Tag: basel

Swiss Bloggers: Want To Go To OrangeCinema (ZH, BE, BS)? [en]

[fr] OrangeCinema! C'est dans les villes de Zurich, Berne, et Bâle -- et dans le cadre de mon mandat "blogueurs" avec Orange, on a monté une opération sympa pour blogueurs cinéphiles. Si vous connaissez des blogueurs dans ces villes qui pourraient être tentés par devenir "blogueur officiel" durant OrangeCinema ("all-access pass", billets gratuits, et plein d'autres trucs sympas) faites-leur passer ce billet!

As you may know, I’m currently working with Orange to assist and advise them in the field of blogger relations. This means that we work on cool offers/programmes for bloggers.

Our first pilot was around Caprices Festival — a music festival in Crans: we offered a press pass and other perks to a couple of bloggers so they could attend the whole festival for free. We’re really happy with the way it turned out, and we’re now focusing on OrangeCinema, which takes place over the summer in the Swiss German cities of Zürich, Bern, and Basel.

OrangeCinema

Clearly I should be writing this post in German, as this is an offer mainly for Swiss-German bloggers, but my German sucks terribly and I wouldn’t want to inflict it on my dear readers.

If you’re an established film-loving blogger or podcaster, and you’d jump at the chance to receive an all-access pass to OrangeCinema and blog about it like crazy, check out the form below and apply to be an Official OrangeCinema Blogger.

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Podcasting and Beercasting Thoughts [en]

Some thoughts on podcasting, and audio vs. text. A failed attempt at beercasting last Saturday, with link to the (very crappy) audio files.

[fr] Quelques réflexions sur le contenu audio (podcasting) dans les blogs, en particulier sur le fait qu'on ne peut pas "écouter en diagonale" et que cela impose donc une exigence de qualité plus grande pour le contenu audio que le contenu textuel. Première tentative d'enregistrement de conversation (beercasting au jus de pomme) lors de la rencontre de bloguers à  Bâle, samedi passé.

During the Basel Blogmeet, somebody mentioned podcasting.

I’ve got my thoughts and theories on audioblogging (of which podcasting is one form). I think it’s great to hear people talking. I’ve got some audio content on my site (whether provided by me, or by third parties) and if I wasn’t in want for a mike and sound editing skills, I’d be providing more. However, audio blogging will never kill text blogging (if anybody out there was having such a preposterous thought).

The great disadvantage of audio content is that you cannot skim it. You can fast-forward, of course, and jump sections, but you can’t go quickly through the content and resume a normal speed if something catches your ear, as you do with written content. Audio is a “fixed speed” medium (ok, you can accelerate it slightly, but it becomes unintelligible quickly). It takes longer to listen to something than to read it.

The big advantage of audio, however, is that it doesn’t use your eyes. Audiobooks haven’t taken over the market share of normal books, but one might find it nice to listen to an audiobook in the car (where one cannot read whilst driving). If you’re sight-impaired, of course, the issue takes a different colour, if I may say.

Transcripts and indexes of audio content are precious… but what a huge amount of work!

This means, in my opinion, that your audio content must be good from start to finish, if you want to keep people hooked.

If I start reading a blog post and it doesn’t catch my attention after a few lines, I’ll skip to the next paragraph, skim a bit, and maybe decide that it is worth reading after all. If I’m listening to audio content and it gets boring, I might fast-forward a bit, but I’ll land blind. The index will help me sort through the topics that may interest me, but it won’t help me deal with intermittence or absence of quality. If I listen to your podcast and it’s lousy, am I going to keep listening in hope that it gets better? Will I try again if I’ve listened to 30 minutes of it and it wasn’t worth it? I think that if you want a podcast to be successful, you have to be much more strict on quality than with written material.

Anyway, back to beercasting. When Suw and I met in London last summer, we talked about audioblogging (one word or two?), and agreed on the fact that one of the departments in which audio could shine was in reproducing conversations. We had a half-hearted plan to call each other and record the conversation, but we never did it, of course. We’ve got a more serious plan now to do it on Skype (less technical difficulties). Have you realised how talking with somebody helps shapes ideas and thoughts, and express them clearly? There is something about being more than one that cannot be duplicated when one is alone. It introduces a dynamic.

Well, that’s what beercasting is about. Get together, have a conversation, and stick it on the web. So when we started talking about podcasting on Saturday evening, I suddenly remembered beercasting, and must have said something about it, because Ben whipped out his phone, switched on the recording function, and set it on the table. He had been provoked by my statement that podcasting (and beercasting) was done with an iPod 🙂

Well, a few audio files are now online one Ben’s site. If you’re interested in loud static and café background noise, and in hearing me yelling my head off to try to communicate with my fellow bloggers (with bonus German content), I recommend you start with Recording2. It’s bad, remember. Don’t say you weren’t warned. We’ll do better next time!

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Blogmeet in Basel [en]

A week-end in Basel, and a blogmeet there. Thoughts, links, and comments.

[fr] Compte-rendu de la rencontre de blogueurs suisse-allemands à  Bâle. C'était chouette!

Matthias calls it the biggest blogmeet in Switzerland, but one of the journalists who were there counted 14 bloggers. Only fourteen?! Hey, we were 14 last month in Lausanne! (A long year ago, we were only 13 to meet in Vevey…)

Anyway, leaving numbers aside, I spent a nice week-end in Basel and a nice Saturday evening meeting some Swiss-German bloggers. I’d been wanting to do that for some time (you know how important languages and language barrier issues are to me), and the occasion seemed perfect, as it was during the school holidays.

My first impression was that the webloggers present were on the whole older than the bunch of us who meet up in Lausanne. I think it’s a good thing. (I felt like a “young ‘un” there.) Maybe it’s because I couldn’t follow all the conversations (my German is way too rusty), but I got the feeling that the atmosphere was less confrontational and more collaborative-cosy than what I’d experienced until then.

Three journalists were present, and although I don’t mind speaking to journalists, I did find that they stole the show somewhat (I plead guilty, by the way). The focus shifts way too easily from “meeting other bloggers and talking with them” to “talking with the journalists”. It’s normal, nothing wrong about it, but it makes me think it would be wiser to keep journalists out of blogmeets (especially when they are small blogmeets), and maybe organise “bloggers meet journalists” events, if there is need for such a thing.

While I’m at it, this is an official request for a Matt-meet. I know Heather and Ben were looking forward to meeting him. As for me… heck, I’ve been trying to meet the guy for years!

So, Matt — suggest a date?

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Week-end in Basel [en]

[fr] Je passe le week-end à  Bâle. Rencontre de blogueurs et d'amis à  la clé.

Just a quick note to let you know I’ll be in Basel for the week-end. A good friend of mine lives there, and there is a blogmeet tomorrow night.

My train leaves at 6:45…

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