The latest ‘episode’ of the Property Week Podcast is available to download now - it’s our second attempt and i think it’s really good.

We’ve got a great line up of guests - DTZ’s John Forrester, Nick Leslau and the ‘bloke of the telly’ - George Clarke.

George is a real rising star in TV circles. He was poached by Channel Four to host ‘The Home Show’ and is now working on a new series called ‘Restoration Man’.

He told me Channel Four had no idea what they wanted him to do when they snapped him up from Channel Five - they just knew they had to have him.

Strange thing is he comes across as a really nice bloke on the TV - but , if anything, he is even nicer in person.

Really down to earth, a good laugh and completely without entourage or flunkies. A big thanks to George for taking part and to our other guests.

John Forrester who happily invited us into DTZ’s swanky new City offices, Nick Leslau - another really down to earth, friendly bloke and a pat on the back for our own James Whitmore and Mark Shepherd - Mark is an old hand at broadcasting having once interviewed a footballer live on radio and asked him ‘What was that mystery illness you were suffering from?’

Anyway, all in all i’m really proud of our latest effort. You can listen to it here www.podcast.propertyweek.com

I am addicted to communication. I daren’t look it up on Google because it is probably a recognised condition somewhere like Silicon Valley and realising that would just make my condition worse.

I’ve known for a while that any spare moment i get - waiting for a train, walking to the drinks machine, going to the loo… i just can’t help but get my Blackberry out.

I check emails, compose emails, look at the website and generally do anything other than just sit back, relax and amuse myself in my own mind - which is a shame because that’s something i used to be good at.

It’s got so bad now that if i’m on my own, with no blackberry i feel kind of lost - cut off and i find my own company is no longer good enough. I need communication. Help!

I am not the only one who feels the whole world could be at a crossroads right now -  with the result of the US Election probably deciding the course of much more than just income tax levels in down town Idaho.
The implications for the World seem huge - because the possible outcomes seem so different.
Anyway, there are tons of political blogs for this sort of thing.
What interests me is the use of the internet in this election.
There has been a proliferation of internet blogs about this election.
Some are by concerned voters, some are set up us fundraisers for the campaigns and some are even funded and by the parties with a view to disseminating information to voters in a new way.

The internet is also going to be used to cover the elections in a new way.
The Guardian - at the forefront of online journalism as usual - will even be getting its journalists to Tweet using Twitter to keep us up tro date throughout the night. I’d like to  point out that Property Week used Twitter as far back as MIPIM in March

Also, according to AFP more journalists than ever before are descending on the US from around the World to cover this election and they will be “posting Internet photos, videos and blogs” - no more running to the nearest pay phone to dial in your copy - most will be using web-based Content Management Systems to put copy straight onto websites and that same copy will then be used to write tomorrow’s papers.

And that’s where the internet comes into its own - its immediacy. You can Tweet from an election count straight to the Guardian website so that someone in Guildford will know the result of a Key primary before anyone outside the Town Hall i the town itself.

Newspapers cannot compete. They will have the in-depth look at what it all means - not the NEWS itself - which is now almost exclusively to be found online, on TV and on Radio.

I can’t wait to see this election unfold in all its multimedia glory

yay!

Today propertyweek.com is celebrating another award nomination - this time Best Website in the IBP Awards 2008.

That follows our recent nomination in the BSME awars for best business website.

It shows we are heading in the right direction - although we know there is a long way to go.

In fact unlike most journeys this one has no end - that’s got to be the thing about the web.

You can keep driving forward but you will never get to the edge because the edge keeps moving.

Every week i hear about or come across some new software - or hardware - which is showing yet another potential direction the web could take.  I love it.

The constant excitement.

My favourite of recent times has to be Qik.com if you have a compatible mobile phone you can stream live video from your phone to the web - that’s right.

Not from the web to your phone like everyone is tryiong to do but the other way. You can be out on the street and see something exciting happening and you can broadcast live video from where you are standing to the www

it’s amazing - although so far all i’ve managed to record is some footage of my football injury (broken nose), and a few shots of my desk at work - oh and one of me after a few beers in my kitchen trying to impress mates in the living room who were watching the live broadcast…of my kitchen.

Surely i will shoot that elusive money-making video footage soon.

anyone got any other great new uses for the web - or just great new websites?

Google - not making much of a song and dance about Her Maj’s visit…

Today, her Majesty the Queen is visiting Google’s London HQ - another step on the internet’s path to universal acceptance!
Lots of people you speak to in property say - without any shame - that they don’t use the internet.
They see it as a threat to the way they live and work - instead of a tool to help them go about their daily lives more efficiently.
i wonder if the Queen’s visit tothe all-powerful Google will lend some respectability to the internet. Will stuffy, old technophobes finally realise the power and potential of a good website?
I doubt it, but like I say it has to be a step in that direction. Vive la information superhighway!!!

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Comedian Sean Lock with some of the winners - i had to shoot fro the back of the room :(

Okay, so it took me a while to edit - largely because i’ve never had any Premier Elements training - but the video from last Thursday’s IAS Awards is on the site.

You can see it here 

I’m actually almost proud of it - although there is no doubt a lot of room for improvement and one day i will be acutely embarrassed by it, no doubt - but i think considering i had one camera, one mic, no editing training and a day job to do - it ain’t half bad.

We normally pay thousands of pounds to have these post-event videos produced - admittedly more professionally - but i think with a little editing training and some more equipment i could do a passable job.

And that is the great thing abou the web - it’s ideal for people who like ‘having a go’.

What do you reckon?  Be kind….please.

Tomorrow I’m going to be videoing the Industrial Agents Society and Property Week Awards at the Hilton in Park Lane…and i’m scared.

You will be able to log on to the site soon and see how i managed but right now i’m hastily scanning video editing tutorials online and borrowing lighting equipment - the bowels of the Hilton were modelled on an underground network of caves carved into limestone by millions of years of water erosion - well i think that’s what they were modelled on!

I’m using Adobe Premier Elements

to edit the video and our trusty Sony AE1 to shoot.

I’m getting better with Elements and i enjoy editing but it’s not easy.

keep an eye out for the results

Royal Mail's horse-drawn carriage would've got to Munich quicker...almost

Okay, this is not going to be as much of a problem for everyone as it is for me but have you ever tried to send anything bigger than a holiday snap over the internet to someone, somewhere else?

Anyone got any ideas on how to do it?

We’ve all heard of You Send IT and there are various others out there like Senduit and even sendbigfiles.com and a few months ago MSN  offered me 5GB of space on their Spaces servers - lovely!

The good news is they all claim to be FREE!!!

The bad news is they don’t appear to work - unless you are willing to pay.

I was trying to send a video i had shot of a Property Week European Awards winner who couldn’t go to Munich to pick up his award in person.

Mr Peter Vernon, chief exec of Grosvenor UK & Ireland, kindly allowed me to record his acceptance speech at his office on Grosvenor Street and our AV Team in Germany were on stand-by to receive the footage.

After i had hastily edited it and saved it out as an AVI (which meant it was going to be large ) i looked for ways to send it to Germany - or in real life i was looking for a place on the internet which would allow me the server space to save my file and allow my colleague Matt Papworth to download it in Munich and play it at dinner.

Not hard you may think. You’d be wrong.

After trying various file share sites with my -hardly massive 160MB file - i found that none of them wanted to accept it. Prize for most infuriating goes to Sendbigfiles.com who made me wait an hour and 45 minutes before giving me an error message which read ‘An unknown error has occured’. Yeah, my error in using your site i reckon.

Even the usually reliable MSN Spaces and Senduit were both having none of it.

in the end i had to have the file added to the root folders of the website! Then hastily removed once it had been downloaded.

Anyone got any answers?? I might even offer a prize for the best solution.