Coastwalk

Clifton → Portishead

Distance: 12.8 miles
Ascent: 17 metres
Duration: 3 hours 38 minutes

Back down the Avon
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I got burned by the sun today, a remarkable achievement given yesterday's weather forecast and the heavy hailstorm that Bristol greeted me with as I stepped off the train.

Crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge wasn't the uplifting experience I was expecting. From afar it's a majestic structure, but up close the Samaritans signs and carefully blended security wires brought home the inevitable.

On the western side, a one kilometre road-walk took me to the entrance of Leigh Woods, where a steep path dropped back down the the floor of the Avon Gorge. The next five miles were beautiful. The tow path on the south bank of the Avon is bordered by a freight rail line, and beyond it dense woodland. Huge iron mooring posts point back to the river's industrial past. "Do not loiter" signs remind walkers of the risk of rock falls.

Past the village of Pill the path passes under the Avonmouth Bridge again. And here too - as on the other east bank of the river - is a monument. A plaque on one of the legs of the bridge commemorates four workers who fell from the bridge due to negligence on the part of their employer.

Those walking this way in the future would do well to pay close attention to recent maps. I continued downstream hoping to find the right of way through the docks marked on my map. On the ground it isn't there so I had to backtrack to the bridge and pick up the cycle route into Portishead. Here too there is recent change - a vast new housing development on the south-east side of the town where my map only has fields meant I once again had to follow my nose.

It's been a good length walk in the sun today, with plenty to think about. The walk on from here will be on more familiar coastal territory, but it's always good to see the different industrial landscape.

Tech

The future of social networks

Back in February Esther Dyson wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the changing advertising landscape. She suggested that even new highly personalised advertising technologies are only a temporary fad, and that social networks are the future for promotion.

So it's interesting to read that a user account in a social network is up for sale. The account holder has a set of "followers" who will automatically receive any message he sends. And therein lies the value.

Is this the future for social networks? A world of fake (but compelling) accounts which are then sold to the highest bidder for whatever use they like? If it was email we'd call it spam.

Tech

Ban this word: "monetize"

Remember the "dot-com bubble" of the late 90s? The word I associate with the time is "eyeballs". As a slightly jealous techie I saw stacks of companies build up their paper worth on the currency of eyeballs - the number of people visiting a site. That worth then tumbled as the eyeball-to-cash exchange rate fell through the floor. I thought it'd be some time before we again saw so many web businesses built around the sole income stream of advertising.

I was wrong. It's happening again. The difference is that this time there's a word for it. In order to pretend they're doing something clever, people who like to use the phrase "web 2.0" call this "monetizing". I cringe every time I hear it. (What's wrong with "make money from"?)

I still fear reliance on the advertising model. One obvious alternative is to charge for access. Perhaps the reason that's rarely done is because it results in lower audiences, and deeply embedded in the egotistical heart of many website owners is the classic dot-com falsehood: that a good website is a popular one.

The financial bubble burst, but we still seem to hold onto the emotional one.

Personal , Website

I resolve

The first of January is a terrible time to make resolutions. The pressure's on not to break them, but there's the understanding that inevitably they won't last the year. (And besides, that way you can make the same resolutions year in, year out.)

So I'm making my resolutions today. Here are a few.

I will:

1. eat less chocolate
2. tell more stories
3. blog more frequently

Starting on the first of April I reckon I've got a better chance of success. But if I fail, I can always claim it was just a hoax.