All posts by Armand

Television

Discovering the East End

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Since Amanda moved in I’ve discovered a new evening ritual… Eastenders. I’ve always taken a principled objection to soaps — on the basis that I had enough of the mundaneness of everyday life in my life to need anything further from a street in Australia, or the East End of London.

I have to say, whilst not a convert, I’m beginning to see the value. Eastenders, at least, seems to have replaced the Victorian melodrama with people rotating in the part of villain, hero, comic foil etc. Although Max, Ian and Phil Mitchell, as characters go, seem to have few redeeming characteristics.

I don’t know how realistic the scenarios are — I’ve never lived in a neighbourhood where everyone knows everyone else and think I’d probably quite like that at some stage. I don’t know how easy it is for a kid to get a gun in East London (but given that its a core plot element of Arvind’s first film, Sugarhouse, OUT NOW ON DVD, maybe I should…).

Still, I enjoy watching it most weeknights with Amanda, and I’m not (too) ashamed to say it was the first season pass I set on my new PVR. I am, however, much more excited about the imminent launch of the new season of Torchwood… bring it, BBC Wales.

Update

Traditional Christmas

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Just returned from a wonderful, traditional English Christmas (with a lovely Danish family, oddly enough). Christmas on the Browns was vast, endless fun involving much eating, some playing (Wii and the Uno-esque Danish card game, Ourtzen, amongst others) and lots of head-stroking with Dylan, the family dog.

And, can I just say: Christmas Hams Are Awesome.

Update

Good intentions

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Had such good intentions today. Was going to blog about everything — in the world. As it is, have watched too much My Name is Earl, done too many household chores, and purposelessly upgraded WordPress and am now just knackered.

Next week — more follow through. I am resolved. Have a good week, everyone.

Technology

On Shy iPhones, Flo’ Windows Mobiles, and World-eating Androids

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Right, so much as I enjoyed Stephen Fry’s epic opus on the iPhone*, my general love for fully specced** devices and general contempt for Apple’s hype machine (how can a company with such a good rep have such an arrogant approach to PR?) means I don’t really give two hoots about the launch last Friday. No idea how many iPhones they’ve sold and unbothered that it doesn’t sound like too many…

More interesting to me is the Android launch from Google. No idea, really, what the devices will look like but there are lots of elements of the software that look awesome. In particular, the 3Dness of it all, the full technical spec (and I love that HTC is behind the platform because I love their phones)… Check out this video, via Kat at Tech Digest:

Annoying as the American marketing speak and repeated references to the “power of the platform” are, it does look like it has some good stuff in there.

As to Windows Mobile? Well, I’ve been on that platform since 2002 and would love it to do well — but ‘TouchFlo’ probably won’t cut it in the long term. They need to do some proper innovating on the UI there. That said, I’m up for contract renewal in February, and given that I have no intention of buying an iPhone in the near future and that the first Android handsets will miss my upgrade window by about 6 months, I will probably be trying to pick up an HTC Touch Dual in February…

* His ‘dork talk’ column on the subject is actually less enjoyable, IMHO…

** Rory Reid on Cnet.co.uk, speaking wittily on the rumoured Apple tablet PC:

So, can Apple turn the Tablet PC into a success when previous attempts have failed? The short answer is ‘yes’. Any company that can make a mobile phone with no buttons, no picture messaging, slow Web access and no video capture into the most desirable phone on the planet can easily make tablets popular.

Internet, Media & Marketing, Technology, Work

From Shorthand to Broadband

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For those of you with an interest in technology, public relations, marketing and the media, my agency, Brands2Life, has done a really interesting piece of research looking at how journalists’ jobs have changed in the 15 or so years the Internet has been around. The headlines on point to journalists across all media types (not just technology or online) working harder and having to manage multimedia content and reader communities — a very different brief to what “traditional” journalism usually entails on a day-to-day basis. You can read the story in depth by downloading the research report from here. There are some graphs up on Flickr if anyone wants them.

The name – “From Shorthand to Broadband” – inspired this video which summarises the development of the media story. Have we got the whole story in? Is there something else you would have included / subbed out?

My personal view? From a business perspective, we’re at a really interesting point; one business model (traditional, ad-sponsored, print and broadcast media) is struggling in the wake of having to share its revenue with the online world, and the online world hasn’t yet developed a business model more substantive than relying on Google adwords. From a consumer perspective, broadband and web technologies are available and accessible to the point where the way everyone interacts with media has changed, whether they realise it or not. Not everyone’s there yet, of course, but where a few years ago you wouldn’t have been that surprised if someone from a different generation didn’t know how to Google something, today I’m having conversations with my mother about Facebook, and helping her organise to deliver a plenary speech at a conference via Skype video conferencing.

From a PR perspective — with journalists having to work differently, is it surprising that PRs will have to as well? Conversations in the industry — even with technology companies traditionally on the edge of new things — indicate how early on we are with this part of the story. A lot has changed since the ‘Martini lunches’ of legend, and even more is set to.

Be interested to hear from people who’ve been in one side and out the other — whilst there’s a lot of “web 2.0” that’s hype, I have a feeling that where we are with “social” media today is a pale, pale precursor to the way we’ll interact online in the future.

Work

Urban Survival

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Some of my colleagues at Brands2Life put Bravo Two Zero’s Chris Ryan through his paces for T-Mobile, to raise awareness of its mobile broadband ‘Web ‘n Walk’ service (of which I am a satisfied, paying customer). Some of the videos that came out of it look pretty awesome (including Chris abseiling down a building in Mancheter, training a football team in Birmingham, training an American Football team in Leeds and boating around the Thames in London.

Looks like it was huge, busy, thrill-filled fun as a campaign…

[I do promise I will do some personal, exciting blog posts soon. Things are busy. Parents in town. Please forgive.]