大象传媒

I hope this will be a semi-regular feature: a look ahead to some of the things happening on Tuesday. Send us your thoughts on whether we should look at these stories, how we should cover them, bloggers and podcasters we might talk to OR even better suggest your own ideas.

• The Conservative Party Conference continues
  
• BT Digital Music Awards take place.
  
• Leaders from the 20 most poluting nations gather in Mexico to look at ways to combat global warming.
  
• CEATEC in Japan gets underway -it's the world's largest tech show.
  
• Also worth noting that the Portable Media Expo, the big US podcasting conferencet takes place over the weekend.
  

When we started Pods and Blogs we were lucky to have one of the best brains in the blogosphere as a co-conspirator; I am of course talking about our man from Rockford Illinois, Kevin Anderson. Unfortunately for us, the Guardian has recognised his considerable skills and he's gone to join them as . We wish him well in his new role and I'm pretty sure this won't mean the end of his appearances on Pods and Blogs. In the meantime if you want to catch a few pearls of blog wisdom you can still read his thoughts on .
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A couple of links to add to the list of what we planned. You can listen online here.

• Tim Montgomerie spoke to us about
  
• Catholic Blogger spoke about being top of the blogs for his report on the protests outside Westminster Cathedral.
  
• fighting to stop Hemel Hempsted hospital from closing have started using MySpace and YouTube to help the cause. Via the 大象传媒's Action Network
  
• The man behind talked to us about his unusual quest for employment. Big thanks to listener Harry Porter for the tip!
  
• Robin Hamman is talked net guru for us.
  
• Jags Parbha of Five Live Interactive with a report about rape
  
• Cody the US Iraq veteran trying to buy himself an education by auctioning his name spoke to us about
  
• Kyle McRae of citizen media agency Scoopt spoke about the
  

Some of the people we've come to know on pods and blogs have new blogs worth checking out.

• Richard Sambrook Director of Global News for the 大象传媒 filled with interesting stuff relating to the net and journalism.
  
• Some of Roberto's longer comments here would work better as blog posts in their own right and . Good luck with the blog Roberto!
  
• And a recent appearance on Five Live talking about the harsh realities of life for children in care by reminded me that months ago I'd promised him a link. Stan's been through the mill and was homeless for many years, things are better for him now, which is good because it gives him a chance to share his considerable experience with the rest of us.
  

So needed a house, a job and and this , all are, in different ways relying on the power of the blogs to take make it happen; power that in Kyle's case earned him a brand new house from a single red paperclip.

But IMHO the champion and in a way quite moving gamble on blog powered wealth comes from this who is auctioning off his name to help pay for his education. As we reported earlier on pods and blogs, there's already a species of monkey named after a casino following a similar auction so lets hope it's the Bellagio that puts in the winning bid and not The Golden Nugget.

But it does make me think that we really ought have a similar scheme of our own to drive a bit of traffic to this blog. After all I have "form" in this regard, being partially responsible many moons ago

So come on blog visitors get your thinking caps on and post a comment with your safe, legal, non-politically partisan, non-sexually explicit, inoffensive and non-commercial ideas to get us some serious blog powered publicity...and a ...oh rats
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A commenter on Pods and Blogs suddenly found themselves top of the blogs on Monday .

I took some photos and have received 25,000 hits in the last 2 days as well as 300 comments, and lots of links.... Joee Blogs

It does show how if you are in the right place at the right time you can catch the attention of a huge global audience. Without wishing to enter into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the issue (You might try , and if you want to explore the issues) it underlines the value of original comment in blog posts. I think in the early days blogs many originating in the US, were often dominated by comment based on big media reports: US newspapers have much less of it than their British counterparts so there was a natural appetite for that kind of material. But now there seems to be a growing trend that its original reporting that really excites the blogosphere and that I think is a good thing.
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Here are some of the items coming up on next week's segment. As you can see there's still plenty of space for other ideas. If you've an idea that might make please leave a comment or send and email to podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk Anyway here's the list of what we have so far.

• The man behind will talk to us about his unusual quest for employment. Big thanks to listener Harry Porter for the tip!
  
• Robin Hamman is talking to for us. Robin still wants your questions for Howard.
  
• Jags Parbha of Five Live Interactive has done an interview about rape
  
• Kyle McRae of citizen media agency Scoopt will talk to us about the
  

It's . Linguistically lazy Second Lifers can which will do it for them but that seems to me to be taking the joy out of it. As I write this I'm looking at the spot (give or take a bit) on the Thames where Captain Kidd was strung-up and evening plans may possibly include a pint of rum in the bar of the aforementioned . Meanwhile, honour, but no cash prizes, to the best bit of 大象传媒 News Output adapted to Pirate Speak left in the comments or better still send us a . Here be the headlines aaarggghhh.
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Rollo Carpenter and the creator of the revealed on last night's segment plans to adapt his creations for . Listeners to the segment (which you can hear here about 15mins in) will have realized that George's conversation is a little odd; we're not quite at the stage where an AI will be passing the . Part of the reason for this is that George is in many ways an embodiment of Philosopher John problem. As I understand it George's utterances are drawn from a vast (and heavily pruned) database of previous conversations. His ability to talk is based upon his understanding of the relationships between words, not about grasping the meaning or words or how they relate to the physical world. Of course giving an AI an awareness of the world is a complex task, the data processing required is enormous. Which is why placing an AI in Second Life is such an interesting experiment because it is a simplified world, which (depending on what Carpenter's plans actually are) an AI can interact with, and in a limited way percieve.

For further background on this you might try the following blogs:,,
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As ever you can listen to an archive of the show online.

• We began with a look at the political blogs. blogger of the year, the and I list of the top political blogs. Iain's list has created a lot of buzz on the blogs it was even linked to by US uber blog the Daily Kos..to which is both typically despicable and very, very funny in a non-PC sort of a way. Anyway I digress the point of all the above was that my local blogger made it into the top 100 non-aligned bloggers. I'd like to have more non-aligned bloggers on during each conference. If you know a good one leave a comment here or email podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk we may even ask you to interview them for us if you are willing and they live near to you.
• Our first ever computer creation of Rollo Carpenter who had just . And our scoop was that George like A.I's may soon be making an appearance in . It will be interesting to see how their linguistic skills change once they have a world to interact with.
• A report from the event with , and
• Four poets from the told us why they weren't the new rock and roll though they may be the new MySpace
• And non linear story telling with one of the

Lastly Robin Hamman is going to be on Friday. He'd like your questions for the interview. Leave a note in the comments or email podsandblogs@bbc.co.uk.
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We've covered the concerns some indie podcasters have about the proposed Broadcast Treaty. When treaties such as this are negotiated it's common for governments, ngo's, businesses and other groups to lobby hard for their interests, which can leave the little guy(such as the indie podcaster) a small voice in the crowd.

Now, for the first time, different podcasting organisations have come together to lobby for changes to the treaty. Dean Whitbread of the sent us this personal view of why they have taken this unprecedented step. As ever with guest blog posts his views don't represent those of the 大象传媒:

Geneva, September 11th - 13th: Gwen Hinze from Elelctronic Freedom Foundation presented a joint statement from podcasters from around the world to the World Intellectual Property Organisation. This piece of internet history was an attempt to make sure that the development of the Broadcast Treaty into internet broadcast/netcast/webcast does not wipe out grassroots podcasting. UKPA (UK Podcasters Association) has been working for months with the Irish PodRepBod, the German Podcastverband, the Open Rights Group in the UK and the EFF in the US to resist aspects of the Broadcast Treaty, which many podcasters, podcast users and a growing number of politicians feel are inimical to the healthy development of grassroots new media culture. The issues are about copyright, and the ongoing ownership of content. Many podcasters fear that the Treaty is giving broadcasters the upper hand when it comes to rights. The campaign has unified podcasters globally, particularly in the UK, Eire, Germany, and the US, in a common cause, to influence the outcome of this looming - and binding - international legislation.

I know Dean would want me to point out that this is very brief (and additionally subbed by me) summary of the issues. There's more on the issue at For more on WIPO itself you can Obviously broadcasters and other organisations have a different view of the issue from the various grassroots podcasting organisations. A blog is meant to be an ongoing and we'd welcome your comments on this issue.
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I suppose some people do think of their blogs as children but . I know daily posting is important but would you trust someone to baby-sit your blog? Of course for the really lazy perhaps some enterprising soul will think up the "Blog Au Pair" or the blog boarding school taking the tedium of regular posting out of your hands entirely.

I was on leave so I didn't take part in Pods and Blogs this week except in taped form. President Bush spoke in our time so the show was shorter than planned. A big thanks to all concerned, those who ended up on-air and those who (because of the shorter segment) didn't

We started with Iraqi blogger who gave his reaction to Bush' speech.
gave us some thoughts from a serving soldier's perspective.
sent us a lovely piece of audio about how he first learned about 9/11 on holiday in Cuba. Unfortunately our audio playout system and the mp3 format he sent seemed to disagree and we lost part of the interview. But you can hear the whole thing at the altmuslim podcast
sent us a very nice personal reflection.
who survived the 7/7 bombings added some thoughts on media coverage of anniversaries of terror attacks and how blogging has helped her come to terms with events.
Catholic Deacon and podcaster from New Orleans sent us a perspective from that city.

A big, big thanks are also due to , , , and Patrick all of whom offered to help out with the programme. Please visit their blogs where you can read their thoughts and reflections.
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IBC was a mammoth show. I really needed the map, if for no other reason, I didn't want to get lost. This was a broadcast professional conference so had a lot of gear that I really, personally and professionally, didn't need. But sometimes, you stumble on something so unexpected it catches your eye. I was at a reception last Saturday and was introduced to the folks from a small Irish company called . They make a piece of software that does the reverse of visualisations on music players. Instead of showing a psychedelic rainbow of dancing colours that syncs with your music, they create a soundtrack to go with your video by analysing the colours in the footage. Neat.

It does help to have a little knowledge of music such as understanding how a will change the mood of your soundtrack. Justin McCarthy, technical director at Abaltat, said it's not just about making soundtracks on the cheap. It can also help directors give composers a sense of what they are looking for in music. It's a neat piece of software, and it just reminded me of how many clever people are out there creating clever things.

A friend of mine says: "I don't watch TV but I watch an awful lot of video". A lot of my friends online are like that. I didn't watch any TV until I recently got that let's me watch TV on an old laptop. Actually, it turns my computer into a DVR, which is really cool. But a lot of what I watch I has been suggested to me by friends, either on BitTorrent or YouTube. It's a lot about recommendations from friends, whose tastes I share.

What about bridging social networks with TV networks? Certainly, I'm not the first one to think about that. Tom Coates, who writes the excellent Plasticbag blog, has on the subject that was part of a presentation that he did. Interestingly, one of his ideas - video chat with friends while watching TV - seems familiar to something that I saw yesterday with the Philips set top box with a webcam.

On one of the hundreds of huge flat panel screens, I watched a demo by one of the set-top box software manufactuers, . It caught my eye because it had some really nice on screen animation that reminded me of the cool cube scrolling that I've seen on my Mac.

I sat down for a demo of a mock-up of what they want to do with set-top boxes. They said that most people only watched a few of the hundreds of channels possible on cable or satellite TV after they flicked through the electronic-programme guide. Yup, that makes sense. They made it possible to see a lot more related content, not only other channels but also things you had saved to your boxes hard drive. Yeah, many set top boxes now have hard drives, getting up to a few hundred gigabytes these days. You could also zoom through programmes not only by genre, but also by other films the directory of a film might have made or possibly find performances by the musicians who contributed to the soundtrack of a film or programme. Cool.

It all had really flash graphics with all kinds of animations that made the old picture-in-picture trick look so last century. But what really caught my eye was the idea of possibly seeing also programmes that friends had suggested either by watching them or finding them on the internet. It's really only a matter of time between video on the internet and broadcast TV become indistinguishable. One of the big themes at the conference was IPTV, or TV delivered over wired or wirelessly over the internet. The computer really hasn't broken into the living rooom yet, but obviously set top boxes are getting smarter. And the distance between computers and TV is going to become very small.

What about you? What is more important, the TV schedule or what your friends recommend to you?

I'm also here in Amsterdam to find some good mobile blogging, podcasting and possibly even kit. At the moment, my right shoulder is very unhappy because I'm carrying an office worth's of kit in my courier bag: My brilliant but aging Nikon CoolPix 995 with a wide-angle adapter, my PowerBook, my Palm Tungsten T3 and too many power adapters. I don't even have a mic or an audio recorder with me, although in a pinch, I could use the PowerBook and , brilliant free, open-source audio editing sofware. But that's really only good if I'm sitting down. And, I don't want to sit down or stand in one place. I want to be able to blog and podcast where the news is at, whether it's a conference in Amsterdam or a street protest in New York.

The word mobile is everywhere here, but it took a little looking through all the of the massive booths to find the Nokia stand. Oddly, I remember that massive Nokia stand at Comdex a few years ago, and it was mobbed with people. Here, I had the Nokia reps all to myself to grill with all kinds of technical questions that most of their customers wouldn't even think to ask.

The Nokia N-Series is a good choice for . It even integrates nicely with Flickr, Blogger and Nokia's oww service. It's got a 3.2 megapixel camera, an MP4 video camera, mini-SD expansion slot and not only 3G but also WiFi capability. That's brilliant. The 3x optical zoom is a big plus as well. I hate digital zoom, especially with low-megapixel cameras. This is a definite step up from the camera phones of a few years ago.

Now, as a journalist, and a long-winded one at that, I wanted to know if I was going to have to T9 my story on a little phone keypad. Nope, Nokia sells a nice size QWERTY bluetooth keyboard. It even has nice action for a foldable keyboard. For me that's probably even better than using those QWERTY thumb keyboards like those on BlackBerry phones.

The only thing that might be a deal killer for me is that the N93 doesn't have a jack for an external mic. That's too bad. I know that's probably not something that most people need, but you just can't get broadcast quality audio using the built-in mic on a camera phone.

Hey Pods and Blogs mobloggers, what do you use to moblog? Any suggestions? What blogging services work best when moblogging?

UPDATE: I'm going to second Kevin's post because I'm sick and tired of lugging round a big laptop and the audio gear...soon I'll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger's right side fused with Woody Allen's left. There must be a light weight kit combination out there I'm missing. Thoughts anyone?

I'm in Amsterdam at the to talk about, what else, blogs. The conference is really a broadcast industry super show, not a show for consumer electronics per se, but there is plenty for a geek like me to get excited about. I haven't seen so much digital kit since I went to one of the last shows in 2002.

Recently, my better half got a MacBook, which is cool because it's got a little webcam built into the case above the screen so we can video conference when either one of us is on the road. Well, Philips was displaying a neat little that has a built in webcam. Right now, they are trying to get phone operators interested in the phone so they can sell it on to their customers. Bummer, I can't put it on my Christmas list. But the phone does work with standard SIP-based videoconferencing software. Here's a list of that should work with it.

You can also plug the phone into your TV so you have a big screen to see your friends and family on while you video chat. More than that, Philips was also showing off a digital TV set-top box with a webcam built in. The webcam clips on top of your flat panel TV. You can cut out of watching those Dr Who reruns to video chat.

The net is a powerful tool for harnessing collective memory. is a case in point, bringing together sounds recorded by those affected by events on that day. It's a powerful, and very different kind of listening experience to take a tour through their audio archive; perhaps we are too concerned with linear narrative in radio pieces. The way that different sequences of sounds can occur in the project's browser (in my case a Jazz musician followed by a construction worker talking about finding a body in the rubble) somehow makes the experience more moving.
Other memorials are also appearing in virtual form on the net. In Second Life they will be unveiling a as well as a collection of relevant readings about the attacks.

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We took the tennis during the last Pods and Blogs and Five Live's commentator, Jonathan Overend, who clearly knows everything there is to know about tennis even as it relates to web2.0, revealed that there was fierce competition among players to get on the net. Kindly, Jonathan has taken the time to enlighten us all with this excellent guest post:

feature on atptennis.com at the start of the year and it quickly turned into a huge hit with worldwide tennis fans. A lot of people don't really know what goes on behind the scenes at a tennis tournament and they're not aware of how players pass the time between matches. The idea certainly caught on among the players because at the start of the year, there was a distinct link between the blog authors and the winners of the tournaments! Rafael Nadal was the featured blogger during the French Open and he attracted more than 800,000 page impressions over the tournament fortnight. Nadal may have got the most hits but the most entertaining blog has been written by the Russian Dimitry Tursunov who's dispatches have earned him cult status in the tennis community. Tursunov has given fans an amusing insight into life on the tour and he's not afraid to spread scurrilous rumours and gossip. He said in the summer that players have started avoiding him at the risk of getting something they say reported! His opinions range from simple tennis matters to Portuguese roundabouts! Check out his blog from Estoril back in May - it's hysterical!

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We'd like to hear from bloggers and podcasters on next week's segment as we look at the 5 years since the September 11th attacks. We want your thoughts on the event and where we go from here in trying to combat terrorism. The more personal the better: what it means to you, your community, your nation. You can leave a (accept the security message when it pops up) or email upallnight@bbc.co.uk If you'd like to suggest a blogger or podcasters to talk to leave a note in the comments.

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...and British politics gets interesting again. The words of blogger . At issue whether Tony Blair should name a date for his departure following the . On the , one a wide range of comments. This particularly vivid one suggested it was now time to go

Those who wish to put things off are like frogs being boiled slowly in water

who describes himself as 鈥渇ighting for the return of a more geniuine Labour Party.鈥� Says he鈥檇 like to buy fellow blogger and former Minister Tom Watson a drink for resigning. 鈥�it makes my heart jump to know that not every underling is a souless careerist鈥�
Tom鈥檚 own blog has been but blogger and Labour is backing his stance. from Merton is less than happy with events

I feel very sad about everything that has happened,鈥� it is clear that some Labour MP's in calling for his departure have created a climate of instability.

Obviously this is only a brief survey undertaken in the midsts of working on a radio programme. Many more Labour blogs at and of course there's Alan Connor's list of top political blogs. Your own recommendations for posts on this subject would be welcome in the comments.

The great outpouring of grief for Steve Irwin is . Blogs can outlive their owners and in process become "virtual shrines" where friends and fans leave condolences. The Washington Post reported on the phenomenon some time ago in this very which delves into the pyschology:

Viewers use the Web sites to find and comfort one another -- not only to facilitate communication from far-flung or long-lost friends who couldn't attend a funeral, but also to send messages from one dead soldier's wife to another, from one mourning mother to another or among those galvanized to fight a disease."

Now these memorials have a social dimension with the proliferation of sites like Livejournal and Myspace. The macarbre puts the MySpace pages of celebrities like Irwin alongside those of less famous people: any number of psychology phd thesis might be written on the result.
Interestingly according to Blogpulse one of the days most popular posts was another memorial; this touching tribute to a

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The blogosphere resounded to the news that the had died. Even now a day later he is the first and second most popular search term on Technorati a sign of how important a figure he had become. There are hundreds of on-line eulogies being written - including this from . But beyond the many, many obits it was interesting how his death had revived debate in parts of the blogosphere about the best way to preserve the animals he loved, issues at the heart of many current controversies about looking after endangered species and habitats from whaling to the trade in ivory. Guest blogger, Australian writer and Director of the Australian Environment Foundation outlines the territory for us in this personal view:

"We are all mourning the death of the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. He died yesterday while filming: struck in the chest by a sting-ray. Irwin was often criticized for getting too close to animals. But as I explain in it was this up-close and personal approach that got us more interested than ever in saving the world鈥檚 endangered animals .

Steve Irwin had strong opinions on conservation which often put him at odds with the experts. He was vehemently . He only believed in shooting crocodiles with cameras. But pictures can not save species from extinction and many believe sustainable harvest 鈥� by legalising and regulating trade in accordance with strict quota systems 鈥� . Irwin鈥檚 death re-opened the debate the world鈥檚 endangered animals.

These are, as you can imagine, controversial issues. You can join the debate As ever with guest writers a note that these are personal views of the author, not those of the 大象传媒..

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As ever you can listen to the archive here.

• We began by talking about politicians embracing social media including the , British Politicians and American Politicians on Myspace - more on this in later shows.
  
• Vlogger Josh Wolf has been as he appeals his controversial imprisonment in the US.
  
• As billed a report of the discovery of a new species on Ebay
  
• Our interview with Behzad Bolour on youth podcasting to Iran
  
• A report from the excellent car-blog for Formula 1 cars
  
• And finally after 2 weeks of giving luke-warm welcome to all the daft things getting lots of publicity on the web..we cracked...an egg to be exact and spoke to
  
• Finally we haven't ignored Technorati's top story, the . There'll be more on the blog - watch this space
  

As ever your ideas for next weeks show very welcome. Leave a comment on the blog
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Dr Simon Coppard has an unusual claim to fame: he's identified a new species of sea urchin, but he did so not by dredging the depths of the sea, but by trawling the pages of the auction website Ebay. I interviewed Simon about his extraordinary find at the Natural History Museum in London where he works for the marvellously titled International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature: it's the organisation that governs the naming of animals. Sitting in his quiet office sequestered away from the crowds of school children milling round the diplodocus skeleton in the entrance hall I felt, rather foolishly, as though I were eavesdropping on the office where God decided what to call each member of his newly minted creation. This was, after all, the place where animals officially get their names

Simon told me he was first alerted to the new urchin in 2004 by the thriving community of shell collectors on the web. It's easy to see why the little urchin caught the eye of Ebay users. Even the pickled specimen he showed me had preserved its brilliant colours. The purple marks on the golf ball sized shell had a near ultra-violet intensity and its narrow spines are striped red and white.View Image Here

When they approached Dr Coppard the collectors had certainly found the right man to identify the new creature. As well as working for ICZN he's a marine biologist specializing in the spiky echinoderms. But the new urchin wasn't one he had seen before and as Simon and his co-author Heinke Schultz reviewed the literature it was clear they had a new species.

Of course this raised the thorny issue of what to call it. In chatting to Simon it's clear he's not a fan of novel names: he mentioned a monkey that had the misfortune to be named after a Casino and a beetle named after the current president of the United States with a rather disdainful air: "It's better to give a decent scientific name based on the characteristics of the animal." He told me. And so in the end the purple and red urchin was called Coelopleurus Exquisitus - a fitting name because it is an exquisite thing when viewed up close.

The new name also had an affect on the value of the urchin on Ebay jumping from $8 to $138 following the publication of the research in the journal Zootaxa. It seems an coelopleurus would not be as sweet by any other name.

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