He goes on to point out that, while FriendFeed does a fine job of bringing all of that data together, it would be better to have that data on his blog, rather than just at FriendFeed.

I commented on Loic’s post to say that while FriendFeed is a destination today, the development of  their API will turn it into a data source tomorrow. I’m already starting to see this happen - FriendFeed has made my Plaxo Pulse redundant (although Plaxo still does a better job than anyone synchronising my calendars); the same is largely true of  my Facebook mini-feed where I used to have Twitter, Google Reader (via Feedheads), Flickr, Last.fm etc, all posting updates to my mini-feed via their Facebook applications - now I don’t need to; the FriendFeed application does it all instead.

If we take that over to the Loic’s centralised online presence - his blog-, he’ll still have to trust the aggregation task to FriendFeed, but he can get his aggregated data feed back out, via the API, and recentralise it how he wants.

Which brings us to a part of the data portability debate that has been largely overlooked and that is “it’s my data, I want to use it where and how I like”. In this post on TechCrunch, Mike Arrington suggests that DataPortability is somehow a threat to FriendFeed, but I’m not sure that’s the case. Ok, so FriendFeed isn’t about getting social networks to explicitly talk to each other, but unlike Facebook, which is quite happy to let data in while not letting it back out, FriendFeed feeds and comments are available to anyone with a bit of “mad coding skillz“.

If I can feed the same data stream into my blog, into my Facebook or wherever, then isn’t it this early openness that puts FriendFeed ahead of the game? One feed to rule them all in the webness bind them… (I’m sorry; it’s awful, I know, but I couldn’t resist).

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I was spending the weekend in the North East of England with friends; Mrs T was already in that neck of the woods because of some work stuff, so I cadged a lift with the friends that we’d be spending the weekend with. I can’t remember the last time I actually bought a newspaper, but thought I’d take full advantage of being driven around, and bought a copy of the Daily Telegraph to read along the way.

As I flicked through the pages, I realised I wasn’t actually reading any of the stories because pretty much everything I was looking at in today’s paper had already been covered in yesterday’s news feeds and blog posts. Oh well, at least the crossword kept me busy for an hour or so.

(Before I describe my next collision with old-media, I should point out that I don’t have TV, and haven’t had TV for about 4 years. I have a wall-screen for the Xbox360 and DVD player but don’t have a tuner or satellite dish for broadcast TV. As a result, watching TV is used to be something of a novelty)

In the evening, we had a couple of hours to kill in the hotel room before going out, so I switched on the TV. Being a Bank Holiday Friday, I was expecting to be overwhelmed with a choice of televisual treats, but instead I got game show (BBC1), game show (BBC2), game show (ITV), a repeat episode of The Simpsons (C4) and Airplane (Five) (yes, the almost-30-year-old-funny-the-first-time-not-so-much-now spoof about a chaotic plane journey). I didn’t even bother trying any of the satellite channels, opting, instead to grab my iPod and watch a couple of episodes of Mahalo Daily and Unwired, followed by a topping of Diggnation.

These two experiences got me thinking - the oldspaper distribution (I’m sorry - I just can’t bring myself to call them newspapers any more) model is doomed. There will always be an outlet for good journalistic writing, but it won’t be the printed daily paper. It might be a Kindle-esque model, like that adopted by the New York Times and the WSJ, but even then, it’s still akin to pushing a day-old square peg into an online, immediate round hole.

As for broadcast TV, based on Friday evening’s offerings, it appears to be doing a great job of screwing itself. I don’t know many qualifications it takes to be a TV schedule programmer, but it clearly doesn’t take any effort.

So there I was, an ABC1 demo, at prime viewing time a on a Friday evening - oldspaper consigned to the dustbin, unread; TV switched off; choosing, instead, to watch independently produced media on my iPod.

And why? Because old media isn’t providing me with any compelling reasons to stick around.

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• Transformers (available in SD and HD)
• Goodbye Bafana (available in SD and HD)
• Intersection (available in SD)
• Primal Fear (available in SD)
• Clear and Present Danger (available in SD)
• Naked Gun 2 & 1/2: The Smell of Fear (available in SD)
• Naked Gun 33 & 1/3 (available in SD)
• Top Secret! (available in SD)
• Bug (available in SD)
• Hardball (available in SD)
• The Phantom (available in SD)
• Orange County (available in SD)
• 1408 (available in SD and HD)
• Disturbia (available in SD and HD)
• Hot Rod (available in SD and HD)
• A Mighty Heart (available in SD and HD)
• Heartbreak Kid (available in SD and HD)
• Stardust (available in SD and HD)
• In to the Wild (available in SD and HD)

Not only that, Warner Bros will be adding to the catalogue too with:

• The Assassination of Jesse James (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)
• Beowulf (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)
• License to Wed (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)
• No Reservations (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)
• The December Boys (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)
• Nancy Drew (Warner Bros, available in SD and HD)

Standard definition will cost you £3.23, while the hi-def versions will set you back £4.56.

Since my not-so-great initial experience with Video Marketplace, I’ve used it several times without any problems - my only frustration had been with the slow pace of updates to the catalogue, so this news is most welcome! Who needs to be stuck in the middle of a “phoney phormat war” between the HD-DVD Jets and the Blu-Ray Sharks, anyway? (Via: CrunchGear.)

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The story unfolds like an episode of 24, with this poor chap being followed on CCTV cameras, which seem to litter the streets of Britain in greater numbers than cigarette butts, before armed police swooped and carted him to have his fingerprints mugshot and DNA sample taken.

The frightening thing about this story isn’t that the guy was arrested at gunpoint - a member of the public called it in, and the police have a duty to act, and where weapons are suspected, of course, they require an armed response. No, the frightening thing is this quote from the Staffordshire Police (my emphasis):

…the man was released and taken home, as no further action was required.

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’ll tell you what action is required: By the police’s own admission, the guy is innocent. That means his fingerprints, mugshot and DNA information has no place in a criminal database, and it should be removed.

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Users “suspected” of having illegally downloaded something will get an e-mail from their ISP notifying them of their anti-social behavior. A second offense will result in a temporary suspension of Internet connectivity and a third will see the contract with your ISP ripped apart.

This is, of course, is being lobbied hard by the music and film industry who are quoted as saying that ISPs had “done little or nothing to address illegal downloading via their networks”. The most laughable quote of all, though, is:

This is the number one issue for the creative industries in the digital age, and the government’s willingness to tackle it should be applauded.

So, it’s the number one issue for the creative industry, and how do they tackle it? By suing the pants of people or bleating to Ministers. What they’re not doing is addressing the real issue: Why do people download copyrighted material? Here are a few thoughts, just off the of my head.

Maybe it’s because they’re frustrated with the “creative” industry’s DRM, which prevents them from playing their legally downloaded purchased content on which ever device they choose.

Maybe it’s because they’re tired of being stiffed by their local cinema, who charge more for a Diet Coke and a bucket of popcorn than the local drug dealer charges for a week’s worth top-notch snort (so I’m told).

Maybe it’s because they’ve shelled out for the latest in DVD player technology, only to watch the “creative” industry render that technology obsolete thanks to a $400m back-hander.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because the majority of the content produced by the “creative” industry (especially mainstream music) is such generic, mass-produced, pop pap that people don’t think it’s worth spending their money on.

I’m tired of being told that the content I want isn’t available for download in my region - even though I can buy it on DVD from my local store; I’m tired of buying stuff from iTunes only to find that it will only play on my iPod; it pisses me off that you think of me of as a pirate before you think of me as a consumer.

So, here’s little tip to the “creative” industry - it’s time to get a little creative. Instead of whining about illegal downloads and hoping that someone else will sort it out for you, how about you look at better ways to make it easy for people to legally download your content.

And here’s a tip for HM Govt, too. You’ve got more important things to worry about than this. Tape cassettes didn’t kill their industry, neither did video tapes or writeable CDs. Nor will the Internet. Their current distribution model is broken and it’s up to them to fix it, not you.

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