Looking Around

While I am taking a short break somewhere a little warmer, keep an eye on the flickr sidebar in case I manage to work out foreign ‘phone networks and picture messaging! In the meantime:

  • e-consultancy’s internet decade seems like a bit of a back-slapping exercise. Certainly, many of the people listed changed something but I would have preferred to see recognition for people who had the vision (and still do) rather than a list of MDs. Still, at least they admit, “the final list is really only some of those who have done so much”.
  • You may not have seen it at your newsagent but The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America has concluded that “differences in the acoustic characteristics of vowels were found as a function of sexual orientation”. Why do people continue to look for differences between gay and straight people. Isn’t it obvious? Gay men fancy other men. What does it matter if there’s a difference in vowel production (who knew there was such a thing anyway?). [via plasticbag]
  • The ‘world’s best radio station‘ that you’ve never heard (according to a report in The Independent): more and more people I know are tuning in here in Central London. I suppose I ought to try it at some point.
  • And while you might not be too bothered about ex-PM John Major’s answer to the question, “Do you think ‘I’m gay and Tory’ is a contradiction?” {Answer: No. Many people who are gay vote Conservative, and over our long history, many who are gay have risen to prominence within the party) [source] you may be interested in some of the other things he has to say about Tony Blair, those ‘bastard’ cabinet colleagues and rail privatisation.
  • According to News.Com: John Doerr is reported as saying that despite speculation Google would not enter the Web browser market. I wonder.
  • Bad news for those friends of mine who work in the business of marketing to mobile ‘phones but, apparently, text messages are twice as likely to irritate recipients as cold calls, according to research carried out by Cable & Wireless and reported at Revolution.
  • Did you know that a “fixation is a very short pause of the eye. A normal viewing of an ad, say, would include multiple fixations and “saccades,” which are the paths between fixations”. No, nor did I, but it’s reported at Poynteronline (everything you need to be a better journalist) in their coverage of the Eyetrack III study which seems, in the main, to state a lot of obvious things – although does back much of it up with some fascinating observations and heatmaps.
  • Also at Poynteronline (still everything you need to be a better journalist) but this time via MarketingVox (no amusing strapline to be found), “a German newspaper started printing blog excerpts as a regular feature”. Apparently the Frankfurt-based paper paper launched a page containing excerpts from weblogs without permission and so the wrath of blogosphere ensued forcing the paper into an apology. Was this good or bad? A feint whiff of hypocrasy to me.

And, no doubt the world will have moved on by the time I am back. A few interesting things are my Bloglines Blogroll.

On this day…