Roo Reynolds - What's Next?

Second screen: this works for me

Posted by Roo - 27/05/09 at 09:05:28 pm

It’s Wednesday, so it’s Apprentice night again. Tonight I’ve been using Visible Tweets on an open laptop next to the TV.

Ray was complaining about motion-sickness with Twitterfall running in the background. Visible Tweets (thanks to Andy for the tip) is a nice alternative.

Eye-catching, simple and beautiful in full screen mode, it’s less comprehensive than Twitterfall but does show a selection of recent tweets at a pleasing pace. Here how it looks:

Laptop Stickers

Posted by Roo - 25/05/09 at 06:05:28 pm

I’ve been collecting photos of laptop stickers for ages.

Here’s what my ever-changing MacBook Air looks like at the moment (click the image for the Flickr version, complete with notes).

I’m always on the lookout for more. If you want me to display your sticker, and don’t mind posting it to me, let me know so I can give you a mailing address. I mean, if I’m prepared to walk into meetings with ‘sit on myspace’ emblazoned across the front of my lid, I should be able to cope with anything, right?

Press the red button now…

Posted by Roo - 17/05/09 at 03:05:28 pm

This month, I’ve mainly been playing Burnout Paradise and rewatching The Wire.

Alternatives to ‘UGC’

Posted by Roo - 07/05/09 at 10:05:32 pm

I’ve started reading the research paper on User Generated Content undertaken by Cardiff University and the BBC. ugc@thebbc: Understanding its impact upon contributors, non-contributors and BBC News.

The study involved 10 weeks of ethnographic shadowing in BBC newsrooms, interviews with 115 journalists and 12 senior managers, analysis of a range of radio and television broadcasts and online content, plus a MORI poll of the British public, an online survey and 12 focus groups. Phew. 63 pages of report means I have not read all of it yet, but Robin Hamman (who was involved in sponsoring the project, has digested it here. Most of it is centered around the use of contributions from users around News, but there are a great many interesting general observations in there, and will give me much to chew over in coming days.

One conclusion instantly caught my eye though:

“The term User Generated Content is inappropriate and inadequate and should be replaced with Audience Material”

And the paper goes on to use ‘Audience Material’ (in preference to ‘UGC’) throughout. Now, I have as many problems with the term UGC as the next person, and it’s not a new discussion, but I don’t really think ‘Audience Material’ is any clearer.

Material? It’s no more specific than content really. Just another general word for stuff.

Audience? If any word is going to make people at the BBC think of its users as content consumers, to whom we must broadcast, that’s probably the one. Please let’s not reinforce the idea that users are an ‘audience’ or, still worse, ‘consumers’ (as in ‘consumer generated media’. Urgh).

I don’t really have a better alternatives, though I’ve always thought that user contributed content was slightly nicer, if only because I like the emphasis on contribution over generation.

Any others?

Recent reading

Posted by Roo - 05/05/09 at 08:05:21 am

• Peter Kay, The Sound of Laughter – exactly as funny and self deprecating as you’d expect Peter Kay’s autobiography to be. A few weird quirks (“…that was a joke.”) that don’t seem to translate well to paper, but mostly good fun.
• Dave Gorman, America Unchained – even funnier and even more self deprecating, Dave Gorman tries to cross the states without using any of the big franchises. I’d like to watch the documentary he was making during this.
• Robert Harris, Pompeii – an utter waste of words. Neither entertaining nor interesting. I think I’m done with Robert Harris now.
• Dr Nick Edwards, In Stitches – the book of the blog, bought to you by the Friday Project (remember that?). Frankly, Blood Sweat and Tea is much better. This one is repetitious, the rants are mainly moans and the touching moments are few and far between.
• H. G. Wells, The Food of the Gods – I’d forgotten how witty Wells can be. This is a really funny one. More social satire than sci-fi, and hilarious throughout.
• H. G. Wells, In the Days of the Comet – hmm. Not his best.
• Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts

– A loan from Nick, and I thank him for it. It’s perhaps the most original and playfully delivered book I’ve ever read, despite a few flabby areas. You’d enjoy it. Apparently, Film 4 have the film rights, and I hope they do a decent job of the adaptation. I hope they do it soon too, and that Steven Hall writes a great many books as excellent as this one.