Technology News

By Dave Wilby

Experts call for independent review of NHS IT upgrade

A group of senior academics has written to the government questioning the proposed £6.2bn upgrade of the NHS IT system and calling for leading computer scientists to check whether the plans are really good enough. According to Computer Weekly, the 23 top academics claim the ‘National Programme for IT’ may not have been designed or tested rigorously enough to cope with the escalating demands of our growing 24-hour health care network. The ten-year IT programme is aimed at linking more than 30,000 GPs in England to nearly 300 hospitals by 2012, and will employ an online booking system, centralised medical records, and e-prescriptions for up to 50m patients. According to the BBC, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health responded to the claims saying: "The National Programme for IT is under constant review, scrutiny and audit by parliament and government bodies. It is a robust and resilient programme of health care IT delivery in the NHS."

High street phone company launches ‘free’ broadband service

Phone firm Carphone Warehouse has finally launched its ‘free’ broadband service; a combined voice call and internet package that it claims will cut household bills across 70 per cent of the UK by up to 60 per cent. Customers that pay £20.99 per month for the phone operators' TalkTalk service will now be able to make unlimited local, national and international calls to 38 countries from their home phone, and benefit from a bundled broadband access package. As part of the agreement, TalkTalk customers will no longer have to pay BT's line rental charge, but will have to pay a one-off connection fee of £29.99. Carphone Warehouse claims it will make a loss of £50m on the business in 2006, but hopes to have paid off start-up costs of £110m and started turning a £40m profit by 2008. Carphone Warehouse currently has 2.6 million residential voice customers and is aiming for 3.5 million by March 2009, with half of those of using it for internet access.

Page 3 is the limit for majority of search engine users

Most search engine users expect to follow links from the first page of results they are given, and will click through a maximum of three results pages before giving up, a new survey from analyst firm Jupiter Research and marketing company iProspect reveals. The research which surveyed 2,369 people from a US online consumer panel also found that 41 per cent of consumers changed engines or their search term if they did not find what they were searching for on the first page, further underlining the importance of that coveted top ten search ranking.

Digital TV switch will take many by surprise

A worryingly low percentage of the UK public is aware of the upcoming switchover to digital TV, a survey by Which? reports. The consumer group surveyed 1,952 UK adults and discovered that 38 per cent had no idea about the government's plans to switch off their analogue signal, with only seven per cent aware the switchover was planned to be complete by 2012. The report also found that half the people surveyed didn’t realise they would need a set-top box, satellite dish, cable or broadband connection to receive programming once the analogue signal was disconnected. Sixty per cent believed it was wrong to enforce the change, while as many as nine per cent of respondents said they would rather give up television altogether than make the switch. Digital UK, a body set up by the TV industry to oversee the switchover, confirmed that a £200m public information campaign would be launched in May, with much of the money going to retailers, manufacturers, charities and consumer groups to build awareness.

Google unearths new search technology genius; connects San Francisco

A student at the University of New South Wales in Australia who has developed a better way of searching data has been snapped up by Google ahead of rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft, according to ZDNet. Ori Allon, a 26-year-old student, has developed a new search algorithm that should make responses to searches more relevant and display more detail, according to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald. Google has apparently signed up Israeli Allon and his embryonic algorithm named ‘Orion’, while donating an undisclosed sum to the lucky University. Orion will send search engine users expanded text extracts from the pages that it delivers, rather than just links to these pages, saving users the trouble of clicking on multiple pages to see if they contain the desired information.

In other Google news, the company is going to provide free Wi-Fi access across the city of San Francisco, after fighting off competition from five other bidders. It plans to use the network to locate users and push them advertising from local businesses, subsidising costs. Google has partnered with ISP Earthlink but has yet to sign off the deal with the city of San Francisco.

Marketing News

By Dave Wilby

Monster review of European marketing

Online recruitment outfit Monster is looking to reposition itself in Europe, and is currently reviewing all European creative accounts, including the UK operation run by über-agency Leo Burnett. Monster has also been busy buying rival recruitment sites of late. It had total revenues of over £150m in the fourth quarter of 2005, with Europe accounting for most of Monster's overseas sales.

RHM hires Code for online brand push

RHM Foods, the parent company that owns well known household brands including Bisto, Paxo and Mr Kipling, has decided to focus more on online advertising. It has appointed Code as its first online marketing agency. The Manchester firm will be responsible for web design, digital strategy and advertising across the RHM portfolio.

Competition for free London Evening Standard rival hots up

It won’t come as any particular surprise to anyone that Associated Newspapers is now the hot favourite to snap-up the distribution rights for London's imminent free evening newspaper. The publisher of the 40p Evening Standard and free Metro papers is looking to secure the tender from Transport for London, and was quick to register its interest this week in the distribution rights for the proposed title. If successful, Associated Newspapers would have to forgo it exclusive daytime distribution deal with TfL for its Metro title, but would retain its evening monopoly in London. Rivals for the tender include Northern & Shell, News International and Trinity Mirror.

Media Update

By Annie Kasmai

The Evening Standard has appointed Mike Rowley as digital classifieds director. In this new role Rowley will extend the cross selling advertising package for print and online products to include jobs, property, travel, motors, business to consumer and consumer sections. In addition, Rowley will also be managing advertising on educateLondon.co.uk, the newspaper’s new education website offering a course listing guide. Further digital developments for the newspaper could include a review of its arts and entertainment offering with a view again to integrating online and offline brands.

Andrew Murray-Watson the Sunday Telegraph city correspondent now covers the following sectors: media, telecoms, technology, the business of sport, and M&A. Sylvia Pfeifer, the deputy city editor now covers utilities.

Gordon Smith, FT.com’s deputy companies editor has joined the UK companies desk as assistant UK companies editor with the responsibility of commissioning the smaller companies page. Smith has particular interest in any non-FTSE 350 and AIM- listed stories. Meanwhile, financial correspondent Andrew Parker returned to London from New York as telecoms editor on Monday, and Mark Odell who is currently the telecoms correspondent is set to move to the UK companies desk where he will cover engineering.

The Wall Street Journal Europe has appointed Alistair MacDonald as a reporter focusing on key hedge funds, European markets, exchanges and regulation sectors. MacDonald has replaced David Reilly who has moved to New York. MacDonald will report to Paul Beckett, who is the journal’s London bureau chief and European finance and markets editor.

Prompt Guide to Corporate Doublespeak

By Lance Concannon

Revolutionise

Words like 'revolutionary' and 'revolutionise' get bandied around far too often in marketing departments. This is because "Revolutionary New Technology!" sounds a lot better than "Almost Exactly the Same as the Old Technology, but with Most of the Bugs Fixed this Time!" when you're coming up with a catchy marketing slogan for your latest product.

In any event, you'd think senior executives would want to avoid over-using this particular word, since the whole concept of a revolution usually involves incompetent leaders suddenly finding themselves being offered a final cigarette and a blindfold. It's never wise to put those sort of ideas in people's heads.