Applied Logic

Right now, somewhere in Austin, Texas, someone is getting excited about the new app they’ve just downloaded. They will be bragging to people that it’s the ‘new Twitter’, or that it’s made Foursquare redundant.

Thousands of people are currently attending Austin’s annual South By Southwest (SXSW) festival. As discussed here, developers are launching their applications at the festival, just as Twitter and Foursquare did before them. From reading the article and the descriptions of the most popular apps though, I’m not convinced. There’s Scvngr (why has removing vowels suddenly become good? I had to check several times I was spelling it right), which is basically Foursquare with games, Instagram, a photo-based Twitter, and Hashable, the only really new idea, but what is effectively a pushy virtual business-card. These apps just sound like extensions of what’s already about, and what’s already popular.

I realise that I don’t have a ground-breaking app idea myself, and so I don’t have that much room to criticise someone else’s business, but I can’t see much need for these apps. Apart from anything, they (and Scvngr in-particular) seem to be just trying to distract us. But distract us from what? Is there not enough to enjoy in real life that we need apps to set us challenges whenever we step into a cafe? I can see the relevance in Hashable, allowing you to create new business opportunities for yourself, but is it genuinely something you couldn’t do without? I can also see how Twitter is useful, and I always have it open when online, but is a Twitter-like app based around pictures really that useful? You can already post pictures to Twitter, so what’s the problem?

Maybe they’re things you need to use to be able to understand, but right now they just seem like they’re there to make the developers money. Or have I completely missed the point?

10 O’Clock Live

Channel 4’s ’10 O’Clock Live’ is now into its ninth week, and to be honest I’m really enjoying it. It’s still unclear though what the show is actually meant to be. It’s half comedy, half genuine news debates and interviews. All the hosts come from generally comedic backgrounds – Charlie Brooker I’ve always been a fan of, from ‘Screenwipe’ and ‘Newswipe’ to his Guardian column, David Mitchell, who made his name with ‘Peep Show’, Jimmy Carr, who is effectively now the face of Channel 4, and Lauren Laverne, who’s probably best known for her BBC 6 Music slot, as well as the ‘Culture Show’. The program was commissioned after the success of ‘Channel 4’s Alternative Election Night’, on which the same four presenters followed 2010’s general election.

The debates and interviews, which are generally quite interesting and bring to light some important facts, are often chaired by David Mitchell, who seems to be the most serious of the group. The main problem with these element of program though, is that, due to how busy and saturated the schedule is, they often get cut off at a crucial point. While this is generally a problem for any news program, it’s always a bit annoying when an interesting news piece gets cut off. This isn’t so much the programs fault though, as they’re usually cut off by the need for an advert break.

I also find that a lot of people don’t seem to ‘get it’. Some of the people I’ve asked have just said they’re not sure about it. This may be because of the transitions between the news discussions and the more comedic, satirical pieces. As well as this, during a news discussion, the host will often interject with a jokey comment, lightening the tone. This adds to the confusion. I’ll admit that, after watching the very first episode, I was unsure what angle the program was aiming for. It didn’t help that the trailers for the first episode didn’t really reflect what it turned out to be. In the trailer, Jimmy Carr stated “you’ll hear it here first, because we’ll have just made it up”, but in reality, all of the news in the program is true, and the satire is based on facts.

What ’10 O’Clock Live’ appears to be then is a news program for young people. It doesn’t talk down to you, and it doesn’t dumb-down the facts. You couldn’t compare it to ‘Newsround’, but it’s equally difficult to compare it to, say, the BBC news at 10. It competes with the BBC’s ‘Question Time’, sharing the same time-slot, but in reality, ’10 O’Clock Live’ is much more appealing for younger viewers. And for me, it definitely works.