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.

Scroll Excel 7 first look

Posted on January 29, 2012 at 11:37 am UK

The market for tablet computers is looking rosy according to any number of research studies and reports in the mainstream media and tech press.

It’s continuing good news for Apple and its iPad and for the myriad Android tablet-makers; and for satisfying consumers’ desire to own the latest affordable tech that gives them the freedom to get at information whenever and wherever they want it.

According to one recent report I read by Research and Markets, the expected growth of the tablet market in the UK over the next few years will be driven by features such as ease of use, long battery life, mobility, ability to multi-task, instant on/off and the large number of applications available.

Such predicted expectation drivers – no doubt valid in most if not all markets, not just the UK – keep the pressure on vendors where those that build better mousetraps are likely to be the ones that dominate in the market, either overall (like the iPad) or in a niche.

Such predictions and opinion are probably welcome news to a UK niche player like Storage Options, maker of the Scroll Excel 7″ tablet they loaned me and that I’ve been taking a look at over the past few weeks.

Just over six months ago, in June 2011, I reviewed Storage Options’ predecessor tablet, the Scroll 7″ Tablet PC (Capacitive). As I mentioned in the review, that device while competent had some significant issues that made me reluctant to consider it a product to recommend to anyone.

But that was then, and this is now with a new device that offers a much better experience and makes it a worthy offering in an increasingly-crowded market. You can see what I make of the Scroll Excel in my first-look video report that runs at just under ten minutes.

(If you don’t see the video embedded above, watch it at YouTube.)

Overall, I think this is a very good device, certainly a far superior product compared to its predecessor. It’s well specified; the device I’ve got includes:

Android 2.3.4 operating system
Cortex A8 1Ghz single-core processor
512Mb DDR3 RAM; 4GB internal storage memory (of which 2Gb is used by the operating system); slot to add a microSD card up to 32Gb
Capacitive 7-inch touch screen, 16:9 (screen resolution) 5:3 (pixel resolution), 800 x 480
0.3 megapixel front-facing camera
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
Mini HDMI socket for connecting to, eg, a TV to play HD video (you’ll need to buy a cable, one isn’t included)
Mini USB port for connecting to a computer for file transfers and to to connect peripheral devices: keyboard, flash drive, etc (and a cable is included)
Plays 1080p HD video, supports MPEG2, MPEG4, AVS, H.264, WMV, AVI, MP4, RMVB, FLV, MKV

I like the build quality, the speed of operation (on a par with most devices I’ve used and matching your expectations in how quickly something happens when you tap on the screen), the screen’s great resolution, and long battery life (with my moderate use so far – exploring the device, video watching, news reading, a bit of email – it’s days between charges).

Storage Options offers the Scroll Excel 7″ at a pretty keen price – currently, £129.99 is mentioned on their website although I see Amazon UK has it at £139.99, a discount of £10 off the original price. And they reported earlier this month that it was selling very well indeed.

There is a negative about the device, although how big it is depends on what’s important to you. The Scroll Excel 7 doesn’t come with the app you commonly find on many Android devices that lets you connect to the Android Market to download and install or update your apps.

Storage Options say this:

Due to licensing restrictions, the Scroll Excel cannot officially be used to access the Android Marketplace. It does however come with a number of pre-installed apps including Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Aldiko Book Reader, Amazon Kindle, BBC iPlayer, BBC News, es_file_explorer, Evernote, Facebook, MSN Talk, Quick System Info Pro, Slider Me Market Place, TuneIn Radio, Twitter, WildTangent Games and YouTube.The Scroll Excel also comes with access to the Slide Me Market Place where most major apps can be downloaded to the device without issue.

I mention this in my video review. If ease of use for you includes installing or updating your apps with just a tap or two on the screen, then this could be a big issue. There are workarounds, though, as Storage Options mentions (and includes reference to in the device manual). There are also some extreme ones.

I discovered a way to get to the Market, by accident I think, when I installed the Kindle app for Android from Amazon directly, which took me to the Market. I did that today, after I recorded the video review yesterday, and it opens up some interesting usage possibilities I hadn’t considered – the Scroll Excel 7 makes a pretty good Kindle device alternative with a better screen reading experience than the Kindle itself (and it’s in hi-res colour), and the price between the two devices isn’t far apart. The Excel is about the same size as a Kindle, too.

That’s an extra although one you may find as appealing as I do. But as a ‘mainstream’ Android tablet, this Scroll Excel is worth considering if you’re looking for a good-quality and good-value device and you don’t want to venture into iPad-like pricing territory.

This market is evolving very quickly, though. For instance, Dell may be getting into the consumer tablet market later this year (not to be confused with it’s abortive efforts in the business tablet market with the Dell Streak). There’s also Amazon’s Fire rumoured to be coming to the UK in a few months and at a price that will bring pressure to budget-device makers

Still, for a penny under £130, the Scroll Excel 7 is a very nice product at the budget end of the market.

Integrated CIPR news on your desktop – shame about mobile

Posted on January 27, 2012 at 7:21 am UK

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) launched a social media newsroom on January 23. In their words, it “integrates announcements on our website with our Twitter feed, Facebook and LinkedIn pages and with the CIPR Conversation.”

It’s a good example of an organization evolving how it communicates information about itself (and, in this case, about a profession and its membership) and how it enables easier sharing of its content in ways that are measurable, eg, social-share buttons, and linking content in diverse online places.

I heard about the newsroom yesterday when I was out and about in London. I’d just finished a meeting so a moment to check email, Twitter and Google+ on my mobile device. No wifi at that moment but a good connection via 3 UK’s cellular network. A note on G+ from David Philips had the news. Naturally, I clicked the link and headed over in my mobile browser to take a look.

What a disappointment! What I got was the desktop website squeezed onto the 4.3-inch display on my Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone.

SC20120126-141818-2

The news site – indeed, the entire CIPR website – doesn’t offer a version that’s designed for use on a mobile device. As you can see from the screenshot, the site is, in essence, unusable on a mobile device like a smartphone.

Yesterday on Twitter, the CIPR’s Andrew Ross said that they haven’t yet made the step to a mobile site. Matt CIPR added that a mobile version is in the pipeline, “but it should still display ok on most smart phones.”

Hmm, I guess that depends on how you define “ok” in this context. In my initial experience, definitely not ok.

Think about it: you’re out and about, you want to see something on the CIPR’s website – read a news announcement, check some information, sign up for a course, maybe add a comment on The Conversation – but you get only the desktop website on your mobile. And that gives you the desktop experience – not really workable on a mobile device like a phone.

Just try the screen-pinching, squinting, “precision” finger-tapping and swiping in a busy Starbucks, never mind on a crowded bus. And if your cell connection isn’t that good, it will be like watching paint dry as the page attempts to load in all its graphical glory.

Not something you want to do more than once.

Undoubtedly the experience will be better on a larger-screen mobile device, eg, an iPad or one of the myriad Android tablets with their seven- to ten-inch screens. But display is only one part of the picture, as it were – great to be able to clearly see what you want, it’s then how you use that content on a device that you touch to interact, not point and click or hit an enter key.

Whether or not we’re embarking on the “Post PC Era,” there is no question that the “Mobile Era” is here.

Smartphones have become an integral part of people’s daily lives wherever they are: we use smartphones as an extension – even a replacement – of our desktop or laptop computers these days as we multi-task and, whether it’s for business or personal, consume and quickly share other content.

I do hope a CIPR mobile-optimized site comes very soon. In the meantime, enjoy what is a good resource on your desktop.Just don’t expect much if you try it on a mobile.

Related posts:

Social Business – a history defined

Posted on January 20, 2012 at 10:23 am UK

It seems that everyone is talking about social business. Whether it’s IBM launching its SmartCloud for social business, or marketers developing their social business strategies for 2012, the term ‘social business’ means different things to different people. So what does social business actually mean? Guest author Andy Hewitt of Global Dawn offers some perspectives.

We define social business as the creation of shared value for everybody in a business value chain, including the customer and the communities they live in, online or offline. For someone in technology, social business may mean free software, platform businesses or games. For a marketer, it could mean loyalty programmes or social network marketplaces. There is also a CSR angle – social business might apply to an ethical, value-driven business.

Social business isn’t new – it has in fact been around for the past thirty years and continues to evolve. Social business has evolved from multiple sources and is taking business in a new direction.

My company Global Dawn has produced an explanatory infographic to niftily sum up social business over the past three decades, showing all the routes that business has travelled to become more social. More than just being about social media, it’s also about values, customers, collaboration, involvement and engagement.

From the development of micro-finance to crowdsourcing to today’s customer ecosystems, shared value and social business is all about empowering people and creating a more collaborative human-centred business environment.

The Technology Stream

A strong tradition running through social business and dating back to the free software movement and then open source is the idea of contribution, specifically making a contribution to the ecosystem you work within. This tradition has helped build the web as we know it today into a giant, free collaborative resource.

The Marketing Stream

Another strong tradition begins with multi-level marketing and loyalty programs. The web has enhanced the capacity of smart firms to build loyalty by engaging more deeply with customers and by interacting in more equal terms, creating a two-way conversation between marketers and customers.

The Social Stream

Finally, there is the tradition of social itself, beginning with the micro-finance initiatives that were designed to replace development aid in what used to be called the third world. That tradition has informed open innovation, the large mobile ecosystems that flourished first in Kenya, and then crowdsourcing.

As we can see, social business is no buzzword but rather a long tradition that has evolved through the decades. However, we can expect to see many more organisations coming forward, claiming to be social business over the coming 12 months.

Social business is about more than just engagement across social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. A true social business will create shared value for everyone, empowering the people it reaches in a valuable way.

Andy Hewitt is Global Dawn’s Director of Customer Propositions. Global Dawn works with brands to offer bespoke software-as-a-service (SaaS) social business platform packages which enable brands to optimise customer marketing engagement. Andy is responsible for defining the Global Dawn proposition for customers as well as the functionality of its Social Business Engine. Contact: andrew.hewitt@globaldawn.co.

TFL’s stop-start approach to combating vehicle pollution

Posted on January 13, 2012 at 7:03 am UK

As someone who drives into and out of central London quite frequently, I’m as conscious as any road user of the huge traffic congestion that’s a feature of a typical journey, along with consequential environment issues like exhaust emissions and air quality.

So many vehicles, an overloaded transport infrastructure – these are points to ponder as you sit in a rush-hour traffic jam with engine idling, windows shut to insulate you from all that stuff out there, and probably with the climate control set to recirculation.

Although I don’t often suffer the serious jams that are a fixture of the rush-hour traffic reports on Twitter (and on the TV and radio) – I try not to travel during the rush hours so, yes, I’m the luckiest person on the motorways! – whenever I am in one, I’m increasingly thinking of the probable negative environmental impact from vehicle emissions.

You don’t need statistics to tell you that traffic jams + engines idling = something not good for the environment as well as all the creatures that live in it.

So an email the other day from Keith Gardner, Strategy Director at Transport for London, was a timely attention-getter on this subject with a clear call to action:

If you know you are going to be stationary for more than a minute, turning off your engine will reduce harmful emissions. This small change can have a big impact so please help by turning off your vehicle’s engine whilst parked or waiting at the roadside. By doing this we can all breathe cleaner air.

A link in the email leads to a section on the TFL website that contains an infographic, displayed in sections so you can read each element (see the full infographic at the bottom of this page).

A number of things caught my attention about this communication approach to an issue that needs broader awareness:

It’s timely and addresses the matter in a way that encourages you to at least take a look at the attractively-designed infographic, and then download a copy yourself or share it with your online networks via the social web including Twitter and Facebook.
It talks about a driver-behaviour change – turning off your engine if you’ll be stationary for more than about a minute, addressing some popular myths (stop-start doesn’t damage the starter motor in a modern car, for instance).
It presents statistics that will reinforce what you’ve already likely seen elsewhere about the consequences of exhaust emissions, pollution, etc.

Although not mentioned, the TFL’s communication highlights new automotive technology that’s now coming into the mainstream of car offerings – automatic stop-start systems where your engine automatically switches off in specific circumstances and restarts itself when you press in the clutch on a manual-transmission car (I’m not sure how, or even if, that works on an automatic). First introduced some years ago, the tech is being embraced by premium-brand cars (Audi, for example), and is making its way down the pricing chain.

But most people still drive vehicles that don’t have such features, requiring you do it all manually. And that requires a big commitment from drivers to actually do it. Imagine the reaction if you’re the only driver, or one of very few motorists, who has turned off your engine in a traffic jam and it takes you just an extra second or two to get the engine started, into gear and move off. Add road rage to the environmental impact!

Still, communication exercises such as TFL’s must be a good thing as an integral part of other communication and awareness-raising activities if they help raise awareness of the big-picture issue, link it to the local impact of your car’s emissions, and give you an easy solution to actually do something that can make an environmental difference (think of your wallet, too). Whether the TFL’s call to action will be heeded in sufficient numbers to make a measurable difference is another matter.

But what a good (stop-)start!

See the full infographic:

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