For future reference, I’ll stick my rough notes from last Monday’s Right Hook up here. It is likely that almost nothing in it will be news to the readers of this blog, with the possible exception of the Google patent referred to below.
Right Hook Notes 19th November 2007
Over the weekend, there was a quiet revolution.
The Labour Party became the first political party to realise that they didn’t have to rely on the media to tell the story of what happened at their party conference. Even though the conference wasn’t being televised, they were able to tell anyone interested what was happening though the internet.
They did this using a number of tools which are becoming more mainstream and all of which are free and quite straightforward to use. For anyone trying to avoid commuting to events- or anyone running an event, from a football match to a meeting- it might be good to cover how they did it.
UStream
This was the main novelty for the party conference, and it is something which is catching on increasingly for people who are running events.
Connect a camera, or webcam, to an internet connected computer and you have your own Outside Broadcast unit. It takes a live feed of the video and makes it available to anyone on the UStream site. Your viewers can also leave comments for the organisers (or each other) as events unfold. All you need for local football matches to go global is a pitch with wi-fi!
YouTube
This is probably the best known video site on the web. Statistics out today say that it is the most visited multimedia site in Ireland. The Labour Party used it to leave an accessible copy of the more set-piece speeches on the web.
Flickr
We’ve talked about Flickr before. Its become a popular place to put your photos.
Twitter/ Jaiku
These are similar services. Jaiku was recently bought by Google, who temporaily closed it to new members. Effectively they let you sign up to receive updates on your mobile by SMS from other people, or websites or organisations without telling them your mobile number. Its also free to send out the messages from a computer- making it cost effective to send the same text out to lots of people at once.
DIY Newspaper
Just an update on the idea of the Print-Your-Own newspaper we discussed a few weeks back.
It turns out that Google might have been thinking along the same lines recently as they filed a patent on the 9th November for a method of producing print publications with customised ads.
Website of the Week
http://del.icio.us – one of the best kept secrets of the net, it offers a way to save all your bookmarks online, and to see what other people are keeping note of as well.
4 Comments
Ustream is a useful thing. Might put it on my list of “good stuff that just works”. A bit like my bluetooth foldy keyboard.
Also, Jaiku is still allowing existing members to invite people to join. whether this is by accident or design I know not.
Finally the technology and politics together! Well done!
a national day of protest is being held on 7th December 2007, check out http://www.digoutday.com/
Hmm, the revolution may not be televised but it will certainly be blogged.