Episode 5 - "The Picture Perfect Start Up"

Hosts: 

Chris Book and James Parton

Synopsis: 


Oded Ran is on the show to talk about Touchnote, the mobile app to physical postcard service. Topics include preloading apps on handsets, and how to react when Apple launches a copy cat product in your space. James talks about the Developers Guide to the Parallel Universe.


Watch the Episode 5 video for the short form edit, and listen to the Podcast for an extended interview with Oded, and Chris's unmissable keyboard warrior rant!

Links:

Touchnote
Developers Guide to The Parallel Universe

Episode 4 - "Size isn't important, a wake up call for bloated agencies"

Hosts: 

Chris Book and James Parton

Synopsis: 

Antony from Brighton Mobile Design Agency Ribot joins us to talk about how he has grown his agency from scratch with his brother, to the point where they could win the business of an international giant like Tesco.  James and Chris look forward to the upcoming South By South West Conference.


Watch the Episode 4 video for the short form edit, and listen to the Podcast for an additional 35 minutes of content where Antony talks about new phone UI project Threedom and bees, termites and ants!

Links:

Ribot
Threedom
Lanyrd SXSW Microsite

Crushing victory for brown sauce!

Our poll for red sauce or brown sauce on cheese on toast has closed. Please don't vote now, lines are closed and your vote will not count.

The result? A crushing 80% victory for brown.

We managed to quickly speak to James as he rushes to the airport to attend Mobile World Congress...

"I'm glad the public supported me so resolutely on such a vital decision. Google's servers nearly crashed a number of times due to the huge numbers of people trying to vote.  I feel validated, and suspect Chris will now need to take a step back and reevaluate his life"

Episode 3 "Hack Days are dead, long live Hack days!"

Hosts: 

Chris Book and James Parton

Synopsis: 

Thibaut Rouffineau from Wireless Industry Partnership joins us to talk Hack Days, the secrets of success for start up's, and the challenges for European companies vs American. Chris and James reflect back on Blackberry Dev Con, discuss FourSquare's move into NFC, and spammy apps cross posting on social networks.
Watch the Episode 3 video for the short form edit, and listen to the Podcast for the full length interview.

Thibaut Rouffineau

Links:

Wireless Industry Partnership
Blackberry Dev Con
FourSquare adds NFC - GigaOm

Why Start Up's Fail [INFOGRAPHIC]

Whilst browsing Shaa Wasmund's blog I noticed this detailed infographic which should be of interest to the HashBang.TV audience. It presents data analysing why start up's fail, gathered from over 3,000 companies.

What do you think?

by visually.

Episode 2 Show Notes

Episode 2 Show Notes

Hosts: 

Chris Book and James Parton

Synopsis: 

Chris and James talk about the Apple iOS apps marketplace paying out $4bn dollars to developers, interview Jo Rabin from Mobile Monday London, and discuss RIM's new CEO and the reputation of BlackBerry in the developer community. The show closes on the exciting news that a condiment olympics app may be on its way from Kieran Gutteridge, to smash all known App Store download records.

Links:

Apple have paid more than $4bn to developers
Mobile Monday London
New RIM CEO Announced
Developer Economics
Kieran Gutteridge
Radiohead Waste web site for all your drunk shopping experiences

Are we having fun yet?

We'll let you be the judge of that...

Episode 2 coming next week, stay tuned ;-)

The Feedback So Far...

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Wow, we have survived four weeks!

James commented on his blog [clang] that embarking on HashBang.TV is like walking around naked in public. We have really pushed ourselves out of our personal comfort zones to do this but are having so much fun, which was our mission after all. So much fun that James literally fell off his chair yesterday and smacked his head on the wall. Rock 'n' Roll!

We thought it was important to share some of the great feedback we have been getting. What has really blown us away is:

a) The amount of messages telling us it is a great idea
b) The offers of help we have been getting

Looking back at the Preview Show, it really was two idiots in a room without a clue. The idea was more of a screen test than an episode. We did debate if we should even publish it, but we decided, why not? Like riding a bike, you have to fall off a few times. Lets do our falling off in public.

We are big fans of exaggerating, but we think Episode 1 was a gazillion times better than the Preview Show. We hope you agree. The initial reaction certainly seems to support that: Less than 48 hours after publishing it we have gone well over 300 views. Not a bad start considering we are building this from scratch.

So diving into the feedback...

Episode length
Lets start with the one that has generated the most comments. A couple of people have commented on the play length, saying it needs to be shorter. We have really analysed this.

To take a step back for a second. When we came up with the idea for HashBang.TV we really wanted to create something that has the feel of a proper show, rather than short form YouTube clips. For example one of our inspirations, This Week In Start Ups, runs for 90 to 120 minutes per show!

We set out aiming for something around the 30 minute mark per show. The framework being an interview lasting around 15 - 20 minutes, plus conversation around a couple of current topics. Our feeling is if we dropped down to sub 10 minutes per clip we would lose the essence of a "real" show, and be left with something more akin to vox pops.

The YouTube stats seem to show the vast majority of people are staying with the full show, but of course we want to listen to your opinion. We don't want to lose you after just two episodes! One suggestion is we could clip the interview segment as a stand alone video so you can dip in for the good stuff and skip the inane babble from us. Alternatively we could reduce the Chris and James chat to one topic per week. What do you think?

Audio only
Some have told us that they listened to the Preview Show in the background whilst working. In addition somebody we love dearly seems obsessed with audio services, so we are excited to launch a companion Podcast starting from Episode 1, which will be an edit of the audio feed from each episode. Its even on iTunes (click here), which made us feel all grown up.

So now you can take HashBang.TV with you on the train or while you go for a run. That should give you a warm fuzzy feeling!

Window Lickers!

Now we have the Innovation Warehouse as our beautiful location to film each show, Episode 1 viewers will have noticed that we have decided to shoot against the backdrop of the office space. We think this adds some dynamism to the shot and some unintentional, but valuable, comedy opportunities at the same time.

A few people have commented on the passers by, but our favourites are the lingerers who stare into the room while making calls or walking past. We will have to keep track of our favourites and offer a reward to the longest stare.

Hopefully they don't detract from the content, we just felt it was more interesting than filming against a blank wall.

So....

We hope you can see we are working hard to improve every time we do this.

We have brainstormed a huge list of potential guests and are starting to put the feelers out. No one has said no so far, in fact people are volunteering, which is frankly mind blowing! If you want to be on, just let us know.

Episode 1

Episode 1 Show Notes

Hosts: 

Chris Book and James Parton

Synopsis: 

The boys reflect back on the first week of HashBang.TV and discuss the recent Eric Ries Lean Start Up talk at the LSE. Our first ever guest, Tony Fish, talks about investing & raising money, the Innovation Warehouse, the hot areas for start ups, ownership of identity, and what he looks for in his investments. Chris and James move on to discuss Turntable.FM, Sherlocking, how EMI and the BBC are opening up via APIs, an update on the Application Developer Alliance, and other business critical issues like which sauce goes best with cheese on toast...red or brown?

Links:

The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses (affiliate link)
Joel on Software Book (affiliate link)
Tony Fish
Innovation Warehouse
Turntable.FM
Sherlocking
Application Developer Alliance

Our props to Tyler Crowly

So as well as the frustration with the way the UK media cover tech here (which we covered in our first post) we were also inspired to act by a conversation with Tyler Crowly of Skwel, and This Week in Start Ups with Jason Calacanis.

We met Tyler at the recent Power of One event we put on at Battersea Power Station in November 2011. He told us the story of Santa Monica, and how it has evolved from being called Silicon Beach to just Santa Monica, in relaying the story Tyler proposed a 'recipe' of ingredients that make a good tech location and we discussed how London stood up against these.

1. Affordable co-working space like TechHub, Innovation Warehouse or Bath Innovation Centre
2. Free or very affordable space for meet-ups and events (may or may not be provided by 1)
3. Already successful entrepreneurs who are willing to help and mentor new tech start ups
4. An investment community that understand software start-ups, assisted by the emergence of super Angel investors from 3 above but also institutional investors and Venture Capital Funds
5. A cool environment to live in, the wider geography and culture has to be attractive
6. A flow of educated technologists, some from computer science graduates some from existing larger companies
7. A person or organisation to support the news about start-ups and entrepreneurs in the local area, a Scobelizer that goes to all the events and amplifies the stories and ideas

Chris has been speaking to David Maher-Roberts CEO of Bath based The Filter who was also writing a recipe. Chris is involved in trying to develop the vibrant Bath Tech scene which is being called Bath Digital, and David has blogged his similar thoughts at the Bath Digital Blog.

Have Tyler, David or us missed anything? Let us know.

So feeling suitably motivated we created HashBang.TV to fill the number 7 gap. Therefore if this thing takes off, you can thank Tyler for planting the seed.

We salute you Sir!

The Preview Show

Well here we are with our first outing on camera - The Preview Show!

We did have a slight unexpected hitch with our first show. Unfortunately Chris had his Mac and iPad stolen after the Lean Start Up event at the London School of Economics, which was on the same evening as the show filming. Apart from Chris's personal trauma of losing all his beloved gear and data, the scrot scallywag also took off with the SD card containing our alternate camera angle and direct audio recording of the show. Thankfully the main camera recording was in a different bag.

Still HashBang.TV is resilient, so the show will go on. So please sit back, watch the Preview Show, and let us know what you think.




Preview Show Notes


Hosts: 
Chris Book and James Parton


Synopsis: 
Chris and James introduce the HashBang.TV concept and what to expect in future shows. They discuss the recent announcement of the Application Developer Alliance, a new trade body for application developers; the launch of NetFlix in the UK and the investment by Sky in UK startup Zeebox. They round off by taking inspiration from Chris Brogan to come up with their "three words for 2012"


Links:
Application Developer Alliance
James's blog post on the Application Developer Alliance
NetFlix UK
Mobile Entertainment: NetFlix UK Launch
The Guardian: BSkyB buys stake in app firm Zeebox 
Chris Brogan My Three Words for 2012

WTF is this all about?

HashBang.TV has been created by two guys with more years in the technology business than they care to admit. Six months ago it became obvious to them both that something was fundamentally wrong with how the exploding UK software development and startup scene was being covered by the traditional media and established blogs.

Why isn't anyone having any fun?

So HashBang.TVs mission is simple; Highlight the amazing talent the UK has to offer, and comment on major industry topics. But all done in the HashBang.TV style.

The production values are going to be low. We have no money and no idea what we are doing. Still we hope we will may create something entertaining, even informative and valuable. Time will tell!

We will be launching the show soon (we don't even have a logo yet) so sign up to our RSS feed and / or the usual array of social media options you will see linked from the blog.

Most importantly the show will be about the UK Tech community. The personalities, the companies, the products, the trends. So if you or your company want to be featured in an upcoming episode, or you want to recommend someone to us, or you have suggested topics for us to cover you can reach us on hello at hashbang dot tv