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June 1st, 2009 by Speed Budapest (Matt)

Sky calls on citizen journalists with iPhone app

skyphoneSky has launched a free iPhone app that not only helps you keep up-to-date with the latest news, but lets you make it too! The application features the ability to send short news stories and pictures, along with your contact details, to the Sky newsroom, should you see something newsworthy.

Citizen journalism has really taken off in the last few years, with the ubiquity of camera phones and the growing use of the mobile internet making it possible for anyone to report the news.

Just a couple of months ago, a passenger on the plane that crashed into the Hudson river jumped straight into citizen journalist mode and posted a picture of the crash on Twitter, alerting some of the world’s top news providers to the story.

Right, I’m off to stand outside the Priory with my iPhone to see if I can snap Susan Boyle doing something strange.

Update: Econsultancy have published a review of this app here.

May 8th, 2009 by Speed Budapest (Matt)

Susan Boyle may cost economy £10m+

In just three weeks the Britain’s Got Talent star may have cost the economy more than £10m in lost productivity, according to my research. Since her performance on the ITV show, more than 100 million users around the world have watched her sing ‘I dreamed a dream’ on YouTube, many of whom opting to do so while at work.

At present the top two Susan Boyle videos viewed by users on YouTube have been watched 73,630,639 times. If just one in 10 of the users that viewed these video were British and watched them in full at work, they will have collectively wasted 831,370 hours – just short of 30 billion seconds!

Based on an average hourly pay of £12.77 that equates to £10,619,378.70.