Introducing a new localism to media, per a UK government action plan released Wednesday morning, may be a worthwhile aim - but culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has picked the wrong medium to start with, a decision that could be ultimately self-defeating.
The review he commissioned told him only broadband TV could support truly local TV services; a Freeview alternative, as Hunt has picked, could supply a measly 10 cities - undermining the policy’s aim.
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Yet, whilst the internet does not yet reach everybody, a web service would reach a far greater audience and would provide a better platform for future growth.
Although we know it’s connected to the Big Society doctrine, Hunt had not, until today, articulated why local information provision is important…
If it is to reconnect citizens with the business of their local governments and communities, such a plan could have better invested in amplifying the many disparate communication efforts, already undertaken by local councils, through digital media, alongside small advertisers, community groups etc.
Nicholas Shott’s review for Hunt made clear there is little chance of such an enterprise making money. Yet Hunt has conceived a model which, first and foremost, invites commercial tenders, funded by national advertising. Far better might have been an effort that puts the citizen first - a grassroots one, run on a cost-neutral basis, whose product would likely have been more direct-access information and interpretation than TV talking heads. Why not involve community groups from that same Big Society which the UK government is trying to create, rather than just commercial broadcasters?
The pieces are already there - look at the countless council websites, the excellent work on democratic access by MySociety with projects like TheyWorkForYou and FixMyStreet, the video streams broadcast by local governments, the new wave of local blogs - oh, and the hundreds of newspapers which already exist in communities across the land.
The way people get their local information has changed considerably in recent years - and not just for young urbanite geeks. But Hunt has proposed an old-fashioned model - a new Freeview TV channel with local opt-outs - that sounds rather like ITV’s traditional remit, while ITV (LSE: ITV) News itself limps poorly on in the regions, waiting to be put out of its misery. Why not just fix ITV?
While existing local media like newspapers, under economic and structural pressure, struggle to perform the same function of Hunt’s new aim (“provide citizens with a voice, local businesses with a platform for promotion and advertising and the local democratic process with greater accountability”), Hunt has decided to turn his head toward another medium, but still an old one, to do the job from scratch.
By offering local content only to a handful of the UK’s largest cities, Hunt may, by implication, create a two-tier system, in which some electors are well-informed and others are less so. Hunt even acknowledges that devolved nations have an entirely different inclination (“A local TV solution in the nations might be nation-wide”).
Better than all this may have been to lay the groundwork for a truly nationwide, next-generation, text- and video-based local information network - after all, the internet has a knack of being an everything medium, itself supporting many different kinds of media.
If Hunts stays true to the aims of the policy, such a service does not necessarily need to be primarily a lumbering audio-visual one, like in days gone by.
But Hunt, whilst accepting that a mass IPTV audience is some way off (it will figure merely “in due course”), has skipped over serious consideration of online because he has conceived the service first and foremost as a television enterprise.
By kicking the IPTV ball in to the long grass in favour of Freeview now, Hunt risks letting in old-guard broadcasting types who are merely keen to get their hands on valuable DTT spectrum at a knock-down price.
bench craft company reviewsThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
benchcraft company portland or Introducing a new localism to media, per a UK government action plan released Wednesday morning, may be a worthwhile aim - but culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has picked the wrong medium to start with, a decision that could be ultimately self-defeating.
The review he commissioned told him only broadband TV could support truly local TV services; a Freeview alternative, as Hunt has picked, could supply a measly 10 cities - undermining the policy’s aim.
See more of our latest Legal coverage
or add an alert for future coverage of Legal.
Yet, whilst the internet does not yet reach everybody, a web service would reach a far greater audience and would provide a better platform for future growth.
Although we know it’s connected to the Big Society doctrine, Hunt had not, until today, articulated why local information provision is important…
If it is to reconnect citizens with the business of their local governments and communities, such a plan could have better invested in amplifying the many disparate communication efforts, already undertaken by local councils, through digital media, alongside small advertisers, community groups etc.
Nicholas Shott’s review for Hunt made clear there is little chance of such an enterprise making money. Yet Hunt has conceived a model which, first and foremost, invites commercial tenders, funded by national advertising. Far better might have been an effort that puts the citizen first - a grassroots one, run on a cost-neutral basis, whose product would likely have been more direct-access information and interpretation than TV talking heads. Why not involve community groups from that same Big Society which the UK government is trying to create, rather than just commercial broadcasters?
The pieces are already there - look at the countless council websites, the excellent work on democratic access by MySociety with projects like TheyWorkForYou and FixMyStreet, the video streams broadcast by local governments, the new wave of local blogs - oh, and the hundreds of newspapers which already exist in communities across the land.
The way people get their local information has changed considerably in recent years - and not just for young urbanite geeks. But Hunt has proposed an old-fashioned model - a new Freeview TV channel with local opt-outs - that sounds rather like ITV’s traditional remit, while ITV (LSE: ITV) News itself limps poorly on in the regions, waiting to be put out of its misery. Why not just fix ITV?
While existing local media like newspapers, under economic and structural pressure, struggle to perform the same function of Hunt’s new aim (“provide citizens with a voice, local businesses with a platform for promotion and advertising and the local democratic process with greater accountability”), Hunt has decided to turn his head toward another medium, but still an old one, to do the job from scratch.
By offering local content only to a handful of the UK’s largest cities, Hunt may, by implication, create a two-tier system, in which some electors are well-informed and others are less so. Hunt even acknowledges that devolved nations have an entirely different inclination (“A local TV solution in the nations might be nation-wide”).
Better than all this may have been to lay the groundwork for a truly nationwide, next-generation, text- and video-based local information network - after all, the internet has a knack of being an everything medium, itself supporting many different kinds of media.
If Hunts stays true to the aims of the policy, such a service does not necessarily need to be primarily a lumbering audio-visual one, like in days gone by.
But Hunt, whilst accepting that a mass IPTV audience is some way off (it will figure merely “in due course”), has skipped over serious consideration of online because he has conceived the service first and foremost as a television enterprise.
By kicking the IPTV ball in to the long grass in favour of Freeview now, Hunt risks letting in old-guard broadcasting types who are merely keen to get their hands on valuable DTT spectrum at a knock-down price.
benchcraft company scamThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
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benchcraft company portland orThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
benchcraft company scam Introducing a new localism to media, per a UK government action plan released Wednesday morning, may be a worthwhile aim - but culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has picked the wrong medium to start with, a decision that could be ultimately self-defeating.
The review he commissioned told him only broadband TV could support truly local TV services; a Freeview alternative, as Hunt has picked, could supply a measly 10 cities - undermining the policy’s aim.
See more of our latest Legal coverage
or add an alert for future coverage of Legal.
Yet, whilst the internet does not yet reach everybody, a web service would reach a far greater audience and would provide a better platform for future growth.
Although we know it’s connected to the Big Society doctrine, Hunt had not, until today, articulated why local information provision is important…
If it is to reconnect citizens with the business of their local governments and communities, such a plan could have better invested in amplifying the many disparate communication efforts, already undertaken by local councils, through digital media, alongside small advertisers, community groups etc.
Nicholas Shott’s review for Hunt made clear there is little chance of such an enterprise making money. Yet Hunt has conceived a model which, first and foremost, invites commercial tenders, funded by national advertising. Far better might have been an effort that puts the citizen first - a grassroots one, run on a cost-neutral basis, whose product would likely have been more direct-access information and interpretation than TV talking heads. Why not involve community groups from that same Big Society which the UK government is trying to create, rather than just commercial broadcasters?
The pieces are already there - look at the countless council websites, the excellent work on democratic access by MySociety with projects like TheyWorkForYou and FixMyStreet, the video streams broadcast by local governments, the new wave of local blogs - oh, and the hundreds of newspapers which already exist in communities across the land.
The way people get their local information has changed considerably in recent years - and not just for young urbanite geeks. But Hunt has proposed an old-fashioned model - a new Freeview TV channel with local opt-outs - that sounds rather like ITV’s traditional remit, while ITV (LSE: ITV) News itself limps poorly on in the regions, waiting to be put out of its misery. Why not just fix ITV?
While existing local media like newspapers, under economic and structural pressure, struggle to perform the same function of Hunt’s new aim (“provide citizens with a voice, local businesses with a platform for promotion and advertising and the local democratic process with greater accountability”), Hunt has decided to turn his head toward another medium, but still an old one, to do the job from scratch.
By offering local content only to a handful of the UK’s largest cities, Hunt may, by implication, create a two-tier system, in which some electors are well-informed and others are less so. Hunt even acknowledges that devolved nations have an entirely different inclination (“A local TV solution in the nations might be nation-wide”).
Better than all this may have been to lay the groundwork for a truly nationwide, next-generation, text- and video-based local information network - after all, the internet has a knack of being an everything medium, itself supporting many different kinds of media.
If Hunts stays true to the aims of the policy, such a service does not necessarily need to be primarily a lumbering audio-visual one, like in days gone by.
But Hunt, whilst accepting that a mass IPTV audience is some way off (it will figure merely “in due course”), has skipped over serious consideration of online because he has conceived the service first and foremost as a television enterprise.
By kicking the IPTV ball in to the long grass in favour of Freeview now, Hunt risks letting in old-guard broadcasting types who are merely keen to get their hands on valuable DTT spectrum at a knock-down price.
benchcraft company scam
bench craft company reviewsThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
benchcraft company scam
benchcraft company portland orThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
benchcraft company portland orThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
bench craft company reviewsThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
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benchcraft company portland or bench craft company reviewsThe employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
benchcraft company scam A few months ago, I wrote an introductory article about ways that online game players have been making real money in virtual worlds. While many game companies have enacted measures against the practice of some players selling characters, weapons, and loot at auction websites like eBay, these players in turn have become more sophisticated. (Note that eBay banned the sale of in-game items and other virtual assets in 2007)
"Gold Farming"In Asian countries, particularly Korea and China, massively multiplayer online role-playing game players number in the millions, much more than in the United States. Lineage and World of Warcraft have the in-game largest populations. There, in fact, Asian companies that pay employees on eight-to-ten hour shifts to do nothing but accumulate in-game "loot" by fighting game characters and monsters known to "drop" loot. This practice is known as "gold farming." These companies have been criticized for the extremely low paid player-employees.
Power LevelersEZGamers is a service where novice massively multiplayer online game players can "rent" professional players (known as Power Levelers) to move their in-game characters up to more advanced game levels. The prime objective is to make a player's character more powerful.
24 hours of focused game play by a professional power leveler will cost a less experienced player about $25.
These types of services also sell pre-leveled characters.
In-Game CraftersIn some online multi-player games, like EverQuest II, players are offered the option of being "crafters", only rarely engaging in combat. Full-time crafters mostly do nothing but "craft" or manufacture in-game items like potions, spells, weapons, or armor. Some of these players sell their crafted items on auction sites for real money. Note that Station Exchange is the Sony-sponsored official auction site for EverQuest in-game items.
Entropia UniverseIn 2006, Swedish multiplayer online game maker of Entropia Universe planned to introduce a real world ATM card into their game, allowing players to withdraw real cash from their game's virtual bank account. In 2007, Mastercard told the game company that they would no longer support the game's ATM Project.
SparterIn 2007, a Silicon Valley company launched Sparter, an online peer-to-peer in-game item exchange operating much like an online stock broker. They earn their profits on trade commissions from sellers and specialize in World of Warcraft, a game with nine million subscribers.
Note that some online game companies like NCSoft, makers of Lineage, a MMORPG with millions of players, have banned more than 200,000 players for buying and selling virtual items for real money. The most vulnerable of game companies have been those who have introduced virtual currencies into their games.
Most massively multiplayer online game players have contempt for these pre-paid game shortcuts, claiming that these practices spoil a level playing field as well as the game economies, overvaluing certain items within the game.
SOURCES:
"The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer", Julian Dibbell, New York Times, URL: (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?ei=5090&en=1676d344608cb590&ex=1339732800)
"Paying Real Money to Win Online Games", Robert Siegel, NPR, URL: (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5032947)
"Virtual Cash Exchange", Mark Ward, BBC, URL: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3368633.stm)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm
"Gaming the Online Games", Mark Russell, Newsweek, URL: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6199780/site/newsweek)
"Sparter Opens Virtual Money Market", Ryan Olson, Red Herring, URL: (http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22582&hed=Sparter+Opens+Virtual+Money+Market+§or=Industries&subsector=InternetAndServices)
"Making Money in Virtual Worlds", Laurence Holland and David Ewalt, Forbes, URL: (http://www.forbes.com/careers/2006/08/07/virtual-world-jobs_cx_de_0807virtualjobs.html)
"Entropia Universe players", Seth Schiesel, New York Times, URL: (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/arts/02entr.html?ex=1185768000&en=c0d0722216883506&ei=5070)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4953620.stm
http://www.3pointd.com/20070131/entropia-atm-bank-ditched-by-mastercard/
big seminar 14The employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
big seminar 14The employment news is good (I think). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% in November to 9.0% in January, as big a two-month drop as we've seen in the last 50 years (hooray! ...
Horse Tracks -- Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee.
Here's all the fashion news that's fit to print! Enjoy!
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