Last night on BBC tv at the expense of the licence payer Aleks Krotoski was shown looking deep in thought or typing away at her keyboard of her laptop in ever more scenic or glamorous locations round the globe. These shots were all part of it's new four part series The Virtual Revolution.
The hard life these so called experts and journalists have at our expense. Just what are the thoughts that they were having in these shots? "Where can I go next on my bucket list?", "Is the Hilton more expensive than the Marriot in New York? I hope so." It all reminded me of a skit that Spike Milligan did in the 80's. I think it hits the nail on the head, and seems so prophetic. Oh word of warning the following clip is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but is amazingly funny.
What did I think of the show itself? Piece of crap really, dumbed down tosh just like the Beebs other super dumbed down tech output Click.
I think some one at the BBC needs to start treating the audience as intelligent and producing tech shows that are aimed at some one more intelligent than a five year old. They should go have a word with Leo Laporte at twit.tv.
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2 comments:
Don't think these programmes are made for techo-people; they are made for the average joe public, who want to switch on a computer and download email and watch something on Youtube.
The're not interested in whether the website is written in html,php,java.
This is part of the problem with the iPad; it doesn't have flash, it doesn't matter if flash is a piece of crap, what matter is that joe public can go to a website and see what is on it.
How many of joe public will be returning iPad's when they find they can't see flash content?
Joe public aren't interested in petty squabbles between companies.
I see what you mean with the Spike Milligan parallel; Aleks Krotoski visiting Africa, USA, a carriage-ride ‘round Central Park, sitting at her laptop by the Marina… It’s good to know that she’s being pampered by our license fee.
Regarding the “dumbing down” the show is about "the history of the www", aiming for a deeply technical angle would probably have alienated and lost a large chunk of the audience; this is the BBC not an O’Reilly manual, afterall. Sure, the show could have skimmed over some of the most obvious & basic facts and it was, at times, a tad condescending, but was still, in the round, very interesting and a fair assessment of the www.
The salient point is in this episode's title "The Great Leveller". The fact that people have been free to participate and contribute, that hierarchy has been upturned is really important, as John Perry Barlow mentioned in his vertical pillar of rule becoming horizontal.
Yet, ultimately & paradoxically, hierarchy has been inadvertently reinstated in places with the likes of domination by Google, Amazon, Youtube & Facebook.
What is important is the fact that the show's not over yet; the web is "constantly reinventing itself", as Krotoski mentioned. The web has evolved in ways that we have not always seen and, as a web pro, it has been interesting to sit back and see how someone else has viewed this progress.
Overall? Yeah, not a bad show - a trip down memory lane, pros, cons, proprietary vs open source, freedom and restraint, governance & non-governance. I think it was a totally balanced reflection of the web and its chequered history. I’m looking forward to the next episode, despite knowing I’ll probably be taught to suck eggs and that we’ll have little choice but to see too many scenes of the pretty Aleks Krotoski, although I doubt we’ll see the infamous Photshop shot of her... ;-)
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