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| 20th July 2007 |
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Prompt Communications Newsletter
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Dear Reader,
Welcome to another edition of the Prompt Communications newsletter. The computers we use in our offices and data-centres tend to evolve at a fairly meandering pace, and we rarely see great leaps of innovation that radically change our computing experience overnight. While you might not consider solid state hard drives to be a great leap of innovation, we think the move from conventional spindle-based hard drives to flash memory drives will have a more noticeable impact on our daily technology experience than any new hardware that's been introduced in recent years.
For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, social media and blogging consultancy, 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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Enterprise Technology Update
By Lance Concannon
Solid state disk drives for IBM blades
Techworld reports that IBM plans to start shipping blade servers equipped with solid state flash memory hard drives as of next month. Because flash drives have no moving parts they are considerably more reliable and quieter than conventional hard drives, they also consume less power and generate less heat, making them very appealing to data centre managers. The increased performance is a nice bonus too.
This relatively new technology is still at the thin end of the user adoption bell curve, and as such is still quite expensive. However, as adoption picks up, prices fall and performance improves further still, solid state disk drives should become much more widespread. In our opinion this is one of the most important developments in computing hardware for years, since convention hard drives represent a significant performance bottleneck for everything from high end servers to budget laptops.
Intel launches mobile Linux project
Intel, that company which makes all the microchips and stuff, has announced a plan to develop a Linux based open source software stack for mobile devices. By providing a central core of mobile Linux technologies, Intel hopes the project will become a "point of integration" for a range of different open source projects in this sector.
While this might sound somewhat geeky and uninteresting, the importance of the project is not to be underestimated. With Intel sponsoring a project of this nature, the stage is set for the open source community to develop all sorts of interesting new mobile technologies.
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Consumer Technology Update
By Dave Wilby
Just how broad is your band?
A new report conducted this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has revealed dramatic variations in the speed and pricing of broadband connectivity across 30 of the world's most developed countries. The report, which says 60% of Internet users in the countries surveyed are now on broadband, is a stark indication of how far ahead countries that switched to fibre networks earliest have now reached in broadband technology.
Japanese users typically use 100Mbps lines (10 times higher than the OECD average) at a cost of just 11p ($0.22) per megabit per second. The OECD claims that the cheapest megabit per second broadband connection available in the UK today is £1.81 ($3.62), while in the US it is $3.18 (£1.59). This report is part of more extensive annual research from the OECD Communications Outlook 2007.
Nintendo forced to withdraw yet another game for taunting 'spastics'
Unbelievably, Nintendo has once again had to take a high-profile game off shelves this week for using the word 'spastic'; the second time this has happened in just the last month. Mario Party 8, a multi-player Wii game, went on sale in the UK on Friday but was immediately ditched after the mistake was discovered. TimesOnline has revealed that in the game a blue wizard called Kamek appears on screen pleading: "Magikoopa Magic! Turn the train, spastic! Make this ticket tragic!".
The publications also detailed how earlier this month, MindQuiz, an Ubisoft developed 'brain-training' game for the Nintendo DS, was pulled because it branded players who achieved low scores 'spastics' and 'super-spastics'. Nintendo released a statement which said: "Unfortunately we have discovered that a small number of games contain the wrong version of the disk due to an assembly error. We have therefore decided to recall all copies of the game from UK retailers so that this mistake can be corrected."
Xbox honcho jumps ship to EA
Peter Moore, head of Microsoft's games business and a key figure behind the Xbox, has joined sports games specialist Electronic Arts on a mission to revive the flagging developer, reports CNET. Don Mattrick, a gaming exec that had also been tipped to take over at EA will now head up Microsoft's gaming operations. Moore's new task at EA will in essence be similar to the one he is leaving behind at Microsoft - catching up Nintendo and the Wii by making gaming more appealing to women, children, older people and groups not immediately associated with old-school video games.
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US Media Report
By Tarryn Morley
A verdict was finally reached in the trial of newspaper magnate, Conrad Black, this week. Black was convicted of obstruction of justice and three counts of mail fraud, but acquitted of nine other charges including wire fraud and racketeering. Sentencing has been set for November 30th.
The board of Dow Jones & Co. has approved News Corp.'s $5 billion bid for the company this week. The board's endorsement puts some pressure on the Bancroft family, which controls the majority voting power of Dow Jones, to accept Rupert Murdoch's offer. The family is set to meet on Monday and will have several days to consider the deal.
Network World's senior editor, Denise Pappalardo, has left the publication. She joined the weekly technology magazine in 2002 and has covered AT&T, MCI, international carrier services, ISPs, wireless services, frame relay and ATM.
Call Center Magazine will be published entirely online from August. The online publication's name will change to ICMI's Customer Management Insight. The revamped publication will have an expanded focus on global best practices and more balanced content. ICMI's Customer Management Insight will provide in-depth content on customer contact strategies,
operations, leadership, technology, and people management issues.
UK Media Report
By Tarryn Morley
Dennis Publishinghas relaunched the website for performance hardware magazine Custom PC magazine. The website, www.custompc.co.uk, is based around Wordpress blogging tools.
Visitors to the site can create their own Reader Blogs and Modding Project Blogs (Plogs), comment on articles, and can add their own product reviews.
Gaming magazine Develop has also overhauled its website. The website now offers regular features, tutorials, studio profiles, a "Job of the Week" slot, and breaking business news.
The landscape of men's magazines is set to change in the autumn with the launch of a free weekly magazine conceived by Mike Soutar, former editorial director of Time Warner's IPC Media. Soutar hopes the magazine, which is backed by high-profile magazine and business figures, will fill the gap in the market between downmarket titles like Nuts and Zoo and upmarket GQ. Roughly 500,000 copies will be distributed in London and five other UK cities.
City A.M., the free weekday business paper distributed in the City of London and Canary Wharf, has appointed Kam Patel as web editor. Patel was previously deputy editor of financial website Hemscott.com. He will begin work at City A.M. on July 26th.
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Marketing Update
By James Gerber
Mmm…sacrilicious
The Cerne Abbas giant has existed for over 300 years, and now he finally has a friend to keep him company: Next to the giant, a 180 foot image of Homer Simpson has recently appeared. The publicity team behind "The Simpsons" movie has taken outdoor advertising to a whole new level, while simultaneously angering British Pagans.
For the Pagans, this site is linked with fertility-dance rituals would promote childbirth and even today couples visit the site for the same reasons. The artist, according to ABC News, used biodegradable paint to create it. It is understandable that they would be angered, but Homer will wash away (hopefully after "The Simpsons" is out of movie theaters) and this will be another case of "no harm, no foul."
Google expands into print media
The Google Empire is increasing its reach into the traditional advertising space by increasing its effort to sell newspaper ads. Starting last November with the New York Times, Washington Post and around 50 publications total, Google has shown positive results. It is adding a tab to the accounts page of all AdWords subscribers with a print advertising option, and recently it has expanded to 225 newspapers, covering 50% of US circulation, according to AdWeek. The marketplace Google has created is targeted to smaller businesses, so it does not anticipate any conflict with newspaper ad sales departments.
Early results have shown advertisers that have been using online ads have either started using print or gone back to it. With the recent accelerating decline of newspaper ad sales, down 4.8% this year according to the Wall St. Journal, could this be a blossoming service that may help save print media? Or will it eventually doom them by cannibalizing newspaper ad revenue as more advertisers go through Google? My bet is that a lot of companies start placing ads through Google that would not have placed traditional ads before, and it will help print media a lot, especially benefiting niche publications.
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Web 2.0 Watch
By Lance Concannon
Long before phrases like 'social networking' and 'user generated content' started appearing in business plans, millions of people were already using the internet to network socially and share their own content with each other. Discussion forums might well sound a bit too Web 1.0beta for many people's tastes, but the simple truth is that even now they form the backbone of most online communities.
The recent story of a group of Lotus Espirit enthusiasts who secretly restored a 25 year old car in just five weeks while the owner, a regular contributor to their discussion forum, was recovering from a serious illness in hospital provides a perfect illustration of just how strong these communities can become.
It's easy to write this off as simply as case of some nice people doing a nice thing for somebody who was gravely ill. But consider the amount of time and money which was donated to complete the project, and bear in mind that a lot of these people had never even met the man personally, and it's clear that something deeper is at play here. The users of that discussion board had forged relationships with one another just as strong as they might with neighbours, colleagues and other people they come into contact with on a daily basis.
With forums being set up for almost every imaginable niche interest and the population becoming increasingly aux fait with the idea of chatting online, it's likely that no matter how low-tech they may seem in today's world, the popularity of discussion forums is going to continue booming for a long time.
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Best of the 'Net
By Lance Concannon
Feed the Head
Not feeling much like working on this stuffy Friday afternoon? We don't blame you. Why not kill half an hour with this bizarre and strangely addictive Flash toy? To begin with it might not seem like this little animated head is very interactive, but play around with it for a while and you'll gradually unlock more and more of its secrets. Once you've grown bored with it, you might like to give Vector Park a try too.
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Tech Toon
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