Archives for July 2007

You can listen to this week's segment here. On Pods and Blogs we featured:

• A chat about listener emails on Second Life and gambling and alerting us to criticism of media coverage of the MMR vaccine


• The Iraqi football team's win in the Asian Cup final through the eyes of Baghdad based blogger Neurotic Iraqi Wife


• Mindbloggling, a portal for bloggers dealing with mental illness. We heard from Radioman, Klahanie and Blueshawk. All blogs discoverable via the Mindbloggling site


• Desert Island Geek. Neil Dixon's new podcast asks you what gadget/website you couldn't live without.


• The Britblog Roundup this time hosted on Liberal England. Details on how you can submit entries to the round up at the bottom of the post.


• Bill Dutton of took a look at the latest Oxford Internet Survey and what it revealed about the digital divide


• A look at how one project Voices of Africa is using mobile phones to bridge the digital divide in Africa

We start podcasting from next week...watch this space for details of feeds etc.

Tonight on Pods and Blogs we'll be leading with an item on Iraq. There's much to talk about: a troubling report into the humanitarian situation, claims that corruption is rife and reports of millions displaced by the conflict. But this week we'll begin with an event that allowed many Iraqis a brief respite from their daily struggle to survive, the Iraqi football team's victory in the Asian Cup final. Our guest, who lives in Baghdad and blogs as Neurotic Iraqi Wife, wrote about the victory in a post that powerfully contrasts the joy of celebration with the misery of conflict. Here are a couple of extracts, you can read all of the post The War of the Playgrounds here :

As our team scored its goal, we all started jumping up and down. Each minute of the last ten minutes to me felt like an hour. I just wanted the referee to end the game. And wowwwwww, no, wowwww does not explain the scenes after that. No, it really doesn’t describe those Iraqi guys with me. They all got up from their chairs screaming, shouting, dancing, singing. It was amazing. I cried, I cried for it was extremely emotional [....]

Everytime I take a break and then come back to my workstation, I find more and more emails of articles and Iraqi football songs from my coworkers. You can feel it in the air. Even at a meeting earlier this morning with the General’s presence he praised the team and congratulated all the Iraqis. It was nice to see everyone enjoying the moment. Everyone, without any exceptions. In a war torn country filled with rivers of blood and streets of charred flesh, it was as if God was smiling on us again

If you fancy a quick way of fairly randomly exploring lots and lots of internet radio this may be for you. There are plenty of other places you can find net radio of course but Tun3r with its virtual tuner interface inspired by oldfashioned radio dials clearly shows the great diversity of online radio. (thanks to Rob M and co)

Second Life has decided to crack down on gambling. In their post Linden Labs explain that the legal and jurisdictional difficulties are such that they have taken the decision to ban "wagering games". Gambling has become a popular activity in Second Life. Because the Linden Dollar can be exchanged for real money, there's actual cash involved in this virtual activity. But anti-gambling legislation in the US has made the legal status of virtual gambling sufficiently ambiguous that Linden has taken the step of closing it down.

Linden Lab’s policy is not intended to identify which gambling activities may be legal where you live, and we cannot provide legal advice to you. Because gambling activities may be controlled by the law where the bettor lives in some places, and in others affect the operators of wagering games, we have decided to take a broader approach by prohibiting all games that meet the criteria in our policy.

The policy prevents Second Lifer's from running games that rely on chance (or the outcome of a real-life sporting event) and provide a payout in Linden Dollars or real-world money or thing of value. Gambling in Second Life has been subject to scrutiny by the FBI, though there is no suggestion of any wrong-doing on the part of Linden Labs. Indeed according to Reuters, "federal law enforcement officials have not yet taken an official stance on virtual gambling." Indeed the article makes it clear that Linden had asked officials for guidance on the law in this area

There are a range of reactions in the comments to Lindens blog post making the announcement of a clamp-down many are supportive: "Most of these gambling casinos are nothing but rip off joints. Casinos in SL are unregulated and on any given day, hour, or minute the payout percentages can be arbitrarily and suddenly changed by the casino owner without the residents knowing anything for the worst."

Read the rest of this entry

You can listen to the audio of the last programme on the 7-day archive here. Tonights show was re-arranged a little to make room for our flood coverage:

• We ran audio of a couple of YouTube videos by people affected


• Ed Vaizey MP who blogged about getting caught in the floods spoke to us


• Trained civil-engineer and journalist Nina Lovelace of the Local Government Chronicle blog told us how in her view flood preparedness hadn't changed much since 2000


• Cheltenham Borough Council get the message out via free blogging software. Looks like a good idea to me


• The CNN Democratic Candidates debate with questions from YouTube. The Utube blog reacted


• Our look at the Britblog Round-up do take a look and click on the links. Rachel North's post can be read here. It is a tremendously brave post, and I deeply admire her spirit and courage in writing it. You have won Rachel


• Mideastyouth.org is a fascinating group blogging project that produces some great podcasts too


• And lastly a report from one of the winning teams at the Germ2 viral awards. The winning video is below. Don't try this at home.

Over at Songofthepaddle there are some evocative photographs of the flooding in Tewkesbury Further down the post are other pictures of the flood-waters in Gloucester.

Below are two more videos of the flooding on YouTube. One from Worcester the other a traveller stuck on the M5 both video's were filmed on Friday but they give a good sense of the chaos the weather has caused.

Do send links to other video's that we might feature.

Do feel free to point us to content you've created about the floods, whether is a blog post, video or podcast. Looking through the blogs, lots of you are describing your experiences.

Cheltenham Council have started blogging the situation there. They've run out of sandbags and are advising people to fill shopping bags with soil

Like other councils in the area, the Cheltenham Borough Council currently has no more sandbags. You are advised to fill carrier bags with soil as an alternative

The lack of them is a problem that one councillor in a different part of the UK, Lichfield, encountered during last months floods:

I mentioned earlier that the Emergency Planning Authorities need to learn some serious lessons. In Fazeley it took far too long for things to kick in properly and I’ve got no idea why there can’t be ready stores of sandbags in any area that has a likelihood of flooding.

But a different perspective in a post from the Local Government Chronicle blog. The author says we are revisiting "all the same debates" over flood prevention she encountered working in civil engineering in 2000 she writes:

But if flooding is to become a common feature for some areas and particularly the more southern areas where homes are already under pressure some residents may have to learn to live with it or accept they must leave some areas entirely.

On the other hand a comment on Raedwald's blogs (featured in this week's Britblog round-up) blames all levels of government

That a wet July has half-drowned them because they didn't know to keep the drains cleared, the ditches dug and the rivers with flood plains and meanders, not to mention the effects of rendering large surface areas of drain away impermeable, underlines the sheer worthlessness of the UK state instruction systems.

Somerset Bob questions the amount of money it's being claimed is spent on flood defence

So if the [Environment] Agency is spending “about £150 million” a year, who’s spending the rest of the £600 million Gordon Brown spoke about?

The picture at the end of his post is well worth taking a look at. This blogger from, I think, Evesham describes panic buying.
“Go down to Tesco” says G, who works for me - we were supposed to be away camping now “they’re allowing two bottles of water for a family. There’s no milk…. it’s crazy”.

A gallery of images from Gloucester/Cheltenham here and another blogger who is unimpressed by the timing of a health warning from her water company

The lights have just gone out in my bit of Television Centre (except for emergency lights). Everything else working fine...so far. Power-cuts ugh...and apparently I might have to move to a different part of the building if it doesn't come back up. Hoping tonight's show won't come from an internet cafe in the Tottenham Court Rd.

UPDATE: Lights are back on...phew...

An interesting technology story on Mark Kraft's blog Insominia describing a recent success in the production of higher efficiency organic solar cells. The research hasn't been given much attention in the mainstream press. What's interesting about the new cells, is according to Mark:

Well, these new plastic cells cost 10 cents a watt... 1/23rd the cost of silicon solar cells. Clean, renewable, and apparently competitive with oil and coal. And, being plastic, it is entirely likely that they can be mass-produced far more effectively and in larger quantity.

The cells are the work of a team lead by Nobel laureate Alan Heeger, professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara. More from the press release here Also well worth reading the discussion in comments of Insomnia's blog about the potential of solar energy, they're very, if you'll forgive the pun, illuminating. To be fair organic cells have been around a while, it's the efficiency of the new cells in turning solar energy into electricity that has people interested. In fact it seems to be solar energy season, there's an interesting piece of research flagged up by the New Jersey Insitute of Technology suggesting that in the future it might be possible to print your own solar paneling at home (link to the press release).

Last week's Britblog Roundup drew attention to the issue of expensive sandbags. Anyone out there had similar problems getting help for flood protection? Drop us a note.

Meanwhile some dramatic pictures of the floods in Worcester blogged here The photos including the one one the page here are of the home of a BBC Radio Worcester presenter Mike George - here's how they described the scene on the blog:

This is how the gardens were looking by the time I'd finished rescuing the chickens, I have to realise now I had been putting my own life at risk. That is next door's large Wendy House. Those posts you can see are holding six feet tall fence panels.

If you've blogged, flickr'ed or YouTubed the floods feel free to post a link in comments. Here's one video

A couple fo tourists caught in the floods have an unexpected stay in an "evac shelter"

It's been just crazy here. Spending the night in an evac shelter is one of the strangest experiences this trip, as was nine hours on a bus. (15 hours that day, covering roughly 50 miles...).

Another spent 22 hours on what should have been a very simple journey.

On Friday I spent 22 hours returning home from Warwick to Oxford, and in fact I haven't made it home, being now camped at my Parents house. The rain on Friday was the worst I have ever known.

UPDATE: Mike George has just been on Five Live's Weekend News link here I've also removed the YouTube video I linked to earlier - and changed it for the one now visible - I missed the date - it was of earlier floods in Worcester.

If you've a suggestion for a feature for Tuesday's programme please leave a comment or drop an email to [email protected]

I'm also intersted in your thoughts on whether we should cover Harry Potter, it's huge online, web spoilers have been a major issue, but even fans might be sick of the coverage by Tuesday?

And already on the roster we have blogs bringing together young people from across the middle east, hopefully another visit with the Britblog, a group blog dealing with mental illnesses, my report from the viral awards, and a look at the dark underbelly of some internet chatrooms.

I was at the Germ2 Viral Awards deep in the belly of Channel 4's HQ in London. The event was a mix of young students hoping to get into the business, and advertising types. We'll feature interviews with both on the next Pods and Blogs.

I also had a fascinating conversation with one part of the team behind the "spoof car advert" viral that sparked this row. The video featured a suicide bomber foiled in his endeavours by the structural integrity of a brand of car that likes to pride itself on the toughness of its small vehicles.

That video, which some found offensive (view it here if you wish, though you have been warned), launched a very successful career for its creators.. There was, in this case, no such thing as bad publicity.

Not surprisingly perhaps many people I spoke to reported that many firms misunderstand viral. Firstly that they think a successful viral must be as edgy as the "suicide bomber" video, and secondly that they have too literal a view of the viral as advertising. Successful viral advertising is often indirect, the references to the firm may be quite oblique. Making the relationship between the video and the brand ambiguous, helps to build buzz as bloggers and others speculate as to who may be behind it. And talking of buzz, a great deal of energy is put into seeding references to the viral online and, in nurturing discussion of it.

There is, however, is no substitute for a film that people will actually want to watch. As we talk about "glanceability" in radio (horrid jargon for adding pictures to radio) we have a lot to learn from viral makers. We need to make something everyone will want to watch. As the winners of the Germ award demonstrated, that may just require imagination, a bit of cardboard and scant regard for personal safety. Creativity is the key, not just controversy or big budgets.

UPDATE: As an example of a viral ad that doesn't need to shock. This for a German company manufacturing windmills (yes I did have a few second thoughts about posting this commercial - but I don't suppose you'll all be rushing out to buy one) is a good example of how a viral can work its way into the Technorati most popular list without being shocking or offensive..

Here are the videos Nick Reynolds put together for the Radio Festival featuring bloggers and podcasters talking about what they do and how it might affect what we do in mainstream radio. Fascinating stuff, and some really lovely video. It strikes me a video like this is a great way to promo your blog or pod and not too hard to make. I'd be happy to feature one or two on this blog too.

Just catching up on the story of detained Malaysian blogger Nat Tan which we covered on Pods and Blogs. He's been freed, he's not been charged but he will have to report back to police at the end of the month his lawyer says. More info here

Australians don't like to blog - that's the controversial thesis of this article in the Sydney Morning Herald. According to research reported in the paper:

Of the top 25,000 blogs globally, around 9000 are in English [..] Of those, only 75 originate in Australia. But there are 420 million native English speakers in the world. "With Australia's population of 21 million, we comprise 5 per cent of English speakers. But with 75 blogs out of 9000, we comprise less than 1 per cent of English blogs. We are underrepresented by a factor of six or so."

The author blames connectivity (slow internet connections) for part of the explanation, but also the "laconic" character of your stereotypical Aussie. Cultural issues might be to blame; blogging would seem to be one of the things you could do to qualify as a tall poppy, I hear similar sentiments (who are these bloggers anyway?) directed towards bloggers often enough on some texts and emails to Pods and Blogs.

But wanting to climb on a digital soapbox isn't the only reason people blog. The desire to communicate, keep in touch with friends and share experiences is a pretty widespread human impulse. Blogging is also thin from much of Africa, though in that case infrastructure is almost entirely the issue. But in Africa, I'm told, mobile phones are used in much the same way the web is used in other parts of the world. While Australians may not like to blog, blogging is merely one way of participating online, one that appeals to a particular kind of person. Being under-represented on blogs, may not necessarily mean Australians are not participating online, or not engaging in blog like behaviour in sites like MySpace, Facebook etc. Would be interesting to see some stats.

You can listen to the 7-day audio archive here. On this week we discussed:

• The row between bloggers and some and men's mags over accusations that content was used without credit/payment.


• We asked which unusual place were you listening from - answers included The Falklands, Tazmania and Cambodia


• Britain expels Russian diplomats - Russia threatens serious consequences. Victor Comras of the counterterrorism blog explained the manoeverings to us


• Hong Kong based blogger Oiwan Lam spoke about her prosecution for obscenity and the political issues surrounding that


• A report from the vigil in support of detained Malaysian blogger Nat Tan with the Malaysian bloggers Hafiz and Bob of Bobjots


• The dangers of making Facebook friends at work with WSJ's Jared Sandberg


• A run through this week's Britblog Roundup


• David Axe on the challenges of training the cops in Afghanistan

That's all for today, Aaron's excellent interview with the author of Confessions of a Chatroom Freak next week. Keep the reports of listening in unusual places/locations coming in!

For the next few weeks on Pods and Blogs we hope to check in with the Britblog Roundup which, for the last 2 years or so, has been attempting the near impossible task of summarising the best of the British blogosphere. Matt Wardman this week's editor explains what the round-up is all about:

The Britblog Roundup is a weekly shop window of the best writing from the British Blogosphere. It is like taking a tour with an experienced guide. The roundup appears on a different blog each week.

Founded by Tim Worstall, the Roundup has been going for some time, and the current edition is number 126, and can be seen on the Wardman Wire.

Suggestions of articles to be featured can be sent before midday each Sunday to britblog at gmail dot com. You may suggest your own articles. If youwould like to be involved on the editorial team, please also email britblog at gmail dot com

Drew B points to an article in the Wall Street Journal highlighting the knotty issue of when, OMG -- My Boss
Wants to 'Friend' Me On My Online Profile

The piece written by the papers Cubicle Culture columnist Jared Sandberg neatly points out the dilemma workers face who are asked to "friend" a big cheese: "You're caught between a career-limiting rejection of virtual friendship or a career-limiting access to photos of yourself glassy-eyed at a party. "

Friending is two way process and pics of your boss doing some important networking with a couple of go-go dancers may equally well turn up on their Facebook profile; possibly valuable cards to hold during pay negotiations or possibly not. But the opportunities for incredibly awkward situations, as Jared points out, abound.

Social networks are increasingly blurring the line between our professional and personal lives. Perhaps, in the end, the best advice is to keep your private life private and take it off-line. Your thoughts are welcome..even if you are my boss...

Boingboing links to two stories of bloggers feeling the heavy hand of the law, one from Malaysia and another from Hong Kong.

There's more on the case of Nat Tan the Malaysian blogger detained over at Global Voices. Their summary also points to a blog by his sister which is well worth looking at as a statement of the personal impact of his detention and the efforts to secure his release.

The other case, of blogger Oiwan Lam prosecuted in Hong Kong for posting an allegedly obscene image she found on Flickr to a blog (the picture in question is pretty anodyne), is gone into in some detail by Rebecca MacKinnon in a wide ranging post that asks important questions about censorship and the difficulty of applying "decency" standards across national boundaries.

I often wonder what our listeners are doing when we broadcast, but I've never wondered which species they may be, however, Heather Gorringe of the Wigglywrigglers sends this bit of intelligence via Facebook.

Thanks Chris for the bit on Radio 5. The next evening I met up with a farmer who had been listening in his chicken shed and we will now team up with him to make a show about his ploughing match! Corker!

Wonderful, though I suppose this makes me a Gonzo journalist? Needless to say if you listen to Pods and Blogs in a more unlikely place we want to hear from you.

I gave a rather rambling talk at Unicom's Social Tools conference on radio, interactivity and Pods and Blogs. You can download the full thing as an mp3 here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

The important announcement sneaked into the talk is that Pods and Blogs is going to be available as a podcast in the very near future (first week of August seems likely - if not sooner). Naturally we're all pretty thrilled about this. Any thoughts on what we should include in the podcast welcome. We are, unfortunately restricted to a high percentage of already broadcast material, but we need to think about several issues. What do we do about idents? Should we include podsafe music as bumps (I'd like to - but what would be the issues with rights etc). Should we use a flash player on the site and if so which one? What new opportunities will it open up for interaction? Does the content need to change a little? Any advice would be very welcome.

Mashing things up - mixing one lot of data/content with another to produce something new is a big part of web2.0 culture - and a number of different tools now enable you to do this even if you have (like me) absolutely no programming skills whatsoever.

I've been having a go with Yahoo Pipes, and since we were talking about the future of radio I thought I'd present the result. Feed to AV takes a website feed, in this case The BBC World News headlines, and looks for audio or video content related to those headlines. You can see the results here and try it out with different feeds (naturally we're not responsible for the content of the audio etc it throws up). Also worth mentioning I was using Mrs V's Mac in case you are wondering about the identity of the creator!

It's based around Everyzing which is a quite astounding service that stores and transcribes podcasts, videocasts etc.

The key point isn't that the feed I created was any good...it wasn't really...but that it's now so easy to manipulate content to produce a new product. That presents traditional media companies with some interesting challenges.

Last night we put together a 3 hour special programme (hear it here) on the future of radio from the Radio Festival 2007 in Cambridge.
We were very kindly supported in this endeavour by the folks at BBC Radio Cambridge who worked late to get us on air and lent us their studios, though we weren't sure about two signs posted inside: one that said If amber light shows alert RATS in Newsroom, and the other which warned that the studio webcams "worked in the dark"?!?!

The guest list was so big that I won't reproduce all of it.. Many of you thought Danny Baker's talk on podcasting was the cream of the crop. I agree, we'll see if we can make it available as a download over the next couple of days.

Big thanks too to our panelists who stayed up till 0200 hrs to talk about Radio 2.0: They included in the US: Jeff Jarvis, Alan Levy and Maria Thomas and in the UK, Terry Underhill, Chris Stevens and Matt Deegan. We were also joined by podcasters Dr Chris Smith and Heather Gorringe

Big thanks also to Nick Reynolds and Rob Lawrence and the staff at the Radio Academy for helping out.. Finally, there were lots of young aspiring radio people at the event. Those considering a career in the glamourous world of radio might like to contemplate the scene (right) as host Nick, editor Howard, and producer Musty enjoy the delights of the benches outside The Flying Pig in Cambridge at 5AM in the morning as we await the first train back to London. No passers-by threw pennies at us..but that's probably because on that cold, damp morning, there weren't any passers by. We'd have only spent it on drink anyway...

We'll be at the Radio Festival 2007 for Tuesday's programme. On Pods and Blogs we'll be talking about the future of the medium. How is the new technology changing radio? Will podcasting replace mainstream broadcasting? What is going to happen as more and more mobile devices can connect to the net and offer radio-like services? How will the type of content being produced change when anyone can become a broadcaster?

We'll have quite a few pre-recorded interviews as well as a live discussion with leading media blogger Jeff Jarvis, Maria Thomas vice president and general manager of National Public Radio Digital Media, and Alan Levy of BlogtalkRadio

If you'd like to contribute, have a question for the panel, or a guest/interview you'd like to suggest please drop us a line. We'll be taking calls, emails and tweets!

Annie Mole of the Going Underground blog passes on this account by a blog reader who says they were on the derailed tube train - here's a snip:

Anyways I have the feeling it will be a while until we see Central line services again - I was in about carriage 3 and all the way back through the train each carriage was leaning at a jaunty 20% angle or so against the tunnel wall - hate to think what damage has occured to the tracks

Interesting if slightly dispiriting stuff for those of us who have to use The Tube.

Just back from the Canadian Rockies and listening to last week's show. Here are some of the links mentioned:

• John Buckley spoke about the iPhone, Blog Plagerism, Citizen Journalism in China and Social Networks


• Bruce Schneier talked about security in the wake of events in Glasgow and London


• Guy Fawkes on the change of helm at No10 and cabinet level blogging


• More from Bill Lamin as we follow his grandfather's letters home from the front


• Swap-shop legend Kyle MacDonald speaks about his new book One Red Paperclip

Next week's show comes from the Radio Festival 2007