peteashtondotcom

Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

In a pub a in Hampstead and Mike warns us about a Spinal Tap moment at the bar.

Sitting there is Liam Gallagher and seven (or so) cronies doing the pub thing. Very disapointing. I’m sure a true “working class hero” would not be drinking in a fucking Hampstead pub…

The truth will out…

Just been to the Cosmopolitan site. It’s a lot like porn - the first thing that loads is a pair of breasts and when you click on something interesting (”
Land that man, ace your job, and look your sexiest ever!” in this case…) it takes you to a credit card payment screen.

What can this mean?

From a curious site calling itself “Internet Content.net“: Judged by what people are using it for Blogger is a great tool for the self-absorbed narcissist, but that doesn’t make it a business.

This kind of thing really needs to be addressed. The internet is NOT there to make money. When the world caught notice of it the first question was “how can we make money from this?”. Now the big question is “when will we figure out how to make money from this?”

When mobile phones became widespread there was talk of making money from them. WAP was supposed to make people money. It’s bombed. I suspect the G3 mobiles will also bomb (although some other use of the networks might produce interesting developments). People use mobile phones to talk to each other. Normally in close proximity to me on a bad day.

Text messaging is huge. It was created as a novelty feature and has become probably the main function used on many phones. People use it to talk to each other.

The internet, being a mass of web pages and emails, is being used by people who want to talk to each other, either one-to-one or one-to-many. Blogger was started as a cool gimmick for the programmers who wrote it. They decided to give the service away for free and it became so successful they recently had to seriously upgrade their computers. It, and other similar services, have revolutionised non-corporate web sites by giving them the power to keep their content fresh with minimal hassle, allowing more time to communicate with other people.

It also means when I come across something I disagree with I can make a case against it, and I suspect most people reading my rant will pay it more attention that if it was thrust at them by some content provider looking to make a buck. They’ll pay attention because they came to this page to read what I have to say, and then, if they deem it worthy, they’ll have a rant on their own site.

When Yahoo bought egroups this year they moved the advertising embedded in each email from the bottom (where everyone could ignore it - how many low interest Visa cards does a person need anyway?) to the top. A small personal message list I am part of moved away from egroups for that single reason alone. I notice they’ve moved them back now.

You cannot make money on the internet by messing with people’s desire to communicate with each other. If you want to make money then sell them a way of communicating better, be it broadband connections, proper mobile internet (watch those Palm Pilots boom in the next couple of years), fully integrated online services, online micropayment schemes, whatever.

Just get out of the way of people communicating and stop pretending that you can sell stuff here. By all means offer stuff for sale but don’t expect people to buy it.

Amazon say that something like .5% of all visitors to their site actually buy something. I suspect it’s less. Amazon is there to refer to if you want to tell someone about a really good book you’ve been reading. And if they want to buy it then there are facilities there to do so. The money Amazon is burning is mainly going on ridiculous discounts to corner the market (and the costs of processing these non-profit items) and advertising in the real word. The actual upkeep of Amazon is probably only a little more than Blogger and the sales of non-discounted items would probably pay for that. Amazon, for all their faults (don’t mention the Unions), understand that their customer loyalty comes from their position as the internet’s “books in print” database (except for when they get it wrong). Or at least they used to. There’s something of a lastminute.com aura surrounding them right now.

But every day at work I’m presented with an Amazon print out with the question, “do you have this in stock?” and it’s always something I’d never dream of stocking. The most important thing Amazon have done is to open to public’s imagination up to the fact that there are 1.5 million books in print and shops only stock a fraction of them. Sure, Amazon don’t necessarily benefit from people using them as an enquiry point, but the publishers and authors do.

So, how can businesses make money from the internet? By leaving it to us “self-absorbed narcissists” to play with. You can bill us for coming on line and you can make your databases available to us to refer to and then when, in the real world, we want to buy a book or book a holiday or order a new printer, we’ll do so in whatever mode we prefer, probably using the information we found on your sites, assuming we could find it.

No-one listens to hours of recorded mobile phone conversations and concludes that this is a medium devoted to “self-absorbed narcissists” which must be professionalised. We’d rather you phoned our professional girlfriend-agents at 50p per minute and had a nice corporate-style conversation concluding in the purchase of one of our services rather than going “aww, see you soon bunny-poo” in an inane manner to your real girlfriend.

That would be ridiculous (and probably illegal if not correctly licensed). You make money from mobile phones by selling people the hardware and connection time to let them communicate. And then you leave them to it.

Leave the internet alone. Stop moaning about unprofessional sites. Conversations are not professional - that’s why they’re interesting. If you want to make money, invest in coffee. I understand the prices are very low at the moment.

And before this turns into a Cluetrain rant, I’ll direct you there

I don’t necessarily agree with my Dad when he says “Ever noticed how the media never publishes pictures that look good?” (surely spin doctors were invented in the US?) but these photos of the new Bush Jnr administration are classics!

The Crow of Cheapside

Yesterday were were visited by a crow who hopped through the front doors of the shop and stood there with it’s head cocked to one side in that slightly malicious way that makes the crow the alsatian of the bird world. “I may not be able to walk properly but I am mean and I will kick your head in” it seemed to be saying. Not wanting crow-shit all over the books, and knowing how hard it is to get a bird out of a building, I immediately opened all the doors and waved my arms around shouting loudly at the little bugger. It went away.

Today the crow returned looking a little more disheveled. There were no obvious signs of injury but it was definitely on it’s last legs and unable to fly, the brutality of the city being too much for it. What with the Xmas rush about to hit us any minute we paid it no notice but a couple of women had a go, saying we should call the RSPCA to look after it. This hadn’t occurred and, as my break was finishing, I thought I’d do the right thing and call them.

After finding the right number (0870 5555 999 if it happens to you) I was instructed to place the crow in a cardboard box and wait for the RSPCA officers to arrive, which they would do within the next 7 hours. I’ve never picked up a bird before (yeah, yeah…) and expressed my concern about this matter. As long as I had plenty of kitchen paper and approached it from behind it should be fine, the nice lady said, obviously used to the shock of people not realising that good citizenship in regards to animal welfare actually involved touching the things.

Slightly shaken but determined to see this through I prepared a box large enough to hold the bird (no mean feat - crows are not small creatures) and pulled off a good few meters of kitchen paper. Steeling my nerves, and having left the till unmanned at the height of the rush, I went to catch the crow.

It had gone. The pavement was full of suits and suitettes enjoying their hour of freedom from the office and must have scared it away. After an hour of waiting I rang the RSPCA to cancel the collection.

Bye bye, Mr Crow.

I’ve been very quiet on this weblog of late. This is to be expected what with me working in a shop and it being the last weeks before Xmas. Not that the shop has been that tiring - it’s more the Xmas drinks and such that happen at this time of year and my insistance on trying to get through this season without shattering myself. So far so good!

Brett writes with some important news of earthshattering importancy…

Dear Discerning Condiment Lover!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/steve_wright/website.shtml

Yes, it’s true! That doyen of broadcasting, that veritable spin master of tip top platters, that poppermost vinyl recording guru if you will, Steve Wright (in the Afternoon) has seen fit to choose the World of Mayonnaise as the website of the day! As I have now found fame on Radio 2 I will celebrate by playing an hour of The King’s Singers every day between 4 and 5 pm followed by a request slot hosted by Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart. Please join with me in toasting Steve Wright, the creator of the unforgettable ‘Mr Angry’ for his impeccable taste and decency. Hurrah!

Regards

Brett

The World of Mayonnaise
As Recommended for Easy Listening and Fine Dining by Radio 2
Say ‘no’ to Salad Cream this Christmas

Two from (and with quotes from) Powazek. (fixed the link now…)

Glad to Be Here by Chris Brooks “is surprisingly inventive. It’s proof that creative web interactions are possible outside of flash.” Follow the eggs!

Traffic “truly raises the bar for flash-based movie sites. Forgive the full-screen takeover, crank up your speakers, and just play – challenging visual puzzles await. Great stuff.”

Lego Star Wars

This blast from the past, constructed between 1992 and 1996, has the entire Star Wars Trilogy constructed out of normal Lego bricks over 180 frames. Stunning. (Thanks, Dad!)

More Widdy Web appreciation. Simon Hoggart used it to fill his Guardian diary with wonderful effect: ” when you reach the Widdy Web home page, you should click on “Junior”, admire the picture of Ann hugging a giant Pooh bear even bigger than she is, and then select “My cottage”. Up comes a picture of our heroine looking, it must be said, somewhat morose as she stands in front of a newly glazed front door.” Jez says “I can hear her voice in my head when I read it.“

Billboard Liberation Front - some nice subvertisments, including their latest dot.com improvements: Fatal Error - Invalid Stock Value - Abort Retry Fail. (from notsosoft)

From the inlay card to PJ Harvey’s Dry (Too Pure, 1992)

We know him. He’s our friend.

Finally, three years and three months after the event, the rules for Prostitute Trading Trumps are online!

For the full sorry story, check out my comics convention report from UKCAC 97 or read Jez’s slightly different history

The Widdy Web Junior. This kicks ass. Thank you linkmachinego!

The previous post was written while very drunk indeed. In fact I managed to lose it twice before getting Blogger to post it which is why there’s very little information there. So, for those in the dark…

Kate, my fiance and fellow bookseller (that’s where we met - she sold kids books, I sold pornographic literature), has been applying for jobs in publishing, specifically children’s books, since we moved to London in March. In fact this was one of the main reasons for moving to London, there not being many publishers in the West Midlands. Getting jobs in publishing is notoriously tricky as not only is it a very popular vocation but it sort of depends on who you know and all that networking stuff (which is why I personally dislike book launch parties once the novelty of free drink and canapes has worn off, but that’s another story…).

So, a month back Kate was at a lauch for Jacqueline Wilson book launch run by Transworld in her capacity as children’s buyer for the company we work for. This involved drinking lots of wine and eating many canapes and talking to people who work in publishing. She had an interview lined up for the following week and was introduced to the person interviewing her by someone she knows at Transworld with the line “Kate’s far to good for this job”. Her colleague, Ian, chipped in. “I don’t know what I’d do if Kate left - she’s invaluable”. And so on.

Kate has the interview. Kate gets called back for a second interview. On Monday Kate gets a phone call offering her the job. She starts in January at their offices in Ealing (where we may move to in the spring).

This is a good thing. A very good thing. Not just because it means we will have different things to moan about in the evenings.

Kate got the job at Transworld!

Hoo-fucking-ray!

Messages of congratulations, should you feel the need, to kate@bugpowder.com

Chris Morris is a good man.

“This edit was originally included in programme 4 of the first series of Blue Jam in 1997. Following intense editorial discussions, it was deemed unacceptable but was smuggled into programme six at the last minute and broadcast almost in its entirety before being faded by a transmission engineer.”

Everything2.com looks pretty neat. Once I figure out exactly what’s it all about I’ll let you know! Hyperlink-crazy-shit by the looks of things.

Oh poo… “Britain’s intelligence services are seeking powers to seize all records of telephone calls, emails and internet connections made by every person living in this country.”