Unless the date was written on it, I'd never have guessed that this was from 1991 - I woud have thought it the best part of a decade earlier.  It really shows how adverts (and corporate identities) change really fast.

But I digress ...

It's not that I have a fear of the telephone, it's just that it pisses me off to talk on the phone.  One of the reasons is that the line is usually so bad that I'm having to guess at half of the things the other person is saying.  And, more often than not, I'm speaking to a non-native English speaker anyway and so it's not so easy to understand what they're saying at the best of times.

The thing is that you can't do much with a phone call.  Once it's finished, it's gone forever.  Unlike an email, I can't file it, forward it, copy and paste parts of it into something else, add attachments to it and send it to a third party, cc it to half a dozen people, etc., etc.  It's gone - and any important information that was contained within the conversation will have gone along with it as my memory is fast getting to the 'insufficient RAM' stage.

Also, incoming phone calls are bloody annoying because you can't choose when to receive them.  Chances are that they come in when I least want someone calling me, such as while racing through mad Egyptian traffic on the way to a meeting where I can't get my phone out of my pocket because the seat belt's in the way.

There's only one thing that's more annoying than getting a phone call and that's when some knob-end decides that they want to voicechat with me over Skype.  Do they really think that I am sat in silence with my headphones on just in case someone decides they want to voicechat with me?

No I bloody well aren't.  To voicechat means that I have to turn off the music that I am listening to, unplug the speakers and plug in the Skypephone thing that takes a couple of minutes to sort out.  Then the connection is usually just as shit as with the mobiles here because the connections aren't much good either.  So don't do it unless it's really important and you give me a couple of minutes' notice that you want to do it.

IM conversations (i.e. text chatting) is definitely better than voice, but it is still very intrusive because I still can't choose when to have these conversations.  Time and time again I have to tell IM ramblers to email me instead as I'm in the midde of something more important and can't concentrate on chatting with them.

As I am a creature of the night who gets up later than he should do, it seems as if, when I crawl to my PC, straight out of bed and with my eyes still blurry as my contact lenses adjust to 'awake mode', there are half a dozen people ready to pounce on me as soon as they see my status go from 'Asleep' to 'Available' - and this is a lot more than activity that my semi-comatose brain can cope with after coming straight out of bed.

No, phone calls and IM's have their uses, as in for getting a quick and simple answer to a quick and simple question, but that's about it.  And chatting for the sake of chatting pisses me off majorly.  If I want to talk useless bollocks with someone, I'd rather do it face-to-face over a drink.  Or write about it in a blog.

So by far my preferred method of communication is email.  It's a wonderful thing for many reasons.  The first is that I can choose exactly when I am going to answer the question.  Usually this will be very rapidly - often in under an hour if I am in front of my PC (which is where I am more often than not).  In the worst case scenario, I will answer all important emails before the end of the day as I have long had a rule that I don't go to sleep until I have answered all my email (the important ones in any case - if it's a stupid question from a complete twat, then they can wait until the following day when I am in a better mood).

A second reason why I love email is that I have a very intricate filing system where each old message can be stored some place I should be able to find it without too much searching.  Google Desktop Search makes everything really simple as well -a real boon to someone like me that needs to process over 100 emails (incoming and outgoing combined) per day.

Finally, I have developed a system over the years where my Inbox is my 'To Do' list.  I know that, if something is still in my Inbox, I still need to do something with it.  If not, it gets filed away for future reference.

This is one reason why I never got on very well with Gmail.  While I could see the use of the 'Conversations' facility which adds all incoming and outgoing messages to one string, I just hated the fact that these hundreds of messages were all there as soon as I opened it, freaking me out whenever I opened it.

No, although I am a big fan of Google in general, Yahoo! Mail beats it hands down these days for not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Oh, and another advantage of email is that it is free to send and receive.  I really begrudge paying money just to get in contact with people when I can email them for free.

So, in summary, if you want to Contact Me, do so by all means - it will be really nice to hear from you.  But please email me in order to avoid irritating me more than the rest of the world does already.

if i bought a car and then sold it on - then no one would think twice
if i bought a car and the caveat was that i cant sell it on and its still owned by them i would expect to pay less for the same car
when you buy a cd, the actual cd contains a copyright warning
when you buy software, you have to agree to the t.o.u.

here's a fuckin hint - if you dont have a eula or a tou when i pay for the download of the ims videos or podcasts its my property....

thats a bit of pro-bono advice

At polygram i pissed of Peter Mench of QPrime management - (metallica and def leppards manager) at the height of def leppards career - so much so that Mensch asked Oberstein to sack me. I had to wait 2 weeks to be told on the day of the chairmans christmas day meal that he refused Mench. (however he's been a financial contributor to the democrats since at least 2000 so i can forgive him - and def leppard never got back their status from that time)

At sony i pissed off both noel gallagher and ignition records and also columbia records over the band leftfield - all wanted me sacked - that'd be 3-0 to me then ;)

so of course here in ibiza there aren't really the same sort of targets but every now again one pops up that you have to expose - this time its the International Music Summit.

I had a great time there and learnt alot and i think the magazine and website had more coverage than anyone else. At the risk of repeating myself we approached the IMS and offered to do podcasts for free - we felt it would benefit industry employees who were lower down the food chain and bring an insight to the general public.

"Great Idea" they said - 2 weeks later it was "as you know we're doing our own podcasts"

er???

over the summer i've badgered the IMS to put up the podcasts because they said they would - in a previous blog i thought fuck it - if they wont release it i will - so i did - and i told them

cue email threatening a legal letter *laughs*

no one is going to give a shit now about a conference that took place 4 months ago, the audio and video shouldve been 4 months ago and they even the balls to to charge people for the video that still isnt up. do the sums - by the time you take out someones fee for actually editing all the video and audio, setting up the shopping cart and then processing it all i wonder how much money they'd make

and given the whole nature of the conference - the music industry in todays internet climate - it reminds me of 1994 when i was at sony imploring everyone who would listen that the mp3 is going to change the music industry

so once again ive been asked to remove the audio of the historic clubs panel at the ims (i took it off the main ibiza blog but "forgot" to change this blog and they found it)

so heres some links to what other people have done while we wait for the IMS to get off their arse (give me the video and i'll have had it up in a shopping cart 4 months ago)

(the viewing figures on these make interesting reading compared to most videos on youtube and theyve also been up for 2 months)

and my favourite:

ps jasmine: ive renamed the audio file

pps as i think ive said before, if i could be arsed i would ask some old friends about the status of the copyright in my recordings - because i'm convinced i own my recording and not the ims - i didnt sign a waiver and i didnt sign anything over to the ims - unlike the releases i had to sign for ibiza rocks....

With this acquisition WPP becomes the world's largest marketing company overtaking Omnicom Group.

According to the WSJ: "Many research products, such as television ratings and retail market-share data, typically continue selling well even when advertising demand slackens."

Now the top six market research firms worldwide and their revenues, in billions are:

Nielsen $4.7

Kantar (WPP) / Taylor Nelson Sofres $4.0

IMS $2.2

GfK $1.6

Ipsos $1.3

Synovate $0.9

i decided to do a youtube search and found quite a bit of footage - the one i was looking for though was this one:

This is part of andrew keens talk - bear in mind that the IMS are going to CHARGE to view it (apparently andrew keen was the only delegate to charge an appearance fee which somehow gives them the argument that its ok to charge for the video - except they are charging for all the other panels as well)

Every email correspondance ive had with the ims over this ive raised the question of the irony of charging to watch andrew keens talk and the other panels given the nature of the entire conference

One of the objections from the IMS to our putting the audio up and questioning when the video would go up was that they would put up the video when they want not when when we want. This begs the question of how underground tv can edit and put up video by July 21st yet the IMS as of 7th October still haven't been able to get their act together.

I'm tempted to put the club panel audio up into the ishopibiza.com online shop and charge for it and give all proceeds to the IMS - I can't imagine that it will generate a lot of money... but you never know...

I'm also amazed how the IMS can claim copyright in the audio or video of individuals recording of the panels. No-one signed over rights or signed waivers.

First off - the conference. It was pretty good - a three day event, with a good mix of operators, vendors and various unclassifiables like myself. I'd guess 150-200 people in total, with good attendance through the days. Format was a mix if speaking slots and panels, and overall it was very interactive, with good engagement between those on the stage and those in the audience. That always makes for a good conference, as you tend to get more from discussion than lecture. This is true also of the coffee breaks and lunches - where often some of the best information and learning occurs. 

Now - on to RCS itself. I am now officially worried about it. At a high level, that's because the Telecom Industry process struggles to move at speed.

[Rant alert]

In this case, RCS was kicked off in late 2007, and is still hoping to be in real phones (as an implemented standard) in 2009. If it did this, it would be a minor miracle in itself, as that's FAST in telco-land. This is because you have to get multiple stakeholders: operators/carriers, handset-players, and equipment and various software providers to agree (via a standard) on a common agenda and move from specification to implementation via comprehensive interop-testing in as short a time as possible. Often, that short time is three years. So as I say, 2009 would be a good result.

However, it's just not fast enough any more. Right now, people are being actively educated about presence, availability and messaging, not by Orange, or Vodafone, but by Skype, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, among others. They don't call it presence, or whatever. You just find your buddies and set your status. By the time the first RCS-enabled handsets are out, many, many users will also have become used to using these in a mobile setting: using fring or Truphone on the iPhone, or Nokia phones, or others.

My point is, when RCS ships, one of the first and valid questions from every target user will be: Does it work with my [AIM ; Google ; MSN ; Yahoo ; Skype] buddy list? No?

Um, FAIL, as the trend is to say now :-)

Seriously: people won't be asking: can I see everyone's status on my phone book and does it interoperate across carriers and is it free of roaming charges. Just - does it work with what I've already been doing for 2, 3 or perhaps 5+ years. If the answer is no, then the service has a major adoption problem that is not being addressed. Google, Yahoo and the others need to be supportive of RCS. Someone from the relevant body needs to be talking to them now and finding a win-win between RCS and their services (and I think there are some). 

[Rant over]

So - back to the conference. it really was very good - there was excellent discussion around IMS and RCS, and candid questions (such as the above interop issue with the Internet Giants) were asked and discussed, even if no conclusive answers were found. The progress on the standards work has been fast by industry peer standards. I genuinely think that the RCS initiative has a chance of succeeding, and I applaud its attempt to ensure that rich interoperable services work day one on our cool new handsets in late 2009. I'm just concerned that this will end up being too little, too late, and that the Internet players will have scorched the Earth well before then, and moved on to the next battle.

The slides from our talk at the conference are here.

I'm of two minds.  Having caller ID on the TV highlighting that my mother-in-law is calling may have a benefit (!) but I tend to let calls drop to voicemail if I'm wartching something interesting anyway.  Would it be good to get the TV to pause the programme whilst I take the call? Might be neat but I usually do that with the remote as soon as the phone rings anyway. Do I want to have a video conference on my TV?  Maybe to talk to my girls at Uni but I'm sure they don't want to see me when we have our quick hellos and goodbyes. How about looking up a phone number in a directory?  The TV is not a great data entry terminal! What about listening to your voicemails through the TV?  Better than hitting a button on the portable phone and listening to them in private?

None of these seem killer applications to me but I have to remember that I'm not Mr Average - none of us are.  Relating my personal preferences to the wider population is very dangerous.  But it reinforces my view that we must create a suite of applications for the consumer which are available to be delivered in a personalised stylie if, and when, they appeal.  The middleware framework must be extensible at will whilst support standards such as IMS.  These applications can be offered as any other screen asset and tested by the consumer to see if it suits.  I can envisaged a raft of such applications - none of which are killer in themselves - but by being personalised in delivery and measured in effectiveness they will deliver a killer experience in total.

So for me the next IPTV killer app is the one that delivers a suite of personalised applications to the consumer 'on-demand'.  Applications on-Demand (AoD) could well be the new VoD.  You heard it here first!

4 months later and the ims still havent done anything and it looks like they wont be releasing audio and it will only be pay per view of video - if it ever happens of course

*shakes head*

reminder - we offered to do FREE podcasts of the panels to a timescale that whatever the ims wanted / either nightly or on a holdback

yesterday the ims said again they would be putting up the video (for a payment) on their timescale not ours: "content will be available to all shortly" - 4 months is a bit sad....

good - i hope i dont have to put up the audio again in 4 weeks time and test their lawyers ;)

Today my day consists of making (Chetumal) a more remarkable place to visit.

maybe if i am lucky i can do some shopping.

"DON'T COUNT ON IT CALLUM" =)

Tomorrow will be 4 months after the historic public meeting at the International Music Summit in Ibiza of the main clubs and the government.

We wanted to do podcasts of the IMS panels for free and make them available for everyone to hear but were told the IMS will be doing them themselves. (see our v.i.t.a.l blog from earlier this year)

Since its 4 months later and you still cant get anything online anywhere of what actually took place at the IMS we've decided to release our audio of that meeting.

It's not great quality we know, however we know there are quite a few sources who have better versions but for some reason they haven't released them. We were assured by the IMS that the panels would all be made available (on video) by July 1st (for a fee no less..) We did ask one of the panelists what they thought of the irony of the IMS charging people for video of his talk, given the nature of it (Andrew Keens talk) - he laughed and said he didn't think they would make much money out of it...

Anyway, for historic reasons and google here's the audio of the first time the main clubs and the government met in public:

ims club panel

all of our blogs about the ims are here

(If someone wants to grab the audio and clean it up... feel free...)