Where's Wil?

But we're working. Hard. Will have something for you soon...

Whilst yesterday may have been the US release of Halo 3, today is the day here in Blighty. I am looking forward to picking up my copy after work, going home, then spanking it in the next couple of nights. I absolutely love Halo, and I am really interested to see how this one finishes up. Mmmmm.

More filming over the past few days - whilst the builders are finishing up refurbing our office, we're doing some location work. Thought you might enjoy a couple of shots from yesterday. Things are really starting to come together now.





Also, if you want something fun, check out this funky video:



Enjoy!

Our gadget show is called Unwired, and we were shooting a couple of segments yesterday in my house, to get a nice homey feel. Since we were reviewing digital cameras, I figured a few snaps might be appropriate. On location: me, Kath and Ben, our camera dude.





Things are moving along well here, should have some more shooting pics for you today...

So our videogames show on ChannelFlip is called Play:Digital. It's going to be a 5 minute show, going out daily - think WebbAlert, but with more reviews and less hairstyles.

To write/produce/present the show, I called on the services of a friend of mine. I've known Katharine since high school, and she's a super geek - video games, Dungeons and Dragons, anime, the lot. So with the geek creds, camera experience and a Masters in English from Cambridge, she seemed like an obvious choice!

All of that is basically an excuse to post this groovy shot:



Sweet, huh? I think you guys are going to like the show.

Thanks to Ben for the photo...

Made it on to TWiT again this week... as always, had a blast discussing the latest tech with Robert, Patrick and Leo - including, of course, my unlocked iPhone, w00t! No Dvorak this week, but as a Brit I feel a duty to channel his cynicism. I told Leo that my aim in life is to get that ending song re-done with my name dropped in there... then I'll know I've arrived!

Check out the show here. According to this page, I'm now one of the most-appearing TWiTs of all time. With 113, I overtake Roger Chang to put in my 27th appearance, putting me behind Dvorak (73), Patrick (69) Robert (47), Prager (36) and Kevin (34). Not bad for a kid from ol' Blighty!

I seriously have as much fun recording it as you guys do listening to it, I'm sure - and on the weeks I'm not appearing, I'm getting it to listen to on a Monday morning ASAP. The downside of appearing is knowing what's going to be on the show ;)

I had the fun of doing another podcast interview last week - with Dale from Tech Talk for Families. Dale covers online and technology from the point of the family, and is responsible for a great podcast promoting the use of the net for education and family, as opposed to the mundane/dubious purposes we adults often put it to.

The interview is right here.

I get to talk about the world of IPTV as I see it progressing in the future. Definitely worth tuning in to, if not for me, then for the rest of the podcast - Enjoy!

Is this Halo 3 project the single best piece of marketing that's ever been done? I mean, this thing is crazy. And awesome. Crazily awesome. Check it out, now.

So my buddy Jason Burns has been doing some cool web design stuff for me recently. He also does a pretty neat podcast, and we've spent the last month trying to schedule a time that we can record something together - the downside being that he is west coast, and my west coast podcasting time is taken up with TWiT!

However, this weekend we managed to bang out a cool conversation about digital media, the new iPods, and a few other funky things. If you haven't quite had enough of listening to my voice for one week, you should totally check out the podcast. Now!

Thanks to the efforts of the iPhone Dev Team, I now have an unlocked iPhone. Many many days of waiting, followed by some hardcore Terminal action and a little SSH does wonders! Also, big thanks to my pal Ryan Block for filling in the final piece of the puzzle when all looked like it might be lost.



I am a happy, happy, happy man. I've been making spurious phone calls all day just because I can.

So the last few days have been rather crazy, and apologies for the lack of updates. Here's a quick fill in on what I got up to.

Thursday night: TechCrunch party. Managed to hook up again with el hombre grande Michael Arrington, as well as the new face of TechCrunch UK, Mike Butcher. The UK outet has now re-launched, which is great - with this, OpenCoffee, SeedCamp etc it seems like the British start-up scene is booming. It was a fantastic party, in a Soho penthouse with plenty of free bubbly and great networking - very Valley dotcom.

Saturday night: Last Night of the Proms. I went with Alex and her family to see the venerable old musical institution. The Proms are a fantastic season of concerts, and Last Night is always the best, with some slightly awkward patriotism mixed with fantastic music. Great night out.

Sunday: TWiT. Great fun, as always.

Monday: Working with the crew. Today was the first day we'd really gotten the ChannelFlip staff together to work, although we've been working remotely on this thing for months now. We're prepping to move into our studio next week, so yesterday we spent getting up to speed. Namely, we spend the whole day watching internet video - watching everything from WebbAlert, DL.TV, Diggnation, The Broken, The Buzz Report, through to French Maids, Ask a Ninja, 1up Show, WallStrip, X-Play, Girls on Film, Goodnight Burbank, ThreadBanger, Reeler, Political Lunch, Tiki Bar, Wine Library... basically, we spent a whole day in front of the TV working out which video blogs work, which don't, what formats and advert styles work, what presenting styles... basically working out what the context is that we're operating in. We're feeling pretty good after an incredibly informative day.

Tuesday: Real world. As one of our launch shows is gadgets, we spent the day looking at gadget shows - T3 and Stuff in magazine format, TrustedReviews and Engadget online, Cnet, Stuff videos as well as The Gadget Show (Channel 5) and The Screen Savers and The Lab - looking at how real TV handles this stuff.

More interestingly, we watched GamesMaster. Damn, I forgot how frickin' awesome that show was. Season 2, set on the oil rig - spectacular.

Tuesday Evening: PaidContent party. Headed down to London to rub shoulders with the UK media industry at this launch event for PaidContent UK (competition for TechCrunch, obviously). Met some very interesting people and got some very positive feedback about ChannelFlip. Good stuff.

I'm now sat on the bus on the way home, catching up on some email and admin, as well as desperately hoping that my iPhone unlock code comes through from iPhone Sim Free. Yes, I paid the $50. Yes, I know it will probably be broken next update. But dammit, I need my iPHone to work!!

This is absolutely freakin' awesome. I saw it on the Inside Twit blog, and just had to share it. I was five years old when John was recording this.



Genius. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, eh?

So I'm not going to recap yesterday's Apple event because, let's face it, the commentary is all over the web right now. But I thought this article in particular was illuminating:

USA Today Q&A with Steve Jobs

The pullquote:

"Q: What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?
A: That's technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that's what happens in technology."

Wow. That's pretty harsh. Not a jot of regret, obviously.

Interestingly, Jobs says that they are "on target" to hit the 10m iPhones in the first year sold. That suggests to me that he expects the price cut to spur further sales - which, in turn, suggests that the sales out of the gate were slower than they originally predicted. That's pretty interesting.


Image courtesy Engadget

How do I feel? Well, I got mine almost two months ago now. How I feel is kinda irrelevant, especially since a) it was bought for me by Alex and b) the price doesn't really matter when you still can't even buy it over here. Plus, the number of conversations that I've started with it is worth the $200 alone. That's quite apart from the fact it's still clearly the best consumer electronics device on the planet. Now, if only I could get it unlocked...

'Nuff said.

... has launched. It's here. I'm a big fan of PaidContent, and the thought of having a UK version to be attached to is fantastic - the UK digital media scene is one that is massively undervalued and, as someone about to launch a company into it, anything that raises the profile and facilitates more networking and communication is a great thing. I look forward to the first party next week...

Is it just me, or is this story about a guy who lives his life brand-name free really just like Pattern Recognition on steroids?

Wow. So what a weekend that was. I went down to PodCampUK in Birmingham on Saturday and had an absolute blast. This was my first experience of an 'unconference' and, I have to say, I was blown away.

The day was split into a morning 'introductory' session, where all the attendees gathered to listen to a professional radio exec talk about the future of radio and podcasting. These sessions live or die by the guy giving the talk, and I'm happy to say that this was a good one. He pointed out one fact I had never considered - that when it comes to 'radio' and 'TV', the programming uses the same word as the medium. That is, you make 'radio' to go on the 'radio', unlike cinema, where you make 'films' to go in 'theaters'. This creates complication - nobody would say you make 'radio' for 'ipods', but that is, effectively, what many of us are doing. He made a note that most young people today identify radio with the programme type, not the device - that is, they talk about 'online radio' and 'radio on cellphone', rather than thinking about the wireless. This was an interesting point to me. When people ask me what I do, I always avoid the word podcast - I tell them I make TV for the internet. That is far more informative for them.


Photo via timbearcub.
The rest of the sessions were moderated and run by attendees, and I went to a couple of very interesting sessions on metrics (measuring downloads / streams for the purposes of advertising) and social networking (just how social are social networks?) At each session, the people attending were interested specifically in that topic, making for informed and interesting discussion. I feel like I contributed a lot, and also came away with some new thoughts and perspectives.

I was so psyched by the end that I talked myself into heading out for the New Media Expo after all. It's going to be a tough schedule but I think it's going to be valuable enough to warrant it. Thanks to everyone that organised PodCampUK (and the sponsors that paid for the, shock, awesome food!) I look forward to the next one!