Why I chose last.fm, but want a ZunePass

One of the reasons why I was so looking forward to the Australian launch of Windows Phone 7 was that it signalled that Microsoft was finally looking at rolling out the Zune service, their answer to Apple's iTunes Music Store, to non-US customers. Being someone who doesn't have a very well developed music library, and hates the notion of purchasing physical media in any sense these days, the idea of being able to access a $15 a month music subscription service, as well as being able to purchase digital downloads of new release movies and TV shows, is something I have yearned for. I refuse to buy into the Apple ecosystem, because I am a Microsoftie at heart, and the Zune service (at least, from a distance) seems to offer the most comparable offering to iTunes, with the additional bonus of actually being a better-to-use system. It was a win-win.

So, imagine my immense disappointment when Microsoft announced that with the launch of Windows Phone 7, the most Australia would be getting is a movie rental shop. Basically, a virtual Blockbuster video store. No TV shows. No music. Certainly no ZunePass music subscription service, the main element I was so desperately looking forward to. From what I can tell, even the catalogue itself doesn't seem that inspiring. The comparison with a brick-and-mortar DVD rental store is quite apt, since that is really what the Australian Zune service seems to be. A fairly limited 80k approx. titles list, and although there are rumblings that in 2011 Microsoft will be planning on expanding the service here in Australia to bring it up to speed with the US version of the store, it still feels like a greatly missed opportunity, what with the launch of Windows Phone 7 down here.

One of the areas that Microsoft has a real chance to offer a competitive edge to the iPhone, and certainly laud it over the Google Android platform, is in the area of content delivery. The US Zune store feels like the only true rival out there to the dominance of iTunes, which even to this Apple-hating Microsoftie, does seem to get it right when it comes to the sheer breadth and depth of content being offered in the store. And this is especially true given the newness of WP7, and how people buying this as their first Windows Phone might decide to take the next step, and take out a ZunePass subscription, or get an XBox 360, or use Bing on their desktop... The list goes on, but this just highlights why Microsoft's strategy with WP7 is right. But it does rely on having all of the pieces in place at launch, not dropping them in piecemeal over the first 12-18 months.

So, I still wanted to get some sort of music subscription service operating in my life, even if it was nothing more than a stop-gap measure until ZunePass came Down Under. I also wanted it to integrate into my Windows Phone 7 / Windows Live ecosystem, which meant looking at what services were already integrated into Windows Live. Pandora was my first choice, but sadly it (like several others) were geo-locked to not work in Australia. In the end, after a bit of soul-searching, I went with last.fm, a service which takes the form of a virtual radio station. You don't download tracks or albums per se, but rather you listen to "mix tape" esque playlists that users have created on the server, using the back catalogue of music available on the last.fm server. It's a neat idea, and at $3 a month you cannot really go wrong.

I've started discovering a whole host of excellent tracks since I started using the service, although the only problem was trying to work out what song to start with. Picking that first song was hard, because essentially what the system does is recommend subsequent tracks for your own personalised "mix tape" of what you "heart / don't heart" as you listen. So at least initially the recommendations were somewhat random, but as last.fm learns my tastes, the recommendations are becoming stronger and stronger. Which you've gotta love. And, if nothing else, at least once I do get a ZunePass, I can go back through my last.fm history and see what tracks I liked, and download those onto my Windows Phone via the ZunePass subscription.

The only downer? The official last.fm app isn't available for purchase in Australia. Which sucks...

Death of the Doctor

About a week or so ago I had the good fortune to see the latest two-part crossover adventure between The Sarah Jane Adventures and the parent show Doctor Who. Following on from last year's The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith, in which David Tennant made his final recorded appearance in the role of the Tenth Doctor, this time around it was the turn of Matt Smith, in role as the Eleventh Doctor, to join Sarah-Jane Smith and the kids of Bannerman Road in an exciting adventure with... well, a bunch of awful looking feathered alien creature things. Coming along for the ride was Katy Manning, returning to the role of Jo Grant after a 35 years absence. Rounding out this wonderful package, in the latest script from Doctor Who legend Russell T Davies, was a very prominent place for UNIT, complete with the brand new secret base (which looks like an homage to the Mountain Complex from Stargate SG-1). So, what did I think of it? Well, aside from the aforementioned awful looking monsters, the entire story held together quite well, even if it lacked some of the punch of previous attempts at this style of story in the Doctor Who universe.

The plot itself is fairly simple - Sarah-Jane Smith is summoned by UNIT to attend the funeral of the Doctor, who died saving a bunch of kiddies from certain doom (as basic a scenario for the Doctor to get involved in, really). His remains were brought to Earth by a race of monsters called The Shansheeth, who are essentially intergalactic morticians. While Sarah-Jane initially seems to be the only UNIT-cleared companion to be invited (we get some lovely nods to the fates of the Brigadier and Liz Shaw), before too long Jo Grant has arrived, complete with her son in tow. After some lovely flashback moments (ooohhh, they send a tingle down ya spine they do!), it's revealed (via a nod to last year's The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith), that the Doctor isn't in fact dead, and this entire plan is merely a ruse by the Shansheeth to gain access to the TARDIS, by creating a brand new TARDIS key from the memories of Sarah-Jane and Jo. Once the Doctor does turn up, he enjoys a nice companion-like status to the regular cast, and before too long the race is on to defeat the Shansheeth, and recover the stolen TARDIS.

While Russell's script is fairly basic in terms of plot, what it tries to be heavy on is the air of nostalgia that is conjured up by having so many random characters from various parts of the extended franchise thrown together. There's a lot of mileage to be made out of Jo's reactions to meeting the Doctor again, and it's here we see the main plot divergence. Whereas Sarah-Jane has enjoyed regular return meetings with the Doctor, Jo represents the companion at the other end of the spectrum - she enjoyed 3 years of travel with him, but once she left him, he never returned, and she wondered for decades about what had happened to him. The hallmark scene for this is the one enjoyed between Manning and Smith in the quarry, where the two discuss life post-The Green Death. It's a fairly sorrowful moment for a kid's show, but then The Sarah-Jane Adventures has never avoided deeper emotional content. While some people deride RTD for being the most emotional write on Doctor Who, the fact is this stuff works, and it is well written in this episode. Just a shame the actual narrative couldn't have been stronger, with a bit more depth added.

The regulars on the show are on their usual fine form, although to be honest I am definitely missing the presence of Luke and K9. Here's hoping they return to the show for the next season. What makes this episode special is the performances put in by both Matt Smith and Katy Manning. Matt Smith really demonstrates how much he has grown into the role, because he is able to portray the Doctor's emotions and feelings perfectly, particularly when you realise he is referencing events in the show from before he was born! At no stage do you think that this isn't the same Doctor that battled Autons and Daleks with Jo Grant. Katy Manning, meanwhile, does an excellent job of showing that Jo is still just as quirky as she ever was, although sadly Katy's ability to portray the deeper emotion and drama required of the script are at times slightly limited. She is certainly more at home in the humorous elements of the script, although her banter between both Matt Smith and Elizabeth Sladen are a joy to behold. In all honesty, who didn't want Jo to become a regular in the series by the close of this particular two-parter? I know I did!

The production values on the episode range from the excellent UNIT base (just as an aside, I really wish UNIT would feature more in the various shows) through to the somewhat awful Shansheeth costumes. While I know what they were trying to do, I just don't think the limited budget of The Sarah-Jane Adventures was the place to develop a brand new major monster. The show is at its best when using more simple monsters, with the bigger more expensive designs being featured prior on Doctor Who, where a bit more money can be spent on the realisation of the design. The Slitheen are a great example of this, who have now clocked up more screen time on The Sarah-Jane Adventures than on Doctor Who. That said, the design is sufficient to tell the story, but it does kind of betray the "kids telly" background of this show, which at times easily trancends the limitations of such a preconception.

Overall, while I thoroughly enjoyed Death of the Doctor, I do have to be honest and say that I feel that previous attempts at this style of story, School Reunion and The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith, did them better. While it was lovely to see Smith, Sladen and Manning together on screen, I do think the core narrative needs to be stronger. I guess in the end I have to wonder one thing - is this kind of episode going to become an annual thing? There are a lot of opportunities to connect with elements of the classic series, which The Sarah-Jane Adventures does do a lot of. The final name check of past companions at the end of the episode left the door open for future classic series companions to re-appear, and I for one would love to see some of them come back for one last trip around the block. I am not sure if any more Doctor appearances will happen, at least until we get the Twelfth Doctor in a few years time. Having said that, let's hope the producers have not missed the obvious trick here - and I'm just gonna say two words. Paul McGann. Bring it on!

Ten becomes The Extreme News channel?

Source: Digital Media

With Ten's forthcoming digital channel launch of Eleven, which includes shifting such popular shows as Neighbours and The Simpons over to the new service, the decision has been made to create a 2.5 hour block of solid news broadcasting on the primary channel, in place of the aforementioned shows being shifted. It's certainly a bold move, particularly in this day and age of 2 dedicated news channels being already available in Australia (ABC News 24 on free-to-air, and Sky News on Foxtel). Whether or not it pays off is another thing entirely, but we should be giving Ten kudos for at least attempting to try something different with the difficult evening slot they are playing around with.

I think the biggest factor that will influence the success of this is whether those people who are already used to tuning into either Seven or Nine for their 6pm news bulletins will feel compelled to tune into a brand new service on Ten. This is, as I understand it, part of the reason why Ten originally went with a 5pm news broadcast, so that they weren't competing with the established players. Despite this, it hasn't stopped Seven from trying their hand at an "early evening" news broadcast of their own, and I know from personal experience that having an hour of news - a local edition as well as a state edition - works well for Seven in regional Queensland, so certainly the plan by Ten to fill the hour has its merits, and a proven track record of working in the real-world environment already.

The flipside of this discussion is, of course, whether people want to tune into a news broadcast at 5pm, and stick with it until the conclusion of The 7pm Project at 7:30pm. Not sure even myself, a confessed news junkie, could sit through 2.5 hours of the stuff. Having said that, it's hardly hurt the 24 hour news channels, so maybe this is all a rather moot discussion. I suspect the answer to that will come in what they do with the block of time. The plan certainly seems to be to offer some variety - an hour of state-wide news, followed by extended interviews and local news stories, with the light-hearted The 7pm Project rounding things out before regular non-news programming resumes at 7:30pm. Seems like it could work.

Ten already have a strong track record in good solid investment in news broadcasting. They already have several hours devoted each day to news broadcasts, from their early morning edition through to the Ten Late News. So this is simply an expansion of the existing services. It's also encouraging to see Ten making good use of their digital channel investments, and not remaining stuck in the mould that their primary channel should carry all the "good stuff", with the digital channels serving up nothing more than repeats and niche programming. This is something that will plainly become more and more obvious to program schedulers as time marches on - well, at least until digital downloads of TV programs completely destroys the traditional notion of television broadcasting.

But that's a discussion for another time, methinks. ;)

In the end, I do applaud Ten for taking this step. Anything that helps to re-enforce the dissemination of news in this country is a good thing, especially as it helps that the channel doing it does seem to lack some of the inherent bias and attraction to sensationalism that Seven and Nine court. I've never had a problem with Ten's news broadcasting, they're easily the second best in Australia after the ABC, so roll on 2011 and 2.5 hours of news each night. I know I will be tuning in.

What does the ALP stand for these days?

Source: Asia Society

The other day I was reading an excellent essay by the always worth-reading Bernard Keane over at Crikey, and this latest essay gave me pause for thought. He was discussing the identity problem that the Federal Labor Party is currently facing, and in all honesty, I cannot help but totally agree with him. For most of 2010 the party has really seemed to lack about sense of its own purpose, and this has very clearly translated into a complete inability to communicate any sort of narrative across to the broader electorate. This was a problem that emerged in the dying months of the Rudd Prime Ministership, continued throughout the disastrous 2010 Election campaign, and to this day is still very much prevalent in all that they do, and don't. If that makes sense. But what is clear is this - if the ALP cannot fix this problem soon, they are on a path to destruction.

When Kevin Rudd was swept to power in 2007, it was on a strong platform of effecting change - change in education, change in health, change in the relationship between the Federal & State governments. Change in how we dealt with the problems within the environment, such as global warming and the Murray-Darling basin. And while the new Labor Government got off to a slow but strong start - implementing a series of wide-ranging reviews in 2008 was a good starting point - the fact is that once the 2009 Global Financial Crisis hit, the process changed, and the Government moved into what was probably it's single most effective 12 months in office. A brilliant set of responses to the GFC staved off a recession in this country, and ensured that Australia essentially became the envy of the Western world from a financial perspective.

The problem was that, as the Government moved in 2010, it couldn't seem to return to a "life as normal" approach. The first warning signs of a loss of direction came on the backdown over the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), which Kevin Rudd himself had described as a response to "the greatest moral challenge" any of us would likely ever face. When you are seen as backing down from a key platform you were elected on, without any real desire to effectively explain why you are backing down, well, it's a sign of trouble. This inability to stick to key election platforms, combined with a real inability to communicate properly, meant that it really was no wonder the polls started turning against Kevin Rudd, and he was eventually replaced by Julia Gillard a few months later. The sad part is, that while the ALP needed to make a change, this wasn't it.

They shot the messenger, rather than trying to see if the message was a good one being well told in the first place.

Another example of where this problematic communication strategy combined with an ineffective policy was the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT). It was one of the few recommendations the Rudd Government took from the Henry Tax Review, and was a good sensible piece of policy. But instead of getting out there and convincing the general public of its benefits, they resorted to their time-honoured method of talking in repetitive soundbites, usually involving the phrase "working families". This proved to be completely ineffective, and instead created a vaccuum in which the opponents of the RSPT, namely the mining companies and News Limited, were able to fill the void with volumes of vitriol against the Government. Is it no wonder, then, that the perception among the general public was firmly in favour of the people against the RSPT? When the Government changed leaders, from Rudd to Gillard, the policy was watered down to such an extent that it now barely resembles what was originally outlined in the Henry Tax Review. And the opponents still criticise it.

Similarly, the ALP have abdicated the responsibility of defining the political narrative to the LNP, which is a dangerous game to play. For most of 2010, the Government have been seen as responding, or defending, themselves in response to Opposition attacks, rather than setting out a vision for the next 3-5 years, as they should be. When you let your opponents define the rules of the match, well, how can you ever expect to win?

This is a problem the Gillard Government continues to face. Even myself, a staunch ALP supporter, cannot seem to understand where / how the Government is articulating what it stands for, other than a slew of soundbite policy announcements that sound more at home with the LNP than they do the ALP. If the Government want to correct their negative downward spiral in the eyes of the electorate, they cannot go far wrong than using the upcoming Christmas break to work out what it is they want to achieve in Government, what their core values are, and how they can best realise & articulate them going forward into 2011.

Maybe Julia Gillard should ask Santa Claus for a set of core ALP faithful polices, and a clear communication strategy, for Christmas? Heck, it'd be more effective than anything else the ALP are doing right now...

If you want to read the excellent Bernard Keane articles that inspired this blog post, you can find them by visiting the following links: Keane essay: why Labor can’t communicate, & Reclaiming reform: why Labor needs to explain itself better. He certainly explains things a lot better than I ever can.

Windows Phone 7 Review

In this, the second part of my attempt at an exhaustive Windows Phone 7 review, I want to take a more specific look at the operating system that is powering this whole new generation of mobile devices. WP7 is the late response on the part of Microsoft to the emerging smartphone threat from both Apple's iPhone series, as well as the more recent Google Android platform. While Microsoft have been in the mobile phone game for longer than either Apple or Google combined, their previous strategy of "corporate first, consumer second" has proven to be a failure, particularly given the slow consumerisation of IT, as well as the fact that people want a full Internet + multimedia experience on their handheld device. Thankfully, while Windows Phone 7 feels about 2-3 years behind the curve, and still lacks a few key features, as a bold re-start of their existing Windows Mobile platform, it's a great first release. In this review, I want to examine the key elements of Windows Phone 7 that, I feel, make the new OS such a winner, and manages to take the best bits from both Apple's and Google's strategies, without inheriting either platform's shortfalls.

The first thing that really struck me about how different Windows Phone 7 is appears when the device is first switched on. Unlike iOS and Android, which present you with nothing more than a grid of icons for each application installed on the device, WP7 uses a striking 2D interface called Metro, in which coloured squares and rectangles adorn the Start screen. Some lead into apps, some lead into what are called Hubs, collections of information and interactive elements. Some tiles are static, much like an application icon, while others are "live" - that is, they display dynamically updated information, much like a widget. This approach to the Start screen, which is essentially the next generation of their Today screen from Windows Mobile, really is beautiful. So much nicer than a plan grid of app icons. The entire interface, in fact, feels well thought-out (a rarity for a Microsoft product), and is pleasingly 2D and focussed more on presenting gorgeous text-based material, where the "chrome" of the UI gets out of the way, and lets you get the job done you need done. Oh, and did I mention it was nice to look at? Because it really is.

I'd previously mentioned this UX notion of Hubs, whereby common applications, tasks, and data sets are grouped together in a logical way. This is quite possibly the biggest differentiator between WP7 and iOS / Android, and there is no better example of why the WP7 approach is superior than the Pictures Hub. On say, the iPhone, if you want to look at some photos on the Internet, it's a two-step process. Remember which online service the photo is hosted on, then go into the respective app for that service, and find the picture. This "in out, in out" mentality is extremely old fashioned, whereas on WP7 if you are looking for photos, the Pictures Hub nicely integrates every photo stored on the device and in the cloud, no matter where it is stored. The nice timeline interface allows you to look at every photo you have access to, no matter where it lives. One Hub, one click, all your photos. It couldn't be easier. The same goes for the People Hub, pictured above, which integrates not just your contacts, but also Facebook / Windows Live status updates. Oh, and did I mention the Pictures Hub is gorgeous, complete with personalised wallpaper?

If there is one area that Apple has defined itself in, it's that mobile gaming is a boom market. The sheer volume of great games available for the iOS platform is breathtaking, and Microsoft have an obvious killer ace up thier sleeve on this front - XBox Live integration. The notion of a "XBox Portable" device has been floating around the Internet for several years now, and in WP7 it becomes a reality. Featuring the ability to plug in your Gamer details, complete with full avatar integration, the XBox Hub on WP7 is a great front end for account management, Achievements reflection, and of course, purchasing and playing games. The gaming platform for WP7, the DirectX 9 powered XNA, is the same programming environment used on the XBox 360, which means in theory that the games available on WP7 have the potential to be on the XBox 360 with minimal code changes. This means great sound and graphics, and combined with the touchscreen and accelerometer support, WP7 is now easily on par with the iOS platform for gaming excellence. I will talk more about WP7 games in future blog posts, including some actual game reviews.

In a nod to the corporate roots of Windows Mobile, WP7 features a full Microsoft Office 2010 Hub, complete with pocket-sized versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote, and Outlook for Exchange-based e-mail. Not only can you view and edit documents on the device, but if your place of employment utilises a Microsoft SharePoint server, you have the ability to plug the device directly into that corporate environment, and have on-demand access to your work files. While at this stage WP7 only supports a limited number of ActiveSync security measures, and certainly far less than the previous Windows Mobile OS, it offers enough that any consumer wanting to use this in a corporate setting should feel comfortable. It is nice to have this level of enterprise support within the device out of the gate, although I am not entirely sure how effective this particular Hub will be in terms of selling the device to consumers. Still, Office is one of Microsoft's biggest brand names, and since WP7 is all about integrating almost every Microsoft service into one platform, it makes sense for it to be here, and I for one cannot complain about the great implementation.

No modern smartphone platform can be considered a serious contender unless it offers a way for users to buy and download applications to extend the functionality of the device, and WP7 is no exception. Building on the very simple foundations developed for Windows Mobile 6.5 and its Marketplace, the Windows Phone Marketplace is bursting at the seams with great applications in a variety of categories. OK, so the new Marketplace might not rival the 1m+ applications to be found in the iOS AppStore, and at the time of writing can only boast approximately 320 apps available - but let's not forget the WP7 Marketplace has only been open for 3-4 weeks, and they seem to be growing at the rate of around 80 new apps a day. Which isn't bad. What's already there is excellent, with staples such as apps for Facebook and eBay appearing alongside a slew of XBox Live games such as Flowerz and The Harvest. You'd be hard-pressed to not find an iOS-equivalent app on WP7 at this stage, fart apps included, and coupled with the more attractive Metro UI means that Windows Phone apps are already in a league of their own.

There's a lot more I could say about Windows Phone 7, like the excellent e-mail & calendar support, the superb Zune interface for Music & Video, integrated system-wide Bing search functionality, and the pleasing to use Internet Explorer web browser. As well as that, I could talk about the desktop functionality as well that supports the phone, including the various Windows Live services and Zune desktop client software. I could talk about the major letdown of not having Australian ZunePass music access, or the lack of cut-copy-paste or true multitasking. So many elements still to discuss. But if I were to talk about all of that, this review would nearly triple in length. What you need to do, really, is get yourself a Windows Phone 7 device if you are in the market for a new mobile, maybe your first smartphone, and are looking for something a bit more dynamic and user friendly than either the iPhone or an Android device. Sure, Windows Phone 7 isn't perfect, but in the areas it really matters - ease of use, speed, reliability, functionality - it excels, and is certainly going to be giving the major players a run for their money in 2011. WP7 is a total winner.

All images are courtesy of Microsoft.