Monthly Archives: July 2008

Announcing PodsForMobs

I’ve created a little service called ‘PodsForMobs’ which gathers links to podcasts and sends them via SMS using Twitter.

In other words if, like me, you like to listen to podcasts on your mobile phone and are frustrated by trying to find download links on podcast directories – or just want a little bit of serendipity – or have too little battery power to search, this works pretty well.

It’s at http://twitter.com/podsformobs

Let me know what you think.

Will you be at WordCamp UK next weekend?

WordCamp UK* is being hosted in Birmingham this year. I’ll be there, mostly ignoring the rather too formal conference-style structure and instead using it as an excuse to meet people I should really meet more often.

If you’re around that weekend (19th/20th July), let me know (direct or @message on Twitter is best, or comment below). It would be great to have a beer or a coffee. Continue reading

Belgian women’s magazine launches mobile edition

flairmobile

Belgian women’s magazine Flair has recently launched a mobile version of its product, writes Dorien Aerts.

How does it work?

Once you sign up you are sent a text message containing a link, from which you download a mobile application of Flair. When you start the mobile application, you find a very attractive interface (for girls at least) with fashion articles and information about events. Continue reading

Newsquest relaunch local newspaper websites… is that it?

Newsquest has begun the roll out of a relaunch of its websites with the Lancashire Telegraph, Bradford Telegraph & Argus and York’s The Press.

Hold The Front Page describe it as a “modernised and revamped look”. Really? As Keri Davies put it: “ugh, what a mess”. Alex Lockwood: “looks like shoveldesign – can barely see the ‘Lancashire’ on the logo; national news more imp. than local comment?” John Thompson:Too much noise and everything in three columns. Lead stories should run across two colums Text too small in places.” Continue reading

Something for the Weekend #8: the easiest blogging platform in the world: Posterous

Assuming you want them to, how do you get people to blog? It’s a challenge facing most community editors, particularly as they seek to encourage a conversation with readers for whom WordPress or Blogger are still too fiddly.

Enter Posterous, a fantastically intuitive, quick and easy blogging platform. Scrapping the need for registration, or even the need to go onto the web, this has the potential to be a mass blogging tool – as well as a great tool for blogging on the move. Continue reading

Could this be the tipping point for UK data mashups?

The best thing that I took from this week’s 2gether08 event was yesterday’s announcement by blogging MP Tom Watson and Ofcom’s blogging Tom Loosemore of Show Us a Better Way.

The site (also a blog – notice a pattern here?) is releasing a range of public data and inviting people to mash them up, or come up with ideas to do so. In their words:

The UK Government wants to hear your ideas for new products that could improve the way public information is communicated. The Power of Information Taskforce is running a competition on the Government’s behalf, and we have a £20,000 prize fund to develop the best ideas to the next level. You can see the type of thing we are are looking for hereContinue reading