Category Archives: The Internet

Well, that’s a plus. Sort of.

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There’s no doubt google can be awesome. Check out (FNAR) this video they made about online checkouts:

That said, they just can’t get a handle on social media. I have some big problems with G+.

Running the trial almost successfully google-wave-style-choked it, limiting the people that you can share with to a small fraction of the amount of people you *want* to share with… So, they have brought together a group of people to sit and stare at their screens, asking “now what?”.

Also, because g+ has only just launched on google apps, I was using a seperate google profile to use it – now if I want to use my main email address, I have to start all over again… and I don’t fancy that…

I read that Google have canned Buzz, their version of Twitter, to focus on G+. This was after Google canned Wave in order to focus on stuff like Buzz.

Google’s like that chum you have who’s full of GREAT ideas, but stumbles a bit when starting them off. Google do some things brilliantly. Docs, Analytics, tools like that. They’re not that good at Social Media, but why should they have to be? in an attempt to widen their protfolio, they’re in danger of dooming their good work by association with their bad.

UPDATE: I think I’ve worked out what I’m trying to say here… (sorry, I’m very tired)…

By setting themselves up as “the next Big Thing” they have massive boots to fill very quickly – and unless they can claim some big successes (credibly) very quickly, they are inevitably going to suffer from cynicsm towards the hype that they founded.

By becoming a specialist sort of place, for techies and beardwearers, they are probably fulfilling what they should have set out to do in the first place.

Sean will be on the panel during one of this year’s Leeds Digital Festival Lunches, details soon…

The Rag Archives

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I had a nice email in this morning from someone who’s looking into how Rags – University Charity Appeals – have worked together in the past, cos of my work with Martin Smallridge on UKRag.net.

I was rootling through some related stuff and found this absolute gem – it’s footage of the Rag Parade in Glasgow (back then known as Ygorra… as in “Ygorra give us some cash”… yes, really) from 1924. It’s good to know that nearly a hundred years before I was pratting about in a daft costume trying to raise money for charity, they were doing the same.

Unfortunately Pathe don’t let you embed their videos (BOO! What’s up with THAT, British Pathe?) so I’ll have to link to them, but here’s some great archive footage of news reports of the old days of Rag.

SCOTTISH STUDENTS – RAGS – COMPILATION

And here’s some from 1932:

A CITY HELD UP (aka GLASGOW STUDENTS’ RAG)

Which was the same year Middlesex Rag actually kidnapped Santa Claus:

"A CHRISTMASSY SMASH & GRAB" (aka SMASH AND GRAB)

There are over a hundred old Rag films at The British Pathe film archive. Check them out!

New March of Dimes website

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In all the kerfuffle of the last week (birthdays, gigs, life altering announcements etc)  I forgot to mention that I’ve recently launched a new website for my band, March of Dimes.

You can see it at http://www.marchofdimesmusic.com

It’s got videos, gig listings, and our album and EP in full to listen to (and buy, if you haven’t already!)

If you like it, it would be great if you could pass on the address to your chums. Just a wee facebook post, or tweet, or anything to share what we do.

Also, if you know of any promoters or bands that might want to work with us, put them in touch with me :)

For those who are wondering, I built it in WordPress (my favourite CMS!) with a metric boatload of plugins. Every single part of the site – from the base system, to the music store, to the email system) is free to set up. In fact, apart from a bit of commission we pay to Bandcamp for the sales, it’s free to run as well! Brilliant! Gotta love ya some open source. If anyone wants to know what plugins I used for any part of it, just ask and I’ll let you know.

So… go forth and share… please! :)

I need your votes for Yorkshire telly!

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Hello,

Those lovely people at Yorkshire Telly are holding a vote for the favourite videos on the site right now… They’ve got so much on the go, but it would be splendid if you could pop a vote our way, for this video we did in Ripon:

You can vote for whichever you want using the #favouriteyorkshiretelly hashtag on twitter, or posting to Yorkshire Telly’s facebook wall.

If you’re on Twitter and want to vote for us, just click here! And please tell your chums!

Choose your own adventure? No thanks!

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It’s been reported today that the always comical statistic of 69% of people want live voting to alter storylines in shows.

That awful BT Couple

That awful BT Couple

Now, a cynic might point out that Diffusion PR, the people that commissioned this study, have BT on their roster. The same BT who recently ran a choose-your-ending ad campaign. But far be it from me to cast such nasturtiums.

There’s no more sure fire way to bland-up your show than by giving the public a choice in the matter. Not only will you end up with lowest common denominator outcomes (I present to you Joe McElderry, Rachel Rice, that one that won that thing.. you know, whassisface, yeah, with the total lack of distinguishing features… yeah?) but to say that we, a bunch of drooling telly watching eedjits, know better than the writers is just arrogant.

Last year, during the quite brilliant, Torchwood: Children of Earth, lots of writers (some that weren’t even involved with the show) came under a huge amount of flack for killing off one of the main characters. I loved the character, a lot of people did, and killing him off was brutal, but worked brilliantly as a plot development.

If you think you can write the stories better than Steven Moffat , Graham Linehan, James Moran et al, then for goodness sake send it in to the BBC and don’t hope over 50% of viewers agree with you so it’ll turn out ok in a vote.

And if you’re writing to please more than 50% of your viewers – give up, you’re doing it wrong.