June 2006 – Page 5 – Gavinsblog.com

A is for Abdomen

The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage.

A. Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Ambrose Bierce

I will be sticking in some good Ambrose Bierce quotes now and then on the blog. You can read about Bierce here.

Incidentally, I found some of the links in the previous piece via Roy Greensdale’s blog. He has a comment piece in the Guardian today about delving into the world of the blogosphere. I might as well quote the whole piece, it’s worth it. I’ve added emphasis for good quotes.

I am at the bottom of a learning curve, a neophyte blogger nervously trying find my way around in a new world where everyone else who has been there for the past couple of years seems so at ease. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that I feel again like the trainee journalist of some 42 summers ago, continually worried about whether I am doing the right thing. Then again, I’m just as determined as I was then to learn, and to succeed.

Succeed? In a very real sense, that aim is no longer relevant, at least in the old sense. I realise that the meaning of “success” has changed, because one of the truly refreshing differences between the old journalism and the new is its democratic spirit.

Personal success in the old leisurely top-down form of journalism was, by its nature, individualistic. Success in the blogosphere, in the bottom-up form of journalism, is altogether more egalitarian.

It demands that we “professional journalists” understand that, whatever our knowledge, whatever our skills, we can no longer rest on our laurels. We must step down from the pulpit and move among the congregation. We can go on preaching, but we must accept that everyone else is a preacher too.

We have to admit to ourselves that we don’t know everything. We never did, of course, but we affected to do so. After all, we enjoyed the luxury of speaking through our daily megaphone and rarely, if ever, bothered to listen to the voices in the audience. Indeed, we were only faintly aware that there were other voices, and surely there were none worth hearing.

A characteristic all journalists seem to share is an overweening sense of certainty, a belief that we understand every problem (and usually know every solution). Now, in only my second week of blogging, which includes an intense reading of other peoples’ blogs, I can see the flaws in that autocratic attitude.

Perhaps my greatest insight is the realisation that technology – the form – does have a profound effect on content. It should have been obvious. Every previous development of communications, from print to telegraph, from telephone to radio and television, has had a dramatic effect on content.

So what change has the net wrought? Most obviously, it transforms journalism from a largely didactic activity, in both the selection of material and the manner of its transmission, into a conversation. The immediacy and the intimacy of the internet allows everyone to have a say.

I know that it’s easy to abuse the freedom by insulting, swearing, ranting and libelling. But my experience thus far has been altogether more positive. I have been challenged to explain myself better. My assumptions have been questioned. I have been forced to accept that my supposed expertise in journalism is not universally respected. Oh yes, and one particular discovery (doh!): there is no liberal consensus after all.

None of the people who have contributed their thoughts to my blog has been abusive, though doubtless by saying this I am offering a hostage to fortune. That’s freedom, folks, and I accept that there are downsides. Overall, however, I am buoyed by the tone and content of the conversations.

Talking is only one aspect of my blog. Its focus is to act as a kind of noticeboard, pointing people towards journalistic events and developments across the world (in net jargon, it’s called aggregation). Just as importantly, I want to publicise what’s happening across Britain, an ambition not yet realised.

Whenever I attend conferences involving regional newspapers I am told, often with great passion, that national newspaper journalists remain unaware of the fact that good and responsible journalism is alive and well in Britain’s cities, towns and villages. Fair enough. Come on then, regional and local editors, tell me about your campaigns, crusades and scoops.

O'Reilly versus Murdoch, are newspapers worth it?

O’Reilly has again been trumpeting print newspapers this time calling them the “ultimate browser”.

The response of Independent News & Media, the owner of The Independent and The Independent On Sunday, to the march of new media had been measured and thoughtful, he said.

Sir Anthony said he believed we are in another period of wild stock-market overstatement for a certain class of media assets. Although this period would pass, in the meantime conventional media – terrestrial TV, cable, radio, newspapers and magazines – had been relegated in many investors’ minds to a “show me your model status”.

Speaking at the company’s annual meeting in Dublin, Sir Anthony said the multiplication of media devices which concentrate on the individual’s needs at any given point had made it much more difficult to aggregate large audiences.

In these circumstances, TV, newspapers and magazines, and to a degree radio, remained the best and the only way for mass audiences for goods and services to be created. However, the internet could yield an extraordinary opportunity to the newspaper industry on the production side in putting together its products at a much lower cost.

“If we exempt newsprint, the real cost of newspapers lies in putting them together – writing them, editing them, producing pages, getting them camera-ready, producing plates, printing, and finally in distribution,” Sir Anthony said.

Asked after the meeting whether he would sell his London-based titles, which are loss-making, he insisted: “No, absolutely not.”

Now this debate has been raging since before I started putting pixels online. What is the place of newspapers in a world where the Internet offers a far cheaper, and some would say more efficient means of distribution?

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, recently mounted a robust defence of journalism and of printed newspapers, dismissing reports that the death knell has sounded for “old media”. This is at the same time as the Guardian becomes the “first British national newspaper to offer a “web first” service that will see major news by foreign correspondents and business journalists put online before it appears in the paper.”

The Guardian has blazed the trail for blogging, all the way back to the first Guardian blog awards in 2002. The new commentisfree portal now boasts 50,000 reader comments and 2 million montly page impressions since launching in March. Rusbridger also says things like:

“What we’re doing, which no newspaper has ever done before, is to take your elite stable of columnists, who are paid, and pitch them into the same space as people who aren’t paid,” he said.

“What is professional journalism and what isn’t, and how do they share the same space? We’re making this up as we go along.”

Have a listen to Rusbridger speak at an RSA lecture here too.

So what is happening? I’m waiting to see, but I think O’Reilly has the wrong idea and is taking an unnecessarily defensive line with regard to new media. I will be posting more about this topic.

China Restores Google.com

It appears China have lifted a recent ban on Google, but will Google stay in China?

China has lifted its online blockade of Google.com after a two-week crackdown that had prevented direct access to the site and temporarily thwarted popular workarounds, a media watchdog group reported Friday.

The Paris-based journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said that tests revealed the uncensored version of the search site was accessible again to internet users in Beijing and Shanghai. The crackdown overlapped with the June 4 anniversary of the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

A Google spokesperson confirmed this, saying that “we have heard no further reports from users in China of problems accessing Google.com.”

Apparently Brin has said they are definately staying in China, despite other comments made this week:

Google Inc. is committed to doing business in China despite criticism the company has faced for abiding by Chinese government censorship restrictions, co-founder Sergey Brin said this week.

On Tuesday, after a session with several U.S. senators to discuss telecommunications legislation, Brin made comments that prompted some journalists to speculate Google intended to change or eliminate its operations in China.

In fact, he reiterated Google’s intention to move ahead with its google.cn site — a version of the leading Internet search engine that censors thousands of sites according to Chinese standards — as well as its global google.com site.

Brin told a small group of invited journalists: “I think it’s perfectly reasonable to do something different. Say, OK, let’s stand by the principle against censorship and we won’t actually operate there”.

But he then added: “That’s an alternative path. It’s not the one we’ve chosen to take right now”.

Google Earth update

The more I compare Google Maps to the recent Google Earth update, the more I see just how big it was. Huge stretches of countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Australia, Russia and Brazil have been added. Almost the whole of the UAE is now in high-res.

And with the launch of more satellites this summer, the quality and level of updating will only improve yet more.

Archives screwed?

My archive page in K2 appears to be well and truly gone. I have tried various means of bringing it back, but she is darn stubborn. Any thoughts?

It seems I’m not the only one with the problem, the K2 page has the same 404.

Web 2.0 shtuff in Cork, boy

Damien has a post up, and there’s a few photos floating around on Flickr.

I didn’t get chatting to everyone, but I did have some conversations with Bernie, Donncha, Rob, Joe, Branedy, Fergus, Ed and a quick chat with Tom and Shel, Salim and Conor.

What a great bunch of people and thoroughly enjoyable conversation! Send me some link love guys! 🙂

Massive Google Earth update – Dubai updated

It’s taken a while, but we are finally seeing more of the world in high resolution via Google Earth. The changes were made last night and include areas of Russia, China, Africa, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean Islands, many islands in the Pacific, Puerto Rico, South America, New Zeland, Australia.

Of most interest to me was Dubai, who’s spectacular growth in both buildings and islands sees a major change. Google Maps has yet to be updated so I took a snapshot of Dubai, the photo is circa 1999/2000 I suspect, and is in low resolution.

So here are some rather spectacular before and after shots of Dubai.

Dubai, plus the coast line as far as Jebel Ali port (BEFORE) :

Dubai around now, with the photo showing just beyond Jebel Ali port: (AFTER)

There are other assorted buildings and structures in Dubai, many of which I photographed from the ground. Here are some of the famous ones:

The recently completed Mall of the Emirates, one of the largest shopping centers in the world, with it’s own indoor ski slopes to the left of the picture: