A month back I invited mobile advertising guru Jonathan MacDonald to do a MIR Show ‘takeover’ for a week.
I envisioned Jonathan inviting five guests that he really, really rates — connected to the mobile advertising arena — to sit down with him and have a chat on camera.
I thought it would be explosive, exciting and compelling. I wasn’t wrong. If mobile advertising is your thing — and you’d like to see some great minds going-at-it with each other, then keep it locked here to Mobile Industry Review for the next few days.
I’ll be publishing the first video today here and on the MIR Show podcast feed. Jonathan lined up some brilliant guests and I’m very excited to bring them to you.
We recorded Monday’s MIR Show last night and it’s going to be a slight departure from the norm, I think.
We had a whole schedule planned — but the chaps got stuck with the Poloroid PoGo bluetooth printer so I kept the camera on as Dan Lane and James Whatley bickered with each other for about 35 minutes, trying to get the device to work.
I haven’t done the edit, but I think I might keep quite a lot of their shenanigans in. It really is a super example of not-reading-the-manual.
Ben Smith couldn’t be with us for filming — Ed Hodges of Howler Tech gallantly agreed to step in. Thank you for that Ed.
The following week, however, most of us — bar Dan (he’s staying in London) — are out of the country. James is in Helsinki with Nokia (“the mothership”). I’m in San Francisco at CTIA Wireless and Ben Smith is in Beijing. We’ll still be able to bring you a packed show. Oh yes. We’ve done a lot of work on that.
So this Monday, expect a brand new episode of the MIR Show. Then, across the week, expect a varied amount of updates — textual and video — from the team.
I’ve got interviews with companies every hour from 7am ’til 9pm daily next week. I’m going to try and film them all — and try and get some stuff up on the site as well.
Kudos to Matthew Bennett who has already sent us three different videos, filmed, if I’m not very much mistaken, on a Nokia N95. Stands to reason as Matthew runs NSeriesUS.com.
Matthew has pointed the camera at himself and filmed the following lines:
- “You’re watching Mobile Industry Review, not SMS Text News”
- “And now for something totally different”
- “Fascinating!”
We’re going to integrate Matthew into the upcoming Mobile Industry Review shows.
I’d like to feature other readers so if you have a camera nearby, record some sentences as Matthew has done — and we’ll put you into the show. Feel free to put a little promo in for your site or company.
This week we’re bringing you an absolute WHOPPER of a show. A veritable whopper.
1. We’re committed to bringing you our show from different, unusual and picturesque locations around London. I think we’ve beaten everything so far by filming from the Tower of London. Special thanks to Tim at the Historic Royal Palaces publicity department. As you might imagine, with almost 1,000 years of history to play with, Ben had a field day with his facts segment. ( 00:47 )
2. We take a look at the 3 Skypephone S2. ( 02:19 )
3. We’ve got lots of news and commentary on last week’s happenings. ( 05:15 )
Lastminute Labs, Google Gears ( 05:16 ), Orange hiring iPhone-fans ( 08:40 ), Nokia Maps
4. James Body of Truphone makes an appearance. ( 07:03 )
5. Review of Etymotics Headphones. ( 13:47 )
6. Mobile Industry Review website news… including quick overviews of our upcoming jobs section. Plus: We’ll be at the Future of Mobile conference coming up soon. ( 17:20 )
7. Future of Mobile Conference. ( 18:58 )
8. Special Sony Ericsson News. Very special stuff. ( 19:18 )
9. The first EVER Whatley Goes Wild segment. Including a special N95 8GB-protective-strap. ( 19:40 )
10. We announce the winners of our competitions. ( 22:48 )
11. Dan get’s his present. There’s almost a tear shed…( 24:37 )
We’ve been getting super feedback about the changing locations for the filming of the Mobile Industry Review show. This week we chose the Tower of London. I didn’t expect that we’d be able to film *inside* the Tower itself. As you may have seen on previous posts, Tim from Historic Royal Palaces (the organisation that supervises the Tower) asked me to give him a call. I’m pleased to say we came to an arrangement that resulted in the production crew arriving at 5.30pm at the Middle Gate of the Tower to begin shooting.
The original tower — the White Tower (shown above in a photo by James) — was built a few years after William The Conqueror took posession of the country in 1066. Construction began in 1078 to help solidify the Normans’ base of power — and it’s prominent position at the mouth of the Thames where old London began made it a perfect defensive keep. 930 years ago. The majority of the walls and other related buildings were added later on — if you take a walk around you’ll see the various dates displayed (e.g. 1200 and beyond). Fantastic and visually arresting.
It’s always fun visiting the Tower with tourists. The sight is jaw dropping. Especially when you consider folk were going about their business here almost a millennium ago. £16.50 for adults and just under a tenner for children. Excellent value. You can definitely spend a whole day — or a long afternoon — exploring the place.
Tim took us down to the moat to do our video introduction. You’ll see the team standing before the Tower’s outer wall, on some rather well manicured grass. That’s where the moat was originally. This year the team at the Tower are demonstrating the status of the Tower as one of Europe’s best Fortresses with a series of events. Right now — and until September — if you pop down to the Tower at 12.30pm and 2.30pm, you’ll see some siege engines being demonstrated.
We actually filmed next to the mini-Trebuchet (a ‘Perrier’) and next to the ‘Springald’. Although we weren’t allowed to shoot some RAZRs off the Perrier. That could have been fun.
After the intros, we headed into the Tower and shot a few pieces. Look out for James’ mobile handset interview with a rather iron-faced guard on duty. Then it was down to the Wharf beside the Thames just outside the Tower for the main features of the show.
Thanks to Tim and his colleagues for facilitating the visit. If you’re heading to London, do not pass Go. Go straight to the Tower. And remember, the Tower gets no financing from the Government or local authorities. It’s all maintained through donations and ticket sales. So buy a few. I’m going to talk to their events team and see if we can hold an Unlimited Drinks there.
We’ll have the Tower episode up on Monday morning. Standby!
We’ve added a ‘TV’ section on the menu bar now to house our MIR show videos (and separate them from the special report podcasts we’re doing). Here’s what it looks like:
Now I need some professional headshouts of Dan, Ben and James…