I spent an enjoyable hour or so today talking about blogs in a way I hadn’t really considered before. A TV company are hoping to make a programme or programmes based around Reading (no not the Berkshire town) - and had for some reason asked me to contribute to a ‘taster’ version (I’m, guessing a short non-broadcast pilot to show commissioning types).

I knew it was aimed at children, so went through my Google Reader looking for blogs that might be relevant to kids - some animal nonsense, music and sport mainly - but really thought that I’d be trotting out the usual stuff about democracy, speed, obsessions, the usual “why do people blog?” stuff. Maybe in a slightly more simple way.

It turned out the way the programme is structured is to encourage people to read, and it doesn’t matter what (within some reason I suppose), and so after a very quick introduction I spent time reading from a few favourite blogs (Cute Overload, Oh and Flying Saucer) that might appeal to kids. And then saying “this is what I’m reading in 2008″.

It was an odd experience to think of blogs divorced, almost, from their context and as pieces of writing alone. The two more text based blogs stood up well, CO not such much - although it was fun to say “snorgling” to a TV camera – but I realised that I don’t think of blogs so much as pieces of writing – more as information.

Information that I can get quickly, information that I understand the context of, information from sources I either trust or know exactly how I don’t. There are blogs that I don’t have much interest in subject-wise, but enjoy the writing – Flying Saucer a case in point there – but they’re not what I immediately espouse as the value of the blog.

Just something I found interesting really, and I will ponder more on.

The Tate have launched Tate Player a range of rare film and audio files from its archives online.  Artists in conversation as well as archive video pieces - including some classic Gilbert and George. Sadly not embedable, but fully RSSed up.

Apparently, (I say apparently as the  news is mostly coming in from ’scare’ stories from the papers) ISPs are going to cause trouble if the BBCs catch-up TV service takes up too much of their bandwidth. Mary Turner, CEO of Tiscali UK says, “The internet was not set up with a view to distributing video. We have been improving our capacity, but the bandwidth we have is not infinite”. (quote via the FT).

It’s obvious that a massive (unlikely given how fiddly it is) take up of the VoD services would cause extra internet traffic - but most people in the UK are on capped services, they can’t download (or p2s upload) any more than their quota without paying extra. So extra - and not easily monitored - traffic would be something you’d think that the ISPs would be pleased about.

Until you realise that they have their own IPTV services. That they hope to charge for. Network neutrality anyone?

Niche perhaps, but niche broadcasting is the future - especially when it comes so easily and re-uses content.

Stuck in traffic and about to miss Big Brother I thought - why isn’t the TV on the radio? We could listen to programmes that are already done with audio description (you can find the channels right up the top somewhere if you’ve got Sky) - it’d only cost space on the dial.

Currently there isn’t enough space on FM or MW, but surely it could be squeezed onto DAB.