Stuff by Paul Brown » The Guardian

Rebranding of St James’ Park

Paul — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:08:27 +0000

Piece written for The Guardian’s Comment is Free section on the renaming of Newcastle United’s St James’ Park:

“The rebranding of St James’ Park is another slap for Newcastle fans; Supporters fear Newcastle United’s owner, Mike Ashley, is using the club as a billboard to advertise his Sports Direct chain”.

It was all going so well. Perhaps too well, with hindsight. The announcement that Newcastle United’s ground, St James’ Park, is to be renamed the Sports Direct Arena has shattered the fragile truce between the football club’s supporters and its owner, Mike Ashley…

Read the full story on the Guardian website.

You can read more Newcastle United posts here.

How to turn iPhone app ideas into cash

Paul — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:42:32 +0000

Got an idea for a killer iPhone app? With more than 1bn applications sold since its launch last July, Apple’s iPhone App Store has become one of the fastest-growing tech enterprises in recent history, and gained a reputation as something of a developer’s goldmine. Success stories such as that of Ethan Nicholas, whose iShoot app has earned him $900,000 (£567,000) in eight months, have only added to the App Store’s appeal for would-be iPhone entrepreneurs…

Read the full story at The Guardian

The ebook format war

Paul — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:21:15 +0000

It was clear from this week’s London Book Fair that the UK publishing industry is finally ready to embrace ebooks. But before the ebook can really challenge its paper equivalent, the industry has to avert a format war a whole lot more complicated than VHS vs Betamax…

Read the full story at The Guardian.

Online music and the Beatles Gap

Paul — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:19:55 +0000

Last week’s announcement that the Beatles’ back catalogue will be made available on remastered CD failed to satisfy all Fab Four fans. Fifteen remastered albums will be released on 9 September, as will The Beatles: Rock Band videogame. But there is still no news on when the band’s catalogue will be made available online. Frustratingly for digital music fans, the Beatles and a handful of other high-profile acts continue to occupy a small but significant gap in the online catalogues of the likes of iTunes and Spotify, preventing listeners from downloading and streaming some of the world’s biggest artists. This “Beatles Gap” has been a bone of contention ever since iTunes launched five years ago.

Read the full story at The Guardian

The death of the download

Paul — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:33:12 +0000

With computing becoming increasingly cloud-based, it no longer seems necessary to download or store music. As network connectivity becomes pervasive, the possibility of having every piece of commercially available music at our fingertips, instantly playable via our next-generation portable music players, mobile phones and Wi-Fi home entertainment systems comes closer. So will downloading digital music to an iPod soon seem as archaic as taping the Top 40 on to a C90..?

Read the full story at The Guardian

Rocket man’s flight of fancy

Paul — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:32:43 +0000

“I’ve always loved flying,” says Stuart Ross, a commercial airline pilot for whom flying a 767 to the Mediterranean and back a couple of times a week just isn’t enough of a thrill. “A lot of my colleagues get involved in restoring old fighter planes and things like that,” he says, “but I thought, sod it, let’s go for something a bit different.” So Ross retreated to the bottom of his garden in Horsham, West Sussex, and spent four years and the best part of £100,000 building a rocketbelt – a Buck Rogers-style flying backpack that can shoot the wearer 1,000 feet into the air at 60mph. With testing of this most sought-after of gadgets nearing completion, Ross is preparing to take his rocketbelt on the road…

Read the full story in The Guardian

How to be a website flipper

Paul — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:10:19 +0000

Who’d be a property developer nowadays? The answer: people who develop online properties – rather than physical ones – by snapping up undeveloped sites in a practice known as website flipping. The principle is exactly the same as that of property development: flippers fix up the underdeveloped sites and sell them for a profit. As with property development, it’s all about adding value. In property, adding value may mean converting a loft. Online, it means increasing visitor traffic and improving website revenue…

Read the full story at The Guardian