Paul Jacobson

I realised that my camera, a Canon Powershot SX100 IS which I bought in Japan in July/August 2008, has a lot more functionality that I realised. I’ve started learning how to use it better and that largely includes playing around with many of the manual or semi-automated settings which I have pretty much skipped over since I first got the camera. Granted the camera isn’t exactly a digital SLR camera but I have seen a lot of really great photos taken with this camera and compared to what I have been taking lately, I have a lot of room for improvement with this camera alone.

Aside from re-introducing myself to f-stops, shutter speeds, ISOs and other technical aspects of photography, I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about the software I use to process my photos. I’ve been using iPhoto ‘09 as my primary photo management and editing software for a while now and recently started playing around with Picasa 3 which is pretty good at a lot of things iPhoto still struggles with (including face recognition, aspects of photo editing and how it presents images and their metadata). I have seriously considered ditching iPhoto in favour of Picasa (I still am) but I’ve decided on iPhoto as my primary application and Picasa for ancillary stuff for now mainly because I have a tendency to act on software choices impulsively and regret it later.

I thought I’d also try out some of the more specialised applications available so I’ve just downloaded trial versions of both Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2 to test out. I haven’t a clue which one is best and I am sure it will be a pretty spirited debate to boot.

I’d love to have a digital SLR but I reckon that until I am using my compact camera about as well as it can be used, a DSLR will largely be wasted on me. I am pretty excited to be getting back into photography. I was really passionate about it when I was a teenager and I’ve always enjoyed taking photos. I just haven’t paid much attention to the technical aspects for over a decade and I’d like to change that. A couple people have started their own Project 365 which involves taking a photo a day for a year (one photographer doing this is Jeanette Verster who apparently really worked on her technique the first time she did this and she takes awesome photos).

I am not even going to compare myself to photographers like Jeanette but I do want to learn to take even better photos with what I have. I do love taking photos, even if that gets me into a bit of trouble at times, and maybe doing my own version of Project 365, together with learning more of the technical stuff, will help me get better.

I just think about how envious I feel when someone whips out a DSLR at an event or social function … that inspires me to take better photos and maybe even get myself a DSLR when I am all grown up.

If you are looking for a technical post about the intricacies of HTML 5 video and the coding that goes with it, this is really not the post for you. If that is what you want, take a look at the video category page on Mozilla Hacks as well as your favourite HTML 5 resource.

Both YouTube and Vimeo have announced support for HTML 5 video on their sites. This is great news for people who are not Flash fans, especially when it comes to videos online. It is also good news for HTML 5 adoption overall. Hopefully we will start to see more and more services begin to support other HTML 5 aspects like the offline capability (would make Gears unnecessary and enable offline capability for Gmail, GCal and other similar services). My wish for 2010 is to have offline support for my Google Apps. Gears is probably the only thing I miss in Firefox 3.6 and Mac OS 10.6 generally.

I was a little disappointed when I read that YouTube and Vimeo only support Chrome and Safari in their HTML 5 roll-out. My first question was why Firefox isn’t supported. Firefox 3.6 has just been released and it supports HTML 5 video, so why isn’t it on the list. After posting a silly question in the comments to the Vimeo post that sounded like it came from a wounded Firefox user, I read the post and comments properly and linked to this page which talks about HTML 5 video in more detail.

It turns out that HTML 5 video support has a lot to do with the underlying video codecs (the HTML 5 specification seems to be agnostic when it comes to video codec support). Safari and Chrome both support the .mp4 video codec which is what YouTube and Vimeo use on their sites. Firefox only supports (I’m going to mangle this, so apologies in advance) Ogg Theora video codecs which are open source codecs, along with Chrome. This means that Firefox won’t support the HTML 5 capability on YouTube or Vimeo as long as those sites don’t support Ogg Theora video codecs. Chrome is a winner in this area because it supports both codecs. Update: Interesting discussion about video codecs/formats at the bottom of this post.

It struck me that Firefox’s lack of support for the .mp4 video format is pretty limiting considering that .mp4 is practically a standard on video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo. It would relegate Firefox to 2nd place, if that, for people who watch a lot of video and may transition across to HTML 5 based video as their medium of choice. I’m not too keen on this lack of support either. I am a big Firefox fan and after a while in the browser wilderness, I returned to Firefox as my default browser in a big way. Chrome is my second choice and I often have both browsers running because Chrome seems to handle Google sites a little better sometimes. Safari is around for the odd time I want to use it.

I did a little research (for a change) and discovered that there are royalties attached to the .mp4 video format. These royalties apply to video creators and distributors. Google and Apple license the technology (H.264, I believe) and can support the formats in Chrome and Safari (respectively). Firefox presumably doesn’t license the codec and therefore doesn’t support the format. Ogg Theora, on the other hand, is open source and no royalties are involved. I don’t know if this is because the royalties are prohibitive (it appears that royalties are going to increase in 2011 when what seems to be a royalty relaxation goes away) or for philosophical reasons (although I am sure that supporting an open source codec is a real motivation, just not sure whether it is the overriding motivation). It would obviously be ideal to see broader support for Ogg Theora from an accessibility perspective but I have read that H.264 offers more flexibility.

Whatever the motivation, video codec support will be one of the factors influencing browser adoption and more and more online services support HTML 5 video. It also either be a catalyst for further decline in Firefox adoption in favour of Chrome (on this front, Chrome seems to be ahead of practically all the other browsers) or we may yet see the Mozilla Foundation vindicated if more and more services adopt Ogg Theora as their preferred format in the face of increasing H.264 royalties and growing numbers of users viewing video online.

I popped into Melrose Arch yesterday to pick up my post. I had my camera with me and took a chance mainly because I wanted to point out something we mostly overlook until we need it – reserved parking bays for certain people.

We see this one (or something like it) practically everywhere:

We even see this one fairly often:

But what we don’t see very often is this sort of reserved parking bay:

Being a toddler’s dad, I remember the days when we had to get the pram out, set it up and contend with ordinary parking bays (which suddenly felt really narrow). This sort of consideration means a lot to parents struggling with prams and shopping!

I had a couple thoughts at about 4am this morning after I put our son back down to sleep. Most of those thoughts were ways that Melrose Arch might find useful and which may just help build a little community of fans about the shopping district (in retrospect, it is a little more than just a shopping mall – shopping district sounds a little more appropriate). Of course I am going to preface this email by saying that I am just a blogger and a lawyer, hardly the social media experts advising Melrose Arch, but there is a chance that I might have a useful idea here and there.

One of the reasons why photography is banned at Melrose Arch seems to be that people were taking photos there for use in adverts or otherwise for commercial use. Those uses were presumably problematic for a variety of reasons so the Powers That Be banned all photography unless permission was expressly given. An example of that sort of permission is the form I had to fill in last year.

If you visit the Melrose Arch website it quickly becomes clear that Melrose Arch is intended to be a lifestyle destination (I made this point in my previous post). Melrose Arch also has its Twitter profile and Facebook page, both have fairly anemic followings considering the organisation behind them.

I may be getting a little carried away with Melrose Arch’s appeal but there must be other people who find the district visually appealing and would love to know more about it. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much attention given to the architecture, the philosophy behind the development or any of that stuff on the site. Melrose Arch has offered me a media pass to take photos and I was invited to join a walk-around but I kept thinking there must be a more sustainable way to make this sort of thing available to all tourists, local and foreign.

This is the part where I actually get to my suggestions. Here goes:
What if Melrose Arch’s security approached people taking photos and gave them a card that –

• thanked them for their interest in Melrose Arch;
• encouraged them to share their photos and videos with family and friends (not for commercial use of course) and even asked them to tag their content with something like “melrosearch” so other people could discover their content;
• pointed out that commercial photography and filming may only be done with permission from the managing agents and how/where to get that permission;
• informed the tourist about Melrose Arch’s Twitter profile, Facebook fan page and website and encouraged them to follow, join and visit (they could even submit their photos and videos to the fan page); and
• perhaps even had a QR code on the card that linked to a site or special offer of some kind for tourists (perhaps 10% off a coffee at any of the local spots serving coffee by displaying the voucher on the mobile phone the QR code links to).

But wait, there’s more. Melrose Arch should take over its Google Maps listing and add more interesting or relevant information like shopping times, profile and site links and more. It could even encourage its tenants to do the same with their Google Maps listings and add to the body of entries for businesses and retail in the district. Imagine if more people added reviews like the one I added?

I didn’t see any links to or mention of Melrose Arch’s Twitter profile or Facebook page on its website. Shouldn’t there be prominent badges on the landing page or something? This one is a little obvious so I am sure Melrose Arch’s agency is working on something already. Another suggestion is to include a dynamic news stream on the “Press Room” page to include mentions across the social Web, as well as mainstream media mentions. Granted there may well be negative mentions but if Melrose Arch manages to cultivate a community of fans, that stream will be a pretty effective way for its fans to share their experiences in a location potential visitors are going to look.

Other suggestions include Melrose Arch shooting videos with people involved behind the scenes like the architect/s, designers, featured tenants and so on which can be posted on YouTube (or various locations) so visitors can find out more about decisions that were taken when developing parts of the district or the symbolism of a particular piece of architecture. That sort of thing. What about a series of sms short codes that give tourists easy access to snippets of information about these same features as they are walking through the district. I’ve seen a phone in version of that in and around Sandton. The idea here is to engage curious tourists on the ground, while they are immersed in their Melrose Arch experience.

All of this is in addition to Melrose Arch’s social media outreach which should include monitoring and commenting on blog posts, tweets, Facebook mentions, photos uploaded to Flickr and PicasaWeb, videos uploaded to a variety of video sharing sites and more. Melrose Arch’s current social media initiatives are a good start but it can do more. It would also be beneficial if Melrose Arch people would engage too. It isn’t clear whether someone actually working there is involved in the Twitter profile and Facebook fan page or whether those profiles are being maintained by its agency. The former is more authentic and more interesting. The latter is just another PR channel.

There seems to be so much Melrose Arch can do to engage more meaningfully, crowdsource its marketing and awareness campaign and build some buzz about itself as a destination. These are just a couple ideas that popped into my head in the early hours of the morning. I am sure the pros can come up with even more amazing ideas that don’t even have to cost all that much! The real question is whether Melrose Arch recognises the possibilities and has the will to do something to achieve them?

I recently published a post about what I regard as silly rules about not being able to take photographs in shopping malls/centres. I have been reprimanded for taking photos in Melrose Arch (a very photogenic centre/complex), Balfour Park and Killarney Mall. The response (or lack thereof) which I received to my posts/tweets has been an interesting case study in social media adoption locally.

While I am vain enough to believe, not so deep down, that these malls should pay attention to what I write about them and respond in a meaningful and constructive manner, this is perhaps wishful thinking and suggests that not everyone subscribes to my notion of effective use of social media. It also points to a limitation of social media: if the person in my position making comments about a product/service/organisation is not influential enough to have a real impact on that product/service/organisation, ignoring that person (in this case, me) is a pretty low risk exercise.

Sure there was a little buzz on Twitter when my post was published and Melrose Arch replied saying it would get back to me but there is no real incentive for them to actually reply to my questions about the policy on taking photographs in their centre. The controversy was a flash in the pan from their perspective. It barely occurred from other malls’ perspective. As much as we talk about social media’s power, it is an abstract for many companies who deploy a social media marketing campaign as yet another channel to push commercial messages to consumers rather than an opportunity to truly engage with us plebs.

The unfortunate reality is that unless you have significant, real-world impact on an organisation, it can ignore you online with little fear of any measurable consequence. Social media is a powerful force for change but it depends on numbers of people participating in that process. If you represent a small movement, the risk is minimal, academic even, and not worth responding too.

This is also where truly consumer-centric organisations will shine. They will listen to the little people because their business is based on one person at a time and an investment in each of those people is worth making. One company that is doing fairly well in this respect is First National Bank. The @rbjacobs persona may not be a real person within the bank but the person behind that persona seems to be making a sincere and effective effort to respond to the little people tweeting about FNB. It is the sort of attention that makes a world of difference to little people like me, even if my thoughts don’t have a material impact on the bank.

Companies that take social media seriously will shine in their customers’ eyes. One day that attention could pay off when some of those customers become truly influential. And if they don’t, they will still have a few more loyal and passionate customers and all it will have cost them is a message here and there which says that they are listening, they care and they are engaged.

I am periodically reprimanded by some security guard for taking photos of or in the vicinity of a shopping mall. I have essentially been told that taking photos in or of shopping malls is banned with no real rationale. I took a photo of a renovated space inside Balfour Park yesterday and I was told about the ban and also that photos have been banned for more than 20 years. No-one has been able to give me a reason for the ban. The closest was Melrose Arch where I was required to complete a film production request for filming before I could take photos.

I don’t think I have talked about why I even want to take photos of malls. One reason is that I am fascinated by some of the designs and architectural elements. I don’t know much about design or architecture but some of these buildings fascinate me and I feel this compulsion to share my experiences.

This compulsion brings me to the main reason I take photos of these sorts of places and other areas I visit. I think of it as local tourism powered by social media. It really struck home for me how empowered we are if we have a decent mobile phone with a camera and access to our social networks the other day when we were at the Joburg Zoo. We were walking from one section to another and passed a family where everyone was holding a camera-phone. Rather than visit all these local destinations oblivious to their various appeals, I like to capture the interesting and attractive things I see and share them with my communities on the various social networks I frequent.

A number of shopping malls in South Africa have undergone fairly extensive renovations in an apparent effort to make them into lifestyle destinations rather than just a series of shopfronts. The owners appear to want visitors, local and foreign, to frequent their malls and spend as much time as is possible there. Heck, the parking rates alone must make longer stays lucrative. It isn’t always possible to travel outside of your hometown for a break so local destinations are so important. Consider this tweet I noticed on Melrose Arch’s Twitter page:

When you overlay a social media and the social Web, experiencing local destinations becomes a social event if we can capture our experiences and share them. Geolocation means you can take a couple photos or videos while you are having lunch somewhere or just taking the little ones out for a walk and have that content show up on a map. Those maps can be pretty handy for other people who want to have similar experiences. You know, they guide those potential visitors to the locations their predecessors frequented.

I don’t know why shopping malls prohibit photographs and I wish someone in the know would explain it to me. It just seems to me that the people who make the decisions are missing a valuable opportunity to put their destinations on the map in a very meaningful context, literally. Visitors should be encourages to share their experiences at these destinations and interact with them as much as possible. What about QR codes on shop windows linking to their websites or information about the shopping malls themselves (design, history, future plans). Visitors to these malls are increasingly online, mobile and connected and shopping malls have thusfar only managed to achieve lackluster engagement with the social Web. Here are how two of the higher end shopping malls are doing online:

• Sandton City
• Twitter: 568 followers
• Facebook: 511 fans
• Melrose Arch
• Twitter: 148 followers
• Facebook: 36 fans (JB’s Corner, one of its tenants, has 358 fans)

Imagine if visitors were encouraged to capture their experiences and share them? It must be possible to manage security and safety concerns and still facilitate this? I don’t think that shopping malls can really afford to neglect the social Web as a tool in their marketing toolkits. These malls need to realise that engagement with their customers is more about just throwing up a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page. What about engaging with those customers in the malls themselves and encouraging them to share their experiences on location with their social networks. Remember “word of mouth”? Well, this is how it works.

I received a spam item as a Twitter direct message today. It wasn’t from some fake blonde, fraudster or the usual bunch of “@-reply” spammers. It was from a newspaper I followed on Twitter which spammed me using direct messaging:

I may be a little touchy with this one but there is something about spamming me using direct messaging which rubs me the wrong (and a more unpleasant) way. Only people you follow can direct message you so a degree of trust is implicit when you have the ability to DM someone on Twitter. Its one thing to push out this sort of spam in a general tweet stream but quite another to abuse the trust the DM seems to engender.

Actually, “spam” probably isn’t the right term. “Spam” implies the communication is unsolicited, the contact unwanted and yet when I follow someone I expressly want to receive messages from them. So what is it then? I suppose it is pseudo-spam. I don’t particularly want to receive these sorts of messages directly on Twitter, straight into my inbox. Whatever it is, Twitter provides a simple solution: