Stories
Why BBC3, BBC4?
Conservative culture front bencher Jeremy Hunt is asking what’s the point of BBC3 and BBC4? It’s a good time to ask the question. In an interview with the Independent, Hunt queried why £100m was being spent, merely to attract “very, very small” audiences. This is some way short of calling for the channels to be … Read more
Whatever happened to the email app?
Is the email program dead? Did the whole world just migrate away from Hotmail over to Facebook when we weren’t looking? Does anyone else care?
Weirdly, the answer seems to be yes, yes, and no. Email has never gone away, and its advantages are unique: but the email client seems to be going the way of the Gopher.
Which is a bit odd when you consider how useful it still is. Nobody knows your email address unless you tell them, and messages are private by default. These are still the internet’s universal protocols for private communication, something Web 2.0 types only grudgingly admit exists.
Home streaming is ‘killing music’
Two weeks ago a US market research company caused a panic in the music business when it reported sales of MP3s had declined. DRM has all but disappeared from digital music, while music catalogs and retailer choice have grown… and yet the volume of digital song sales fell. Ironically, it’s the major labels’ darling Spotify that’s bearing the sharp end of the backlash.
Two thirds of people don’t download unlicensed music at all, it’s a minority pursuit. But that “honest” mid-market is not only losing the habit of buying CDs, it hasn’t acquired the habit of buying digital songs either. NPD found that between 2007 and 2009, about 24 million Americans stopped paying for music in any form.
Mystic Met Office abandons long range forecasts
The Met Office has confirmed it is to abandon long range weather forecasts, finally acknowledging criticism. The most recent forecasts were so inaccurate, that even the BBC is reconsidering whether to appoint an alternative supplier, such as Accuweather, after 88 years of continuous service from the 1,700-strong MoD unit.
The Mystic Met predicted a barbecue summer for 2009, and the third washout in a row, with the wettest July since 1914, duly followed. A mild winter was then given a high probability, only for the UK to suffer its coldest winter for 30 years. Yet Met Office staff received performance-related pay bonuses worth over £12m over 5 years, it was revealed last week, in response to a Parliamentary question.
Photographers rue Mandy’s copyright landgrab
A little-reported corner of the sprawling Digital Economy Bill reduces photographers to serf status – and concerns are rippling into the wider community. Photographers say bad wording and technical ignorance are to blame for Clause 42, calling it a “luncheon voucher” for greedy publishers. “The Bill contains no deterrent to the creation of orphans, no … Read more
LibDems score copyright coup
The LibDems’ surprise amendment to strengthen UK courts’ powers over digital copyright infringement passed late last night, despite Labour and Tory opposition, replacing the government’s original, preferred proposal in the Digital Economy Bill.
Out goes the ability of the Minister to extend copyright legislation by statutory instrument – something earlier Ministers have already exercised, in practice. In comes the ability of the courts to block network addresses based on infringement notifications.
Rescuing Palm
You know you’re in trouble when your revenue is $1bn less than you’d expected for the year. But a few companies might envy being in Palm’s position. It has an excellent product it can’t sell, and in webOS an asset that wealthy rivals – Nokia, Samsung or Microsoft – would pick up in a snap.
LibDems back copyright takedowns
Two LibDem peers have tabled an amendment allowing the Courts to grant injunctions against ISPs – blocking off sections of the internet found to host infringing material. It’s similar to the DMCA-style proposal punted by the BPI in the new year, which we exclusively revealed.
Injunctions are already a legal tool against infringement, but the LibDem Lord gives them a new scope and spin.
Suits 2.0 at the BBC
Bureaucracy is the one sure winner in the BBC’s strategic review – the suits and wonks. It’s sort of like natural selection turned upside: in a changing environment, the most useless survive.
Mark Thompson’s review, leaked to the Times today, was supposed to review the Corporation’s output, and it could have helped made inroads into this culture, but it hasn’t. And although the “cuts” are trumpeted to fall on digital operations such as web and DAB, you know what will happen next.
Of course bureaucracy has been the winner of the past ten years – the public sector middle manager on private sector wages and perks is as much a symbol of the era as was the Victorian mill owner. The BBC is no exception. Whether it’s a ‘crisis’ (Ross/Brand) or an opportunity (Web 2.0), layers of process are added at the corporation.