Update : 21st December 2011. The app is now available. Search for RTE Player in the App store. Worth the wait.

I rarely watch TV programmes at their scheduled broadcast time. I guess most people are the same. Sky+ , web catchup services and iPad/iPhone/Android apps have totally changed the broadcasting landscape. As an Apple device owner, I miss the ability of being able to catch up on RTE programmes due to the lack of Adobe Flash support on the device.

To a collective “hurray” from iPad and iPhone owners, RTE today announced they will launch a Player app for Apple devices “before Christmas”. An Android version is also planned.

One really nice feature of the app (as explained in the video above) is an Amazon Kindle like feature of syncing what you are watching between devices. Start watching an episode of Mad Men on your iPhone on the way home from work, you can pick up where you left off on your laptop when you get home. Some other nice features for sharing content are discussed in the video as well and it will be interesting to see how they work.

News this morning that the Irish Times will shortly be launching an iPhone app. Surprised it has taken so long to be honest. It will see the newspaper catch up with their main rival, The Irish Independent, which has an app available for some time now. As the article points out, with Vodafone offering the iPhone in the Irish market from next week there’s going to be a lot more eyeballs to catch.

The first line in the article in the paper says :

As more newspapers launch apps, they are trying to avoid eating into their core business

The big challenge the Irish Times and other newspapers face is that when you offer an app for a few euro that has all the articles from the print edition, there is no need to visit the newsagent. This ability is already available of course. All a person needs to do is add the Irish Times RSS feeds to their news reader and bobs your uncle.

That’s not the whole story though. When I consume news on a mobile device (in my case the iPhone), I skim through articles and find the ones that interest me. Same way with the printed newspaper. There’s a lot in there I’m not interested in but I have to buy the whole newspaper anyway. I don’t want an app that dumps every page of the print edition into my hand. I’d like a more intelligent app. One that knows what I’d like to read. Something with the intelligence of my6sense.

my6sense is an iPhone app that I’ve been use for quite a while now. Over time, it learns what type of articles and news I like and presents those relevant articles to me. I can still see all the news items from my feeds if I wish, but the app does such a good job I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything. This description from another my6sense user says it all:

“… I have been using a tool to filter hundreds of feeds, thousands of posts! The results are so tailored and specific to my needs, they are as if handpicked by a mighty army of mind reading Oompa Loompas bent on making me the most informed man on earth.”

What I’d like to see the Irish Times do with their app is make it intelligent by offering a premium version. A premium version with a monthly sub that would offer the following:

• Newstand account on the Irish Times website along the lines of Shelfari. It would allow me to flag articles of interest and store them on a “shelf”. When I get home in the evening, I can read the articles full screen at my leisure.
• Like Shelfari, the Irish Times could offer a community feature on the site where I can see who else is reading the same articles as me and allow me to connect and discuss issues if I so wished.
• Daily/Weekly/Monthly digests. I would love a properly formatted version of the articles I’ve found interesting compiled into a downloadable file that I can view on my ebook reader, iPhone or iPad (when it arrives).
• Print on demand. If I want a printed version, I should be able to go into my local newsagent and get a personalised copy of the Irish Times printed while I wait.

Bottom line is that newspapers should think beyond dumping everything from the print edition into another format. They ought to be offering a way to shape the news and tailor it to fit the individual. Maybe then they can start to make some money from their online efforts. Until then, I’ll stick with my6sense and an instapaper account. It allows me to create a truly personal newspaper that I can read on multiple devices.

RTE released a really nice iPhone App on January 18^th for keeping up to date with all the latest news from the rte.ie website. A lot of people will already get their RTE news delivered via RSS feed or browsing the mobile version of the RTE website so it may seem pointless to have a dedicated app for the task. Having installed just yesterday I think it’s a more pleasant viewing experience. The addition of the live news video stream makes it a must have.

One slight oversight is the omission of Twitter as a share option when viewing articles. Email, Reddit, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Delicious and Stumbleupon are all included. Maybe it was a deliberate decision to exclude Twitter as there are already so many accounts on Twitter with feeds of RTE News articles already. There is a way to Tweet news articles within the app in a slightly roundabout way.

If you have an account Delicious and want to Tweet a link from within the app, just tag the article in Delicious with something like Tweeting or Tweet. Fill in whatever other tags you want to use to bookmark the news item.

You can then use Twitterfeed to send the Tweet for you (you will, of course, need to set up an account there).

Simply create a new feed and enter the details of the RSS feed of your delicious account followed by the Tag you are using on Delicious to Tweet bookmarks.

In my case, I’m using tweeting as the tag to indicate those links I’d like to Tweet. The RSS feed for those tags is:

http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/lecraic/tweeting

Your feed will look very similar, apart from lecraic and tweeting. Replace lecraic with your username and tweeting with the tag you are using to tag news items to be tweeted.

Here is the Twitterfeed configuration screen for reference.

Once all of this has been done, you are set to go. Next time you see an article on the RTE News Now App on your iPhone, just click on Delicious to share the item, and then enter the tweeting tag and save the bookmark. Twitterfeed will pick up the new entry from your Delicious feed and Tweet the link for you.

No doubt there are other ways to accomplish the same task, but as I already use Delicious I found this to be the handiest way for me.

Updated versions of the App may include the Twitter in which case none of this will be necessary. So if you are reading this after January 24^th 2010, there may be an update available which has Twitter sharing integrated. If this is the case, none of the above is necessary.

I bought Buzan’s iMindMap software about 3 months ago and only got around to installing it today. What better way to put it to use than create a mind map of New Year’s Resolutions?

These are a mixture of some of the suggestions on the New Years’ Resolution generator and some of my own. The idea is to pick one of the suggestions from each of the main branches on the mind map as resolutions and see how it goes for 2010.

Click on over to my posterous account where you can download the full size version of the map.

Good luck and Happy New Year.

Posted via email from lecraic’s posterous

*** UPDATE on this Post ***

After getting in touch with Waterstones, their pricing has been reviewed.

Selling price for the Sony Reader Touch will be €315. The Pocket model will be €225. Full details here

Sue has also left a comment below that the Sony Store on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin has the Touch model for less than €300

*****

The new Sony Reader Touch models were announced earlier this week by Sony and will be available through Waterstones stores in Ireland. They have great new features (touchscreen, built in dictionary, ability to write notes etc.) compared with the previous model. There is a question mark about glare and readability though. As an owner of the previous model, I will have to see the unit before making a decision on upgrading.

When I reviewed the Sony Reader last year I said that Waterstones were to be commended for their pricing. The unit launched with a UK price of £199, with Irish stores charging €249, which was very fair when taking into account VAT and currency difference. This time round, the situation is not so good.

The Sony Touch models retail at £249.99 in the UK. The Irish store price? A whopping €359.99.

The Sony Pocket models retail at £179.99 in the UK. The Irish store price? A puzzling €249.99.

There simply is no rational explanation for this. I asked Waterstones to confirm the prices weren’t a mistake. They replied via Twitter that, no, there wasn’t a mistake. These are the prices.

The exchange rate between Euro and Sterling is actually the same as this time last year – so there’s no excuse there. Our VAT rate has changed, but that doesn’t make up the difference.

If I’m going to buy one, I would like to buy locally. With these crazy prices being charge by Waterstones though, it’s very unlikely I will.

I will forward this blog post on to Waterstones for comment and see if they can give a rational explanation for these prices. I’ll update as and when.

From the school of totally pointless observations about social media, I bring you a collection of 16 Twitter avatars that always jump out at me on my Twitter stream.

I’m giving the list a fancy ass title of the 16 Most Influential Twitter Avatars in Ireland - because I am an expert in these matters.

Preface each of these descriptions with "he/she is a person on Twitter like anyone else. He/she can influence you as much as anyone else in life."

1. @icedcoffee‘s – It’s his eye, and he’s hypnotising me with it. I like hypnotism

2. @ann_donnelly – Reminds me of a great work of art. Very classy. I like classy.

3. @AllanCavanagh – Red is for danger – and this avatar stands out. He’s not actually dangerous though, but I do like a bit of danger tbh.

4. @cat_barett – I like toys – they’re cute.

5. @murrion – Everytime I see this I think "futuristic" – I like the future..

6. @Laughing_Lion – Ah, remember the good old days of the Irish pound. I liked those days.

7. @blacknight – It’s a horses head. I like horses, especially black ones.

8. @alpower – The camera is pointing towards me. I like cameras.

9. @donncha – Ah, look at the little fella – I like happy photos of dads and their babies.

10. @sineadcochrane – It’s lovely. I like lovely.

11. @michele_neylon – It’s a cartoon. I like cartoons.

12. @eolai – Same as before. And it’s even more cartoony. I like that.

13. @darraghdoyle – It’s a blue nose. I like comedy noses.

14. @trontsephore – It’s a man with his brain exposed. I like brains (not in a zombie way – but a scientific way)

15. @cufa – Looks mysterious. I like mystery.

16. @ManuelTheWaiter – He looks funny for a waiter. I like funny.

Word of advice to any business wishing to dip their toe into social media and Twitter in particular. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to have the ear of "influencers" to accomplish your social media goals. Don’t use any sort of list and then blindly start following these people. You’ll be criticised for doing it – especially if you’re XYZ company and unknown to the person.

Really, the most important thing you need to ask yourself is – "Why do I want to tweet?". Think long and hard about that before ever signing up. Once you’ve got that clear in your head, start off with something like twit.ie and see what conversations are going on. See how the land lies. It’s not a race. Start picking out people who you might have something in common with or that you feel you could help in some way.

If you have a website or blog, advertise the fact you are on twitter and, if people follow you – acknowledge it by following back at the very least.

Observe, listen and contribute. Understand that everyone in the room has influence. Don’t automatically assume that the loudest person in the room can help get your message across or help you achieve your goals. A single tweet can make a difference and can spread farther and wider than you might have hoped. So don’t get obsessed by influence or followers or any other measure.

Ultimately though, the real hidden networks in Twitter are based on real life interactions. So you should have your Twitter address handy on your business card. You are more likely to get "heard" on Twitter if you’ve met people in person at some event or other, or if you know someone that knows someone that can give you a shout out as an introduction to their followers.

Have fun on Twitter though. You will go through periods of absolutely hating it and then loving it. It will both connect you and disconnect you at the same time. You will need to find a good balance yourself.

Trying out Google Insight this evening and did a search on Lidl and Aldi. As already ready reported widely, both retailers have seen an increase in custom as people seek out better deals. Just interesting to see it reflected in Google searches as well. Look how far they have come since 2004 and how the graph has risen sharply since October.

Pump in the term saving and you will find see a section called rising searches which shows the following all on the up.

Here’s how Christmas Parties look. Big decline this year. The search volume last year was 59 in September, 68 in October and 80 in November. This year it’s 49, 55 and 61 (so far for November).

And finally. Here’s the regional interest for Life Insurance searches.

Roll your own insights here.

If the pollsters are correct, Senator Barack Obama will become President Elect by tomorrow.

I set up Barackulations.com website along the lines of the Sorryeverybody. Instead of America apologising to the world, the world can (fingers crossed), congratulate America.

I would love to get some submissions – so head on over there and find out how it all works.

Update : 20th October 2008 – RTE Channels now work on the latest version of the Application. Check for an update even after you install it, as the version in the app store may not be the updated version.

iPhone alert, whoop, whoop. If you don’t have one this is of zero interest to you, so flick the channel now…

Ok, now that the non iPhone people are busy winding up the gramaphone, I have to let you know about THE best radio application for the iPhone.

It’s YASRA (yet another streaming radio application) called Wunder Radio,  but this time it’s got loads of Irish stations pre-loaded – I counted 52 in total.

Newstalk, FM104, Phantom and lots of other regional stations too. Here’s the rub though. Although all the RTE channels are there (including the digital ones), whatever way RTE do their streaming it doesn’t work on this iPhone application.

Everything else I’ve tried to listen to works, APART from the RTE channels. What’s the story? Anyone have this app and know how to fix it?

It’s crazy that I can listen to police scanners in New York (yes, this application streams output from ScanAmerica.us) and radio stations in Mozambique, but any output from Donnybrook is a non starter.

The application costs €4.99 and I think it’s worth the money to have all these channels ready to go.

[App Store Link]

Almost 3 months on from purchasing an iPhone I recently reset the data counter back to zero. Since July 11th about about 900mb of data flowed into it, and out of the technological marvel. The data limit set by O2 is 1GB per month, so I doubt I’ll ever reach that, unless I deliberately try.

There are probably thousands more like me on the O2 network who will never get anywhere near the limit either. This makes me wonder why bother having a limit at all? 3 months from the 3G launch, O2 has enough usage information to review the data limitation. It must surely be time to give Irish users the same benefits as our UK neighbours. People aren’t suddenly going to start abusing the network if the data cap was removed. Or, maybe that’s exactly what O2 is afraid of?

The data cap was one of the concerns raised by many people before the launch. A good proportion of those overlooked those concerns, swallowed their pride and still bought. That means there are lots more still hanging about on the sidelines, watching and waiting. Although they will probably never reach the 1GB limit either, the mere fact the limit is there at all is putting them off.

Perhaps we will hear an announcement in the next few weeks about this, in time for the Christmas market? It would be a very welcome development and go some way to restoring O2′s somewhat damaged reputation surround the launch and subsequent supply issues.

iPhone Gelaskins Giveaway!!

I have a bunch (a bunch of 3 to be precise) of really really cool iPhone skins from Gelaskins to give away. They protect the device whilst keeping the sleek feel. Much better than any bulky cover in my opinion + they are very arty and eye catching. I have one and love it, and I’m probably the fussiest so and so’s when it comes to gadgets and keeping them pristeen.

Check out the range on Gelaskins.com and if you’d like one all you have to do is leave a ‘lil ole comment below with what your favourite iPhone app is and why AND what app you would really love to see.

Me? My favourite right now is Flycast and the app I would dearly love to see is a regular radio tuner and also flash capability. Don’t think a radio tuner is possible though, or it would have been done already?

More than 3 comments, it will be a random draw. Less than 3 comments, well I think I’ll give up on the blogging lark.