Paul Bradshaw O/T (Off Topic)

Detritus from my mind that doesn't fit on OJB. Or Tumblr. Or Twitter. Or Delicious...

The complexities of a Virgin Mobile bill explained

I've just come off the phone to Virgin Mobile, trying to understand the calculations behind a recent bill.

It seems that there is a gap between the 'allowance' shown on your bill and the actual allowance that is calculated within it - and this can lead to a lot of confusion.

So much so, I thought I'd try to explain it here:

On page 3 of every bill is a 'Charges' section. This details:

  • Allowances under your contract (texts, minutes, web)
  • Charges by type

You would imagine that the two cover the same period - that of the bill.

But they don't.

An unknown starting point

In my case, the Allowance start date is the 4th of the month.

But the Bill date is the 7th of the month.

This means that on every bill there is a missing piece of information: how much of my allowance had been used before this particular billing period started.

For example: 

  • On December 4 I get a new monthly allowance of 250 texts, and from then until December 7 I send 30 texts
  • But the bill begins 'counting' on December 8, by which point I have 220 texts of my allowance left.
  • At some point I used up the allowance, and texts are charged
  • But on January 4 the allowance is renewed, and texts are now not charged
  • On January 7 the charges are totalled up.

But all that the bill tells me is this:

  • Allowance: 250 texts
  • Charges: 375 texts another network: £26.25
  • 14 texts to Virgin [phones]: £1.50

What it actually means is this:

  • Allowance: 204 texts remaining from the period starting Dec 4 (46 had already been sent) plus 17 texts of the allowance of 250 for Jan 4-Jan 7
  • Charges: 175 texts to another network over the allowance; 200 within it.
  • 10 texts to VIrgin phones over the allowance; 4 within it.

As everyone has different billing dates, these figures will vary. But the main point is this: the allowances detailed on your bill have no direct comparison to the charges detailed underneath.

To understand your charges, you'll have to count them manually - and have your previous itemised bill to hand (so you know how many texts were left from the allowances period, which covers two bill periods).

You can, however, request that your billing date be changed to the same as when you receive your allowances - and that's what I've done. 

In the meantime, I think Virgin Mobile could be a lot clearer in how they summarise your charges.

 

Don't wait for it to be perfect

Your blog does not have to be perfect when you start. Everything does not have to be in place. The content does not have to be just-so; the corners do not need to be rounded, the edges smoothed.

Your blog is not a product to be unveiled, fully-formed; it is an opportunity to be taken. And then a series of opportunities, each one leading to others. It is a question to be raised, not an answer to be found.

Your blog does not have to be a feat of engineering, with invisible moving parts: it can be a work in process - a stalagmite, formed drip by drip with every link and comment.

It should be a habit, not an obligation; the journey, not the destination; the sum of its parts - a point in a network. But it doesn't need to be perfect.

If you have to wait to start your blog, what are you waiting for? No one is waiting for you - this isn't an empty stage in a packed theatre.

Say something - anything - then listen to yourself, and more: listen to others. Then say something else; say it better. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Take risks, and make mistakes. And be brave enough to want to be better, but humble enough not to want it to be perfect now. Don't wait for it to be perfect.

Stop trying to be interesting and be interested instead. Take us with you.

And do it now.

 

'Dead' (and fake) Osama Bin Laden photos - why didn't news websites check before publishing?

Daily Mail leads with fake dead Bin Laden photo

Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror today – among with several others in the US (including the New York Post, which credits the image to AP) and other countries – published an image purporting to be that of the dead Osama Bin Laden.

It clearly wasn’t.

Any journalist with a drop of cynicism would have questioned the source of the images – even if they did appear on Pakistan television.

It certainly passed the ‘Too good to be true’ test.

Instead, it was users of Reddit and Twitter who first highlighted the dodgy provenance of the image, and the image it was probably based on. Knight News and MSNBC’s Photo blog‘s followed soon after.

It took me all of 10 seconds to verify that it is a fake – by using TinEye to find other instances of the image, I found this example from last April.

But instead of owning up that their image was a fake, both The Daily Mail and Mirror appear to have simply removed the image from their site, leaving that image to circulate amongst their users. Ego, pure and simple.

PS: More on verifying images and other hoax material here.

Letter to my MP about the 'Great Firewall of Britain'

I'm concerned to read about Government ministers talking to copyright lobby groups and Internet Service Providers about a voluntary “Great Firewall of Britain” website blocking scheme.

Any such scheme would represent a genuine risk to freedom of expression as websites may be blocked as the result of being accused of crimes such as copyright infringement, without there being any need for proof, or recourse to defence. Users may also not be aware that websites have been blocked.

Similar schemes elsewhere have already been abused by companies and individuals who do not like particular websites, or who wrongly believe that laws have been broken.

Laws already exist for - and are used by - media organisations if they wish to block specific instances of copyright infringement. A scheme such as this would set a worrying precedent of 'legal action' without due process and put further brakes on 'StartUp Britain'.

Please forward my concerns to the ministers responsible, Ed Vaizey and Jeremy Hunt.

Just how bad is Orange?

I've had dealings with pretty much every mobile phone operator apart from O2 and Orange has to be the worst. I advise students and journalists against using Orange, but I've never blogged about it.

If you use your phone for web access, they are truly terrible.

Here's my experience: I bought an iPhone on Pay As You Go with Orange just over a year ago. The promise was 'A year's free internet access' but after three months the internet stopped working.

I had two phone conversations with Orange's service centre, paid two visits to Orange shops, and two visits to the Apple store. Apple eventually replaced the phone - but even that didn't solve the problem. 

In the end I simply put a tenner on my PAYG account and the problem was solved - it turned out that the 'free' internet required you to have some credit on your account, so it wasn't really free at all.

That was mildly annoying, but it was the lack of Orange's ability to spot this that was more disappointing. Their service is really not geared up to 'serve'.

A couple months later I found that my internet wasn't working again - and my £10 credit was gone. It seemed that I'd gone over the 250MB monthly limit to the 'free' internet, and been charged through the nose for the excess - without notification. When I was told this by their phone support their advice was to 'measure how much internet I was using' myself. Now that's customer service. Needless to say it made the experience of using my phone a real pleasure too.

Other operators are rather more helpful in this regard: O2 do notify you when you go over the data limit; T-Mobile do not cut off your web access or charge you, but narrow what you can access instead.

Of course 250MB is not much internet at all, especially when you use 'Push' services on an iPhone (I turned them all off at this point). So I tried to find out what deals Orange could offer me if I was willing to sign up to a contract.

The answer, it seemed, was they couldn't be bothered to offer me anything. In fact, switching out of the current deal - where I was paying Orange nothing - would leave me with an even lower data allowance - as low as 50MB in one case. The shop staff advised me to try phoning Orange for a better deal. I phoned Orange twice: each time they promised to call back with a deal. They never did.

So when my 12 months of 'free' internet came to an end, I replaced my Orange SIM with a T-Mobile one that I'd been using for phonecalls and web access on another handset (a Nokia N95) throughout that time. Their customer service had been excellent: they had listened to my requirements and tailored a package to that which was cheap (£10 per month) and only committed me for a month at a time. As a result they not only kept a customer, but made me inclined to tie myself in to a longer package with them when I needed a new phone.

Orange, in contrast, had failed at every possible opportunity - and there were many - to demonstrate that they gave a crap. (and while I'm at it, Vodafone's customer service isn't particularly good either, although their PR department deserves credit for monitoring and responding to social media).

I hope someone at Orange prints off this post, and Jayne's, and any comments that appear below both (I'd welcome your experiences), and send them round the organisation. As they merge with T-Mobile, I hope that Orange's customer service philosophy gets some shock treatment. It needs it.

What I'm doing these days

Now things are settling down a little I thought I should clarify what I'm up to. And also to ask that the phrase "portfolio career" be banned.

Here goes:

I'll be teaching online journalism at City University to students across all of the MA pathways there. I've also been advising the university on their online journalism provision more generally.

I'm returning to Birmingham City University on a part time basis to continue to lead the MA in Online Journalism that I established there. I'll also be involved in the MA in Television and Interactive Content. 

I'm working with Nick Booth at Podnosh on social media strategy and training with a number of organisations. Not only is Nick very good at what he does, but what he does is very good, and I'm keen to be part of that.

I'm updating the book Magazine Editing for a forthcoming third edition. 

I'm speaking about online journalism at various events. I try not to accept more than one invitation per month.

I'm talking to a number of publishers and broadcasters about training journalists in online journalism. Next week, for example, I'll be spending two days training Telegraph journalists in data journalism as part of a six week PA training course. This is something I'm very keen to do - there's a massive skills gap in journalism that needs addressing very very quickly if we're to make sure the opportunity of open data is taken.  

That should do for now. In between all that I'm trying to build some serious programming skills and find more time to support investigations on Help Me Investigate.

 

 

Afternoon notes from #xmedialab

Andrew Lih

Arabic blogosphere - links to different sources on web. Only sources which whole blogosphere links to are Al Jazeera and Wikipedia
Matrix - amateur & professional operations with professional & unprofessional standards
Matrix - Creation (low to high) vs Curation (low to high) 
- Twitter low in both
- Flickr high in creation low in curation
- Wikipedia low in creation high in curation
Whole new body of work which is high in curation and high in curation (Open Street Map)
Information pyramid: data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom
Bottom 2 layers has become commodity - highly populated by the crowd
Value of news orgs in the top 2 layers
Wisdom of Crowds online - Powazek
4 requirements
- Result aggregation
- Design for selfishness
- Large diverse groups
- Small simple tasks
TPM Muckraker readers combed through 3000 emails & identified compromising passages - won Polk Award
Robert Niles Theme Park Insider - crowdsourcing will stand alongside traditional journalism values

Brigitte Alfter, European Fund for Investigative Journalism

Ask the question: who is responsible?
Stories that are not followed up
Ask the right questions - go behind the daily news
Common research & networking - pool resources & expertise, safeguard multi-country publication (not competitors)
Impact - attempt simultaneous publication 

Think tactically - what do you need for a story?
Follow the story - which type of corporation/network
One task cooperation - focus on one element (Gripen - Swedish, got documentation/proof in GB & CZ)
Follow up - lead followed up abroad (Sex trafficking - Danish, found Belgian businessman link, needed Belgian help)
Loose cooperation - when common tasks are loosely defined (Farmsubsidy.org - all EU countries. Using FOI in Sweden to get Belgian data)
Very close cooperation (side effects of medicine - DK, NL, B - only available in Denmark, lots of information shared; trust important)
All EU data has to be out by April 30
Can lookup birthdates and names in Sweden so used that to work out youngest & oldest recipients - 14 year old, 98 year old, two 100-year-olds

Sam Apple, The Faster Times

Wanted to make a response to the Drudge report
Saw Huffington Post not making profit on $10m revenue & thought 'Well I could'
Pay writers 75% of ad revenue on their pages
Site members pick a favourite writer who receives 70% of the membership payment
Personalised stories etc. offered to members by writers (philosopher answers great question, other writes erotic story, travel writer does your itinerary)
Readers voted for investigation of generic foods (no brand, own brand). Working well
Found out if you pick up organic beef you can enter a code online to find out more. Getting readers to do that. @NathanHegedus overseeing this.
If we weren't all competing within the same Google framework it wouldn't be a problem, but news search is crowded by the likes of Associated Content, Seed, etc.
Google's attempts to save news not very good - FastFlip, YouTube Direct, Living Stories
How Google could save the news - remove incentives for spam; create incentives for solid reporting & writing

Meg Pickard, Guardian
10 years ago: RSS; now, Really Social Syndication
1.9m followers on official Guardian feeds (40)
270 journalists/employees also on Twitter
3 categories - official, public faces, 'normal' staff who tweet about personal life, etc.
140 most influential tweeters on Twitter - infographic
Filtered RSS feeds of journalists appeared on news page widgets
'Embrace, don't replace' - go to Facebook, don't replicate it
You need a proposition - a reason - as well as a product and the people.

Morning notes from #Xmedialab

Mike Allen, Politico:

Michael Jackson death - AP study where people went next: Top: Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, #10 first trad source - CNN 20 first newspaper - NYT

'What if we did a newspaper with only interesting stories?'
'Would I blog about this? Email it? Would I do a news segment on it? Buy or sell stocks because of it?'
One of the factors considered when deciding whether to do a report
Twitter, FB are very personal so people are going to increasingly look for the work of individual journalists or recommenders
Newsmakers are now our competitors - a link is a link. They used to have to convince broadcasters and publishers to publicise their story
White House now a massive creator of content - edited a video with NASCAR & gave it to ESPN
What we have that no other organisation has is the trust of our readers

Brant Houston, Knight chair

Databases 
EDGAR
UJIMA project
IRE tipsheets resource center
SEJ.org (society of environmental journalists)
INSNA.org
ESRI.com/software/mapping_for_everyone - mapping
Infosthetics.com
Subscribe to anything that says 'competitive business intelligence'

Andy Nehl, Hungry Beast

All stories had to pass through the filter of 'Tell us something we don't know rather than the shit we keep getting told about'
4 stories per week to YouTube, every story tweeted & retweeted, low res podcast, Flickr photostream, email feeds & RSS feeds, DVDs and high res downloads that could be bought on iTunes
Every story embeddable & sharable - other news orgs sometimes embedded
It doesn't dilute your audience it actually increased the audience
100% digital production
Social networks integral part of production, not just distribution/marketing

How to filter out #xmedialab tweets

If you don't want to see tweets from X Media Lab, here's how to filter them out in Tweetdeck:
At the bottom of every column in Tweetdeck are 6 buttons. 
The second one in - a downward-pointing arrow - is the 'Filter this column' button. Click this.
A new row appears where you can filter the tweets. Select 'Text' then '-' and type 'xmedialab' in the third box.
You should see tweets automatically filtered accordingly.

Measuring local newspaper coverage of local elections

Here's the sketch of an idea I'm working on: a way to measure how well local newspapers are covering the local elections - and therefore, how well they are performing the civic role they are so fond of claiming.

Here's how I see it working:
- monitor the output of the rss feeds of local paper websites (we already have a list)
- measure mentions of election candidates (I'm hoping we could use data from Democracy Club. You could measure mentions of political parties but this wouldn't distinguish between local elections and, for example, the leaders' debate)
- match feeds with constituencies. We have the postcodes for each feed so could do this using data from TheyWorkForYou - although many newspapers will cover more than one constituency, so we may have to tidy the data.
- There's also the issue of candidates with common names.
- And you'd have to measure coverage as a percentage of total news to ensure comparability.

This is a rare opportunity to test the claims of local newspapers that they provide an essential civic role. Any ideas & volunteers welcome.

Paul Bradshaw

http://twitter.com/paulbradshaw
http://onlinejournalismblog.com
http://helpmeinvestigate.com

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