- Blog
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Hashtags are dead
The use of hashtags by brands and organisations is dead, is what I mean. We now know how trivially easy they are to weaponise. They’re big, slow-moving targets for propagandists and terrorists. Clouds of branded chaff, too easily turned bad. And brand countermeasures – closing accounts, removing content – are so ineffective, so after-the-fact, as…
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What’s wrong with atheists?
I’m an atheist. Just getting that out of the way. Because this is about a problem that I have with atheists. Not all atheists. Just the strident ones, the humourless ones who form and join clubs, who campaign and complain and object. The ones who picket shopping malls when they provide prayer rooms but not…
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Tim Berners-Lee’s most important decision
Of the dozens of design decisions that TBL made during 1989, all of which continue to shape the way we build and use the web twenty-five years later, the most important was not requiring permission to link. Seems obvious now – a non-feature in fact – but it’s the reason you’re not reading this on…
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School governors. Representative or professional. Choose one.
Last week I spent a few hours floor-walking at a Fair Field parents’ evening, drumming up interest in our parent governor vacancies (I’m chair of govs and a parent myself). I love this bit of the job. You learn a huge amount and there are always surprises and insights. Thinking about it afterwards, the parents…
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Ian McMillan’s eight favourite podcasts
Radio 3’s Ian McMillan was on a special edition of the Radio Today podcast all about the station the other day. Turns out he’s a connoisseur of the podcast form. He gave Trevor Dann a list of his favourites: the various Monocle podcasts, especially Tyler Brûlé’s books and magazines podcast The Stack, The Urbanist and…
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Seven gems from Radio 3’s ‘Sound of Cinema’ season
It’s over. The ‘Sound of Cinema‘ season finshed last week. Most of the music has expired but there’s a ton of stuff that’s still available: 1. These really gripping Sound of Cinema downloads from Neil Brand (learn things, like just how badly Visconti carved up Mahler’s Adagietto for Death in Venice). 2. This glorious film…
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What should really modern music radio sound like?
You hope it’ll be seamlessly social: a nice, natural flow from online to on-air and back again, with social features that are as confidently crafted as the on-air stuff. Not endless shout-outs and retweets, no ‘in the next hour’ or ‘how was your weekend?’ updates. No blather, no cheesy vanity activity from presenters. You probably…
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Games that disappear
You can’t play Godfinger any more. It’s gone. ngmoco, the developer, removed the game (plus a couple of others) from app stores during February – and it’ll stop working all together at the end of this month. The raw economics of mobile gaming. But what happens to games that are packaged as apps when they’re…
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Tension and release. My Bloody Valentine and building radio excitement without exclusives
Music radio’s all tension and release. Building anticipation – highs and lows strung together to keep things moving and bring listeners along with you. Mary Anne Hobbs’ breakfast show on 6 Music this morning was built around a classic music radio high – the long-awaited record release. My Bloody Valentine have a new record out…