Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 216

Earlier this week Amnesty International announced a campaign to highlight the number of people who have been jailed for the opinions they expressed in their blogs or web pages.

No prizes for guessing which particular countries took exception to free speech and naturally this newsletter endorses such a campaign, so three cheers for Amnesty, a UK organisation that should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize every year.

Blogs, of course, are a form of user-generated content, a phrase that is becoming increasingly annoying in the way it is banded around as the next big thing. User-generated this, user-generated that, whoopee whoopee woo, aren't we in the know? We're all going to be independent TV channels, our own media machine, the individual triumphs and so on.

But user-generated content is shit. In fact, most of mobile user-generated content is shit porn. And look at YouTube - user-generated content that has no (present) respect for copyright and other people's IP - and occasionally has no respect for people's common rights either.

And some people bang on about user-generated content (I'm even beginning to despise typing the bloody phrase) as if it's new. It's not. I spent my youth at the breakfast table being brainwashed by the back of cereal packets telling me I might win a prize if I sent in 20 words why cornflakes were the nuts (so to speak).

Great idea by the way. Get all the kids and parents to come up with a 20-word strapline that would cost thousands if an agency was hired to do it. That's it! Unrecognised-user-generated content, that's the new black! Drop the phrase into a conversation next time you have a meeting. You'll be adored.

Finally, this week's prize for most useful mobile application comes from DoCoMo in Japan who have produced a mobile phone that comes with a breathalyser. Maybe not as noble as Amnesty's current campaign, but an innovation that may save many lives. Cheers, DoCoMo!