Journalism, radio and stuff like that
Last.fm isn’t telling the RIAA that you’ve pirated the new U2 album. But you might be.
Why go to the hassle of trying to get data from websites when the users will hand it to you on a plate?
We’re sure that some of the people listening to the leaked album simply forgot that Last.fm tells other people what you’re listening to, but we’re also sure that a fair number of them were boasting. Look at me! I’ve got something I shouldn’t have! I am cool!
The days run away like horses over the hill…
Is Half-Life 2 the future of indie movie-making?
The potential is mind-boggling, but let’s be honest: we’re not quite there yet. The constant fast-cutting in Escape from City 17 can’t disguise the fact that some of the in-game footage doesn’t quite gel with the real footage, the Combine Citadel looks like it’s been glued into the background with Pritt Stick and we’re pretty sure that none of the $500 budget was spent on the script.
Overall, though, it works – and to our eyes it’s no worse than the CGI in the most recent Hulk movie, which cost $150 million to make and still looked like it had been thrown together on a ZX Spectrum by an angry toddler.
Six companies Microsoft should buy:
Microsoft isn’t short of cash, and it recently – and unsuccessfully – offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.
The idea was to catch up with Google, but the big G isn’t the only firm doing well in areas where Microsoft isn’t. So perhaps Microsoft should widen its net.
From video and music to shopping and social networks, we think these six firms should be on Microsoft’s shopping list.
Leaving aside the fact that the paperback book is pretty much perfect, Amazon’s device doesn’t do colour and you’re not going to use a $359 gadget to kill wasps, there are three big problems with it.
The first is that despite the redesign, it still looks like something Noddy and Big Ears would use. The second is that Amazon has removed some key features, making it less flexible than before. And the third is that it simply isn’t good enough when you compare it to other gadgets.
I thought using the full product name as per Amazon’s own listing – “Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)” – throughout the piece would be funny, but it seems I’m the only person who does.
I’m still really excited about e-books, but I don’t have any gadget lust towards this one at all.
The other week, designer/developer Jamie Rumbelow interviewed me for his podcast. It’s online now, and provides a startling insight into just how many times a Scotsman can say “um” during an interview. I was on to talk about journalism – how to get into online journalism, what scams to watch out for, why books don’t usually make money and how to motivate yourself to write when the creative juices aren’t flowing. So it’s basically me blabbing on about bugger-all through a heavy head cold.
Is it Tuesday already? To celebrate the news that Woz is doing the US equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing, here’s a cheery look at some of the other daft things he’s done. Sadly there wasn’t enough time to Photoshop a pic to make him look like The Joker.
When we discovered that Steve Wozniak would be competing in Dancing With The Stars, we had two thoughts: one, could we get Steve Ballmer to go on, too? And two, is there anything Woz won’t do for a laugh?
The answer to both questions, it seems, is no. For the tech industry’s very own Joker, tomfoolery is never far away.
And here’s one about blogging for money.
Is there an alternative to ads? Not really. Citizen journalism photo agency Scoopt shut its doors last week because it couldn’t persuade papers to pay a decent whack for images – it seems that major media outlets would rather get you to send in your snaps for free – and the wages offered by firms via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk are pathetic. Write a review? Five cents. Do some digging into historical figures? Three cents. Build a space rocket, fly to Mars, discover intelligent life and bring it back in a cage? Seven cents.
Dan Lyons on – spit! – monetising blogs.
My first epiphany occurred in August 2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which until then I’d kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I’d ever had—and through Google’s AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks. Over the course of that entire month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day job.
The full article’s worth reading and includes some interesting numbers.
Me, on Techradar: OMG! 132 versions of Windows 7!
We’re the first to mock Microsoft when the firm deserves it, but the Windows 7 line-up simply isn’t as complicated as some reports would have you believe. For the majority of us there will be two choices, just as there were with Windows XP. Home user? Windows 7 Home Premium. Home worker or small business? Windows 7 Professional.
Also on the site: Become an App Store millionaire: how three iPhone developers made it big.
“Look at it this way: most people show up to work, or school, or whatever, and they are eager to show their friends what cool new things they’ve got on their iPhone. Of the 50 apps they may have on their iPhone, they may only get a chance to show five of them to their friends. If your app is one of those five, and it can prove its worth in ten to fifteen seconds, then you’ve got yourself a successful app.” [Steve Demeter, developer of Trism]
This one was slightly delayed because I’ve spent most of the last few days in bed feeling sorry for myself. Better late than never, though.
It came from nowhere and spread like a virus. Suddenly everybody we knew was on it – telling us what they’d been up to, uploading photos, sending flirtatious messages and logging on as if the site were crack and they were addicts.
In no time at all it had millions of users of all ages, and it was regularly name-checked in scandalous newspaper articles. People were using it to arrange affairs, or to waste time at work, or to post things they’d later regret.
And then we all dumped Friends Reunited for Facebook.
A whole bunch of things are going up today. First, If Macs are so great, why isn’t everybody switching?
Design, reliability, security… we all know why Apple addicts love their Macs.
But despite fawning press coverage and the bad publicity surrounding Vista, Macs are still very much in the minority.
So, why are PC owners sticking with Windows? Do Macs cost too much, or are PC owners masochists?
Also, Think before you link:
More often than not, we – that is, bloggers, forum users, Twitterers and the like – will link to an interesting or scary news story when it’s first published. How many of us go back to check whether the story stands up, and rewrite our blog posts if the story turns out to be wrong?
And later on, some stuff about Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report. I’ll update this post with a link when that one’s up. And by “when that one’s up” I mean “when I’ve written it.”
Update: here’s the Digital Britain piece: The Good, The Bad and the WTF?
Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report isn’t an easy read, not least because some of it appears to have been written by aliens.Cut through the bureaucratese, though, and there are some interesting plans up the Government’s sleeve. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some are just weird.
It’s that time of the week again:
In the beginning, there was the Asus Eee PC. And the masses looked at it, and they found that it was good. Verily, they said, this Linux thingy isn’t half bad.
And there was much rejoicing in the land of the penguin, for Linux had the market all to itself. A pox on all your houses, Microsoft, cried the penguin lovers. We have found a category in which you cannot compete! Your Vista is too bloated! Your XP is too dead!
Aha! Said Microsoft. We will resurrect Windows XP and give Vista a child, which will not be rubbish, and which will be pretty nifty on a netbook! Screw you, hippies!