As part of the Frankfurt Market in the city centre, Bob Wilson has brought along his traditional wooden carousel. Last year I tried to persuade several friends to have a turn on it with me, but for some reason, they were reluctant. Finally my good old mum agreed. It’s actually a bit of a bumpy ride, but we had fun waving at people as we whizzed by! It might help to have some Gluwein first

Snapped by Mary Horesh — protesters outside a stall at the Christmas Market selling fur.

It’s not a meritocracy, we understand that those with the most social capital aren’t always the best to lead (nor do they wish to — as Stephen Fry often makes clear). It’s not democracy (although it has certain democratising features), as there isn’t a system — nor an equal voting footing (those with more social capital can push others into positions of power).

In societies (those online are the only in which we have seen movements toward this) where there is “rule” by those with the most social capital it can be seen from the outside almost a ‘mob rule’ (with those with social capital directing the mob). The Jan Moir protests are seen as ‘democracy’ or ‘mob rule’ — and as Paul Bradshaw says (in his first comment) “nothing inbetween”.

Influence by social capital can be seen as ‘mafia’s, cliques, etc — which baffles those ‘inside’ them as they aren’t necessarily knowingly exerting influence.

There’s real need for the study of this ’system’ of rule — and it needs a term so we can distinguish it from others, so we can agree what’s happening and look at the effects. I’m going for whuffocracy — unless someone already has come up with a better one.

Doom, Tighe, Mitton, Malik, Furnell, Babu — who’s next?

Nominations are now open for Brummie Of The Year 2009 — and you’re welcome to nominate any Brummie or Brum resident that has been great or just very very Birmingham this year.

How about Brian Travers of UB40 for sterling efforts to save Brummie music culture? Or maybe you know better?

All that we know is that the nominations will close at 7am Saturday 5th December and the voting will open the next day. Leave your nominations, with a reason, in the comments — and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

It eventually got to poster art and the most famous arse of the seventies (and no, not Malcolm McClaren):

Photographer Martin Elliott was interviewed and I could detect a hint of Brum in his accent — some research later and we find that the photo was taken on Birmingham University’s tennis courts. Fiona Butler the model was from Stourport — but I think it’s a shot we can claim.

Looks like it's time to start planning the sit-in. [link]

It’s intelligent, honest and unafraid — something of media at its best — is it only volunteer-led internet media that has the space and motivation for this?

Roll up! Roll up! Get your hot German sausages here!

The Frankfurt Christmas Market has arrived in town! Not only can you snack on a tasty sausage, but there are other deliciously delectable treats to be had; German bread and cakes and sweets, more hot food in the form of pretzels, fried potatoes with garlic, schnitzels, all best accompanied by German beer and heart warming mulled wine.

If you are looking for gifts, then you will be spoilt for choice for something a little bit different in the craft fair and if you are feeling a bit adventurous have a twhirl on the traditional wood carousel or slide down the helter skelter!

And not forgetting, there are tons of great photo opportunities there and it’s especially beautiful in the evening with all the coloured lights……

Have a great weekend! See you next Friday

11 bus tweets

“ As long as their bins are collected and services provided they are not interested in how the council is run.”

I think you’ll find they are Mr Dow.

Remember Glyn Evans? “How many of our residents are actually interested in council meetings?”

Birmingham City Council — a systemic lack of interest in democracy?

No word on if he’ll be singing his hits, like “Hast du heut” and kissing old ladies while wearing a very very blue jacket:

Or if the Mayor will either.

American cartoonist and underground comix artist Gilbert Shelton is going to be in Brum on Friday November 13th at Nostalgia & Comics. He’s the bloke who did The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (which is being made into a stop motion film), and the spin off series Fat Freddy’s Cat. He has also contributed to Wonder Wart-Hog, Not Quite Dead, and is also well known in some circles for his cover art to The Grateful Dead’s 1978 album Shakedown Street.

Knockabout Comics have just published The Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus and they also have The Freak Brothers Omnibus available., and Nostalgia & Comics is welcoming Gilbert to sign both books between 4.00 & 5.30. It’s at 14 –16 Smallbrook Queensway, Birmingham, B5 4EN.

For further details: 0121 643 0143 or noscomic@noscomic.plus.com

Why did they do it?

A lovely dose of self-aware humour “it’s buggered mate” — which I think is an important engagement tool. Not only does it get attention initially, but it starts the “community” of users off with them having a good idea who a site is for — it’s for “them”, and it’s for people who don’t take themselves too seriously. A bit of fun is a very powerful thing.

It was an absolute pleasure to have the chance to photos of UB40 at their Raise The Roof gig at The Rainbow in Digbeth this week.

UB40 came back to their roots gave their support to The Rainbow because it is under threat as it has received a noise abatement order from local residents (or resident). Although the landlord Kent Davis has agreed to build a noise insulating roof, there was still more funding needed. UB40 stepped in, and the sales from the tickets and takings behind the bar will go towards the new roof. Digbeth is a vital part of Birmingham’s cultural scene and the music in and around the area plays an important role. I hope that The Rainbow has managed to raise all the funding needed. As the local saying goes “Keep Digbeth Vibrant!”

There are some more photographs from the gig over on my blog. Have a great weekend! See you next Friday

It contains over 200 records, placed on the map by contributors. Zoom in, or see a detail:

It’s available to buy on my Zazzle store, with my other map-based artworks. And it’s Christmas soon.

Thanks to the Birmingham Music Archive.

It contains over 200 records, placed on the map by contributors. Zoom in, or see a detail:

It’s available to buy on my Zazzle store, with my other map-based artworks.

Social media is for most people something you work with, rather than in. Think of it like a pencil — almost everyone can use it in their job, but few work “in pencils”, or even exclusively with them.

It’s an easy thing to use, to make a mark with, and there are huge differences in scale of use; from a shopping list to one of Da Vinci’s etchings. All are completely valid and require different amounts of skill and knowledge in how the pencil works.

When you use a pencil to communicate you’re not really thinking about the pencil, but the message you are communicating. If you’re using it to mark a point to saw on a piece of wood, then it’s internal communication — if it’s a note for the milkman you have to think about how he will react to what you write. That is if you want your gold top in the morning.

If that’s all you need then, great, get to the stationers and get a box of HB — you’re set. If you’re just pencilling for pleasure and have time to practise, have fun (and show us when you’ve finished what you’ve done).

Now stop and think that everyone can get a pencil if they like. And make a mark pretty much anywhere.

How do your marks interact with other marks? And what does that mean to your communication? You need to think about the people you’re communicating with rather than the pencils, or even the marks they make. You may need help thinking about that or deciding what marks to make with your pencils, or where. You might just want tuition to raise you to your own level of pencilling.

That’s where the people that have been thinking about the pencils, the marks and the communication as a whole come in — they do work “in pencils”, in a kind of way.

They may even know the people who put the lead into the pencils if you need to build your own.

The Carpet Salesmen by M R Fletcher

I’m not sure what it means, The Lunar Society is an oft used reference whenever it comes to thinking coming out of Birmingham — but those thinkers thought of science and industry and “made things”. I’m wondering if I need to “make things” too, or is “helping others make things” (a way to think about consultancy work) enough?

Download audio file (1030-sion-simon.mp3)
– Sion Simon MP at Hello Digital

Hyperlocal is the buzzword that being used to describe those new models — “The term “hyperlocal” is sometimes used to refer to news coverage of community-level events.” (Wikipedia). Community in this sense has no real definition — except that it’s assumed to be smaller than the “local” of the traditional news gatherer.

It’s understood that online news sources (those that are extensions of the off-web mechanisms) are struggling in part because people don’t read every page on their website — only the stories that interest them. The phrase in the US is “print dollars become online dimes” (or somesuch) — the same content (and a potentially wider audience for each piece) doesn’t generate the same revenues. This is because it’s possible to split, target and assess those eyeballs and click-throughs.

Extend that into the “local arena” and there’s less room for the niche — it’s not feasible at all to suggest that advertising can pay to generate truly niche content. A stark contrast with niche but non-geographic interests, which can find a audience online that outstrips any a conventionally distributed source can provide.

A quick and dirty example: It’s no good saying that an announcement of (say) a new ukulele group in a suburb is of interest to all in that suburb — it isn’t — and as filtering gets better that information will only reach those that care enough and are local enough. At that level even a specialist shop won’t pay enough to gather than information.

It wouldn’t work in a current (read historical) “local” news source — unless as a little bit of human interest filler, and it wasn’t that item that was attracting the advertisers — it was a place in the whole “package”, which soon will no longer exist.

But there are people and companies that still want to do the local news gathering — why? There are a few competing (or complimentary) models emerging — here’s one way I think we can divide them:

• the very local, volunteer run (one or two people) blog (often no ads, or a trickle of Google ad money — but no real desire to make money)
• the local blog that runs (sort of) like a small newspaper (ads are often sold direct to local business in the same way as a newspaper)
• the network — where sub-sites for areas are created (the ads are sold centrally, the object is to keep the overall site running rather than the sub-sites)
• the aggregator — where content is electronically pulled from various social (or news) spaces — (ads sold by the aggregator for the aggregator)

All but the volunteer-led source are facing the exact same problem as the “traditional operators” — a fight between scale of operation and potential income. The local blog “newspaper” has more flexibility and less costs than the traditional operator and can work on much tighter margins, but it still has to balance between area covered and effort expended. What the two “ground-up” models have as an advantage is that they can feel the size of the area for themselves from experience, they are covering an area that makes sense to them. This might not be at a level that can attract enough advertisements (Philip John is encouraged by the take-up on The Lichfield Blog, but it can’t be paying for much above server costs — will it eventually? I have no idea). What the networks and the aggregators seem to be doing is picking a size that they can sell advertisements too and making that the area on which they focus.

I did a very quick, small and unscientific survey on Twitter asking people what sort of area felt “local” to them — with these results. People had very different ideas of “local” — a road with 35 people, to a country with 4,500,000. Even those picking the same definition (eg my suburb) had wide ideas of what size that was. This isn’t surprising — and many people (rightly) said things to the effect that “my local airport is further away than my local shop” and “it depends”.

Without some system of “soviets” — a network of ultra local sites, each feeding upwards and having new input at each level of scale — there’s no way that one news source (or type of news source) can cover all of the news needs of each people. What’s happened in the past is that the “distribution” scale featured it’s own level and a pick’n'mix of that below — people understandably felt that wasn’t serving them well and have started to create outlets at different scale. These so far have worked in tandem with existing outlets — so aren’t really equipped to replace them.

The worrying (for some) is that the “distribution” scale corresponded roughly with that of legislature (although not a good fit always) — so that’s a gap that is less obviously well filled. Pits’n'Pots – for example – does a great job at the level of Stoke’s Council, but what independent outlet is operating at the scale of regional development agency? Is there anyone that can hold AWM to account (although one might argue that few do anyway)?

It’s my contention that different types of sites will plug these gaps — I could see a “what are they up to” site run for most legislative bodies or quangos, or different sites sharing resources to hold bodies to account. Support networks, collaboration will be what’s needed. There are some businesses there (tech support, local ad sales perhaps), but it’s not huge profits — and there aren’t certainly for content creators.

It’s lucky, therefore, that most content creators are doing it out of duty or love.

We’re in a period of transition — we know that no-one source is enough, but the don’t yet have the methods to pick the bits from separate sources. Aggregation tools as they stand aren’t the answer, and it’s difficult for people to be brave enough to “trust the network” as we have to.

It’ll come, it’s coming — but we’re not there yet — exciting isn’t it?

“images of councillors looking glum whilst pointing at holes in the road, wearing hard hats or presenting oversized cheques.”

Sites like this and Lolitics are parodying the politicians (and wanabees) — but the poses and the tone are those of the local newspaper. It’s the language that the politicians want to use.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

And it’s now not just politicians, “local paper poses” seem to be universal. One of the early big hits on the web was the Framley Examiner, which took it’s cue from very local newspapers and got them spot on — but reading it now, not much seems to have changed.

What are the new local paper clichés?

But first the “bad news”, see the decline in regional newspaper circulation from 1993 (as shown in a very impressive set of slides from Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis)

What strikes me is that, while the decline starts to happen consistently with widespread internet adoption, there are huge drops in years before that, including 1993; before the world wide web. Something was up with what the regional press was offering long before people started getting news online — and local news online provision lagged behind that of national (certainly in Birmingham where it’s only been about a year since the local papers started to publish properly on the web).

I have a little suspicion that it’s the era of spin that may have turned people off — but that’s just conjecture — what’s more obvious (and was generally agreed on in discussions) is that it’s not just the news provision that people find online. The community building, organising, communication, advertising (classifieds) have all moved online to better platforms — ones that newspapers don’t own.

That perhaps explains the difference in time spent reading a newspaper as opposed to looking at news online:

Although I’m not sure how the “30 minutes” is calculated — it seems a little too much like asking people and them replying with “ooh about half an hour”. The problem with measuring offline activity against online is that the online can be measured hugely accurately, offline not quite so much.

It does paint a picture that suggests that advertising won’t in any way support news online in the way it has in newspapers, which I think we all knew — but the figures present a very depressing picture for local press in particular.

So, what would we lose if we lost the regional press? One oft mentioned example is the loss of a regional “fourth estate” — to hold councils et al to account, another a loss of investigative journalism. Just how much council coverage, and how much investigative work is done is open to debate (and there are even a few attempt to measure it).

There’s no doubt that these things can be done online, whether by what we’d now understand as journalists, by other people working alone or by groups collaborating (maybe on sites such as Help Me Investigate —disclosure, I’ve worked wtih HMI). There’s also no doubt that that can be made easier by Government (Local & National) transparency and access to data. Streaming (and archiving online) council meetings would be a huge boon to the local blogger. Imagine this including your local government.

I think it’s re-enforce my thoughts that the hole left my newspapers probably wouldn’t be newspaper shaped, or needing to be filled by just one thing. People have been plugging gaps already, and (most of) the papers are still here.

What’s taking newspaper’s place

This is some of the really interesting stuff, I learnt a huge amount about the different types of companies that are attempting to make the local (or hyperlocal — a word I’m not convinced about) space pay. The US is way ahead of the UK on the development of these sites, it seems. They differ in method, but all really do one thing — get local people to tell the news, and sell advertising around it. Some edit, some profit share, some build discussion — but all use templates to build sites that talk about a specific area.

For me the issue here is that community size is too fluid, and that geographical area is a poor indication of the “right” size of area to cover. It’s something that the templated/networked sites can really struggle with — most seem to default on city or town (20-50,000 people were figures quoted, I’m not sure this qualifies as local or hyperlocal) possibly because that’s the size at which advertising becomes viable. While there’s no reason that a site about Birmingham (such as mine) and a site about Digbeth (a neighbourhood within it) can’t co-exist — but it would be difficult to see how they can chase the same ad revenue (possibly Digbeth is even too small to generate enough views, I’m not sure). Only the community knows how they see a place, what feels local to them.

To a certain extent that isn’t a problem for self-produced sites, I don’t attempt to cover anything but hosting costs (and if the site uses something like Wordpress.com, Ning or Tumblr then there need be no hosting costs at all) — and I don’t have to make money. The local blogger using a local blog network doesn’t have to get ads, but the network owners do.

I’m sure that there’s a place — and a business model for all sorts of of ways to do this. More likely we’ll see geo-search and something approaching geo-attention build custom offerings for each user pulling information from all of these types of sites together. What’s not clear is that there’s much (beyond opening up as much geo-located data, postcodes etc) that government can to to help that.

Attention to the UK’s libel laws, and more work on digital inclusion can help every UK blogger (or citizen) — not just those involved in local news — but if we need an impetus to work on it…

Paul Bradshaw has a much better grasp of the problems and possible solutions.

What should/shouldn’t Government do

At the end of the session we were asked to put post-it’s on two flip charts — one for what we’d like the Government to do, one for what they certainly shouldn’t. Like all that was said it’s public but unattributable — Will Perrin has blogged the complete list transcribed.

Why the official consultation can't be written in Plain English I don't know, but this is a step in — sort of — the right direction. [link]

I’m rather proud that we’ve developed — what we believe to be — the first accredited course in understanding and using social media. It’s completely platform agnostic — and designed to work with the appropriate tools for the interests and motivation of whoever’s learning, teaching the concepts of the social web rather than the tools.

Why not the tools? Well, here’s a lovingly extended metaphor I wrote for a talk Stu Parker gave at the WMRO Conference today:

Learning to use technology is like learning to drive — the rules, the highway code, being safe and not hurting yourself or others, are more the focus than what each control does. Not that learning to drive isn’t learning to use the controls, it is, but it’s only a start. Your teacher, your mum, your dad or a paid-for-instructor will focus on what’s happening around you rather than learning by rote what pedal to press when. Once you’ve mastered the gear change, it’s all about observation and reaction.

Think about what happens when you get into a different car to drive it, you might spend a little bit of time getting comfortable in the seat, working out on which stalk the lights are, reading the manual to make sure the radio doesn’t keep flicking to Saga FM — but in a few seconds, because the controls are basically the same (and the rules of the road are exactly the same – unless you’re one of those people that think porsches are allowed to park on double yellows) you’re off.

And this is what real technological inclusion is. It’s the confidence to move from one technology to another, to be confident that you know enough to make sure you’re safe — that there isn’t going to be a crash. We don’t spend time and effort teaching people to drive a Renault Clio, only for them to be foxed by a Fiat Punto. And we shouldn’t teach people Word or Excel only for another word processor or spreadsheet to stump them — or in the case of Microsoft Office a simple upgrade.

And so digital inclusion is platform agnostic, we need to define it as a confidence. You may well need help to get you to the basic level — to pass your test to continue the driving analogy — but it’s then that you can really start using the ‘net or any other technology you want to. And it’s then that you can do it without thinking about the buttons, wheels, pedals, but concentrating on your destination, reacting to others. It’s then that you can rush down the motorway to work, or take a casual meandering drive around pleasant country lanes, Linked In or Cute Overload — you can go where you like.

“CoTweet is not for everyone. It’s designed for teams who are managing the front-line of the real-time web for their organizations. It’s for people committed to engaging customers in authentic two-way conversations, rather than just broadcasting messages to followers.… If you’re interested in engaging with your customers in authentic, two-way dialogs, you really should give CoTweet another try.”

Not that the Manics aren’t now for the over 30s too. Think about it, long complicated sentences that struggle to fill the available time, politics references you don’t get first time — AND Bradley Whitford looks a bit like James Dean Bradfield.

Digital Birmingham announce their ‘Open City’ initiative to increase access to public datasets in April 2009. They

Wise Up!!!! If you’re in a cool unsigned band, do the right thing & stay well clear of silly little talent contests like this. They won’t help you.For starters, the first two rounds are a farce, a popularity contest, they are not attended by any industry what so ever. The bands with the most mates go through… What’s more, there will inevitably be more people watching & voting half way through the night than at the very beginning, so the whole concept of the competition in the first two rounds is flawed. The later you go on stage the more chance you have of getting through. The second round of Surface Unsigned is £7 (in advance) and £8 entry on the door. Now, most people will go primarily to see one band – their friends band, and all the bands play a 20 minute set. It’s actually cheaper (minute for minute) to go and see a signed act play a 90 minute set at a prestigious venue such as Brixton Academy or KOKO… you’ll get a ticket there for £25. What’s more, most bands in the Surface Unsigned competition don’t even get a sound check, so the sound quality in the most part is really pretty awful.Do yourselves a favour, don’t buy into this nonsense, the sooner this ‘X-Factor’ nonsense is dead and buried the better. It’s just another way of exploiting young talent for financial gain.

But I’ve a theory that it was the “not much happens” “dip in and out” long arching narrative thing that was what got people interested in the first place — much like how Twitter works (unless you’re obsessed), or much like how the Australian soaps were a revelation in low-impact TV. I think that by making it too hard to watch they killed the format.

Reality TV, when you define it as pointing a camera at people having real emotions, is much broader than Big Brother — and most of it is edited to be as action packed as possible. It’s tiring, only the committed can keep it up. Live football is reality TV, although the Olympics – three weeks of lots of coverage, unknowns and new stories evolving is more like what we’ve come to know as staples of the genre.

I’m not of the opinion that “reality TV” is dead, but I think people want two different things; either the slow “nothing much happens” – but it happens for a long time — or the tight visceral shared experience (the way the big X-Factor finals, or even important elections do).

Reality TV commissioners — let’s face it Channel 4 in this instance, they’ve got the money — you’ll want more “event TV” that has that endurance aspect. So here’s my pitch — you want something like live uninterupted coverage of Gimpo’s 25 Hour M25 Spin or this.

“Suits make a corporate comeback,” says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.

Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to.

just like “Birmingham is still vibrant”. But it’s worth keeping in mind.

Le Nombrilisme from bounder on Vimeo.

A little film I made for this.

Because “hailed a success” just means that someone said it, not that anything actually succeeded. Often the person doing the hailing is the organiser, minister, councillor, officer or administrator responsible. how convenient.

I wish I had the time to check for actual success every time the phrase comes up, or the technical nous to make it happen automatically – it would make a great failcamp project. For now I’m contenting myself with a little Google News search for the phrase, so I can giggle at the most outrageous collusion.

From the graph it seems that success peaked in 2004.

<a href="http://www.RussL.wordpress.com" rel="external nofollow" >Russ L</a> The more things change, <a href="http://organart.freeforums.org/the-myspace-blog-that-surface-unsigned-keep-getting-removed-t267.html" rel="nofollow">the more they stay the same</a>.(AKA ‘Good God Almighty, they’re still at it).

<a href="http://www.myspace.com/nopaytoplayinbrum" rel="external nofollow" >John D Traynor</a> Hello, last week I created a myspace page to provide a discussion area for pay-to-play gigs in Birmingham.<a href="http://www.myspace.com/nopaytoplayinbrum" rel="nofollow">http://www.myspace.com/nopaytoplayinbrum</a>There were some fleeting references to Surface Unsigned, but most of what I have written so far on the page’s blogs is general comment about pay-to-play. I made a point of sending friend requests to local bands who have been involved in Surface Unsigned this year; I did this in order to try to get a balanced perspective. Yesterday, Monday Nov. 3rd, I received this e-mail from Jay Mitchell:“Hi John, I’ve received emails today from bands who took part in the National Showcase claiming you are posting defamatory material about Surface Unsigned online and contacting them from your MySpace page <a href="http://www.myspace.com/nopaytoplayinbrum" rel="nofollow">http://www.myspace.com/nopaytoplayinbrum</a> Out of courtesy I thought I would let you know that I have received these complaints. At the moment these are just claims and I’ve not looked into it. As there have been claims of defamation I’ll be passing these complaints onto the relevant people.Regards Jay Mitchell”Not for a second do I believe that bands have contacted him about me. I responded, dismissing his threat, to which he responded by saying no-one is listening anyway. However, despite no-one listening, he chose to join the Organ magazine forum and talk about Surface Unsigned there.<a href="http://organart.freeforums.org/say-no-2-pay-2-play-and-f6.html" rel="nofollow">http://organart.freeforums.org/say-no-2-pay-2-play-and-f6.html</a>So, good, there’s a debate about Surface Unsigned.John D Traynor

What pindec said really. Birmingham Council makes data available to the public? Really? Where?Here’s Many Eyes:
<a href="http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/" rel="nofollow">http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/</a>and here’s a search for Birmingham:
<a href="http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/datasets?q=birmingham" rel="nofollow">http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/datasets?q=birmingham</a>

Comments Elsewhere Birmingham - Open City (Digital Birmingham - Blog - Birmingham - Open City) Birmingham Library (Created in Birmingham) When a bloggers asks a Prime Minister a question at a

<a href="http://www.mostyn.net" rel="external nofollow" >john mostyn</a> “As stated in our previous comment this will be resolved if and when you contact us in the correct manor” from Surface September 18th. Love it, sort of sums it all up really.
With you all the way Sam
<a href="http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=11606" rel="nofollow">http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=11606</a>

Digital Birmingham’s Open City - Open City is the pilot project Digital Birmingham are running with funding from the department for Communities and Local Government. The idea behind ‘Birmingham - Open City’ is to develop a community of practice around developing new resources to empower citizens. When Digital Birmingham were working up the bid we went on the basis that we shouldn’t presume what kind of services could be developed, or indeed, what kind of data sources could be made available to develop them. Instead we’re focusing on putting some resource into generating the collaborations, discussions, creativity and debate from which new services can spring.

would be great to see all the available council datasets uploaded to Many Eyes - that way everyone would/could benefit, not just the targeted 3rd sector organisations, and everyone would have access to the easy-to-use Many Eyes visualisation tools.another good way to “increase awareness of the council datasets” would be to link to them here … are there any? where are they?

Digital Birmingham - Blog - Birmingham Open City - Announcement of the bid we won at Digital Birmingham as part of the Timely Information for Citizens pilot funding.

Thanks for the comments. Success as I described it in the bid is getting the relationships right and then offering up a methodology to others about getting those relationships right. You’re right - we need to do practical things from the off given the time limit. I’ll take that approach on board.

very good, well done - the power of birmingham is go….

<a href="http://www.juxt.co.uk/samsaunders" rel="external nofollow" >Sam Saunders</a> For the record – I have just found the lists of entrants for the Leeds 2008 heats. My apologies for doubting you Surface Unsigned. I went to <a href="http://www.surfaceunsigned.co.uk/northernHomepageRound1.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.surfaceunsigned.co.uk/northernHomepageRound1.html</a> and clicked my scrollbar down 12 screens. And yes, I have have heard of at least three of those bands. One of them (Hungry Ghosts from York) played the BBC Introducing Stage at Leeds Festival this year – but they got no marks at all in their Surface Unsigned heat. The band immediately above them on that night got 143. It’s tough at the bottom, I’d say!

@Jon thanks for the Twitter Search by location tip. I did notice that there were separate tables on Twitter Grader for “Birmingham UK”, “Birmingham, UK” and “Birmingham”

I’d also suggest to look at who these people are following — they have good “twitter sense” and it’ll help you to get wider with your networking.Twitter Grader is an “interesting tool”, but is pretty flawed location-wise. It bases it’s locations on the exact text in the location field in twitter, which are subject to people using the exact format you’re searching for. Twitter search’s tweets by location is much better – it uses real location data. So my (@bounder) location – set by iPhone to lat/long- is picked up for Birmingham, even though I haven’t got “Birmingham, UK” in the text box – (it doesn’t “rank” tweeters, tho’, you’ll have to decide who’s interesting for yourself).

Good read!
Twitter is a great networking tool.
If any journalism students want to work in North America and
have any questions about life here I would be happy to help.
Follow me on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/vanguy" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/vanguy</a>
or e-mail me <a href="mailto:vanguy@gmail.com">vanguy@gmail.com</a>
Best of luck,
Torben

FeedTwit is a free app that can send your @ replies to you as text messages. Just follow Feedtwit from your twitter account and then login at <a href="http://feedtwit.com" rel="nofollow">http://feedtwit.com</a> with the supplied password and tell it what messages you want to receive. Easy, simple, and free.

Thanks – Jaiku doesn’t seem to be working for me either now, although the SMS gateway does. Let me know if you come across a solution.

There will be a lot of workarounds popping up and a number of “for pay” services. But they will only work for bleeding edge fast adopters and not for the general public (in so far as one can talk about general public in twitter terms). The real problem is for mass feeders like BP (to use a local ex) who were looking to set up services like alerts to readers. Till we get an operator based solution that seems to be borked.
Which really is a shame and I think Twitter is shooting themselves in the groin (the foot just does not do it) as there may have been a serious revinue stream there.
Business models seems not to be be twitters strong point tho.

It seems you have to pay/subscribe to the O2 email-to-sms service. No luck here.