I’m just home from a fairly manic day at work – but manic in a good way. The reason for the ‘mania’ was the re-launch of the new Radar (formerly known as Under the Radar) website at radar.scotsman.com. Technically it was just a case of switching the testing site to the live server, but there are always things that slip your mind – old links that need changed, social media rebranding, responding to the steady flow of feedback emails and tweets.

First off, I want to pay my dues to the great web development guys at The Scotsman Publications. In hardly any time at all they’ve managed to put together a robust, dynamic and eye-catching mini-site. They really know their stuff, and on projects like this they get to show off a bit.

Secondly, I’d like to pay tribute to the team of writers who’ve shown great enthusiasm and talent over the past 12 months. It’s amazing to think back to this time last year when it was just my own meagre postings and it all felt a bit like a stab in the dark. The new Contributors page is a nice way of boosting the individual profiles of the Radar team.

There are still things I want to add – RSS, a jukebox-style audio player, a multimedia channel – but I’m really happy with how “phase one” has turned out. It’s a huge step forward from what we had before, which was essentially Google Blogger hosted in an iframe. The new site is built with its own CMS and now has unique pages for each artist, each podcast and each blog post. Not exactly mindblowing stuff but we’ve been craving this kind of basic functionality for months.

I’m also excited about where we can take the site. Billy and I are keen to revamp the content we’re currently publishing: we’ll add new strands where they’re needed and take an axe to anything we don’t think is working. This is a transitional period and we’re keeping a very open mind, with an eye towards ways of expanding the site and its profile, both in Scotland and further afield.

If you’re even remotely interested in new music we hope Radar will become one of your regular online haunts.

Right, time to go. I still have another 40-odd artist profiles to upload…

"Steven? Just coming" - Adam & Joe have a cult following

In the media world, 6 Music is like the radio embodiment of its listeners: intelligent, unassuming, perhaps not the life and soul of the party but the one who brings the best records and has the best chat. In other words, since its birth in 2002 it has quietly gone about its business, delighting music fans, carving out a succession of niche audiences and leaving the vain, attention-seeking to its brash FM cousins.

But if your average (Adam &) Joe hadn’t heard of it before last week, he damn well does now. I won’t bore you with the details that you already know, but last Friday the BBC’s latest strategy review was leaked to the media, and that included the proposed closure of 6 Music. Cue a response that was passionate, bewildered, anguished even, from its 700,000 listeners (who, as you might expect, are exactly the type of people who know how to make themselves heard in the blogo-twito-faceo-sphere.)

I added my own thoughts on the weird reasoning behind the announcement on Under the Radar earlier this week, but here I just want to run through some of the arguments I’ve read elsewhere this week. It’s safe to say that Mark Thompson wasn’t expecting such a vigorous backlash …

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, from the band’s blog:

It literally is the radio lifeblood for music outside of the mainstream. Not to denigrate Radio’s 1 and 2, but it really is the only station that puts music first, and that’s from a punters point of view and not some bloke in a band. Nowhere else can you hear an archived session track from T Rex juxtaposed next to Midlake’s latest release. As David Bowie, put it … it keeps the spirit of John Peel alive.

Hear hear. And Milo at Gaseous Brain (he’s not in Radiohead but he still deserves a say!) has written a thoughtful dissection of 6 Music that points out its flaws but reiterates its worth:

It is literally the only station we use our DAB radio for, and if it is closed it’s hard to see why having a DAB radio is necessary at all. In fact, I would say the vast majority of people in the UK who own a DAB radio bought it solely to listen to 6Music. If it was on FM things might be different. If it was publicised properly by the BBC things might be different.

Matthew at Song, By Toad meanwhile makes a good point about the huge, unbridgeable gap between underground and mainstream platforms that would be left in 6 Music’s wake:

How the hell are you supposed to progress, to step up, to actually make that massive leap without the developmental step of 6Music, where you can start out with a couple of airplays on one show, maybe get a session on another, and hope to eventually make the step up to a Maida Vale Session and perhaps eventually some Radio1 airplay. Take away 6Music and you have to go from the Song, by Toad podcast to Radio1 in a single leap, which is not only a ludicrous expectation, but also makes the process increasingly arbitrary, because bands develop at different rates.

Nicola Meighan at The List wastes no time in the cultural, political or economic stuff. Instead she lists a succession of reasons and examples why it must be saved:

This week’s 6 Music schedule offers the following: Don Letts’ ace documentary series on reggae powerhouse Trojan Records; interviews with Gorillaz, Fear Factory, Broken Bells and Errors; Steve Lamacq’s pick of unsigned talent.

There are a few priceless videos kicking about as well. Have a swatch of Adam Buxton challenging Mark Thompson to a fight on Channel 4 News …

… or Jeremy Paxman doing much the same (albeit in an interrogative sense) on Newsnight (complete with stifled laughter at the end).

Finally, this infographic by The Guardian illustrates the situation rather nicely.

Who’d have thought that 6 Music could provoke this kind of backlash? Not me. Or Mr Thompson, judging by the look on his face.

You know that. We’ll take it as a given.

As any half-decent journalist knows, however, it’s precisely this accepted thought that’s there to be torn apart if need be.

Perhaps this was one starting point for Milo over at gaseousbrain.com, a blog which has just published its first ‘zine’. Despite having known Milo for a few years now, I hadn’t seen this coming. With the geek image he likes to keep up (all lies) and his mild obsession with new technology, I assumed blogging/new media/podcasting was his true calling.

And he would be the first to admit that over the past year he’s moved much more of his work on to his self-sufficient online world, away from the extremely limiting space afforded by established print publications.

But even for forward-thinking dudes like Milo, it seems the thrill of seeing your words down on tangible, bendy, physical paper is not completely lost.

Last weekend I received in the post a rather nice ‘catalogue’ of the best writing from his blog. Reflecting his main interests, it covers music, gadgets, travel, TV and Britney Spears. Though I’d love to see it in colour, the design is clean, sharp and easy to read.

I think it’s interesting that he’s taken this step, because he’s not the only one returning to the print format, no matter how distinct it feels from mainstream media. At a time when so many traditional media companies are failing to evolve their product in recognition of the way people consume information, the advantage that projects like these have is their freedom.

I’m not suggesting that Milo or any other bloggers-turned-publishers are for one minute aiming to make a living out of this; to overthrow Murdoch and his ilk (perhaps that won’t seem so far-fetched in a few years). I just think it’s a telling trend – one that I think has real currency right now, so long as the producers maintain their distinct personalities and a free-thinking outlook.

Whether or not it heralds any noticeable trend in publishing, Milo still deserves credit for putting the graft in and trying out something a bit different. Keep the dream alive, etc.

Anyway, I can’t say all this without giving the Gaseous Brain Spring 2010 Catalogue a plug. Order yours here. Or, in Milo’s words…

You can buy the STRICTLY LIMITED EDITION luxury B&W printed version, which has already been described on Twitter as “mindblowing” and “a snazzy catalogue”, for the bargain price of £2 at Elvis Shakespeare, Deadhead Comics & Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, and at Monorail Music in Glasgow.

Out of interest, does anyone have any other examples of blogs turned magazines?

What the inside of the human head now looks like

I’ve been trying to think of a subject to write about for the an end-of-year blog post, and, having ruled out Jade Goody’s cultural legacy, the death of Auto-Tune and the career prospects of Tiger Woods, it jumped out at me.

So-called “choice fatigue”, more than any other topic, seems to me the most easily identifiable cultural trend and the most vital issue of the past year, nay, decade.

If you’re wondering what this suspiciously jargonistic concept could possibly represent in the real world, it’s basically the theory that the array of choices presented to us in the modern world doesn’t actually entail any kind of increased happiness or enlightenment. It’s something that readers of Armando Ianucci’s Observer column might recall him lambasting a while ago, and it seems to be gaining more traction as a buzz topic of conversation in its own right. Hell, it’s so proper it even has its own book.

In the Noughties choice fatigue crept up on us while we weren’t looking, through the rise of internet shopping and eBay, MP3 players and iPods, not to mention the explosion of blogging and online journalism.

But over the past twelve months this galaxy of choice has contracted to a black hole, an infinite, inexhaustible portal to… everything.

In music, Spotify was the big advancement in 2009. Catching on by word of mouth and those oh-so-exclusive invitations (until you realised that every citizen of the EU could procure one), it quickly crossed over into the mainstream by virtue of its amazing selling point: (virtually) all the music you could ever imagine, at your fingertips, for FREE (with ads). Spotify has shifted the emphasis from ownership to streaming, and the sheer quantity of music opened up by this, along with the equally impressive Last.fm and The Hype Machine, is unthinkable.

That other digital buzzword of 2009 (even if it began a few years earlier) also played its part in the trend toward radical democratization. Yes, it’s Twitter I’m talking about. The jury’s still out on its actual worth, but this year the micro-blogging service became the ultimate source of information. Whether it was breaking news, daft video clips, top 10 lists, career advice or blurry photos of your mate’s night out, there was one place where it all ended up. And what does this lead to? Discovery? Exposure?Turning a light on corners of the internet we might never have (or indeed needed to have) seen?

Even in the dusty old Great British Living Room, the cult of choice is taking over. Instead of trying to time our routine around the TV schedule, we can just watch the entire series back-to-back with a DVD boxset, or play catch-up on BBC iPlayer or 4od.

In short, 2009 was the year when infinite choice became the standard, the expectation; a word that’s increasingly used by politicians and commentators in an unquestionably positive sense.

But are we really any wiser, happier or more cultured than we were in a decade ago, before all these advancements? No, we’re not. In fact, faced with so much choice, the public rarely want to experiment, settling instead for repeats of Top Gear and Come Dine With Me, streams of the latest single by Lady GaGa or Coldplay or a quick check of Facebook or YouTube.

Choice fatigue, the feeling you get when you stare blankly at your MP3 player as it scrolls through hundreds of not-quite-appropriate-for-my-current-mood albums.

So what exactly am I arguing for here? As tempting as it is to listen to our inner dictator (what, you don’t have one?) and seize back all choice from the individual (make them watch Brasseye, listen to Boards of Canada and read Charlie Brooker’s columns), that would make for a pretty warped society.

No, the answer lies with how we respond to the multitude of options before us. If the thought of Doctor Who or Avatar or the new Cormac McCarthy novel only vaguely flits through your brain tubes, rule them out. And do it decisively; make a concerted effort never to let any of these things occupy your mind again, and focus your attention wholeheartedly on what really interests you.

There you go, a ready-made resolution: become narrower-minded in 2010.

I’m off to continue my quest through the Sopranos boxset… (I really am).

It’s the geeks’ equivalent of the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Except that if you’re a bona fide geek you probably had no problem procuring an invite to Google Wave when it launched its beta phase earlier this year. As one of the blundering, dim-witted masses who take that bit longer to care, I only got mine last week via a friend’s Facebook status update. (Ugh, this post is already way too Mashable-esque for my liking).

You might be expecting me to tell you how it’s revolutionised the way I go about my online business like a budding springtime of web 3.0 futurism. But unfortunately I have yet to get it. And I suspect I won’t until it goes live and more of my web-aware buddies and workmates enter the funhouse.

I’ve only ridden (?) one wave so far, and it came across like nothing more than an instant message chatbox where you see the other person’s typing in real time. It lasted about two minutes before the wave washed up on a beach of inanity and ennui, and I swiftly gave up the experiment.

But as a daily user of Google’s excellent services (Reader, Analytics, Blogger, Documents…), I’m thinking it will all become clear some day.

So are you any further forward? What uses have you found for it? What limitations does it have?