Scoopt Blog

Soccer shocker

Our heartfelt commiserations to the gallant English footballers who so bravely chucked it all away last night.

Photo credit: Ben Green

The pits of L

Can't say we're big Danielle Lloyd fans at Scoopt, but we're happy to promote her appearance at a London nightclub last week where she subtly touted for work in the next Lynx commercial...

Photo credit: Ross Pierson

Face of a fanboy

£900 for a phone? Genius! This was the scene at the UK launch on Friday...

Photo credit: Luis Rubim

Subliminal messaging?

Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton hasn't been having the best of times on the Grand Prix circuit these past few weeks, but this track marshall - giving Hamilton a lift back to base after a breakdown during practice -  seems to have sussed the problem.

Photo credit: Rizwal Zakaria

iPhone scoopt

No, don't worry, you won't find any pros/cons analysis of Apple's latest gadget here. Truth is we couldn't care less.

Still, when Steve Jobs is in town - any town - that makes for a photo opportunity. But at this morning's London launch of the iSnore, professional photographers were banned. Clever move on Apple's part, as it ensures that Mac fanboys the blogging community live-blog and photograph the event instead, giving it an air of... well, of excitement and mystique which it so richly doesn't deserve.

Anyhow, we were just chuffed to get some shots of Jobs on stage taken by Scoopt member Andrew Tobin, which we've been pushing out to the press all day. Witty caption suggestions very welcome.

The Curse of Scoopt?

Rather spookily, just after posting the pictures of Lana Clarkson below, we received some shots of Norwegian pop star Thomas Hansen, aka Saint Thomas.

OK, we had't heard of him, but the point is that these photos were taken just two weeks before his untimely death at the age of 31 (presumed suicide). As with Lana, these are probably the last photos of him alive.

We wouldn't like to see a 'shoot to kill' pattern developing here, folks, so take it easy out there...

Photo credit: Daniel Antoniadis

Last pictures of Lana Clarkson

As the trial jury spends a fourth day deliberating the fate of the weirdly be-wigged Phil Spector, accused of murdering actress Lana Clarkson, now might be a fitting moment to remember the victim.

These two photos show Lana working at  a comic book convention on February 2, 2003, in Pasadena, California. The following day, she was found dead at Spector's home. Are these the last pictures of her alive?

Photo credit: Scott Binkley

Chinese Olympics: clampdown or CJ free-for-all?

Must admit I hadn't given a lot of thought until journo James Knight asked me what I thought about citizen journalism and the Beijing Olympics. You can read his article here on Journalism.co.uk.

The sheer number of citizen journalists that could descend on Beijing - and with MMS and SMS platforms providing an alternative avenue of publishing - has led some to believe that controlling them could be beyond the notoriously long arms of China's media authorities.

I think most of us in the West pretty much accept that the genie is out of the bottle now, where the genie is free expression and the bottle is content control. Today, it would be surprising if thousands of visitors (including athletes, for that matter) didn't want to live-blog and moblog from the Games. They'll certainly take the technology and the will to do so with them.

The point I made to James is that if the authorities manage to suppress or even limit professional press output, this will doubtless lead to greater international media demand for raw, unfiltered content -- which will surely be available in abundance on the ground. So can the Chinese authorities block or restrict the flow of information from Beijing to, well, to everywhere?

"I would be careful with the suggestion that they can't control it," Hidde Kross, of Dutch citizen journalism site Skoeps.com told Journalism.co.uk.

"Don't underestimate their brilliance in sorting out what's published on the internet. They have the finest brains in the world to work on content publishing, as well as filtering technologies."

Well, they might be able to control content published on websites hosted in China or access frm China to websites hosted elsewhere, but it's hard to see how they'll restrict the flow of content out of Beijing unless they lock down internet and mobile networks. Is this doable? Dunno. Will visitors respect any 'You Can Do This But You Can't Do That' code of practice? Doubt it. Maybe Big Media has more to lose than gain by getting on the wrong side of the Chinese authorities and will toe the line by refusing to publish amateur, unauthorised content. Hmmm... you think?

Anyone know how to say 'snap, send, sell!' in Cantonese?   

Slow news day?

So you've signed up with Scoopt and now you're waiting for something interesting to happen?

Well, according to this story on Journalism.co.uk, you could become a virtual reporter on Second Life. Apparently Sky News and SkyCast have teamed up to offer Second Lifers the chance to shoot video inside the virtual world, the best of which will be showcased and broadcast in the real world. If you decide to give it a go, let us know.

Why it pays to carry a camera

So there we were yesterday afternoon, my mate Iain and me, bowling along a country road north of Glasgow on our bikes (training for this, gawd help us), when we came across a Land Rover that had mounted the pavement, ploughed into a wall and flipped over.

Iain, being a professional photographer with an eye for a photo opp (and also one of the first ever Scoopt members and indeed instrumental in setting up the business), did the obvious thing... and whipped out his Sony Ericsson K750 cameraphone. Two of his pics were printed today in the Glasgow Evening Times, along with the story (the driver lost control but escaped without needing medical treatment, which probably tells you something useful about Land Rovers).

So you see you can snap, send, sell anywhere at any time. If you're carrying a camera. Which I, er, wasn't. So Iain got the sale and I got an ice cream.

Photo credit: Iain McLean