Revelations in the Search for the Elusive Tellyweb

Last week I spent four days on a residential workshop that brought together tv commissioners, producers and a bunch of content geeks (new media design, editorial and tech folk). The aim was to aid all our understanding of what makes brilliant, impactful multiplatform projects or, in E4 speak, the "tellyweb".

Each day left me exhausted and a little frustrated but always inspired, resulting in lots of late night scribbling of variously deranged thoughts - of which a selection follows.


Day 1: Content geeks are a bunch of bone-banging monkeys
So I’m a couple of glasses of white rioja in, and I confess to the people that commissioned the likes of Green Wing and Cutting Edge how exciting I found the recent introduction of user comments to Big Brother news articles and photos. I could hear the crackle as the glaze set on their eyes. Even my head was nodding a little before I reached the end of my own sentence.

Yes, my pedestrian example of an interactive feature is particular to my role and the challenges within it, but when I'm still getting excited about basic functionality it really highlights how hard it can be to produce sophisticated, large-scale interactive entertainment across platforms.

But you know what, the Roundhay Garden Scene isn't exactly The Sopranos now is it? But it was the first step in the evolution of audio-visual entertainment.

We just have to accept that on an evolutionary scale of online media us content geeks aren't single-celled, but we're still not all that far up the chain; remember Youtube was only formed in 2005. So er ... throw us a bone.


Day 3: To have a hit musical sometimes a fat transvestite has to do unspeakable things
Oh how they frowned as ARGs were explained, how they laughed as we described how and why we use Twitter (renamed “Dribble” by one wag); it really was a struggle to get people to understand the more fringe of our online activities. For example, red-faced and mumbling, I might as well have been a teenager explaining masturbation: “It [Twitter]’s good, not sure if it's good for me... Quite addictive really... Sometimes I have to force myself not to be on it so much.”

Then I received Divine inspiration – yes, that one – the dead, fat fabulous transvestite diva star of stage and screen and John Waters' movies.

It occurred to me that Hairspray is a multi-award winning musical on screen, West End and Broadway as well as a remade hit movie, but that’s not where director John Waters started out. Would Waters have got where he is, entertaining and enlightening millions of people and making millions of dollars, without having once made that [WARNING! this is gross] infamous scene from Pink Flamingos? I for one say no.

It's accepted that every creative medium needs the fringe movements and esoteric works in order to push the boundaries of what can be achieved within their genre – and online is no exception especially in (fast developing) forms. Participation in Virtual worlds or ARGs, even just publishing photos of yourself or your opinions on the web can be hard for people to comprehend, but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile activities or are always destined for minority audiences.


Day 4: Creativity is polyamorous
Not a defence of any sexual incontinence, more an observation that by the end of the week it was obvious that what mattered most were ideas and creativity and how new technology and platforms afforded more and better opportunities to express those ideas. I truly believe that really creative people can apply their skills on any number of platforms with a bit more knowledge, experience and confidence.

I see evidence of this in projects like filmmaker, artist and author Miranda July and fellow polymath Harrell Fletcher's Learning to Love You More project which is not only a website but also a book, a touring exhibition, and radio broadcasts. Or in the daft works of Adam Buxton who, after pushing the boundaries on TV, has continued to do so online in his Youtube channel, even if that is sometimes with meat products.


In conclusion
It was a great experience and a salutory lesson in how cynics can become advocates with the right information and environment. It was also a great help for the likes of me to understand more about television processes and people. And finally, I learnt that us content geeks may well be a bunch of fat, polyamorous transvestite monkeys - but we're evolving at an amazing rate.

Professional Guilty Pleasures: Big Brother is Back

I sometimes ask myself if I didn't work for Channel 4 would I still be watching Big Brother? And then I just watch it anyway. You can catch up here if you've missed it (UK only).

Undoubtedly some interesting housemates this year including an American albino called Darnell who seems very sweet, a blind cross-dresser, Michael, and a selection of near-miss lookie likies - from Scottish Perez-Hilton-alike Dennis, to Sylvester LeBlanc mash-up Mario (who looks so much like our favourite cartoon Italians he changed his name from Sean). Grace Dent explains them all very amusingly (excited she's writing for the site this year).

No one vaguely posh this year - maybe The Apprentice's Lucinda Ledgerwood was right, in the world of reality TV, the privileged few are a beleaguered minority.

Incidentally, I was just jealously reflecting on how Lucinda's name was so lovely that it was the kind of name that as a teenager I dreamt would make all the difference and land me a posh floppy-haired boyfriend. Then I found out she'd made it up. Hahaha. Cindy Burger. Guess she and Mario have got something in common after all. (She probably would have fared better in the BB house, now I think about it.)

City Slickers Back in the Saddle Again

City Slickers
Originally uploaded by LouBrown.

After Boris got in (maybe all those Facebook friends did mean something after all) I decided the only thing to do was leave this city and seek pastures new.

But after two weeks without email, blackberry, twitter, internet - just a little light texting and a horse called Pugsley - I'm back in London.

Snaps duly uploaded to Flickr and will gladly bore anyone with tales of beat poetry, gambling brides and desert sunsets.

A Mayor for New Media: London's Candidates Compared

Thank the lord I've received my polling card so can now vote in tomorrow's mayoral election. And if who to vote for wasn't bleedin' obvious as far as I'm concerned, here's a highly unscientific round-up of the big 3 and their new media credentials.

Brian Paddick
2,189 Supporters on Facebook
Facebook groups are pretty sparse on the ground, although I was diverted by the best mayoral tribute group "Ken's the best mayor but I fancy Brian Paddick so much I might vote for him".
40 friends on MySpace
Active Twitter user for the past few weeks at least (60 updates) - and has replied to questions directed @brianpaddick
A nice selection of videos on Youtube on the official Libdem channel and rather coolly released his campaigning video on Youtube before it was on TV.

Ken Livingstone
2,277 supporters on Facebook
Facebook groups are all very anti-Ken, a little disturbingly so in some cases ("twat" not the mildest of terms to have passed Facebook's profanity filter)
C0uldn't find a MySpace and Ken's not on Twitter either.
A good selection of videos on Youtube and a great section on his site which highlights all the other "proper" blogs writing good stuff about Ken - a good example of amplifying buzz simply by pointing it out as well as utilizing and publishing work that his team are no doubt doing anyway rather than possibly [whisper it] wasting time updating a MySpace page or Twitter.


Boris Johnson
7,773 supporters on Facebook and a much livelier page than the others with his like and dislikes - you know, like a proper Facebook person would have.
48 subscribers, 1,635 views to his campaign's Youtube channel (chaps above are using their party's channel).
@backboris has tweeted nearly as much as @brianpaddick
but is only following 1 person!
His campaign started ages ago on MySpace of all places although the official BackBoris MySpace friends number 101, but the daft spoof Boris page over 900.

In summary - as in life, web:

• Brian Paddick ticks all the right boxes but just fails to pull it off (if Jonty from Big Brother's your celebrity supporter, one might conclude you're in trouble... Scarlett Johansson he aint - although a little more articulate).
  
  
• Ken may be fundamentally flawed but outstyles his opponents in a couple of key areas
  
  
• Boris amuses and delights but just lacks credibility where it counts
  

But, at the end of the day, how do you decide the candidate for you? I suppose you could do worse than the BBC channel on Youtube or alternatively ... FIGHT!

Where is the Black Russell Brand? Or for that matter the Asian Martha Lane Fox?

The questions in the title popped into my head after a speech given to staff at Channel 4 this week by Lenny Henry entitled "The Road To Diversity Is Closed … Please Seek Alternate Route".

Stating that ethnicity was his diversity flag to wave, Lenny gave us an encore of a speech he'd already delivered to the Royal Television Society, highlighting the lack of non-white faces both in front of and behind the camera.

We raced through the industry's past embarrassments such as the excruciating Mind Your Language and unintentionally stereotype-enforcing Alf Garnett, before stopping off to celebrate some of the good work both home and abroad in the 80s and 90s such as Desmonds and The Cosby Show.

Arriving at the 21st century, Lenny then asked the crowd to shout out any comedy and entertainment programmes currently airing in the UK starring black or asian actors, comedians or presenters. Most eyes went down into laps, leaving one lone cry of "Little Miss Jocelyn" which apparently may have been cancelled anyway.

And whilst I heard and agreed somewhat with the view that Lenny's speech wasn't saying much not heard before, what was clear was that it needed to be stated again; at some stage the tv industry took its eye off the ball and positive action is now needed to find non-white writers, actors, directors, gaffers etc.

More shocking personally, however, was when I reflected on if Lenny had asked a question about senior figures within the new media industry from different ethnic backgrounds, what names would I come up with? For an industry that prides itself in being open, cutting edge and forward thinking, look around at any industry event and Greg Dyke's infamous phrase does come to mind.

Believe me, I have nothing against smart white men - I married one for starters. But blimey, when I look at the so-called "digerati" of the UK, it looks distinctly pasty and not a little testosterone heavy. In diversity terms, New Media is positively prehistoric (ironic really) and current networks seem to be perpetuating the make up of the current white, male, middle-class cliques.

If we really do have the future of media in our hands, surely we need to have a workforce that reflects our current society at the very least?

At the end of his speech, Lenny asked the audience to take some positive action - which I'll try to do in my day job - and I hope this post may have made you think a little about the diversity of your workforce or team. I also thought I may as well add the following which might help in some small way to introduce some new talent to our industry:

If you or someone you know might be interested in starting a career in UK new media and don't know where to start then do email me (via my profile above) and I'll see if I can put you in touch with someone or supply some useful information.

Twitter: A Great Big Geeky Curb Your Enthusiasm

All human emotion is to be found on Twitter and quite often the heightened kind. Having recently engaged with the geek communication tool of choice, I've been informed and amused by the public highs and lows of some influential figures on the tech scene.

My personal favourites of the last fortnight have been stars of the twitterati Michael Arrington letting it be known what he thinks of Dave Winer (whose ambiguously pronounced surname lends itself to the poetry of the "tweet") and Techcrunch UK's Mike Butcher raging against the middle classes.

All splendid, honest outpourings from the gut, although both left me wondering whether these tweets are an authentic representation of their personalities or an online manifestation of an inner rage, rather as one imagines nervy teens maraud around World of Warcraft as giant, sexy troll slayers (apologies if there are no giant troll slayers sexy or otherwise, WoW is one party I won't be crashing).

No doubt it's the intimacy, impulse and instant gratification of the medium that leads to fewer inhibitions than one might expect from long-established forms of public communication - an extension of a phenomenon seen in lots of online communication tools and services. But I'm not complaining, the mixture of work and play spiced up with some fervour and a little old fashioned curmudgeonry is really entertaining, like a great big geeky Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Guessing that if you've got this far, you may have some interest in new media, be new to Twitter and it's likely you're based in the UK, here are a few good people to start following: Steve Bowbrick cos he's funny; Downing Street (yes, it really is them) cos it feels nicely weird and it'll be interesting to see how they use it; and The Guardian's Jemima Kiss cos she's charming and useful. The two Mikes above are also great twitterboxes or tweetheads or whatever the word is for one who tweets prolifically (thanks to twitter mates for ideas so far, any better ideas @louby please).

But Larry David on Twitter, now there's a thought. Check out the first paragraph of his bio on The Huffington Post, it's his perfect medium, surely?

In the world of Google, Max Clifford can't hear you scream

Jordan (Katie Price) and I have at least two things in common. Firstly, a penchant for a little too much make-up, secondly, a need to manage our online personae.

With regard to the latter, I fell in love with the idea of the two online manifestations of her corporeal Dorian Gray existence revealed in Saturday's Guardian interview. Drunk, spilling out of nightclubs Jordan's fans have a home at http://www.jordanfanclub.co.uk/ whereas the pink, pony-loving princess among mum's Katie Price's fans can congregate at http://www.katieprice.co.uk/.

I started to wonder whether Katie/Jordan's got it right? Whilst in the early 90s, this would have been heralded as evidence of multiple personality disorder, in the 21st century, this seems more like an online pseudonym or Second-Life avatar writ large.

Personally, I'd embraced using just my real name online a while back despite realising the strengths of pseudonymity but more recently have been wondering whether the work-life seepage I've worried about for ages is further compounded by the blurring of work and home online existences.

Over the past year friends and I have literally blogged about births, deaths and marriages, alongside seering indictments of the British media and idiotic self-referential, self-deprecating twaddle (that last one'll be me then, sorry).

In an age when we will make more (shallow) acquaintances with people online than in our day-to-day lives, and our online traces become vital clues for future employers, partners, employees, children even, maybe we should be treating our online presences more like carefully constructed PR exercises or dating profiles - trimming the equivalent of a few inches and years here and there - and less like brain dumps?

My conclusion to this so far, however, is still to be found with Jordan. I believe the strength of her image and continued dominance in the British media is not just down to her beauty, physical attributes and careful stage management but, as the Guardian article alluded to, an unflinching honesty that others can relate to (although I'm not suggesting that everything is shared unless you want to get a reality show out of it).

Unfortunately for Jordan/Katie, when it comes to online, a Google Image Search for Katie Price reveals a selection of alarming images that make a mockery of a carefully split fan base and that no amount of media manipulation can alter; once you're in the world of Google, Max Clifford can't hear you scream.

(Idle aside: I wonder whether the Katie Price persona was pushed partly to ensure better Google results - less competition what with the country and the trainers. Now that would make her a smart businesswoman.)

Putting the Me into Meme: 8 things you might not know about me

After begging to be memed, it's hard to know where to start.

You already know the colour of one of my eyes, for sure, and with a light hoeing you can easily find out my favoured books, music and what I'm up to most days - so what's left?

1. I am the passenger, but not just in an Iggy Pop sense.
The only time I have commandeered a mode of transport apart from my own two feet was when I "raced" against MSFT colleagues in a quad bike; I was told it looked like I was mowing the lawn. I would like to learn how to drive, however, and have been eyeing up those new little electric cars, delivering the milk a step up on my personal mobility scale.

2. My second teenage sexual dream starred Simon Callow.
"Sexual" is mine and Freud's interpretation anyway. He was in leathers riding up my garden path on a 1950s-style motorbike (no sniggering at the back). My first teenage sex dream was pretty dull and involved kissing a classmate by a big oak tree (ditto).

3. Aged 16, I was on teatime schools gameshow Blockbusters (in a pair, no gold runs).
I still use the red calf-leather-bound dictionary signed by Bob Holness but not the cream and turquoise shellsuit bomber jacket with 2 "B"s in hexagons embroidered on the chest. We were robbed, incidentally.

4. I suffer from coldsores especially in times of stress.
When I arrived at university I appeared to be sporting a hitler moustache made of cornflakes. This may have been me during freshers' week.

5. My annual tights spend is too shameful to share.

6. I've told everyone for so long that my first single was Turning Japanese by The Vapors I started to believe it.
It was my big sister Susan that bought it, but I recall some involvement in the decision to buy. I may have been more instrumental in the accompanying purchase of January February by Barbra Dickson, however.

In the process of writing this, I've just remembered my first single was actually Starvation/Tam-Tam Pour l'Éthiopie, a sort of ska Band Aid on the Zarjazz label. This would be cool were it not accompanied by the knowledge that this was part of a self-imposed penance to assuage my guilt at not buying Do They Know It's Christmas? I also bought the Live Aid video which thankfully put paid to any notions of self flagellation or similar.

7. My first album was Olivia Newton John's Greatest Hits Vol. 2.
I can remember even Mother's incredulous "Are you sure?" as I stood grinning up at her in the queue at W H Smiths, Romford. I wasn't, but still enjoy Xanadu.

8. When I was 17, as "payment" for giving me a lift to the local underage pub du jour, Susan used to make me wear the Blockbusters bomber jacket right inside the pub.
My lips tingle at the memory.

Thanks to Richard for obliging me, now it's over to Adam, Jon, Andy, and Helen ...

4IP: A Shot in the Arm (the good inoculation kind) for British media

Last week two instances proved beyond reasonable doubt that I have spent too much time reading celebrity nonsense:

1. For a split second I believed that leading lutist, tantric sex (find your own link) fan and lead singer of The Police, Sting, had become some sort of moral vigilante. I am an idiot.

2. When trying to come up with a decent analogy for the state of the British TV broadcasting industry, my first port of call was Amy Winehouse. Again.

I'm still an idiot, but there's something there. A dependency on decreasing TV ad revenues may mean that quality and creativity will be departing the ludicrously talented world of British broadcasting whilst all the exciting stuff happens online.

Which is why I was more than pleased to hear about my employer - Channel 4 - 's commitment to new platforms (details in chapter 4) outlined in last Thursday's Next on 4 announcements especially in the shape of the £50m 4IP fund.

It's great to think that this cash will ensure that the UK population has a voice on this global stage, that our talent and ideas are nurtured, that our voices are heard, and that our lives benefit from the kind of mobilisation and amplification that online platforms specialize in.

Most of all I hope it will ensure that Channel 4 continues to appeal to the audiences we work best for, and that our creativity is pushed and increased with this whole raft of new tools to play with.

In the Guardian podcast, Emily Bell said something like "how you feel about this depends entirely on how you feel about Channel 4". My understanding of the findings of our research was that overwhelmingly, people do believe that Channel 4 is a good thing, and that it does have a role to play on platforms other than traditional broadcast TV.

Do read the report, watch the videos (last Q&A clip quite entertaining) , and let me know what you think.

Remind me, video didn't actually *kill* the radio star, did it?

The other day a colleague (Richard) and I were trying to figure out which media had been killed by a successive media, or at least died due to related neglect.

I ventured the Mystery Play - but then discovered that the Guilds of York will be staging some in 2010. He got as far as audio cassette tapes - but we agreed that was a technology, not a medium.

What with us working for Channel 4 and everything, sometimes you do feel the fear - can it really be true that TV is dead?

So as I headed to the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting conference at the beginning of this week, I was hoping for some insights as to what fate has in store for TV.

Unfortunately as I turned to my notes to report back my findings, I seem to have scribbled down mostly comments that I disagreed with. For example, the excellent Blake Chandlee of Facebook stated,

"Content is what your family and friends are doing."

The way I see it, my mum isn't doing Jamie at Home any more than I did Atonement at the weekend. Yes, I realise Blake was talking from Facebook's point of view, but remember I'm looking for a diagnosis of a problem before fate deals its cruel blow and this seemed at odds with the content that the likes of Channel 4 bangs out.

And then there was Andreas Mueller-Schubert of Microsoft, again talking only really for Microsoft when he said,

"TV is no longer just a device, it's a new digital service to personalize."

Come off it - TV has been an educator, an entertainer, a piece of furniture, a friend, a pacifier, an anaesthetic even ... but just a device? Never! And now it's a new digital service to personalize is it? Well that makes it sound about as fun as an over-featured microwave. Is that really how people feel about Midsomer Murders?

After a while I did wonder whether the conference should have been renamed as something more like "stuff that digital media and broadcasters might want to think about or have been worrying they should probably at least look up", as even excellent chair Richard Waters, was moved early on to say,

"You thought you were coming to a media conference and you have to listen to a lot of talk about tagging."

That's not to say I spent the entire two days seething at semantics: David Moody of the BBC imparted some invaluable wisdom to any broadcaster based on their experience with the iplayer and the impact of distribution; Ron Galloway was very accessible and entertaining on the semantic web (and may be available for weddings and barmitzvahs his patter is so slick); and it was a shame that Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger on Search was in the conference graveyard slot (the last session on the last day) - speaking of both how search engines and data privacy handling need to be tackled with the memorable line,

"We forget, Google remembers."

I was also really sad to have missed Nova Spivack, of whom I heard great reports.

The absolute highlight for me was Moray MacLennan, Chairman Europe of M&C Saatchi. The quality of his presentation and analysis left me stimulated, ever-so-slightly reassured and, well, with a bit of a crush actually.

I loved, for example, how MacLennan expressed the way that ad agencies should feel about the mix of media that they have to play with as,

"I was drawing in black and white and now I can paint in colour."

MacLennan was a part of the strongest panel of the two days, "Innovating Revenue: The Future of Advertising" which featured Hamish Pringle of the IPA, Melanie Howard of the The Future Foundation and oh yeah, my mate Fergus of Nooked who had invited me along to the conference.

The whole panel embraced all the right digital goodness (widgets, games etc.), whilst accepting that you don't want "engagement" and "a conversation" with every brand (MacLennan stating his toilet roll brand as not one he would be befriending on Facebook) and that there will always be a place for down-time content that's all "done" for you, which was certainly backed up by Future Foundation research that Howard referred to.

And as the title of this post suggests, I don't think video killed the radio star, you know, but I'll concede it did signficantly alter his or her place in the media firmament.

I'm not being curmudgeonly or naive. Just as email led to the demise of snail mail and the marginalisation of the personal letter or card but not the end to personal correspondence, maybe Youtube heralded the start of the end of the tv set - maybe even the tv station or channel as we know them - but not TV in the sense I think we all understand it - well made audio-visual content that we can sit back and enjoy in our living rooms traditionally, but now wherever we might want a screen - bedroom, study, or hand.

What we've got to figure out is what place social networks, widgets, pvrs etc. have in our lives - and therefore the media landscape, but wisely assuming that some of the old ways and means will endure and emerge with new ways to reach audiences.

Billg Brings on the Bunnies

See I'd feel tons better if I worked at Yahoo! knowing that there are people at Microsoft with the (cheese) balls to hire Amy Sedaris. Using her world of bunnies and baking to promote Microsoft Office is delightfully bizarre.

Who knew how cute a typing rabbit could be?

Barack's Campaigning Supporters - can they? I hope so

The USA is still the most influential country on this planet, right? Someone tell me if China's edged ahead. So it's been interesting following the US elections.

Listening to Joe Klein on Newsnight last night I was relieved to hear from someone who should know, that there is little between Clinton and Obama in terms of policy, and it is pretty much about style.

I found the "Yes we can" video campaign video for Obama embedded below exciting and moving (and couldn't help but cast my mind back to Blair and his anthem - not as cool but I was excited at the time), thinking of the energy and inspiration that Obama could bring to the US and therefore the rest of the world.




Looks like Clinton has done really well last night, however, so I'll wait with baited breath. It's an interesting piece of campaigning video, anyway, and apparently not official (although now sanctioned).

Schmaps Maps - close but no banana (updated)

A few weeks ago I received an email in my Flickr inbox. It's a rare occasion, given my photographic skills amount to little more than point, shake a bit, point at the wrong thing, get distracted - and click.

Excitedly I opened my email from Emma J. Williams, who informed me that one of my photos, of a statue in Rome, had been shortlisted for inclusion in an online European city guide map called Schmap, a neat little company busy constructing media-rich guides using Flickr photos and Yahoo! maps.

At first, my worldwide-web-weary cynicism led me to assume this was some sort of scam, and by accepting their terms and conditions I would be surrendering my IP in perpetuity and so forevermore Emma and her gang would be making millions of filthy dollars from shots of my leg looking quite nice in my wedding dress [thanks for the comment, photoboy1970, can't say I'm such a massive fan of your Thai massage shots].

But when a fellow pod-dweller (for those of you uninitiated this means someone whose desk is cojoined with mine to form part of a unit - yes, we are the peas) then mentioned he also had a photo being considered by a city guide competition and had blithely accepted their terms and conditions I decided to forget worrying about the small print, ticked the box and hoped for the best. Now it wasn't just an appeal to my vanity, it was a competition.

Come on, I'm not stupid, I knew this was marketing, but this was damned sophisticated, hands-on marketing and an excellent way to source some high quality content for free. These were smart guys.

When the third pod-dweller admitted that yes, he too had been entered into a competition for a city guide map, I did start to wonder if there was something more sinister at work, who was this Emma J. Williams anyway?

All was forgiven, however, when Emma then informed me I was on the shortlist. Perfectly timed too, as I'd just forgotten about Schmaps and ceased to worry momentarily whether they were stealing my online identity and photoshopping my husband's face onto passports to be sold to the highest and most terrifying of bidders.

And then it happened. I only bloody won, didn't I? My image of Pasquino (see above), Rome's first talking statue, something I prided myself in spotting and recording, had actually made it into a Schmap!

Feeling a little smug - and let's be frank, not entirely surprised, I clicked the link to the Schmap of Rome sent by the now grateful Emma J. Williams which linked to the map, which showed my photo, credited to me, which then led users back to my Flickr photo.

Only problem was, it was attached to a cinema called "Pasquino" which has no apparent link with the statue. I was gutted. I even checked. The address is different, just the name remains the same.

Oh Emma. You very nearly had me for life. I had actually envisaged you and a colleague, maybe with one of those mini telescope things, poring over my photo and comparing my shot to some other poor Schmoe's wondering which of us really captured the spirit of the thing.

I have sent an email pointing out their error and asking for the photo to be withdrawn given their mistake, but it feels like it'll be less use than when my mum wrote to Fenchurch Street station to complain about what she perceived to be a cartel of snack vendors operating within the station falsely raising the price of chunky KitKats.

Now with no station master to appeal to, you tell me: is this a forgivable error by a company with a very smart method of both marketing and content building? Or maybe just a good old ego bubble burst for someone who forgot this used to be called vanity publishing?

P.S. Yes, I am deliberately, petulantly and pointlessly not linking to the Schmaps site.

Later note: Emma wrote to me and apologised! The weary tone of the email suggested they were not happy with a bunch of similar mistakes. I am grateful, and everyone does make mistakes. Link to site duly reinstated (I bet that stung for a while tho).

Quick Plug for Big Brother Celebrity Hijack Site

Just a quick note to encourage you to take a look at the Celebrity Big Brother Hijack sites on both Channel4.com and E4.com.

On the main site, we've updated the design significantly given the E4 hijacking, got loads more integrated video and are trying to keep the site updated as much as possible with rolling headlines as well as loads more frequent news stories.

And the programme is shaping up pretty well too ... poor John ...

Would be interested in hearing any views.

PS If you really get into it, we've also updated our Big Brother Facebook application thanks to our friends at Nooked.

Merry Festivus, One and All

Christmas Carols – Ding Dong Merrily On High
I love carols, it's more than nostalgia - we all know the words (and harmonies) to Wham's Last Christmas, but I don't get quite the same feeling en masse or the urge to sing it in a big cold, spicy smelling room lit by lots of candles.

The more committed I become to the Richard Dawkin's fan club, however, the more I struggle with how much I love Christmas even though I know I'm in a long line of other belief systems co-opting the seasonal festival for my own gains.

In my case those gains include not only carols but also the exchanging of gifts, time with family, pickled walnuts and marrons glacé. I would include mince pies but I now put myself on a self-imposed mince pie ban as once I pop (one in my mouth) I really can't stop.

So whatever you're celebrating be it Chrismukkah, Festivus or plain ole Christmas, I hope you have a joyful one full of whatever seasonal jollies do it for you.

Facebook Faux Pas: A Tribute to the Recently Departed "is"

As some of you connected to me on Facebook are already aware, I've got mildly addicted to updating my Facebook status with quite pointless updates to my life.


For those of you who don't know, a Facebook status is a sentence about you that you publish as frequently as you like, and friends connected to you via Facebook can choose to see via a sort of news feed that they receive when they log onto Facebook.

This status message starts "Louise is ..." with a gap where you fill in the details of what you're up to via web or phone. Or at least the "is" was there until this morning, when I found it had been removed, leaving my posted status message reading "Louise frosty in a nice way" which needed at least a colon to make some kind of sense.

Missing "is" aside for one moment, this weekend, as an example, you would have found out I wrote some Christmas cards, played a lot of Guitar Hero III and went to see the Arctic Monkeys. All true, mildly interesting if you know me, and pretty harmless. I do love reading everyone else's updates too - it's really an accessible form of microblogging. This morning I've discovered one friend is ill, another working too hard, and one lucky bleeder made it to Paris for Christmas shopping.

This weekend, however, you would also have spotted a message informing you "Louise is stopping herself from writing rude things in her status every day" because whilst in recent months I've toyed with the vaguely obnoxious - "Louise is wonderful", the pointless film quote - "Louise is doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion", as well as the dull - "Louise is out of the office", I've never ventured where I'd really like to go - the plain disturbing.

So as both an exorcism of my status temptation demons and a tribute to the recently departed "is", here is a selection of things you wouldn't want to read on a status update and for some reason I've been sorely tempted to write. Here goes. And forgive me.

Louise is...

1. ... dying to tell you about an amazing investment opportunity
2. ... dying for a poo
3. ... going to poke your ex that's still on your friend list and then make friends with them
4. ... touching herself
5. ... the messiah
6. ... menstruating
7. ... completely nude
8. ... off the stalking charge and already within 50 metres of your house
9. ... horny
10. ... dead

There, now that's over, they're all out there, and it marks the end of the "Louise is ... " phase of my life. Like every annoying user that anyone's ever researched, I'll miss the "is" more than anyone who complained about it, but I suppose what the statement starting "Louise ..." lacks in temporality, it gains in freedom, whilst retaining the weird frisson you get when describing yourself in the third person.

Louise is wondering whether you have any statuses you've ever wanted to post.

When Volume Becomes a Fatal Flaw

Two experiences recently for which I have had very high expectations and actually brilliant experiences, but in possession of a common fatal flaw not in themselves, but in their execution.


1. Florence
Beautiful city - great architecture (if a little frilly for my liking), great art (I defy anyone not to gawp at Michelangelo's David), and, for the most part, very good food.


I can't tell you the thrill I felt at walking through the various piazzas, past the Uffizi and down to the Arno especially after watching A Room with a View at least fifty times in my life time (mostly concentrated between the ages of thirteen and twenty) and finally reading it just over a year ago.

I hope you can, however, taste the rising bile and feel the burn on my cheeks, when, on the second day, on walking towards the Santa Croce (home of more art than the pope could shake a stick at) I turned to Rob and screeched "I'm not getting stuck waddling behind another loud, American tour party!". There may have been some additional swearing inserted, but I'll spare your blushes.

Now I have a genuine admiration for the self belief and confidence of the US despite the fact it may contribute to the war stuff, but for a nation supposedly hooked on therapy, a little self awareness when in foreign climes would go a long way.

Let's just say volume was an issue, both in terms of the audio effects the group generated and the sheer mass the groups formed (the latter at least having the upside of making me feel like a European waif a la Vanessa Paradis, which doesn't happen too often).

So if you want to visit for a few days, my strong advice is to check whenever the hotel prices are cheapest and go then, I don't want to imagine the booming, fleshy horror that high season would entail.

2. The Arcade Fire at Alexandra Palace
A great set, a great band, and a great job of filling and inspiring a venue not built for music. Absolutely worth seeing. (More complete and professional review from an amateur on last.fm by following link in title above.)

But my very favourite song, a moving, delicate yet rousing piece "My Body is a Cage", that I'd been singing so much in anticipation it featured in my Facebook status, managed to be cocked up by the sound people and had no audible vocals whatsoever due to I don't know what. I choose not to blame that crazy rock orchestra but rather an anonymous engineer who was clearly too busy on the mixing desk getting the balance between treble and bass right to remember to turn the volume up.

However, there was an upside to this flaw, in that I'd missed half of it having been in the loo anyway and had I been able to hear it from there, I may have broken out of the cubicle, pants half mast, struggling towards the mosh pit, sobbing on bloody knees.

And if you're wondering about the gratuitous Winehouse shot, I have tickets to see big-haired Amy at Brixton Academy on Thursday night - I may be going for a hat trick of brilliance tinged with disappointment and a soupçon of rage.

Why Microsoft is no Britney to Facebook's Paris

A story by John Naughton in today's Observer about Microsoft's recent investment in Facebook, Microsoft makes Facebook a club you don't want to join, actually made me want to write about my former employer (Microsoft), for the first time in ages.

Firstly, I'm slightly irritated I read the story as I've been so immersed in lovely literature, but the company names appearing together leapt out at me with the loathsome tabloid appeal of a night on the town with Paris Hilton and a knickerless Britney.

I was finally driven to blog about it by the final comment,

"And what does Microsoft gets for its money? Officially, the chance to sell internet ads for Facebook outside the United States. Unofficially, the chance to spit in Google's corporate eye."

Whilst they wouldn't want to miss out on another deal after Yahoo! had a good year of it last year and Google's acquisition of Youtube, the importance of Microsoft getting its hands on the Facebook ad inventory should not be underestimated, or the deal written off as a PR move.

As Ballmer has said, Microsoft are weak in the online ad market - certainly significantly less than 25% I could find as the last estimate of Google's ad share in the US. And I'm pretty sure that globally, Google are even more dominant online. Google's scale and dominance online mean that the kind of ad revenue they can generate for 3rd-party sites already outweighs that which Yahoo! and Microsoft can offer you for similar traffic (as I understand it), so it would have taken a chunk of change to buy into the opportunity.

And if, as it seems, Facebook shapes up to be the social network that captures the imagination of everyone online and especially graduates, white-collar workers and silver surfers, they've got a chunk of really valuable users to target their ads at with an extraordinary amount of behavioural data to get targetting to pinpoint accuracy, and an enormous and growing number of page views.

There's a round-up of reactions here. I think I'm with John Battelle - if this enables Microsoft to play in a new form of advertising with a rapidly growing, globally dominant player - it's a smart move. But then again, maybe that's what Britney's people said about those fatal nights with Paris (the smart move bit, not the rest. although on second thoughts...).

Not Writing But Reading

In my recent blogstipated silence, I have been enduring a long reading of Crash. My breath has been taken away by it many times, let alone for Ballard's vision and daring considering when the book was written - it revolves around characters' intense juxtapositions of sexuality and car crashes, but for a slim novel it takes some reading.

It is forming part of a self-imposed and quite satisfying reading list with On Chesil Beach being the last book I completed - although I positively inhaled McEwan's Booker-nominated novella rather than the wrestle I'm having with Crash. Full of wafts of unease and desire, meals uneaten and oranges peeled, On Chesil Beach is a documentary of a time of stifled sensuous pleasures, the main characters' passion only expressed through music and and the occasional pub fight - the noisy drama of both belying their animal natures contained by their history, time and circumstance. It is a book of fading cotton cardigans.

In contrast, when reading Crash, there are times when the taste of salt blood metal in my mouth is too unbearable for more than a few pages. Some of that is fear of who's reading over my shoulder on the Northern Line, I haven't been as conscious of being identified as a sexual pervert since American Psycho on the Circle Line.

On theme, I'm now teasing myself by casually stroking the soft smooth skin of the hardback cover of Exit Ghost as the next in the list. I can never wait 'til paperback time to buy the latest Roth novel but his age now means the reading of each novel has the tinge of a tender goodbye (see title) that I want to draw out as long as possible.

His risky 8 beat my safe 7

Me overheard yesterday,

“I can’t wait to embed a Channel 4 clip in my blog.”

So here it is courtesy of our new Unmissable Clips service on Channel4.com.

Later Note: Richard has also confessed he couldn't get his mind off the obvious 5.