Some catch-up views on stuff that has happened since I arrived in Tokyo this week:
Tim O’Reilly comes to the BBC (for the day)
Congrats to my main man Ian Forrester for organising by all accounts a successful day at BBC with Tom O’Reilly. Jimmy Whales, Jeremy Zawodny, Cal Henderson and now Tim O’Reilly. I guess we just need to work out which future employer:), sorry, industry celebrity we should invite next.
Flock
So Flock launched, the social-software brewed version of Firefox. I’ve not downloaded it yet to give it a go (despite Lee giving me a copy before the beta finished).
The biggest issue with a piece of software like this is whether it will help Web 2.0 and social software achieve real critical mass by attracting average web Joes to the table, or will it just be another ‘in’ geek niche tool that comes and goes in 6 months?
I’m not sure yet, but I’ll reserve judgement anyway until I’ve got my hands on it.
Pete Clifton becomes Head of BBC News Interactive
Pete Clifton (currently Editor, BBC New Website) is to become the new Head of BBC News Interactive. Richard Deverell’s departure was a blow to the department, but I can’t think of a better person to take over the helm from “action man Richard” (sorry, in joke).
Congrats to Pete. I know it all sounds like a load of brown nosing but it’s not. Pete has been a massive supporter of backstage.bbc.co.uk from the start, having ‘got’ what we were trying to achieve from the beginning. He really has helped to “make it happen” (to use a former director general’s catchphrase). He’s also a top bloke, and gets the whole conversation with the audience thing – you only have to read the frankness in his weekly column to see that.
Finally, I was also touched to read that Pete cited backstage as one of the areas of the operation he’ll be focusing on during his tenure in the top job. This is, of course, great news for the backstage.bbc.co.uk community, and remix culture in general.
Jo Twist guest presents BBC World Service Go Digital
My good chum Dr Jo Twist is guest presenting BBC World Service’s Go Digital radio show/podcast for a couple of weeks. Congrats to her on getting the gig, apparently it was all a little last minute. I haven’t managed to catch the show yet, but it’s in the mp3 player ready to go. Check out full the show or subscribe to the podcast RSS feed.
Video iPod
Disappointing, yet no doubt Apple zealots will still put it at the top of their Christmas list (assuming they haven’t rushed out to buy one already). With the previous generation sporting a colour screen is almost seemed a travesty for it not to playback video. However in my mind what this really needed was a revolution, not an evolution.
That screen was originally designed just to display menus and song information. Overtime it’s been turned into an album art and photo display – but in my mind video is actually a step to far for a screen that size.
Sofia (who’s not a gamer) has just bought a PSP out here in Japan just because the video playback is so good. Yes, it doesn’t have the storage capacity, but a 1Gig stick is probably sufficient for our needs (especially as most video content has a short shelf life anyway, and it’s value depreciates over time – unlike music).
An iPod in it’s current form factor, but with a screen the size of the entire face of the unit would have been a PSP killer. The much fabled wheel interface could have been emulated with a touch screen on the video display. Oh well.