Welcome

Welcome to 2008, we hope it's a fun and prosperous year for you all. In our first newsletter of the year, we've got details of a new open source search engine project backed by the man behind Wikipedia, which promises to provide an interesting alternative to big commercial search engines.

We also bring sad news concerning the demise of Netscape Navigator, the historic web browser which gave many people their first experience of the web back in the nineties.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, why not take a look at our blog too?

Technology News

Update for MS Office blocks MS Office files
By Duncan Heaney

Here’s a little titbit for all you hard-working Microsoft Office users that you might find useful.

In December, Microsoft released Service Pack 3 for Office 2003. However, the update may be a cause of irritation for some users. The Register reports that this update is preventing access to some Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, and Word 2003 files. The update also blocks some Corel Draw formats.

Microsoft has explained that, “By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you." Although the default is to block to these files, Microsoft has provided a workaround that allows users access. It can be found here.

Wikipedia’s Wales takes on search engines
By Lance Concannon

Whenever I read a story about some new search engine start up that fancies itself as a ‘Google-killer’ I find myself overcome with an urge to laugh and laugh and laugh until I go into spasms. However, news that Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales is behind a new open source search engine project has got me interested in search technology again.

The aims of the Wikia Search Project are to build a search engine that is based on transparency and community involvement. This means that the algorithms which match up results to your search requests will be open and visible to all, in stark contrast to most leading search engines which keep their algorithms secret. On the one hand this means spammers will be able to exactly how the algorithms work and possibly exploit this knowledge. But another way of looking at it is that if the algorithm is open source, then it will benefit from the expertise of a vast community of developers and other contributors who will be able to find smart ways to fight spammers and improve the relevance of search results.

It’s going to be an interesting project to watch – an alpha version of the search engine is slated to be made public on January 9th. I think that by combining an open source philosophy with the clout of a high profile figure like Wales, there’s a good chance that something cool could happen here.

US Media News

By Tarryn Morley

US

William Kristol, a leading conservative writer, will become an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times. Kristol will write a weekly column for newspaper from January 7. He is also the editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard, an influential conservative political magazine, and appears regularly on Fox News Sunday and the Fox News Channel. Prior to joining The New York Times, Kristol was a columnist for Time magazine until his contract with magazine ended recently.

In further changes at Time, columnist Charles Krauthammer’s contract with the magazine has also expired. Like his former colleague William Kristol, Krauthammer is a well known conservative writer. He is also a columnist at The Washington Post and a panellist for ABC's Inside Washington.

The Cincinnati Post and the Kentucky Post both printed their final editions on Monday, December 31, 2007, ending 126 years of service in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky communities for the afternoon newspapers. The Kentucky Post will continue to exist in some form on kypost.com from January 1, 2008. The site will share content with the Cincinnati TV station WCPO-TV and its Web site. Kentucky Post veteran Kerry Duke will be managing editor of kypost.com, which will also have a full-time reporter.

UK Media News

By Tarryn Morley

UK

Former Sunday Telegraph financial correspondent Iain Dey will join The Sunday Times as senior business reporter this month. In his new role, Dey will cover financial services and energy.

There have been several recent changes at T3.co.uk. Deputy editor James Holland is leaving, former staff writer Joe Minihane is now news writer, and Rhiain Morgan has joined the publication as staff writer. The gadget website has also changed its name and web address from T3.co.uk to T3.com.

Metro, a free national daily newspaper, is launching two innovative user-generated content websites this year that will give users a share of advertising profits they generate. MEview, a video hosting service, and MEmusic, a music sharing service, will both be hosted online on metro.co.uk and on a new mobile phone platform. MEview users who upload video content will have the option of watching a selection of 10 to 15 second advertising clips and will be paid a set rate per thousand views. Music tracks on MEview will cost 79p to download, of which the owner receives 70 per cent, but users can listen to tracks for free.

Google to target UK newspapers?
By Sean McManus

Google is in talks to bring its newspaper ad brokering service to the UK, according to The Times. Google Print Ads acts as an intermediary between advertisers and newspapers and is already serving 600 publications in the US. Like the website advertising network Google Adwords, Google Print Ads provides advertisers with one place where they can reach a wide range of publishers, chosen according to the demographic required for the campaign.

Using Google Print Ads, advertisers can find a publication and make an offer for its ad space. The publication has the choice to accept or reject the bid or to negotiate up. This could prove a valuable way for smaller publications to sell excess inventory and to bring new advertisers in.

Rival media companies (that’s what Google is now, apparently) are grumbling about Google becoming too powerful. They would do well to remember that this opportunity wouldn’t exist if they’d done something first. After all, it is ten years since business discovered the internet, and most of the UK’s media companies existed for decades before that.

AJAX tools market still immature, survey finds
By Sean McManus

No tool has yet emerged as a long term leader in the market for AJAX development tools, according to the third annual survey by Ajaxian.com. AJAX is a set of web technologies that enables parts of a webpage to be updated without the whole page refreshing. AJAX development tools provide code that developers can use for common tasks, taking the repetition out of programming and simplifying development.

Leading toolkit Prototype (used by 34% of respondents) and the popular Script.aculo.us (used by 22%) are the only two to maintain a lead over three years. They face stiff competition: this year’s study named 241 toolkits, and the survey’s history shows that newcomers rise fast and established toolkits can quickly lose ground. With so many free toolkits available, there are few commercial offerings. It’s anybody’s guess which toolkit will be top next year. Perhaps the 13% who slog through their AJAX coding without using development tools aren’t so mad after all: they can at least be confident that their code will be supportable in years to come.

Netscape Navigator no more
By Duncan Heaney

Ladies and gentlemen, would bow your heads please. Let us all spare a thought for Netscape Navigator, for it will soon be no more. MSN is reporting that AOL has made the decision to remove development and technical support for the once pioneering web browser.

Netscape Navigator was released in 1994 and very quickly became the browser of choice for early internet users. These golden years did not last very long for Netscape, however. When Microsoft started to include Internet Explorer into their Windows operating systems, sales of Navigator slumped. Despite Netscape dropping fees for the browser, MS Internet Explorer remained the dominant browser for PC users. In 1999, Netscape was sold to AOL for $10 million, but despite a number of attempts to revive the browser, the company has been unsuccessful in gaining market share from Internet Explorer.

Netscape originally initiated the open-source project, Mozilla. The web browser Mozilla Firefox is currently the second-most popular web browser worldwide, further decreasing Navigator’s market share.

Netscape Navigator will still be available to download, but since there will be no updates or support, the company recommends that users download the latest version of Firefox instead.

Bebo is best
By Lance Concannon

According to Computing Which?, a technology magazine published by a major British consumer association, Bebo is the best social networking service. Judged by a panel of experts, Bebo scored an overall of 79% compared to chief rival Facebook’s 74%, while Yahoo Groups achieved the lowest score in the test of just 59%. The services were judged on a number of qualities, including ease of use and security. Tellingly, Facebook seems to have lost points because it’s security settings can be confusing and the researchers found no easy way to permanently delete an account. I doubt the team at Facebook will be losing too much sleep though, since the service is wildly successful in comparison to most of its rivals, and that doesn’t look likely to change any time soon.

Website of the week

By Sean McManus

How well do you know your world?

In this game, you’re given the name of capital cities or famous landmarks, and just have to point to them on a map. Easy, eh? They’re all places you’ve heard of. The problem is that many of them are ‘heard of it, no idea where it is’ places.

Some of the challenge is in the interface: you’ll be doing well to get closer than 80km away on a map of this scale. But on the upside, if you’re trying to find a city in a smaller country, you’ll get reasonably near if you at least get the country right. Sadly, that’s not always as easy as it should be…

We hope you find the Prompt Communications newsletter an interesting read. For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, social media/blogging initiatives, copywriting or surveys, please contact us using the details below. We are always delighted to hear from you.