‘Ethical’ Co-op Offering Gas And Electricity Alternative In The UK

The Co-operative are relative newcomers to the UK energy supplier market but are a welcome alternative to the ongoing dominance of the big six suppliers.

No Shareholders

Being the co-op they have no shareholders, offer money back for co-op members and are attempting to be ethical and transparent. It’s hard to be a small energy supplier in the UK due to the way the market operates so I have to assume they’re partnering with one of the big six if only for the purchasing of energy at a price that makes it viable for them, as a small player, to even operate.

It’s interesting to see the Co-operative’s breakdown of how the supply of gas and electricity is costed which is refreshingly honest.

Price wise they’re offering a non tiered pricing structure so no consumer is getting penalised with paying higher rates if they are a low energy user as is the case with many UK electricity and gas suppliers who charge a higher rate for a certain percentage of KWh consumed each month or quarter before lower priced rates kick in.

The only fly in the ointment with regard to the Co-op pricing is a yearly standing charge of £63 for electricity and the same again for gas.At least it’s clearly defined so for a customer taking both gas and electricity this would work out as a fixed £10.50 a month standing charge in addition to energy consumed or £5.25 per month for either just gas or electricity alone.

Not Claiming To Be The Cheapest

The Co-op are not claiming to be the cheapest supplier at the point of sign up but they’re trying to be very clear about their prices and not locking people in to any deal so there’s no penalty for leaving. They criticise many of the big six for offering temporary low rates in order to attract new customers in the hope of lperhaps ocking them into inevitably higher rates at a later date (though the Co-op seem to be temporarily offering a £50 money back to attract some customers at present but at least the consumer is free to leave at any time with no penalty costs).

How Much?

A PDF of their domestic energy prices as of June 2011 is available here

Nearest Competitor

Alternatives in the slightly cartel-like world of UK energy suppliers are always welcome. The nearest competitor to the Co-op stall would be not-for-profit company Ebico who are another declared ethical supplier.

Trap!t

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Trap.it is a site presently in closed beta that attempts to give a highly visual dimension to news discovery. A simple search gives a scrollable page of relevant links which can be collected in ‘Traps’ and then shared.

The idea is that successive searches together with the ability to thumbs up or thumbs down the results that are served up will help the system learn you preferences.

An open beta will be available in the future. For now you can submit your email and hope for an invite. Whether Trap!t becomes a standalone service or a technology that gets purchased by an existing content provider it’s a welcome alternative to existing content discovery alternatives.

Just One More Thing

Like many people I enjoyed many a Columbo episode and the news of the passing of actor Peter Falk makes me curiously wistful. It’s strange how we can grow attached to fictional characters and have a fondness for people we only know through their art. I suppose we associate good feelings with them even if derived by sitting passively in front of a television set.

From all accounts Peter Falk was reported to be a very likable man. He was an accomplished artist and it was a tragedy his later years took that ability from him as dementia and Alzheimer’s took its toll.

So thanks for the memories and your film an telly work which will inevitably live on though you are no longer with us.

Image by Walt Jabsco under this creative commons licence

Radioplayer On Demand A Minority Feature (at the moment)

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Radioplayer.co.uk is intended to bring a standard interface to web based radio streams in the UK albeit it costs the radio station a fee to participate. As yet many stations have not grasped the listen again aspect in quite the way that radio on the iPlayer works but JazzFM have mercifully put in the effort which makes access to their on-demand content a wonderfully easy experience. Here’s hoping that other radio stations step up to the plate.

Related articles

• Radioplayer attracts 5.7m monthly listeners (guardian.co.uk)
• Radioplayer figures ‘encouraging’ (bbc.co.uk)
• UK Radioplayer Draws in 5.7 Million Listeners (flumotion.com)

A Second Bite Of The Apple TV?

Back in the mists of time when all computers were beige except for the ones that were black Apple computer made an all-in-one affair called the Mac TV (or Power Mac 5500 for the model number obsessives). It had a TV tuner. It could record video. Some even had an FM tuner. Oh it had a modem too which slotted in the same place as the tuner so if you wanted to watch TV and be online you were out of luck.

It was a hernia inducing heavy. The kind of object that would be guaranteed to cause serious damage if hurled by a passing rock star from a hotel window (when did rock stars stop hurling TV sets from hotel windows?).

At the time nobody really wanted to watch TV on their computer or vice versa but sometimes you’ve got to try these things especially if people still think beige or black is pushing the choice envelope as far as it can go.

Many former owners say it was the worst Mac they ever owned.

Now the rumour is that Apple may want to release a TV. In a world of increasingly interconnected media devices it could be a good move especially if it has iOS built in. Heaven knows it might even revitalise the design of TV sets (even Bang and Olufson sets are just black these days).

Wikimedia image courtesy of Ben Boldt

2Day Was Yesterday

Image by andrewhallpics via Flickr

BBC Radio2 remixed its schedule with a one day event they almost amusingly (I said almost) called 2Day. So for one day only the usual DJ/host was not in their usual slot but paired with somebody else from the station (or guesting for the day) at an entirely different time.

This was the radio equaivalent of changing the layout in a supermarket in order to get people to wander into aisles they’d seldom linger. Why?

Apparently Radio2 listeners whilst large in number are somewhat creatures of habit and so this one-off mixing up of the schedule was designed to ensnare new listeners who may have tuned in at a certain time of day just out of habit and who then got to enjoy/endure a different programme or maybe it was an experiment in how to manage change with your loyal listeners by either preparing them for change or letting them know the station is headhunting a different listener demographic.

Related articles

• BBC Radio 2 – Radio2Day (jamesstodd.com)
• BBC radio stations ‘could share’ (independent.co.uk)
• Radio 2 boss takes on his critics (guardian.co.uk)

What you know is not all there is but that may be of no comfort

Image via Wikipedia

When my paternal Grandad was alive and we had him up for the day my parents would put the telly on for him. If there was something on the box that he didn’t recognise he’d give a suspicious look before gruffly asking “Is it BBC1?”.

For my Grandad telly meant BBC1.Nothing else was tolerated.For him television was BBC1. The other two (yes there were only two) channels were just pretenders in his eyes. It’s what he knew and presumably what he trusted. Comfort in the familiar or an avoidance of confusing choices?