If BBC Question Time did Mobile

Then it’d be called 361degrees LIVE.

Back in the hey day of mobile-focused video shows, the (now defunct) Mobile Industry Review (MIR) Show was fondly referred to as ‘The Top Gear of Mobile‘, since then, The Really Mobile Project came and went(ish) and – in the emptiness of awesome video – the 361 Degrees podcast has taken its place.

Now in its 3rd season, and featuring the triumvirate of editors from All About Symbian, MIR and Wireless Worker, I can safely say that 361 Degrees is worth the ear-time of anyone who might consider themselves even just a mild mobile geek.

Moreover, last year, at the close of Nokia World 2011, the 361 chaps did their first ever LIVE event. ‘Live’ in that it was recorded in front of a LIVE studio audience* but, with questions from the crowd and an engaging host (you can pay me later, Ben), the evening was a brilliant wrap up to a rather full-on couple of days.

Fast forward eight months and the guys have decided to do it again.

That’s right, 361 Degrees LIVE is coming back next month and YOU can be a part of it!

_______________________________________________

Join the 361 Degrees team and guests for ‘Mobile Question Time’… a format we’ve only slightly borrowed from the BBC.
An invited panel plus Ewan MacLeod and Rafe Blandford will field questions from the audience in a live Q&A recorded for the podcast. Ben Smith will chair.

Panelists:
Ilicco Elia – Head of Mobile at LBi.
Ed Hodges – Head of Mobile, Business & Commercial at Royal Bank of Scotland.
Mark Squires – Head of Communications for Western Europe, Nokia.
Stephen Pinches - Head of Emerging Technologies at Financial Times Group.

Doors: 6:00pm
Panel starts: 7:00pm
Networking until: 10:00pm

This event is generously supported by LBi and Nokia.

_______________________________________________

They’re pitching it as ‘the Question Time of Mobile’ (albeit with less idiots, maybe) and, when you sign up, you’ll be able to submit questions to be asked to the panel on the night.

If you have even only a passing interest in the mobile industry, then you should definitely consider going. I really do mean it when I say that the three hosts represent the cream of mobile expertise this country has to offer and the panelists they’ve lined up know their onions as well.

I’m going. You should too.

 

 

*I say ‘studio audience’, what I mean is ‘bunch of rowdy mobile bloggers holed up in the bottom of a pub somewhere near the Excel centre’

 

“Fish where the fish are”

It’s a wonderful phrase.

You hear it often in this here industry of ours: it’s a ‘quick win’, an ‘obvious’ way forward – you do a spot of audience analysis, find out where people are talking [about you] and then go and make them buy stuff, right? Simple.

Except, it’s not that easy.

There’s more to it than that.
Much more.

First you need to make sure you’ve got the right equipment: is the line strong enough for the fish you’re aiming to hook? Have you got the right bait? Have you brought enough bait? Scratch that, do you even need bait? Perhaps a spinner will work in its place? What hooks will you use?

Hell, have you even organised a boat?

Once you’ve got your kit sorted, then you need to hone your technique: how do you cast? How long should you wait? What do you do when you get a bite? Do you reel in immediately or take your time and let the fish come to you? Again, all things that you need to consider.

Like any good fishing trip, you need time and you need patience. You’re not going to catch Jaws overnight (you might, there is such a thing as beginner’s luck). But know how long you’re going out for and know what fish you’re trying to catch and, crucially, how many fish you need to catch to put a smile on your face.

Moreover, why are you here? Are you fishing for game, or for your supper? How dependent are you on this next catch? If I give you a fish now, would that be OK? Or would you rather work at it and catch it yourself, later?

Remember, in nearly all instances, chance favours the prepared mind and fishing where the fish are is all well and good as long as you know how.

Be prepared.

Go fish.

 

The Sky is Falling

For Bond, at least; Skyfall.

The trailer has just been released and I can’t stop watching; it is excellent.

Admittedly I am a huge fan of Craig’s Bond, arguably closest to the Bond of the books that there ever has been, but again he looks fantastic in Skyfall.

There is so much in this trailer that makes brings me to the edge of my seat. First and foremost: the imagery. Already this looks like quite possibly the most gorgeous Bond film to date. The colours, the composition; all of it just looks so visually sumptuous the teaser just compels you to watch it over and over and over.

Second up, the feel of the film. Alright the trailer above is only 90secs but still, I get a definite distinct feeling of difference between this and anything, of recent years at least, that’s been before. With Sam Mendes in the driving seat, I am unsurprised. Both American Beauty and Road to Perdition deal with the man-under-pressure (albeit varying degrees and kinds of pressure) situation with equally satisfying self-destructive aplomb and if Craig’s Bond is anything, he is self-destructive.

Several years ago, right after Die Another Day came out, I bought the full set of Bond movies (the one in the fancy metal case) and watched them all, one a night, over three weeks.

AND IT WAS AWESOME

Things I learned:

  • George Lazenby is better than people remember (and got a bum deal after Connery)
  • Roger Moore is my least favourite Bond (we’re lucky we made it back to today)
  • Timothy Dalton was unfortunately ahead of his time (and more Bourne than Bond)
  • Sean Connery should’ve quit earlier

And finally, the one thing that stands out is that, believe it or not, there is a single thread that flows throughout. They just connect somehow. Even though they feel different, from film to film, they are all interlock together. So what if Moonraker was brought forward (and taken out of the order of the canon) as a response to Star Wars, who cares if some of the jokes during the 70s were TERRIBLE; the films just work.

Pierce Brosnan did a superb job of reinvigorating the franchise (albeit later than originally planned) and now, Daniel Craig is here and his films are undeniably good. The darker, more vicious Quantum of Solace is a fave.

In closing: with the tonality of Craig and the emotive & visual depth of Mendes, the third of this generation’s Bond is set to be the best one yet.

Between now and then, do yourself a favour and read the books. Go and (re)discover Bond the way he was originally written. Then make your own mind up.

Whatley out.

 

 

Five things on Friday #20

Five things of note for the week ending Friday May 18th, 2012

1. Mother of Dragons Disney T-Shirt
Game of Thrones fan? You’re gonna love this –

Available to buy from Etsy (warning: the model used has seen happier days)

2. The Networked Urban Environment
I have few industry heroes and, ever since I saw his TED Talk on ‘Our Mobile Phones‘, Jan Chipchase has been one of them. His latest post, ‘The Networked Urban Environment‘ is (so far) a great read. I’m about halfway through it at the moment and it’s one of the better future-gazing pieces I’ve read in a while.

Imagine never having to look for a parking space ever again. Imagine that from here on out, this problem is solved. Fast-forward to 2025. You’re driving from Brooklyn to Manhattan…because driving in New York City, and everywhere else, has become much simpler a task than it was a decade or so before… or has it?

Definitely worth a look.

3. The OTHER inbox in Facebook
Look, some of you are going to know about this and have known about it for ages. For the rest of you (like me, about two days ago), this will completely and utterly blow your mind.

A couple of nights ago, the girl casually mentions how useful it is that the ‘other’ inbox is on Facebook’s iPad app.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The other inbox on Facebook, I’ve just found it on the iPad app. Cool.”

“Hang on, rewind, what is this ‘other’ inbox.”

“The other inbox.”

“No, you’re just repeating the same thing.. what is the other inbox.”

She shows me.
It blows my mind.

It turns out that if someone isn’t your friend on Facebook and then they message you, their messages end up in the other inbox.

This is ridiculous. First off, this is NOT obvious. I’ve missed a whole bunch of messages from people I’ve met from all over the world! Second, this will also explain why a whole bunch of messages I’ve sent to non-friends haven’t responded either (at least, that’s what I’m telling myself).

Admittedly, a fair amount of the stuff in there is spam, but still – I’m into double figures on the amount of messages I’ve missed. I’m gutted. But hey, I know about it now and will check it more regularly.

Every day’s a school day.

4. The Marketing Academy: The New Batch
Two years ago, almost to the day, I was waking up in Maidenhead to commence my first few days as a Marketing Academy scholar. Next week, the next batch of lads and ladies to go through the year will kick-off their own journey. One of them is a really good friend of mine and I’m chuffed to bits for him. Best of luck to all of the new starters.

You’re in for an amazing year!

5. Howard Stern / Sacha Baron Cohen
An extremely rare out of character interview with Sacha Baron Cohen, (thank you Howard Stern). Cohen says himself this is only the third time he’s ever been interviewed as himself (preferring to turn up to talkshows etc as his creations such as Ali G, Borat or, most recently, The Dictator) and is clearly a fan of Stern’s work.

Engaging and enlightening throughout, I’ve been listening to it while writing this blog post and it really is brilliant. Featuring hilarious anecdotes about the comedy-writing process, the dangers of filming Bruno in Arkansaw and the unforeseen perils of attempting to sneak the ashes of Kim Jong Il into TheAcademy Awards

Listen now, before it gets taken down.

___

Bonuses – This Could Hurt for iOS looks pretty good (I’ll be downloading as soon as I hit publish); this bookcase + chair hybrid just made my ‘want’ list; and these 1950’s takes on the Batman universe from artist Denis Medri are fantastic. Poison Ivy + Bane are definite faves.

Liked this week’s edition? Hit the Tweet button and tell your friends.

Whatley out.

Five things on Friday #19

Five things of note for the week ending Friday May 11th, 2012

1. Back to the Future Business Card of WIN
Tom Wilson played ‘Biff‘ in the Back to the Future films. Apparently, he carries a business card that he gives to fans to answer all those BTTF questions in one.

Perfect.

2. Some (more) decent lengthy articles
First up, ‘Frequent fliers who flew too much‘ is a brilliant read about unlimited first-class tickets that used to be available from American Airlines.

“Creative uses seemed limitless. When bond broker Willard May of Round Rock, Texas, was forced into retirement after a run-in with federal securities regulators in the early 1990s, he turned to his trusty AAirpass to generate income. Using his companion ticket, he began shuttling a Dallas couple back and forth to Europe for $2,000 a month.”

You can see why they stopped it. Have a read.

Next, I’m halfway through this fantastic interview with Joss Whedon. He directed, amongst a whole host of other things, The Avengers. And he is awesome.

Finally, Kathryn Schulz on ‘Internal Time‘ is proving to be a fantastic read. Purely because I never thought I’d ever read the line ‘Modern human beings are not much like mimosas’. Check it.

3. 100,000 LED Lights Illuminate a Japanese River

4. Retro-active Foursquare tracking
For some reason (and this is proper geeky) I love the idea that you can track your check-ins with GCal. Use case: ‘Had a meeting with Robbie the other week at that cool place on Wardour St., what was it called?’ – which means I now have a 4sq layer in my Google Calendar.

So simple.

Via.

5. Useful Apps / Plug-ins
Attachments.me is a great Chrome plug-in for searching through Gmail attachments. It’s proved to be an absolute life-saver lately. And their CEO, Jesse Miller, is a thoroughly nice chap too.

Build apps in iOS? Take a look at Alau.me. It’s like bit.ly, but for app download tracking.

——-

Bonuses -  Stunning Star Wars toy photography (click) and Avengers Concept Art (below) have both made my day today. Until next time…

‘Aftermath’ – click to embiggen

Current attempts at television-based social media integration are failing, hard.

How do we fix them?

To find the solution, we first need to fully understand the problem.

2screen / dual-screen / second-screen — all are different names for the kind of integration that I’m referring to and it’s something I’ve been kicking around in my head ever since I went to my first 2screen event back in October 2010.

It was a big deal then and it’s a bigger deal now.

With the increase of iPad penetration and the continuous growth of the smartphone market, the notion of 2screening is becoming more and more commonplace. In fact, a recent Neilsen survey found that 80% of tablet and 78% of smartphone owners used their device while watching TV at least once during a 30 day period.

In the app-world, services such as ZeeBox and Sky Sports for iPad are doing very good things indeed. Both integrating news, stats and social media streams into your second screen; providing a suitable data-based accompaniment to your visual consumption.

However, I want to talk about television-based social media integration (not app-based).
This kind of stuff –

http://content.screencast.com/users/whatleydude/folders/Jing/media/742fdfb4-9a02-4998-91c7-e8508e1b8b6a/jingswfplayer.swf

That’s how Sky One’s ‘Got to Dance‘ handles it and many other broadcasters follow suit. BBC One is getting in on the act too, here using a Twitter wall backstage for the UK edition of ‘The Voice‘.

Twitterwall

What do these examples all have in common?

Fundamentally, they are all bringing (or at least attempting to bring) the conversation from the second screen, to the first. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, kind of defeats the object of the second screen.

Whether it’s reading out tweets during the credits of Celebrity Juice on ITV2 or talking about Facebook wall posts inbetween programmes on BBC3, broadcasters seem to be obsessed with sharing (read ‘owning’) viewer social media.

Recognising that conversation takes place away from their platform(s), TV + social media work best together when television directs its audience to the conversation medium, as opposed to smashing them in the face with it via another.

Sorority Girls, an E4 TV show, flashes up their hashtag both at the start and at the end of their show as well as when going into ad breaks.

This is good! This is television saying –

‘Hey, perhaps some people are actually watching our shows when they’re on and, instead of going to the kettle during an ad break, they’re turning to Twitter!’

– and giving the audience a your hashtag at this point is a very good idea. You own it, you guide it, you track it.

Ignoring The Voice for a second, the BBC actually do this quite well, both with Question Time and Have I Got News For You, for example:

via Roo Reynolds

Little pointers like this give you, the viewer, the option of tracking (and joining) the back-channel. If you understand what it means, you join the conversation. Perfect.

I guess this is one big plea to broadcasters to just stop reading out tweets and Facebook updates on the telly. Seriously, it just doesn’t work.

Finally, and returning to the opening image of this post, the new trailer for Prometheus aired recently during the first break of Homeland. Channel 4’s own announcer was employed also, asking viewers to tweet their reactions using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis.

So far, so good. Right? Right.

Except that, 20mins later (during the next ad break), those very tweets were displayed onscreen for all to see.

via Digital Examples

Yes that’s actually a TV ad you’re seeing there, with (clearly moderated) tweets displaying instead of your usual commercial break. Mental.

Reports state that this activity reached a potential audience of 15m users. (Note: POTENTIAL audience. That’s the number of every tweet with the hashtag, multiplied by their sum of their followers – ie: not a real number). And while this kind of exercise is a great advert for Twitter, it leaves existing fans and users feeling a bit… empty.

In closing, encouraging viewers to join an online conversation is one thing, replaying that conversation to them 20mins later is just a pain in the oculars.

Discuss.