Neville Hobson

Welcome to my website. I’m a believer in an Internet for everyone, decentralized and accessible to all. Yet still half the planet has no access. I’m an early adopter and player with social media, yet mostly seeing how it works to benefit platforms and advertisers who show little genuine care for the rights and privacy of the users of those platforms. And I’m an experimenter with Web 3, trying to balance the enormous possibilities with the risks in order to see what’s next.

Here – at the intersection of business, communication and technology – I analyze and discuss trends, behaviours and practices in social and digital communication to help you (and I) understand the new landscapes and what they mean for each of us. Thanks for visiting.

Latest Articles

  • Podcasting in the mainstream on show in London
    Podcasting in the UK is very much alive and well if even half of what I heard and saw at The Podcast Show 2023 in London last week is any indicator. Held at the Business Design Centre in Islington, this conference and exhibition event ran throughout the week with the…
  • Bluesky leads the alt-Twitter pack
    Since Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter last October, much discussion has ensued on finding an alternative social networking platform where unhappy Twitter users could migrate from Twitter and leave the uncertainty and chaos behind. In the past month, one name has gathered significant momentum and come to the…
  • Of Zadok the Priest, Katy Perry, Take That, and climate change
    I have a few takeaways from this Coronation Weekend of pomp, pageantry and rock ‘n’ roll I’d like to share that characterised the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday 6 May and the coronation concert at Windsor Castle on Sunday 7 May. Like millions of people in the UK…
  • The Twitter end game
    The phrase “end of days” came to my mind as I reviewed a number of critical news reports during this past week about the current state of Twitter. The forthcoming demise of Twitter, sooner or later, is the strong thread running through all of this content, assessing the situation and…
  • Rishi Sunak connects on LinkedIn Live
    Today the UK government launched Business Connect, described as a new conference that champions the dynamism of UK businesses to unlock innovation and grow the economy. Or, as The Times puts it, a charm offensive with business. It’s also a means by which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak can engage in…
  • A Nostalgic Journey through the Rise and Demise of the Blogroll
    In the early days of the twenty-first century, when the term “social media” was but a whisper in the digital wind, blogrolls played an instrumental role in the development of online communities. A blogroll – a curated list of links to other blogs that a blogger would include on their…

Asides / nevillehobson.fyi

  • Yesterday May 27, 2023, was a milestone date in the history of WordPress, marking the 20th year since the first version 0.70 was publicly released on May 27, 2003. In all, the open-source software has gone through 47 public versions over the past 20 years to its current version 6.2.2, […]
  • It’s fair to say that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 foldable smartphone has greatly changed how I use a mobile phone. It’s not just the foldable aspect even though I get a huge kick out of using the Flip 4 for Zoom or WhatsApp video calls where the L-shape […]
  • Last week, Bill Gates published a lengthy essay about artificial intelligence and what he believes it heralds for humanity and the world. He introduced his story by recounting what he had witnessed last year with the results of a challenge he had set the team at OpenAI with an AI […]
  • Masterpiece follows the journey of a Coca-Cola bottle from one iconic painting to the next as it makes its way to a thirsty student in need of inspiration. The VFX team at Electric Theatre Collective and creative agency Blitzworks used a mix of live action shots, digital effects and AI […]
  • Rummaging in my magpie’s nest – aka the cupboard where old gadgets, cables and what not live – I came across this absolute gem: a Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC that was launched in April 2000. My original recollection was that I bought this in 2002. However this model, the 3630, […]

Podcasts

For Immediate Release
The Small Data Forum Podcast
Ideas to Innovation Season 2
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