Monthly Archives: November 2007

It’s Your Mother Calling

A few people have asked for the transcript of yesterday’s commentary on the BBC’s World Business Daily about getting your  mother’s voice to be your ringtone. It follows below, and here’s the (still active) link to the actual program from whence it came. Thanks for listening, and to the crew at Business Daily for their… Read More »

User Generated Discontent

I know in my previous post it sounded like user-generated content isn’t the be-all and end-all, but it has its place. Like this one, from iTunes Store, where Ricky Gervais’ new show is available as an audiobook for 10 quid. The description is the usual blurb-like drivel written by an intern and proof-read by someone… Read More »

Sleeping, Frothing, Typing and Sealing

 The Wall Street Journal’s holiday gift guide is out. My contributions, some of which would be familiar to regular readers: Sleeptracker Pro $179. A successor to the Sleeptracker which I wrote about a couple of years ago (Sandman’s Little Helpers, Jan 13, 2006), the Pro is a watch which monitors your sleep patterns — more… Read More »

Strangled by the Grassroots

 Steve Outing writes a bittersweet eulogy to his failed startup, the Enthusiast Group, which tried to build a business around grassroots media. His conclusion: with the exception of one or two sites that make it big (YouTube, Flickr) user generated content is not strong enough to stand on its own. In my view — and… Read More »

Wikiscam

Just because something has the word Wiki, community and/or .org in its name, doesn’t mean it isn’t a scam. I just received an email from someone called Navin Mirania about Wikimmunity which on first glance sounds like a worthy project: a website designed around local community content. But on closer examination it has the word… Read More »