8,000 homes hit by Old Town power cut (From Swindon Advertiser)

8,000 homes hit by Old Town power cut (From Swindon Advertiser).

 

That must have been cold!

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Local designer Ruth Britton has sketched this unique caricature of the Swindon Town 2011/12 league 2 championship winning team. This print is for sale in full colour for just £30 (The print is A3 size, full colour and price includes P&P to UK and donation to STFC) and cannot be purchased anywhere else. If you would like to purchase a copy please fill in the feedback form below making sure you leave your address and Ruth will be in contact.

Please retweet using hashtag #STFC. A great Christmas or birthday present!

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Smartphone, tablet and desktop – what’s your fancy?

Enjoying an ongoing debate about preferences for mobile sites. It intrigues me why and how people change the way they consume content.

What I do know is that lots of people access our content using many devices, tablet, smartphone, laptop etc. a plethora of devices but in reality just one person using them.

But what I want to know is the why? Why do people hop between devices, apart from when at home and they don’t have access to a desktop pc so use a smartphone or tablet. I believe that people use many devices to access our content throughout the day and eve. What I dont know is the motivating factors that contribute to the choice of device they make.

Personally I prefer mobile optimised sites when viewing on my smartphone, but I want to be able to see the same amount of content as I would on the desktop – not what the site owner thinks I want to see. I also don’t think that many smartphone/tablet users realise that many sites have a mobile version.

What I do know is that as users migrate to mobile devices we as a digital industry need look again at how we define what we offer to whom and when. All of this in tandem with finding out from users what they want and on what device. Finally the icing on the cake – how to realise a significant revenue stream from these devices whilst providing real value to advertisers.

Thats Friday taken care of – what next week……

Olympic tickets – to buy or not to buy

Ever since signing up for the London 2012 newsletter I seem to be bombarded with emails about the event. Don’t get me wrong I subscribed so expected emails, but I find most of them irrelevant and unclear.

I am genuinely interested in going to the one or two of the events but negotiating through the 2012 website in order to simply bid for tickets that I might not get be able to buy at a price that could be £20 or £200 seems a farce.

I fully understand there must be a fair way of distributing tickets, but because of the complex way London 2012 have arranged this I feel like I have to ‘put my name down and supply my card details (Visa only but don’t get me started on that)’ for lots of different tickets and then at the end of the day hope some admin person picks my name out and I get my preferred tickets rather than female wrestling.

Well I am not prepared for such a lottery and as such I will sit back and wait until early next year when the government realises what a farce ticket distribution has been and to save face will end up offering them free to schools etc. I am sure I will end up with tickets to a more interesting event that way. See you all at tiddlywinks 2012 Birmingham.

Power of social media – The search for Sian O’Callaghan

Its been a strange week – I awoke Sunday morning to the news that Sian O’Callaghan – a 22 year old lady from Swindon had been reported missing after a night out in Old Town, Swindon.

Sadly these things happen far too often in our world today, but I was amazed at the local and national support to help find Sian.

Whilst one would expect the local newspaper (Swindon Advertiser) to cover the event and local BBC, I was not prepared for the sheer power of Facebook and Twitter in spreading the message. Even celebrities such as Davina McCall were tweeting in order to help find Sian.

Me along with my Facebook friends have been kept up to date with all developments through the sharing of news/video articles which have engulfed local users Facebook Walls. In essence all of my friends have become news gathers’ some know Sian, some know her family, many just care about a missing young girl in their local community .

What has happened is a fundemental shift in how big breaking news stories are reported, consumed and shared one that i think is now here to stay – this is real 24 hour news published across all digital devices.

The social media campaign has helped circulate posters, generate hundreds of people to help search Savernake Forest and also help spread the message of Sian’s dissaparance to the world.

Sian has now been missing for 5 days – fingers crossed all of the publicity will help find some answers to what happened to her after 250am on Saturday morning and more importantly that maybe the messages touch the hearts of the people that must know something … We look forward to your safe return Sian

The little things in life..

I am currently on my way in to London for a meeting with Comscore then into our Strand based office after.

The morning started earlier that expected with one of my girls calling for her Daddy at stupid o’clock – this was all made good by the “Have nice day Daddy” send off I got. Never ceases to amaze me how quick toddlers pick up words and phrases and our girls are not even 2.

I usually get the train to London (when it turns up – First Great Western) and tend to park my car in the main car park. And this is where the other “little thing” that makes my life easier can be found. It’s called Ringo and in essence it’s a way of parking your car without queuing at the ticket machine in the rain. You simply call a number ( and to my amazememt it’s not £1 per min) register your car make and model and reg plate, the car park reference and a debit card. You do that once then each time you park your car just dial the number, press 1 to confirm you want to park at the car park you registered, enter the number of days and that’s it. It says you are parked and confirms by email with a vat receipt that you can use for expenses. These days I don’t even make the call until I am on the train – The wonders of modern technology eh?

Welcome to James Trudgians’ blog

Well after nearly 12 years in Digital Media I thought it was about time to start my first blog. The aim of my blog is to finally give me a window to talk about geeky internet things with like minded people and also talk about my other likes and loves…

Bear with me as I get to get grips with WordPress, I will also attempt to update this blog using the Iphone app (so it should mean more frequent updates). Fingers crossed I might be able to update from an Ipad but my wife is having none of that at the moment.

Me relaxing last summer at Milletts Farm with my girls