Hey y’all it’s Thea here again with my third, and dare I say “final”, Cannes Diary from my first visit to MIPCOM earlier this month (Incidentally here are blogs # 1 and # 2 – if you missed them…)

Today I thought I’d talk to you about the YouTube presentation at MIPCOM – called “The Next Generation”.

Most of us, particularly those who are on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, watch at least one video on a daily basis. Well if the stats (below) in Patrick Walker’s talk are anything to go by anyway…

Since we at NSDesign love our “stats” – both reading them and sharing them, I thought this would be a good time and place to share some staggering ones with you:

ON YOUTUBE THERE ARE:

• 3 billion views per day. (a 50% increase from the year before). BTW That constitutes to about half of the world’s population watching a video a day.
• 600 million unique world wide views per month (from 31 countries and 40+languages)
• 400 million youtube views daily on mobile (doubled in the past year)
• 350 million devices that youtube is enabled for (smart phones, smart televisions, game consoles – “that’s increasing dramatically”)
• 100 million times a week – “youtube is social” – getting shared (an example is…)
• 300 years worth of embedded video is consumed on Facebook every day
• 600 tweets per minute contain a youtube video link
• 20,000 partners, specifically revenue-generating partners on youtube
• 48 hours of video is uploaded every single minute of every single day

 Youtube’s aim at MIPCOM seemed to be to align themselves with more revenue-generating partners, and possibly to promote their True View (skip-able) advertising and Playbook (which I’ve had for months and months, but like so many e-books I download, still sits on my desktop gathering the proverbial cyber dust).

Video is where it’s at and anyone who is a content creator of any type should be utilising YouTube. Businesses, musicians, video/tv/film makers – to name but a few – should all have a presence on there and be adding content to it regularly. But like everything in life, it’s a matter of finding the time to go from idea, to filming, to editing, to uploading, and only then promoting it.

Do you have a video channel? How often do you update it? How many subscribers do you have? If you subscribe to our channel, we’ll subscribe to yours! [Well if it's original content you're creating. I'm not gonna subscribe to people who only post babies singing or dancing, or cats being cute...]

Hey y’all, it’s Thea here again. Earlier this year I penned a few diary blogs from my trip home to the Silicon Valley – in particular to a mobile conference at Stanford and a day trip to Google. So it occurred to me to do something similar for my recent trip to the South of France.

First, it is probably worth pointing out that the opportunity to go to Cannes arose via social media, LinkedIn, in particular.

You see, I came across a post on a group that the opportunity for a (partially) “funded” trip to MIPCOM in Cannes presented itself.

For those of you, who like me, weren’t aware of what MIP was – it’s conference that caters toward content of all types – largely that meant television, but also games, films, technology and even social media applications too.

You’d be amazed at just how big this event was. The absolute biggest global content producers/promoters were there – Disney, Sony, YouTube, Fox, NBC International – to name just a few.

One thing that became readily apparent was that big or small – we’re all in the same boat vying for unique ways to capture consumers through content and find ways to monetize it. The second thing that was most apparent was just how challenging that is becoming for all of us – the niche companies like mine, the middle ground and even for the big players too.

TV’s ALL ABOUT THE SECOND SCREEN AND THE SOCIAL

A few of the top buzz terms discussed at MIP were – “Transmedia” and also the concept of the “second screen”. I’ll save the former for another day, but generally speaking, on the notion of second screens – the primary screen would be a television, and the secondary might be a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Yet these days there it’s been cited that there are more handsets than televisions around the world – so one might question if television has now become the second screen. (That too is another discussion for another day).

One statistic being banded about was how something like 60-65% of American teenagers were watching television but doing something else at the same time.

Picture above – watching my father’s Californian TV on mine in Glasgow.

Well, I’d argue that it’s not just the teenagers…

Months ago on here, I blogged about the Evolution of my TV viewing, through my slingbox player, wherever I am in the world, I can watch TV with my father who is at home in California. Most days we view shows together, while having a Skype chat window open to discuss what we’re viewing. Did I mention that my dad will be eighty on his next birthday? So it’s not all about the kids, folks.

Technology these days enables us to engage with others while shows are airing – allowing us to vote, discuss, play along with etc.

Though it’s possible in a variety of ways now it certainly looks like it will become even more common place in the coming year or so especially if Anthony Rose has anything to say about it.

Anthony is the man behind Kazaa and the relaunch of BBC’s iPlayer. He is now poised to launch the “next big thing” – Zeebox - a real-time platform for social TV viewing.

Initially starting as an iPad app – you’ll be able to following with your friends and contacts on Twitter and Facebook, and tag content, but as it progresses, broadcasters may have widgets for certain programs.

At some point, due to your own preferences and tags, advertising will be targeted to you, and it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy things straight from it too.

Zeebox – is set to launch any time now. We’ll see if it lives up to its hype.

In any event, to a content creator and consumer like myself, it is an exciting and socially vibrant time.

Following the recent Riots across England, the UK Government is considering the possibility of “shutting down” social media in times of trouble.  Was social media the cause?..  Is pressing the off button the answer?..

The following personal opinions expand on my comments which featured on the recent “Drum Scottish Media Podcast” – listen to it on SoundCloud, or find it on Itunes.  Apologies in advance for the “note-like” style of this post – That’s what these were, my notes, and so don’t judge my grammar and punctuation!

The Government reaction…

It’s not unusual for governments to have a knee jerk reaction… to be seen to be doing something extreme under extreme circumstances, and the rioting was certainly extreme.

Last weeks news about the 2 chester men jailed for 4 years each shows that the government and the courts are looking to be seen as acting strongly – some would say disproportinatley, and their overall reaction to social media’s role in this is similar…

..but I’d personally hope that even they see the initial response as overkill, and potentially more damaging than good…

 To clarify what the Government have actually said so far…

Specifically, Home Secretary Theresa May who plans to sit down with the likes of Blackberry, Twitter and Facebook etc, to discuss the issues:

“Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and messaging services like Blackberry Messenger have been used to coordinate criminality, and stay one step ahead of the police… I will convene a meeting with ACPO (The Association of Chief Police Officers) , the police and representatives from the social media industries to work out how we can improve the technological and related legal capability of the police.”

She goes on to say:

“Among the issues we will discuss is whether we should disrupt messaging services when trouble is being planned.”

This is almost a copy of what David Cameron had said earlier in the week which was:

“We are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality,”

 The tone of all of these govrnment comments is pretty much a damning one for the social media tools..  but what we’ve got to remember, are that they are just tools…  just ways that allow people to converse and share info, and chat,… so…

Should governments have the power to turn off social media during riots and unrest?

Some people will think this is a good thing – but – where does it stop…?  Jam all the mobile phone signals..?  Turn off the internet?  Burn all the notepads and pencils? – I mean seriously – do they think that restricting use of the tools will stop certain people mistreating them?…  

Look at Egypy, look at Libya, look at China…  all places that have banned and limited the use of social media tools – did it stop people using them?  Of course not – did it encourage them to use them more?  Yes it did….

The GOOD of social media…

The other thing that I feel strongly about is the way the media report on the use of social media…  the same way that that computer games are the cause of street violence and car jacking, and the TV is the cause of obesity.  It’s way to easy to highlight the BAD..  but everything has an element of bad in it – and often the good is forgotten about….

Well, just as looters have used tech to co-ordinate, Londoners have resorted to their own methods of reacting to the situation in a crowd-sourced manner.

A hashtag started trending in relation to the cleanup: #RiotCleanup and another response has been to start mapping where incidents occurred.  Other uses have helped to actually catch the rioters…  CatchaLooter (@Catchalooter on Twitter), and numerous blogs have been setup where people are encouraged to upload pictures of looters.

***Combine this with the new facebook facial recognition – and you’ve got a system that’s potentially more effective – response times – for fighting crime than any police system!**

All good uses of Social media to help with the aftermath…

Is this a form of citizen journalism, or community empowerment – or Is this advocating a new form of citizen vigilantism? Or is the just a faster response than the Police would ever be capable of without the public’s help…  the police are doing it themselves now..(see Greater Manchester example below)

And of course there’s the great Scottish example, where it seems that the whole of Scotland on facebook, turned on the guy who setup his “Let’s start a riot in Glasgow”..  with people en-masse reporting him to facebook and the authorities, and the inevitable follow up arrest!..  Don’t think that got any media attention outside Scotland?

The point is – to say that Social Media is used for “plotting violence, disorder and criminality” is absolutely true – by a small minority…  a fact that I think is conveniently forgotten when the government wants to be seen to be taking tough action. 

The role of the police…

One of Thersa May’s comments that I do agree with…

… “work out how we can improve the technological and related legal capability of the police.”

I think that Is a good thing – the police usage – and probably even their basic understanding of some of these tools is so mixed – some of them get it, some don’t….

For example – The official Metrepolitan police twitter feed – has tweeted 640 times in 2 years…  (most of them in the past few weeks funnily enough – a bit of damage limitation I’m guessing), remains a broadcast channel for them, with virtually ZERO interaction with the public…41,000 followers, and they follow back 10.  By no means a good case study in Twitter usage on how to engage an audience…

Even when some of the individual forces who have been doing it better have gotten it wrong…  you’ll maybe have seen reports yesterday about one of the suspected rioters having his home burnt down vigilante style…  how did this happen?  Because Greater Manchester Police tweeted his name and address – before the guy has even been convicted!??  And this from a force that up until yesterday were seen to do social media well, and had a previously good record of engaging with the community through twitter…

But credit where credit’s due -  some of the individual forces are doing it much better…  Sussex Police for example…  they run a realtime blog, and utilise twitter to keep the public updated..  so you can imagine it was heavily used over the past couple of weeks…  But they recently thanked the community for engaging with them on twitter, by finding out the official news rather than flooding the phonelines as would have been the case in the past…

And to be a little fairer to Manchester – they have used the tools for good as well…

GMP launches #shopalooter campaign.
Give us info and make the looters pay for their crimes..
Upload info at http://bit.ly/c3q1qk

So – if we ban the tools  to limit the BAD from social media, then we limit all the good as well….  And that’s even before we begin to talk about freedom of expression, and access to information, and human rights…

Legislation and new laws?

A statement by the Police saying “that anyone inciting violence on social networks will have to deal with the authorities.”  – OF COURSE!!??!!

But does the current law allow them to do so…  or are today’s laws out of date for this Generation Y public.

Cameron:

“I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers. Police were facing a new circumstance where rioters were using the BlackBerry Messenger service, a closed network, to organise riots. We’ve got to examine that and work out how to get ahead of them.”

 The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act already allows them to get access to BBM messages or other social network material once an order has been issued, so actually, social media is no different really from the phone system and the postal system, which can be intercepted if the police can identify suspects in advance.

But to go further and to have live monitoring of random conversations across BBM or Facebook etc – this would require new laws, a huge investment in police time, and strong involvement from the various networks themselves.

Questions

Should the networks be more proactive about banning people and take some responsibility?

Should blackberry, facebook and twitter etc have stronger partnerships with the Police and other agencies to allow the trouble to be identified earlier..  to flush out who the people are, and to auto-report certain things to the police?

Or should the Police and authorities have the right to just shut it down..?

…all of the above – probably very doable, but all opening a whole can of worms with regard privacy and civil liberties! 

Any thoughts?

Skype, the online telephone and instant messaging app, has bought the GroupMe messaging app in order to compete in the mobile group messaging space.

GroupMe lets users share texts, photos and locations in private groups. It won the ‘Breakout award’ at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive awards.  The conference is a major event in the tech industry and a reliable indicator of its trends.

Skype is rumoured to have bought GroupMe for US$80m (£48.5m). The start-up, which is based in New York, sees 100 million messages a month sent through its platform.

Group messaging is seen to be the next hot trend in social media, with Facebook, Apple and Google all launching their own versions. All of the social media platforms are competing with BlackBerry, whose BBM messaging service is hugely popular, especially with 16-24 year olds.

Tony Bates, chief executive of Skype, said: “We think the mobile group messaging space is very important. It means furthering the breaking down of barriers to global communications.”
Skype itself may be bought out in the near future. In May of this year, Microsoft signed a deal to acquire it for US$8.5bn (£5bn). This is subject to approval by the European Commission before the deal can close. It has already been approved by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Adobe has unveiled its new web design programme.

Muse allows graphic designers to create and publish websites without having to write code or work within restrictive templates.

The programme uses web standards including HTML 5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Its beta version is currently available as a free preview from the Adobe website and then a full version will go on sale in early 2012.

It is targeted primarily at designers and artists who are used to working with print, enabling them to work online without having to learn code. As such, Muse is built on a process that is very similar to InDesign, one of the most popular graphic design programmes on the market.

The programme provides a full set of pre-coded widgets for creating interactive site elements, allowing designers to create effects such as lightboxes and navigation menus. It automatically generates all HTML, CSS and scripting for the design and allows users to publish from within the programme.

In a further bid to make the programme as easy to use as possible, Muse also offers sitemaps, master pages and flexible tools. It also allows users to embed code from sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Google Maps: “Muse was built with the print designer in mind. It allows designers who are not coders to create unique, professional websites as easily as producing a layout in InDesign.

“This is an end-to-end solution with interactive elements like slideshows, tool tips, remote rollovers and lightboxes. It allows the designer to do things that only a hand-coder could do.”

Google has launched a new service designed to improve website loading times by up to 60%.

Page Speed Service is the latest addition to Google’s product portfolio. It is aimed at webmasters hoping to improve their page loading times.

The service works by fetching websites through Google’s service. It then automatically rewrites them using web performance best practice before running them back through Google’s servers to the end user.

The result is a massive reduction in page loading times – something that can make the difference between people staying on your page or leaving because it is taking too long to load.

Google says that it improved website loading speeds by 25 to 60% during its testing phase. It also offers an online test facility to give people an idea of the rate of improvement that they can expect should they use the service.

Experts say that the service is basically a web hosting facility that can work as an effective backup to your own web hosting provision.

The service is running for free for a limited period of time only. Webmasters interested in the service need to sign up as soon as possible in order to benefit from the cost-free phase.

Google has not revealed its cost plans yet, but has stated that the service will be “competitive”.

Think about these, discuss them with colleagues, or write your thoughts and answers in comments…

 1. What will the “essential function” be that transforms QR codes from a nice idea into something most people use every day?

 2. Will newspaper paywalls succeed or eventually be dismantled and regarded as a failure?

 3. What will social media look like 5 years from now? Will Facebook,Twitter and Google+ still exist? Who’ll be biggest? How will they have changed?

 4. Tell me about one Tweet that sticks in your mind.

 5. Am I right to be slightly reluctant about putting everything “in the cloud”?

A visit to my in-laws for Sunday lunch yesterday afternoon culminated in the obligatory look through my father in laws’ photos on his Apple TV.

He’s got it plugged into the  big telly in the living room and played his favourite classical music while the slide show worked its way through years of pictures carefully digitised and stored on his Apple iMac in the study upstairs. The most recent pictures had all been taken in the RAW format and when I looked at the sheer number of pictures along with the massive list of songs available through his Apple TV a question occurred to me.

“How much storage does your iMac have?” I asked. “A terabyte”, he replied.

Suddenly I was transported back to the 3rd year Standard Grade Computing Studies class at school. The teacher was expaining storage. He ran through Bits, Bytes, Kilobytes and Megabytes, and when he got to a thousand Megabytes he said “We would call that a Gigabyte but we’ll never have to worry about them.”

It was 1993 and the rest is history.

Then last night I was reading the new Stuff magazine and their feature on Cloud Computing where of course storage is unlimited and in theory ALL  our music, pictures, newspaper articles can be stored forever and accessed at any time, wherever we are, without taking up any space in the physical world.

And then it hit me. Fast forward 40 years from now (hopefully more) when I’m ready to leave this wonderful world. And I hand over to my children and grandchildren the password for my DropBox account.

Then, they’d be able to access every photo I’ve taken, every piece of music I’ve listened to, everything I’ve written, everything I’ve read; in short, the entire digital input and output of my life from now on.

Imagine we’d had that information about our grandparents, many of whom lived at a time when a colour photograph was seen as a precious commodity. How much more would we know about how they lived, their personalities and what went on? And how much richer will our interactions with our own grandchildren be if they’re able to access what made us tick when we were in our prime instead of trying to work us out from hazy memories and what we feel able to share with them.

Will we all live forever in The Cloud?

Hey folks, it’s Thea here again, ruminating about last Friday. You see, our designer Paul and I attended the rather erroneously-named Highland Fling 2011 Web Conference in Edinburgh! (Now, I know I’m only an American, so my geography can be a little patchy, but since when is Edinburgh considered the Highlands?)

I digress…It was an all day event, with an audience of more than a hundred attendees listening to half a dozen speakers from England, Scotland and a fellow American, too.

There we’re half a dozen talks on Content Management Systems (CMS), HTML5, the Apple Look, Accessibility and even a talk on Why Simple Isn’t. (NOTE: Link to slide presentations that I could find at the bottom of the page).

There were all types of people in the room, from designers and developers, to project managers and company directors – all with one thing in common an interest in Web Development.

I started building websites back in 1995, teaching myself HTML in notepad, moving on to tools like Dreamweaver and later CMSs such as WordPress (or our very on NSBuilder).

Over the last twelve years, I’ve worked for some of the top Web Development companies in Scotland, in a variety of roles, and one thing I’ve learned is how universal the communication challenges are in Web Development.

These “challenges” can be both internal (say, between designers and programmers) and external (for instance between company and client). OY! and don’t even get me started on the challenges of designing for clients with committees! (See Gary’s piece for .Net magazine on that subject!)

I suspect anyone who works in Web Development can relate to my assertions…

(<< – - Example from Remy Sharp’s talk of a challenging design to program.)

OVER THE WALL

One of the internal challenges is that programmers often work separate from the designers, and as was described at the Fling, the designs simply flung “over the wall” to the programmer – who then is forced to find a way to make the designs work from a functionality, back end sort of way. This can be problematic (particularly in larger organisations) as illustrated in the picture above. An example of a  busy (cluttered), high-tech, design that was passed over a programmer to code (in this case Remy Sharp, I believe) – presenting him with a nearly-impossible feat.

A way of bridging this gap might be for the designer and programmer to spend a little time, before the project has even begun, discussing the site’s functionality and frameworks. This, would likely, cut down in frustration and hair pulling as the “build” begins.

Incidentally – just because someone is an artist or even a good graphic designer, doesn’t mean they will be competent or even understand how to best design for the Web. (Thankfully our designers are good at all types of design work – print and web and everything else).

So again – a little time discussing the project before the build – might have save a lot of time (and money!) in the long run. (Note: If work is being done separately and remotely then Gmail chat or Skype video calls could be a solution for the two sides to “speak”).

In a firms such as ours, it helps we have no walls separating us, and we’re all able to work side-by-side, discussing any issues as they arise.

CLIENT AND COMPANY

Communication hiccups can also be common between the web development company and the client. Each side needs to be succinct regarding the scope of the project. It’s the client’s responsibility to have a clean, concise, technical scope (a lesson I’m still learning myself!), and it’s the company’s to work out whether that scope is logistic.

The issue here often is the fact that a technical scope is beyond the capabilities of a vast majority of clients. Most won’t have any idea how to write up a technical scope of what the site should be, or look like, etc. They tend to have rough ideas, at best.

The more a client articulate what the site needs to do, suggestions on how it does it, and the end goals, the better it will be for the programmers to help define how this can be done from a technical standpoint.

With regards to the design, if the client can provide a list of sites, that they do and don’t like, then it’s the far more likely the first draft designs will hit, or at least be closer to, the mark.

Both sides can often be guilty of expecting the other to be a mind reader and most of us aren’t psychic in that respect. So if you’re a client having your website developed, provide as much information as you possibly can.

WEB DEVELOPMENT IS LIKE A RARE ART FORM

In my career, I’ve worked on sites that cost a few hundred pounds, all the way up to ones that have cost a quarter of a million pounds, and, funnily enough, these challenges I’ve written above have been prevalent on all of them.

Having run my own site for eleven years, I’ve been the “client” who’s had her site re-designed and relaunched a handful of times in that period. Each time there have been hurdles to surpass in order to re-launch.

As a result, I’ve realised that seldom does the creation (or re-creation) of a site work in a cut and dry fashion, but rather it’s a dance of one step forward then one back – clarifying expectations and gaining understanding.

It can be a frustrating and sometimes painful process (on both sides) – but once that site goes LIVE, and the client is happy, we’re reminded of why we even do the job. That is because it’s a rewarding job (well, in most cases).

The Highland Fling 2011 – was a chance to not only meet with, but also to learn something from, people who share the same passion as us – namely web development and new technologies.

Though as I said, I’ve been in this New Media field for a long time, it’s constantly evolving for all of us.

We’re all inadvertently forced, in this fast-paced, game-changing industry, to continually learn and expand both our technical skills, but also our communication skills.

That’s why I love attending things like the Highland Fling. You pick up something at every event, seminar, conference or talk. It can be a tip, a technique, a website or business contact, but I don’t think there’s been one event I’ve felt was a waste of time.

So here’s to the Highland Fling 2012 – where we’ll do it all again!

And here are a few photos I snapped for NSDesign on the day.

And here are some links to slide presentations (so far – if you were a speaker and have a link – feel free to add in the comments section and I’ll add you)!

Rachel Andrew’s Slides from her talk on CMS

Remy Sharp’s talk on Implementation Interaction

Speakers & Such:

@ highlandwebconf
@ Steve Marshall
@ Rachel Andrew
@ Mike Rundle
@ Remy Sharp
@ Jack Osborne@ Christian Heilmann
and James Edwards

PS: Bios etc here on the Highland Fling site.

Google Chrome’s new operating system could be the next web service to fall victim to hackers – despite Google’s boasts about its safety and security capabilities.

Researchers from US computer security firm WhiteHat Security have told the Reuters news agency that Chrome PC’s reliance on Web computing make it open to the same attached that have plagued the likes of Sony PlayStation and Citibank in recent weeks.

Google says that its computers are safer than traditional PCs because user data is stored in the Internet cloud, rather than on the machine’s hard drive.

However, the WhiteHat team spotted a flaw that puts this theory in a questionable light.

Matt Johansen, one of the team, said he spotted a fault in a Chrome Os note-taking application that he managed to exploit in order to take control of a Google email account. He reported this flaw to the internet giant and was rewarded with US$1000 for his troubles.

However, Johansen told Reuters that he has since found other Chrome applications with the same security fault.

He claims that the key to hacking Chrome OS is to capture data as it travels between the Chrome browser and the cloud. He explained: “I can get at your online banking or your Facebook profile or your email as it is being loaded in the browsers. If I can exploit some kind of Web application to access that data, then I couldn’t care less what is on the hard drive.”

Johansen and team are set to reveal exactly which applications they think are at risk next month at Black Hat, a hacking conference to be held in Las Vegas, but has revealed that the applications belong to Chrome’s “extensions”, which users can download from the Google Chrome Web Store.

Most extensions are written by independent software developers, rather than by Google.

Johansen said: “The problem with the extensions is related to a design flaw in Google Chrome OS: the operating system gives extensions sweeping rights to access data stored on the cloud.

“Chrome is trusting these extensions more than it would be trusting just another website.”

The findings have implications for all web designers, app designers and software companies and act as further proof that websites and apps need to be absolutely safeguarded against the increasing sophistication of hackers’ methods.

Google says that it is seeking to improve procedures that screen extensions for vulnerabilities before making them publicly available on the Chrome Web Store.