What is the attraction of Instagram?

I enjoy photography and would never try to stop anyone taking photos either as a reminder of an event or as an art. However the current mobile phone fad has me confused. The modern smart phone is capable of taking pretty good photos (and is causing a drop in basic camera sales). The iPhone 4s has an 8MB camera and this is not the most impressive pixel count available on a camera phone.

So the ability to take clear well exposed photos is there – so why do people want to use programs like instagram to make their photos look like they were taken on a rubbish snap shot camera like the good old Kodak Instamatic, they even advertise it with an old polaroid camera – and they were rubbish!

Am I missing something?

 

This is a brilliant explanation of social media…

This is just brilliant, often the best explanations are the simplest and this hits the nail firmly on the head – and I particularly like the reference to Google+!

 

Is Facebook really the way to get youngsters to vote?

The state of British politics does not appeal to the average 18 year old it seems (or to most of us), the percentage turn out at recent general elections has been getting progressively worse so the question has to be how to get the kids involved as they are our future.

And recent research suggests almost twice as many 18 year olds use Facebook than are actually registered to vote!

The Electoral Commission used Facebook last year to encourage teenagers to get involved, with 15,000 going on to claim their right to vote. But analysis of electoral roll data from hundreds of council areas by Experian found the total number is actually falling.

There are an estimated 1.05 million 18 year olds in the UK with Facebook accounts, but only 520,000 who registered to vote, and that was 3% fewer than in 2010.

.Official figures show that only 56% of 19-24 year olds and 55% of 17 and 18 year olds are on the electoral register.

The Electoral Commissions campaign using social media to attract young voters is clever, but is not the answer. As long as our political system remains in its current ‘tit for tat’ state I can’t see youngsters feeling that they have any part to play in the political system – sad but true. And very unhealthy for the future of our country.

Surely we need to make this part of the education system – otherwise our politicians will always be as they are now – how depressing!

 

Another Google ‘duffer’?

As I have commented before I really like my social media and things – I keep up with the news via a combination of Twitter, RSS feeds and various news apps. But, in the main its the RSS feeds and Twitter that I find most effective, they provide a short headline that I can either ‘ignore’ or dig deeper on. All part of the ‘sound bite’ generation I suppose.

just not 'nice'

So as I blogged about earlier this week I was keen to give Flipboard a go when it came available for the iPhone and it did not disappoint. I am very impressed with it and find it as an iPhone app should be – very intuitive to use and smooth and ‘nice’ to use and look at.

I have been keen to look at Google’s effort in this sector of the market, it’s called Currents and was released a week or so ago – but only in the USA. I have no idea why Google always seem to do this. They are a global brand so you would think it would be possible to release things world-wide at the same time – but apparently not!

Anyway, I remembered that I have a US login for iTunes that I have used previously to access things like this via the US iTunes store. So after a quick reactivation today I downloaded Currents to have a play.

My initial reaction was that it is quite a good attempt at bringing a magazine style experience to this type of feed – and if Flipboard had not been there it might have been quite impressive! But it just does have the same feel as Flipboard. It is not as easy to use or as pleasing to the eye. More importantly it doesn’t work as smoothly and consequently isn’t as ‘special’ an experience.

Particular annoyances?

• You have to swipe sideways to read more in an article rather than the iPhone ‘norm’ of scrolling down.
• It doesn’t show feeds with new stories differently from ones without
• It is like Google+ – not obvious to use

So will I keep trying it out? Possibly for a week or so, but unless I have an ‘epiphany’ I don’t expect it to remain on my iPhone long-term. Is it me or do Google lack a certain something when it comes to design these days?

 

Flipboard – the way forward?

one of the 'home' pages

I am a self-confessed ‘geek’ – I love the ability to access things on the road and particularly love social media and the available news and articles via RSS feeds and the like. As such I am always on the look out for some form of aggregator to pull together a number of my ‘feeds’ into one place.

To date this has proved difficult and I have had to use separate apps for things like Twitter (Tweetbot which is great), Facebook (their own app) and news feeds (Byline – another great app), they all work fine but I have now found Flipboard which brings them all together in a very clever and ‘pretty’ manner. This youtube clip explains it really well.

an example of a tweet

I have not switched totally yet, but it all looks pretty promising so far. It is well worth a look, as the way you flip pages is just amazing. The presentation is also rather cool – it is more like a magazine style with pictures. That makes it sound a bit ‘simple’ but as you can see from the attached pictures it makes for a much richer and interesting experience. I for one am sold on it and hope that it develops as time goes by to include even more services – like LinkedIn for example.

news story - tap to read

I am aware that Google have just launched their take on this in the USA (why only there?) and it’s called Google Currents and it would I am sure pull down my Google Reader feeds really well (i currently use Byline). I also assume it would show them in more of a ‘magazine’ view (like Flipboard). However, my big reservation here is that it will be made to link to Google+ and not Facebook – and I really dislike Google+ so this will probably stop me trialing it when (or if) it finally becomes available in Europe.

Flipboard is well worth a look (and its free) – if nothing else it shows how user-friendly and visually exciting apps can be! This has to be the future!

 

Has email had its day?

Interesting times we live in – the web has become an integral part of our existence. We all have email addresses and even the least “IT savvy” among us have mastered this form of interaction – ask the Post Office!

So when the founder of Facebook announces that “email is dead” should we be worried? Or is he right?

Obviously Facebook have a vested interest in how we all relate to each other via the web, there are a staggeringly large number of Facebook users worldwide. And they can interact without using email!

Google also want us to use their conduit – Google+, but so far this doesn’t appear to be happening. We also have LinkedIn, twitter and other social networks we can use. So does Mr Zuckerburg have a point?

I think he does, only to a point and more because email has become abused so badly. The level of spam in the ether has devalued emails to the point that they have become a daily deluge that has to be filtered by the user. Our office spam filter removes around 97% of our incoming email – a frightening statistic!

But if we ditch email and move to another form of contact there are some issues that need to be dealt with;

How are we to limit its abuse so that it doesn’t go the same way as email?

In business some form of paper trail would still be necessary.

And surely the cycle will turn full circle again and we will find whatever we adopt next becoming ‘flooded’ after a period?

Perhaps what we need are far stronger controls on our current system to prevent spam and put the value back into email?

 

Blogging – good for the soul?

It is now a couple of years since I began my blog. As with most people who start blogging I was tempted to try by seeing what one of my colleagues at work had done through his blog. It has been an enjoyable experience so far, I have found that it makes me read around subjects and the news more widely, so it has to be good for me!

There are those who disagree of course, like Andrew Marr, in his famous tirade about bloggers, he told the Cheltenham literary festival;

“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people”

However, I am not aware of any bloggers having to take out super injunctions – so perhaps we can take Mr Marr’s comments and put them to one side?

I have also managed to get a couple of other people interested in blogging, my son Sam and his fencing instructor Chris Beadling. They have both started blogs, both are very different, but it has set me thinking that perhaps more people should try blogging – and particularly from an early age. Let me explain;

Chris Beadling started his blog a few weeks ago and has settled into what I see as the ‘norm’ for bloggers (especially males). He is finding it liberating as far as I can see in enabling him to ‘get things off his chest’ but to also have a voice about things. Like me he is finding it quite addictive – have a look, his blog is here.

Of more interest in this respect is my son’s blog, it is purely based around his current love of gaming – Xbox and the like. Not a subject that I find particularly interesting (although we live it at home). But, since starting his blog a few weeks ago he has managed to publish something almost every day – quite an achievement for a 14-year-old who really isn’t keen on reading or writing things (much like most 14-year-old boys as far as I can gather). His blog is here.

But I believe there is a deeper thing happening here – Sam enjoys blogging, and the writing of the posts is not seen as a chore because he enjoys talking about the subject at hand – spelling and grammar leaves something (ok, a lot!) to be desired but we are working on that (my wife is a very critical editor to us both!)

With social media becoming so much more a part of our everyday lives (many people are now on Twitter that you wouldn’t have imagined would be 12 months ago), is it not time for this element of our lives to become part of the school system as well? Perhaps not as part of the main curriculum, but surely part of the school life in terms of after school activities and similar? If a 14-year-old who really doesn’t ‘get’ reading is happy to spend time away from his Xbox creating blog posts isn’t this something to try more widely with kids?

Is the blog a more ‘useful’ form of social networking?

 

Twitter goes to Westminster

Now welcome......

Twitter has had a difficult relationship with some of our politicians, there have been various scandals caused by unwise twitters and consequently twittering has been banned in many council chambers and has always been unacceptable in Parliament. In fact earlier this year, a deputy Speaker of the Commons told MP’s Twitter was banned in the chamber.

However, MP’s have now backed a motion allowing them to use Twitter during Commons debates (on Thursday, MP’s voted by 206 votes to 63 against an amendment that would have formally imposed that ban). From now on, smart phones and tablet computers will be permitted inside the chamber as long as they are in silent mode and used with “decorum”. Now we all know that acting with ‘decorum’ may be a challenge for some of our MP’s, but I do think this is a positive move in our society.

At a time when the young generally feel no connection to our political process anything that makes it more relevant and accessible to them (and the rest of the public) has to be good.

The Commons Procedure Committee has also recommended that MP’s be allowed to refer to such devices (iPads and similar), instead of paper notes, when making speeches. They went further by saying MP’s should be free to use laptops in committee meetings, including select committees.

In a world which is rapidly becoming ‘mobile’ in the way we can relate to it I think this has to be a move in the right direction – there are only two countries in Europe that have a ban on use of mobiles in their parliaments, we should not add ourselves.

Perhaps this will stop some of the MP’s falling asleep in the Commons as well!

 

An appalling image from afar?

I started this blog post while away in Spain – the rioting was happening in the UK and the impression from Europe was one of a country that had lost control. In the end I decided not to post the blog – I try not to be too ‘political’ but on returning to the UK I have started to think ‘around’ the issues a bit more.

My original unpublished post was as follows;

Watching events evolve from a distance is often the best approach to get ‘the outsiders view’. I am currently in Barcelona and only have Internet access and some Spanish TV coverage. My main source of information for what is happening in the UK is therefore the BBC news app and twitter.

Now I am not an overtly political animal, but I have to work to live, and therefore perhaps sit to the right of the fence. I have always shied away from political comment on my blog – and still intend to. But, watching the UK appear as a broken society from here in Europe – and that is how it is portrayed here – is a very painful experience. In particular seeing events unfold in my home town of Nottingham is particularly sad.

Nottingham has for too long been painted by the press as a violent city, it isn’t and never has been. But this coverage really does not help!

Is this the ‘payback’ for too many years of the nanny state? Twitter is awash with comments about the rioters being dressed in designer trainers and hoodies – there is something profoundly wrong here when we as a nation are more interested in ‘things’ than our own societies health. It’s an unpopular view, but is the state too generous to people? Is life too comfy for some? Should water canons and baton rounds be deployed? Not easy questions to answer – but they all need addressing, and now!

I do believe that the vast majority of British society are good people, but our values are totally warped. Here in Europe family and community are so important – and if you know and value your community you don’t torch it or loot it! When they do riot (and let’s face it – they do) it’s the state they attack – not innocent locals.

Britain needs to stand back and take a good look at itself, some serious ‘house keeping’ is called for. Much of it very painful and potentially unpopular, but necessary!

I still believe what I wrote two weeks ago – but having returned now I think we have some major ‘issues’ we need to resolve in the way we live in the UK. Our life work balance is totally wrong when compared to the rest of Europe – we don’t appear to be able to relax without doing something to the extreme – like go out and get completely drunk – not something Europeans do.

Much as I would like to think we are part of Europe I don’t believe we can consider ourselves part of the European way of life as we just don’t subscribe to it. The level of engagement with society is poor, there is little in the way of community feel to most parts of the UK.

We are still out for number one – perhaps Maggie Thatcher and the 80′s were the undoing of this country, but I do believe that if we don’t start acting as a whole rather than a country of individuals we are going to fall behind the rest of Europe in terms of life style and quality of life.

Harsh? I don’t think so – it’s all very well being attractive to inward investors as a country, but if your population are disafected (and possibly disfunctional) it cannot last!

 

Teenagers and holidays

We (the wife and I) have now got to that point in life where our kids are both teenagers and have their own idea of what is ‘fun’ and in particular holiday fun!

For the last few years we have tried to get a ‘happy balance’ over the two weeks of our summer break. This has basically meant a ‘city week’ followed by a more relaxed ‘country week’ (the latter being more popular with the grumpy parents! We have learnt a lot about teenage requirements over the last few years as well – they are ‘fairly happy’ with a quiet second week as long as we have wireless Internet (makes me happy as well!) and a ‘stuff to do’.

Family fun!

A few years ago we had a ‘fairly poor’ second week in Germany after a week in the Netherlands. There was nothing to do in the German town we chose and this week is now referred to in our family as ‘the German week’.

This year I think we have actually nailed it – a week in Barcelona which everyone enjoyed, followed by a week at a villa with a pool (and wireless Internet) but crucially close to a good theme park and water park. Time spent at the theme park is enjoyed by all and then allows pool time at home – total relaxation for all!

The only downside is that we probably only have a few years left during which the kids will come away with us, but at least we finally appear to have got the ‘recipe’ correct!