Hooray!  I’ve managed to get my hands on one of the last remaining BlackBerry Storms in the UK.  This is the product touted by RIM as its iPhone rival, but better in some respects thanks to its clickable touch screen.  So, great excitement at getting to grips with this pocket wonder.

However, although it’s very early days, the signs are that this smart phone definitely falls into the category of ‘good, but not great’.  The good things include the versatility of the product, the ever-dependable functionality of the email, and – to an extent – the clickable screen, which can be satisfying when you get it right.  However, I’m already wondering if/thinking that I made a mistake in not going for the highly rated but more evolutionary BlackBerry Bold.  (more…)

A great, thought-provoking article by Roy Greenslade in the Evening Standard this week.  So perilous are the paper’s finances, he argues, that the Indy should make a virtue of necessity – and continue its pioneering tradition – by being the first national newspaper to go completely online.

I think there is a lot to this.  All papers are working hard to deliver a worthwhile online version – some more successfully than others.  The current mantra is multi-platform journalism, with the FT, Times and Telegraph arguably at the vanguard.  (For example, we’re presently working with the new online video unit created to supply high grade content to both timesonline.co.uk and sky.com.) (more…)