Occasional Thoughts from a Bafta nominated Podcaster, Blogger, Writer and Commentator.
Conferences and events attended in 2008.
Boing Boing links to a German project using a Wii balance board to fly through Google Earth. Which is all very nice, but surely a better idea would be to build a great big open source flight simulator, with open API’s and a mission to go round the world in 24 hours? …and it’s all because of the unique way the BBC is funded that such a project was organised at the last BBC Hackday.
One of the tough times for any website is how to keep the traffic levels (and ergo the advertising income) at a high enough level during the festive season. All About Symbian generally slows down, partly because Steve, Rafe and myself have little to write about, but also because the normal mobile phone watchers are off on holiday and aren’t browsing. There is another way to get through the two main lulls – firstly the lead up to Christmas, and the second in the gap between Christmas and New Year. Controversy, or at least some thoughts that will lead to
Lots of coverage on Le Web, and I’m one of those adding to the buzz with my conference report now available on the BBC News website: “Starting up a business is similar to falling in love,” said Loic Le Meur, organiser of the Le Web conference that brought the cream of Europe’s web developers together in Paris this week… That love for entrepreneurship was the theme of the conference – now in its fifth year – which was upbeat about the prospects for new firms despite the economic downturn. As well as the conference itself, I highlight Erepublik, Techmeme’s expansion
So, what to make of this year’s Le Web conference in Paris? The problems of the event have gathered momentum around the web; namely the lack of heat in the conference centre on the first day; the minute portions of food served by people with split second accurate stop watches; and after last years pretty acceptable level, the return of unpredictable levels of connectivity (especially if you were reliant on Wi-fi and not the ethernet cables in the front few rows). From the coverage and twitters you’d think these three issues did much to kill the buzz of the fifth
Yet again, this December I’ll be making the trip to Paris for Geraldine Le Meur’s Le Web conference (I’m convinced she just lets Loic think he’s involved and making the decisions…). The theme this year is ‘Love.’ I’ll be speaking on a panel entitled “Love in Motion: Why are Mobile Social Networks booming?” alongside Dr K F Lai (Buzz City) and Antonio Vince Staybl (Itsmy.com) with Ferhan Cook (Any Screen Productions) in the chair. I’ll have my Wubud hat on, but I suspect the conversation will branch out quickly to take in a lot of the mobile market. More info
As I’ve mentioned before, I couldn’t make the August ‘blog conference in Las Vegas,’ namely Tim Bourquin’s New Media Expo, due to commitments for the Edinburgh Fringe, but the second year of Rick Calvert’s Blog World Expo was on my radar as a potential gig to go to. Thanks to some work comissioned to report on the conference, I was all set for a lightning trip to Las Vegas. Flying out on Friday morning from Edinburgh, returning from the Nevada city on the Monday afternoon left little time for the body clock to get remotely close to the right time-zone
