currybetdotnet The Guardian archive
The views expressed on currybetdotnet are my own, and do not reflect the views of Guardian News and Media Limited, or any current or former employers or clients.
Whatever Paul Waugh thinks, The Guardian's MPs Expenses crowd-sourcing experiment was no "total failure"
In describing The Guardian's MPs Expenses crowd-sourcing experiment as a "total failure", the Evening Standard's Paul Waugh gives us a glimpse of one of the reasons the traditional media industry finds it hard to innovate with technology.
'Identity' at The Wellcome Colection
A visit to the Identity exhibition at The Wellcome Collection was the first time I've seen 'blog comments' appear as part of an exhibition.
'What is information architecture?' on Inside Guardian, and talking with Talis
I've recently started a blog post series on Inside Guardian about my role as information architect at guardian.co.uk, and also been interviewed for the Nodalities podcast about 'Linked Data' and news.
African Cup of Nations online coverage review: Part 4 - British and American online newspapers
I started this series looking at some of the British press coverage in print of the African Cup of Nations, and today I wanted to look a little bit further at online coverage in the main papers. My impression - and this is an unscientific one - is that there has been more coverage of the tournament than in previous years. I think this is in part because it allows news organisations to gear up for covering another football...
Making The Guardian in Lego
At a recent UCLAN workshop on the future skills needed by journalists, I got to make a Lego model to describe The Guardian.
Evening Standard fails African Cup Of Nations geography test
Whilst the Evening Standard gets confused about whether the African Cup Of Nations is being held in Angola or Ghana, The Guardian is making available an open public sporting events calendar which knows for sure.
Genesis of the robots - how a Czech word invaded the English language
Using The Guardian's digital archive, I've traced how the word 'robot' made its way from the theatre stage in Prague to become part of the English language during the 1920s.
Real-time web provides real-time feedback on The Guardian's iPhone application
Real-time web gives real-time feedback on Guardian iPhone appTwitter is transforming the way that digital products are launched.
How the global climate change editorial project appeared online
To coincide with the opening of the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, The Guardian worked to get the same editorial opinion column to appear in over 50 newspapers around the globe. Here is how it manifested itself online.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop in The Guardian's archive
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to have the chance to see some of the surviving members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop play live at the Camden Roundhouse, and to attend a question and answer session with them beforehand. Photo by Stickpeople Almost certainly the biggest impact the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had on popular culture was Delia Derbyshire's electronic realisation of the Doctor Who theme. However, that didn't hit the nation's screens until 23rd November 1963, 46 years ago...
"Thierry Henry and the net" piece on Guardian PDA blog
Having gone on and on and on about comments on The Guardian site this week, I was a little bit nervous what might happen 'below the line' on a piece I wrote for the PDA Blog yesterday: "Thierry Henry and the net: Fifa report whitewash and anger on Twitter". In the end I seem to have got away with just a couple of comments along the lines of 'Journalist gets paid to write article that claims people discuss current affairs...
"1966 and all that..." - Contrasting England's 1966 and 2018 World Cup bids
Tonight we'll be finding out the final qualifiers for next year's World Cup Finals in South Africa. Press attention has also been focused on England's bid to host the 2018 or 2022 edition of the tournament. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the reason FIFA abandoned their continental rotation system and introduced this double round of bidding was because they didn't get to go on lots of exotic junkets during the bidding process for 2010 and 2014. Imagine the...
Comments are free...to inform and to entertain, as well as infuriate
"As a blogger I'm not afraid of the comment box, unlike many journalists of whom we shall not speak..." - Zoe Margolis The 'outing' of Belle de Jour, like that of Night Jack and Girl With a One Track Mind before it, has raised some interesting debates around the issues of anonymity and privacy when blogging. Zoe Margolis, the one-track minded sex blogger, wrote a piece for The Guardian on the issue, and immediately set about playing a very active...
Carbon, clippings and checking out Wave - more cool stuff on guardian.co.uk
Last week, when I was writing about the Jane Bown interactive gallery on The Guardian site, I mentioned that there were several other things done recently that had really impressed me. In no particular order, and stressing again that these have been nothing to do with me, here are another three things that stood out over the last few weeks. Quick carbon calculator I remember a conversation I had a while back with Simon Willison where he was explaining the...
Windows 7 overtakes Linux usage on guardian.co.uk in just 4 days
Windows 7 overtakes Linux usage on guardian.co.uk in just 4 daysOn the first Sunday after release, Windows 7 usage eclipses Linux for the first time.
New interactive Flash photo gallery on guardian.co.uk
When I recently did a reader survey, writing about the work that I do at The Guardian proved to be one of the more popular topics for blog posts. However, it can be quite tricky. The things that I have spent most of my time on have tended to be strategic longer term projects that are still under wraps. On other things, very often my contribution consists of chipping in to a couple of meetings very early on in the...
Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time across the web
Live-blogging the BNP on Question TimeA look at how newspapers and political blogs covered Nick Griffin's BBC appearance online.
Ice Sunday: Part 3 - The death of the ice trade
Over the last couple of days I've been writing about my visit to the London Canal Museum on "Ice Sunday". This was a chance to explore one of Carlo Gatti's ice wells - a remnant of an industry that flourished during the 1800s, but which was gone by the time the First World War arrived. I often write about music and the newspaper industry, both areas where technological advance has disrupted established businesses. In his talk during "Ice Sunday", Malcolm...
'The wisdom of crowds and the folly of lawyers'
I wonder if at The Guardian we still have time to re-print tomorrow's fairytale giveaway?After today's #Trafigura #CarterRuck gagging debacle, maybe we should add the story of the plucky villagers who just wouldn't let the king's courtiers silence the town crier.Or perhaps we could simply change the name of the next booklet in the series to 'The wisdom of crowds and the folly of lawyers'?...
A (re)design for life - the new environmentguardian.co.uk front page
"The redesigned front page reflects our ongoing commitment to news coverage but gives greater prominence to green living, data and multimedia" - James Randerson, environmentguardian.co.uk website editor The Guardian recently relaunched the front page of our Environment section online, and I wanted to take a look today at some of the changes and design decisions that were made as part of that process. You can roll-over the numbers on this screenshot to see a summary of the main IA changes....
Revenue share deal spikes newspaper guns about England's pay-per-view Internet World Cup qualifier
The Guardian's 'river of tones'
"And on the seventh day..." - Sunday newspaper branding highlighted at Summer Sundae
Does the embedded video deal lead to papers burying bad BBC news online?
Day #2 at Guardian Hack Day #2
Day #1 at Guardian Hack Day #2
"Graceful Hacks" - UX, IA and interaction design tips for hack days
Andrew Walkinshaw of Timetric on 'numbers that vary against time' at #newsinnovation
Michael Jackson and search at The Guardian
Activate 09 at The Guardian: Notes and take-away quotes - Part 4
Activate 09 at The Guardian: Notes and take-away quotes - Part 3
Activate 09 at The Guardian: Notes and take-away quotes - Part 2
Activate 09 at The Guardian: Notes and take-away quotes - Part 1
How major publishers are using social media to drive traffic - Part 4
How major publishers are using social media to drive traffic - Part 3
Michael Jackson's death sweeps BBC expenses from the front pages
The Guardian's "Reading Room" at Kings Place
Happy birthday to The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian Open Platform at Endeca's e-Business Forum
Interview with a Scott Trust Bursary student - Helia Phoenix
"Introducing Information Architecture at The Guardian"
'Insight into Journalism Day' at The Guardian
Are your domestic print apples as valuable as my global multimedia oranges?
How the Ian Tomlinson G20 video spread The Guardian brand across the media
London IA Mini Conference at The Guardian in April
"An Open BBC?" at Broadcasting House
The Guardian's Open Platform launch
Guardian Open Platform launch trends on Twitter
Reactions to The Guardian's new mobile site
Can the Daily Mail and online dating really be soulmates?
The BBC's "Points Of View" online culture clash - Part 1
Navigating newspapers: Part 5 - The 'quality press'
Social media: Contextual help on UK newspaper websites
A storm in the Ionian for the BBC and The Guardian
$num XL passengers stranded somewhere
'Lost playlists' and Chipwrapper in the Guardian's Music sections
"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 5
"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 4
"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 3
"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 2
"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 1
There is the BBC's new media overspend...and then there is Google
Measuring the interactivity of the Greek press online
'Sorry - this page cannot be found': How newspapers handle 404 errors - Part 1
Newspaper "Site Search Smackdown": Round 3 - The Guardian vs The Mirror
Google hijacks traffic from newspaper site search
Measuring the iPlayer impact on broadband usage
Some very British reporting of the Chania court case
How accessible are Britain's online newspapers? Part 4 - The Guardian
More details on the Linux user base of the BBC, The Telegraph and The Guardian
So where did those 900,000 mysterious Spooks viewers go?
A tour of Tour De France news sites - Étape 4: The Guardian
Extra URLs for the Guardian Gamesblog in Bloglines
Bloglines subscriptions numbers and OPML file for The Guardian's Comment Is Free site
Newspapers 2.0: RSS links on The Guardian's new homepage
Newspapers 2.0: How Web 2.0 is The Guardian?
The White Horse bridge comes back to haunt me in Salzburg
In Our Time Greatest Philosopher Vote
Digital doesn't automatically mean quality
Distant Shores with Peter Davidson
The myth of the indestructible CD
Close, but no cigar...Jack Schofield on browsers, phishing and security
BBCi Connector in The Guardian
So is Coca-Cola good for music or not?
Sometimes the politics of the media are more important than the politics
Search engine placement advertising hits the broadsheet press
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"Journalism in the digital age"
I'll be appearing on a panel with Sarah Hartley and Iain Hepburn at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on Sunday April 11th. More details...
Posts of the moment
Day of the Triffids
If everyone suddenly went blind, how long would the Internet survive, and could you still publish news on it?
With professionals of this quality, who needs 'citizen journalist' enemies?
It is hard to argue that ethics and quality set the 'professional journalist' apart from the amateur blogger, if the 'professional' keeps publishing articles so wrong that they have to be deleted.
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Contact: martin dot belam at currybet dot net. © Martin Belam where appropriate.
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