were they really on 109 MHz FM? Yes, they said. It is a 400 watt transmitter and covers most of Amsterdam. But don't most radio sets stop their coverage at 108 MHz? Yes. So that means that although they are broadcasting, no-one can actually hear them unless they have a modified FM receiver. Er, yes. I was the first person in a long while to ask them that question. Their "station" is infact a piece of art. They operate it only at events, and then just because they get treated as royalty because they are from the "media". The fact that they are broadcasting (illegally) on a channel no-one can hear is their open secret. Hey, stop fussing about the technology and enjoy the music. As their sign says, Radio Manuela - keeping you young, sexy but not famous.

Nice Stats Update

Working on something similar, but then with shock stats for Europe.

Travelling a lot at the moment

My temporary lack of daily blogging is mainly due to a heavy workload filming - and the fact that I am converting a lot of files across to the Mac platform. I am not a Steve Job's fan, but Final Cut Pro is becoming the de-facto video editing platform that I cannot ignore. Sony Vegas has served me well in the past, but later versions in combination with Windows Vista made my busy schedule impossible.

No doom and gloom from the NYT labs

Nick Bilton -Inside the New York Times Lab from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Nick is currently on leave from the New York Times development lab to write a book. To be titled "Byte, Snack, Meal" it is due to be published by Random House in May 2010. At the Rotterdam Eday, organised by Emerce Magazine, and hosted by Marc Canter (now living in Cleveland, OH), Nick gave us a compressed insight into what they're doing in difficult times. This department within NYT is certainly smart. They are looking at the influence the cloud is making on storytelling - and the role of sensors (as opposed to censors). More on Nick's website nickbilton.com

Emerce Day - coming soon

I will be reporting in English from the Emerce Day in Rotterdam on September 17th. Part of the deal is that I tell others about the conference - and frankly I don't need any prompting to do so. The programme seems to be building into one of the best one-day events for a long time - a sort of Le Web, Picnic and TED rolled into one. Emerce is a monthly magazine that does a good job to dig through the business of the web with a lot of original research. They also have a vibrant on-line community too. Looking forward to seeing Douglas Rushkoff, Hans Rosling and Gary Vaynerchuk in particular. Douglas recently published a new book Life Inc which I bought on audible which I enjoyed and can recommend.

Exclusive breaking news from Paris

First email sent out to everyone on their breaking news list had an interesting spin on the Jackson inquest.

 

Unesco : Clueless in Paris

I have to laugh at this. A conference popped up on the UNESCO website in Paris and a couple of broadcasters in Ghana and Benin asked me to find out more. I filled the form in on the site and after a week got this back from someone who seems to be working at 6 am in the morning. Clearly, they haven't got a clue what they're doing.

-----Original Message-----
From: webworld @ unesco.org
Sent: 18 August 2009 05:56

Subject: Your link has been rejected

Hello,

We are sorry but the conference targets national and commercial broadcasters. We hope to have a live webcast of the event so please visit our website for more information. Very best,

http://

that was submitted on 2009-08-14 has been rejected for one of the following reasons:

1. Unsuitable content.
2. Duplicate URL.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Links Manager
______________________________________________________________


Well I had questions as to why what they said in the e-mail bears no relation to what they are advertising on the website. But then I thought why bother? UNESCO doesn't understand emerging media at all and keeps proving it time and time again. This conference doesn't look as though its going to help anyone.

Social Media from a US perspective

Nice collection of facts seen from a US perspective and viewed through a rather rosy set of sunglasses. But still.

Calvin Harris "The Humanthesizer

Not sure the Royal College of the Arts Industrial Design programme are really the first to use conductive body paint (carbon particles in a water soluble paint was around in the 70's) but the way they did this was certainly creative. The making of video is below.



More details on the paint at Bare Conductive, though apparently they are not selling the conconction.

Sweet Revenge against United Airlines

Having tangled with customer service of various companies a couple of times, I have been tempted to get my own back through a campaign on Youtube. Remember the Kryptonite bike lock that could be opened with a ballpoint pen? But this recent video by Canadian singer Dave Carroll gained him an audience of over 4.9 million on Youtube, plus several networks like CNN and BBC doing interviews. Basically, United Airlines in Chiacago bust his guitar while in transit. What was worse, while they were sitting in the plane, the musicians could see the groundstaff outside the plane throwing their instruments around. United Airlines staff showed a total lack of interest. Dave tried for 9 months to get compensation. Then he gathered friends together to peform his song about United. The "making of" shows they had a lot of fun.



I’ve receive many “why the Mexicans” questions and the answer is simple. The music and feel of the song reminded me of a combination of old Marty Robbins and early Elvis tunes. Since “Fun In Acapulco” is my favourite Elvis movie, and in it he had a mariachi back-up band, I thought it’d be funny to have a mariachi group in this video. Because I didn’t have a budget for full mariachi outfits I simply bought sombreros and moustaches and the Amigos were born.

There were various stories last month that the song had caused a massive drop in United's share price. I think that was overstated - the whole airline industry is in a slump right now. But the mayhem this must have caused in the marketing and PR departments of United is priceless. Carroll has since put out a statement challenging United to compensate a charity of their choice rather than pay him the damages directly. I cannot believe why United hasn't just jumped at the opportunity to put things right. I guess the decision makers are out to lunch on this one. Song 2 and 3 have yet to air on Youtube.

Hip Hippo

I love these characters, made famous by French television I believe with their version of the Lion Sleeps Tonight. Just put "hippo and dog" into Youtube and you'll see how creative kids in the audience have downloaded and remixed the images to fit other songs in other languages like punjabi. I am surprised these characters haven't turned up in the Anglo Saxon world. They have been used to sell chocolate, but also teach children to clean their teeth.





Bit of fun to make it viral.



And one more which doesn't want to be embedded. So why haven't the original creators taken this to the next level?

Bleach or Lifesaver?

Perusing the lime website in the Caribbean (lime is the new name for Cable & Wireless in the region, I saw this list of things to do after a hurricane has passed. Putting bleach into the water to sterlize it reminds me of the great development in water purifcation demonstrated by Michael Pritchard at TED a couple of weeks back. Personally, I'd alaways prefer to drink from Michael's Lifesaver flask than the bleached stuff.

Microsoft's 2019 lab

Some great ideas here. Apple needs some competition. Open source guys should be coming up with similar videos...

Google finally dumps radio

Google's abortive love affair with radio is over. Thank goodness. I would argue that by getting in to the business of selling radio ads, Google was never really into the content side of radio. It was trying to do Adsense on commercial radio stations, becoming a threat to the radio sales dept of the radio station. It had no clue in this side of the business. Sounds like e-Bay and skype.

Radio urgently needs a Google-like service, being able to find interesting audio in an i-Player like environment. Radio is still struggling with the point and dial interface. Most radio station websites are a joke - a schedule and a button to listen live. Millions are being spent on radio programmes which are only available when on the air and difficult if not impossible to find later. Far from being a cheap medium, in developed countries its becoming a very expensive way to share an idea.

Google's radio automation software business has been sold to the US company called WideOrbit. They are now owners of the Maestro and SS32 automation products. But this is a very crowded market in an industry that has very little money at all at the moment. Don't they get problems with people giving their products a wide orbit?

IVR Zimbabwe

Freedomfone Zimbabwe from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

What do you do if you're trying to get a message into an area like Zimbabwe and the authorities won't grant you access to the local airwaves, either because of political reasons or because you are a minority group which doesn't qualify for attention by the state controlled media. One answer may be freedomphone, a piece of software that's being given away to encourage people to set up their own interactive voice response system. I see they are testing a beta version in Harare now. freedomfone.org has a blog which is worth following, and the main site in Zimbabwe is also active. kubatana.net/

Ken's T-shirt & BMW fails.

I am not sure which came first - the t-shirt or the remark by Ken Robinson during his talk about ways to stimulate creativity. Still fresh even though it was recorded three years ago. But note how mind-bogglingly dull the BMW 'ad' which now follows it. It is everything which TED is not supposed to be. The ad ends with what sounds like a comment from the pr people that that was a "pretty good line". Er, no it wasn't.

Lufthansa's Golden Rules for Mobile

Took a break from some rather complicated video editing to read a column in German following a tweet from Tomi Ahonen. It is a comment by Heike Scholz on Lufthansa's experience with the mobile industry. I hope I have captured the essence of what she says in German.

Just read the following on the MTI blog, which, I recommend adding to your feedreader. If you opt for Mobile and you are somehow involved in the travel industry check out these recommendations from Lufthansa, which has eight years of experience in the mobile industry. I can only underline these findings from my own experience.

Lufthansa's Golden Rules of Mobile
1. Management support is essential for the implementation of mobile strategy and projects.
2. Mobile services are not simply a miniature version of the regular website. You should ensure that applications and usability are adjusted to fit the mobile users.
3. Existing processes for the implementation of mobile services must be adapted to fit the mobile handsets being used or rewritten altogether
4. The usability is the key to everything: fast and easy, optimized for different devices. Lufthansa stresses however, that not all devices available in the market should be optimized (for cost reasons). Smartphones or high-end devices (about 65% of people using the Lufthansa sites are users of the BlackBerry or iPhone) are now the focus of the developments.
5. Start with core functionality and then gradually add new features.
6. The end user must know that the service exists. Money should be set aside in marketing budgets for mobile marketing
7. Search engines are a complement to mobile marketing campaigns.
8. Use specialists and experts as consultants for the mobile strategy and the implementation of the services .

I should add to point 6. The marketing of new services or applications should be as cross-media as possible, and for an extended period and not purely during the campaign. Depending on the audience being targeted, Social Media Tools are also important. Just having a link to it on the company website or an application in App Store to advertise the service is not enough!

I would add that point number one is vital too. Unless top management have their heart in it, the mobile strategy is just a bad afterthought. It still suprises me that most airlines won't accept mobile checkin or that navigating the mobile site is so time consuming on a mobile browser that it's faster to look for web access somewhere.

Will Apple Approve a Competitor?

Looks good. In fact this Apple iPhone application just submitted to Apple in the US looks terrific. But will Apple allow it? I have my doubts. Hope I am wrong.

Monetize the audience not the content

I found this fascinating quote today:

The worst examples of subscription services are those that break the content up into free and paid. It's as if some content is worth more than other content. I think that is the wrong idea most of the time, and especially in news and news related content.avc.com, A VC, Jul 2009

You should read the whole article.

NPR's Broken Automation - Out of Service for the Summer?

Been testing how some stations reply to input from listeners and viewers. Worst so far is NPR Radio in the US, which cannot read the links I sent in and makes it difficult for you to point out broken links without filling in a form that reminds me of the application form for a replacement passport. To cap it all, the message is sent from Insert Name.

So what do people want to know in Uganda?

I am impressed by the work Google is doing in Uganda with frontlinesms. The video editing is a bit crude at the beginning, but the main points are there.

The Google blogpost explains that most mobile devices in Africa only have voice and SMS capabilities, and so they are focusing their technological efforts in that continent on SMS. Last month they announced Google SMS, a suite of mobile applications which will allow people to access information, via SMS, on a diverse number of topics including health and agriculture tips, news, local weather, sports, and more. The suite also includes Google Trader, a SMS-based “marketplace” application that helps buyers and sellers find each other. People can find, "sell" or "buy" any type of product or service, from used cars and mobile phones to crops, livestock and jobs.

Google SMS Tips is an SMS-based query-and-answer service that enables a mobile phone user to have a web search-like experience. You enter a free form text query, and Google's algorithms restructure the query to identify keywords, search a database to identify relevant answers, and return the most relevant answer.

BBC Arabic Countdown

There's quite a fan group of people collecting and remixing BBC World News countdowns. They have taken the music from the new BBC Arabic version and montaged it on the English BBC World News countdown. But the original pictures on the new BBC Arabic countdown still look more stunning than anything I have seen in English or Persian. Looks like a million dollars. May be that's why fans have started remixing it.

Chinese TV seem to be launching an Arabic language channel too, although this is the quietest soft launch on the planet. I wonder whether it will be as slick, or whether people will want to remix CCTV?

Fans of Blank

The power of recommendations...Nice promotion for why traditional media is not enough these days in developed markets.

IFA - Consumer Electronics Severely Limited

Don't look to technical blogs for coverage from this year's IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin, Germany. The press accreditation reads like a passport application, requesting all kinds of references before they will let you in the press room with the other "journalists". Bloggers are definitely NOT wanted here only very traditional media. What on earth is the press department worried about? That they might get coverage by people who are passionate about a show that went into decline once it went annual. Truth is they won't make time to find out who are the influencers in the industry - and are totally trapped by their own routine. It takes a few seconds to check out the validity of a bloggers' claim. We remember when they were paying students in Berlin to turn up to the keynotes in a suit. Watching some of these CEO's struggle through a presentation which they didn't write is so last century. No wonder Apple has pulled out of these kinds of circuses.

New NPR Site launches Monday

Looking at how some radio sites are relaunching to involve their listeners more - and publish more archive material. I will wait and see with NPR, but here's a sneak peak video.

Chalkbot on Tour

Actually more interesting than the Tour de France itself. Something I said it chalked up somewhere in yellow. And will be washed away by the rain. Its the brainchild of a Pittsburg company called Deeplocal and the robot company Standardrobot. I like Standard Robot's one logo, one link website which broadcasts the message - don't bother us, we're building robots not websites.

Deeplocal spun out of a Carnegie Mellon University art and technology research lab, following more than three years of research into local and collaborative information collection, storage, and visualization. They seem to have been doing some interesting projects for the BBC too. “Beat The Boss,” a well-loved British television show, pits a team of three kids, “The Bright Sparks” against a team of three successful bosses, “The Big Shots,” and asks them to create a new product that would be marketed to kids. The winner is the group that creates the product that fares the best at youth judging. Pittsburgh’s favorite condiment company H. J. Heinz Company got into the act as the client for an episode in April 2009, and challenged the two teams to create a new sauce for Heinz. The video below is fascinating. Don't be put off by the unfortunate freeze frame below.

Hermitage versus Bristol

I wonder if the new Hermitage in Amsterdam will get the same sort of ideas they are getting in Bristol. Judging by the Hermitage website, the answer is probably not.

Scilly Radio Jingles from Milan

Cheap radio jingles from Milan. I am sure some of the jingle companies in Holland must cringe watching this short BBC documentary on last year's jingle package for Radio Scilly, the local station for the Isles of Scilly, off the UK Cornish Coast. They are Radio Scilly on St Mary's - 107.9 MHz. But that accent on the jingles makes it sound more like Radio Sicily. But listening to the station on line, it would seem their radio heart seems to be in the right place.

The Italian jingle factory that made them has less trouble with Spanish language jingles, though from the website you would think they speak Latin in Latin America. Wasn't US VP Dan Quayle the last person to get confused about this?

TED Global has started

Silly Prank, Serious Problem

I think he could have been more effective, but the guy at zug.com does have a point. Our mobile data is far from secure.

The Road Ahead

foggy wood
Originally uploaded by LynchburgVirginia

Flickr is producing some amazing work. High Dynamic photos from Rob Miller for instance.

Bletchley Needs Money

It is to be hoped that the TED GLOBAL visitors will be able to help create awareness for the computer museum project at Bletchley and the fact that the whole place needs money for restoration of the famous "huts".

TED @ Bletchley Park, UK

I hope that the TED GOBAL participants enjoy their tour of Bletchley today. I see there is a DIY ENGIMA kit in the shop which is actually designed in Holland.

BBC World Service Live Recording

It is strange how we come to accept broadcast jargon in the English language. I see on the programme for TED Global which kicks off today in Oxford that the BBC World Service is going to do a live recording. Does that mean no retakes? In similar events at the FAO in Rome, the live recording was ruined at the end by the presenter being forced to do retakes for different editions of the programme with the audience still there. We were told that if we left the acoustics would change.


Bridget Kendall presents The Forum on WS. It's two 28 minute segments, so I guess they must be recording material for a couple of editions today live to disc.

Tedx on Future of Journalism

TedxNWC

View more presentations from tedxnwc.

The media earthquake as desribed by Jeff Mignon ), presented at TEDxNWC on July 8, 2009 -

Future of Passport Book in Limbo

You knew that VHS tape was dead when Disney started giving away a free player with a set of videos. Confirmation that shortwave wireless is finished in the Western World comes when one of the two remaining shortwave annuals announces the 26th edition is uncertain.

In recent months other considerations have had an increased bearing on the future of Passport to World Band Radio®. So it is that the 26th Edition of Passport to World Band Radio® is being held in limbo.

Despite this, for now we are continuing to maintain the WorldScan® database and uphold all proprietary material. Among other things, this should help allow for an orderly return to production, under IBS' aegis or otherwise, should conditions allow.

Can't see an orderly return to production coming anytime soon, when this kind of production has shifted platforms ages ago, despite denials to the contrary. There may be some fans of the medium left in the Western World. The problem is that that doesn't include advertisers.

Bored or Board - Is the BBC World Service having fun yet?

So, is the BBC World Service Board having fun yet? Not by the body language radiating from this year's annual report. Most look extremely uncomfortable. Shame - some of these people are known to be passionate about their work but the photographer has totally failed to capture any of that in the BBC WS annual report. Looks more like a UK passport photo where you are not allowed to smile any more. Why so serious?

Mashup Tools Disappearing

Now its the turn of Microsoft to turn out the lights in a mashup tool.

More here

Augmented Reality App Launches Soon

One of the first augmented reality apps to go live in the iPhone AppStore soon, once it's approved by Apple. Forget boring 2D tube maps! The video shows you how your 3GS phone (and it has to be the Apple 3GS) can tell Londoners and New Yorkers where their nearest tube station is via their iPhones video function.

When you load the app, holding it flat, all 13 lines of the London underground are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many kilometres and miles away they are and what tube lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons. I could have used this in Moscow and Prague last month. Especially Moscow is a zoo when it comes to the Metro and you don't realise how far apart the metro stations are.

Iliad Fails, Cool-er Scores

My first generation Iliad reader has just failed completely. The screen seems to have packed up along with the battery which was going anyway. Am I going to replace it with a 2nd generation Iliad for a mere 599 Euros? Er, no. Never.

I bought one and tested it for a client, following how it was implemented by one of Holland's leading dailies, the NRC. But the device had very poor navigation and battery life and didn't do what it said on the box. If the battery failed you didn't get the last page held in memory - it just faded to a green screen. That combined with the ludicrous formating of the NRC (each article was a new page) and you couldn't cancel the paper edition. The start-up running it was slow to respond to complaints in the chat rooms, which means they didn't really care about their early adopters. Were they offered discounts when the new version came out? No. Loyalty meant nothing.

I cannot see a future for these guys in Eindhoven when there are devices like the Kindle and now Cool-er on the market. iliad is 2.6 times the price of the Cool-er and that means for me Iliad has entered a new phase. History.

At the same time we're seeing some strange going's on with Amazon's Kindle. They have deleted copies of books some have already bought. Ouch....very bad week for the e-book

The Day Today - still fresh

The Day Today was a surreal British parody of television news programmes. The series was six half-hour episodes and a selection of shorter, five-minute slots recorded as promotion trailers for the longer segments. Only six episodes were made, and were originally broadcast in January and February 1994 on BBC2. It got a bit stale towards the end - there is only so much you can do. But the problem is that it looks like many of the rolling news services that have since developed, like BBC News, CNBC and BBC World News on a slow news day.

TV Graphics Warning

Be careful if you do TV graphics yourself.

Interesting Diavlog

No that's not a spelling mistake. Great conversation about the challenge of cyberwarfare, or rather distributed denial of service attacks. I quite like the concept of bloggingheads.tv, though it would be better if you could browse by topics.

Vimeo Dumps the Originals

Don't get me wrong, I think Vimeo has ever right to clean-up huge files which are hardly used. I have a pro account on Vimeo and have been pleased with their upload speeds - better than Youtube.

From vimeo....

Starting August 1st, basic accounts' original source files will be stored for one week from the upload date, after which they will be removed. Of course the converted Vimeo video will always be there in the Vimeo player, ready to be watched again and again, anywhere you choose to embed or share it. We will also still provide a download link so people can save the converted file to their computer (in MP4 format).

This new one-week policy applies to all basic accounts' videos uploaded from this point onwards. For videos that were uploaded before this blog post, those original files will be available until August 1st, to give you some time to download them if you need to. After August 1st, those files will also be removed.

For Plus users nothing will change: we're going to continue hosting your original video source files for both your existing videos and any new videos you upload. We appreciate your support, and we want to continue improving the Plus service, not limit it. If you choose not to renew your Plus service, we'll keep your original videos for one month past the end of your subscription to give you time to download your videos or decide if you want to renew. Additionally, if a basic user upgrades to Plus within the one week window after they upload a video, that original file will be kept as long as they are a Plus member.

Michael Jackson replaces Stalin in Prague

There used to be a statue of Stalin in the communist period. Joe beamed across the river from a hillside park on the North shore across the bridge and into the historic centre of Prague. The statue was removed and replaced with a sort of metronome. I climbed the 254 stairs to the top to find a skateboard park and what appears to be a sort of shrine to the late Michael Jackson. An English language broadcast by Radio Prague in May 2005 gives the background to the Stalin Statue and its rather macabre connection with death.

Tourists come here today, not only for the breathtaking view but to see the large ticking metronome, which was erected here in 1991. But for the local residents this spot holds a darker memory - little do the tourists around here know that exactly fifty years ago, at this very site, some six hundred men and women were working around the clock to create the world's biggest monument ever to honour the Soviet Communist party chief Josef Stalin.

The 50-metre high massive statue of the finest marble was proudly unveiled by Czechoslovakia's Communist regime on May 1, 1955. For seven years the residents of Prague had the Soviet leader follow their every move from the hill above. The 17,000 tonne statue - Stalin's jacket button alone, decorated with a hammer and sickle, of course, was half a metre wide - featured the Soviet leader in front of a line of workers - jokingly called the "Fronta na maso" or "meat queue" by Prague residents, as this was a time when they were a daily part of life in the city.

There are some dark legends associated with the statue. Its creator, Otakar Svec committed suicide a day before the unveiling. The man who posed for him as Stalin - an electrician from the Barrandov film studios, failed to shake off his nickname "Stalin", took to drink, and died three years later. And, the vast statue's glory days were short-lived. Stalin's reign was denounced by the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, and the statue was destroyed just seven years later, on Moscow's orders in 1962.

Too heavy to be displaced, it was blown to pieces with 800 kg of explosives and 1,650 detonators. Some witnesses claim the party chief was decapitated immediately after the first explosion, his head rolling into the river waters below. Before the remnants of the monument were stored, they were loaded on a truck and paraded in front of cheering crowds that gathered to celebrate the event in the streets of Prague's Old Town. Was it just a coincidence or a bad omen that less than a year later, the driver of the truck died in an accident?

Michael Jackson replaces Stalin
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

iCav

iCav
Originally uploaded by Matthew Sylvester

BBC English Regions has been using an Internet Content aquisition vehicle. Its has been on trial on BBC Lincolnshire. Its basically an office with editing facilities on board that can be operated by a single journalist.

Future for Radio's Terrible Dial

Playing with this iPod Touch application at the moment.

Cookies Ice Cream

Cookies Ice Cream
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

This Italian Ice Cream looks a bit strange at a Moscow shopping centre near the Kremlin

Kremlin Chimes from Saviour (Spasskaya ) Tower (Frolovskaya).

Kremlin Chimes from Saviour (Spasskaya ) Tower (Frolovskaya).
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

I have listened to these bells for years in the days of Radio Moscow World Service. But I didn't realise until now that the chimes have always been built by Dutchmen.

On April, 16, 1658, according to the decree of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich, the tower was renamed Spasskaya after the Vernicle Icon placed over the gate facing Red Square. The icon itself has not survived. Russian architect Bazhen Ogurtsov (Cucumber) and English clockmaster Christopher Galloway supervised the construction of the marquee.

The first clock on the Spasskaya Tower was installed by Galloway's team. In 1707, a Dutch musical carillion chime was sent to Moscow on the order of Tsar Peter the Great. That lasted a century. Ivan Butenop and his brother Nicholas, Moscow mer­chants of Dutch origin, founded in Moscow in 1830 a mech­anical workshop manufacturing farm machinery, fire-fight­ing hoses and tower clocks. From 1851 to 1852 the Butenop Brothers fully reconstructed the Kremlin chimes inside the Tower of the Savior in Moscow. For the following 15 years the Butenop Brothers mechanical es­tablishment took care of the proper operation of the mechan­ism of the chimes and the firm's craftsman wound them.

More Students Celebrating

More Students Celebrating
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Students celebrate the end of the school year in a big way in Denmark. Like hiring a cattle truck to drive through town singing and drinking. Occasionally some fall off.

Leo Laporte in Moscow, Russia

Leo Laporte in Moscow, Russia
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Not quite, but it did look like the chief TWIT there for a second on a sign very near the Kremlin. Compare this with www.premiereradio.com/.../621_show_portrait.jpg Snapped this on a very wet Sunday in Moscow.

KGB HQ Moscow

KGB HQ Moscow
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Or so we are led to believe. Love the car which I managed to capture by accident.

Check for Penguins in Copenhagen

Check for Penguins in Copenhagen
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Great exhibition of wierd signs in Copenhagen city centre. Organised by contributing editor to Lonely Planet. These are real, no photoshopping. It was cleverly organised so that toursist were allowed to take photos of the signs - and many also bought the book with plenty more inside. Organised by Kilroytravels.com in Copenhagen.

Nearly abandoned Revox

Nearly abandoned Revox
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

An old Studer Revox is tucked under a desk at DR just incase they need to load an old audio tape into their Dalet editing system. Which isn't that often.

Bill Belly in action

Bill Belly in action
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

These are solar powered garbage containers that use sunlight to compress the trash, and therefore need emptying far less frequently. They reckon an average trash bin costs 30,000 Euro to service during its lifetime.

The Bridge at DR, Byen

The Bridge at DR, Byen
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Inspiring use of daylight in the design of the new broadcast complex at Danish public broadcasting. Seems that the odd pane of glass fell out in the early stages, but that's been fixed now.

Radio Tivoli by the toilets

Radio Tivoli by the toilets
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Outside the main toilets at Tivoli amusement park in central Copenhagen. I note this radio is analogue not digital! Will it be converted before digital switch-off in 2015?

Broadband Bus

Broadband Bus
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

One day we will laugh at these prices. They're in Danish Kroner by the way. Check your currency on www.xe.com

Danish Public Broadcasting's new Concert Hall

Danish Public Broadcasting's new Concert Hall
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

It's finished. Too bad I couldn't see inside on this trip. Apparently still some acoustic teething troubles and bits of the organ were put in the wrong way round. But, when all is said and done, they have built one of the most amazing concert halls in the world. I also love the way they use daylight in the adjoining broadcast complex.

Light in Copenhagen

Light in Copenhagen
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

There's a great exhibition on city lighting at the Danish Design Centre opposite Tivoli at the moment. Includes some interesting thoughts by light designers about why they don't illuminate buildings the way they do in Amsterdam or Paris. Didn't realise that both the Netherlands and Belgium are one of the worst light polluters in the world. Belgium has lit every inch of motorway and the Dutch have all these greenhouses. If the light is leaking upwards then it is not being used efficiently.

Signposts to Editorial Guidlines

In the past, the BBC has made copies of its Editorial Guidelines for Journalists available during training sessions in other countries. Now that they've set up a journalism training school, they have opened up their training to different sectors too with projects like the 21st Century Classroom.

The news agency Reuters has also been training journalists from the press in developing countries though its non-profit arm. They have now released their guide to good journalistic practice here in the spirit of improving standards. It's definitely food for thought. I think many broadcasters would do well by leafing through, especially the section on standards and values. They are too often "void when inconvenient".

Walk Backwards for Michael

I like this idea from Belgian radio station Studio Brussel. It is an eternal moonwalk involving listeners...Just for fun. Nice tribute....

Emerging from Research Project

Boy....June turned a bit into a blur with travels to St Petersburg, Moscow, Copenhagen and Prague. Variable connectivity has meant I have put the blog on hold until I get back to the Netherlands. But I am snapping photos and shooting video like crazy. Will be writing more in July when I am back.

CNN, Twitter & Iran

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Irandecision 2009 - CNN's Unverified Material
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Scathing attacks on CNN's Unverified coverage of Iranian riots following the elections. I just changed my photo to green and my location to Tehran...does that make me a reporter on the ground. I get the impression BBC Persian service is doing a much better job, but I am also surprised that BBC World News is not making much use of those fantastic Google-earth type maps that I know they have. You want the overview? Then you need something better than broadcast media.

Dinner Tonight

 

On a train between St Petersburg and Moscow. Just picked up the all inclusive menu.....

VC Non Admissions

reminds me of despair.com

VC Non Admissions

View more Microsoft Word documents from vcobserver.

Salim on A24 platform

I met Salim a few years back at Newsxchange in Amsterdam. He was trying to start a pan-African TV channel from his base in Nairobi, Kenya.

Salim is a passionate media professional. He's the son of Mohamed "Mo" Amin who was a Kenyan photojournalist noted for his pictures and videotapes of Ethiopian famine.

Apart from Ethiopian famine, Mo contributed exclusive photos of the fall of Idi Amin and of Mengistu Haile Mariam, and was author of numerous books, including Journey Through Pakistan, and covered various themes like East African Wildlife and the Uganda Railway.
Amin died when his Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 on November 23, 1996 was hijacked and he tried to rally passengers to overpower them.

Salim is taking his father's memory further, not only finding ways to take the collection further, but also create a platform for other African journalists.

In this interview, made at the 2009 Global Media Forum at the Deutsche Welle Bonn last week, Salim updates us on the current plans, explains why a lot of journalist training in Africa fails, and his vision for content on mobile phones. He's suspended the idea of a 24hr channel, and is currently concentrating on building a African Media Agency.

Salim Amin A24media.com from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Public Interest in Germany Severely Threatened

I have just come back from Germany where I think public service broadcasting has gone into a tailspin this week. ARD and ZDF seem to have capitulated on calls by politicians and commercial interests to scrap a lot of the work they do on-line. The Berlin Wall came down nearly 20 years ago. This year a firewall of silence is being raised in Germany - which can have grave consequences for investigative journalism and feature making. I was struck by the entry and comments on this page from the Radio Netherlands Media Network site. I've cut and paste the following from there.

German public broadcasters reduce Web offerings

Germany’s public broadcasters will drastically reduce the programming they put online in response to attacks from commercial channels and newspapers that the online offerings represent unfair competition. Markus Schachter, director of public broadcaster ZDF, said the channel will reduce its online offerings by 80 percent and cut the length of time that catch-up programing is available for streaming. Reports on the official websites of ZDF and sister channel ARD will now be taken down after one week, and reports on sporting events, such as Germany’s Bundesliga soccer games, will be pulled after only one day online. Schachter also said ZDF would focus more on posting video to its site and greatly reduce its text-only offerings. The move is a sop to the German newspaper industry, which has complained that ARD and ZDF’s free websites unfairly compete with the online versions of their publications.

Readers added: It’s not like the German public broadcasters had given in voluntarily. Twelve months ago, EU commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding had complained about the public broadcasters’ web offerings, citing EU regulations. She appealed to Germany that they should set limits to their public broadcasters on what kind of online content is acceptable, and the German states (Bundesländer) followed suit in their new state treaty on broadcast services and telecommunication media (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag).

ARD and ZDF really tried to defend themselves. For example, they argued that their fee payers had funded their productions and should have the right to continuously access it. But in the end they had to cave in. I guess some politicians aren’t too unhappy that all the critical reports from political TV magazines will now vanish after one week.

The matter is even more complicated. Any online activities beyond making broadcast content available for seven days (equivalent to BBC iPlayer, considered as broadcast distribution, not as real online service) requires a procedure that is basically a copy of the “public value test” for the BBC. So it remains to be seen what will be the outcome of these public value tests. However, ZDF indeed choose to eliminate 80 percent (that’s the figure quoted in Germany) of its online content and not submitting it for the public value test at all. Also related to this matter is the closure of two WDR radio channels, presumably prompted by the circumstance that it was no longer possible to run more radio stations than authorized*) by way of distributing them online only. Thus WDR 2 Klassik and 1 Live Kunst have been eliminated. The latter was on digital broadcasting platforms (including DVB-S via Astra 1H) as well, and it has been replaced by Kiraka here, a previous online-only channel with repeats of childrens programmes from WDR 5.


Those reader comments are spot on. I wonder how the German public will repond? I feel the public broadcasters have been rather weak in their argumentation. Look at the image campaign like this one which outlines what rights you have to be informed. It doesn't explain that all this is severely compromised by what the politicians have decided to do now.

Related Academic Meeting on Public Media Policy

I am usually critical of the academic world for writing about the past rather than helping to map out the future. But a conference at the start of October in London looks like it has antipcated this move. The Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, and the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) are organising a discussion on Media policy responses to the private sector recession in Europe on October 2nd.

In virtually every European country, the private media sector is suffering intense economic pressure from the cyclical downturn in advertising and the structural shift of advertising revenue to the web. As a result, corporations are pursuing every avenue to exploit new and existing means of generating revenue, and of maximising the potential of digitalisation. This is having a direct impact on the policy making process at both national and supranational levels as governments and regulatory agencies are coming under increasing pressure to restrict new initiatives in the public sector, to apply the strictest possible criteria to publicly funded media organizations, and to relax overall regulatory oversight of the private sector.

More details of the conference here. No connection with the organisers, by the way.

Onion Makes Fun of User Generated Content

Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire

The Onion News Network continues to poke huge holes in the broadcast news industry. They are so slickly produced, they're way ahead of the skits produced for David Letterman, etc.

Reboot 11 reboots their website

Reboot11 is happening in Copenhagen again this year. It is an off-beat mix of great minds over two days in the Danish capital. This year seems to be a bit more chaotic than usual - perhaps it is a sign of the state the industry is in. But I get the impression it will turn out fine in the end. The videos from last year are up on the website (embedding seems to be problematic I have found) but they do give a flavour of what's to come. 450 have signed up so far. The dates are Thursday June 25th and Friday June 26th 2009. If you're planning to attend, give me a shout.

Serious Lens

 

Sitting in the DW Global Media Forum, I realise I am not really using a camera. This guy has a camera. And a really serious lens.

Remembering Tiananmen Square - 1989

OK, so you can't read this blog in China now with tags like Tiananmen and June 4th 1989. But that doesn't stop me recalling the very dramatic broadcast from the English service of Radio Beijing as it was then (now China Radio International). The announcer called on all listeners to recall the events of the evening of June 3rd 1989 in Tianamen Square. At the time we believed the announcement to have been made by Li Dan, a producer in the English department. A full transcript is here. Just look at Footnote 47.

I haven't (yet) managed to find the Media Network broadcast a few days after. But in April 1992 I made a Media Network special feature (with help from the Asian Broadcasting Institute of Japan) which looked at what happened in the propaganda war between China and Taiwan immediately afterwards. Want to hear it? Then download the MP3 file of the programme segment here. It's 27 MB. I note the BBC World Service has been putting out documentaries out about Tiananmen, although they have been broadcast well before the anniversary. May be it is a clever tactic to get around the great firewall just before the blocade intensifies? Many reports out there of heightened censorship this week. Kate Adie, one of the BBC correspondents in Beijing at the time, wrote an interesting account in the UK Daily Mail newspaper.

Human Rights Statistics

Hans Rosling is at it again with fascinating stories on statistics. Check it out.

BBC World Service kills off YourStory citizen participation

Your Story project - The End from BBC Your Story on Vimeo.

BBC World Service is building a reputation for killing off good ideas before they have had time to mature. I think this was the case last year when the used citizens to help redesign their website and it looks like the case now, especially when the cost to run this kind of scheme is peanuts. I have no connection with the BBC, just think that Nina Robinson needs a round of applause for the work she's done. Not sure the BBC technicians are doing Nina justice by uploading the message in the wrong aspect ratio and cutting her off after 1 minute.

Spring Cleaning Estonia

Amazed at how a small team can motivate an entire country to clean up a small country - Estonia, from thousands of tons of trash dumped in the forests. They produced the virtual garbage map which showed the extent of the problem. And they did it in a day! That was a year ago...now they are working in two other countries. Now this is an idea I hope will spread.

More Video on Radio Decibel

Hans Knot passed on this link showing the relaunch of Radio Decibel in Amsterdam earlier this year. It's in Dutch, but its quite obvious this is a group of very passionate people who believe there's a need for music radio with personality. Many of the original founders of the pirate Radio Decibel are involved in this legal venture. I'm glad they captured the moment on video. So much of radio is being lost by poor record keeping.

Radio Decibel Kickoff 1-2-2009
Uploaded by keezer - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Lost in Schiphol?

 

Standing by the luggage belt to pick up my suitcase, the lady next to me looks at the screens above and then charges off to the KLM Ground Services desk almost in tears. I think she misread the Dutch message which says that all baggage has been unloaded, not that all baggage has been lost. The luggage from the flight arrived eventually...Schiphol is definitely slowing down these days.

filming in Prague

 

Thanks to a tip from Douglas Arellanes, I found a truly stunning spot to film the sunset over the old town of Prague. I'm in the Czech republic on business, but took Sunday off to interview people about 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

PINC truly terrific

 

There are too many conferences at the moment, but there are not enough of the calibre of PINC. Had a chance to meet with some truly inspiring people at a gathering in Zeist right in the heart of the Netherlands. PINC has been around for a decade, but I have only just discovered a world-class circle on my doorstep.

Hilversum West

Hilversum is rebuilding its ring road, so these are not parked cars. It is all just part of the gigantic queue to escape the media city. To be avoided at all costs!



 
 

Media Songs

Making a collection of songs about different aspects of new media. Beats Video Killed the Radio Star.

Rosling's Media Alert on Swine Flu

Hans Rosling, of Gapminder fame, is one of my personal heroes. He is able to give clear context to important stories and I believe the mainstream news media should pay far more attention to what they are doing. His latest video puts swine flu into a much more sane context than I am getting from traditional media. It would be great if some of the media monitoring organisations would also start measuring stories with the news/death ratio.

During the last 13 days, up to May 6 2009, WHO has confirmed that 25 countries are affected by the Swine flu and 31 persons have died from Swine flu. WHO data indicates that about 60 000 persons died from TB during the same period. By a rough comparison with the number of news reports found by Google news search, Hans Rosling calculates a News/Death ratio and issue an alert for a media hype on Swine flu and a neglect of tuberculosis

Broadcast Asia Shuns Bloggers

Looks to me like the press department at Broadcast Asia in Singapore is living in a time warp....round about 1999. There is a clear definition of who they regard as "press"

Media registration is reserved only for editorial professionals (ie.reporters, editors, writers, publishers of trade publications and newspapers, as well as producers and presenters of broadcast and webcast media). Media registration is not opened to non-editorial staff of media groups, research analysts, bloggers and writers of company/corporate newsletters.

I think they seriously underestimate the influence that (group) bloggers are having on the broadcast industry. Entrance to the exhibition is free anyway, and that would be the only reason to head in that direction. The conference is just bizarre. It reflects an industry that has clearly lost its way in that part of the world.

Beyond Twitter & Facebook

Short interview with Alasdair J Munn, a third generation Zimbabwean who has founded a very interesting communications company together with his sister Clare. At the Africa Gathering in London in April 2009 he explained the work they're doing for both commercial and non-profit organisations to help them discover the power of social media tools. Completely void of the twitter hype, their research is showing major differences in the way different parts of Africa search for answers on the web and mobile. www.thecommunicationgroup.com. Not to be confused with the communicationsgroup which also does work for media organisations but is unconnected.

Alasdair J. Munn from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

GSMA Open Collaboration

Mobile operators and innovation are not two terms you'd put usually together. Most still operate their network as a walled garden. But there are some chinks of light, as highlighted by a talk I attended at Forum Oxford. I didn't realize that non-members of the mobile phone association GSMA could also get involved in collaborative projects.

You have to dig through their website to find it, but as Graham Trickey of GSMA explains, there are some interesting opportunities emerging.

GSMA Open Collaboration from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Greasing the wheels of trade through local mobile payments

I continue to be very impressed with Simon Cavill of Mi-Pay Ltd. He is the strategy director of a company doing pioneering work in the mobile payments world in Africa. I caught up with him again at Forum Oxford at the end of April 2009 and asked him to give us an update on how the market is developing and the immediate challenges ahead - cash shortages in rural areas and keeping the system secure. As usual, Simon is open and passionate about what they're up to.

Mobile payments are happening all over the world, but especially in rural areas of Africa, where ATM machines are scarce and most people don't have a bank account. The mi-pay method focuses on the diaspora who are crucial to the economies of many African countries. Global aid is estimated at 60 billion dollars. The amount sent back to Africa through the diaspora network is ten-fold that figure - and 600 million may be an underestimate because this form of informal trade is difficult to measure.

Personally, I see mobile payments as being very important to ensure that correspondents working for radio and TV stations get paid for their work. I know that so much training in developing countries turns out to be a waste of time because those trained cannot make a career out of what they learned.

In the first interview, Simon explains how the system works and why it is growing so fast in developing countries.

Watch this...

Greasing the wheels of trade through local mobile payments from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

and then this update recorded late last month in forumoxford09.

More on Mobile Payments from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Banks on the Frontline

Ken Banks is the brains behind a great free software programme called FrontlineSMS. In this interview he explains the problems it is solving. I think this is a superb software suite, especially for radio stations in Africa. I see that Ushahidi are using it all over the place as part of their production suite, as well as Google for research projects in East Africa. They have also been extremely clever with the branding...would have cost millions on the commercial world.

Frontline SMS \o/ from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Music as a media strategy in Africa

I've always believed that NGO's and especially radio stations in Africa have not used the power of song to the fullest extent. Somehow in educational circles, dance, theatre and music are seen as much lower down to information leaflets or posters. David Mason was one of the speakers at the recent Africagathering.org.uk in London and he explained to me how his organsation has partnered with Sengalese singer Youssou N'Dour to make mashups to promote health and relevant technology. I hope that the results of the contest (which runs until May 12th) will be used in Africa as well as in documentaries about Africa.

IntraHealth Open Source Music Project from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Ted Talk on the Flu Pandemic

This video from the TED conference is though it was recorded yesterday. It looks back to what we can learn from 1918. But it certainly has a very different take on what we're getting on the mainstream newsmedia. So are we ready? Not in the least. The number one side effect of TamiFlu is flu like symptoms. I wish that more journalists were asking these questions - and that broadcast sites kept their overview a little longer than a few days. The latest tracker is here at http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/. I'm starting to suspect this is simply a dress rehearsal for something much worse to come. The over-reaction of the Chinese government concerns me the most. It is unusual in the sense that they have had more time to prepare than the avian flu. But the ability of the scientists to communicate timely information to the general public is pretty poor in most countries.

Chlorophyll Calling

Royal webcast on my blog - Prince Charles has a message about the rainforests. all this reminds me of my father who spent a lifetime in plant genetics and still says that we need to guard the most powerful engine of the planet - chlorophyll.

"Help Twitter the Revolution in Moldova" protest outside the UN

"Help Twitter the Revolution in Moldova" protest outside the UN
Originally uploaded by Dan Patterson

Reminds me of the "Thank You BBC" banner during the student riots in Tianamen Sq in June 1989. Not impressed with the Twitter noise surrounding Mexican Flu.

Unwin on African ICT

Tim Unwin is well-known in UK ICT circles so it was great to see him support the London Africa Gathering back on April 25th. He's clear about what's going right and wrong - and that collaboration between people of different backgrounds is the only way forward. I particularly like his last point about African governments. Things would be so much more efficient if they had a clearer strategy.

Tim Unwin opens London Africa Gathering from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Behind Leonardo.info

Leonardo.info - interview with Christine Maxwell from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

At Forum Oxford this year we were treated to a fascinating talk by Christine Maxwell. She's currently running a startup looking into mobile search, but her talk was about the Leonardo, an online network where Art, Science and Technology converge.

The heart of their work seems to be the journal Leonardo which was founded in 1968 in Paris by kinetic artist and astronautical pioneer Frank Malina. In the years before widespread use of the Internet, Malina created an international channel of communication between artists, with emphasis on the writings of artists who use science and developing technologies in their work. After the death of Frank Malina in 1981, and under the leadership of his son, Roger F. Malina, Leonardo moved to San Francisco, California, as the flagship journal of the newly founded nonprofit organization Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST). The organisation has grown along with its community and today is the leading organization for artists, scientists and others interested in the application of contemporary science and technology to the arts and music.

Christine is a former Trustee of the Internet Society and The Santa Fe Institute. She serves on the Advisory Board of Leonardo, and it was in this capacity that she gave the presentation in Oxford. There is a mine of fascinating information on the website leonardo.info, although navigation is a challenge. Clearly offline publishing of the journal is the main priority.

Queens Day Drama

All kinda of shocked here because of a lunatic who drove through barriers into a crowd gathered in Apeldoorn to see Queen Beatrix and family. It looked like something out of Grand Theft Auto. At the moment it looks as though it were the actions of a single person, who for some reason had planned to ram the royal bus. He's currently in intensive care.

African Mobile Phone Trailer

An Austrian group has been busy on a trailer for a film about Mobile phones in Africa. Complements nicely some new material I collected at Forum Oxford and the Africa Gathering a few days ago. More postings to come on that.

Warm Beer

Saw this great sign while wandering around the county town of Hertford, UK on Sunday. I know the Brits have a reputation for warm beer, but actually heating it in the garden is crazy! :-)

Google and Morse Code Today

Samuel Finlay Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was the US creator of a single-wire telegraph system and Morse code and (less notably) a painter of historic scenes. Google paid their respects today on their home page. Probably one of the biggest promotions for Morse in its history!

Applestore Hits a Billion downloaded applications

Everyone likes a countdown clock. Apple is using one at the moment to celebrate the billionth download of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Should be sometime in the early hours of tomorrow. But Apple will need to restruccture the way it handles applications for consideration. Its processing requests VERY slowly - people are getting annoyed.

Complete Nonsense in Geneva

I think the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, needs to consider her position and leave the responsibility for a review conference against racism to someone more capabable. She has an excellent career behind her, but if she couldn't anticipate the comments from the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this afternoon (which were utterly predictable), then why create the platform? Now the conference on a very important topic has ended in a complete shambles. It's no good wasting public money on something that was so obviously a disaster waiting to happen.

Lifting the Lid off Lift

If you haven't discovered the LIFT conference, then you haven't yet experienced one of the most interesting gatherings in Europe. Started in 2006 by Laurent Haug, it has grown into an ongoing discussion that now happens in three cities, not just Geneva. At LIFT-09 I had a long talk with Laurent about what's behind the LIFT concept and what he plans to do next. For my part, I am amazed at the broad range of speakers they find. Unlike other conferences, LIFT is willing to take risks in finding new talent - but also in coaching new speakers to get the best performance. It's not TED, but then it's not trying to be. It's different.


Lifting the Lid on Lift - Surprising People as a Business from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

PINC Tea - Concert in the Car Park

I've discovered an interesting organisation that's been operating in the Netherlands for quite some time under the leadership of Peter van Lindonk. I only really got to know what they do when I bumped into Peter on a tram at the excellent LIFT-09 conference in Geneva. It turns out they have been organising a one day conference called PINC (People, Ideas, Nature & Creativity) for the last 10 years. They hold them in Zeist, a town right in the centre of the Netherlands. Around 500 people attend to get away from it all and focus, at least for a day, on something completely different.

PINC has now started to organise spin-off events, with the same basic idea, but this time in a different location. I was invited to attend a PINC Tea on April 9th. Until a few days beforehand, we were only told it would be in Barendrecht, a suburb of Rotterdam. 24 hours before the event we got an address and a map, pointing to a car park next to a playing field. PINC is strict about timing on all of its events. Be there by 1410 said the e-mail. I heard there were roadworks on the way, so I left a bit early. In the end, I was too early - arriving at 1330. I remembered the tripod was in the back of the car, so made a spontaneous decision to film what happened next.


PINC Tea - Concert in the Car Park from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Pete Myers - 70 today

Today, my late friend and colleague Pete Myers would have been 70 years old. Sadly he passed away on December 15th 1998, much too young to enjoy retirement. I've been sorting through a series of sound archives and I constantly keep bumping into his voice, and the rich contributions he made to programmes I produced. He was the host of great shows on the BBC African Service, being recruited in 1976 to revamp Radio Netherlands African service with a show called Afroscene. When I first came to Radio Netherlands Worldwide in 1980, he showed me the ropes, always advising his students to adapt what he was doing - never to copy. He later went to start Mainstream Asia and Asiascan, as well as produce countless documentaries both on fact and fiction.

There's an old unwritten rule in international broadcasting called the "rule of sixes". After 6 weeks off the air, the audience will start to forget you. After six years they may even deny you were ever on the air.

I'm concerned that if you Google Pete's name today, you now only come up with an obituary in the UK Guardian, which reflects his early days at the Beeb, but very little of the Pete I was proud to know for 18 years at Radio Netherlands Worldwide. I note they got his birthdate and date of death wrong in the Guardian. In case of his birthday, that may have been Pete's fault. I remember his scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from his early days in broadcasting where he would make up all kinds of stuff to add to the hype around himself - born in Venezuela according to one article.

I've uploaded the show we made as a tribute to Pete - it was more of a celebration of his genius, rather in the style of BBC Radio 4's Great Lives. It's a 47 minute tribute to a great man. Enjoy the MP3 audio here. It is an 87MB download so it may take a few moments.

MIPTV - Attendance plummets 14 percent

OK, attendance at the MIPTV fair in Cannes was down. I tend to ignore the official registered figures because there were so many last minute cancellations. Great if you were doing serious business of course, more of a market of the serious and less of a total zoo.

But some figures surprise me. Xinhua reported that China has made a record high worth of deals at this year's MIPTV, the world's largest audiovisual market, amid the ongoing global economic downturn.

The five-day MIPTV trade fair ended its 46th edition, where China had its largest delegation ever, with more than 40 Chinese companies striving to break into the European and American market for television programs.

China scored 6.49 million U.S. dollars of deals at MIPTV, the highest since it began participating in the fair in 1990, CITVC senior marketing director Cheng Chunli told Xinhua.

What? 40 Chinese companies do deals at the world's largest TV market for 6.49 million dollars. Is that worth coming to Cannes for? Some phone manufacturers make that kind of money in a couple of hours.

HD Video Schools

South Bank HD from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

I am increasingly impressed at how HD videographers are organising themselves outside the traditional film schools, experimenting with "cheap" technology and coming up with some stunning results. I'm uploading HD video interviews made as part of a documentary project, with the idea of grouping some of them into a channel along the same lines. I'd be interested in your feedback.

Ten Minute Filmschool

An avalanche of brilliant advice from Robert Rodriguez.. I do something similiar to explain that being a cross media reporter requires curiousity, background research and a lot of hands-on interviewing in the field. If the broadcasters don't do something about it, the audience will solve the problem themselves.

Forget Twitter - Now there's Flutter

Great idea. Twitter messages are too long. Flutter limits your messages to 26 characters. One full alphabet. Great parody on the twits.

Inspiration in Zwolle

This is truly a brilliant name for a hairdressers' website. I presume the name of the shop Hair Today, has a subtitle - Gone Tomorrow. There are two of these shops it seems in the Dutch market town of Zwolle, about 90 minutes North-East of Amsterdam. I really enjoy wandering around these market towns in the North and East of the Netherlands. Never underestimate the power of creativity in the provinces - they have to try harder to compete. Former DG of the BBC, Greg Dyke would be proud, having run a similarly worded campaign within the Beeb. (I wonder if he has Dutch heritage with a name like that).

Prague Airport was never like this....

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

This reminds me of Zavertem airport near Brussels or CDG in Paris rather than Prague.

Careful parking in downtown Austin

Careful parking in downtown Austin
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Your friends will know you were parked in downtown Austin.

Learning German has its price tag

Learning German has its price tag
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Personally I would be wary of putting 219 dollars into a vending machine incase nothing came out. Seen at Memphis airport.

African Inspiration

Preferred Futures for African IT Projects - Erik Hersman from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

In the days when I hosted a radio programme on Radio Netherlands Worldwide, I really enjoyed the documentary work in the form of safaris to see great projects in action. Now, after travelling the world a couple of times, it is time to release the video compilations of those who have inspired me so far. I've shot everything in HDV but only recently had the capability to edit it - and the context is becoming clear now.

This profile looks at the work of the work of Erik Hersman, who grew up in Kenya and Sudan. For the last 5 years he's been organising innovative technology projects in Africa, acting as a catalyst for others. At the 2009 SxSW conference (www.sxsw.com) in Austin, Texas I got a chance to talk with him in some depth. I'm sure, like me, you'll be inspired by what Erik and his colleagues are up to.

Check out his various blogs like whiteafrican.com and afrigadget.com. He also explains in the video more about his latest collaborative effort at ushahidi.com.

Inside the France 24 media lab

Inside France 24's Media Lab, Paris, France from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

This was five minutes well spent with France 24's head of new media technology lab, Michel Levy-Provencal. From studios on the south side of Paris, he leads an enthusiastic team of developers who are sharing their ideas with the public to great effect. They launched the first live-stream TV ap for the iPhone & ipod Touch, ahead of the BBC and other public broadcasters. It means you can watch TV programmes live or on demand from France 24. They were first because they believe in crowd-sourcing. Giving things away and asking for help works much better than trying to invent for the public on their own. I see they are also organising small scale events with the public, including participation in LeWeb and the TEDx Paris affiliate programme.

Greasing the wheels of trade through local mobile payments

Greasing the wheels of trade through local mobile payments from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Simon Cavill is doing some brilliant work in the field of mobile payments. It's happening all over the world, but especially in rural areas of Africa, where ATM machines are scarce and most people don't have a bank account. The mi-pay method focuses on the diaspora who are crucial to the economies of many African countries. Global aid is estimated at 60 billion dollars. The amount sent back to Africa through the diaspora network is ten-fold that figure - and 600 million may be an underestimate because this form of informal trade is difficult to measure.

Personally, I see mobile payments as being very important to ensure that correspondents working for radio and TV stations get paid for their work. I know that so much training in developing countries turns out to be a waste of time because those trained cannot make a career out of what they learned.

In this interview, Simon explains how the system works and why it is growing so fast in developing countries. I spoke to him at Forum Oxford, and see that he is contributing to the next conference in Oxford on April 24th 2009. Well worth showing up to listen.

Sony Pulls out of IBC 2009

Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.

Sony pulled out of IBC 2009, deciding to concentrate on a more direct approach to its customers - even starting a broadcast TV channel to dealers...In short they are going to see their customers instead of paying millions of euro to appear at exhibitions in the hope that people will see them. Panasonic went a while back. I wonder who will be next? Gone are the days when people waited a year to announce something new. And those who have got into the spiral of "doing conferences" have started the search for a different approach.

This reminds me of the Comdex situation a few years back which went from boom to bust in the last downturn. With major belt-tightening right across the broadcast industry, I would be surprised if IBC did not suffer very badly this time round.


If you want to get a perspective on why a lot of what's being discussed in London at the crisis summitt is probably less than what's needed, just watch this excellent video from last year's Poptech.

Golden Tulip Hotels - End is Nigh?

I see that Golden Tulip Hotel chain, which has 780 hotels outside the Netherlands, is in severe financial trouble and has asked for bankruptcy protection. I remember in the 80's when KLM was running it - and expanded the chain of Dutch hotels worldwide. I stayed in one in Colombo, Sri Lanka and was impressed.

But then I stayed at one in Accra, Ghana and swore never to bother again. I think the staff had started to believe their own publicity brochures and were totally trapped in their daily routine. The prices were way over the top - and I noticed the KLM crew from the plane were staying in another hotel (novatel) downtown. I will never forget the business centre which had a terribly slow web connection and charged people 15 dollars an hour for the use of a tiny meeting room. That made it the most expensive real estate in the whole of Accra. We went outside to a coffee bar further into town for our meeting.

So may be, just maybe, this is a case of the clients voting with their credit cards.

Lee Bryant - Learning from 20th century mistakes

The 20th Century was an exception... from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Lee Bryant of Headshift (HQ in London) is able to put complex trends into context. Why are large creative media corporations struggling to be creative? How are you measuring success, compared to a couple of centuries ago. During the recent liftconference.com in Geneva, Lee gave a great 5 minute open stage presentation. He explained his thoughts as to why the 20th century got it wrong with corporate social media. That prompted me to grab him for a short interview to explain. Watch this, and then check out his presentation from the LIFT website below.

The 3G Doctor will see you now....

The 3G Doctor is ready to see you now... from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

I bumped into David Doherty at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In this extended interview, he explains a number of issues all connected with mobile health. He is actively busy with developing the 3G Doctor concept, but his blog is a mine of information on what he has found elsewhere in the world....and that's an enormous resource of ideas, concepts, projects and comments. I asked him to explain what problem he was trying to solve - and we then started discussing what strategies Google and the UN are adopting. Enjoy these highlights (its actually a avalanche of applications for mobile and health), and then head over to his blog.

David is also an active member of Forum Oxford...if you're interested in mobile you should sign up there too. www.forumoxford.com. See you there on the 24th.

Jonathan MacDonald

Jonathan MacDonald - Watch this guy! from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Part of a new series of videos I am releasing under the title In Search of Problems Solved. Jonathan MacDonald is a brilliant strategist - doing similar things to what I do, but coming from it at a very different angle. Is traditional advertising dead - you bet it is! I am just amazed at how slow the agencies are to understand how to use social media to get attention.

Skype - Not Quite iPhone App

Lots of chatter on twitter about Skype launching an application for the Apple iPhone this week. Looks good until you see that the application only works with the wifi capability on the phone, not the 3G network. And although you can see whether your Skype friends are on-line (so you can phone them for free), if they are using another messaging system, then you're out of luck.

At DLD in Munich I met Geraldine Wilson from Truphone and she explained how their application goes one stage further, solving the problems above. You can call a anyone (including a Skype contact ) on Truphone when out of range of the Wi-Fi using what they call Truphone Anywhere. The same system is also IM agnostic, so it supports most of the popular instant messaging clients. The Truphone Anywhere service is able to make calls when not in Wi-Fi by routing the first leg of the call over the cellular network (not data over 3G) and then taking the call from there over Truphone's network, allowing consumers to make international calls at for next to nothing while on the move and out of Wi-Fi. The cost of the call will simply be a local call with a network operator (in my case already part of the contracted bundled minutes) and then the Truphone rate to the country being called.

Nokia and radio

By the end of 2008, Nokia says they had sold 425 million devices with digital music players. In addition to that, thay say they have sold 700 million devices with built in (FM) radio capability. Phones like the N85 even have a built in FM transmitter so you can play the music in the car on the existing car radio (its super low power, but handy to have).

Mark Selby has been giving a talk at several conferences about the importance of radio to the mobile industry. Given his background (including World Radio Geneva) it is perhaps not surprising that he's interested in forging partnerships between Nokia and broadcasters.


Nokia on radio's importance from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.


Part of my current series of projects involves working with community stations in West Africa to build sustainable business models that bridge both the radio and mobile industries. They have a lot in common, but currently the gulf in terminology is keeping great ideas from happening. I think that as handset sales level off - and broadcasters evaluate the effectiveness of their broadcast platforms, that the two will start working out what they have in common. Believe me, it's already happening in West Africa. Contact me if you want to know more.

Drinking NOS

Drinking NOS
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

You can't drink the NOS in the Netherlands. That's not to say drinking doesn't go on at the NOS. Greetings from downtown Austin Texas.

Forum Oxford Conference Trailer

Forum Oxford Conference 2009 from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Have decided to do more experiments with Vimeo and HD editing because the waiting time for Youtube has become a pain. First upload was material I shot for a 2009 trailer for a conference coming up next month in Oxford. Highly recommended if you are interested in the mobile space.

Austin Captiol

Austin Captiol
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Glorious sunshine at last. It was raining when I first arrived at SxSW

BBC Worldwide Refocusses

In July 2008, the BBC Trust launched a review of BBC Worldwide's mandate, strategy and governance arrangements. The aim was twofold: to see if any changes were needed to reflect experience since the present arrangements were established in the current BBC Charter; and to consider concerns expressed by others in the market about the impact of BBC Worldwide.



The BBC Trust says....

Successive governments have encouraged the BBC to exploit the commercial value of its intellectual property and to return this value to public service output. The Trust fully supports this aim, and alongside the primacy of the public services welcomes BBC Worldwide's record of increasing profitability and the benefits it brings to licence fee payers.

Our review has been driven by two concerns. The first is to ensure that BBC Worldwide's strategy is properly aligned with the BBC's public service interest and so has a positive impact on the BBC's brand and reputation. The second is to ensure that in its strategy and operations BBC Worldwide is duly sensitive to the concerns of other commercial players in the market.

Our emerging thinking can be summarised as follows:

* The Trust should bring greater clarity to the direction, parameters and strategic priorities of BBC Worldwide's commercial activities in the UK and overseas, to ensure that they align properly with delivery of the BBC's public purposes
* We should make changes to BBC Worldwide's detailed control framework to establish a more contained focus for its operations
* None of this cuts across our ambition that BBC Worldwide should maintain and develop its commercial vigour and strength. In our view this is perfectly compatible with a challenging remit and clearer parameters for its operation and strategic focus

Other considerations

As part of the review the Trust has considered the rationale for the "first look" arrangements under which BBC Worldwide has an opportunity to acquire most BBC rights before they are offered to competitors. The Trust remains satisfied that the rationale in favour of the first look arrangement within existing structures remains strong. In particular it enables proper control of the BBC's brand and reputation to be maintained as its content is exploited commercially. The Trust is also mindful of the economies of scale it creates and has noted that many other content producers use similar 'vertically integrated' approaches.

The Trust and the BBC Executive have also been considering whether any adjustments to the current governance arrangements for the BBC's commercial activities might be necessary to ensure that the mechanics underpinning the controls are both streamlined and effective. This work is closely linked to the current public policy debate about BBC Worldwide and is ongoing.




It comes after the division’s controversial £90 million acquisition of the Lonely Planet guides and the subsequent launch of a spin-off magazine which, unlike most Worldwide products, is neither tied to nor related to an existing BBC show.

I still believe this was a brilliant strategic move, but they should have concentrated on building a mobile platform to exploit the content, rather than trying to launch a magazine.

Though BBC Worldwide cited economic pressures for recently shutting BBCGreen.com with the loss of four jobs, some industry observers believe the environment site exceeded the broadcaster’s remit and parts of the site looked as though the corporation was campaigning.

BBC Worldwide has doubled its profits in the past year and made £112.5 million before tax in the 12 months to March, largely due to lucrative sales of TV shows and formats overseas like Top Gear and Strictly Come Dancing.

Though the trust says it wants to maintain Worldwide’s commercial “vigour and strength”, chairman Sir Michael Lyons told Times Online: “We believe that [Worldwide] needs a tighter set of guidelines. We want to see a little less activity overseas, and for Worldwide to predominantly concentrate on BBC intellectual property.” Lyons says the public value tests carried out before Worldwide makes any acquisitions “will be tougher in the future”.

As Digital Britain rolls on, the trust won’t pass comment on the possibility of Worldwide forming a new PSB JV with Channel 4, but is working with the BBC executive to assess the public benefit of such a move. The real questions surrounding the regulation and remit of Worldwide will have to wait until that is sorted out.

Which way in Prague?

Which way in Prague?
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Travelling for a bit on a research project and filming as I go. Normal service will resume shortly.

No noise at night

No noise at night
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

my hotel in Prague is very clear with its signage

Coils of Pastry

Coils of Pastry
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

Ye olde fresh Trdelnik. Of course

Prague trying to be spring

Prague trying to be spring
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

bit too cold yet...but then its only the start of March

No barefeet at Radio Prague

NO barefeet at Radio Prague
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

So do people have a habit of walking into the Radio Prague tape archive in bare feet?

Hard Rock Cafe Prague

Hard Rock Cafe Prague
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks

the cafe isn't open yet, but the shop selling merchandise definitely is. Got to get the priorities right