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| 16th February 2007 |
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Prompt Communications Newsletter
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Dear Reader,
The web just keeps on getting more interesting. The recent launch of Yahoo Pipes (see web site of the week below) is a perfect demonstration of the new wave of ingenuity that's swept across the web of late. Call it Web 2.0, or whatever you like, but there's no doubting that for all of the incredible innovation that's taken place to get us where we are today, the web is still very much in its infancy and there are extremely interesting times ahead of us.
For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, copywriting or surveys, please email me at hbutters@prompt-communications.com. We are always delighted to hear from you.
Best regards,
Hazel Butters
Prompt Communications
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Technology Update
By Sean McManus
Google loses landmark Belgian copyright case
Google has lost a landmark copyright case in Belgium, which found that the search engine should not have used snippets from news sites and linked directly to stories. The newspaper publishers, through their group body Copiepresse, claimed that they lost advertising revenue when readers jumped straight into stories, bypassing some of their adverts.
It's not clear how many visitors - and how much advertising revenue - Belgian publishers will lose now their sites have been dropped from Google News. They could find it hard to promote their websites online if they're not prepared to allow short citations to be used with links. Bloomberg.com argues that the case sets a precedent for future cases in Europe. Copiepresse is going after Yahoo next.
Nationwide fined for losing 11 million customer records
The UK's Nationwide Building Society has been fined £980,000 for losing a laptop that had the details of 11 million customers on it. That sets the going rate for leaking personal data at about 9 pence per customer, which isn't much. The chief exec of Nationwide wrote to all customers by way of apology, offering lots of tips for preventing identity theft but failing to explain why the building society did not encrypt all its customer data.
Nationwide is a mutual building society, owned by its members, so this fine seems to punish customers who have already suffered the risk of their data being abused. It would have been much more effective if the Financial Services Authority had forced the building society to spend the money on encryption software for its laptops.
EU bans misleading self-promotion
Businesses that post fake reviews of their products and services will be outlawed by the EU Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices, due to take effect this year in the UK. Authors writing about their books on Amazon and hotels plugging themselves on travel portals will break the law if they don't disclose their interest in the product or service. It remains to be seen whether this law can be enforced online.
In a separate development, the European Commission has proposed that businesses selling online should comply with the laws in each of the 27 EU states. The UK Federation of Small Businesses says this will force many small firms to stop publishing prices and product information online. It's predicting a return to the 'dark ages'.
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Marketing Update
By Elissa Fry, Sally Forge and Lisa Facinelli
Revenue triples for MySpace
News Corporation, owner of MySpace said that the revenue for the website for the fiscal first quarter ending in September had tripled compared to the previous year.
During a conference call held by News Corporation last Wednesday to update analysts about the group's financial position, the group said it expected Fox Interactive Media to be profitable in 2008. CNN also reported that while Fox is currently in the fourth place behind every other major broadcast network in the US, the new season of "American Idol" starting soon could put it in a better position.
Humans are the new X factor
Sometimes it seems like electronic products are made by technology experts for technology experts. However, product creators, in a bid to produce something that will sell, are considering what is now being referred to as the human factor. This means that design and usability for the consumer must be factored in with functionality.
The growing field of human computer interaction has expanded from NASA scientists to Google staff and university programmes. CNET news even attributes the success of iPod, TiVo and YouTube to user friendly design and simplicity. At this rate, consumers can look forward to less time spent reading manuals and more time using the actual product.
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US Media Report
By Kay Wilson
There's trouble at the Tribune Co. as directors decide the fate of the second largest newspaper publisher in the US.
Despite offers from major shareholders and billionaires, rumour has it that The Tribune may retain its heritage and concentrate all efforts on its newspapers such as Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, while spinning off its 23 television stations. The 160 year old Tribune attributes its financial problems to a fall in advertising sales and the loss of many of its readers to the internet.
The Tribune's future will no doubt be up for discussion in the rest of the media, but with the proposed launch of the new Fox Business Channel towards the end of the year, the major financial channels CNBC and CNN may be too busy watching their own backs.
Changes in the media job market this week include ABC News correspondents Taina Hernandez and Ryan Owens being named as hosts of America This Morning and World News Now.
Both have contributed to various ABC News programmes including Good Morning America in the past. News organisation Associated Press has added Jessie Alderman to its Boston bureau as a news reporter. Alderman was previously reporter on education for AP in Idaho.
An internet security blog has been launched by former e-Week senior writer Ryan Naraine. The blog named "Zero Day" will cover such threats as viruses, data theft and worms.
UK Media Report
By Annie Kasmai
Ross Brown has left his position as editor of FHM at Emap. He will not be replaced in that role but Anthony Noguera, editor in chief of Arena and Zoo will have his role expanded to include FHM.
Times Newspapers posted pre-tax losses of £80 million for 2006, much of which can be accounted for by redundancy payments after the company upgraded its printing presses. The company hopes to save £40 million per year after the redundancies are complete.
The Mirror has overhauled its online presence to provide readers with a much more modern offering, including embedded video clips. Expect rival newspapers to follow this trend very soon.
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Consumer Technology Update
By Dave Wilby
Mobile telephony a load of hot air and proud of it
After years of relentless technological progress with barely a thought for the environmental consequences, mobile telephony has this week taken its first step towards a greener future. A combination of wind-power and solar energy will soon drive a mobile phone base station in Namibia, following a pilot scheme led by Motorola and partner MTC Namibia in a very similar environment - Swindon.
The set-up sounds just a tad Heath Robinson, with a combination of a single wind turbine and six solar panels set to power a mobile grid for up to two million Namibian mobile customers, according to the BBC. However, who could argue that this approach could be the best communications solution for largely rural countries with limited financial resources and infrastructure, but plenty of wind and sun?
Pretender to World of Warcraft's throne also eats its own children
There's a new MMORPG on the block this week (well, on the estate at least, we're talking UK release here) and it is called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Raaaah! Kill! Quest! Err… weave a basket! Hailed for a couple of years now as the next-generation online fantasy game to supersede World of Warcraft, it's actually more evolution than revolution, although it does look damn fine.
We don't quite understand the strategy of developer Sigil Games Online and publisher Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), however. Vanguard may have the graphics and fresh collaborative gaming style to steal some of Warcraft's eight million adventurers away, but by sticking to the same old fantasy world of dwarves and elves going on quests, surely it will actually recruit existing customers already playing its own core titles Everquest and Everquest II?
What was hot for consumers at this year's 3GSM?
Mobile phones that's what - slim, powerful, fast, feature-packed ones in all shapes and sizes running across different networks, operating a variety of technologies and marketed for a wide range of applications. Super 3G (or HSDPA) is driving all this development, boasting 3.6Mbps bandwidth in the UK by the summer and maybe even 7.2Mbps by the end of the year. Super 3G of course means mobile television, perfect eye candy for the 3GSM 2007 big stage demos.
The best Super 3G handsets we found included toys from BenQ-Siemens, Samsung, and NEC DoCoMo. Expect these to accompany HSDPA upgraded business PDAs as OEMs from UK mobile operators Vodafone, Orange and 02. So no holographic ninjas or cybernetic pirates we're afraid, although WowWee did have lots of robots on show, including some that could fly...
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Web 2.0 Watch
By Fiona Blamey
'I saw your face in a crowded place, and I don't know what to do,' whined squaddie-turned-pop-star James Blunt in the inexplicably popular 'You're Beautiful'.
Oh, James. Did no one tell you about MySpace? As this San Francisco Chronicle article notes, Web 2.0 has somewhat altered the playing field regarding affairs of the heart.
It would only have required a little light stalking on Blunt's part to find out the girl's name. A quick Google search might turn up her MySpace page, which would inform him of her likes and dislikes and who she likes to hang out with.
Assuming she's a classy chick, her MySpace page might link to a proper blog, perhaps written with Blogger or LiveJournal. Here the hapless James could find out what she eats for breakfast, what she watched on telly last night, and what her cats look like. He might scour her Flickr stream for photos of her laughing in sun-dappled meadows, and check out her last.fm profile to see what music she's listening to right now.
(Hopefully not his!, you cry, sensibly.)
Having absorbed months or even years of her personal history, our hero might start to engage the young lady in conversation via witty, delicately flattering blog comments. After a suitably decorous period, he might email her at the address in her sidebar. At length they might move to instant messaging, for hours of un-chaperoned flirting.
After weeks or months, they might arrange to meet up to see if they like each other in real life. She might no longer be quite such a mysterious angel, but there might be half a chance of it leading to something meaningful. And half a chance that Blunt might not inflict any more icky lovesick maunderings on the music-buying public. Which, frankly, would be for the best.
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Best of the 'Net
By Sean McManus
Yahoo Pipes
Instead of visiting websites to see what's changed, you can often subscribe to an update feed in the RSS format. You can then go to a site like Google Reader, to read all your update feeds in one place. RSS feeds are most often associated with news sites and blogs, but they are also created by websites that manage structured data, like Ebay and Flickr.
Now an 'RSS Remixer' has been launched by Yahoo that enables you to mash up RSS feeds from different sites using a simple visual interface. You could merge feeds from different newspapers and filter out everything except transport stories, if that's what you're interested in, for example. With the ability to accept user input, sort data, perform machine translations, extract locations, and much more, it's a powerful tool. There are some cool examples already, but it will take a while for people to unleash its full potential. If you want to remix RSS feeds for yourself, there's a nice tutorial here.
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Tech Toon
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