YouTube: the global TV channel

Posted on January 31, 2012 at 7:22 am UK

I caught a few minutes of President Obama’s Google+ Hangout last night as it was streamed on YouTube.

If you’ve done a Google+ Hangout video chat before, you’ll be familiar with the format and this was no different. Except, of course, it was the President of the United States plus five lucky citizens chosen by +The White House to hang out live with the Pres in a carefully-controlled setting. Plus the millions of people worldwide who tuned in, as it were, to YouTube to watch and add text comments. Plus those doing the same on Google+, Facebook, Twitter… wherever they were online.

‘Tuned in’ is an apt descriptor as the immediate thought I had when I did just that on Google+ was “This is TV.”

If last year’s Royal Wedding that was broadcast live on YouTube was a demo of YouTube as a TV channel – a global one at that – that captures imaginations with a compelling event (content, in a word), then yesterday’s presidential Hangout is surely a clear sign that the channel just changed.

Why watch TV on a TV any more when you can immerse yourself, interact on the net, share your experiences and the recorded content itself, via any capable device that connects online?

Talk about disruption! No wonder the US entertainment industry – and that includes mainstream media like TV – likes things like #SOPA and #PIPA, to which +Clay Shirky‘s call to “pick up the pitchforks” is so compelling.

Reshared post from +The White House

Missed the Hangout with President Obama? Check out the full video here and let us know what you thought.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

The SOPA blackout

Posted on January 18, 2012 at 7:02 am UK

From 5am GMT today, January 18, one of the top-ten most visited websites on the internet is unavailable for 24 hours – if you visit English-language Wikipedia, you’ll just get a page with a text concisely explaining why you can’t get the content you came for.

In a press release on January 16, the Wikimedia Foundation – owner of Wikipedia – said:

[...] the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States.

(For more about SOPA and PIPA, Google has some easy-to-understand information focused on the US; the BBC looks at SOPA and PIPA from the broader international perspective.) [Later: BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones adds a depth assessment of SOPA and PIPA in his report Wikipedia - what can it tell us about Sopa?]

Wikipedia isn’t the only web resource to go offline today – other high-profile sites include Boing Boing and Reddit (the latter only for 12 hours). It’s notable that the heavyweights on the social web are conspicuous by their absence of action like today’s. So you’ll find business as usual at places like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

As a way to raise awareness of the twin legislative approaches being addressed by US elected representatives, it will undoubtedly have a big impact, particularly in the US. I wonder, though, what Wikipedia’s (and the others’) measurable goal is. Or is it sufficient to simply get awareness raised around the world and over time we might see some kind of result? After all, SOPA itself is off the legislative agenda for now.

Plenty of opinion on that.

In the meantime, what will you do if you can’t get Wikipedia content today? You could try others from a dozen alternative resources Mashable suggests. If you speak other languages and if you’re looking for explanations of things rather than simply linking to them, try the other language versions of Wikipedia – they’re all up.

Or simply postpone your “what, why, how and where” searching just for a day. It’ll all be there again tomorrow.

[Update 1100 GMT] I discovered that I can access much of Wikiepdia on the mobile website. So far, every page I’ve gone to on my mobile device has shown up.

Actually, the mobile website works on a desktop computer too. Try it for yourself. Not everything will show up – some links redirect to the main website and you’ll get the blackout overlay page. Best bet: use the mobile site on your mobile device if you can’t do without English Wikipedia for a day.

It’s not much of a blackout from what I can see.

Top 20 UK tech blogs for August 2011

Posted on August 2, 2011 at 7:48 am UK

European search engine and news portal Wikio will be publishing its latest monthly ranking of the top 100 technology blogs in the UK shortly.

As usual, they’ve given me an advance look ahead of publication at the top 20 from the full list of the top 100 tech blogs.

Here are the top 20 for August 2011. Positions relative to last month are shown in parentheses:

TechCrunch Europe‘s ranking as the #1 technology blog in the UK looks impregnable with the site at this position during every month throughout the year so far. One new entry is Twittercism – now part of Mediabistro’s AllTwitter.com – at #19; a notable absence is the BBC’s dot.Rory which dropped out of the top 20 this month.

Both eWEEKeurope and Tech Blog rose four places compared to July while markboulton.co.uk and Coding Horror both fell six places. Other movements up and down are mostly a bit of jostling here and there with no dramatic shifts in positions compared to last month.

Check Wikio’s ranking methodology for details on how they arrive at the ranking each month. And, if you want to suggest others blogs for inclusion in Wikio’s tech list that aren’t there already, either let me know or apply on the Wikio website.

NLA licensing creates FUD says Meltwater

Posted on July 29, 2011 at 1:23 pm UK

The idea of having to pay to share links to online content published by the mainstream media is one that has stimulated much debate in the UK in recent months. Not only that, it’s generated strong opposition in the PR community, and has been to court. It’s also been the subject of an awareness-raising campaign with members of Parliament.

It’s a big topic, one that has attracted opinion and commentary from many voices, and was a central feature in a debate in London last month about the future of content.

Things came to a head in London on July 27 in a ruling by the Court of Appeal in favour of the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) and its right to levy a fee on commercial consumers of web content who, from January 2010, require a licence to legally view or share such content.

I’ve written about it in this blog and, in the interests of transparency, I want to make it clear that my views are aligned with those who oppose the NLA, notably SaaS company Meltwater and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA).

In this guest post, Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen attempts to diminish what I describe as the NLA’s FUD by explaining his perspectives and motives. He makes it clear that this week’s Court of Appeal ruling is far from the end of this matter.

Continue reading →

NLA wins latest move in ‘pay for clicks’ battle

Posted on July 28, 2011 at 8:26 am UK

copyrightblur Yesterday, the Court of Appeal in London ruled in favour of the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) in a long-running legal battle over licensing of links to content published in the mainstream media.

The latest ruling upheld an earlier court decision that anyone copying and supplying UK newspaper web content, or links to that content, to others for a fee (including monitoring or press clippings agencies and PR agencies, and from those agencies to their clients) must acquire a license from the NLA, a body that’s owned by the mainstream media.

Championing resistance to what some see as a tax or as an unreasonable method of revenue-generation by an ailing print-media industry is SaaS company Meltwater and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA).

Both sides of the argument make powerful cases. The NLA’s, for instance, by its Director, David Pugh:

The Court of Appeal has today unequivocally confirmed the ruling of the High Court that online newspapers are copyright protected. It has given a clear declaration that most (if not all) businesses subscribing to a media monitoring service that contains content from online newspapers require a licence. We welcome this ruling and the clarity it provides for publishers, media monitoring agencies and their clients.

On the other hand, Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen sees an entirely different picture:

The ability to browse the Internet without fear of infringing copyright is a fundamental Internet principle. Society is not served by this ruling and it would be absurd if interpretation of the law should clash so fundamentally with how millions of people use the internet every day.

PRCA Chief Executive Francis Ingham’s view is that yesterday’s ruling shows that UK copyright law is incompatible with digital media. He is confident of overturning the verdict, a point he makes in this video commentary about the case that the PRCA published yesterday:

(If you don’t see the video embedded above, view it at the PRCA website.)

Both Meltwater and the PRCA vow to continue fighting the NLA, and believe their appeals will ultimately prevail in overturning the NLA’s current right to levy fees. In the meantime, it looks as though PR firms will now have to pay extra for receiving news alerts about the clients companies they work for (the NLA had delayed collection of fees until their case received the legal validity they sought).

Clearly, yesterday’s legal verdict is far from the end of this matter. According to Jorn Lyseggen, the Copyright Tribunal is scheduled to rule in September on the fairness of the NLA’s licensing scheme. He says he’s confident that the Tribunal will rule the NLA licensing scheme is "over-reaching and unreasonable."

For now, though, it’s advantage NLA.

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