Yesterday many in the Birmingham digerati were in attendance at the Birmingham Post’s Big Debate on the topic Digital: Power or Powerless? The event was live-blogged by Pete Ashton, & the idea was those of us who were in the hall would also live twitter it.
An idea which started off grand & all - until disaster struck when the wifi access which had been especially arranged for us in the hall went down, with the room being a faraday cage blocking out all mobile phone signals as well.
I decided it seemed to make sense to continue taking notes on my phone (until it’s battery gave out, but that’s another story…) of what I would have been twittering had it been available, & it would seem a shame to lose that, so here they are below. The live tweets up until that point (& also the tweets from outside the hall) are aggregated at Twemes amongst other sites.
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chris cook - online musician
if you’re a creative (artist, musician, whatever) using the web to promote yourself, to showcase your work - at what point do you stop giving it away for free & start charging for it ?
(related question - if you’re a band selling singles in the traditional way, selling 10,000 copies of your record has big kudos; but 10,000 plays on myspace doesn’t give the same kudos. why not ? at what point will it carry the same kudos ?)
joanna geary - digital journalist
birmingham has had a particularly high uptake of mobile interweb use.
what is the role of the regional press in the new world where people can get their local news more efficiently from the web 2.0 ?
blogs provide us with untrustworthy content - but then what makes partisan newspaper journalism any more trustworthy ?
it seems odd hearing joanna describe the created in birmingham crowd as ‘them’ - i very much consider her to be one of ‘us’ !
doug williams - bt
every time we get a new distribution channel, we get a new kind of story to tell due to the new way of telling the story. back in the days of the jester telling the story from his head & the oral tradition, he would would change the story in reaction to the reactions of the audience. theatres & books ossified - fixed - the story; the ‘new interactive media’ is actually a bit like a return to the early days, though still to all intents & purposes a lot of new media storytellling is just old media wearing a new shirt.
on the other hand, it’s all very well getting excited by the ability of the audience to shape the narrative - but i’m the audience, i’m paying the writer ect to entertain me, i want to hear the story *they’re* telling, not being expected to write the story for them !
anthony rose - head of digital media & tech, & heading the iplayer project
power is all about choice - if you ohave more choice, you have more power
i’m getting irritated at the constant stream of cynicism about the multiplicity of online content meaning that it’s all crap & so hard to find the decent stuff - how is a monopoly of media any different from this ? decent stuff is no harder to find if you’ve got a wide selection to choose from than if you’ve got practically nothing to choose from !
‘top viewed’ only really works if it gets reset every once in a while - if the top viewed is top viewed because it’s there at the top of the top viewed box, then inevitably nothing else will make it to the top unless there’s a reset mechanism
(twitter from markmedia - “does everybody in every digital debate have to rehash the history of media” - ho ho, far too true !)
(from twitter - pigsonthewing “nobody seems to remember, or at least acknowledge, Usenet (earlier BBSs) and their liberating role” - i wonder if the reason for this is the fundamental shift between then & now of the ease of access; nu-web is everywhere on your mobile & live on your fast connexion; usenet was fixed to your desktop computer in your office (or living room) & by & large periodical due to slow speed & time-metred connexion)
thinking about pete ashton’s ‘iplayer tip jar’ blog post - is the business model for the online future one of relying on honesty & donations ? let people pay what they content is worth for them ?
jo seems to agree - we need to get away from the obsession with advertising as the way to monetise our content; we need to come up with creative solutions to the problem of how to generate revenue.
why all this talk of ‘new’ ? the term ‘new media’ is 10 years old; consumer access to the web 15 & more years old - ‘the web’ surely is by now mainstream media ?
another bang-on observation from jo - young people are no more switched-on as a class than middle-aged & old people.
for a programme (or whatever) to have a website just for the sake of having one is a pointless waste of money; the show should only have a website if it actually warrants one, if there is any actual extra content about it which can go on a site to justify it.
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Other blogs about the debate:
Tickets are now on sale (at £35 or £70 if you’re feeling philanthropic) for the two days of Wordpress geekery that will be WordCamp UK. It’s to be held at The Studio (formerly the Orange Studio) just off New St in Birmingham. Saturday and Sunday 19th & 20th of July
