rxdxt

Microsoft 'in talks' with WPP

Microsoft is reportedly in talks with advertising giant WPP to trade its digital ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish for the ad-serving technology WPP acquired when it bought 24/7 Real Media deal. This would be almost surreal, as many of you know I helped found Razorfish or one of the early firms merged to form it, as well as WPP's star digital agency (as of last year) Schematic - bought by WPP from my partners and I last year! Martin will own two of my former firms if this deal goes through.

read more | digg story

When it comes to making telly, old ways aren't always the be

So Emily Bell, in a quite well written opinion piece starts a discussion (or maybe continues it) as to the nature of TV in the future IP based world, rather than in the traditional mass-media broadcast world.

Now she makes some excellent points, mostly about the bloated and hi-production value issues of traditional broadcasters, but still gets it wrong, particularly in inferring that my dear friend Clay Shirky is a TV chap (in fact he's a rather well known Silicon Valley abiding member of the internet Digerati.)

However, the substance of this I rather agree with, the world is moving non-linear, smaller audiences, more agile, and the BBC, ITV, channel 4, as well as NewsCorp, NBC, et all need to adapt in ways that are most definitely not going to be comfortable to them.


read more | digg story

Space age joe

Saw this amazing coffee machine at my new favourite breakfast java - grumpy's in NY (coffee not from grmpys just added for illustrative purposes)

Crowd-funded news!

Sitting enjoying my brunch in NYC (complete with garlic curly fries) I discovered a facinating article in my one of my favourite newspapers, the nyt.

Spotus - local news funded by the community it covers.... Um, isn't that the nyt's business model?

Seriusly, facinating article about direct syndication of capital to the audience of a proposition, a la brave me wworkds (films), etc. Maybe with re crash of the economy we might see the rise of the syndicate!

Had a lovely dinner with tim and Rachel, Tim is a co-founder of nextnewnetworks.com, leading online video content site. My mind is racing thinking about the facinating nacent state of digital entertainment. It is 1986 all over again,

First video review: BlackBerry Bold challenges the iPhone -

Daddy like. Daddy want. Need new blackberry must have... (*cue zombie music...)

read more | digg story

I Killed The Electric Car

Rick Wagoner was interviewed the other day and said - "The future of GM and the American Automotive Industry is in electric cars". The ABC News report mentioned something about a failed prior attempt called the EV1.

read more | digg story

On Vox: Firefox redesign...

Just installed new firefox - it's GREAT. such a better UX & Design, small tweaks (like the BIG back arrows, adaptive text, add-in buttons) it's quite well done.  IT seems faster too.

Actually find myself reverting back to firefox from Safari because of this - haven't seen anyone else do a better analysis. Maybe I'll take a crack.

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com

Apple bans $1000 application | PDA: The Digital Content Blog

This is just lame. Would you ban an Armani App that simply said Armani?

read more | digg story

On Vox: Some thoughts from our User Experience & Design away day..

So I hosted an away day at the BBC for the entire User Experience & Design teams + a few extra's.  About 160 people in all. We had it at the Magic Circle, which I thought was quite appropriate - more and more User Experience seems to one part magic to two parts science; wrapped in artistry and a bit of luck.

I went 1st and ranted on my favorite points lately:
1 -  The fact that the BBC needs to sort out its digital content strategy.
2 - The fact that we (the BBC) have no real relationship as a brand with audiences in the post CBBC pre BBC News demographic (that's 11-24 for those of you who cares).
3 - A thing I call the public service platform, where I think the BBC should re-order a bunch of its digital works/technology/services to provide platforms for public & private organizations, including startups, to build businesses on top of its digital services.

You'll here a bunch more about the latter one as these three feed most of what I'm thinking about for us for the next year.

We had two external thinkers Mat Hunter, from Ideo (see photo) who was great, and Clive Grinyer from Cisco (formerly from Orange).  We talked a lot about the evolution of product & service development into design, a bit about how user centered design & a touch of naivety place designers (in the broadest sense of things) in a great place to design and develop products.  In essence, our disconnection from business or technology limitations makes us focus 1st on what the audience wants, 2nd on how they will use it - then we manage back the technical and business issues from there.

Interestingly we talked a lot about the issues facing the BBC, one of the  topics I sent people away to think about was "How can we make the BBC the most creative place to work? - which isnt' it now?"

- most of what we got back was the usual (though likely truer at the current bbc) more training, more tools, more time to be creative, more people...

But most interesting to me was that we heard, from people on the periphery of my team; more leadership, more clear decision making (they actually said  benevolent dictatorships!) and in private afterwards someone said to me, they want more people like me ! While flattered I feel like there's something here in general. People want a leader who makes decisions, quick, concise, and effective ones. They want clarity of purpose, and they want to be given the time, space  & resources to get on with executing that vision. 

UX&D is very empowered these days - bit of a change management infection starting to spread... - I hope.

                       

   

       

                

                                            

            

               

2008-08-04 05:28:59 +0100

            

           

   

 

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com