Jack Thurston

Category: Technology

Podcasts on the radio

I love listening to the radio. I love podcasts because it means I can listen to my favourite radio programmes from around the world whenever I like. And I’ve recently made a fantastic discovery.

Email still the key to online campaigning

Last week I ruffled a few feathers with a post about the sorry state of Labour and the internet. One of my main points was that Labour seemed to be drawn into a battle of the blogs and was neglecting investment in a responsive email campaign. Thomas Gensemer, founder of Blue State Digital, the firm [...]

Mayor’s question time in foggy London town

Each month the Mayor of London faces a grilling from the London Assembly, a kind of Mayor’s Question Time. It lasts up to a few hours and there is a webcast of it. But the image quality is spectacularly bad:

I suppose this is what people mean when they talk about ‘faceless officialdom’. It’s only recognisable [...]

Podcasts: a baker’s dozen

In a post earlier this week, I referred to my ‘weekly diet’ of podcasts and I thought it was only fair to open up the larder. I have been podcasting the radio show I present since May 2005. Initially I didn’t know what podcasting was or how to do it. A kind listener explained and [...]

So you think you understand the credit crunch?

Credit crunch, sub-prime mortgage, collateralised debt obligations… Obscure terms that now feature in everyday pub chatter, even more so after this week’s spectacular events involving the collapse of investment banks, unprecedented interventions by governments and a looming global economic downturn. But can you, hand on heart, say that you understand what the credit crunch really [...]

Podwalk: Backstreets of Southwark (London Festival of Architecture)

The London Festival of Architecture goes from strength to strength and this year runs from 20 June to 20 July.
Along with the exhibitions, talks, guided walks, debates and parties there is a series of excellent architectural podwalks produced by Ruby Wright. I did one about my neighbourhood, entitled ‘Backstreets of Southwark’. It was featured [...]

What I learned from a day locked inside Google HQ

I spent Saturday at “barcampUKgovweb” and met a very interesting group of people who care about how government behaves online. Among the 60 or so participants, there was a roughly even split between people working for government, people working for companies and people who are - for want of a better term - civic hackers.

Can you tell Gordo from Dave?

Many Eyes is a web-based data visualisation tool that is still in alpha but already looks impressive. It’s very simple. You cut and paste data (numbers or text) and then choose from a variety of data visualisation tools to make your dataset come to live. We hope to be doing some cool things with it [...]

A gentleman or a player?

Last night I attended an interesting talk at the Frontline Club where Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, argued that blogs, social networking and user generated digital content pose a threat to our culture, economy and civilisation. Very quickly it became clear that Keen relishes his role as contrarian and provocateur and [...]

Do they make politicians like this any more?

Last weekend I came across a second-hand vinyl record of Senator Bobby Kennedy interviewed by David Frost. The interview was conducted during RFK’s 1968 Presidential bid which was to end in his assassination in Los Angeles - just hours after winning the California Democratic primary. The record is a fascinating document of a remarkable man [...]