Charles on… anything that comes along

This week’s Science and Technology pages are online: I’ve written on the tension between our hi-fi systems and the ones Microsoft wants us to use, Michael Pollitt on how BT is using broadband phone calls as a weapon against cable companies, and in science Andrew Parker explains how sight kicked off the Cambrian ‘explosion’ 530 million years ago.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• D'oh! Bill Gates gets 4 million spams per year, not day, says Ballmer (4 December 2004; score: 72.78%)
• What's a guy gotta do to get a little Scoblejuice around here? (5 October 2004; score: 50.42%)
• Dialup is a pain (5 July 2006; score: 50.21%)

Interesting: got a trackback from Drew B’s take on tech PR which then pointed me on to Tom Foremski’s blog (Hi, Tom!). Where it turns out there’s a whole lot of UK-media-watching going on: Tom had the tale of how VNU broke up its centralised News Centre long before it was news, or even announced, in the UK.

VNU chopping up its news centre into a bunch of twisting, edgy journalists seems to me an acknowledgement that such “repurposing” schemes just can’t work. You can’t make a bunch of people simultaneously write copy for a whole stack of outputs, and yet for none of them. It only works for news agencies like PA, Reuters and AFP because often their copy gets used directly in local papers (and even some nationals)

But trying to take that sort of philosophy in-house means you are never speaking directly to the reader, which is what a journalist must at least feel like they’re doing. Lose touch with the reader, and you lose your readership. The “news centre” concept was briefly mooted at Mirror Group in the late 1990s, and rapidly dropped; a rare example when sense prevailed. It’s cheaper; also worse.

Good luck to the VNU folk seeking jobs. May you find the ones you want.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Media: my pick of the "10 best blogs" (9 February 2005; score: 26.02%)
• Greenslade lets both barrels go at the fake sheikh (25 July 2006; score: 25.33%)
• Media Center PCs: is the demand there? (4 January 2005; score: 21.84%)

I’ve finally got around to putting up my predictions for 2004. Have a read (though I’m not happy with the font - I told you I’m struggling wtih the stylesheet).

Comments here, if you’d like.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• One right, one wrong ... prediction for this year so far (9 January 2005; score: 59.85%)
• My predictions for 2005: wireless iPods, more phishing, and many more Firefox users (30 December 2004; score: 48.6%)
• Tis the season to be tweaking.. Paul Thurrott (27 August 2004; score: 37.19%)

How remarkable. The chief executive of PR company Edelman, the organisation that gets a little offended sometimes by stuff it reads on blogs, has his own blog, Speak Up.

One has to admire him for his bravery, if not the technical wizardry (comments but no trackbacks). He has let some of the ruder comments stay, which is laudable. Go to it, dude.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Gee, I'm going to miss those lolcats (10 October 2008; score: 44.25%)
• Wild about wild cards; aahh., Fight Club.. (19 February 2006; score: 32.64%)
• Don't think, just repeat it loudly (9 July 2004; score: 29.65%)