Archive for March, 2009

Birmingham Photospace is a bunch of people volunteering their time because they want to establish a space for photography in the city.  Earlier in the year they organised the Anything but Selfridges competition to find an image that “best represents the Birmingham we live and work in”.  So long as it wasn’t of Selfridges.

On Saturday just gone they held their first public event, a Flashswap at the Vaad Gallery in the Custard Factory down in Digbeth.  The premise of the event was that you brought some prints along that you were happy to swap and “hung” them in the gallery (there was Blu-Tak provided).  In the early evening we went back and viewed the exhibition, then on the word we all went and placed a sticker against the prints that we wanted to take home with us. More - Flashswap event

Google Maps

As someone with an unfortunate combination of a terrible sense of direction and the complacency to assume I’ll somehow find the way (not to mention the common male trait of being reluctant to ask for directions), online maps have saved me many an hour of aimless wandering around unfamiliar areas. Any tool that helps me to spec a place out must, then, be a Good Thing. More - I can see your house from here!

Facebook, Twitter and blogs are now more popular than email says a report which was highlighted in the Telegraph this week.  This is more evidence of the current growth in usage of social media tools.

The annual fundraising event that is Comic Relief takes place on 13th March, but as is always the case, the publicity drive has started much earlier. This year you will find the Red Nose Campaign on the usual TV channels, radio and newspapers but also the social networks Twitter, Facebook and Bebo as celebrities and the public alike don their red noses to raise millions of pounds for UK and African causes.

More - Digital Relief

Logo for Spotify

It seems as though the coming-of-age for any new Web 2.0 start up nowadays is its first security scare.  Spotify, the new online music sharing application, had theirs a week or two ago when they announced that a flaw was discovered back in December which could expose users’ passwords.  The company have reassured paying customers that their bank details are still safe.

I’ve been enjoying using Spotify for a while now, after jumping on the LastFM bandwagon a little bit late.  The features that make it distinct are that you do not own the music, just the access to it; its free, although a subscription removes the advertising and it has a large store of music with blindingly quick searching and access to the tunes. More - Have you been Spotified?

Wow Media - truly a WOW … Birmingham teenager Matt Lovett has set up his own online marketing business called WOW Media, which is a collection of cash-back websites and makes its money by charging the retailers to advertise on the site, an inspired teenage entrepreneur who could be the inspiration for more Birmingham youth.

Swinging against the tide of current headlines about young people and their antisocial and criminal behaviour it is very refreshing to read about a local youth whom, even after a less than positive experience at school and failing most of his GCSE’s except ICT, has managed to turn his life around and at the tender age of 17 is running his own international company employing six people and with a monthly turnover of £25,000 per month … that can’t be bad!

WOW Media currently has 400,000 UK subscribers as well as 35,000 in Australia and 24,000 in Sweden and looks set to go from strength to strength - the website looks engaging and easy to navigate and smacks of a level of professionalism that belies Matt’s years.

With the current numbers of 17 - 18 year olds in Birmingham currently in education (or work-based learning) at 81% and the regional unemployment figures continuing to climb, due in part, to the current economic climate; the influx of young adults due to be seeking vocational support will increase come the end of the summer term and although dotcom start-ups have had a bad press over the last few years, this story just goes to show that with a bit of thought, imagination and a little business acumin … the worldwide web could be your oyster.

Takeaways? Alcohol? Swearing? Many people will be 8 days in, perhaps finding giving up their vice difficult already. However, Italian priests have called on their followers to give up technology such as texting, social networking and computer games so Italy’s physical social interaction can dominate once again. Digital Birmingham’s very own Dave Harte has given up Twitter, but I don’t think the Archbishop of Modena had much to do with his decision……….

More - What have you given up for Lent?

The next generation of superfast broadband was given approval by Ofcom on Tuesday … the new £1.5 billion fibre-optic network will be 25 times faster than today’s speeds. Songs will take just two seconds to download and DVD-quality films less than two minutes in the 100 megabit per second system.

“There are no regulatory barriers in the way of investment in super-fast broadband, we want to promote investment but also ensure that there is fair and effective competition for the future.” stated Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards.
So, here at Digital Birmigham we are making the assumption that BT will no longer be subject to Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) as they were under the ADSL roll out, which will no doubt be a huge impetus for its implementation.
BT is investing £1.5bn in a fibre optic network that will deliver download speeds of 100mbps to UK broadband users. The move follows increasing competition, particularly from Virgin Media, which plans to introduce a 50mbps broadband service in September.

BT aims to put 10 million homes on the fibre network by 2012. To control costs, the network will be built in two parts. One million new-build homes will receive the fibre network directly. For the remaining nine million residents BT plans to replace the copper cabling that connects kerbside cabinets in streets to the local BT exchange with fibre optic cabling.

It has been recently reported that one in three teenagers are suffering bullying by mobile phone, text messages, messenger or on the Internet.  Tuesday saw the launch of a team of online Cyber Mentors to help teenage victims of bullying and they were deluged with calls for help with hundreds of victims and friends of victims logging on to chat to one of the 700 specially trained teenagers about their problems. More - Teenagers Tackle Cyberbullies