Category Archives: techPolitics

How the net is changing politics and society, and how politicians and campaigners can improve and innovate in the bright net future. Yeah, right, I can hope.

3 years of BloggingPortal.eu

Today marks 3 years of our little blogging project – BloggingPortal.eu

It started as a conversation between Stefan, Andreas and I, and all the coding work was done by Stefan. The inspiration for it came from this blog post I wrote, and I still own the domain name. Beyond that I am a rather inactive partner in the enterprise these days – others have taken on the everyday work.

The aim of the project is as important now as it ever was – to bring an alternative perspective on EU affairs to a wider audience. The site does not try to be a complete take on EU affairs – we cannot achieve that. But for an alternative view, something from outside the Brussels bubble, it remains a vital resource. We still have no cash and no real organisation behind the site, something we wonder about fixing, but we’re still going strong.

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Bridging the gulf between social media and traditional media in light of today’s tragic news about Gary Speed

“Gary Speed is dead” I read on Twitter late morning today. What dreadful news, what can possibly have happened?

I turn to BBC News; that carried just a ‘breaking news’ statement. I turn back to Twitter and I read all kinds of things about him taking his own life, and plenty of genuine sadness and shock too. It has taken until now, more than 5 hours later, for the BBC to mention that Speed probably took his own life.

I needed some way to breach that gulf between the raw reality on Twitter and the guarded words from the traditional media. Someone (I don’t remember who it was I’m afraid) tweeted a link to this vital One in Four guide to tweeting about suicide and mental health crises. This is just the sort of thing social networks need.

It seems I was not alone in wanting to bridge that gulf.

My original tweet containing the link has 72 RTs to date, an early RT by @largeburrito has more than 100 further RTs, and further RTs by @TellyDubby, @ajhalls1 and @bennosaurus prompted dozens more. This one tweet has travelled further and to more people than anything else I have ever written on Twitter.

Is grief a great but tragic leveller in some way? I am just glad that this, a sensible and practical tweet, happens to be the one that has gone so far, and has hopefully helped just a very little bit to digest some terribly sad news.

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Trespassing on the turf of the mainstream media

I’ve had the good luck to happen to be in Copenhagen today and hence to be able to attend “What Professional Journalism Means for Democracy“, run by Berlingske Media – the mainstream media group behind broadsheet Berlingske and tabloid B.T. A few of the people here – Astrid Haug and Mathias Østerlund – are folks I’ve met previously.

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The notion that social media is a great leveller is wrong

For someone as active as I am in social media, perhaps the title of this blog entry is a little extreme. But bear with me. Or, to be more precise, bear with me those of you in the ever dwindling band of people who are going to read this.

This blog, I have concluded, exists mostly thanks to a combination of fortuitous circumstances 6 years ago that has seen me through to this, my 1461st post.

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An idea for a little Facebook mashup for travellers

For the first time in ages, Facebook has me hooked on a new feature – the ‘Cover’ image (the large image at the top) in the new profile timeline. If you don’t know what I am on about, see this and this for how to enable it.

OK, this ‘Cover’ image is just an image. But for the first time ever as a user of Facebook you have the ability to create a real visual identity for your profile, and whatever you think of the concept of the timeline, the visual design is neat.

I’ve started to use the ‘Cover’ image as a means of telling friends where I am (pictures so far have been of Ljubljana, Brussels and London), something that I also do via Dopplr. Surely then there is a little automation opportunity here? Use either location from Dopplr, or from Facebook Places, and automatically pull in a Creative Commons Licensed image from Flickr of that city – a stunning picture of the city where you are right now.

Anyone fancy having a go at making it work using the relevant APIs?

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The EU has a structural problem, not a communications problem

Pic via @avaltat http://yfrog.com/kkvfsebjI’ve been attending the EuroPCom conference in Brussels yesterday and today, and the panels and coffee breaks are full of discussions about how to better communicate the European Union to citizens.

Sorry but I am really tired of this ‘debate’.

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How to work with a web design freelancer

I have been working freelance for more than 4 years now. Yet many of the same difficulties keep on appearing. So here’s my slightly tongue-in-cheek guide about how to work with me, to make sure everything runs smoothly. Continue reading →

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The cheapest way to get an iPhone 4S in the UK

What’s the cheapest way to get an iPhone 4S legitimately in the UK? That’s the conundrum that’s been confronting me for the past few days.

I’ve been on a £30/month contract with O2 for my old iPhone 3G, but I’m sure I can do better. I’m a medium data user (between 0.5 and 1Gb/month) and make relatively few calls and send few SMS. I travel a lot, so even the cheaper package roaming prices for data offered by some networks are too costly for me (more on the roaming conundrum here), so I have a MiFi and PAYG SIMs for other European countries for that.

So what did I discover? This is the table calculating a price for a 32Gb iPhone over 24 months, with various data and call packages with the main networks. Data for this was compiled 7-9 October 2012 – it’s accurate as far as I can tell. Click the table to enlarge.

The cheapest option – by a full £76 over two years – is to buy an unlocked iPhone 4S from Apple directly, for £599, and put a GiffGaff PAYG SIM in it, and top-up £10/month for unlimited data (although no tethering according to their T&Cs). I’ve survived without tethering for two years in the UK, no big deal, so I don’t think that’s going to stop me…

Now of course GiffGaff could change their prices and my calculations wouldn’t stand. But I would be the owner of an unlocked iPhone and could go elsewhere if I need to (O2 and 3 both offer 500mb for £10/month), and would still be better off financially than I would on a contract. For £15/month I can get an unlimited data SIM from 3, which together with the unlocked iPhone would still be cheaper than 3′s unlimited data option on a contract.

Now all of this strikes me as a rather perverse outcome, and not one I had expected. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome!

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