CES Demonstrates Web’s Ever-Widening Boundaries

As the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showcases this year’s must-have gadgets, New Media Knowledge’s Chris Lee takes a closer look at the latest technology on show.

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<h3>Chris Lee</h3>The Consumer Electronics Show (<a href="http://www.cesweb.org/">CES</a>) in Las Vegas is a traditional show case for new and emerging technologies and gadgets. This year saw <a href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a> demonstrate its <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8444672.stm">new ‘slate’ PC</a>, which it developed with <a href="http://www.hp.com">HP</a>, while <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> was keen to talk about its <a href="http://www.google.com/phone">Nexus One phone</a>. Other technologies on display included artificial intelligence, virtual and mobile technology, entertainment and gaming. <h3>Web on the Box</h3>Yahoo announced a <a href="http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31045_1-10428300-269.html">host of new partners for its Connected TV project</a>, which aims to provide Internet service to televisions, as well as helping programmers build apps for Internet-connected TVs. For Andrew Lim, editor of mobile reviews site <a href="http://recombu.com/">Recombu</a>, the increased accessibility of the Internet through applications and hardware will be one of the defining developments of this year. “An example of this progression towards a more Web-friendly environment is a <a href="http://www.panasonic.com">Panasonic</a> TV with a built-in video camera allows you to make <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a> video calls,” Lim told NMK. “It's about giving consumers better access to existing services, which is why we're also seeing a lot of large screen tablet-style devices. Tablets offer a portable web experience without the bulk associated with laptops and many of them feature 3G, which means you can use them wherever you go.” <h3>Mobile Entertainment</h3>Further expanding the boundaries of social media is car manufacturer <a href="http://www.ford.com/">Ford</a>. The company chose CES to showcase its Sync MyTouch in-car Internet system, which includes a pair of touch screen computers situated on the dashboard for passengers – and drivers – to access the Web via WiFi or 3G mobile connection while on the move. The system is touch or voice-activated and the company said it would be useful for navigation and local search. Quoted in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/08/ces-2010-ford">The Guardian</a>, Ford CEO Alan Mulally said: "We are actually now bringing the Internet to the car," he said. "We're going to bring all the applications you can get on mobile phones today, we'll bring in the car - absolutely hands-free, voice activated, and focused on the road – but you can get access to all your cool stuff." <h3>The Simple Things in Life</h3>According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), CES 2010 also demonstrated that once-complex technology was becoming simpler to operate. "In the last 10 years, consumer electronics devices have become feature-rich, while also becoming more affordable," said IEEE Fellow, Stuart Lipoff. "We're now seeing an emphasis placed on improving the user experience despite adding more and more features. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and voice recognition will make it possible to make the complexities of the device invisible and easy to use,” he concluded.

2010-02-08T13:51:11+00:00

false 1227 innovation_green.jpg true 2010/2/8/ces-demonstrates-web’s-ever-widening-boundaries

CES Demonstrates Web’s Ever-Widening Boundaries

2010-02-08T13:51:38+00:00

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The emergence of a new site encouraging people to commit Web 2.0 suicide has highlighted an apparent backlash against the prevalence of social media platforms. New Media Knowledge’s Chris Lee canvassed the opinions of industry thought leaders to gauge if there really is a backlash and how social media consultants should respond.

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<h3>Chris Lee</h3>The population of<a href="http://www.facebook.com/"> Facebook</a> may well exceed that of the United States and growing all the time, but a new tool has emerged which hints at a groundswell of disaffection against social networks. The “<a href="http://suicidemachine.org/">Suicide Machine</a>” allows users to enter their password and usernames for the respective social media networks they’re listed on and will delete their profiles, photos, messages and friends, as well as altering their username passwords so they cannot log back in. You can see the Suicide Machine in action <a href="http://vimeo.com/8223187">here</a>. Facebook appears to have <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/01/facebook-fights-back-disallows-the-suicide-machine.html">blocked the site</a>, but the consternation it caused demonstrates growing frustration – even in the technology community – with social networks. Digital specialist Jaron Lanier’s new book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/1846143411">You Are Not a Gadget</a> also questions the wisdom of “the crowd”. NMK spoke to three leading lights in the UK social media scene to see whether this is just a flash in the pan or a real threat. <h3>Information Overload</h3>According to Will McInnes of Brighton-based social media agency <a href="http://www.nixonmcinnes.co.uk/">Nixon McInnes</a> Suicide Machine is a well-timed application that draws on the “reservoir of mistrust” that many feel towards social media. “The world is changing and we are all struggling to keep up,” McInnes said. “It's tricky to maintain both our old world communications and the new deluge of interactions powered by the Internet. So it's no surprise to us to see this and other backlash-tinged stories and trends. There will be more irritation, frustration, anger and hurt before this revolution is over. But it's happening nonetheless, and bit by bit we will adapt as will the technologies themselves.” Ged Carroll, director of digital strategies at PR consultancy <a href="http://www.ruderfinn.co.uk/">Ruder Finn</a>, believes that any potential social media fatigue is not something radical or new, but more a concept of information overload. “The concept of social media fatigue can be seen as social media’s coming of age, it is now so mainstream that it even has its own fatigue group,” Carroll told NMK. “What it needs is for society-at-large to develop an etiquette for social media in the same way that we developed one for emails (don’t send inappropriate content to a work email account), taking an underground train (don’t maintain eye contact), talking on a mobile phone (don’t talk loudly in a restaurant) or watching television (don’t hog the remote control).” Carroll believes that social media fatigue will be used as an excuse to try and explain away poor user experience and community management in the same way, he says, that “media companies have used piracy to mask poor business management.” <h3>Retrain your Brain</h3>Roger Warner heads up social agency <a href="http://www.contentandmotion.com/">Content and Motion</a>. He believes that social media professionals need to act smarter to combat any cynicism towards social platforms. “From a personal and professional standpoint, [social media] is priceless - new customer relationships, new intelligence on marketplaces, and new ways of creating brands and promoting,” he said. “But our ability to stay on top of social media and use it in valuable ways is largely determined by the tools we use to filter the noise and act on the important stuff. Without good monitoring and alerting systems in place, the web becomes a very, very big place that's hard to get your arms around and any attempt to do so is frankly.” Warner also argues that social media users’ brains need a little bit of re-wiring this year. “To deliver smarter work we need to step away from the coalface and the constant stream of information that Social Media provides,” he concluded.  “We should be taking stock more, counting to ten, and perhaps even sleeping on things now and again before commenting, tweeting, forming opinions, baking plans and setting sail.”

2010-02-05T10:46:25+00:00

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social media

Has the Social Media Backlash Begun?

2010-02-05T10:56:55+00:00

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Social Media Week 2010 aims to “advance uses of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors”. New Media Knowledge caught up with some of the leading UK social media thinkers to gauge what they perceive as the value of Social Media Week.

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<h3>By Chris Lee</h3>February 1-5 2010 is ‘<a href="http://socialmediaweek.org">Social Media Week’</a> and sees a number of conferences taking place in some of the most advanced digital cities; London, New York, Berlin, San Francisco, Toronto and São Paulo. It aims to help spread best practice in social media and bring professionals together to learn from each other. Social media has a particular impact on the public relations (PR) industry, under whose remit corporate social media usually falls. For Stephen Waddington, managing director of technology PR agency <a href="http://www.speedcommunications.com/">Speed Communications</a>, “every week is social media week”, but he believes that this week provides a great opportunity for companies to share corporate, public sector and not-for-profit social media practice. “Social media isn't a fundamental change in how people communicate but it is a fundamental change for business. The broadcast model no longer works and businesses must engage directly with their audiences. That’s difficult,” Waddington told NMK. “PR agencies have three approaches to social media: either creating a team to focus exclusively on digital comms or hiring a high profile individual or small team to parachute into client assignments where there is a social media component,” he added. “The third approach that Speed has adopted is to build skills throughout the organisation. If you work in the PR industry and want to continue working in the industry you need to equip yourself with digital skills.” <h3>Unsocial Media?</h3>According to <a href="http://www.prgeek.net/2010/02/have-social-media-events-hit-saturation.html">Jon Silk</a>, senior digital consultant at PR firm <a href="http://www.waggeneredstrom.co.uk/">Waggener Edstrom</a>, social media is at the forefront of brands’ minds in 2010, which has in turn led to a spate of digital agency launches recently. “Online PR has grown beyond something one type of pro could handle - it now represents multiple subsections like analysis, influence and content,” Silk said. Silk also believes that there are arguably too many social media events in the digital calendar, a viewpoint given some weight by the number of social media consultants tweeting and blogging that they were “too busy doing social media” to attend events. “Hopefully [Social Media Week] will push some thinking forward by allowing agency pros to get together, discuss and learn from each other. With so many social media events happening throughout the year, however, I'm worried that people won't get involved as much. We've just come out of a frantic event season and I know I'm not the only one suffering from tweetup fatigue,” Silk concluded. <h3>A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action</h3><a href="http://nmk.co.uk/article/2009/11/19/the-things-they-say-managing-online-reputation">Vikki Chowney</a>, editor of <a href="http://www.reputationonline.co.uk/">Reputation Online</a>, agrees that Social Media Week has run the risk of becoming saturated with events and what is really important is social media in action. “From a brand perspective, there is a risk that some may just jump of the bandwagon. [Social media news site] <a href="http://www.mashable.com/">Mashable</a> sponsors pretty much everything going nowadays, so seeing that name on the list doesn’t mean a lot anymore,” Chowney said. “It has kicked off a rather emotive debate, but as it stands, almost half [of respondents on Reputation Online] have said that the week will benefit the industry as a whole. The general consensus, however, is that there must be more doing and less talking.”

2010-02-03T12:52:06+00:00

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Social Media Week: Industry Calls for More Action and Less Talk

2010-02-03T12:52:06+00:00

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Measuring and improving the effectiveness and impact of social media is an ongoing debate. One group has been meeting on a monthly basis for more than a year to discuss the evolution of social media. New Media Knowledge's Chris Lee went along to “Measurement Camp” to learn more.

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<h3>By Chris Lee</h3>The UK’s social media marketing industry has burgeoned in recent years. As the need to measure the effectiveness and impact of campaigns, and to strategise on future social media engagement, has grown so an active community of social media marketers has got together on a monthly basis to tackle these very issues. Measurement Camp, the brainchild of Brighton-based social media agency <a href="http://www.nixonmcinnes.co.uk">NixonMcInnes</a>, describes itself as a “monthly meet up for people to discuss different ways of tracking social media campaigns and activity. We compare tactics; think of ways to improve it and wonder if there will ever be a standard set of metrics against which to judge success by.” According to NixonMcInnes’ co-founder and meeting compeer Will McInnes, attendees are “all here to help and all here to give.” NMK’s Chris Lee went along to the January meet-up to get social... <h3>Measuring Up</h3>Measurement Camp aims to include presentations, discussions and practical work groups into its traditional two-hour slot, and invites guest speakers each month. January’s event kicked off with a discussion around “the most important contribution herd thinking makes to social media”, to which attendees paired off into twos, then fours, then eights to see if they could achieve a consensus. Measurement Camp attendees, typically from marketing, PR or copywriting backgrounds, did generally concur that the most important thing “herd thinking” contributes to social media is the ability to rapidly build up momentum, quickly identify key influencers – such as celebrity bloggers – although it does increase risk. As one attendee commented; “When you get [social media] right, you get it very right. But when you get it wrong you get it very wrong.” The debate continued with a presentation from Internet statisticians, <a href="http://www.comscore.com">comScore</a>, on the effectiveness of social media advertising, and culminated in an open discussion followed by an update on the industry’s upcoming social calendar. <h3>Max Factor</h3>One regular Measurement Camper is Max Tatton-Brown of technology PR agency, <a href="http://www.axicom.com/uk.html">AxiCom</a>. According to Tatton-Brown; “if you've ever been along to one of the larger social media events and come away disappointed by the same old case studies and lack of interactivity, Measurement Camp is the place for you.” Tatton-Brown believes that the focus on discussion, presentation and discovery back toward the bigger picture of social media measurement helps generate a creative atmosphere for debate. “[Measurement Camp] is a collaborative exercise, the highlight of which features small groups bashing out solutions to the participants' real world problems,” he told NMK. “Short punchy presentations are tied strongly to real life case studies and serve as a starting point for discussion rather than dominating it. Because of the broad audience, you hear from a much wider range of examples than the standard well worn touch points.” For more on Measurement Camp, visit its <a href="http://measurementcamp.wikidot.com/">website</a> or follow it on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/measurementcamp">Twitter</a>.

2010-02-02T12:46:03+00:00

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social media metrics analytics

Measure for Measure: Gauging the Impact of Social Media

2010-02-02T12:46:03+00:00

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Over 1,000 young leaders will be converging in London on the 8th February to the One Young World summit, dubbed the Young Davos by some sections of the media, to discuss six global issues with world leaders ranging from Kofi Annan, Sir Bob Geldof, Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus and Oscar Morales, the founder of One Million Voices Against FARC and leader of the world’s largest anti-terror demonstration in history. See this article by Marian Salzman.

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<h3>By Marian Salzman</h3>The One Young World summit has engaged the power of social media through multiple channels to develop the kind of following normally reserved for major album or film launches. With over 4,400 Facebook members (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/OneYoungWorld?ref=mf">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/OneYoungWorld?ref=mf</a>), 29,000 users of OYW's Facebook applications, and thousands of views of videos on the One Young World Youtube channel, the summit has quickly grown to a good example of how the Internet and power of new media can be used for social change. Focusing six plenary sessions focusing on topics as far ranging as the The Role of Global Business in Shaping Society through to Developing Political Leadership for a positive future, the findings and resolutions from the Summit will be streamed live through <a href="http://www.oneyoungworld.com">www.oneyoungworld.com</a> and also submitted to the G8, the G20 and the United Nations. In the meantime however, people wishing to participate in the event online can log onto the Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels and follow the news and views as they happen. We’re also going to be giving NMK viewers a sneak peek at the new website due to launch this week, which will enable people to to submit their own questions that will be given to delegates attending the summit. <h3>Event details</h3>One Young World Summit When and where: 8th-10th February 2010, ExCel Centre London Annan, Tutu and Geldof are Among the Counselors Advising Young Delegates One Young World (<a href="http://www.oneyoungworld.com">www.oneyoungworld.com</a>), dubbed Young Davos by some media outlets, is the world’s first global youth leadership summit. Bringing together several hundred delegates age 25 and under from the world’s 192 countries, One Young World combines the social power of the Internet with the energy and ideas of global youth to address the most challenging issues of today. Founded by David Jones, global CEO of Havas Worldwide, and Kate Robertson, Euro RSCG group chairman, One Young World focuses on six plenary sessions covering six global concerns: * Developing Political Leadership for a positive future * Global Business and its role in shaping society through the economy * Inter-faith dialogue * The Environment and its protection * The Media, its changing identity and its power * Global Health, its polarities and impact The Inaugural One Young World Summit, takes place in London beginning February 8th and is a first but crucial step in giving world youth a forum and a voice to define their own consensus on critical world issues. The mandate for the several hundred delegates, chosen to proportionally represent the world’s nations, is to begin their tenure as world leaders by confronting today’s challenges as a united international group. Guiding the several hundred delegates is a set of pre-eminent world leaders including: * Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Laureate (Ghana) * Osvald M. Bjelland, Founder and Chairman, Xyntéo (Norway) * John Browne, Cross-Bench Lord (U.K.) * Ken Costa, Chairman, Lazard International (U.K.) * Santanu Das, Founder, TranSwitch Corp. (India) * Martin Davidson, CEO, the British Council (U.K.) *Tony Fernandes, CEO and Founder, AirAsia (Malaysia) * Bob Geldof, Musician and Activist (Ireland) * Nick Haysom, Director of Politics, the United Nations (South Africa) * David Jones, Global CEO, Havas Worldwide (U.K.) * John Kerry, U.S. Senator (U.S.) * Elio Leoni-Sceti, Global CEO, EMI Music (Italy) * Harald Ludwig, Co-Chairman, Lionsgate Entertainment (Canada) * Oscar Morales, Founder, One Million Voices Against FARC (Colombia) * Richard Sambrook, Director, BBC Global News (U.K.) * Carole Stone, Managing Director, YouGovStone (U.K.) * Alejandro Toledo, Former President, Peru (Peru) * Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate (South Africa) * Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Laureate (Bangladesh) * Zhang Deguang, First Secretary-General of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China) One Young World aims to give young people of leadership calibre a high-profile platform for their views. The counsellors are united in their belief that young people should have the right to influence world leaders on the legacy for future generations regarding many of the problems of global importance the world faces today. One of the compelling aspects of the conference is that the delegates will speak their minds and put forth resolutions that are not influenced by special interest groups. <h3>Schedule</h3>After an official welcome by London Mayor Boris Johnson on February 8th at Old Billingsgate Market, One Young World delegates will kick off the summit with a session called “The Environment and Its Protection,” guided by One Young World counselors Kofi Annan and Sir Bob Geldof. Each of six sessions will feature addresses from six delegates and counsellors, a vote by attending delegates on its particular draft resolution, then an announcement of the voting results. Other sessions taking place include: * Interfaith Dialogue * The Role of Global Business * The Changing Media * Global Health * Politics for a Positive Future All One Young World sessions will be streamed online and available through real-time updates at <a href="http://www.oneyoungworld.com">www.oneyoungworld.com</a>. A series of 30-minute addresses to delegates will also be interspersed throughout the summit, on topics ranging from Social Responsibility by Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus and Global Dignity presented by HRH Crown Prince Hakon on Norway. People under 30 changed the way we communicate, founding companies such as Google and Facebook. They helped propel Barack Obama into the presidency, thereby starting to restore America’s stature in the world. And they traded the Me Generation materialism of their parents for a genuine passion for good, forcing businesses of all stripes to clean up their act and pay up on their promises of social responsibility. <h3>Important links</h3>See the article below, on the Huffington Post, by global trendspotter Marian Salzman who is one of the key organisers of this summit. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-salzman/post_488_b_439326.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-salzman/post_488_b_439326.html </a>Also, please find the following links and embed codes below Bob Geldof Talks about One Young World <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQ0FaqMqLQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQ0FaqMqLQ </a>Kofi Annan talks to One Young World <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWuwpGMRZjw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWuwpGMRZjw </a>David Jones interviewed Live at Davos 2010 <a href="http://live.reuters.com/uk/Event/Davos_2010?Page=4">http://live.reuters.com/uk/Event/Davos_2010?Page=4 </a><h3>About Marian Salzman and Euro RSCG Worldwide</h3>Marian Salzman is president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, a leading integrated marketing communications agency, the first agency to be named Global Agency of the Year by both Advertising Age and Campaign in the same year. Euro RSCG is made up of 233 offices in 75 countries and provides advertising, marketing, corporate communications and interactive solutions to clients including Air France, BNP Paribas, Charles Schwab, Citigroup, Danone Group, Heineken USA, IBM, Jaguar, Kraft Foods, Lacoste, L’Oréal, Merck, PSA Peugeot and sanofi-aventis. Euro RSCG Worldwide is the largest unit of Havas, a world leader in communications (Euronext: HAV.PA <http:></http:>) (Paris: HAV.PA <http:></http:>).

2010-02-01T00:04:42+00:00

false 1223 social_networks_purple.jpg true 2010/2/1/one-young-world-summit-using-social-media-to-support-the-engagement-of-young-leaders

social networks media one young world summit

One Young World Summit: Using social media to support the engagement of young leaders

2010-02-01T15:33:45+00:00

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A look at the issues online gaming companies and anyone involved in online software development projects should consider when considering the location of hosting, the jurisdiction and the domain name that will be used.

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<h3>Silas Brown</h3>When online gaming companies and their developers work on projects to develop gaming applications and set up their hosting facilities, they are sensible to seek sound legal advice on the implications relating to location of hosting, jurisdiction and domain names. A recent High Court judgment in the case of Pocket Kings Ltd v. Safenames Ltd and Commonwealth of Kentucky, highlights the crucial importance of such issues to online gaming companies and the implications for their business. In the Pocket Kings case, the online gaming company Pocket Kings Ltd developed and licensed online poker and other online computer games together with their related domain names for operation by licensees as separate licensed online gaming businesses. One of these licensed online gaming businesses was operated through the domain name fultiltpoker.com. A court in the US state of Kentucky ordered that a large number of online gaming websites (including <a href="http://www.fultiltpoker.com/">http://www.fultiltpoker.com/</a>contravened Kentucky state laws prohibiting gambling) and, therefore, ordered that the relevant domain names must be transferred to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Pocket Kings Ltd’s domain name registrar and hosting provider for the fulltiltpoker.com domain name, Safenames Ltd received e-mailed correspondence from the Commonwealth of Kentucky demanding compliance with the Kentucky court order which lead to the High Court claim by Pocket Kings Ltd for an order that the Kentucky ruling was not enforceable in the UK. For Safenames Ltd’s part, it had a contract with Pocket Kings Ltd under which it was not permitted to transfer domain names without Pocket King Ltd’s express permission and Safenames Ltd agreed not to comply with the Kentucky court order if the High Court made the order sought by Pocket Kings Ltd. Firstly, the High Court had to consider the English legislation on immunity (including the State Immunity Act 1978) which states that nation states cannot have English judgments made against them and found that because the Kentucky court judgment was based on local state law and that the Commonwealth of Kentucky was not a nation state for the purposes of the immunity legislation, there was nothing to stop the High Court from ruling in favour of Pocket Kings Ltd against the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Secondly, the High Court had to consider the substantive aspects of whether or not the domain name transfer order of the Kentucky court would be enforceable in the UK against an English hosting provider and an English domain name owner. The High Court took into account that foreign penal laws cannot be enforced in the UK and also the importance of the particular domain name to the developer’s business in general (not just in Kentucky), in ruling that the Kentucky court action was not enforceable in the UK. The High Court issued an injunction against Safenames Ltd restraining it from complying with the Kentucky court order to transfer the domain name to the Commonwealth of Kentucky as requested by Pocket Kings Ltd. This case clearly outlines the importance of the issues software and web developers need to bear in mind when developing and choosing hosting for any online software development project for Internet businesses and even more so when the aim of the underlying business may in some parts of the world be either prohibited or subject to penal laws. Gambling is a good example, but there may be others such as competitions, lotteries, database and file sharing applications, restricted publications etc. It is important for all software and web developers, as well as clients of such developers, to carefully consider as a minimum the following issues before embarking on such development projects:  • Is ownership of the relevant domain names properly secured? • Is there a robust software development or web development agreement in place which provides for ownership of intellectual property in the relevant software/ web applications? • Is there a robust hosting service provider agreement in place with clear provisions relating to disputes over domain names hosted in favour of the domain name owner?• If software and domain names are to be licensed to third parties, is there a robust licence agreement in place governing and restricting the licensee’s use of the software and domain names?• Have jurisdictional issues been considered in relation to hosting? There may well be clear protective reasons for hosting domain names and related websites in the UK rather than say the US or other jurisdictions where penal laws may make the domain names and websites vulnerable to forfeiture. It is important to obtain sound legal advice on such issues and ensure that the relevant agreements are legally drafted so that the intellectual property and commercial operations of software and web developers and their clients are adequately protected. <h3>About the author</h3>Silas Brown is a solicitor at <a href="http://www.briffa.com/">Briffa</a>, an award winning firm of lawyers based in London, specialising in the business and law concerning a wide variety of industry sectors and in particular those who value their intangible assets – their intellectual property – in the business of design, technology, entertainment, software development, publishing and Internet.

2010-01-28T16:30:54+00:00

false 1222 social_media_green.jpg true 2010/1/28/domain-name-action-folds-against-uk-online-gaming-company

Domain name action folds against UK online gaming company

2010-01-29T12:11:15+00:00

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In this article, Nisha Baveja, solicitor at Briffa, reviews some of the more significant proposals of the Digital Economy Bill which includes (amongst other things) tighter restrictions on online copyright infringement.

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<h3>Nisha Baveja</h3>The Digital Economy Bill, published last month, is (in the Queen’s own words) being introduced “to ensure communications infrastructure that is fit for the digital age, supports future economic growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public service broadcasting”. There has been a mixed reaction towards the Bill, which focuses on the elements of the digital economy broadly being the creative industries, digital communications and public service broadcasting. Some argue that the provisions in the Bill will help people make the most of the digital economy, whereas others are of the opinion that some of the provisions are too restrictive, and even possibly contrary to Human Rights and other existing technology legislation. So what exactly is the fuss about and who is right? Below is a summary of the main elements of the Bill so you can decide for yourself. <h3>Tackling copyright infringement online </h3>There are two parts to this, the first being making legal action more effective and educating consumers as to what is protected by copyright and what constitutes infringement, and the second by introducing technical measures, such as the right to disconnect users from their internet accounts where they were infringing. The second part is that which is causing most concern. Whilst it is likely that disconnection will only be an option to pursue if all other options (including writing to the possible infringer and warning them of the infringement, reminding them again) have been exhausted, there are no precise processes by which an Internet user will be disconnected in the Bill, and no sign of strong appeal mechanisms or tests of evidence. This means that even innocent users whose wireless broadband has been hijacked might be at risk of being disconnected. If an ISP fails to hand details of the possible infringer to the rights holder, the ISP could face a fine of £250,000. Further fines include a maximum of £50,000 for those who download copyright protected works for commercial gain. <h3>Domain names</h3>Currently .uk domain names and disputes arising are dealt with by Nominet. Under the new proposals, the government may intervene and appoint anyone to take over the affairs of Nominet if appropriate (there has been mention of internal conflict amongst those at Nominet) meaning that there could be a move away from the existing self-regulation of .uk domains. <h3>Mobile and wireless broadband</h3>The plan here is to modernise the spectrum to allow investment into next generation technology. <h3>Digital radio</h3>The upgrade of all FM radios to DAB by 2015, although there is speculation as to whether this date will be met. <h3>Video games</h3>Games for users 12 years and up will need to have age classifications, the purpose being to prevent young children getting hold of violent games. There are also other less far-reaching measures set out in the Bill, but by far the most controversial appears to be that relating to the control of online copyright infringement. Of course, this might only be because the broadband tax mentioned in the Digital Britain Report (50p per month for households with a land-line telephone) will be dealt with in the Finance Bill due after the 2010 budget! All that is left to say now is watch this space to see how the Bill progresses. <h3>About the author</h3>Nisha Baveja is a solicitor at <a href="http://www.briffa.com/">Briffa</a>, an award winning firm of lawyers based in London, specialising in the business and law concerning a wide variety of industry sectors and in particular those who value their intangible assets – their intellectual property – in the business of design, technology, entertainment, software development, publishing and Internet.

2010-01-28T15:06:59+00:00

false 1221 advertising_blue.jpg true 2010/1/28/digital-economy-bill-–-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

Digital Economy Bill – the good, the bad and the ugly

2010-01-28T15:49:15+00:00

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The growth of social media and the economic crisis have literally catapulted opportunities and entrepreneurship for online business. More and more individuals, as well as businesses have turned to the net to promote themselves and their offerings. The web is becoming more and more integrated and is having an impact not only on business, but also on popular culture. What does this mean for the individual? What does this mean for the small business, and how does this affect the large organisation? E-Business Strategist Deborah Collier has put together an overview of her thoughts for the year ahead.

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<h3>By Deborah Collier</h3>Prediction 1: Goodbye to the Middleman We have already seen a rise in the number of small businesses selling products and services using E-Commerce, but the growth of social media applications such as Twitter has enabled more affordable marketing to individuals and small businesses. Our analysis has shown that Twitter can give as much as ten times more clicks than email marketing, depending on the nature of the offering and quality of the campaign. I predict further adoption of such tools will have a heightened impact on industries such as real estate and arts and crafts, where individuals and sole-traders cut out the middleman. There will also be extensive growth in the consumer-to-consumer markets, where commerce is now even more focused on the individual seller than the business. Any individual is potentially an entrepreneur who can sell directly to their customers. Similarly buyers can procure services and products at source from those they with a great online reputation. Social media and social commerce has enabled this revolution. Prediction 2: The Year of the Delivery Company The growth of e-commerce and our reliance on more affordable nationalised postal and delivery services, has left our businesses open to risk during postal strikes. According to a report by the London Chambers of Commerce in October 2009, the postal strike cost London more than £500 million. Earlier in 2009, I urged online retailers to look at alternative delivery companies rather than lose customers. I also encouraged entrepreneurs to consider starting up affordable delivery businesses. I predict delivery and shipment to be one of the biggest growth industries of 2010, bringing hundreds if not thousands of unemployed back to work. Prediction 3: Creative Sponsored Advertising Social media and popular culture, particularly amongst the 16-35 age groups, have demonstrated that people are becoming more and more adverse to direct advertising. Despite clever creative and marketing tactics, banner advertising is increasingly filtered out by individuals, and pre-roll video advertising is perceived more and more as intrusive. Only the most innovative, integrated and seamless advertising will succeed. Businesses should focus on more creative sponsored advertising, or collaborative projects, not only for brand building but more importantly to bring themselves closer to their potential customers. We are living in a collaborative world where relationships are key. Our ability to deliver humanistic and social messages, through collaborative sponsorship opportunities will be at the focus of our marketing strategy in this coming year and the years that follow. Prediction 4: Mobile Commerce Revolution I predict 2010 to be a year of exceptional growth for mobile, which will continue in years to come. Throughout the next decade, we will become less and less attached to our computers, and more connected to our surrounding world via cutting-edge technologies and hand-held mobile devices. News subscriptions and music downloads are currently the top two services purchased via mobile phones. I predict that more and more businesses will offer micro-applications via mobile phones in order to up sell to higher revenue services and products. I also predict retailers to make use of mobile phone barcode readers and one-click payment technologies, not only to increase sales and enhance their customer buying experience, but also to free up in-store staff for other customer service activities. Prediction 5: Free Culture Frenzy We are living more and more in a culture where we expect products and services for free. Where does that leave businesses? I predict that businesses will continue to embrace the ‘Free Culture’, as a means of building relationships and up selling to wider products and services. The ‘Free Culture’ may however have a detrimental affect on the quality of information and services we consume. Less savvy organisations wishing to up sell and cross-sell to their other products and services offer free services, that skilled specialist companies were previously offering at a premium. These specialist organisations will either go out of business or look at more savvy ways to maintain their customer-base and beat the free services and products. The key will be in skillful marketing, communication, customer service and reputation building. About the author Deborah specialises in strategy and training for e-commerce, digital branding and internet marketing. She has 14 years experience supporting, advising, training and developing online strategies for both SME's and Large Corporations such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, John Lewis, Kenwood and the Landmark London. She runs an e-business advice column with more than 3,000 newsletter subscribers, and developed a thought-leadership article on e-business strategies in collaboration with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, John Lewis, Linden Lab, Cancer Research UK and J.P. Morgan. About her company E-Business Strategist, Advisor and Marketer Deborah Collier is the managing director of Echo E-Business, a consultancy specialising in e-business strategy, training and marketing. Echo E-Business' team of technology and marketing professionals are e-business architects helping organisations to build, enhance and market their online presence. The links for relevant websites <a href="http://www.echoebusiness.com/">http://www.echoebusiness.com </a><a href="http://www.learnebusiness.com/ebusiness_advice_column.html">http://www.learnebusiness.com/ebusiness_advice_column.html</a><h3></h3>

2010-01-27T20:24:24+00:00

false 1220 e_commerce_green.jpg true 2010/1/27/top-5-e-business-predictions-2010

e-business e-commerce marketing

Top 5 E-Business Predictions 2010

2010-01-27T20:55:15+00:00

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In this article, Dr. Elayne Coakes analyses the project Tearing Down the Walls, which draws upon a Web 2.0 infrastructure to provide an environment in which students develop applications in accordance with their needs. The project idea came from Roger James, Information Systems Director at the University of Westminster. He wondered what would happen if students were allowed to develop new applications for other students and maybe staff within the existing ‘garden walls’ of the university’s applications. The project is called internally TWOLER where the ‘LER’ stands for Lightweight Enterprise RSS and the ‘TWO’ for Web 2.0.

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<h3><img src="/pictures/0000/0275/Elayne_Coakes.jpg" alt="Elayne Coakes" title="Elayne Coakes" />  </h3><h3>By Elayne Coakes</h3>Most universities have walls that limit access to applications, that limit who can come into the university environment and use the facilities, and that limit who can suggest and develop new applications. Additionally, university applications are clumsy and for our new generation of students, not intuitive in use. This is the generation, after all, of FaceBook and Bebo, of iPhones and Twitter... Our interfaces do not match those already within the students’ experiences and our garden walls prevent the linking between these applications that they are used to. The Tearing Down the Walls project has been based on the idea of ‘let a 1000 flowers bloom’ – not all will set seed and flourish in our garden and produce healthy plants next year, and even then, some may have cross-bred along the way. Yet those few plants that do flower next year will be healthy and strong and adapted to the environment in which they exist. In all this excitement about technology we must continue to remember that technology cannot solve all problems, after all pull works better than push and some solutions may well be social but facilitated through technology. The project has already some 12 major funded applications under way by students. The necessity to provide financial aid and incentives was perhaps a disappointing but inevitable outcome so far of this project. Our students live hectic lives and few can afford not devote any time left over from their studies away from earning their next year’s fees and living expenses. So our students needed financial assistance to give them, [or encourage them to find] time to develop these applications. This project is part of the HE Innovation programme [run by JISC] and it is hoped that it will do a number of things: it might encourage students to spend more time within the university’s learning spaces as the environment will be more familiar to them and may have cross-overs from external spaces; students might build learning structures that have more meaning for them and this learning might extend out to bring in more within the university; positive graffiti might evolve [see graffiti on FaceBook]; and more commercial commodity systems will join seamlessly into the university’s environment. <h3>So what sort of things are students working on?</h3>One student is developing a talent space whereby he is finding all the artistic talent – musicians, dancers, actors and artists and so on, around our four campuses, and putting them together and enabling them to showcase their endeavours on video and by links to their own websites and so on. Another student is providing a four campus map of accessibility for disabled students to be uploaded as an iPhone app. Yet another is looking to provide an alumni mentoring system for current and continuing students. This can now happen because Alumni will have continuing access to the university’s environment for the future. Not only will they have an email for life, which may useful to them, but there is an issue around IP, privacy Vs. connection and security against tearing down the walls. Another student wants fellow students to tweet all through lectures and then these tweets will be aggregated into their Virtual Learning Environment [VLE] to see what students thought were the most important aspects of the lecture. Now here I put my pedagogy hat on and wonder just how useful it is for students to twit all through the sessions? Are they really listening, interacting and participating? Will they learn more from the twits than the lecture notes- especially if the twits are not aggregated and selected for relevance by the tutor? In Biosciences a student is preparing a mashup for First Years with various scientific databases. The main idea is to make a student forum where bioscience students can discuss lectures, practicals, coursework, student life etc on a fun and informal basis. It will include views and opinions and gather feedback from upper year students whether work-related or based on student life that can be specific to course needs. Details of the modules, contacts of the module leaders and lecturer reviews will be included. Furthermore, module handbooks and specifications will be simplified down into key sections and key Youtube videos in difficult topics with a glossary as, for instance some pharmacology recommended book do not contain the meanings of important words. There would also be a section dedicated to careers for each of the modules, with key skills that are required and work experience places that may benefit others. Students or staff can contribute to this. <h3>Additional proposed applications</h3>PLACES OF INTERESTS: As a student studying at a campus, the student may be new to the area and not know the area very well. Therefore it would be useful to create an application that for searches places of interest around the campus. For example restaurants, shopping malls, post office, cinemas etc. it would include a feature where students can rate these places. The rating with then be displayed when the user searches for a particular place. This app could be used on a mobile device such as the iPhone and Google G1. MESSAGE ALERTS: An Application system that gives alerts to a mobile device about lectures/tutorials such as cancellations. It can also alert the students when new VLE content is uploaded. BOOK BEEPER: When taking out a book from the library, most students do not remember the date they have to bring it back. Therefore there should be a widget which acts as a beeper to notify the student that their library book is due/over due. This widget can be implemented on the main university account and can also be used on mobile devices. Yet another student is proposing a Gadget to Mash up the Google maps API and the information about news and events around campuses. Using the zooming interface of Google maps the access of the live feed would be easy and fun. Because of the overview and detail attributes location based information would be easy to display even on the small screens of mobile phones. Open classes, meetings, special events would have a journey time calculation in a similar manner as tubejp.co.uk provides such information. Yet more suggestions include: COLLEAGUE FINDER based on a delicious account. The gadget would support cross-campus collaboration by helping students find the right colleague for a specific project. Therefore student life would not be constrained by the distance between campuses. Using one's delicious tags students could find others with similar interests. The gadget could have a project proposal part too where people would advert open positions for group work. University library mashed with an AMAZON WISHLIST. Accessing one's Amazon wishlist the library could recommend books available now or in the future which are relevant to one's interests. Using the ratings attribute the gadget could make a list or comparisons of most popular and course relevant books. Mobile application for finding out the locations of the COMPUTERS THAT ARE NOT IN USE around the university. A web based USED BOOK auction system for university students to sell their used books and other academic materials. This will specially be helpful for the students, who have completed their final year and are going home. A data mashup such as BLOOMBERG’S MARKET DATA for each day mashup against university calendar especially helpful for the Westminster Business School Finance students TRANSLATION mashup which includes previous student experience with the subject and how to choose your optional modules based on the experience of previous students. Overcoming difficulties in Translation through providing links to Reliable Dictionaries including online dictionaries; Reliable sites that help in translation; personal glossaries ( a collection of terms and expression researched by previous students); Extra free courses related to translation such as Trados sessions, ECDL sessions, Extra language tuition available. A law student wants to make a visual spider-net of one chosen area of law (European Law). The first level would be the EU in general. The second level would be case law and the Third level would be directives, regulations and decisions. One thing we see clearly here is the sociotechnical imperative of user direction in terms of providing systems that work how they want them to work and when they want them to work, in operation. The project is, of course, specifically designed to permit users, in this case the university students, to do this. We also see that many, if not most, of these sites apps are being used to share implicit knowledge. They want to know the experiences of past students explicated for them to save them time and effort, but also to understand better their chosen topics. Variance control as advocated by Cherns in his seminal work and as applied to Knowledge Management in my book of 2002, is happening – the social systems of the students are deciding what these apps should be, how they should be ‘mashed up’ – put together, and who by - the person with the requisite knowledge and understanding of requirements. Truly a user-designed and user-programmed set of systems. We also see that information flow is happening as the garden walls are broken down and management are not permitted to interfere, checks and barriers are being broken down, with students being given the power and authority, with the responsibility, to decide what resources they need and when. The multifunctional principle with the organisation making sense of its environment through the use of its human and technological resources is at work here. It seems that through this tearing down of the walls the University of Westminster is truly looking to become a sociotechnical knowledge sharing [at least at the student level] organisation. We have yet to see, as the project progresses, just what the change imperative within the university, will make of this project and just how much the student experience will change as a result. About the author Dr. Elayne Coakes is senior lecturer and leader of the Organisational and Complexity Research Group at Westminster Business School. <a href="http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/business/staff/business-information-management-and-operations-bimo/coakes,-elayne">http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/business/staff/business-information-management-and-operations-bimo/coakes,-elayne </a>Project TWOLER <a href="http://twoler.net/wp/">http://twoler.net/wp/ </a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/TWOLER/62744966535">http://www.facebook.com/pages/TWOLER/62744966535</a>

2010-01-18T14:14:36+00:00

false 1219 innovation_blue.jpg true 2010/1/18/tearing-down-the-walls

social media education learning environments application development

Tearing Down the Walls

2010-01-19T12:02:23+00:00

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The truly exponential growth of social media at the dawn of the 21st century, led to an overwhelming wealth of content which shifted the future challenge of new media technologies from ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ to harnessing ‘the madness of the masses’. It is not a coincidence that crowd and content filtering as well as understanding the conversations and structuring of social networks have become of paramount importance to businesses and the marketing of their products.

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<h3>By Epaminondas Kapetanios</h3>In order to succeed in adding a virtual currency to the role of social media in contemporary society, many expectations turned to the pivotal role semantic technology has to play in monetising social media and in a more intelligent and accurate serving of the digital media community. Despite all these significant developments in semantic technology, many of the key challenges still remain. A fully automated extraction of a qualitative ontology, the cultural factors, linguistic nuances and contextualisation are some of the key challenges and research questions still open. The pivotal role of semantic systems and technologies has also been underlined by recently funded research programs at national and international level, which aim at reflecting and anchoring Collective Intelligence (CI) in symbol manipulation systems. This is due to the fact that Collective Intelligence, as the capacity of human collectives to engage in intellectual synergies in order to create, invent and innovate, is a determining factor in competitiveness and human development in a knowledge based economy or information economy. It is also due to the fact that current semantic systems fail to establish a healthy reflection of CI augmentation and digital networks. It is, therefore, not a coincidence that the topic of the augmentation of CI through digital networks is still an emerging research area as the extensive body of literature in knowledge management shows and the rise of the Web 2.0 or social computing attests, in spite of the more than 40 years since the foundation of the field by Douglas Engelbart (Augmenting Human Intellect, Stanford Research Institute, 1962). Moreover, according to some visionaries and intellects, the magic triangle CI-Semantic Systems-Social Media could trigger a next evolutionary step in humanity, which has its counterparts in the pivotal role the invention of phonetic and alphabetic writing system played in the transition from oral cultures myths, narratives and rituals based societies, or the pivotal role the invention of Indo-Arabic numerals , including notation by position and zero, has played in simplifying the Roman numerals and arithmetic, or the pivotal role the invention of the printing press has played in the development of standard scientific notation systems. To this extent, the research questions we are currently addressing are all located within this magic triangle. They aspire to contribute to some of the chronic issues undermining the pivotal role that new media knowledge could potentially play in the next evolutionary step in humanity. More specifically, we target research questions such as a fresh approach to complexity and scalability issues of semantic systems and reasoning, a better reflection of cultural, contextual and linguistic nuances, extraction of high quality ontology via Formal Concept Analysis, Web search and ontology metrics, search engine optimisation issues, semantic service computing. Our philosophy, however, is predominantly preoccupied with the merits of systems thinking and dynamics, which shed a new light into the evolutionary aspects of complex adaptive systems. The Web as well as any Social Network and new media knowledge are conceived as an evolving organism or ecosystem, the sustainable and healthy growth of which are subject to conditions or constraints as well as to cost-benefit models and equilibrium theories. <h3>The author</h3>Epaminondas is born in Athens where he studied Statistics and Informatics at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). Subsequently, he received his M.Sc. degree at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany, Faculty of Computer Science, Institute for Program Structures and Data Organisation, while focusing on the development of Information Systems and Database Technologies. He received his Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Information Systems, Dept. of Computer Science, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, where he designed and contributed in the implementation of an ontology driven, high level query language (MDDQL). In addition, he has designed, supervised, coordinated and implemented large scale software systems of practical importance and operational use in medical as well as atmospheric research application domains. Epaminondas is currently holding a position as a Senior Lecturer at the School of Computer Science, University of Westminster, London, UK. He is also co-leading the Centre for Information and Software Systems Engineering (CISSE) as a research group conducting high quality research in Semantic Computing with particular emphasis in Software, Data and Knowledge as well as Web Engineering with the aim of prototyping practical and scalable solutions for today’s challenges of the information society. His current research interests focus on Collective Intelligence and Digital Ecosystems with their implications on natural language based query languages, natural language processing frameworks, cross-lingual information retrieval, Web collaborative systems, Social Web and Web 2.0 technologies, as well as methodologies and metrics in software design and engineering. He is a member of ACM and has also gained entrepreneurial experience as co-founder of an ETH spin-off company. He has published around 40 articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences and serves on the editorial board as well as a regular reviewer for Journals on Science Citation Indexes. He has also been serving as General and PC chair of the NLDB 2008 and ACM Conference on Digital Ecosystems, respectively. See more on the author: <a href="http://www.uow-cisse.org">http://www.uow-cisse.org</a>

2010-01-06T14:41:48+00:00

false 1213 social_networks_purple.jpg true 2010/1/6/collective-intelligence-semantic-systems-and-social-media-the-bermuda-triangle

social media semantic paymentsforwebart

Collective Intelligence, Semantic Systems and Social Media: The Bermuda Triangle?

2010-01-06T14:44:28+00:00

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