Internet Changes Everything

We are all edge cases

I think Scoble is taking this personally! But this is something he should be proud of, and shrug off. It reminds me of the "geek' moniker in the 1999 timeframe when at first geeks were to be laughed at, but subsequently to be admired because of heir salary.

Relax Robert!

Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » More on edge cases

Really, I sensed a tone of “don’t listen to Scoble cause he’s a weirdo.”

January 29, 2006 at 01:58 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (70) | Top of page | Blog Home

A Generation Serves Notice: It's a Moving Target

A Generation Serves Notice: It's a Moving Target - New York Times

By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: January 22, 2006

JOE HANSON, 22, of Chicago likes to watch television, but rarely on his TV. A folder on his computer lists an inventory of downloaded cable and network programming - the kind of thing that makes traditional media executives shudder.

"I've got 'Ali G,' 'Arrested Development,' 'Scrubs,' 'The Sopranos,' " Mr. Hanson told a visitor recently at his apartment on the city's Southwest Side. " 'South Park,' 'The Office,' some 'Family Guy.' "

From the avalanche of Nintendo games alongside his TV to his very roommate - acquired through the online classified site Craigslist - Mr. Hanson channels the characteristics of a generation weaned on digital technology and media convergence.

He is an avid gamer. He tinkers comfortably with digital media - from creating Web sites and blogs to mixing his own hip-hop music files - and like most people his age, he has nearly constant access to his friends through instant messaging.

In addition to thumbing his nose at notions of "prime time" by downloading his favorite shows (without commercials), Mr. Hanson almost never buys newspapers or magazines, getting nearly all of his information from the Internet, or from his network of electronic contacts.

"Papers are so clunky and big," he says. If those words are alarming to old media, they are only the beginning of a larger puzzle for today's marketers: how to make digital technology their ally as they try to understand and reach an emerging generation.

The eldest of the millennials, as those born between 1980 and 2000 are sometimes called, are now in their early to mid-20's. By 2010, they will outnumber both baby boomers and Gen-X'ers among those 18 to 49 - the crucial consumers for all kinds of businesses, from automakers and clothing companies to Hollywood, record labels and the news media.

The number of vehicles through which young people find entertainment and information (and one another) makes them a moving target for anyone hoping to capture their attention.

Advertisers and media and technology companies, mindful that young consumers have migrated away from the traditional carriers of their messages, have begun to find new ways to reach them. They are creating advertising and short videos for mobile phones, for instance, cell networks with dedicated game channels, and $1.99 TV programs to download to iPods and PC's.

And while the emerging generation's deftness with technology is a given, researchers say the most potent byproduct may be the feedback factor, which only accelerates the cycles of what's hot and what's over.

"We think that the single largest differentiator in this generation from previous generations is the social network that is people's lives, the part of it that technology enables," said Jack McKenzie, a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates, a market research and consulting firm specializing in the news media and entertainment industries.

"What's hard to measure, and what we're trying to measure," Mr. McKenzie continued, "is the impact of groupthink, of group mentality, and the tendency of what we might call the democratization of social interaction and how that changes this generation's relationship with almost everything they come in contact with."

For Mr. Hanson, even his new job is an Internet-based, media-intensive labor informed by feedback.

Mr. Hanson, who earlier took time off before earning his English degree at the University of Chicago to appear as a contestant in a reality TV show ("Beauty and the Geek"), left his ad agency internship last month to become a writer and producer at Current TV, Al Gore's media-converging experiment.

Before being hired, Mr. Hanson and Hassan Ali, a 20-year-old junior studying economics at the University of Chicago, were already submitting their own digital video shorts to Current TV, which allows Web audiences to vote content up the ranks at www.current.tv and, if it becomes popular enough, onto its cable television rotation.

Their signature series of jittery "Joe Gets" films, in which the white, diminutive and blond Mr. Hanson might, for instance, get a haircut in a predominantly black Chicago barbershop ("Joe Gets Cut"), were voted regularly into the TV rotation - so often that both Mr. Hanson and Mr. Ali were offered jobs.

"This was great!" wrote one visitor to their Current TV Web page. "I deff. feel you on this one, being a white guy who also gets his hair cut at a black barber shop. Convos are way more entertaining. ... Plus you can't beat the crispy fades!" Mr. Hanson and Mr. Ali had reached out to their peers, and their peers had spoken.

Other titles produced by Mr. Hanson and Mr. Ali include "Joe Gets Inked" (a tattoo) and "Joe Gets Bent" (yoga). "Joe Gets Slammed," in which Mr. Hanson attends a professional wrestling school, is expected to be shown soon online and on television.

At the Digital Edge

Karell Roxas, 24, a senior editor at Gurl.com, begins each day in her Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment with a diet of Gmail, Hotmail, work e-mail, NYTimes.com ("I haven't picked up a print newspaper in forever," she says) and blogs, in that order. She says it is a necessary regimen for maintaining a functional dialogue both at work and in her circle of friends.

Ms. Roxas, who grew up in Ontario, Calif., and earned a fine-arts degree in writing from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, says text messaging by cellphone is the default mode of communication for her set, surpassing e-mail, instant messaging or even talking on the phone itself.

It is all in keeping with recent research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which has found that while certain aspects of online life have become common across many age groups, it is the millennials who live at the digital edge.

Among those with access to the Internet, for instance, e-mail services are as likely to be used by teenagers (89 percent) as by retirees (90 percent), according to Pew researchers. Creating a blog is another matter. Roughly 40 percent of teenage and 20-something Internet users do so, but just 9 percent of 30-somethings. Nearly 80 percent of online teenagers and adults 28 and younger report regularly visiting blogs, compared with just 30 percent of adults 29 to 40. About 44 percent of that older group sends text messages by cellphone, compared with 60 percent of the younger group.

And as the millennials diverge from their elders in their media choices, so do the ways in which they can be reached and influenced.

The preceding generation may have thought that e-mail, newsgroups, Web forums and even online chats accelerated the word-of-mouth phenomenon. They did. But they are nothing compared with the always-live electronic dialogue among millions of teenagers and 20-somethings.

"What we're seeing is a whole different relationship with marketing and advertising which obviously has ripple effects through the entire economy," said Mr. McKenzie, who heads the Magid firm's Millennials Strategy Group, formed two years ago to serve clients desperate to know how to reach a new generation.

For the millennials, he said, "reliance and trust in nontraditional sources - meaning everyday people, their friends, their networks, the network they've created around them - has a much greater influence on their behaviors than traditional advertising."

Magid calls it the peer-to-group phenomenon - a digital-age manifestation of the grapevine.

"When someone wants to share it, forward it, record it, take a picture of it, whatever the case may be, that puts it into a form of currency," Mr. McKenzie said. "And when marketing gets to a level of currency, then it has achieved nirvana status."

And, he added, that status has "much more influence on the acceptance of television shows, or radio shows, or iPod offerings or jeans or whatever the case may be."

Some researchers, like Dr. Melvin D. Levine, director of the Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, have expressed concerns about the group-mentality dynamics that the Internet and the instant-message age may be fostering.

"You've got a group of kids who are unbelievably, incredibly loyal to each other," Dr. Levine said. "They are very bound to ethics and values. But in a funny sort of way, it prevents some of them from developing as individuals." Along with finding technological dexterity in this group, and a highly developed ability to work in team settings, Dr. Levine said he had encountered concerns that some young people lacked the ability to think and plan for the long term, that they withered without immediate feedback and that the machinery of groupthink had bred a generation flush with loyal comrades but potentially weak on leaders.

Ms. Roxas would wholeheartedly disagree. Working at Gurl.com, she says that it is all too common for older people to dismiss the "MTV generation" as lacking concentration and wherewithal, as being team-oriented but bereft of individual ideas, and as being hopelessly addicted to the hive.

The relentless multitasking and interactivity are "just a different way of doing things," Ms. Roxas said, recalling that even as an undergraduate she would often seek help and counsel among her peers through instant messages on her computer. "I actually got more done that way," she said, "and I always knew when to sign off and get my work done.

"It's no different than eating and watching TV at the same time."

But when asked if she might ever be able to really disconnect for a while, Ms. Roxas paused and then laughed at herself. To really unplug, while an attractive idea in theory, she said, would be to risk being swept aside by a virtual torrent of information - or, worse, being forgotten.

"Say, if I haven't read what's going on every day, things are so interconnected, you might not know what everyone's talking about," she said.

"It's like, if you don't check your e-mail and you turn off your phone, it's almost like you don't exist."

Media on the Go

That existential quandary is giving marketers, media and technology companies and Hollywood some potential openings to reach young adults.

Marketers, for instance, have signaled a broad desire to bring television-style advertising to cellphones. As early as March, a limited number of Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel customers may begin seeing short video ads on their phones, in a test of consumer tolerance for the idea.

And two weeks ago, the cellphone start-up Amp'd Mobile announced a partnership with Electronic Arts, the world's largest maker of video games, aimed at bringing more than a dozen Electronic Arts-brand games to Amp'd cellphones.

The television and film industries, like the recording industry before them, are slowly recognizing that consumers - particularly young ones like Mr. Hanson - want to watch on their own schedules, in a variety of formats, and at a low price.

Clearly, if the market doesn't find ways to make programming simple, inexpensive and legal to download, millennials will continue to find solutions for themselves.

"Downloading is the poor man's TiVo," Mr. Hanson said in e-mail message, adding, though, that if he likes a show he generally goes out and buys it on DVD.

As if heeding the call, ABC, NBC and cable networks have found a new outlet by striking deals that make television shows available for $1.99 a download on Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, for playback on the new video-capable iPod or on a personal computer. Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said this month that the company had sold eight million videos and television shows online since October.

Still, such convergence is in its infancy. And aside from CBS's reported plans for a short "mobisoap" video drama, written exclusively for delivery on cellphones, original content for platforms other than television is rarer still.

But the writing is even on Hollywood's wall.

In November, as if to nudge the entire industry, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences rather hurriedly introduced a new Emmy award for "outstanding content distributed via nontraditional delivery platforms."

"Consumers have the capability of seeing television anywhere, anytime," said Peter Price, the president of the academy, in announcing the new award. "And as the technology continues to develop, it will be content - news, sports and entertainment programming - that drives consumer demand."

Millennials in Action

Wen-Wen Lam, 23, a marketing representative at LinkedIn.com, a professional networking site, said a colleague was bewildered by her decision not to take her laptop home one evening. "He said, 'But how are you going to talk to people?' " Ms. Lam recalled.

She rolled her eyes at the thought of people unable to cut the electronic umbilical cord and added that an average day of 8 to 10 hours of time spent online is "quite enough."

The T-shirt worn by one of her roommates, Diane Cichelli, calls out in agreement. "Ctrl, alt, delete," it reads, for the keystrokes typically used to reboot a PC - and also known as "the three-fingered salute," Ms. Cichelli said.

Ms. Cichelli, 24, and Ms. Lam have been friends since they were 13. They now share an apartment, along with a third roommate, in the upscale Pacific Heights section of San Francisco. Scattered about the living room and bedrooms are the indispensable totems of modern technological privilege: I.B.M. laptops, pink iPods, multiple flat-screen televisions and Ms. Cichelli's Treo 650, a combination cellphone and palmtop.

Indeed, the pair are cut from a marketer's millennial script. They are not fashioning careers as filmmakers or digital artists, but they are comfortable around digital media. They maintain blogs and create Web sites of their own. They download music and share short videos online. They watch their share of cable and network television, though rarely when it is scheduled, slipping to a neighbor's apartment to enjoy the liberating effects of TiVo.

They are avid blog consumers. They read celebrity gossip blogs like Defamer and PopSugar and shopping and travel blogs like Luxist and DailyCandy. And they learn of new sites through the tide of instant messages flowing into the pockets and onto the laptop screens of millions of young adults every minute of the day.

But popularity is often fleeting, and some of today's hot Web sites can quickly give way to others, further underscoring the challenge for marketers.

"The period of rapid change we've been experiencing, it's just been that much more dramatic," said Vicki Cohen, a senior vice president at Magid and one of the leaders on its millennial strategy team. "I mean every time you turn around there's something new on the horizon. And this group, as we've been noticing, is kind of the arbiter, quickly determining whether things are hot or not.

"And it's much more accelerated," Ms. Cohen added. "With the technology, the Internet - in terms of being able to facilitate the social networking, which is a big part of this younger group - there's just so much ability to quickly transfer information."

Near the end of the evening in Pacific Heights, Ms. Cichelli volunteers that she finds voice mail a wearisome time consumer.

"Why do I need to invest three minutes of my life listening to a message," she says, when she can just "ping" someone with an instant message or an e-mail message?

"Ping," as a computer term, seems to go back some distance. Does she know its linguistic derivation?

Ms. Cichelli speculates that it came from the game Ping-Pong and was applied to high-tech communication because people send notes back and forth.

"Let's Google it," Ms. Cichelli says.

"I love Google," Ms. Lam says.

The answer appears almost instantly: in computer jargon, "ping" was most likely borrowed from submarine technology and the sound that sonar makes when seeking its reflection points.

No one is surprised. The answer had already been suggested by Ms. Cichelli's friend in Albany, with whom she had been text-messaging throughout much of the night.

David Bernstein and Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting for this article.

January 22, 2006 at 08:16 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Research: Internet Users Judge Sites in 50 Milliseconds

Research: Internet Users Judge Sites in 50 Milliseconds - Yahoo! News

Robin Arnfield, newsfactor.com Mon Jan 16, 4:06 PM ET

Those who surf the Internet typically make snap decisions about the quality of a Web site, according to a new research study.
ADVERTISEMENT

The researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's capital city, discovered that the human brain makes decisions in a twentieth of a second after seeing a Web page for the first time.

This finding came as a surprise to the researchers as they had thought Internet users would take at least 10 times longer to make a judgment about the quality of a Web site.

Academic Research

The Canadian university researchers' study was published in the academic journal Behaviour & Information Technology. The journal is published by Taylor & Francis of the UK.

"Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that Web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression," the Canadian researchers reported.

Gitte Lindgaard and her research team at Carleton University flashed up Web pages for 50 milliseconds and asked survey participants to rate the pages according to aesthetic appeal.

The participants then were asked to examine the site carefully and to provide a new rating. The two categories of ratings -- the first based on a quick glance the second on a detailed examination -- were consistent with each other, the research team found.

Commercial Impact

Lindgaard said in the report that her team's findings have broad implications for commercial Web sites. "Unless the first impression is favorable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors," she wrote in the report.

According to Lindgaard, a visitor's first impression of a Web site has a lasting impact. The report argued that these quickly formed first impressions endure because of what psychologists call the "halo effect" -- a phrase that refers to the fact that a person's initial favorable bias toward something affects subsequent judgments.

In other words, if visitors think that a Web site looks good, then this positive attitude will influence how they feel about other areas of the site, such as its content.

According to Lingaard, because human beings like to be right, they will continue to use the Web site that made a good first impression because doing so will further confirm that their initial decision was a good one.

January 17, 2006 at 12:12 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (32) | Top of page | Blog Home

Web giants show the way in Vegas

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web giants show the way in Vegas

By Alfred Hermida
Technology editor, BBC News website in Las Vegas

Robin Williams, AP
Big stars such as Robin Williams were wheeled out during CES
Among the huge flat panel TVs, tiny MP3 players and stylish handsets on show at last week's Consumer Electronics Show, two newcomers were the focus of attention.

For the first time, web giants Google and Yahoo took their place alongside the big names in consumer electronics, such as Sony, Samsung and Toshiba.

It seems ironic that companies which have made a name for themselves by providing services should outshine others at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

But Google and Yahoo are seen as changing the way people access music or video and other forms of media.

And the makers of MP3 players, digital video recorders and other gadgets use to consume media want to make sure they are not left behind.

Media reinvention

Google and Yahoo made up a relatively small part of the 1.6 million square feet of exhibition space in Las Vegas.

Inside one of the halls, Google had a colourful stand, while outside Yahoo held court in a tent in the car park.

They proved one of the most popular destinations for many of the 130,000 people who came to CES to get a glimpse of the future.

The dominant theme at the show was how to make it easier for people to have access to the kind of content they want, when they want it and where they want it.

This is exactly where net services such as Google and Yahoo have succeeded.

Yahoo boss Terry Semel, AP
Yahoo plans to put its services on mobile devices
At CES they effectively repositioned themselves as media companies, announcing a host of deals that go beyond their roots in search.

These include providing TV shows and video to computers and mobiles, as well as linking up web services with traditional consumer electronic products such as the TV.

Google announces its online video store, which it hopes will become a full-fledged digital warehouse of media.

As part of the store, it reached agreement with US network CBS to offer hit shows like CSI and Survivor for $1.99.

"We're really the enabler," said Google boss Eric Schmidt in a briefing with journalists at CES.

"The important thing is to get the content out. Digital information should be available on every device all of the time."

Fun and games

Not to be left behind, Yahoo announced software that would enable its 450 million users to access their e-mail, photos, search and more from a TV or mobile phone.

"We are taking our essential services and connecting them to people's lives using their devices," Marco Boerries, Yahoo's senior vice president for connected life, told the BBC News website.

"The internet is changing from being a vehicle for websites to a delivery vehicle of consumer services."

Ipod in speaker dock, AP
Apple was absent from CES but its plans overshadowed the event
This trend is being echoed in the actions of mammoth tech companies such as Intel.

It sought to reinvent itself at CES, leaving behind its image as a chipmaker with its Viiv technology.

This is a processor and system that aims to bring together the worlds of computing and television.

"With all the digital content we are starting to see around us - music, movies, video, games - we are working to make sure there is a great PC platform specifically designed to do those things well," said Bryan Peebler, a program manager for Intel's Viiv system.

Intel's technology will be more visible to consumers in Microsoft Media Center PCs, which have so far failed to capture the public's imagination.

Microsoft is not giving up. At CES Bill Gates clearly laid out his ambition to put Microsoft at the heart of the digital era with Windows powering all sorts of connected devices.

But this is a crowded arena. Absent from CES was one of the most influential companies that marries technology and media, Apple.

It started its first moves towards the living room last year when it announced its Front Row software for Macs.

Apple is expected to step closer towards the idea of the computer as an entertainment centre at its Macworld Expo, which starts in San Francisco on Tuesday.

January 11, 2006 at 07:23 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

Seasonal geekery

Courtesy of Leo Lewis - Times blog. I have been to Odiaba, and reading this makes me want to go back!

Technology: Seasonal geekery

For pure, unfettered geekiness Tokyo is the place to spend the festive season. Oh sure, Akihabara is great for shopping, but if you like your tech with an exclusive edge, where else, I ask you, could you pick up the phone to the world's biggest consumer electronics company, demand that they break off from their festive preparations to show you their most exciting new toys and be told "would this afternoon suit?"

Cut to the strange and remote reclaimed island (read massive earthquake hazzard) of Odaiba and the Panasonic Technology Centre. The vast building is arranged somewhat like those laboratories where they study infectious diseases, and my guide was ready to take me to the technological equivalent of the Ebola room.

The first floor is much as you would expect - the latest plasma screens (big, looked superb running a Blu-ray disc), digital cameras (one with a very effective anti-tremble setting) and car navigation systems that lock the house and feed live webcams from all the rooms in the house straight to your dashboard. All very nice.

On the second floor, they turned up the tech with a "kitchen table of the future". The concept here - and it was all in fully-functioning order - was that whoever sits at the table establishes their "seat" by putting their ID-chip enabled mobile phone on a little pad. The table itself is made of hardened glass, beneath which is a 60-inch screen facing upwards. Swimming around the screen are little fish with words such as "calendar" and "internet" on their back. Tap one of the fish and the relevant window opens. Once your phone is on the pad, little fish swim out of it representing the files (pictures, music etc) that you are now prepared to share with everyone else in the pond.

But the best, lurking behind a secret door on the third floor, was yet to come. Explaining that this had only been seen by a few researchers and corporate customers (so not that exclusive) Panasonic unveiled their concept home of the future, the centrepiece of which was an interactive screen occupying one entire wall of the mock-up house. The idea is that anything can be done on this screen. Kids want to scrible? Draw a square on the screen with a finger and it turns into a blackboard ready for action. Want to watch a film? Draw a square on the screen with a finger and it opens a screen of that size with your movie or TV running through it. ...you get the picture. Games ditto, internet ditto. Somehow nothing on sale in Akihabara quite matched up.

January 8, 2006 at 03:00 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

How Women and Men Use the Internet

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Women and Men Online

Women are catching up to men in most measures of online life. Men like the internet for the experiences it offers, while women like it for the human connections it promotes.

12/28/2005 | MemoReport | Deborah Fallows

A wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies.

At the same time, there are trends showing that women are catching up in overall use and are framing their online experience with a greater emphasis on deepening connections with people.

Some highlights from a new report show how men’s and women’s use of the internet has changed over time.

# The percentage of women using the internet still lags slightly behind the percentage of men. Women under 30 and black women outpace their male peers. However, older women trail dramatically behind older men.

# Men are slightly more intense internet users than women. Men log on more often, spend more time online, and are more likely to be broadband users.

# In most categories of internet activity, more men than women are participants, but women are catching up.

# More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use email in a more robust way. Women are more likely than men to use email to write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and worries, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories. Women are more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal emails. Men use email more than women to communicate with various kinds of organizations.

# More online men than women perform online transactions. Men and women are equally likely to use the internet to buy products and take part in online banking, but men are more likely to use the internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, trade stocks and bonds, and pay for digital content.

# Men are more avid consumers than women of online information. Men look for information on a wider variety of topics and issues than women do.

# Men are more likely than women to use the internet as a destination for recreation. Men are more likely to: gather material for their hobbies, read online for pleasure, take informal classes, participate in sports fantasy leagues, download music and videos, remix files, and listen to radio.

# Men are more interested than women in technology, and they are also more tech savvy.

Still, our data show that men and women are more similar than different in their online lives, starting with their common appreciation of the internet’s strongest suit: efficiency. Both men and women approach with gusto online transactions that simplify their lives by saving time on such mundane tasks as buying tickets or paying bills.

Men and women also value the internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information. Men reach farther and wider for topics, from getting financial information to political news. Along the way, they work search engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence than women.

Women are more likely to see the vast array of online information as a “glut” and to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.

December 30, 2005 at 10:34 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

The future ends at the firewall

FT.com / Business life - The future ends at the firewall

By Richard Waters
Published: December 1 2005 18:36 | Last updated: December 1 2005 18:36

www internet genericBe warned: for many office workers, life in the internet age is about to get much more frustrating.

New services from companies such as Google and Skype and the spread of domestic broadband access have created a new generation of digitally aware consumers. Having access to free video conferencing, or being able to examine the world in exquisite detail on a programme such as Google Earth, has awakened home computer users to the expanding possibilities of life on the web.

When they get to work, however, these same computer users are starting to find that many of the digital goodies they have come to expect are out of reach. That is more than just a frustration for individual workers: as more technology innovation shifts to the web, it could slow the pace at which many new technologies are adopted and prevent companies from reaping the full productivity benefits.

The new reliance on personal experimentation on the internet as a way to spread new technology at work was summed up recently by Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer at Microsoft. In a landmark memo to Microsoft staff, intended to accelerate the software company’s shift to the web, he outlined a new approach to technology adoption that has little to do with the efforts of the corporate IT department.

“[Technology] products are now discovered through a combination of blogs, search keyword-based advertising, online product marketing and word of mouth,” he wrote. “This is not just true of consumer products: even enterprise products now more often than not enter an organisation through the internet-based research and trial of a business unit that understands a product’s value.”

Yet just as a new wave of internet-based technology breaks, many workers are no longer being given a chance to try it out in this way. Slow corporate networks, the fear of exposure to computer viruses and concerns about the escalating costs of maintaining large numbers of PCs have led many companies instead to clamp down on personal experimentation.

“In a lot of companies, the desktop is locked down – only the IT department has access to it,” says Dave Girouard, general manager of Google’s enterprise division. “There’s no question that consumer technology is racing ahead at a breakneck pace. Enterprise technology kind of slogs along; the adoption rates are much slower.”

The chasm that is starting to open between the experience of using computers at home and in the office is based on two things. One is the availability of bandwidth: most companies cannot afford to meet the soaring expectations of their workers. The other is the ability to try out new software applications and services that live on the web.

When it comes to bandwidth, even the technology professionals are starting to feel the frustration. John Vogt-Nilsen, who runs the communications network at Orbital Sciences, a US maker of rockets, says he has an internet connection at home that runs at 10 megabits per second; by comparison, the capacity of the outbound internet connection for his company’s 1,800 employees amounts to only 6 mbps.

As more people experience high bandwidth at home, the level of frustration at the office will rise, he predicts. “There is going to be a huge phenomenon of people demanding bandwidth [at work]: I can’t satisfy that,” he says.

Data-intensive internet audio and video account for much of the new craving for bandwidth, says Bobby LaRocca, director of information security for the Palm Beach school district in Florida. “Streaming radio and TV are killing our bandwidth,” he says.

Blocking access to internet-based entertainment services is one way to conserve network capacity. Palm Beach, for instance, has blocked the internet radio services that were starting to consume an inordinate amount of the network, says Mr LaRocca.

But other bandwidth- hungry applications that have a more direct bearing on office or school life are also starting to proliferate. The school district has just increased the capacity of its network from 45 mbps to 256 mbps, but even an increase of that scale may not be enough to cope with the new video conferencing service that the district wants to run over its network. “It’s probably going to hit [the new bandwidth], and hit it good,” says Mr LaRocca.

The growing reliance on network-based applications raises a second question: how easily can workers get access to potentially productivity-enhancing technology tools that lie beyond their company’s firewall?

This is more than just a mild annoyance – the rate at which office workers adopt many new technologies could be at risk.

“A lot of the innovations of the last five years have started out among rogue groups of [office] users and then become mainstream,” says John Kish, chief executive officer of Wyse, which makes stripped-down desktop computers designed for use with applications that reside on the network.

Workers who try out new technologies for themselves, without the official approval of the IT department, have often proved far more adept at finding and employing services that bring direct benefits to their work.

What happens when corporate firewalls block this grassroots approach to technology adoption?

Enlightened companies are starting to loosen the controls on their workers, claims Mr Girouard at Google. “Gradually, organisations are waking up to the fact that they need to give their employees access to more productivity-enhancing technology – often that just means getting out of the way,” he says.

Yet the trend in most corporate IT departments is still moving in the opposite direction. The threat from computer viruses has led most big companies to block their workers’ ability to download software from the internet, restricting their access to new services.

New ways of delivering internet services are helping to limit this problem, says Mr Girouard. Using a new approach to designing internet services, known as Ajax, companies such as Google have been able to enhance the experience of using a web browser. That has meant that workers can get access to more advanced services without needing to download software on to their own machine.

However, that has not done much to liberate the average office drone suffering from technology lock-down. According to Mr Kish at Wyse, this is simply the new reality of office life. Deciding for yourself what technology would help you work more effectively may seem appealing, but it no longer fits with the need to control IT more closely. “It is being outweighed by the realities in front of the business,” he says.

The message, for today’s increasingly frustrated office workers: just get used to it.

POWER FAILURES: HOW WORKERS GAINED AND LOST COMPUTER CONTROL

Until recently, workers had been enjoying increasing influence over the technology they use at work.

THE MILESTONES

Minicomputers. The arrival of departmental computers broke the IT department’s stranglehold through the mainframe and ushered in an age of experimentation.

Spreadsheets. Desktop personal computers accelerated the demystification of office technology and gave many managers their first taste of hands-on computing. Spreadsheets were among the first tools to be taken up enthusiastically, enabling managers to model financial information for themselves.

Personal digital assistants. Palm, Psion and other personal organisers allowed workers to bring their own technology tools to work. When they tried to “synch” these devices with data on office PCs, the line between personal and office technology use started to blur.

Instant messaging. Communication tools have become the new battleground between workers and the IT department. Instant messaging, web-based e-mail and now online video conferencing have been taken up by millions of consumers. But at work, many find themselves limited to using a corporate e-mail account and a telephone.

“Blaster” worm. The fast- spreading threat, in August 2003, followed a series of other virus and worm attacks, leading IT departments to reimpose control. It signalled the end of the computing free-for-all.

December 4, 2005 at 11:07 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (51) | Top of page | Blog Home

The MySpace Generation

The MySpace Generation

They live online. They buy online. They play online. Their power is growing

podcast
COVER STORY PODCAST

The Toadies broke up. It was four years ago, when Amanda Adams was 16. She drove into Dallas from suburban Plano, Tex., on a school night to hear the final two-hour set of the local rock band, which had gone national with a hit 1995 album. "Tears were streaming down my face," she recalls, a slight Texas lilt to her voice. During the long summer that followed, Adams turned to the Web in search of solace, plugging the lead singer's name into Google repeatedly until finally his new band popped up. She found it on Buzz-Oven.com, a social networking Web site for Dallas teens.

Adams jumped onto the Buzz-Oven network, posting an online self-portrait (dark hair tied back, tongue out, goofy eyes for the cam) and listing her favorite music so she could connect with other Toadies fans. Soon she was heading off to biweekly meetings at Buzz-Oven's airy loft in downtown Dallas and helping other "Buzzers" judge their favorite groups in marathon battle-of-the-bands sessions. (Buzz-0ven.com promotes the winners.) At her school, Frisco High -- and at malls and concerts -- she passed out free Buzz-Oven sampler CDs plastered with a large logo from Coca-Cola Inc., () which backs the site in the hope of reaching more teens on their home turf. Adams also brought dozens of friends to the concerts Buzz-Oven sponsored every few months. "It was cool, something I could brag about," says Adams, now 20 and still an active Buzzer.

Now that Adams is a junior at the University of North Texas at Denton, she's online more than ever. It's 7 p.m. on a recent Saturday, and she has just sweated her way through an online quiz for her advertising management class. (The quiz was "totally out of control," write classmates on a school message board minutes later.) She checks a friend's blog entry on MySpace.com to find out where a party will be that night. Then she starts an Instant Messenger (IM) conversation about the evening's plans with a few pals.

KIDS, BANDS, COCA-COLA
At the same time, her boyfriend IMs her a retail store link to see a new PC he just bought, and she starts chatting with him. She's also postering for the next Buzz-Oven concert by tacking the flier on various friends' MySpace profiles, and she's updating her own blog on Xanga.com, another social network she uses mostly to post photos. The TV is set to TBS, which plays a steady stream of reruns like Friends and Seinfeld -- Adams has a TV in her bedroom as well as in the living room -- but she keeps the volume turned down so she can listen to iTunes over her computer speakers. Simultaneously, she's chatting with dorm mate Carrie Clark, 20, who's doing pretty much the same thing from a laptop on her bed.

You have just entered the world of what you might call Generation @. Being online, being a Buzzer, is a way of life for Adams and 3,000-odd Dallas-area youth, just as it is for millions of young Americans across the country. And increasingly, social networks are their medium. As the first cohort to grow up fully wired and technologically fluent, today's teens and twentysomethings are flocking to Web sites like Buzz-Oven as a way to establish their social identities. Here you can get a fast pass to the hip music scene, which carries a hefty amount of social currency offline. It's where you go when you need a friend to nurse you through a breakup, a mentor to tutor you on your calculus homework, an address for the party everyone is going to. For a giant brand like Coke, these networks also offer a direct pipeline to the thirsty but fickle youth market.

Preeminent among these virtual hangouts is MySpace.com, whose membership has nearly quadrupled since January alone, to 40 million members. Youngsters log on so obsessively that MySpace ranked No. 15 on the entire U.S. Internet in terms of page hits in October, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Millions also hang out at other up-and-coming networks such as Facebook.com, which connects college students, and Xanga.com, an agglomeration of shared blogs. A second tier of some 300 smaller sites, such as Buzz-Oven, Classface.com, and Photobucket.com, operate under -- and often inside or next to -- the larger ones.

Although networks are still in their infancy, experts think they're already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. In fact, today's young generation largely ignores the difference. Most adults see the Web as a supplement to their daily lives. They tap into information, buy books or send flowers, exchange apartments, or link up with others who share passions for dogs, say, or opera. But for the most part, their social lives remain rooted in the traditional phone call and face-to-face interaction.

The MySpace generation, by contrast, lives comfortably in both worlds at once. Increasingly, America's middle- and upper-class youth use social networks as virtual community centers, a place to go and sit for a while (sometimes hours). While older folks come and go for a task, Adams and her social circle are just as likely to socialize online as off. This is partly a function of how much more comfortable young people are on the Web: Fully 87% of 12- to 17-year-olds use the Internet, vs. two-thirds of adults, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Teens also use many forms of media simultaneously. Fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds average nearly 6 1/2 hours a day watching TV, playing video games, and surfing the Net, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. A quarter of that time, they're multitasking. The biggest increase: computer use for activities such as social networking, which has soared nearly threefold since 2000, to 1 hour and 22 minutes a day on average.

Aside from annoying side effects like hyperdistractibility, there are some real perils with underage teens and their open-book online lives. In a few recent cases, online predators have led kids into dangerous, real-life situations, and parents' eyes are being opened to their kids' new world.

ONE-HIT WONDERS
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of these exploding networks has companies clamoring to be a part of the new social landscape. News Corp. () Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has spent $1.3 billion on Web acquisitions so far to better reach this coveted demographic -- $580 million alone for the July purchase of MySpace parent Intermix Media. And Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Accel Partners and Redpoint Ventures are pouring millions into Facebook and other social networks. What's not yet clear is whether this is a dot-com era replay, with established companies and investors sinking huge sums into fast-growth startups with no viable business models. Facebook, barely a year old and run by a 21-year-old student on leave from Harvard, has a staff of 50 and venture capital -- but no profits.

Still, consumer companies such as Coke, Apple Computer (), and Procter & Gamble () are making a relatively low-cost bet by experimenting with networks to launch products and to embed their brands in the minds of hard-to-reach teens. So far, no solid format has emerged, partly because youth networks are difficult for companies to tap into. They're also easy to fall out of favor with: While Coke, Sony () Pictures Digital, and Apple have succeeded with MySpace, Buzz-Oven, and other sites, P&G's attempt to create an independent network around a body spray, for one, has faltered so far.

Many youth networks are evanescent, in any case. Like one-hit wonder the Baha Men (Who Let the Dogs Out) and last year's peasant skirts, they can evaporate as quickly as they appear. But young consumers may follow brands offline -- if companies can figure out how to talk to youths in their online vernacular. Major companies should be exploring this new medium, since networks transmit marketing messages "person-to-person, which is more credible," says David Rich Bell, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

So far, though, marketers have had little luck creating these networks from scratch. Instead, the connections have to bubble up from those who use them. To understand how such networks get started, share a blue-cheese burger at the Meridian Room, a dive bar in downtown Dallas, with Buzz-Oven founder Aden Holt. At 6 feet 9 inches, with one blue eye, one brown one, and a shock of shaggy red hair, Holt is a sort of public figure in the local music scene. He started a record label his senior year at college and soon turned his avocation into a career as a music promoter, putting out 27 CDs in the decade that followed.

In 2000, as Internet access spread, Holt cooked up Buzz-Oven as a new way to market concerts. His business plan was simple. First, he would produce sample CDs of local bands. Dedicated Buzzers like Adams would do the volunteer marketing, giving out the CDs for free, chatting up the concerts online, and slapping up posters and stickers in school bathrooms, local music stores, and on telephone poles. Then Holt would get the bands to put on a live concert, charging them $10 for every fan he turned out. But to make the idea work, Holt needed capital to produce the free CDs. One of his bands had recently done a show sponsored by Coke, and after asking around, he found the marketer's company's Dallas sales office. He called for an appointment. And then he called again. And again.

Coke's people didn't get back to him for weeks, and then he was offered only a brief appointment. With plenty of time to practice his sales pitch, Holt spit out his idea in one breath: Marketing through social networks was still an experiment, but it was worth a small investment to try reaching teens through virtual word of mouth. Coke rep Julie Bowyer thought the idea had promise. Besides, Holt's request was tiny compared with the millions Coke regularly sinks into campaigns. So she wrote him a check on the spot.

DEEP CONNECTIONS
By the time Ben Lawson became head of Coke's Dallas sales office in 2001, Buzz-Oven had mushroomed into a nexus that allowed hundreds of Dallas-area teens to talk to one another and socialize, online and off. A middle-aged father of two teens himself, Lawson spent a good deal of time poring over data about how best to reach youth like Adams. He knew what buzzer Mike Ziemer, 20, so clearly articulates: "Kids don't buy stuff because they see a magazine ad. They buy stuff because other kids tell them to."

What Lawson really likes about Buzz-Oven is how deeply it weaves into teens' lives. Sure, the network reaches only a small niche. But Buzzers have created an authentic community, and Coke has been welcomed as part of the group. At a recent dinner, founder Holt asked a few Buzzers their opinions about the company. "I don't know if they care about the music or they just want their name on it, but knowing they're involved helps," says Michael Henry, 19. "I know they care; they think what we're doing is cool," says Michele Barr, 21. Adds Adams: "They let us do our thing. They don't censor what we do."

Words to live by for a marketer, figures Lawson, particularly since Coke pays Buzz-Oven less than $70,000 a year. In late October, Holt signed a new contract with Coke to help him launch Buzz-Oven Austin in February. The amount is confidential, but he says it's enough for 10,000 CDs, three to four months of street promotions, and 50,000 fliers, plus some radio and print ads and a Web site promotion. Meanwhile, Buzz-Oven is building relations with other brands such as the Dallas Observer newspaper and McDonald's () Chipotle restaurants, which kicks in free food for Buzzer volunteers who promote the shows. Profits from ticket sales are small but growing, says Holt.

Not so long ago, behemoth MySpace was this tiny. Tom Anderson, a Santa Monica (Calif.) musician with a film degree, partnered with former Xdrive Inc. marketer Chris DeWolfe to create a Web site where musicians could post their music and fans could chat about it. Anderson knew music and film; De Wolfe knew the Internet business. Anderson cajoled Hollywood friends -- musicians, models, actors -- to join his online community, and soon the news spread. A year later, everyone from Hollywood teen queen Hilary Duff to Plano (Tex.) teen queen Adams has an account.

It's becoming a phenomenon unto itself. With 20 million of its members logging on in October, MySpace now draws so much traffic that it accounted for 10% of all advertisements viewed online in the month. This is all the more amazing because MySpace doesn't allow those ubiquitous pop-up ads that block your view, much less spyware, which monitors what you watch and infuses it with pop-ups. In fact, the advertising can be so subtle that kids don't distinguish it from content. "It's what our users want," says Anderson.

As MySpace has exploded, Anderson has struggled to maintain the intimate atmosphere that lends social networks their authenticity. When new users join, Tom becomes their first friend and invites them to send him a message. When they do, they hear right back, from him or from the one-quarter of MySpace's 165 staffers who handle customer service. Ask Adams what she thinks of MySpace's recent acquisition by News Corp., and she replies that she doesn't blame "Tom" for selling, she would have done the same thing. She's talking about Anderson, but it's hard to tell at first because she refers to him so casually, as if he were someone she has known for years.

That's why Murdoch has vowed not to wrest creative control from Anderson and DeWolfe. Instead News Corp.'s resources will help them nourish new MySpace dreams. Earlier this month they launched a record label. In the next few months, the duo says, they will launch a movie production unit and a satellite radio station. By March they hope to venture into wireless technology, perhaps even starting a wireless company to compete with Virgin Mobile or Sprint Nextel's Boost. Says DeWolfe: "We want to be a lifestyle brand."

It's proof that a network -- and its advertising -- can take off if it gives kids something they badly want. Last spring, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noticed that the college students who make up most of his 9.5 million members were starting groups with names like Apple Students, where they swapped information about how to use their Macs. So he asked Apple if it wanted to form an official group. Now -- for a fee neither company will disclose -- Apple sponsors the group, giving away iPod Shuffles in weekly contests, making product announcements, and providing links to its student discount program.

The idea worked so well that Facebook began helping anyone who wanted to start a group. Today there are more than a dozen, including several sponsored by advertisers such as Victoria's Secret and Electronic Arts. Zuckerberg soon realized that undergrads are more likely to respond to a peer group of Apple users than to the traditional banner ads, which he hopes to eventually phase out. Another of his innovations: ads targeted at students of a specific college. They're a way for a local restaurant or travel agency to advertise. Called Facebook Announcements, it's all automated, so anyone can go onto Facebook, pay $14 a day, and fill out an ad.

SPARKLE AND FIZZLE
Still, social networks' relations with companies remain uneasy. Last year, for example, Buzz-Oven was nearly thrown off track when a band called Flickerstick wanted to post a song called Teenage Dope Fiend on the network. Holt told Buzzers: "Well, you can't use that song. I'd be encouraging teenagers to try drugs." They saw his point, and several Buzzers persuaded the band to offer up a different song. But such potential conflicts are one way, Holt concedes, that Buzz-Oven's corporate sponsorships could come to a halt.

Like Holt, other network founders have dealt with such conflicts by turning to their users for advice. Xanga co-founder John Hiler has resisted intrusive forms of advertising like spyware or pop-ups, selling only the conventional banner ads. When advertisers recently demanded more space for larger ads, Hiler turned the question over to Xanga bloggers, posting links to three examples of new ads. More than 3,000 users commented pro and con, and Hiler went with the model users liked best. By involving them, Hiler kept the personal connection that many say they feel with network founders -- even though Xanga's membership has expanded to 21 million.

So far, corporate advertisers have had little luck creating such relationships on their own. In May, P&G set up what it hoped would become a social network around Sparkle Body Spray, aimed at tweens. The site features chatty messages from fake characters named for scents like Rose and Vanilla ("Friends call me Van"). Virtually no one joined, and no entries have comments from real users. "There wasn't a lot of interesting content to engage people," says Anastasia Goodstein, who documents the intersection between companies and the MySpace Generation at Ypulse.com. P&G concedes that the site is an experiment, and the company has found more success with a body-spray network embedded in MySpace.com.

The most basic threat to networks may be the whims of their users, who after all are mostly still kids. Take Friendster, the first networking Web site to gain national attention. It erupted in 2003, going from a few thousand users to nearly 20 million. But the company couldn't keep up, causing frustration among users when the site grew sluggish and prone to crash. It also started with no music, no message boards or classifieds, no blogging. Many jumped ship when MySpace came along, offering the ability to post song tracks and more elaborate profiles. Friendster has been hustling to get back into the game, adding in new options. But only 942,000 people clicked on the site in October, vs. 20.6 million who clicked on MySpace in the same time.

That's the elusive nature of trends and fads, and it poses a challenge for networks large and small. MySpace became a threat to tiny Buzz-Oven last year when Buzzers found they could do more cool things there, from blogs to more music and better profile options. Buzzer message board traffic slowed to a crawl. To stop the hemorrhaging, Holt joined MySpace himself and set up a profile for Buzz-Oven. His network now operates both independently and as a subsite on MySpace, but it still works. Most of Holt's Dallas crowd came back, and Buzz-Oven is up to 3,604 MySpace members now, slightly more than when it was a stand-alone network.

Even if the new approach works, Holt faces a succession issue that's likely to hit other networks at some point. At 35, he's well past the age of his users. Even the friends who helped him launch Buzz-Oven.com are in their late 20s -- ancient to members of his target demographic. So either he raises the age of the group -- or replaces himself with someone younger. He's trying the latter, betting on Mike Ziemer, the 20-year-old recent member, even giving him a small amount of cash.

Ziemer, it turns out, is an influencer. That means record labels and clothing brands pay him to talk up their products, for which he pulls down several hundred dollars a month. Ziemer has spiky brown hair and a round, expressive face. In his MySpace profile he lists his interests in this order: Girls. Music. Friends. Movies. He has 4,973 "friends" on MySpace. At all times, he carries a T-Mobile Sidekick, which he uses to text message, e-mail, and send photos to his friends. Sometimes he also talks on it, but not often. "I hate the phone," he says.

Think of Ziemer as Aden Holt 2.0. Like Amanda Adams, he's also a student at UT-Denton. When he moved to the area from Southern California last year, he started Third String PR, a miniature version of Buzz-Oven that brings bands to the 'burbs. He uses MySpace.com to promote bands and chats online with potential concertgoers. Ziemer can pack a church basement with tweens for a concert, even though they aren't old enough to drive. On the one hand, Ziemer idolizes Holt, who has a larger version of Ziemer's company and a ton of connections in the music industry. On the other hand, Ziemer thinks Holt is old. "Have you ever tried to talk with him over IM?" he says. "He's just not plugged in enough."

Exactly why Holt wants Ziemer on Buzz-Oven. He knows the younger entrepreneur can tap a new wave of kids -- and keep the site's corporate sponsor on board. But he worries that Ziemer doesn't have the people skills. What's more, should Ziemer lose patience with Buzz-Oven, he could blacklist Holt by telling his 9,217 virtual friends that Buzz-Oven is no longer cool. In the online world, one powerfully networked person can have a devastatingly large impact on a small society like Buzz-Oven.

For now, the gamble is paying off. Attendance is up at Buzz-Oven events, and if the Austin launch goes smoothly, Holt will be one step closer to his dream of going national. But given the fluid world of networks, he's taking nothing for granted.

By Jessi Hempel, with Paula Lehman in New York

December 3, 2005 at 12:44 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (32) | Top of page | Blog Home

Third Annual AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey

Third Annual AOL Instant Messaging Trends Survey Uncovers IM Has Taken Over the Desktop; Parents Get into the Act While Users Dream of IM TV and Enjoy VoIP Services; One-Third Send Mobile Messages from Cell Phones

DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 10, 2005--Instant messaging (IM) is up 19 percent year over year and is deeply entrenched in the U.S. with many Americans sending as many - if not more - IMs than they do emails. Meanwhile, at-work and mobile messaging have gone mainstream, according to the third annual Instant Messaging Trends Survey from AOL.

Today, multiple screen names, parental IM rules for teens and rampant "away messaging" are standard across all regions, genders and ages. Instant messaging has taken over as the communications vehicle of choice with 25 percent of users saying they would like to see entertainment content within IM and 20 percent saying they would like to make voice calls to landlines and cell phones directly from their IM service.

Top-line survey findings include:

Email is Old School: Thirty-eight percent say they send as many or more IMs than emails, and the younger users are, the more likely they are to favor IM. Two-thirds (66 percent) of teens and young adults (ages 13-21) say they send more IMs than emails, up from 49 percent last year.

Meet the Parents: More than half (53 percent) of teens (ages 13-17) surveyed say their parents now issue guidelines and rules about instant messaging. Teen boys (55 percent) are more likely to have parental IM rules than are teen girls (50 percent), and fully 65 percent of teens who have rules say they follow them.

Hit the Road: One in three (33 percent) IM users send mobile IMs or text messages from their cell phones at least once a week. This is a dramatic increase over 2004, when just 19 percent said they do so, and 2003 when the figure was 10 percent.

The Sound of Your Voice: Meanwhile, 20 percent say they currently enjoy, or would like to try, making live voice calls to other computers, landlines and cell phones directly from their IM service. Another 12 percent say they would be interested in an IM-based VoIP service that could replace their primary household phone line.

Another Day, Another "Away Message": Half (47 percent) of those ages 13-21 change their away messages every day, to let others know where they are (71 percent), to list a cell phone number or alternate way to be reached (47 percent) or to post a favorite lyric or quote (47 percent). Seven percent have even posted a call to action, like "Please donate to the Red Cross to help hurricane victims."

IM Too Busy: At-work IM users now send IMs to communicate with colleagues (58 percent), to get answers and make business decisions (49 percent) and even to interact with clients or customers (28 percent). Twelve percent have used IM at work to avoid a difficult in-person conversation.

I Want IM TV!: One in four (26 percent) IM users say that live streaming television is the one feature they wish was available on their IM service. Music on demand came in second (25 percent) and video on demand was third (21 percent).

"Instant messaging is a part of everyday life, with more and more people using their IM service as a starting point for all communications, from sending mobile messages to friends on cell phones to placing VoIP-based phone calls," said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president and general manager, AIM and ICQ, America Online, Inc. "Usage is spiking, and not just among teens. Parents, grandparents and professionals are all using instant messaging to stay in touch and enhance their day-to-day communications."

Nationwide and around the world, instant messaging use is growing, with nearly 12 billion(1) instant messages being sent every day worldwide, according to IDC. ComScore Media Metrix(2) reports that there are more than 300 million people across the globe - and more than 80 million Americans - who regularly use instant messaging as a quick and convenient communications tool.

The AOL(R) Instant Messaging Trends survey of more than 4,000 respondents ages 13 and over was conducted in partnership with Opinion Research Corporation from September 16-26, 2005.

Top 10 Cities and AOL's Third Annual IM Awards

This year's survey includes a listing of America's top ten cities for IM usage and a number of "awards" for unique instant messaging habits of IM users in various cities.

According to the survey, the top ten markets for instant messaging are: 1. Miami, FL; 2. New York, NY; 3. Boston, MA; 4. Chicago, IL; 5. Atlanta, GA; 6. Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX; 7. Detroit, MI; 8. San Francisco, CA; 9. Sacramento, CA; 10. Tampa, FL.

The AOL IM Awards include:

The Clark Kent Award: In Dallas/Ft. Worth, IM users are most likely to have multiple screen names in order to maintain an alter-ego (28 percent).

The CU L8R Award: IM users in Phoenix are most likely to use IM lingo when sending instant messages (67 percent), such as GR8 (great) or BRB (be right back).

The 'Here We Are, Now Entertain Us' Awards: Atlantans are most likely (34 percent) to want to watch live television on their IM client, while music on demand is the most desired addition (31 percent) for IMers in Houston.

To learn more about the top 10 IM cities and to see the Awards they have won this year from AOL, click here: http://www.aim.com/survey?source=US1

Teens and Instant Messaging

Ninety percent of Internet-savvy teens and young adults say they send instant messages, and 80 percent of those ages 22-34 say the same. Among those with IM rules, 43 percent say they can send instant messages only when their homework is done. Meanwhile, 24 percent can go online for a set amount of time each day or can only send IMs to a group of people known by their parents. Twenty-three percent can IM only at certain hours of the day.

In addition, more than two-thirds (70 percent) of teen IM users think they have about the same number or more buddies on their Buddy List feature as their friends. To get to the bottom of the debate, AIM(R) users can visit http://www.aimfight.com to pit themselves against their friends to find out once and for all who has the bigger Buddy List. To learn more about teens and instant messaging, click here: http://www.aim.com/survey?source=US2

IM in the Workplace

According to IDC, more than 28 million business users worldwide use instant messaging to send nearly 1 billion messages each day at work.(3) Meanwhile, the AOL Instant Messaging Trends survey revealed that more than three in four at-work IM users (77 percent) say that instant messaging has had a positive impact on their work lives. In addition, one in four (25 percent) of at-work IMers say that instant messaging enables them to check in on their children during the workday, providing greater peace of mind.

In addition, among those who use instant messaging for business purposes, 13 percent say they have their IM screen name printed on their business card, while six percent say they write it on the business cards they exchange. New Yorkers appear to be most hip to screen names, with 26 percent having their IM screen names printed on their business cards. To learn more about instant messaging at work, click here: http://www.aim.com/survey?source=US3

Mobile Messaging

One in three (33 percent) IM users say they also send SMS messages or mobile instant messages at least once a week from their cell phone. Nearly half (47 percent) of IM users aged 13-21 engage in text messaging and mobile instant messaging, while 42 percent do the same. Meanwhile, one-quarter (24 percent) of those aged 35-54 say they send messages from their cell phones. To learn more about mobile messaging, click here: http://www.aim.com/survey?source=US4

IM on a Global Scale

The interest in making PC-to-phone calls from the IM service is high around the globe, with Brazil leading the way. In fact, 60 percent of Brazilian IM users want to make PC-to-phone VoIP calls. Meanwhile, 48 percent of IM users in Hong Kong and 45 percent in Germans want to do the same. To learn more global IM trends, click here: http://www.aim.com/survey?source=US5

It's Who You Know: More than 47 percent of those surveyed say they use more than one IM application. However, AOL remains the leader, with 65 percent of users selecting AOL's instant messaging services, including the AOL(R) Buddy List(R) feature, the free AIM(R) service (http://www.aim.com) and the global ICQ(R) instant messaging service (http://www.icq.com).

Survey Methodology: Survey results are based on 4,032 respondents - Internet users aged 13 years and older - in the top 20 markets around the country. The survey was conducted September 16-26, 2005 by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of America Online. The survey rankings are a compilation of several key factors, including the current percentage of instant message users; the number of people on their contact list; the number of instant messages sent per day; the average number of instant messaging conversations at one time; the number who customize their IM application; the number who have more than one screen name; the number who change their away messages; and the percentage who send more instant messages than emails.

About America Online, Inc.

America Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.

(1) IDC Worldwide Enterprise Instant Messaging Applications 2005-2009 Forecast and 2004 Vendor Shares: Clearing the Decks for Substantial Growth

(2) comScore Media Metrix, August 2005

(3) IDC Worldwide Enterprise Instant Messaging Applications 2005-2009 Forecast and 2004 Vendor Shares: Clearing the Decks for Substantial Growth

November 11, 2005 at 05:52 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Realtors Back Away From Plan To Restrict Access to Listings

Realtors Back Away From Plan To Restrict Access to Listings - Yahoo! News

By Kirstin Downey, Washington Post Staff Writer Thu Sep 8, 1:00 AM ET

In response to antitrust concerns, the National Association of Realtors plans to announce today that it will drop a plan to permit real estate agents to restrict access to home sales listings on the Internet.

Instead it will set rules ensuring that all real estate agents have access to the same information, the trade group said in a statement to be released today. Association officials had previously insisted on maintaining policies that allowed agents to control listings. They said they changed their minds because of a Justice Department investigation into whether the association's policy was stifling competition.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Regulators have been investigating an earlier Internet multiple-listing policy proposed by the trade group because of concerns it would effectively allow traditional real estate agents to steer potential sales away from new competitors working for smaller commissions. The Realtors association dropped its previously proposed policy in May and had said it was developing a new one.

Consumer activists and antitrust advocates have said the previously proposed policy was designed to make it harder for discount real estate firms to obtain the listing information they need to make sales.

Robert D. Butters, a Chicagoantitrust lawyer who was a deputy general counsel at the Realtors association, said the trade group appeared to be making a preemptive move in establishing its own rules, "whether the Justice Department likes it or not."

"The obvious conclusion is this is their bottom line, with or without government approval," Butters said. "What government now chooses to do is up to the government. It could be a lawsuit or it could be nothing."

Laurene K. Janik, general counsel of the association, acknowledged that the Justice Department is not completely satisfied with the new policy. "This is not an agreed-upon new policy; this a policy adopted by NAR," she said. "We've made every effort to accommodate their concerns, but at the end of the day, we did adopt the policy we thought was best for our own members and consumers."

The controversy has arisen as several new companies, or new units of established companies, have sought to break into the real estate market with cut-rate commissions, often by using the Internet to speed up transactions. Some of the new companies have lobbied federal antitrust officials for protection.

Real estate agents have been criticized for seeking to maintain their traditional 6 percent commissions as home prices soar. Home prices in the Washington region have roughly doubled over five years, so commissions have, too, for roughly the same amount of work.

State real estate groups, meanwhile, have pushed ahead with rules that require agents to provide a full set of services to consumers. Antitrust officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have said those rules would hurt consumers because they would make it harder for the new kinds of business models, such as Internet-based firms, to offer services at lower prices.

The state groups have said they are the ones protecting consumers by limiting the growth of companies that offer poor service.

September 8, 2005 at 09:47 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

BBC plans to put channels on net

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | BBC plans to put channels on net

The BBC's TV channels could be made available on the internet, one of the corporation's top executives has said.

A simulcast of BBC One or BBC Two, letting UK viewers see programmes on the web at the same time as they go out on TV, is being planned.

A player to let viewers watch shows on the internet for a week after they have been broadcast on TV is in development.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Ms Bennett said she hoped to simulcast a channel within the next year.

'Wake-up call'

"It's a great way of getting public service content, which people have already paid for, out to people in a different way," she said.

The BBC received a "wake-up call" about the demand for new technology in March when the first episode of the new Doctor Who was leaked on to the internet, she said.

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A BBC spokesman said the corporation was aiming to simulcast a channel permanently but would restrict it to UK viewers only.

"These plans are subject to the approval of the board of governors and the resolution of rights clearance issues on content like music and imported shows," he said.

Internet debuts

As well as the simulcast plan, more shows are set to follow the lead of BBC Three comedy The Mighty Boosh and appear on the internet before TV.

Sketch show Titty Bang Bang, sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Johnny Vegas' show Ideal will be made available on the internet first.

Clips from the shows will also be made available on mobile phones.

The makers of the new Doctor Who series are among the producers who have been developing ways to use mobile phone and portable players.

And extra content has been filmed for broadband to accompany BBC One's autumn contemporary Shakespeare series.

August 27, 2005 at 12:44 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Councils 'to meet online target'

ePolitix.com - Councils 'to meet online target'

Local authorities are on course to meet the target for making all public services available online.

The latest report on implementing electronic government showed that all councils are on track to make the switch to electronic systems.

Local authorities increased services available online from 26 per cent in March 2002 to 77 per cent in March of this year.

By the end of next month, councils forecast that 93 per cent of all services will be available electronically.

Local e-government minister Jim Fitzpatrick said better use of new technology was already making an essential contribution towards the government's efficiency targets.

In nearly 200 councils citizens can now go online to submit planning applications or calculate their benefits entitlement, he said.

And near universal online coverage is now offered by councils in England for renewing library books, accessing public transport information and viewing council reports and committee minutes.

Security

The announcement came on the same day as new funding was announced to improve security in online services.

An IT project aimed at improving security for online transactions between public organisations will receive £7.5m of funding, Fitzpatrick announced.

The 'government connect' programme will be developed and rolled-out over 2005/06 said the minister.

Electronic service delivery by both central and local government should be made more effective under the scheme.

It focuses on supporting "personalised, joined-up, citizen-based services" to help improve community life.

"'Government connect' can become the catalyst for removing two major barriers to e-enabled government, firstly for citizens a single sign-on to government services and secondly, the ability to share data securely between local and central government in support of service delivery," explained Fitzpatrick.

Since its launch in March, he said, "good progress" has been made with 276 local authorities already registered.

"The programme aims to roll out services to up to 250 local authorities by December 2006 and all local authorities by December 2007," the minister added.

August 23, 2005 at 11:33 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home

Teens and Technology: Youth are Leading the Transition to a Fully Wired and Mobile Nation

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Pew Internet: Teens and Technology

7/27/2005 | MemoReport | Amanda Lenhart, Mary Madden, Paul Hitlin

Today’s American teens live in a world enveloped by communications technologies; the internet and cell phones have become a central force that fuels the rhythm of daily life.

The number of teenagers using the internet has grown 24% in the past four years and 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online. Compared to four years ago, teens’ use of the internet has intensified and broadened as they log on more often and do more things when they are online.

Among other things, there has been significant growth over the past four years in the number of teens who play games on the internet, get news, shop online, and get health information.

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Not only has the number of users increased, but also the variety of technologies that teens use to support their communication, research, and entertainment desires has grown.

These technologies enable a variety of methods and channels by which youth can communicate with one another as well as with their parents and other authorities. Email, once the cutting edge “killer app,” is losing its privileged place among many teens as they express preferences for instant messaging (IM) and text messaging as ways to connect with their friends.

In focus groups, teens described their new environment. To them, email is increasingly seen as a tool for communicating with “adults” such as teachers, institutions like schools, and as a way to convey lengthy and detailed information to large groups. Meanwhile, IM is used for everyday conversations with multiple friends that range from casual to more serious and private exchanges.

It is also used as a place of personal expression. Through buddy icons or other customization of the look and feel of IM communications, teens can express and differentiate themselves. Other instant messaging tools allow for the posting of personal profiles, or even “away” messages, durable signals posted when a user is away from the computer but wishes to remain connected to their IM network.

July 30, 2005 at 01:16 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Every Tube passenger is clocked by a dozen pairs of eyeballs

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Damian Whitworth
Our correspondent feels guilty at how he has been turned into a nervous, suspicious spy. But he is not alone
WE ARE all detectives now. On a normal day (remember those?) some three million passengers would use the London Underground. There were not quite that many yesterday, but there must have been a good 2½ million new recruits working for British Transport Police as suspicion, fear and panic spread like a virus through the Tube network.

The realisation that the events of July 7 were not an isolated conspiracy has changed the way that we travel on the city’s public transport system, probably for ever.

On the face of it, yesterday morning was like any other as I started out from High Barnet shortly after 8am. Commuters from this North London suburb grabbed cappuccinos from the small kiosk at the station and rushed to catch the Northern Line southwards. But a member of the station staff said that there were fewer people than usual. “The car park is half empty. It’s usually pretty full by now. After what happened yesterday, people here decided not to go to work today or are going by car.”

Those boarding the train expressed the same stoicism that characterised the reaction to the bombings a fortnight ago, but it was tinged with unease. Angela Leonard, a new mother, said that her husband had not been keen on her taking the Tube but there was no other feasible way of reaching her office, and in any case, “I just want to carry on with what I have always done”.

As the train trundled off past leafy back gardens passengers had their noses in Harry Potter and Su Doku books and women whipped out compacts to put their faces on as normal.

But the headlines on the fronts of the papers told a different story. And so too, if you watched for a couple of minutes, did the behaviour of the passengers. They frequently lifted their heads to scan the carriage. At each station, those entering and leaving were clocked by dozens of pairs of swivelling eyeballs.

However nonchalant we all tried to be, it was not subtle. The first thing that everyone looked for was the type of bag a new arrival was carrying. Anything bulky, anything that looked like a rucksack, warranted closer observation. And there was no question that passengers were profiling their fellow commuters in another way.

Yes, they were looking at the colour of their skin. A young Asian man, smartly dressed in a suit, got on with a bulky black rucksack. I cannot pretend that I did not give him a second look. No alarm bells rang, but I could see other people stealing glances too.

And so could the poor chap, who was probably looking forward to a nice weekend away somewhere. He fidgeted a little. Who could blame him, the way his fellow citizens were behaving? But the more he fidgeted, the more other passengers twitched. He got off after a couple of stops. The man sitting opposite raised his eyebrows at me. “You would think today he might have done without the rucksack,” he said.

Bizarrely for a rush-hour Northern Line train there were plenty of seats available, even at Tottenham Court Road, and then at Charing Cross we came to a halt. In more innocent times this would have been tedious, but the announcement that the line was being suspended because of a suspicious package at Kennington was a cause for more than irritation.

Giving up on public transport, I took a taxi. The driver was Muslim. I told him about the racial profiling I had detected and that I felt guilty about it.

His silence felt like a reproach, then after a minute he condemned the terrorists in the most forceful way I have heard from anyone. “If they catch them, they should torture them,” he said. “And if they won’t do it, they should give them to a country that will.”

July 23, 2005 at 06:48 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

LinkedIn launches paid service for member groups

LinkedIn launches paid service for member groups - Yahoo! News

Tue Jul 19,10:56 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Privately held business networking site LinkedIn released on Tuesday a new paid service called LinkedIn for Groups, targeting alumni, professional and other organizations that want to help members stay in contact.

The Mountain View, California-based company said separately it is aiming for profitability in the first quarter of 2006.

Users of the new LinkedIn for Groups service include the alumni associations of Caltech and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, as well as professional organizations like the Product Development and Management Association and the German American Business Association.

Industry conference organizers such as the Kelsey Group and the Delphi Group also may use the service to help attendees meet, schedule meetings and communicate after the events.

LinkedIn for Groups pricing runs from $5,000 to $25,000 for the first year.

LinkedIn, which provides basic networking on its site free of charge, also said it will roll out a premium subscription in August. Pricing was not disclosed.

The site has become a popular employment tool, attracting both recruiters and job seekers. In March, the venture-capital funded company started charging employers $95 for a 30-day job listing.

July 19, 2005 at 04:57 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home

PluggedIn: White lies help stressed computer users

PluggedIn: White lies help stressed computer users - Yahoo! News

By Eric Auchard Fri Jul 15, 2:46 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - High-technology tricks once seen as the purview of hackers are now in the hands of ordinary people.

Gadgets these days are full of surprises, and not just in the 'gee whiz' sense of unexpected possibility, but also in their growing powers to manipulate or deceive.

Simple tricks allow one to appear to be hard at work in the office while actually forwarding calls, e-mails and instant messages to your mobile phone. One can backdate e-mails through rolling back a computer's built-in clock or use background phone noises to concoct convincing excuses not to go to work.

"Instead of being a slave to technology, you can master it, you can make it look like you are working when and where you are not," said Marc Saltzman, 35, the author of "White Collar Slacker's Handbook" published in June.

Saltzman says computer trickery has become mainstream as the not-super-tech savvy people seek ways of coping with a 24x7 work culture and the increasing inability of people to dodge uncomfortable questions in an era of "always-on" broadband, mobile phone and instant messaging connections.

"Just because you can be reached everywhere doesn't mean you have to be in touch all the time," Saltzman said in a phone interview. "The question is how do you turn the tables?"

The book, published by technical publisher Que, provides a how-to manual for computer users to tell little white lies to deceive friends and colleagues.

But the ease with which technology can be used to bend the truth can just as easily be used for criminal activity such as identity theft and other crimes.

"Technology and computers have given dishonest people an ability to pretend that they're someone they're not," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner Group. "Now, if you have a minute amount of technical savvy you can wreak a lot of havoc."

He cited a recent case of nine-year-olds who scanned dollar bills into a computer, printed out the fakes and used them to buy snacks at their school's cafeteria.

"With an inkjet printer you can create virtually any document that you want to these days," Reynolds said.

REVERSING TIME

Missed a deadline? No problem.

One simple trick to "reverse" time is to backdate the clock settings on your computer. E-mails will then appear to have been sent earlier. Of course, workers need to remember to reset their clock to the correct time afterward.

"It will certainly prove that you sent the e-mail when you said you did," Saltzman said. "You can just blame the delay on the network."

In Japan, the land of a thousand "face-saving" apologies, consumers can invent convincing sounding excuses for bosses or spouses by using a small keychain device with prerecorded sounds that allows users to pretend to be where they are not.

"Alibi Intersection," as the device is known, comes with six buttons that generate noises such as driving a car, standing in a train station or hearing a front-door chime. A software version for mobile phones that goes by the name of SoundCover in Europe and Soundster in the United States is available.

The noises lend aural authenticity to excuses when played in the background of a mobile phone conversation.

Users of Microsoft Outlook, the most popular e-mail management program, can make their bosses think they are burning the midnight oil by composing e-mails that they set up to be sent out far later, say at 1 a.m.

In Outlook, under options, the user can check the box for "Do Not Deliver before" option. Then choose the time and each subsequent message will be held in your outbox until the appointed hour.

Another trick is to sign onto instant messaging systems from home to make it look you are already at work. If your boss isn't in the same office as you, it appears as if you are at work early. You can also decide whether to disable the away feature on your buddy list.

If you are really worried your boss may try to contact you, have the IM message forwarded as a test message (a separate mobile phone technology that works in similar ways to IM on computers), Saltzman suggests.

Analyst Tim Bajarin of research firm Creative Strategies said that while computer trickery has become a fact of life, it is concentrated among younger workers who are more comfortable with new technologies.

"The older computer user pretty much lets the computer lie. They won't tinker because they are worried they are going to screw the machine up," Bajarin said. "Most of this group hasn't figured out how to set their videocassette clock yet."

(Additional reporting by Duncan Martell in San Francisco, Reed Stevenson in Seattle and Kevin Krolicki in Los Angeles)

July 17, 2005 at 02:04 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Sony takes bite out of Apple's iPod in Japan

Sony takes bite out of Apple's iPod in Japan - Yahoo! News

By Nathan Layne Thu Jul 14,12:33 PM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Don't call it a comeback yet, but Sony Corp. has a new lineup of digital music players that are slicing into the popularity of Apple Computer's iPod device in Japan.

Apple is still squashing Sony in Europe and North America, where the iPod has achieved iconic status and a big selling point is the availability of iTunes, an easy-to-use music downloading service that has not yet been launched in Japan.

While Apple remains the top seller of hard drive players in Japan, there has been a decisive momentum swing in the Japanese market, with Sony (6758.T) securing the top position for memory-type players in both May and June, knocking Apple and its iPod shuffle device into second place.

Translating that success overseas will not be easy, but boosting sales in Japan is an important first step for Sony as it tries to reclaim the lead in the portable audio market it helped pioneer with the Walkman cassette player 26 years ago.

"There is no question that Sony has the potential of being much more competitive," said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, a U.S.-based research firm. "It could emerge as a more formidable rival to Apple over the next three years."

Launched worldwide in March and April, Sony's new lineup of music players includes several models equipped with flash memory chips able to store 256, 512 megabytes or 1 gigabyte of data, and two players with hard disk drives.

Of those, Sony's gains in the Japanese market have come primarily from one line of flash memory players that have won over consumers with a long-lasting battery -- it can play up to 50 hours on one charge -- and a stylish design.

Resembling a small perfume bottle, the players have a rounded body that strikes a sharp contrast with the shuffle's rectangular shape and flat front. Sony's players also feature a display to view what music is playing, while the iPod shuffle does not.

"Design is one of the main factors consumers now look at when buying a portable audio player. They have become like accessories, so having something that looks good is a must," said Shinichi Iwata, who oversees marketing of the Walkman in Japan.

Sony's players are more expensive than the shuffle, but enough consumers seem willing to pay the extra price.

According to market research company BCN, Sony's share of the Japanese market for flash memory players went from just 4 percent in March to 16 percent in April and shot up to 27 percent in May and June. Apple's share has fallen to under 20 percent.

TRYING TO CONNECT

Sony has not issued official sales forecasts for the new flash memory players, but Iwata said demand in Japan had so far been double what the company initially expected.

Sales of the hard drive units have been less impressive, but that is not surprising as Sony's only players on the market are 20 and 30 gigabyte (GB) models, leaving it without a product to go head-to-head with Apple's (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) hot-selling iPod mini device.

The mini comes in a 4 GB or 6 GB model, holding 1,000 or 1,500 songs -- just about right for many consumers who don't feel the need to carry around their entire CD collection. Sony players, for example, can store more than 10,000 songs.

Sony has made its new Walkmans compatible with the MP3 format, meaning consumers can now download and play back more common MP3 files. Some previous models had been compatible only with Sony's proprietary Atrac format, which hindered sales.

Despite the improvements, analysts say Sony's new Walkmans have not sold as well in Europe and North America and several hurdles remain to its success in those markets.

One is Apple's entrenched position. According to industry data, Apple holds 60 to 70 percent of the U.S. digital music player market and is also very strong in Europe.

Several low-cost Asian makers are also fighting for a piece of the market, which researcher In-Stat predicts will nearly quadruple to 104 million units a year by 2009.

Among the top players are Singapore's Creative Technology Ltd. (CREA.SI) (Nasdaq:CREAF - news),
South Korea's Reigncom Ltd's (060570.KS) iRiver, and Rio, owned by D&M Holdings Inc. (6735.T).

Another challenge for Sony will be developing more appealing jukebox software and a download service that consumers perceive to be just as easy to navigate as iTunes. Sony has not had much success so far with its "Connect" online music store.

"Based on the hardware they look very sharp. But Sony's big challenge has always been to create software that is easy to use right out of the box," said Jon Erensen, a U.S.-based analyst at research firm Gartner who tracks the music player market.

Erensen said lack of an iTunes online store aimed at users in Japan was a major reason behind Sony's success in its home market. That could change if Apple, as a newspaper reported, unleashes iTunes in Japan next month. Apple declined comment.

The job of coming up with a cohesive strategy to overtake Apple will fall on the Connect Company, a unit established by Sony late last year to bring together disparate software and hardware operations into one entity with common goals.

Analysts say prospects for gains in market share are much greater since Howard Stringer became Sony's new chief executive last month promising to break down the "silo walls" around individual business units.

Sony's problems in the portable audio market have been widely blamed on infighting between music and hardware divisions over antipiracy issues and a general lack of focus. Both the PC and Walkman units put out their own hard drive players last year.

"Because Stringer comes out of the entertainment business, he understands the ramifications of them losing the digital Walkman market to Apple. And I am convinced that he is obsessed with trying to beat Apple at their own game," Bajarin said. (Additional reporting by Lucas van Grinsven in Amsterdam and Duncan Martell in San Francisco)

July 16, 2005 at 06:21 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (66) | Top of page | Blog Home

Web users flock to UK sites for London blast news

Web users flock to UK sites for London blast news - Yahoo! News

By Jeffrey Goldfarb Thu Jul 7, 3:38 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Record numbers of visitors deluged British Web sites on Thursday as people around the world sought news of the blasts that rocked London's public transport.

Sites operated by public broadcaster BBC, satellite TV company BSkyB (BSY.L), news provider Reuters (RTR.L) and the Financial Times business newspaper (PSON.L) suffered longer delays on their home pages Thursday morning in London because of the volume, according to a company that monitors Web traffic.

"There was a significant amount of turbulence in terms of performance," said Roopak Patel, an analyst at Keynote Systems.

The BBC expects by the end of Thursday it will have had the most visitors in a single day in the history of its news Web site, though it won't have official data until Friday.

"We have had a huge surge in people using the site today," BBC spokeswoman Naomi Luland said. "We are pretty certain this is going to be our busiest ever day."

The bbc.co.uk Web site experienced some delays, she added, but handled the volume well.

"We haven't had any major problems. We've had consistency in service. There may have been a little slowdown earlier," Luland said.

Among the other popular UK sites were sky.com/skynews, ft.com and reuters.com.

By 3:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), Sky said it had registered 1.7 million unique visitors for the day.

"That's the equivalent of a month's traffic on the site," Sky spokeswoman Stella Tooth said.

"We had 25 million page impressions and the site was very robust and withstood the extra traffic," she added.

The Reuters sites at reuters.com, reuters.co.uk and others in Europe experienced a "technical fault" with their servers unrelated to high volume earlier in the day, the company said. The problem was fixed by the afternoon.

"In the morning, we saw five times the normal traffic for our global network of sites and from this afternoon it was about twice the normal traffic," spokeswoman Susan Allsopp said. "We saw huge traffic for the tsunami in Asia so I don't think we can say it's a record, but it's high peaks in our coverage."

A spokeswoman for the FT said it would not have any information about the number of visitors to ft.com until Friday.

Keynote's index of some 40 UK business Web sites showed an increase in delays, with the wait time for pages to load spiking to 17 seconds during peak usage from the normal average of 2 seconds. Reliability decreased as well as one in four attempts to load a Web page failed at peak times, according to Keynote.

"Users who were trying to access the information were seeing higher than normal delays, and at the same time some people weren't able to get through to some sites," Patel said.

He added that U.S. news sites saw no major delays because Internet infrastructure in the United States is more robust and most users were on the Web hours after the attacks happened.

At MSNBC.com, which is co-owned by General Electric Co.'s (NYSE:GE - news) NBC and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), a spokeswoman said data indicated that traffic to the site was about twice normal levels on Thursday morning. She also said the site was seeing twice the average number of streaming video viewers.

The spokeswoman added that the site did not experience any technical delays.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, many news Web sites were so overwhelmed with visitors that they could not be accessed, forcing on-the-fly redesigns to simplify homepages with fewer photographs and less advertising. (Additional reporting by Nicole Volpe in New York)

July 10, 2005 at 09:32 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Car navigation sector heats up

Car navigation sector heats up - Yahoo! News

By Niclas Mika Wed Jun 22, 1:06 PM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Concerns that car navigation firm TomTom may be squeezed by cheap Asian competitors and by bigger players such as Microsoft and
Nokia are pressuring shares in the Dutch firm, analysts said.

Shares in TomTom, whose 469 million euro ($571.5 million) initial public offering on May 27 was Amsterdam's biggest in five years, have closed below their 17.50 euro issue price in six of the last nine trading days.

They stood at 17.20 euros at 1500 GMT on Wednesday, 10 percent below a high of 19.10 euros on May 30, while Amsterdam's main AEX index rose 4 percent over the same period.

"TomTom had an enormous cash cow in the form of the TomTom Go in 2004, which will probably last until 2006, but then you will see cheaper imitations coming out of Korea and Taiwan," asset manager Gert Jan Geels at broker Eureffect said.

The firm has captured a leading market share with the portable TomTom Go device that can easily be mounted on the dashboard and moved from car to car. Sales of the device accounted for about 70 percent of first-quarter revenues.

Even before the IPO, some analysts had warned of risks from competition, but the issue was forced on the table when UBS initiated the stock with a 12 euro price target earlier this month.

"UBS really made people think," Geels said.

TomTom Chief Financial Officer Marina Wyatt told Reuters that with only 6 percent of 200 million cars on Europe's streets equipped with navigation systems, there was enough space for competitors.

"I acknowledge that there will be more competition, but I also think there needs to be more competition to really drive the category," she said.

MARGINS

Analysts say they wonder whether TomTom can hold its operating margin, which stood at 22.6 percent last year.

"If you're a bit of a smart software engineer, you can do the same," Stroeve analyst Philip Scholte said. "I wouldn't be surprised if margins go down very fast in the coming two years."

Wyatt said TomTom would itself drive down prices to attract more customers while cutting costs to keep margins strong.

TomTom has forecast its revenues to double this year at stable operating margins.

There are no consensus estimates available for TomTom yet, but analysts' estimates imply a forward price-earnings ratio in the range of 21 to 26. U.S. competitor Garmin trades at 18 times estimated 2005 earnings, according to Reuters data.

Scholte said that, apart from cheaper Asian competition, established companies might also be a threat to TomTom.

He pointed to Nokia's announcement this week of a navigation pack consisting of a Nokia 6630 phone, a wireless GPS module and software from TomTom competitor Wayfinder Systems.

"I think it is a major competitive threat to TomTom if mobile phone makers start integrating navigation software onto a phone," Scholte said.

"Then I think TomTom may be in big trouble, especially if it's Nokia. They have a market share of 32 to 33 percent of the global mobile phone market."

Wyatt said companies like Nokia or Microsoft fight on many fronts. "We're focused, we've been doing this for a long time, and we understand the market." ($1=.8206 Euro)

June 22, 2005 at 09:44 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (46) | Top of page | Blog Home

Apple Shares Dip on IPod Sales Reports

Apple Shares Dip on IPod Sales Reports - Yahoo! News

Fri Jun 3, 6:09 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Shares of Apple Computer Inc. slid nearly 5 percent Friday following reports that sales of its iPod digital music player appear to be slowing.

Investment firm Goldman Sachs said in a report Thursday that it expects shipments of Apple's digital music player to be flat this quarter. Internet news site AppleInsider also reported Thursday that Apple has a glut of most iPod models, especially the recently launched iPod Shuffle.

In afternoon trading, Apple shares fell $1.80, or 4.5 percent, to close at $38.24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have traded between $14.15 and $45.44 over the past year.

AppleInsider quoted unidentified sources who said that shipments of most iPod models are "flat or declining" for the first time since the device was launched in 2001.The report also said Apple was overstocked in some models of personal computers and other products.

"We don't comment on rumors and speculation," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling responded.

The iPod has seen increased competition from rival digital music players in recent months as well as the emergence of handhelds devices that perform multiple tasks, such as store photos, receive e-mail and play digital music files.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., has historically shipped more iPods to retailers than expected but Goldman Sachs analysts predicted that Apple would likely only meet expectations this quarter.

Also Friday, the company announced an iPod recycling program in which customers can bring the portable music players they no longer want to Apple's U.S. retail stores for environmentally-friendly disposal. Those who drop off an iPod will receive a 10 percent discount on a new one.

June 4, 2005 at 02:56 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

Advanced workflow

Courtesy of Jeff here

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April 23, 2005 at 06:10 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

GTD - diagram

The David Allen Company

April 23, 2005 at 12:12 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Text messaging, emails not so GR8, study finds

TheStar.com - Text messaging, emails not so GR8, study finds

Researchers say it destroys mind faster than pot
But one manager feels he's sharper in `info-mania' era

SHARDA PRASHAD
BUSINESS REPORTER

Brad Simms sends and receives more than 50 text messages and 100 emails every day. He thinks his BlackBerry has sharpened his mental performance. He now has more free time to go to the gym.

And Simms laughs off a study that suggests people like him are losing their smarts � indeed, more so than if they smoked pot � because of the amount of time they spend sending electronic messages.

The University of London study found constant emailing and text messaging reduces mentality capability by an average of 10 points on an I.Q. test � five points for women and 15 for men.

"We tested office workers under `quiet' conditions, and then under `loud' conditions, which allowed them to access their email and text messages," said Glenn Wilson, a psychology professor at the University of London and author of the Hewlett-Packard-sponsored study. "The performance on I.Q. tests dropped by 10 points."

That's the same effect as missing a night's sleep, Wilson said. Smoking cannabis, by comparison, decreases mental capability by four points.

"This is a very real and widespread phenomenon," he said. "We have found that info-mania, if unchecked, will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness."

Info-mania, a term used to describe workers who constantly check text and email messages, is something to be taken seriously, Wilson said. It's a trend that, he predicts, is on the rise.

The negative effects reported in the study are temporary, Wilson explained, and performance will return when the technology is removed. However, Wilson said, if the culture of always needing to be "on" persists, info-mania could lead to permanent impairment in performance.

Simms, despite the evidence, disagrees with the survey's findings. Since acquiring his BlackBerry six months ago, he said he is more mentally astute than before. It's true, his CrackBerry � the name given to the addictive nature of the tool � is something he can't live without, but it's not ruining his ability to produce results at work.

"I think I'm a lot sharper," said the 31-year-old senior manager at Sapient, a business consulting firm. He keeps his BlackBerry on 11 hours every day. Being "on" for nearly half the day leaves Simms with an extra three hours of time every day to refocus. "It's a productivity saver. I don't have to sit in front of the computer. I can go to the gym and talk to my friends."

The study found British respondents weren't as disciplined as Simms. They didn't turn off their email or text messages when they left work � 62 per cent of survey respondents checked their messages when they were out of the office and on holiday.

Despite 89 per cent of respondents finding it "extremely rude" to answer emails and phone calls during face-to-face meetings, one in five respondents were "happy" to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to an email or telephone call.

"The problem with this technology is that it disrupts our train of thought if you let it," said Beverly Beuermann-King, a stress and wellness expert. "A beep on the email, or a buzzing in the pocket, takes you away from what you're working on. It takes focus away from the long term."

Technology and email are consistently named as sources of stress for clients, Beuermann-King said.

"The problem is the volume (of messages) and the expectation that you need to respond within 24 hours," Beuermann-King said. "People need to set realistic expectation for themselves and others."

Wilson agrees, adding that employers should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working.

The Scotsman newspaper reported yesterday that the CEO of the Caudwell Group, the United Kingdom's largest independent distributor of cellphones, banned his staff from emailing last year, calling it "the cancer of modern business," and the Phones 4U chain told its 2,500 employees to abstain from cyberspace and opt for telephone or in-person communication � a practice reported to have had an "instant, dramatic effect."

Keywords
Blackberry
low IQ
iq
reduced intelligence
professor

April 23, 2005 at 09:01 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (33) | Top of page | Blog Home

GTD - The PigPog Method

GTD - The PigPog Method - PigPog Creativity Wiki

This article describes how I actually implement the GTD system using my iPaq and Outlook, though it could be done just as well with almost any computerised lists. It's my solution to the GTD problem of linking next actions to their project. If you don't know what GTD is, you'd probably best start with my introduction. If you do GTD, but use paper and pen, have a look at MarkTAW's Cascading Next Actions (http://www.marktaw.com/blog/CascadingNextActions.html) method - similar, but designed for paper users.

GTD is all based on David Allen's excellent books. You'll get far more from reading the books than from any web site. From Amazon US: - Getting Things Done (http://pigpog.com/aus.php?asin=0142000280), Ready for Anything (http://pigpog.com/aus.php?asin=0670032506). From Amazon UK - Getting Things Done (http://pigpog.com/auk.php?asin=0749922648), Ready for Anything (http://pigpog.com/auk.php?asin=0749924799).

Introduction

This article covers how I implement the GTD system - there's quite a few other ways, though - see GTD Methods - which you may also want to look at before reading this one.
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The Problem

There's a few problems that people have with GTD...
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Actually Doing Things

GTD is great at organising what you have to do, and keeping you on top of everything, but if you don't actually do any of the things, it's only of limited help. Anyone who knows me could vouch for the fact that I'm probably not the best person to advise on that ;)
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Weekly Reviews

A lot of people resist doing the weekly review. It's pretty much vital for GTD that you don't skip weekly reviews, but it's a problem for many people. My system reduces the impact of missing one a little, but only a little. By making the review a bit easier, though, it might make you resist it less. It might not, but it's worth a shot.
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Connecting Projects to Actions

Ah. This is the one for the PigPog Method. This we can help with. Read on.
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The PigPog Method
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Background

I should point out before I start that the PigPog Method was produced through a long discussion between quite a few people on the GtD_Palm Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gtd_palm/). It's by no means all my idea, and in fact even the post where I started it all off was just me pulling together a few ideas I'd picked up from the group. Too many people to remember had valuable suggestions that, put together, made this method, but special thanks should go to James Cameron, Gretchen, Ricky Spears (http://rickyspears.com/blog/), Harold (I think?), and Teri Pitman (http://www.spindlitis.com/).
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The Basic Setup

Personally, I implement this using Outlook Tasks, syncing with my HP iPaq hx4700's Tasks, but you should be able to apply the PigPog Method with almost any setup. It wouldn't be a convenient system with paper, though, it really needs a computer of some sort.

For the most part, my lists are pretty close to the standard ones David Allen recommends. I keep any non-action stuff in the Memos / Notes, rather than Tasks, so Someday/Maybe goes there. My @Action lists are...

* @Anywhere
* @Home
* @Internet
* @Other
* @Waiting For
* @Work

There's also 'Agendas' at the bottom of the list, for things I need to speak to somebody about.
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What? Where's the Projects List?

David Allen says we need a Projects list to keep track of all of those things we need to do that will take more than one action to be complete. That way, when we have ticked off the first action on that project, we won't forget about it altogether. However, these things will only get picked up once a week at the weekly review. There is the risk that you'll end up forgetting about something for up to a week, that really needed doing before. Also, I always found the 'projects' part of the weekly review to be annoyingly difficult and time consuming. For every project on the list, and it can be quite a few (David reckons 40-70 is common), you have to search for a matching action on one of the six (in my case - however many you have) @Action lists. If you don't find one, does that mean you just didn't look carefully enough, or is there really no action in your lists for this one? How do you know it when you see it? It's not so bad if you look at the project and can remember what the next action was - then you will probably know where to look for it, and can make sure it's there pretty quickly. If you can't remember what the next action was, though, you could have a tricky time trying to find one.

In the PigPog Method, we get rid of the Projects list entirely. In a computerised system, it's just not needed any more, and keeping track of it is a big waste of time. Using the example we used when forming the method on the GtD_Palm group, if your project was 'Conquer Albania', and the first action was 'Place Army Wanted Ad', the item on your tasks list would be Place Army Wanted Ad {Conquer Albania}. Your project and its associated next action are there together on the one line. This item goes in whatever @Action context list it belongs in. If you are going to place the ad on eBay, it would go in your @Internet list. Once you've placed the ad, you just edit the item to Responses to Ad {Conquer Albania}, and move it to your @Waiting For list.
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Planning and Keeping History

If you like to plan your projects a bit further, you can put planned future actions in the notes for the task, and just copy and paste them into the subject line when you're ready. I use a template that I insert using Pop! (http://www.digitalglyph.com/pop.html) (costs a little) on the Palm. You can also use TeikeiDA (http://www010.upp.so-net.ne.jp/quni/) (free) if you know enough about Palm DAs (Desk Accessories) to be able to deal with the Japanese documentation (or if you can read Japanese), or use Shortkeys Lite (http://www.shortkeys.com/lite.htm) (free) for Windows. Anyway, the template...

=Outcome=

=Plans=

=History=

=Notes=

Outcome is a statement of the desired outcome - how we'll know when the project is complete. I'm actually completely hopeless about filling this in. Plans is for any actions planned in the future. History is for actions that have been completed, or notes of things that happened that were connected with this project - I timestamp these using another Pop! (or Shortkeys Lite) shortcut. I keep less history now than I used to - it wasn't something I used often enough to need it, but you may be different - if so, remember to copy the information to somewhere else if you purge your completed tasks. Notes is for any other information. In the case of things like these blog entries, the notes will contain the actual article as I'm working on it. This is being typed into the Notes section of an Outlook task entitled Write {Blog: GTD: PigPog Method} right now. That way, all my work in progress is always with me in my Palm, ready to be worked on anywhere.
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Advantages

The biggest advantage for me is that I never have to worry about projects not having a next action. I'm forced to think about what I'm going to do next with a project before I can update the system to the fact that I've just done something. That helps to keep things moving. I'm slightly encouraged to do more than one thing, as that saves changing the item as many times. The Weekly Review is less daunting, because the hardest part of it is automatically taken care of. There's one less list to look at. When I find the item that says that I should write a blog entry about something, the notes from when I brainstormed about it are right there in the task item. When I come to review and proofread one I already wrote, the written article is right there ready.
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Disadvantages

There's only really one major disadvantage to this method - there can only be one next action. If you often have the sort of projects where you could do several different things next, depending on where you are when you have the time and inclination, this may be a problem. There's nothing to actually stop you from sometimes making a separate action that isn't physically attached to the project, but if you have to do that a lot, the PigPog Method may not work well for you. When you're new to the PigPog Method, there is also the danger that you could tick off a whole Project on 'auto-pilot', when you only intended to tick off the action. To work around this, you can keep completed tasks visible, and purge at the end of each week, so everything gets an extra check before it's actually gone. This also gives you a second chance to copy any history you want to keep to the calendar where it won't get purged.
[edit]
Conclusion

I find the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, but then again, if I didn't, I wouldn't be writing this at all, would I? It takes away a lot of what I found unpleasant and difficult with GTD, and makes it all feel much more fluid. I'm a born fiddler, and I do keep trying different methods, but the simplicity of the PigPog Method has lured me back every time.

So far.

April 22, 2005 at 10:23 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (34) | Top of page | Blog Home

GTD Introduction

GTD Introduction - PigPog Creativity Wiki

Summary: GTD - Getting Things Done - is a book by David Allen, giving a series of principles for managing the day to day tasks and projects we all have to do. It is based on the idea that if we get everything that concerns us out of our heads, and into a single trusted system, which is then reviewed regularly, we will leave our minds clearer, and be better able to respond to new inputs.

GTD is all based on David Allen's excellent books. You'll get far more from reading the books than from any web site. From Amazon US: - Getting Things Done (http://pigpog.com/aus.php?asin=0142000280), Ready for Anything (http://pigpog.com/aus.php?asin=0670032506). From Amazon UK - Getting Things Done (http://pigpog.com/auk.php?asin=0749922648), Ready for Anything (http://pigpog.com/auk.php?asin=0749924799).

Introduction

This article is intended to cover just the basics of GTD, so you can understand what we're talking about here even if you've not read the book.. If you find the ideas interesting, though, I'd strongly recommend you buy the book, as it really does cover the ideas well, and in a lot more detail than I will here. Buy it through the links at the top, and PigPog will get a little cut ;)

David Allen's GTD involves clearing your mind of all the things you keep remembering and thinking about, that are nagging at you to do them. The idea is that if you can get these things written down, into a system you trust, and know that you'll be reminded of them at the appropriate time, you can get them out of your head, and use all that spare head-space for something more useful. Storing cheese, perhaps.
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The Workflow

One of the unusual things about GTD is that it gives you a full workflow for managing your 'stuff', rather than just a load of tips and tricks, or methods for dealing with one part of it.

David splits the process up into five distinct stages...
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Collect

First, we need to collect all the things that are worrying us, or that we need to do something about. David calls this a 'Mind Sweep' - sweeping everything that's on our minds into our system. He suggests one idea to a sheet of paper, and throw them all into an inbox to process later, but the actual method doesn't matter too much, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the flow of ideas. In DA's language, anything that holds some part of your attention is an open loop.

Personally, I collect new ideas in my iPaq, either using the voice recorder, or Pocket Informant's Alarm Notes, where you just scribble on the screen - it doesn't convert the scribbles into text, just stores them as scribbles. Machines from palmOne have Notes, which is very similar, or you can download Diddlebug (http://diddlebug.sourceforge.net/). Anything that can be used without needing to think much should do the job - index cards, sheets of paper, or whatever.
[edit]
Process

Processing is the act of going through all the items in your inbox, that you collected earlier, and deciding what they are, and what you need to do with them. They might need throwing in the bin, they might need storing somewhere for later reference, they might just need reading. For many things, though, you're going to need to actually do something about them.

The question to ask here for each item is "What's the next action?" This is the very next thing you would do about this item, if it was the apropriate time, you were in the right place, etc. If this one action would complete the item, then it's just an action to do. If it won't, then it's a project, and you'll need an extra reminder so that when you've done that action, you won't forget about the item.
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Organise

You need to keep organised lists of all the things you have to do, and although these could be arranged in various ways, David has specific suggestions for how to do this...
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Action lists

These are the lists of next actions you need to do. David recommends splitting these into a few lists, based around 'contexts'. A context is either a place you need to be, or something you need to have with you to be able to do that action. A list of phone calls could be one context, things you can only do at home or only at the office could be others. Your contexts are unlikely to be the same as mine, and we're probably both different from David. MarkTAW has a nice article on picking contexts (http://www.marktaw.com/gtd/ContextLists.html) - it's easy to get carried away.

David suggests placing an @ symbol in front of each of these lists - @ for Action - if you're using computer based lists (Outlook, Palm, etc), the @ sign will make them sort to the top, which is useful, as these are the lists you'll be referring to most often.
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Projects

I mention above the idea that some items will take more than just the next single action to be complete. These things are projects, and you need to keep a note of them on a separate list, and try to make sure that everything on this list always has at least one connected action on the action lists.

Linking projects to their associated next actions is one of the most discussed parts of GTD, and the trick I use has become known as the PigPog Method.
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Agendas

Things you need to talk to people about. If you group the items by person, when you're next speaking to that person, you can quickly get a list of all the things you needed them for.
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Waiting For

If you're waiting for someone else to come back to you, or waiting for delivery of something you've ordered, but it's something you still need to keep track of, it goes on this list. It's for anything that isn't for you to do, but that you need to remember about. You may need to chase some of these things up, but you'll pick that up when you review, and then they'll go into either an action list or your Agendas list.
[edit]
Someday/Maybe

This is the list for anything that you're not ready or not able to do yet, or just don't want to. If you want to learn Swedish at some point, but you don't have time to start yet, it goes here. If you have to prepare a report for your boss, but the relevant information isn't available until next month, you'd make a note here.
[edit]
Review

In many ways, reviewing is at the heart of GTD. If you don't review your lists, you won't be able to trust them, and your mind will worry about them again. That's what we're trying to avoid here. How often, and when, you review may depend on who you are and what you do, but David suggests a single review once a week. Many people find a smaller daily review helps a lot, too. The weekly review is where you tie up your projects with their actions, and make sure nothing has been forgotten about. It should also include getting all of your inboxes emptied, and all of your notes and messages processed.
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Do

This is kind of the point of all this. If you don't do things, you're not really Getting Things Done. You've got all the things you want to do listed - the only question is how to pick which one to do now. Again, David has advice - and it starts with the way we organised our action lists. If you went along with his suggestion, you have your lists organised by context, so you can probably only do things from one or two of the lists right now anyway - so the rest of the lists can be ignored. After that, it comes down to how much time you have, how much energy you have, and how important the things are.
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Results

Personally, I feel better organised using GTD than without it. I don't have the type or level of workload that really needs it, so I probably get less out of it than some other people do. Lots of people report very big changes, though, and I've yet to hear of anyone who didn't get anything out of it, unless they've been pushed into it without actually being interested.

April 22, 2005 at 10:22 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

filofax ideas

Forums - Using a Filofax

http://www.davidco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=726&start=15

I use:

“In-box�� for anything that comes to mind, new commitments etc;

Diary;

Context/Agenda lists: @on the road, @hardware store, @home computer, @wife (re: holidays, schools, finances etc), @parents, etc;

Personal Projects list;

Outline project planning – bullet points on a single page covering the main steps of a project, including desired outcome;

Someday/maybe list (depressingly long);

Reference, which includes birthdays, books I might buy (which could also be called @bookshop), CD’s I might get etc;

Phone numbers.

April 22, 2005 at 10:16 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

The hipster PDA

Globetechnology: The hipster PDA

The BlackBerry generation, writes TRALEE PEARCE, is finding salvation in pen and paper
By TRALEE PEARCE
Monday, April 18, 2005 Updated at 9:16 AM EST

Globe and Mail Update
On BlackBerry-addicted Parliament Hill, NDP press secretary Ian Capstick turns heads with his newest organizational gadget: a stack of 3 x 5 index cards held together by a black bull clip.

His Hill-issued BlackBerry was starting to annoy him. He was drowning in unreliable notes at his desk. So when he stumbled upon a simple stack of index cards in a filing cabinet one day, he tried them out.

"I started to keep a few cards in my back pocket to write press requests on," the 24-year-old says. "Soon, it evolved into a way to keep the entire day's activities in order. Now, people are pretty used to seeing it in my hand."

A month into using his new system, he found an on-line community at a blog called 43 Folders (http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/introducing_the.html). There, the file-card-and-clip system has been dubbed the "hipster PDA."

Advertisements

The site is a fetishization of all things analogue -- Moleskine diaries, index cards and other office-supply classics -- and an ode to a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Site founder and self-proclaimed "Web nerd" Merlin Mann, 38, has his tongue only partly in his cheek in recasting index cards and clips as the gadget du jour.

"I have a theory," he says from his home office in San Francisco. "There's been a lot of encouragement from all sides over the last 30 years to look at all of your problems as something that can be solved with a piece of technology."

The catch? We start to think about what tools we want to use before we think about what problems we want to solve.

Mann is fond of the old saw that with a hammer every problem looks like a nail. With a $400 piece of equipment, you'll force yourself into using its features even if they're not natural to you.

For Capstick, "the BlackBerry is a frustrating piece of technology. It doesn't always work. When I reach for my 3 x 5s, it works. I don't have to worry abut service interruptions or dropping it or recharging it. And you can sit on it and it doesn't hurt."

The cards fill up starting with the first meeting of the morning.

On the day we speak, he quickly lists off policy questions that take up a card each that he'll run by the MPs. There's a to-do card to link journalists and MPs on specific questions. If there's a new tack or new language, he'll write himself reminders.

And as backlash against the "CrackBerry" grows, Capstick says the hipster PDA reintroduced a little civility to work relations.

"When I'm standing next to Jack [Layton], it's a fantastic thing not to be typing into my BlackBerry looking like I'm disinterested and disoriented," he says. "You're much more in tune with the person you're talking to. I'm in politics. Politics is about people and technology can be a barrier. When I pull out my 3 x 5s they know I'm making notes about them, not checking my e-mail or surfing the Web."

He adds that people feel comfortable watching him jot down a note. He welcomes spell-checking, for instance. "Reporters can correct me as I'm writing something down. It would be considered rude to look at someone's BlackBerry."

He still has his BlackBerry, but uses it only for e-mail. Everything else is in the cards.

Mann stresses that he's not anti-Palm or anti-BlackBerry, he's just on a personal quest to use only the gadgets he really needs. As an early adopter of the PDA -- he's had four since 1997 -- he says he was using his for "information capture" not "information recall."

In other words, many of the things people have PDAs for -- calling up calendars, addresses, memos, wines you want to try -- he wasn't using. He was just using it to write things down in an elaborate way.

"I work at home at a computer. I don't need to call all that stuff up," he says. "I need a way when I'm in a bar, of writing down a music suggestion and handing it to somebody. And I need a way to write down a website someone wants me to visit. I put it in my little clip and I'm done."

Mann redefines the PDA from Personal Data Assistant to "Parietal Disgorgement Aid," referring to the lobes in the brain concerned with the reception and correlation of sensory information.

On his website, he instructs people to "1. Get a bunch of 3" x 5" file cards," and "2. Clip them together with a binder clip." And No. 3 is, "There is no step 3."

He attributes the hearty response to his system in part to a techie overload.

"When you look at what's happened in the last five years there are two digital appliances that have become very important," he says. "The cellphone. And increasingly, almost everyone I know under the age of 40 -- and many over 40 -- have some kind of personal music device like an iPod."

"So that means unless your Palm is integrated into your phone or your MP3 player you're gonna need a Chewbacca bandolier to keep all your stuff on," he says, betraying his nerdiness with a Star Wars reference. "Do you really need a sack with three pieces of equipment in it every time you go to a bar? There's something a little tragic about it."

Not to mention what happens when you sit down with a crew of fellow tech lovers, emptying your pockets onto a table.

"We call it Nerd Mountain -- I have a picture of it on my site."

But since we all love to make things as complicated as possible using techie computer lingo, his website goes on to list "Settings and Preferences" which in this case involves such things as coloured index cards to create categories and his pen of choice, the Fisher Space Pen. And the system dovetails nicely with his other fetish, Getting Things Done, famous for its "next action" system of time management.

Without having to get out a stylus, turn something on, recharge batteries and so on, Mann found his life simplified to the point where he can get a little evangelical.

"It's facile to say I'm a Luddite who just likes paper," he says. "It reflects a certain kind of decision about your life. You've looked at the tools that are available and you've chosen one that's more modest but does what you need in a more elegant way."

And he points out that computer programmers have been relying on index cards as a way to organize information for a long time.

"There's a development approach called extreme programming and index cards play a big role in that." He calls them "atomic units of information."

"They're inexpensive, they have a very satisfying feeling when you tear one in half and throw it in the trash when a task is done."

Mann and Capstick are clearly not alone. One the newest editions of the famous Moleskine bound notebook features a mini accordion file perfect for index cards. And the hip men's shopping mag Cargo has created pullout 3 x 5 cards with shopping info printed on them -- perfect to clip into your PDA.

Capstick says he had watched his roommate, University of Ottawa grad student Mark Greenan, 23, use the index card to catalogue notes for his thesis on philosopher Jurgen Habermas. Greenan says he has 100 to 200 index cards of his "scrawly chicken-scratch-like writing."

"There's something to be said for analogue," he says, adding that he's never owned a PDA, although he has eyed them on occasion. "I think this is more suited to me."

In his pocket currently are cards containing lists of people to e-mail, events he's going to, and notes from a lecture. He added a bull clip after Capstick revealed his hipster PDA.

"That was definitely a design improvement."

Mann and writing partner Danny O'Brien see the hipster PDA as part of a bigger trend they call "life hacks," emanating from the computer programming world.

"It's the idea that there are certain kinds of rules and practices that can work as excellent short cuts," he says. He defines a hack as a "frequently inelegant way of fixing a problem. A way of getting by."

For instance, O'Brien has written a script that pops up while he's surfing the Web asking if he should get back to work. Or how about a webcam to remind you to improve your computer-desk posture? They're known as "useful landmines."

Obvious maybe, but increasingly necessary to keep technology in its place.

He says many of us live in fear of our PCs, logging off correctly, fretting about not screwing them up, calling our IT departments in desperation.

"You start to think of yourself as a victim of your own technology. You end up having to buy books you gotta read, instead of asking yourself what will get you closer to where you want to be."

April 18, 2005 at 12:50 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home

Company Develops Way to Restore Cookies

Yahoo! News - Company Develops Way to Restore Cookies

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The company behind those floating ads that dance across Web pages has developed a way to restore the data profiles that many privacy-conscious users try to delete from their computers.

Most users don't know what they are doing when they run antispyware programs that delete the profiles, known as cookies, said Mookie Tenembaum, founder of United Virtualities Inc.

By deleting cookies, he said, users thwart efforts by Web sites to prevent the same ads from appearing over and over. Tenembaum said visitors are also forced to repeatedly enter usernames and passwords, which are sometimes stored in the profiles.

United Virtualities calls the product Persistent Identification Element. It taps a separate profile system that's found in Macromedia Inc.'s Flash and that's not generally affected by antispyware programs.

Using the product, when a Web site discovers a cookie missing, it can look for a backup in Flash and restore the cookie.

Richard M. Smith, a privacy and security consultant in Cambridge, Mass., was critical of United Virtualities.

"Companies should respect people's choices," he said, "If a consumer makes the effort of getting antispyware software, they don't want this stuff."

Macromedia responded by issuing instructions for turning the profile system off: http://www.macromedia.com/go/52697ee8.

Tenembaum acknowledged that his product might displease what he described as the handful of knowledgeable users who had consciously deleted their cookies.

But "we cannot make everybody happy all of the time," he said. "We can make most of the people happy most of the time."

April 7, 2005 at 07:29 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Buying the future

Economist.com

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition

Now they have assumed power, what will consumers do with it?

FIFTY years ago, when products were more individual, manufacturers had the upper hand. They could charge a lot for successful items because they were made in small quantities. As competition increased and became more global, there were more products to choose from and they increasingly resembled each other. This gave retailers the advantage because they could pick and choose which products to sell, and demand the best prices from suppliers. Now the consumer is taking command.

Shoppers' rights have been beefed up by new legislation, and much more information is readily available from consumer reports and the like. All this has made it harder for merchants to rip consumers off or sell them shoddy merchandise. But above all, it is the arrival of the internet that is responsible for the big shift in power. The web makes it easy for people to discover what they want to know and who offers the best deal. This could still be a retailer, but it could also be a manufacturer selling directly to consumers, or a trader on eBay who has bought a job lot and is auctioning it off at bargain prices. So start with the internet to see where consumer power may lead.

E-commerce is growing rapidly. Online shoppers in America during the 2004 holiday season�the busiest time for retailers, from November 1st to December 26th�spent $23 billion online, 25% more than in the same period in 2003, according to a regular e-commerce survey carried out by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen//NetRatings. Spending patterns on the internet are increasingly coming to resemble those in the high street. Clothing was the most popular item bought online in America, accounting for 16% of online sales, followed by toys and video games with 11% and consumer electronics with 10%. Jewellery was the fastest-growing category, with the value of sales doubling to $1.9 billion.

These figures, however, exclude services, such as online travel bookings�a business estimated to have been worth $50 billion in America in 2004, up about 25% on the previous year. That includes bookings made with online travel businesses, through firms such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, and bookings being made directly on airline, hotel and car-rental websites. All this threatens the future of many high-street travel agents. Through their computers, consumers now have easy access to information that once only travel agents could lay their hands on.

But as firms making consumer goods, electronics and cars have found, the influence of the net extends well beyond buying goods and services online. A quarter of the people using search engines to get information about consumer electronics and computer products bought a product in the end�and 92% of those shopped offline, according to a joint study by Overture, a marketing company owned by Yahoo!, and comScore Networks, a firm that monitors consumer behaviour.

The group to watch closely is the younger generation. Young people are the most avid users of the internet because they have grown up with its benefits. In America, 18- to 34-year-olds make up 24% of the population, but account for 40% of all the web pages viewed. A joint study by comScore and America's Online Publishers Association provides a fascinating insight into their behaviour.

Tomorrow's world

More than any other group, the 18- to 34-year-olds access the internet from places other than home, school or work, especially if they are using a mobile phone. They seem to want to be connected wherever they go. They also see the internet as one of their most important sources of information and entertainment. Some 40% use the web to help them pick a film to watch, and to find out where it is playing. One-third use it to look up local restaurants and clubs. And every day, an average 30% of them visit an entertainment website, only slightly fewer than those who regularly read the arts and entertainment sections in newspapers. Perhaps less surprisingly, females are more likely to visit retail sites, whereas males surf the net in search of computer games, cars and sports.

For this age group, the internet will remain the most dominant medium in their lives, as it will be for the following generation�who even at primary school are using the web to do their homework. This does not mean they will reject the traditional retail environment entirely. Shops will be as much part of their scene as they have been for their parents or grandparents. But some shops may be used in different ways. One indication is the growth of brand showrooms, such as the Apple and Sony stores. Their main role is to demonstrate a range of the company's products, with knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff on hand who are under no pressure to clinch a sale. Where people actually buy the product in the end becomes of secondary importance.

Having achieved power, consumers will not give it up. �There's clearly no turning back,� says Dell's Mr George. �The market will get more fragmented, customers' needs will get more diverse, and sophistication and empowerment will continue to grow.� As marketeers adjust to this new environment, advertising may well have to become more permission-based. That could involve economic incentives, such as the bargain that has long paid for lots of free TV: in return for sitting through the ads, here are the programmes you want.

But the bargain with today's consumers will have to become more refined. Gmail, a free online e-mail service offered by Google, could provide a clue to the way things are going. It has lots of features and offers 1,000 megabytes of storage space, much more than its rivals. In return, users agree to allow small text ads to be placed in their e-mails. The ads are selected to match the subject matter of the e-mail, with Google's ad-placement software picking up on certain key words. An e-mail exchange about digital cameras, for instance, is likely to attract links to companies selling them. Despite some initial concerns about privacy, most Gmail users are savvy enough to know that it is the computer software, not a real person, which is reading their e-mails. Lots of people have volunteered for the service's experimental stage, so Google is expected to make it more widely available soon.

As media become increasingly interactive, consumers will be able to exercise ever more choice over which of them they consume, how, when and where. Getting advertising will be optional�so it had better be good, useful and relevant to their lives. But even mass-media advertising will continue to have a role, at least for the foreseeable future. For as Ogilvy & Mather's Mrs Lazarus points out, even those ever-connected young people do not want to be interactive all of the time. Sometimes they just want to go home, sink into the sofa, switch on the television and watch the Super Bowl�ads and all. Consumer power also means you can decide to take an evening off.

April 5, 2005 at 07:58 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (22) | Top of page | Blog Home

Target practice

Economist.com

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition

Advertising used to be straightforward. Now it has to be many different things to different people

IT IS not the sort of thing most people would notice, but for Madison Avenue, the spiritual home in New York of America's advertising industry, it signalled a sea change. In January, Advertising Age altered the rules for the trade publication's annual listing of top advertising agencies. Rather than covering just the creative side of the business, the list now includes companies with expertise in related disciplines, such as interactive advertising, direct marketing and public relations. Blame the pesky consumer for letting the low life in.

Adland is reacting to a glaring mismatch between dollars and eyeballs. Although most advertising expenditure goes on television and print, many of the people the ads are supposed to reach are not looking. Instead, they are playing video games, watching DVDs or, most popular of all, surfing the internet (see chart 5). Advertising agencies used to bill their clients on a media-commission basis, which gave them an incentive to recommend TV advertising because it was the most expensive and gave them the biggest commission. Now the agencies are mostly being paid on a fee basis, so they should be less reluctant to use other media. But business runs on numbers and advertising clients demand figures, especially on the return they can expect by spending their money in different ways.

The problem is measuring that return. �The research is lagging far behind the development of new media outlets,� says Mary Gerzema, head of communications planning at Universal McCann. And there are many other complicating factors that can skew the figures. The decision to buy something, for instance, might be made online, but if the purchase itself is carried out elsewhere, the customer might still change his mind. If he visits a shop, he may end up buying, say, an own-brand product because it turns out to be on special offer.

Some of the alternative forms of marketing can be measured reasonably well, such as the click-through response rate to internet ads. But how do you work out the return on investing in a sponsored hip-hop evening (a question another car company once asked Mr Farley of Toyota's Scion, who was stumped for an answer)? To make things even more difficult, media are now being delivered in lots of different ways. Yahoo!, for one, is steadily turning into an entertainment service. It is screening more shows on the internet, including premieres. �It makes media planning into much more of an art,� says Michael Wolf, head of media and entertainment for McKinsey, a management consultancy. �A lot of people try to apply science to it. The science is not working as well as the art.�

As Mr Wolf points out, increasing value is being placed on any medium that succeeds in aggregating a large audience of people with similar interests. Using adland's militaristic language, he explains that it is �no longer the shotgun approach, very much the rifle shot.� So which of the advertising and marketing businesses will prevail in this changing landscape? Here are the pitches.

Mine, all mine

Saatchi & Saatchi's Mr Roberts reckons there has never been a better time for the creative business. Agencies now have more freedom to express their ideas, he believes: �We are not going to be downtrodden by the research vampires because all the stuff they are looking at is no longer relevant.� Saatchi & Saatchi's strategy is to become �the hottest ideas shop on the planet�, he says.

By contrast, Mr Draft, the direct-marketing expert, insists that �the future is what we do.� He says the experience of direct marketeers and the information they have about consumers means that his type of agency is now best equipped to deliver measurable results. He uses a variety of media, including TV, specifically to garner responses, through reply cards, free telephone numbers or the internet. Direct-marketing techniques can also build brands, he says, pointing to successful campaigns Draft has run for Verizon, a huge American telecoms group.

Robin Kent, until recently chairman of Universal McCann, comes up with yet another angle: �The media planner is becoming the most important person on the planet.� He says that it is now impossible to create an advertising message designed for any particular group �if you have absolutely no idea how you are going to reach that consumer, where they are and what mindset they are going to be in.�

For his part, Richard Edelman, president of Edelman, bangs his own drum: �PR is now creating the runway for the advertising plane to take off.� Companies use PR firms to help them behind the scenes and to work their messages into the media. One example is Edelman's work on the launch of Halo 2, the second version of a hugely popular video game that runs on Microsoft's Xbox. Eighteen months before the game arrived in the shops, it was handed out to an �inner circle� of committed players in order to create a buzz of excitement. When Halo 2 was launched in November last year, it raked in over $100m in sales on its first day, thanks to pre-ordered copies�more than any movie has ever managed.

The elusive consumer they are all chasing is not only becoming more knowledgeable, but also demographically different from yesteryear's. From its skyscraper in Tokyo's Shimbashi district, Dentsu, Japan's biggest advertising agency, looks down on an ancient shogun hunting ground. Nowadays its clients' prey takes many different forms. Gone are the days when Japan mostly consisted of families of four, says Norio Kamijo, director of Dentsu's Centre for Consumer Studies. Today the market clusters around opposite poles. At one end is a greying population; at the other are people like the �parasite singles�, who live with their parents and spend whatever they earn on themselves, and the NEETS (not in education, employment or training). They all represent valuable consumer markets in their own way, but have almost nothing in common.

Other countries face similar fragmentation, and some of the groups are hard to place. Where, for example, would you pigeonhole Britain's �chavs�? They are young people likely to be found late at night in the centre of provincial British cities, probably drunk and behaving loutishly. Best avoided, perhaps, but as their uniform they have adopted certain styles usually associated with luxury brands, notably Burberry's famous beige check pattern. No matter that much of it may be fake, this has prompted Burberry to stop selling its beige check baseball cap and to give other colours more prominence.

With marketing becoming both more perilous and more complex, many companies are left �vastly confused and intrigued�, says Leslie Moeller of Booz Allen Hamilton. No matter how much you spend trying to promote a brand using mass media alone, �it is not going to get the job done.�

With numbers of viewers and readers declining, the future does not look very rosy for network television and newspapers. But even among these formats there will be winners and losers, says Mr Rutherfurd of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, the media merchant bank, so it would be unwise to count out older media completely. Indeed, TV never killed radio and video never killed TV (see chart 6). Moreover, there are signs that the decline in TV's share of audience has started to flatten, just as the proliferation of cable services has reached possible saturation point, adds Mr Rutherfurd.

And old media can evolve. Some broadsheet newspapers in Britain are now produced in more handy tabloid sizes; and the TV networks can combat their rivals with big-budget programmes that pull in huge audiences, such as the Super Bowl, the Hollywood Oscars and some of the better reality shows. Cable networks cannot usually afford such programmes. Besides, you never know what may turn up. Satellite radio, which suddenly appeared in America in 2001, now has around 4m subscribers, providing a small but potentially interesting alternative audience to terrestrial radio.

Advertisers have to be prepared to use any media, argues Ogilvy and Mather's Mrs Lazarus. An agency's expertise will lie in knowing how to craft communications in each sector and be flexible about how to put all the pieces together for a particular client in a particular market. As an example, she points to a successful campaign her agency ran in India for Hutch, one of the mobile services of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa. It portrayed Hutch as a faithful puppy that followed his young master everywhere. Animals and children may be an advertising clich�, but this was a multi-media campaign, ranging from television to the internet and direct marketing. And it involved a media plan �as sophisticated as anything that runs anywhere in the world,� says Mrs Lazarus.

Measuring the unmeasurable

Whether advertising is an art or a science, people will not stop trying to measure it. After much criticism, Nielsen, part of VNU, a Dutch media group, is trying to overhaul its ratings system, which is widely used to measure TV audiences. Mr Fredericks, at TNS Media Intelligence, is also looking at new ways of tracking how and where ads appear. The effects of some forms of marketing, such as product placement, look next to impossible to measure. Most TV commercials are now tracked automatically, but making sure that someone who has been paid to consume a certain drink in a show on camera actually does so is a lot harder. The most ambitious effort to measure the effectiveness of advertising is Project Apollo, which is now recruiting 30,000 households in America to become the most closely studied consumers ever. Apollo, run jointly by Arbitron and VNU, will collect information on these families' lifestyles. To measure their exposure to electronic media, for example, they will carry an Arbitron device called a �portable people meter�. This device, the size of a pager, was initially developed to detect inaudible codes placed in radio and TV commercials. For Apollo, similar codes will be incorporated in other forms of electronic media as well, ranging from the cinema to background music in places like supermarkets and�where ads contain sound files�the internet.

A variety of methods will be used to find out how members of the households spend their day and what they buy. Nielsen's Homescan system, for instance, uses scanners to read the barcodes on all their purchases. Linda Dupree, in charge of new-product development at Arbitron, explains that although marketers gather up lots of information, it has always been difficult to put it all together to establish a link between exposure to ads and buying behaviour. This is what Apollo is designed to achieve. One of the first companies to sign up was P&G. Arbitron hopes that eventually several hundred of the top American advertisers will take part.

Mr Gossman, of Revenue Science, has his own ideas about the way advertisers will reach consumers in the future. His behavioural targeting software is already at work on many websites. For instance, it was used by the online edition of the Wall Street Journal to try to establish which readers were frequent flyers from their reading of travel-related stories and sections. Individuals using the websites remain anonymous, but they can be identified as discrete users by �cookies�, electronic tracers that show which websites they have visited. When the frequent travellers returned to the Wall Street Journal site, they were presented with American Airline ads in whatever sections they read. The response to the ads increased significantly, says Mr Gossman.

As most networked electronic media will probably be using internet-based technology and protocols, the same user could be tracked even when he uses different devices, such as a mobile phone or an interactive TV set. This, says Mr Gossman, allows audiences with common interests and passions to be grouped together, making them commercially attractive to advertisers, wherever they happen to be. �Networks used to be about distribution; now they are going to be about consumer information,� he says. Apart from delivering ads that are more likely to be relevant, the advertisers will also be able to limit the number of times an ad is shown to an individual in order to avoid irritating him. Some people may see this as an invasion of their privacy, but Mr Gossman says: �We don't know who you are, and we don't want to know who you are.�

�The consumer experience with advertising will improve,� predicts Arbitron's Mr Morris. The advertising industry must hope he is right. People are increasingly able to filter out ads. They can pay to avoid them, use technology to block them or simply ignore them. The average American is now subjected to some 3,000 marketing messages every day and could not possibly take all of them in. Two-thirds of consumers feel �constantly bombarded� with too much advertising and marketing, according to a survey by Yankelovich Partners, a firm of marketing consultants. Perhaps some of the back-door methods to reach consumers will get through. But many people can now spot an advert dressed up as editorial�and if they can't, there are hundreds of news groups and bloggers on the web who will happily point it out to them. Today's consumers have plenty of champions.

April 5, 2005 at 07:56 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

Motoring online

Economist.com

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition

Buying a car will never be the same again, thank heavens

“THE good news is we have attracted them. The bad news is they are who they are—they're a handful.�� Jim Farley is talking about his customers. They are what marketing people call generation Y, a group born between 1980 and 1994. They have already turned some clothing, drinks and electronics brands into winners and losers. Now they are starting to buy cars. They have grown up with more choice than any other generation. They are busy and know how to shop around, both online and offline. They make 40% more complaints than their parents do about the same car. But then they never expect things to break, and refuse to put up with irritations an older generation would simply grin and bear.

It is not as though they are buying a Lexus, Toyota's successful luxury car, which can cost $50,000 or more. The division Mr Farley runs is Scion, an entry-level brand which the Japanese carmaker launched in June 2003. It is aimed at young people, with prices starting around $13,000. Mr Farley has found himself on a steep learning curve, but he thinks the lessons have been extremely useful. They could give Toyota a head start on its competitors, because by 2010 generation Y will be buying one in four cars in America.

Scion's marketing position was deliberately chosen to avoid being �mainstream�. Its range of cars, two small saloons and a boxy little van-type vehicle often seen scooting around the narrow streets of Tokyo, are certainly not the sort of car that generation Y's parents would drive; nor would the parents listen to the hip-hop music that Scion's customers enjoy. To connect with the youngsters, Scion takes its marketing to where they are: at cinemas, certain night clubs and listening to particular radio programmes before they go out in the evening. But Scion also tunes the �texture� of its marketing towards the more underground elements of that music scene. So when it sponsors nightclub events, it hires local rather than national hip-hop artists; and when it arranges test-drive sessions, it parks the vehicles outside the local charity shop rather than Virgin Records.

But however careful you are, you can still get it badly wrong. In what was thought to be a good advertising buy, Scion took a commercial spot during �The Bachelor�, an American TV reality show in which single men are teamed up with potential brides. Despite high ratings, the show turned out to be too cheesy for Scion's customers. �We got hundreds of e-mails from owners complaining,� confesses Mr Farley. �They were so upset with us for contaminating the brand in their eyes.� Now he would rather spend money on developing owners' clubs and helping them link up with similar ones in Japan.

It all goes to show that market research can be awfully unreliable. Many companies have stopped trying to elicit views on products from focus groups, because they can be skewed by one or two strong personalities. When Germany's BMW decided to launch the new Mini Cooper in America, it was faced with a pile of figures that showed Americans did not want a small car�and the Mini would be the smallest in the market. Sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and pick-up trucks had overtaken cars, and SUVs were getting bigger and bigger. But the company thought it would be able to find some customers for its car. �All our gut feeling, and some of our research, led us to believe these would be interesting people,� says Jack Pitney, who runs Mini USA. Its customers would not come from any particular demographic group, but they might share a certain �mindset�. They would be different ages, brand-conscious, but not interested in status. And they probably travelled a lot, read a lot and were very internet-savvy. �We also thought these customers would not react well to aggressive marketing,� adds Mr Pitney.

Such people like to discover things for themselves, the company concluded. But how do you point them in the right direction? The original 1960s Mini had been a big hit in Europe and Japan, but very few were sold in the United States, so only 2% of Americans knew about it. To start them thinking, the company took some of the biggest SUVs it could find and put Minis on their roofs. They drove these around some of the main towns and handed out small business cards. On one side was a picture of the Mini, and on the other it simply said: �Coming to America�. Below was the address of the Mini USA website. This sort of campaign is an example of �guerrilla marketing�, designed to intrigue people and direct them to a website to find out what is going on. Once on the site, they would find it rich in information and �viral marketing� elements. For example, you could build yourself a customised Mini Cooper online and e-mail the specifications to your friends.

According to Mini USA, three out of ten people who configure a car online end up forwarding the specifications to a dealer and buying it. Customers who have used the company's website account for 86% of buyers. Because they can order a huge variety of both factory-fitted items, such as different body styles and colours, and dealer-fitted accessories, such as alternative lighting, audio systems and wheels, few Minis are likely to be exactly the same. Buyers of Minis and Scions seem very keen on customisation, but only at mass-production prices. �That is going to have a fundamental impact on product planning for the car business in the United States,� says Mr Farley.

Both Scion and Mini are relatively small fry. The number of Minis sold in America last year was around 36,000, a drop in the ocean of 16.9m vehicles sold overall. Still, that is more than three times the number of Minis sold during the entire eight years that the original car was on sale in America. The Mini factory at Oxford in Britain is working flat out and has become BMW's most productive plant anywhere.

Moving Motown

But the internet has changed much more than the buying of niche vehicles: it has also transformed the mainstream car trade. Selling cars used to be a relatively straightforward business. Customers might see an advertisement in a newspaper, perhaps pick up a brochure, visit a couple of dealers, decide on a model, haggle over the price and the trade-in value of their own car, order and take delivery. �Those days are gone altogether,� says Chuck Sullivan, Ford's director of business-development marketing.

With so many of its customers using the internet to research their planned purchases, Ford is changing the way it is spending its marketing budget. Four years ago, most of its advertising dollars went on traditional media, such as television, print and outdoor billboards. Non-traditional forms, such as the internet, accounted for only around 2% of the total. Now the share is 20%. One of the attractions of the internet is that its effects can be measured. For instance, a click on a banner ad on a website can be traced through to the company's own website, the selection of a model, the response of a dealer and ultimately a sale.

A website works like a living brochure, says Mr Sullivan. For example, Ford's F-150 pick-up truck, of which some 900,000 were sold last year, is shown in graphic detail. There was even a series of videos in which rival trucks were cut apart and their components compared with those of the F-150, to support Ford's claim that its pick-up is the toughest. Users can check models and prices, browse through the inventory of local dealers or get a quote for the one they have designed for themselves using Ford's build-your-own option.

So why bother with dealers at all? �The dealership is even more important than it used to be,� says Mr Sullivan. �People want to touch the vehicle, to smell the inside, to kick the tyres and take it for a test drive.� Beside demonstrating the product, dealers are also needed to manage the purchase and after-sales support, such as servicing. Moreover, they can play a big part in customising cars for buyers, fitting anything from different wheels to instruments and DVD systems, all of which could make a handy contribution to profits.

Many car dealers initially resisted giving consumers so much power, says Jeremy Anwyl, president of Edmunds, one of the earliest websites in America to provide online car-buying services such as road tests, vehicle comparisons and average selling prices and trade-in values. But he concedes: �A lot of them are now realising there are efficiencies on the dealer side too.� Research by Edmunds and others shows that the consumers who have benefited most from using the internet when buying a car are those who used to get a raw deal in the showrooms, including women and minorities. �So it's a great leveller in that respect,� says Mr Anwyl.

Indeed, carmakers would do well to study the way people compare vehicles online. Edmunds has found that by tracking the behaviour of website users, it can predict with considerable confidence how many cars different manufacturers will be selling four weeks hence, and where. Edmunds uses special software in order to screen out car enthusiasts who are just looking for information.

The company also has a good idea of what people say about different cars. Its website receives 2,000-3,000 reviews a week from buyers of new cars who fill out an online appraisal form. They also suggest improvements to future models. Another part of the company's site is a free-for-all area on which some 500,000 people regularly post items. If there is anything wrong with a vehicle, complaints will soon pop up here. Edmunds is now developing new products to commercialise this information.

As the carmakers have discovered, a website has become an essential part of doing business with consumers, and almost all their advertising now gives their website address. That makes a lot of sense. William Makower, the chief executive of Panlogic, a digital-marketing consultancy based in Britain, explains that a typical television or print ad might get a few seconds of attention, but a website typically holds the browser's attention for 2-5 minutes. In Britain, he says, the internet is now the third most popular media form. This makes it rather puzzling that many companies devote only around 2% of their advertising budget to it.

April 5, 2005 at 07:55 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

Man's best friend

Economist.com

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition

Not a dog, but a mobile phone

SATURDAY morning in Myeong-dong, and the huge shopping district in the centre of Seoul, South Korea's capital, prepares for a long day and night. As the hawkers move in with their barrows, a man selling fried squid sets up his stall next to a woman displaying shawls with Louis Vuitton logos. Real or fake, just about every fashion brand in the world can be bought here, if not from the hawkers, then certainly from the hundreds of stores, shopping malls or the massive Lotte department store. A solitary preacher stands outside a Starbucks singing hymns, as if to steer the swelling crowds away from the path of Mammon. Eventually he packs up and leaves, drowned out by the music blasting from the sound systems of trendy boutiques. This is consumerism at its most strident. So where is the internet?

It is all around. Start with shops, many of which display signs showing their website address. Then watch the shoppers, especially the younger ones. They have acquired new skills: walking through a crowd while studying the screen on their mobile phone, or examining a rail of clothes while using their thumb to text a friend. Some will also be checking their bank accounts, getting sports news, keeping track of an online computer game, or downloading a new ring tone or avatar�a cartoon-like character that will appear as their digital representative on mobile-phone screens and in online games. Plenty will also be listening to music downloaded from the internet. South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world. That is why Meg Whitman, the chief executive of eBay, the biggest online auctioneer, sees the country as a �window into the possibilities� of what might happen when high-speed broadband services are widely adopted in other places too.

In 1960, South Korea had only one telephone for every 300 people�barely one-tenth of the world average at the time. Today, more than 90% of households have a fixed-line phone, three times the world average. Moreover, three-quarters of the population carry mobile phones, which means that pretty well everyone has one, apart from tiny tots and a few elderly people. With government encouragement and the benefit of a densely populated, mainly urban environment, South Korea has been relatively easy to wire up. The country boasts one of the highest internet-penetration rates in the world, with more than 31m of the 48m population now having access to the web, most of them via high-speed services. Apartment blocks display government notices by the front door certifying the speed of their internet connection.

Those connections are about to get even faster. In January, the government licensed the country's three main telecoms firms, SK Telecom, KT and Hanaro, to offer a new high-speed wireless internet service called WiBro. From next year, this will allow mobile users to surf the internet at much higher speeds than they do now, as well as more reliably. Somewhat alarmingly, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) says it will work even in a car travelling at 60km an hour.

For the country's consumer-electronics makers, this vibrant home market is an invaluable development laboratory. Samsung Electronics, South Korea's biggest consumer-electronics company, has already produced a mobile phone especially for watching high-quality video. Its rival, LG Electronics, has even unveiled one with a built-in personal video recorder, which automatically switches to �record� if the user needs to take a call. Lots of other new gadgets are coming, including phones that can read the radio-frequency identification tags that will eventually replace the barcodes attached to goods. These phones, says the MIC, could be used to check the expiry date of fresh produce, say, or pick up a signal from a poster advertising a new movie, which would then prompt you to download a preview.

There seems little doubt that South Koreans will flock to use many of these services: the MIC expects the number of WiBro subscribers to rise to over 9m within six years. But the way the locals use these new technologies may not translate perfectly to other countries. Watching video on your mobile phone already looks like a winner in Japan, because many Japanese face long commutes on public transport. But if you are stuck in a traffic jam on Interstate 405 on your way to work in Los Angeles, you might do better to tune your phone to pick up high-quality satellite radio instead.

E-mail is so last week

A more intriguing question is what will happen to services that many people now take for granted. For instance, many young South Koreans would be bemused by mobile devices with keyboards such as the BlackBerry, which is popular with businesspeople in America for keeping up with their e-mail. The South Koreans already have handsets that can do this, but they do not think e-mail is particularly cool, and they do not like the spam that comes with it. They prefer to send text messages, which are more immediate and are certain to be delivered instantly. South Koreans in their teens and 20s increasingly look on e-mail as an old and formal means of communication, according to one study. �You would exchange e-mails with your bosses, but not your friends,� says a young South Korean marketing assistant. The arrival of more features could reinforce this trend further: a new Samsung phone uses voice recognition to convert speech into text.

However, some of the new features that mobile phones will offer look like being universally popular. Walk into the experimental coffee bar at the MIC's offices in Seoul, and the screen of a handset lights up with the menu. You can order two cappuccinos, pay electronically and receive a receipt, all on the handset. Mobile phones are already configured for some basic e-commerce activities such as downloading music, and in Asia a few can already be used to make some purchases in shops. �There is a future, not too far away, when the only thing you will need to leave home with is your mobile phone, because it will be your wallet and your key and all the things it already is,� says David Wheldon, global director of marketing and brand communications for Britain's Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile operator.

This summer, a new service will begin in Spain, and later spread to other European countries, to make mobile payments easier. Called Simpay, it is jointly owned by some of Europe's largest mobile operators. Simpay is designed to function as a non-profit organisation with a common brand. The idea is that eventually all of Europe's 70m mobile users will be able to click on a �buy with Simpay� logo whenever they use their mobiles to surf the web. Any purchases will then be charged to their mobile bill. If Simpay is anywhere near as successful as PayPal, eBay's online payments system, it might give the banks a jolt: PayPal now has more than 60m account-holders worldwide.

The leap from paying for a music download to paying for your groceries electronically is not very big. As mobile phones are increasingly used for shopping, their appeal as a medium for reaching consumers at the point of purchase will grow. Along with services such as global positioning systems, which some handsets already provide, and software that can monitor online behaviour, a handset could offer all kinds of novel things�even telling you where to find that item you are searching for in the supermarket, and that it is on special offer.

Mobile-media consumption will overturn many assumptions about marketing

�Anything that is screen-based will be able to be used as an ad-serving mechanism,� says Andy Jung, director of advertising and media for Kellogg's. Other marketeers agree. The mobile phone is a very personal device: a faithful companion that nearly always stays with its owner. Technologists used to worry about how to win the battle for the digital home, but perhaps the bigger battle is for the individuals who live in it. Mobile-media consumption will overturn many assumptions about marketing, says Steve Morris, the chief executive of Arbitron, a New York-based media and market-research firm. �The notion that all this stuff takes place only in the home is so outdated.�

The mobile phone will become an even more powerful marketing medium, says Vodafone's Mr Wheldon. �But it is one where we proceed with gigantic caution.� People may use their mobile services differently in different countries, but consumers everywhere have one thing in common: they never seem to have enough time. If too many ads are pushed on to the screens of handsets, users could become dissatisfied with their service provider and get very annoyed with the advertisers, as they already do about �pop-up� ads on the internet. Whichever way mobile-phone marketing evolves, Mr Wheldon says it must be �hugely respectful� of users and their time. Another victory, then, for consumer power.

The mobile phone is itself a powerful brand builder, as Samsung's success has shown. From near-bankruptcy after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Samsung is now neck-and-neck with America's Motorola as the second-biggest maker of handsets after Nokia. In terms of market capitalisation, the South Korean company is worth a lot more than Sony, which has long been the king of consumer electronics. Samsung was seen as a producer at the low end of the price spectrum and had a poor reputation for quality, especially in South Korea itself. Yet by concentrating on making handsets that worked better than its rivals', at first in its home market and then for export, it improved its image. Good-quality handsets got people to look at Samsung's other products, such as digital cameras and flat-screen televisions. This was reinforced by astute marketing, using mainstream advertising as well as non-traditional methods, such as the product placement of futuristic gadgets in �Matrix Reloaded�, a cult movie. It was all part of the strategy of Samsung's chief executive, Yun Jong-yong, to move the company's brand upmarket and sell products that could attract a premium rather than slug it out in the discount chains.

This strategy has not escaped the notice of Chinese producers. Few people doubt that, given enough time, some Chinese brands will become world leaders. But a number of Chinese firms seem anxious to short-cut the process by acquiring western brands�although not necessarily very exciting ones. China's TCL, for example, has merged its TV business with France's Thomson, whose brands include RCA. Lenovo is taking a controlling stake in IBM's PC business, and Shanghai Automotive has been looking at Britain's MG Rover, which BMW discarded. Both Haier and Kelon, which make domestic appliances, also have global ambitions.

Give them what they want

There are three important stages in building a strong brand , says Bain's Mr Markey. The first is to have a deep insight into what customers really want�one that goes well beyond traditional market research. The second is relentless attention to making such products. Get the first two right, and the third follows as a matter or course: consumers become part of the marketing and sales force. This happens, says Mr Markey, because they are �so enthusiastic about a product or service they can't help but tell their friends and colleagues about it.� Word of mouth, as every marketeer will tell you, remains the most powerful form of product promotion.

But what if your brand has become tarnished and needs polishing up? That is the task confronting Philips, which in the 1990s lost its way in the consumer-electronics business. A sprawling European multinational that makes everything from light bulbs to televisions, it has been through numerous bouts of restructuring. What are its chances of gaining a new image against companies such as Samsung, and redoubled efforts by Japan's big producers, such as Sony and the Matsushita group, whose brands include Panasonic?

Andrea Ragnetti, Philips's new marketing boss, thinks it can be done. He previously worked at P&G and Telecom Italia, and has fastened on a hugely frustrating aspect of the digital world: getting all this stuff to work. Some products have become extremely complicated, with instruction books bigger than anything else in the box. Philips cites studies saying that some 30% of home networking products are returned because people cannot get them to work, and almost half the people thinking about buying a digital camera delay their purchase because they fear they might find it too complicated. So Mr Ragnetti's plan for Philips is to make things easier. His motto is �sense and simplicity�. This is not just a marketing slogan: all products, from heart defibrillators to coffee machines, must become easy and intuitive to use.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, is already brilliant at turning consumers on. Apple has long had a small but fanatical following in the PC business. It has now become the leader in portable music, a business once dominated by Sony with the Walkman. Apple's stylish iPod is the most popular digital player, with more than 4.5m sold in the last quarter of 2004 alone, and it links seamlessly with Apple's music-download service, iTunes, which sells more than 1m songs every day. In January, Mr Jobs unveiled the Mac mini, a basic version of his Macintosh computer selling at $499. With this low-priced machine, Apple thinks it can tempt people who may have bought an iPod (and become fans of the company) to ditch their Windows-based PC and switch to an Apple machine, which uses a different operating system.

Another company that has used its brand to venture into new territory is Dell. The conventional wisdom was that selling PCs direct to consumers would not work: they were complicated products and customers would want to take a good look at them in a shop before parting with their cash. That turned out to be wrong. Much the same concerns were aired last autumn when the company decided to expand into consumer electronics and sell its own line of 42-inch flat-screen high-definition televisions. At $2,999, these were several thousand dollars cheaper than some rival products in stores. But surely people would want to see the picture quality before they bought?

Once again, not so. Consumers have become sophisticated and confident enough to understand technical specifications and did not need to see the picture, says Dell's Mr George. Many also put their trust in Dell's brand: if the Texas company could build good computers, it would probably make decent TVs too. This reveals another important change in attitude. �Consumers just don't have these historical brand affinities in the way they used to have them,� adds Mr George. But he is aware that brand value carries risks too: �We know it could be taken away from us at any moment.�

An important part of Dell's success has been that along with its direct-sales model it offers a customisation service. If a customer orders a PC online, he or she can ask for it to be configured in all sorts of ways. Yet when the order is placed, none of the components are in the factory. Within a day or so they have arrived from suppliers, been assembled into a PC according to the customer's specification and sent off to the delivery address. Carmakers may never be able to build a business as lean and as flexible as this, but they are working on similar lines to keep their customers happy.

April 5, 2005 at 07:53 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home

Warfare in the aisles

Economist.com

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition

Competition in your local supermarket is getting vicious

NEXT time you are hurtling through a supermarket, slow down and look around the packaged-goods battlefield. There are the massed battalions of supermarkets' own labels—no longer just cheap stuff, but increasingly segmented into things like ready meals, “healthy�� options or pricey treats. Confronting them are goods from branded manufacturers, which must pay for the privilege of appearing in the grocery department. And surrounding everything are shelves heaving with personal-care products, clothing, books and DVD recorders.

Even if you can resist the smell of fresh bread from the in-store bakery, other forms of psychological warfare will entice you to spend more than you intended. Dairy products, which most people buy regularly, tend to be lined up at the back of the store, so shoppers have to pass along the aisles where temptation can be put their way. Positioning is everything: people typically spend at most six seconds selecting a grocery item, and if they cannot find it they may not buy it. The best slots are at adult eye-level, so that is where relatively expensive products are put, often to the right of popular items (to increase the chances that right-handed shoppers will pick them up). Price is not always the deciding factor: more than half the people leaving a supermarket cannot recall exactly what they paid for individual items.

Those rules apply in supermarkets no matter where they are. If you live in America, you might be shopping in a Wal-Mart, run by a company that has become the world's biggest retailer by driving down suppliers' prices and passing the savings on to its customers. In Britain, you could be in a Tesco store, owned by the biggest of four large supermarket chains that between them sell around three-quarters of the country's groceries. Tesco's recent growth has come mostly from expanding into non-food lines. In China, you could be in a Carrefour, run by the French-owned inventor of the hypermarket, which by the end of this year could have some 300 Chinese stores, making it the leading foreign chain in a hugely coveted developing consumer market.

Pity the shopper, says Saatchi & Saatchi's Mr Roberts�and in a supermarket the poor creature is usually a woman. There are so many items on offer and they are so jumbled up that she often cannot find what she is looking for. It is cold because fresh produce needs to be refrigerated on open shelves to make it easy to pick up. �The lighting is awful and she has to listen to Phil Collins,� he commiserates. �She can't wait to get out.� Mr Roberts knows a bit about consumer goods. He was a marketing executive with P&G, Gillette and Pepsi-Cola before becoming the head of one of the world's best-known advertising agencies.

Female supermarket shoppers' interests range from health, family matters and the environment to politics and social issues, such as the welfare of overseas workers making some of the products they buy. They also share and discuss the information they acquire, much more so than men. This is how they become attached to certain brands and products, says Saatchi & Saatchi. So it is no good simply to bombard shoppers with ads for items that are invariably billed as bigger, brighter, stronger and so on. It leaves them bored to tears, says Mr Roberts. In order to reach and influence them, packaged-goods producers have to engage them in many different ways�for example on the internet, where many women now spend as much time as they do watching television.

Who needs brands?

With so much choice and information available, why don't shoppers simply ignore brands and make a purely rational, economic decision about what to buy? Because that is not human nature, says Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, a London brand consultancy. �Brands offer trust,� he expands, �and they enable people to navigate through complex markets.� There is something in that. In the old Soviet Union, where all products were supposed to be the same, consumers learnt how to read barcodes as substitutes for brands in order to identify goods that came from reliable factories.

Consumer-goods companies invest in brands to convince supermarkets to stock their products and to get shoppers to buy them. This is never straightforward. Jeremy Bullmore, an advertising guru with WPP, once likened brand-building to a bird building a nest �by the scraps and straws they chance upon�. Consumers used to get most scraps of information from advertisers. Now they are more likely to find them by themselves.

To keep in touch with their customers, consumer-goods companies are shifting their spending away from traditional media, such as network TV and print, to other types of promotion. A decade ago, P&G used to put about 90% of its advertising budget into TV, but now it spreads the money more widely. For some new products, TV may account for only a quarter of total spending. P&G has long been an advertising pioneer: by sponsoring radio programmes, and later TV shows, as a way of promoting its detergents, the company helped to create a new term: �soap opera�.

Nowadays, advertisers want to do more than just sponsor a TV show

Nowadays, advertisers want to do more than just sponsor a TV show. Kellogg's, for instance, promotes its cereal brand, Special K, in co-productions with the Discovery Health Channel in America. The benefit of a strong brand is that it can convey information about a product very efficiently, reckons the company. Nevertheless, even venerable brands have to be worked on constantly to keep them fresh, says Alan Harris, Kellogg's chief marketing officer. �In some cases we have got to experiment and do things differently to learn how our brands can operate in this different environment.�

A brand may have only seconds to convey its message. �If I'm going to get shelf-space in the major retailers I need to stand for something, and that something needs to be relevant and it needs to be clear. That's what brand-building is at its most basic,� says Scott Garrett, the brand director for Heinz in Britain and Ireland. Some of Heinz's ads are classics. The company's �Beanz Meanz Heinz� campaign, for its tinned baked beans, first ran on British television in the 1950s, and many British consumers still recognise the phrase. But Mr Garrett accepts that it would be unrealistic to expect today's shoppers to march into a supermarket and demand his products. �I have to get people pre-dispositioned to the Heinz brand and then hope that the wavering hand on the shelf veers towards the turquoise can [the colour of the Heinz baked-bean label] rather than another one.�

To make things even more complicated, marketeers detect a growing trend towards �cross-shopping�: the same people buying very expensive and very cheap things at the same time. They might splash out on a $500 Gucci bag and then economise with a $5 T-shirt as they flit from Saks Fifth Avenue to H&M. Buying some things from discount chains is considered �smart�, even for people who can afford to shop elsewhere. Some chains, such as Target, an American mass-merchandiser, compete against Wal-Mart with a more carefully edited selection of goods and employ top designers for some own-label goods. Now Wal-Mart has taken global its successful George brand of clothing, initially developed by George Davies for the British supermarket chain, Asda, that Wal-Mart bought in 1999.

Will the big supermarkets take an ever-increasing slice of consumer spending? Target and others have shown that there are ways to counter-attack. Some people avoid supermarkets and buy their groceries online from firms such as Fresh Direct in America and Ocado in Britain. The internet has also enabled suppliers to go direct to the consumer. Riverford, a British organic-vegetables specialist based in Devon, runs a successful web-based home-delivery service. It entertains customers with recipes and nuggets of information about products�such as that supermarket carrots are mostly chosen for their ability to pass the �wellie test�. This means they can be bashed against a wellington boot without breaking, which shows that they will be easy to harvest, clean and polish. Riverford says its varieties are selected for flavour, and offers no apologies if they arrive with a bit of mud attached.

The big retailers like their private labels because they typically provide 5-10% more profit than branded products, says Euromonitor International, a market-research company. This limits the pricing power of the branded-goods producers: consumers may not be able to recall the price of an individual item, but they usually remember whether their purchase was more or less expensive than similar items.

Here today, gone tomorrow

But it is hard to stand out from the crowd. Every day an astonishing 400-700 new brands are added to the 2.1m brands tracked by TNS Media Intelligence. �It's very easy to get a brand out there,� says Steven Fredericks, the company's chief executive. But there is no guarantee that any of them will be noticed, he adds. �Consumers' attention is becoming a scarce economic resource.�

To boost their sales and negotiating power with the supermarkets, consumer-goods companies are concentrating on their most powerful �superbrands�. Unilever, Europe's biggest producer of consumer goods, has cut its portfolio of brands from 1,600 to around 400. P&G, which in 2000 had ten brands with annual sales of more than $1 billion each, by last year had increased their number to 16. Its $54 billion deal earlier this year to buy Gillette will add another five superbrands.

The merged group is also heavier on beauty and grooming products, which have strong growth potential, especially in the Chinese market. Having been sold many fake and shoddy products, Chinese consumers want brands they can both trust and afford. China is already P&G's sixth-biggest market and could in time become its most important after America.

With fewer brands, producers can concentrate their resources to better effect. This is especially necessary in Japan, the second-biggest advertising market in the world after America, and one of the most cluttered (see chart 3). Drinks and snacks are one of the hottest areas: hundreds of new ones are launched every year. Andrew Meaden, the chief executive of MindShare Japan, a media agency, calls the process �commercial Darwinism�. Newness matters at lot, so many products appear just to catch the moment. Most struggle and die, not only in their efforts to get noticed but also in the battle to find shelf space in Japan's small shops. And if you are selling to young people, �you have to be much more savvy about how you talk to them,� says Mr Meaden.

Some companies are trying to cut through the noise with a combination of old and new marketing techniques. Switzerland's Nestl�, for instance, has discovered that people get stressed by having to decide what to cook for dinner, so in Japan it provides recipes that its customers can download to a mobile phone, enabling them to pick up the ingredients on their way home. Other companies provide coupons over the internet and deliver them to mobile phones. Like the 251 billion coupons which TNS Media Intelligence says Americans religiously clipped last year from newspaper inserts, these electronic ones can be exchanged for samples or discounts on new products. In such ways, Asia is well ahead in its use of digital media for marketing.

April 5, 2005 at 07:51 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (75) | Top of page | Blog Home

The big idea: Sabeer Bhatia

The big idea: Sabeer Bhatia - The Net - Times Online

By Holden Frith, Times Online
The co-founder of Hotmail discusses the program that made him a multimillionaire and explains why the internet hasn't finished changing the way we live and work

What gave you the idea for Hotmail?

My partner, Jack Smith, and I were having a hard time communicating with each other. We already had our own personal e-mail accounts but ever since the company installed a firewall we couldn't get access to them at work, and we didn't want to use the company e-mail to send messages about our business idea. We ended up sending messages to each other on pieces of paper. Then I thought, what if we start putting our messages on the web, so that they can be accessed anywhere? It was the ubiquity of it that attracted me to the idea.

Not everyone saw the idea's potential straight away and you had trouble getting backing for Hotmail. Why was this?

There were a number of reasons. A lot of the venture capital community really did not believe that the internet would become a mainstream mechanism for doing business. Many of them had questions about how we could make money if we gave this away for free - they didn't think the advertising model would work. Others said, "I don't need another e-mail account, I have one with AOL." They didn't get the ubiquity of it. Luckily, even big companies such as Microsoft and AOL didn't think e-mail was a browser-based service. They didn't get the shared aspect of it - that people didn't even have to have a computer to use it.

For a lot of people, their first experience of the internet was setting up a Hotmail account. How influential do you think Hotmail was in getting people online?

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I think it was a big influence internationally. My friends and family in Bangalore hadn't even heard of the internet when I said they could communicate with me using it, so I took them to the internet caf� and set up accounts for them and said, "Why are you spending all this money calling me when you can send e-mails for free?" In the US I'm not sure it had such an effect because it was AOL that really got people online, but internationally, wherever there was shared use of computers, I think Hotmail had a big effect.

Why did you sell Hotmail when you did?

The offer was too good to refuse. When you're struggling to raise money for a company and someone comes along and offers you all that money it's hard to refuse. It made us fabulously wealthy and it was just too good to refuse.

The company you set up after selling Hotmail was Arzoo, which was intended to provide corporate subscribers with access to a network of IT experts. Why do you think this company went bankrupt? Was it just that it coincided with the bursting of the dot-com bubble?

That was just part of it. It was a very difficult time to start a company, but I'll tell you what the real truth was. If you want to have an A-class business you have to hire A-class people. A lot of the people who joined didn't join because they believed in the company - they did it because they wanted to get rich quick. Literally thousands of people descended on Silicon Valley from around the world. It was a gold rush, and it was so difficult to hire people. There were people who were coming out of school asking for Porsches as signing-on bonuses. We've lived through that now, and had we weathered the market, it might have survived. In any business, it takes a long time for a market to develop. A case in point is Google. There were seven search engines at that time and they were burning money, and Google was very frugal and very quiet and five, six years later, all the other search engines barring Microsoft and Yahoo are gone. First to market is the wrong philosophy. It really is the last man standing.

A few search engines are attempting to challenging Google. What do you make of their chances?

Google is not unassailable, nobody is. That's the beauty of technology - it's constantly evolving. It's a moving target and that's what I love about it. But Google has such a position of advantage and strength that any rival would have to be ten times better. If someone was 10 per cent, 20 per cent better, with the programming resources that Google have, they would catch up straight away, but if they were ten times better and have a year's advantage they could do it.

Ten years from now, more than half of internet users will come from India and China
Sabeer Bhatia

Is there anyone on the horizon to rival Google?

No, not on the horizon. I think it's going to be a little unknown company that neither you nor I have heard of it. I don't think it's going to be a Yahoo or a Microsoft � it'll be ten guys working in a garage.

Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?

I've got three companies. One of them is a company called TeliXO, and what it does is it converts every single cellular phone into a PDA. If you have a cell phone that can send text messages you can access all your contacts, appointments and data. Think of it as having all your personal information somewhere in the clouds and you can access it just by sending a text message. In the future, you will be able to store your music in the clouds as well.

The second is InstaColl, which turns every existing Office document you have into a live communication document that two people in different places can work on at the same time, over the internet, which is very good for people in the media, business people. I think it's the next logical step for the internet. We've stopped going to the store anymore � I bought a printer and I bought a laptop and I never set foot in the store. What we get together for is collaboration, but going back and forward you lose time. The internet is ideal for it but there is no mechanism to do it. With InstaColl, all your meetings can be virtual. You can have presentations where one person is presenting the document and the others can all see it on their screens. Let's say that I wanted to communicate to you an idea that needed more than words, needed more than what I could put in an e-mail or phone call. With this I wouldn't have to come to London, which means that I can be so much more productive with my time.

Then there's a third called HotSeasons. Say you want to travel to the US. You could go to Expedia but Expedia just gives you the information that the hotels give them. You want to know what other people have said about it. Let's say The Times has done a review of a hotel. We have technology that scours the entire web for articles and sources of information and places it on a page for that city or state or hotel. Think of it as a vertical search engine � if you type 'New York hotels' into Google you get 22 million responses, but if you type it into HotSeasons you just get content-rich, published information, plus what other people have said about the hotel.

The music industry is finally beginning to embrace the internet after years of living in fear of it. Have they left it too late?

The music industry can pull things back and the fear they had is unjustified. It's in their interests to come up with an interesting way of presenting music so that people will pay for it. Apple is a great example of how this can be done legally - one company has changed people's behaviour, but file sharing and peer-to-peer sharing is inevitable. They also have to price appropriately for different markets. One dollar per song is about right for people in the US but too much for sub-Saharan Africa.

How much of an effect will the internet have on the developing world?

Ten years from now, the largest number of internet users will come from two countries: more than 50 per cent will come from India and China. There is tremendous penetration and in some cases they have leapfrogged straight to newer technologies. Cellular technology is better in India than in the US. My cell phone works everywhere there, in every nook and cranny of the country, and the rates are lower. Broadband is $7 a month there, over here people pay $30 a month. The advantage they have is that they are late to the market so they are able to embrace these technologies at really low prices. Over here we are saddled with the development costs. We had earlier technologies and now we have to replace them, which is expensive, but they can go straight to the newest technologies at low prices.

What effect will the growth of the internet have on these and other developing countries?

It's a means for them to plug into the world economy. We're living in an information age and if you look at Boeing 747s or drugs or ships or cars, they're all being designed on computers. It's all information, and transforming it into reality is the last step. It's an important one, but that's moving to China anyway. But office workers can be in remote locations, and there is less of a need for people to live in cities, so they can live in smaller towns, with the people and places they're familiar with. It will help to prevent more transmigration of people. The internet has really enabled that: without the internet it wouldn't have happened in nearly such a fluid way.

April 1, 2005 at 07:38 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (62) | Top of page | Blog Home

Crowned at last

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3785166

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition
The claim that �the customer is king� has always rung hollow. But now the digital marketplace has made it come true, says Paul Markillie

IT IS the biggest advertising event of the year. On February 6th, half the households in America sat down in front of their televisions to watch the 2005 Super Bowl. Never mind the game: the Super Bowl is a showcase for television commercials, and more than a quarter of the viewers tune in just to watch the ads. For days before and after the event, these are discussed in the newspapers, on radio and on TV. At an average cost of $2.4m for a 30-second slot, a Super Bowl commercial is the most expensive pitch an advertiser can make. For some, such as Anheuser-Busch, it has become an institution. The brewer's decision to drop one of its ads from the ten slots it had booked made headlines. The commercial was a cheeky take on Janet Jackson's �wardrobe malfunction� (a slipping top) during the half-time show at the 2004 game. The resulting publicity prompted large numbers of people to visit Anheuser-Busch's website to look at the ad, which meant that probably as many saw it as if it had been screened.

The Super Bowl is a great excuse for a party, especially for the advertising industry. It shows that people still enjoy ads that are creative and entertaining. But it raises an awkward question: does it actually sell any more bottles of beer, cars or pills for erectile dysfunction? Although TV viewers tend to be able to recall a particularly good commercial, many cannot remember the product it featured. And for the most part they try to avoid the rising barrage of ads. Getting their attention is becoming increasingly difficult, because audiences are splintering as people use different kinds of media, such as cable television and the internet. The choice of products and services available is multiplying, but at the same time consumers have become more sceptical about claims made for products. In today's marketplace, consumers have the power to pick and choose as never before.

All-seeing, all-knowing

This new consumer power is changing the way the world shops. As this survey will show, the ability to get information about whatever you want, whenever you want, has given shoppers unprecedented strength. In markets with highly transparent prices, they are kings. The implications for business are enormous: threatening for some, welcome for others. For instance, the huge increase in choice makes certain brands more valuable, not less. And as old business divisions crumble, a strong brand in one sector can provide the credibility to enter another. Hence Apple has used its iPod to take away business for portable music players from Sony; Starbucks is aiming to become a big noise in the music business by installing CD-burners in its caf�s; and Dell is moving from computers into consumer electronics.

�I am constantly amazed at the confidence level and sophistication of the average consumer,� says Mike George, Dell's chief marketing officer and general manager of its consumer business in the United States. Dell soared to the top of the personal-computer business by cutting out retailers and selling directly to consumers. If Dell changes prices on its website, its customers' buying patterns change literally within a minute. �That tells you people are well-researched and knowledgeable,� adds Mr George.

Even buying a car, long considered to be one of the worst retail experiences anyone can have, is being transformed. Over 80% of Ford's customers in America have already researched their prospective purchase on the internet before they arrive at a showroom, and most of them come with a specification sheet showing the precise car they want from the dealer's stock, together with the price they are prepared to pay. Similarly, more than three-quarters of mobile-phone buyers in America do their research on the web, even though only 5% buy online, says John Frelinghuysen of Booz Allen Hamilton, a firm of business consultants. They still want to go to a shop to hand over their money and get their phone, but first they want to see exactly what the service package covers, and to read what other users say about their proposed purchase.

Disintermediation seems to be in the air

With consumers becoming increasingly empowered, how can the marketing, advertising and communications firms that companies use to promote their products hope to get their messages across? And what does it mean for media businesses relying on advertising revenue, the traditional channels for reaching this increasingly elusive audience? Disintermediation�the process of middlemen being cut out�seems to be in the air. The three big TV networks in America have all hedged their bets by acquiring cable channels. The advertising business is reorganising itself, seeking safety in size. Many agencies are now clustered into four big global groups: America's Omnicom and Interpublic, France's Publicis and Britain's WPP. In some ways they are recreating the big, vertically integrated advertising giants of the past, but with separately run companies to deliver the range of specialist marketing services they think their clients will need in the future.

So what will that future hold? �For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening, scary and terrifying, because everything we used to do, everything we used to know, will no longer work,� says Kevin Roberts, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, part of Publicis. Shelly Lazarus, head of Ogilvy & Mather, part of WPP, is more sanguine. �Advertising is as vibrant as it has ever been. It's just that the way you define it is so much broader now, with new ways to reach people,� she explains. �In the past you would keep pounding the creative message out into the market place and look at reach frequency,� says Howard Draft, a veteran direct-marketing expert and chief executive of his eponymous New York agency, part of Interpublic. �Well, basically that is dead. What you have today is an informed consumer who is taking control of the way he learns and hears about products.�

Companies with some of the world's biggest advertising budgets are beginning to look for new ways of attracting consumers' attention. Jim Stengel, global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble (P&G), is one of the advertising industry's harshest critics, awarding it a �C minus� for its ability to embrace new media. And Larry Light, who has been giving McDonald's a makeover as its chief marketing officer, says bluntly: �The days of mass marketing are over.�

Mass retailing, however, looks as healthy as ever. The supermarkets are taking an increasing proportion of consumer spending�and on a lot of things beside groceries. A growing part of Wal-Mart's business comes from people searching online for information on products such as consumer electronics, and then visiting a store to make a purchase. �I think it works to our advantage, because we are the price leader,� says Lee Scott, chief executive of the world's biggest retailer. �There's power for them and us.�

Consumers, of course, care not a jot about marketing machinations. They are delighted to have more choice, which makes it easier for them to turn their back on a company they do not like and buy elsewhere. For some this is sweet revenge. �Consumers have become jaded and cynical,� says Rob Markey, a partner at Bain & Company, a consultancy. �There is a pile of broken promises heaped on the floor.�

The ads we love to hate

In fact, consumers have been telling market-research companies for 50 years that they do not trust advertising. But they have become even more negative about it recently, says Eric Schmitt of Forrester, a research firm. Indeed, people are actively looking for ways to avoid ads, using tools such as pop-up blockers on web browsers and digital video recorders (DVRs) that allow them to skip the ads when they record TV programmes. Forrester found that 60% of the programmes watched by DVR users are recorded, and 92% of the ads on such programmes are skipped. The firm reckons that by the end of 2008, 36m households in the United States will be using DVRs. So what will happen to the $60 billion spent on TV advertising in America every year? Mr Schmitt thinks that if the TV industry can no longer guarantee its audiences, a lot of that money will move elsewhere.

For the moment, advertising expenditure gives no hint of trouble ahead. The business is bouncing back strongly from the slump that began in 2001, when the bursting of the technology bubble caused a sudden collapse in ad spending. Worldwide advertising expenditure on the mainstream media and the internet in 2004 grew by around 7% to $370 billion, estimates ZenithOptimedia (see chart 1). Universal McCann, a media-services firm, uses different measures but sees a similar recovery. It says that in America last year $264 billion was spent on national and local advertising and other marketing, such as direct mail (a $50 billion business), up 7.4% on the previous year. And it expects ad spending in the world's biggest market to grow by more than 6% this year.

But the way that money is spent is changing. In America, growth in ad spending is led by the internet, Spanish-language TV and cable networks, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a media-monitoring company (see chart 2). And as with P&G's $4 billion advertising budget, a growing proportion is shifting from mainstream media, such as television, radio and print, to new media and other forms of sales promotion, such as direct mail, public relations, promotions, sponsorship and product placement. Collectively this sort of spending, sometimes called �below-the-line� advertising, or marketing services, is already worth more than twice what is spent on traditional display advertising. Together, the two sorts of spending added up to more than $1 trillion last year, says WPP.

By comparison, the $10 billion or so spent on internet advertising in America last year looks tiny. But it was 32% up on 2003, according to a study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. And that growth is accelerating, leading some forecasters to suggest that the online ad market could double in value this year. The internet is also becoming a lot more sophisticated as an advertising medium, beyond banner ads and pop-ups. In search advertising, companies buy words that, if they appear in searches made on sites such as Google or Yahoo!, will bring up a link to the company's website, displayed alongside the search results. The advertiser pays only if someone clicks on his links. This makes the results of search advertising reassuringly measurable, because tracking how many people go on to make a purchase is relatively easy. Google is beginning to work like an advertising agency, placing small text-based ads on other people's websites on behalf of its clients and splitting the revenue with the website owners. Google's software scans the sites to match the ads it serves up to the site's content.

Local search could be the next big moneyspinner on the internet�for whoever comes up with a winning formula. Microsoft's MSN site, for instance, will provide details about a local shop, and a map to get you there. A9, a new search engine from Amazon, has a feature called �Block View� with pictures of streets and their shop fronts, so if you have forgotten the name of the restaurant you are looking for, you may be able to recognise it in the picture. The next step will be a feature that allows users to �click to call�. Initially this service is likely to be free, but in time it could be developed into another big source of online revenue.

Media from dawn to dusk

Some changes in consumer behaviour that were already under way have been speeded up by the growing use of the internet. For example, consumers are spending more time with media of all kinds: currently about ten hours per person per day in America. According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a New York-based media merchant bank, this is likely to grow to 11 hours by 2008. James Rutherfurd, the bank's managing director, thinks this is due to a relatively new phenomenon he calls �media multi-tasking�: using different media at the same time. �This has enormous implications for advertisers and programmers,� he says. �It used to be that they were competing to get you to turn on the television. Now the TV may be on, but they are competing to keep your attention on the TV as opposed to the computer screen, the magazine or the iPod.�

Consumers are spending more time with media of all kinds: currently about ten hours per person per day in America

Fujio Nishida, chief marketing officer of Sony's electronics division, points out that this forces advertisers to think very carefully not only about which media to use for the market they want to reach, but what people are likely to be doing when their ad appears. In Japan, he says, in the past you could be fairly sure that 90% of your potential targets would be watching TV at some point between 8pm and 10pm; but now only 70% may be watching and 60% will be using the internet�many doing both at the same time. Advertisers can take advantage of this by putting on TV ads specially designed to encourage consumers to go straight to a website, as Sony has done.

�Who actually controls distribution in this type of world?� asks Bill Gossman. �The individual does. That's where the ultimate consumer power comes from.� His company, Revenue Science, is developing new ways of �behavioural targeting�. This involves analysing online consumer behaviour and then delivering ads that are likely to be relevant to groups with common interests. Mr Gossman thinks that as the world becomes more digital, his techniques will increasingly be used by all kinds of electronic media.

Amazon, which has long evolved from an online bookseller into a mass retailer, uses a form of behavioural targeting by suggesting products its customers might like, based on their past purchases. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, was among the first to spot that the transparent pricing and product information the internet was able to provide would allow people to shop just about anywhere. The trick was to make it easier for them, so Amazon's website now operates as a shop front for lots of other companies too. And it gives customers the chance to read not only the sales blurb but also other customers' comments on the products.

For some companies this is scary stuff�the same as throwing open your customer-relations files and hoping that people have said enough nice things about you. Companies can, of course, try to control everything that is said and written about them through advertising and public relations. But nowadays a web search can turn up all sorts of skeletons in the cupboard, especially from news groups where people post comments, from online journals (called �web logs� or �blogs�) and more recently from �podcasting�, in which individuals produce their own audio programmes for others to download to their Apple iPods or other MP3 players. Video versions of this are sure to follow. Not all of this can be dismissed as amateurish twaddle. Microsoft, for instance, is taking blogs seriously enough to have hired its own celebrity blogger, Robert Scoble, even at the risk that he might be scathing about the company's products.

This is a clever move. The less control a company has over its marketing message, the greater its credibility, says Pamela Talbot, an expert in consumer-product marketing and chief executive of the American side of Edelman, a giant public-relations firm. Indeed, Saatchi & Saatchi's Mr Roberts thinks marketing departments must accept that brands no longer belong to them, but to the people who use them. The most valuable users of a company's brand are what he describes as �inspirational consumers��people who are closely associated with a company and its products. It does not even have to be another company. Some of the most successful agents for generating a buzz�and plenty of free publicity�can be the people who run the business.

For example, the celebrity status of Sir Richard Branson has rubbed off on the Virgin brand, so his businesses, from music to airlines to space travel, get instant consumer recognition. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, a familiar face in Britain, founded easyJet, one of Europe's first cut-price airlines. Mr Haji-Ioannou, who describes himself on his business card as a �serial entrepreneur�, believes that a brand represents �a promise�. So whether he is attaching his name to a car-rental business, a new no-frills hotel chain or a new cruise line, the consumer knows what to expect from the person putting his reputation on the line. Donald Trump has also turned himself into a brand, but the New York businessman is especially well known for �The Apprentice�, a business reality show on TV. This is a huge hit in America (unlike Sir Richard's own show), and companies pay to be involved.

What is it worth to have the contestants on such a show design a new product for your business, as Burger King did? The fast-food chain then went on to mount a similar competition on its own website. Measuring the effectiveness of such marketing is not easy. The marketing profession has yet to catch up with new media, says Malcolm Hunter, chief strategy officer of Vizeum, a London agency set up to seek out opportunities from recent trends. �Consumers are real people, and companies that understand that can do well.� That might seem blindingly obvious, but he is right to remind the industry of it. Advertisers are still inclined to depict their activities as a form of warfare. Consumers are �targets� and ad �campaigns� are meant to �wear down resistance� and score �hits�.

The rise of consumer power can best be charted through three industries: packaged goods, consumer electronics and cars. In each of these three very different categories consumers carry increasing clout. As the cost of the product goes up, they spend more time and effort considering which make and model to buy. The battle for their attention and money begins at the supermarket.

March 31, 2005 at 08:42 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Power at last

Economist.com | Consumer power

Mar 31st 2005
From The Economist print edition
Armed with the internet, the customer has finally got on top
WHEN a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king, decreed John Wanamaker, who in 1876 turned an abandoned railway depot in Philadelphia into one of the world's first department stores. This revolutionary concept changed the face of retailing and led to the development of advertising and marketing as we know it today.

But compelling as that slogan was, in truth the shopper was cheated of the crown. Although manufacturing efficiency boosted the variety of goods and lowered prices, advertising provided most information about products. Through much of the past century, ads spoke to a captive audience confined to just a few radio or television channels or a limited number of publications. Now media choice has exploded too, and consumers select what they want from a far greater variety of sources�especially with a few clicks of a computer mouse. Thanks to the internet, the consumer is finally seizing power.

As our survey in this issue shows, consumer power has profound implications for companies, because it is changing the way the world shops. Many firms already claim to be �customer-driven� or �consumer-centric�. Now their claims will be tested as never before. Trading on shoppers' ignorance will no longer be possible: people will know�and soon tell others, even those without the internet�that prices in the next town are cheaper or that certain goods are inferior. The internet is working wonders in raising standards. Good and honest firms should benefit most.

But it is also intensifying competition. Today, window shopping takes place online. People can compare products, prices and reputations. They can read what companies say about products in far greater detail, but also how that tallies with the opinions of others, and�most importantly of all�discover what previous buyers have to say. Newsgroups and websites constantly review products and services.

This is changing the nature of consumer decisions. Until recently, consumers usually learned about a product and made their choice at the same time. People would often visit a department store or dealership to seek advice from a salesman, look at his recommendations and then buy. Now, for many, each of these steps is separate. For instance, Ford is finding that eight out of ten of its customers have already used the internet to decide what car they want to buy�and what they are willing to pay�even before they arrive at a showroom.

Know-alls

Of course, the amount of time people spend researching and checking prices tends to rise in proportion to the value of the product�and cars are expensive. But consumers are displaying similar behaviour when they purchase other things, such as digital cameras, mobile phones or fashionable clothes. And while supermarket shoppers may not research in this way all the individual items they drop into their trolley, many suppliers of the packaged goods sold in supermarkets are already acutely aware that their customers, too, are better informed than ever before about the value or health implications of the products they sell.

Reaching these better-informed consumers with a marketing message is not easy, and not only because they are more sceptical. Many people now spend as much time surfing the web as they do with television, magazines or newspapers. The audience for advertising is splintering and its attention is harder to attract. On top of that, many people are arming themselves with technology to avoid marketing messages, such as pop-up ad-blockers for the internet and personal video recorders that make it easy to skip TV commercials.

Despite the flood of product and price information suddenly available, consumers are unlikely ever to become wholly calculating. Tastes and fashion will differ. Brands are likely to remain popular. But brand loyalties are weakening. A slip or delay can cost a firm dearly and hand the advantage to an opportunistic rival. This is how Apple's iPod snatched from Sony the market leadership in portable-music devices.

Virtual shopping

Many firms do not yet seem aware of the revolutionary implications of newly empowered consumers. Too many companies relaxed after the bursting of the dotcom bubble, assuming that the online threat had faded. This was a mistake. It is true that the vast majority of people still go to shops for most purchases (though online sales continue to grow). Before doing that, however, most have used the internet. More than 90% of people aged between 18 and 54 told America's Online Publishers Association in a survey that they would turn to the internet first for product information. The differences between the virtual and the bricks-and-mortar worlds do not worry consumers. But they should worry companies. Many consumers first encounter a firm through its website, and yet for too many firms, their online presence remains a low priority.

By contrast, some businesses have embraced the internet wholeheartedly, and been rewarded for it. Dell has by-passed retailers and used direct sales to become the world's leading supplier of personal computers. The web is also transforming the travel business, giving consumers the power to book flights, hotels and cars directly. And it has allowed hundreds of thousands of small businesses, from mom-and-pop stores to traders of collectibles on eBay, to reach a global market.

The explosion of choice that followed the opening of Mr Wanamaker's store is minuscule compared with the cornucopia already provided by the internet. But the consumer's choice is about to become even greater. Internet search firms such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN are now falling over each other to offer more localised services. These promise to open up a new goldmine in search advertising. And soon this facility will be available not just on PCs at home or work, but on mobile phones. At a touch, consumers will be able to find a local store and then check the offers from nearby outlets even as they browse the aisles, or listen to a salesman. When that happens consumers will truly be kings, and only those firms ready and able to serve these new monarchs will survive.

March 31, 2005 at 08:40 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

A nation of communicators

A nation of communicators - Connected Business - Times Online

Sara McConnell introduces a Times Online series that charts how communications technology is revolutionising our work and home lives

We have become a nation of communicators. Constantly plugged into laptops, mobile phones and computer networks, working from home has become commonplace as people cut out the commute and log into office IT systems from their spare bedrooms or living rooms. Even when mobiles or computers are off, voicemails and e-mails wait in message boxes.

More than half of all households in the United Kingdom now have access to the internet at home, up from 2.2 million six years ago. Nearly 60 per cent of adults surveyed this summer had used the internet either at work or at home in the previous three months, mostly for sending e-mails and buying goods and services online.

Over the next 10 weeks, Times Online will look at how communications technology and online connectivity are changing and shaping the way we live and work.

Growing numbers of people work from home using desktops and laptops linked up to fast broadband connections which makes downloading even complex documents with graphics quick and easy.

But new hardware and software has to work with existing equipment. Paul Magree, communications manager at Cable & Wireless, says: "You need to get the infrastructure right. It's more than just data. Technology needs to be an enabler."

The spread of broadband has made it much easier for employees working away from the office to work efficiently and for employers to keep track of what they are doing, says Mr Magree. An estimated 50,000 new subscribers are signing up for broadband every week. New figures from the Telecom Markets Broadband Subscriber Database show that there are now five million broadband subscribers in the UK.

In cities like London, Birmingham and Leeds, developers are responding to demand from buyers working from home some or all of the time for new apartments to be equipped with the latest wiring for broadband, sound systems and satellite connections. These are no longer just "boys' toys" � there is just as much demand for high tech homes from sophisticated women buyers.

Meanwhile employers are turning to smaller cities like Southampton, Aberdeen and Cardiff. According to research by Cable & Wireless, these cities have a winning combination of high levels of broadband access, good transport links and an educated workforce. Telecommunications companies have a key role to play in Government-backed efforts to entice businesses out of the overcrowded south-east.

Since the Disability Discrimination Act came into force on October 1, employers have had to make workplaces accessible for disabled workers, not only physically but technologically. E-mails which can be stored and heard as sound files for blind workers and voice mails which can be read as e-mails for deaf and hard of hearing employees are among the innovations being tested.

In the public sector, long criticised for bureacracy and inefficiency, communications companies are developing new systems. In one case, police forces across the country are linking up through Cable & Wireless's Criminal Justice Extranet system which allows e-mail and information sharing and access to the National Police Computer.

But computer hackers, online criminals and viruses are flourishing as more people get online. Companies selling goods and services online can be brought down by hackers accessing their databases and systems. Public confidence in buying and selling online can be destroyed by evidence of security lapses in holding data.

Businesses should be doing more to protect themselves from cybercrime and should see such risk management as a positive corporate selling point rather than a chore.

Those who see e-mails and text messaging as a great marketing tool should also think twice before firing off a stream of untargeted product announcements into the ether. Surveys show that people are irritated rather than interested when they receive unsolicited mailings. Even those who have signed up to be sent news or offers are turned off and companies which make no effort to tailor e-mails and texts risk alienating their customers permanently.

March 16, 2005 at 09:21 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Mobile phone gigs: they could be the next best thing to being there

News

Tomorrow night Natasha Bedingfield will perform not only to 300 at the ICA but also to thousands by phone
By Ian Burrell

14 March 2005

When Natasha Bedingfield takes to the stage at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London tomorrow night, it will not just be the 300-odd fans in the venue with their eyes on her.

The gig isn't being televised and nor is it being broadcast on radio, but some 2,200 viewers and listeners will be taking in the show by holding up their mobile phones.

Bedingfield is well used to having her fans holding their phones up to take pictures of her from the audience - but these ones will be as far away as Scotland and Wales, having paid �5 for a live feed of the gig.

This is the start of a form of broadcasting that could revolutionise the music industry, offering in effect gigs on demand, provided you have a phone with the means to pick up a signal.

Bedingfield, who has been selected by phone company 3 Mobile to pioneer the technology, seems suitably impressed. "Record companies should really keep their eyes on this because it could become much bigger," she says.

The singer, who has just come back from a tour of major venues, is excited by the prospect of playing a small auditorium such as the ICA and yet performing to a comparatively large audience. "Intimate gigs a re special - there's nothing like them," she says.

It might not be everybody's idea of fun to pay for the privilege of watching an entire concert on a tiny screen, but 3 Mobile claims that the quality of sound and vision is exceptionally high.

Graeme Oxby, director of marketing at 3, says the gig will be filmed by a company with a proven track record in music television. "We have a number of cameras with different angles, as you would for any decent gig," he says.

The audience are all 3 Mobile customers who were told of the chance to view the gig through a daily video messaging service "Today on 3". The first 2,200 to take up the offer will have �5 added to their regular phone bills. People from Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol are among those paying for the gig to be streamed to their phones.

Oxby says the audience is supposed to listen to the gig through their headphones (or "headset") but that use of speakerphone would allow more than one person in the room to hear the show (if not to see it).

"There is a lot of interest among artist management because there is a lot of potential here," he says. "Some of the more inventive record labels will start to push this whole thing."

Bedingfield was chosen to take part in the experiment because she is the most popular British artist among 3 Mobile customers for video downloads.

But whether your preference is for the mosh pit at the Roxy or a box at the Royal Albert Hall, you will have to wait a while before getting concerts on demand. Oxby admits that the potential for expanding the service to gigs nationwide is severely hampered by the lack of technology at most venues.

Very few can match the ICA when it comes to editing and video mixing desks and suitable connections to the phone networks. For the time being at least, most gig-goers will have to content themselves with getting off their backsides and actually going to the show.

March 16, 2005 at 08:22 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

The future, just around the bend

Economist.com | BRAIN SCAN

Mar 10th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Ray Kurzweil is an accomplished inventor, but he is best known for his wild prognostications about the future. Is he as crazy as he sounds?

BLAME it on Tom Swift. For it was Swift, the fictional teenage genius who repeatedly saved the world with his scientific savvy, who inspired Ray Kurzweil to become the inventor, engineer and prognosticator he is today. �I started reading those books when I was about nine years old, and couldn't put them down,� he says. It wasn't just the solartrons, diving seacopters and triphibian atomicars that mesmerised him; it was the way the irrepressible Swift applied his mind, and the technology it conceived, to solve human, often personal, problems. �I was smitten by the power of ideas to change the world,� says Mr Kurzweil.

It is as good a way as any to explain how a shy boy growing up in a financially pinched household in Queens, New York, managed to transform himself into a restless thinker who has since founded nine businesses, written five books (with a sixth on the way), won the American National Medal of Technology and the Lemelson-MIT prize for invention and innovation, and who relentlessly preaches the gospel of accelerating technological advance that will soon strain our ability to comprehend what lies ahead.

Like his boyhood hero, Mr Kurzweil cannot seem to keep his fingers out of the future. He keeps venturing on to the bleeding edge�his critics say the lunatic fringe�of science to imagine futures where computers are as intelligent as we are, millions live in virtual reality and immortality is not only possible, but likely. It will all unfold, he says, over the next 25 years as overlapping technological revolutions in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics render the world radically different from the place it is today.

The futuristic landscapes that Mr Kurzweil paints have often been derided as outlandish. Nevertheless, he says he stands by his record. In his first book, �The Age of Intelligent Machines�, published in 1990, he predicted that in just a few years a global computer network would emerge. In late 1993, the web hit the mainstream and never looked back. He also predicted that a computer would defeat a chess champion by 1999: sure enough, IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. �Well,� shrugs Mr Kurzweil, �I was off by a couple of years.�

Making predictions, particularly about the future, is a dangerous business, of course: long-awaited technologies such as flying cars, space hotels and videophones have yet to materialise (or, in the case of videophones, they have arrived, but nobody wants to use them). But Mr Kurzweil insists he is not trying to oversell the future. He works with a team of ten people, researching big technological trends, examining them closely, and then methodically plotting where they will lead. �I'm an engineer,� he says. �I like to measure things.� And if those measurements lead somewhere improbable, so be it. He is just passing the news along. He is not outlandish; the future is.

His predictions may sound wide-eyed, but Mr Kurzweil himself is not. As he sips a cup of green tea, his calmness makes it easy to imagine the shy, solitary boy who grew up reading books and tinkering with electronic circuits. And while he relishes wandering into controversial areas where he can play the role of agent provocateur, he maintains he has arrived at his conclusions scientifically. Being an inveterate measurer, he says he has looked back not decades, but eons, and has found that the organisation of information has been accelerating at an exponential pace for millions of years.

We are just beginning to see the results of this effect now, he argues, because we have reached the �knee of the curve�, where a slowly rising trend line suddenly rockets upward. That is why many of his predictions seem so implausible, he says: the notion that �exponential change is subtle� is what most futurists and scientists miss. Mr Kurzweil calls it the Law of Accelerating Returns, and it underpins most of his predictions.

�Ray takes ideas everyone accepts, and follows them to logical conclusions that almost no one accepts,� says Neil Gershenfeld, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Admittedly, at times Mr Kurzweil goes �a bit far� for specialists versed in the limitations of a particular field, �but he does it with care, and he does his homework,� says Dr Gershenfeld. �He filters out the clutter and identifies important trends with remarkable accuracy,� says Ralph Merkle, director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Centre and an expert in nanotechnology. Yet while accuracy is important, Mr Kurzweil's supporters say that his most important role lies in driving home to as many people as possible the idea that radical change lies just around the corner. �He plays at a valuable boundary between working scientists and futurists, visionaries and science-fiction kooks,� says Dr Gershenfeld. �It's useful to have such �points of infinity'.�

From the age of five, Mr Kurzweil says he knew he wanted to be an inventor. By the age of 12 he was building and programming computers, and as a young teenager he appeared on �I've Got a Secret�, a popular American quiz show. Mr Kurzweil walked on to the stage, played a classical piano piece for the celebrity panel and then shared his secret with the host and audience: the piece he had just played was written by a computer, and he had programmed the computer that created it. By the time he was an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying computer science under artificial-intelligence guru Marvin Minsky and creative writing with playwright Lillian Hellman, Mr Kurzweil was finding ways to profit from his programming prowess.

�Mr Kurzweil plays at the boundary between scientists, futurists, visionaries and sci-fi kooks.�

In 1967, he hatched an idea for computer software that would help high-school students find a college that matched their interests and skills. Students filled out a form with 200 questions, and Mr Kurzweil's program compared their answers with a database of 2m facts about 3,000 colleges, all compiled by five Harvard students he had hired as researchers. After selling the resulting company in 1968, Mr Kurzweil went on to found Kurzweil Computer Products, where he developed breakthrough optical character-recognition technology that led to the world's first reading machine. Mr Kurzweil sold that company to Xerox in 1980.

Spot the pattern

Then came Kurzweil Music Systems, the result of a collaboration with Stevie Wonder, a blind musician who was the first private customer to buy one of his reading machines. Mr Wonder contacted Mr Kurzweil after he heard about the machine in news reports, and asked if there might be some way to apply the power of computer technology to music. That led to the creation of electronic keyboards able to imitate the sound of a grand piano. Mr Kurzweil sold the company in 1990 to Young Chang of South Korea, the world's largest piano-maker.

The list goes on: Kurzweil CyberArt, Kurzweil Educational Systems, Kurzweil AI, the Medical Learning Company. All are run out of an unspectacular four-storey building in the picturesque town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, the products of Mr Kurzweil's Swift-like curiosity and enthusiasm. Mr Kurzweil's most active current venture is FatKat, which uses pattern-recognition software to spot trends and automate stockmarket transactions.

As wide-ranging as these enterprises appear, one common theme unites them: a fascination with pattern recognition, which Mr Kurzweil argues is at the heart of human intelligence. Many of his inventions�from optical character-recognition software to CyberArt's paintings to FatKat's transaction engine�attempt to imbue machines with something like human intelligence, and often blur the line between art and science. Perhaps the most unorthodox example is Ramona, a computer-generated female singer who is also Mr Kurzweil's virtual alter-ego.

Not even Tom Swift could have come up with this. At the TED (technology, entertainment, design) conference in 2001, Mr Kurzweil wanted to demonstrate how virtual reality can allow people to reinvent themselves. �That is one of the benefits of virtual reality,� he says. �You don't have to be the same boring person all the time.� Motion sensors tracked his movements and linked them to Ramona, whose image was projected on a large screen as Mr Kurzweil put on a show, complete with a rock band. �As I moved, Ramona moved in exactly the same way in real time, and my voice was transformed into Ramona's voice. We got a standing ovation,� he says. A team from Warner Brothers saw the performance and, says Mr Kurzweil, used it as the inspiration for �S1m0ne�, a movie about a Hollywood director who creates a virtual actress who takes on a life of her own.

The way Mr Kurzweil sees it, Ramona is a glimpse into the future. In ten years or so, he imagines that millions of people will spend large chunks of their time interacting in virtual worlds with other people masquerading as whoever they choose�a kind of elaborate masked ball in cyberspace that will eventually evolve into a full-blooded parallel universe. (Already, millions of people play online games, which are becoming ever more elaborate.) �We will have full-immersion virtual reality by 2010,� Mr Kurzweil predicts. �The images will be written directly to your retinas from your eyeglasses or contact lenses.� By the late 2020s, he expects virtual reality will be implemented using nanobots injected directly into the brain that will bypass the input from the outside world and generate the signals needed to create an alternative reality.

If all of this seems too outlandish to be believed, Mr Kurzweil doesn't care. As unnatural as these ideas may seem to others, he says they are just part of a natural evolutionary progression. Apes would have seemed impossible to the first lungfish. A civilisation of humans literally melding with their technology may seem impossible as well. But, he argues, that does not mean it will not happen.

All of which leads to the 57-year-old Mr Kurzweil's most outrageous prediction: immortality. In his new book, �Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever�, he and his co-author argue, in sometimes dense scientific detail, that death no longer need be a fact of life. Current advances in medicine, they say, will lead to major breakthroughs in genetics between 2015 and 2020 that will extend life spans. Then, by the late 2020s, advances in nanotechnology will make possible truly radical life extension and rejuvenation. So to achieve immortality, people alive today merely need to survive long enough to reach the first of these breakthroughs, which will in turn enable them to benefit from the second.

Mr Kurzweil has no time for sceptics who argue that human immortality is impossible, or that mortality is what makes life precious. �That's nonsense,� he says. �What makes the human species unique is that we insist upon going beyond our limitations. We are not staying within the limits of our biology. Life expectancy was 37 in 1800, 45 in 1900 and now it's over 80. Ageing is not a graceful process and death is a great tragedy, a profound loss of knowledge, skill, experience and relationships.� When asked if he expects to live forever, Mr Kurzweil answers without hesitation: �Yes. I expect I will.� After all, when you have as many ideas as Tom Swift, you need all the time you can get.

March 15, 2005 at 09:33 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Europe, U.S. Separated by Telephone Cultures

Yahoo! News - Europe, U.S. Separated by Telephone Cultures

By David Lawsky

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European and American culture differ in language, automobiles, sports and -- less obvious but no less important -- the way they use telephones.

Choices made by governments and companies can mean that teenagers in Athens, Georgia, talk on their fixed line phone for four hours a day while those in Athens, Greece, are sending four text messages on their mobile phones.

The European Commission (news - web sites) in Brussels is proud of its role in helping promote a uniform telephone standard across the European Union (news - web sites). The Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) in Washington is proud of its role in letting the market decide.

Europe touts the broad use of the GSM standard as a measure of success. It is now used in more than 100 countries around the world and has ushered in sophisticated multimedia telephone service in many countries.

The GSM system exists in the United States but so do other, inconsistent systems, reflecting the U.S. policy of letting the market decide what technology to adopt.

"Wireless communications is by far the most competitive and innovative market in the Commission's purview," FCC (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell said last year.

An FCC report said American mobile users talk more and pay less than Europeans, citing it as "evidence that the U.S. market is effectively competitive" compared to Europe and Japan.

But eight of 10 European Union residents have mobile phone numbers while only six of 10 Americans do.

And Western Europe mobile operators pulled in $142 billion of revenue in 2004, compared to only $104 billion in the United States, according to Marta Munoz of Ovum a consulting firm in London.

But the United States is catching up. U.S. revenues grew at 11 percent, compared to only 9 percent for Western Europe, Munoz said.

SPUTTERING PHONES

Europe's single-standard GSM, which stands for 'global system of mobile communications' reaches a broader audience than America's multiple-standard system.

"You can't use every phone everywhere in the United States, so that puts a limitation on the end user," Munoz observed of the three incompatible American systems.

U.S. cell phones sputter and fail in an apartment near the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, a U.S. agency created to set consistent standards, and in ranch houses in the Los Angeles suburbs. A land line is a necessity.

Europeans can skip fixed lines altogether. Why bother? A GSM works nearly everywhere -- not just in houses, apartments and offices but at the bottom of a salt mine in Poland or on a wind-swept beach in County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The only real problem occurs on trains.

GSM includes the short messaging system (SMS), which works on every phone in Europe. Some Americans have SMS or BlackBerry Wireless, but not everyone.

Americans have made voicemail a way of life, where it often replaces the busy signal. A conversation can be supplanted by voice mail exchanges.

Europeans often skip voicemail, although they have sophisticated versions. Their mobiles automatically send a note saying "1 missed call," and tell them who called. People call back even without a message.

People often use SMS to leave messages, which have a "feel" different from voice mail, e-mail or snail mail.

MINUTE BY MINUTE

Telephone charges are primarily responsible for shaping the different telephone cultures in the U.S. and Europe.

"Price affects behavior with telephones, just as it does in every other aspect of life," said Dermot Glynn, chairman of Europe Economics, a consultancy based in London.

Europeans traditionally pay by the minute for both fixed lines and mobiles. Teenagers save money using cheap SMS messages instead of mobile calls, and pay nothing to receive. Those Americans who have SMS must pay to send and receive.

Americans traditionally paid a monthly flat rate for unlimited local calls on wireline. But now they can pay to extend that to the whole country, no matter how many calls or for how long.

As a result of the differing economics of the phone systems, there are different practices:

--Americans talk more. Flat-rate charges also helped get the Internet off the ground there because dial-up lines were not charged by the minute as in Europe.

--Europeans give out their cell phone number and put them on their business cards. They pay nothing to receive mobile phone calls in their home country.

--Americans traditionally have paid to receive mobile phone calls and tend to be less free about giving out cell phone numbers.

--American mobile subscribers get an allotment of minutes for a monthly fee and competition led to packages offering free nationwide calls nights and weekends.

--Europeans buy more limited packages -- especially geographically. Despite investigations by the European Commission mobile phone companies in Europe charge as much as one euro per minute to send or receive calls abroad.

--Europeans buy their own phones and easily switch phone companies or numbers by swapping tiny SIM card chips. So travelers sometimes buy inexpensive SIM cards to use abroad, receiving calls for free on a new, local number.

But a sun-seeking Briton in Spain is more cautious about making mobile calls than a sun-seeking Minnesotan in Florida.

Now, the advent of 3G high-speed data phones will soon create its own cultural changes -- likely to be different in the United States than Europe.

(additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Kirstin Ridley in London)

March 13, 2005 at 12:14 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Good quote from Gates re "communities" at CES 2005

Internet Changes Everything: Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation

BILL GATES: That's right. Gaming is becoming more of a social thing, and all the different genres, including some that will draw in older people, draw in really everyone [who] will use this rich communication. So if you look at what's going on with e-mail, instant messaging, blogging communities, and now this live entertainment, if we can integrate all that and make it seamless so you can see a person's presence across that, invite them to do different things, then we will have created something that's quite phenomenal.

January 8, 2005 at 11:45 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

Clarke condemns the 'Luddites' over identity cards opposition

Times Online - Britain

By Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent
CHARLES CLARKE overcame his first test in the Commons as Home Secretary last night as he steered the Government’s plans for identity cards past opposition from both the Labour and Tory back benches.

The Identity Cards Bill was given a second reading by 385 votes to 93 after Mr Clarke earlier branded opponents of the plan �Luddites� and argued that he had a duty to use technology to protect citizens.

In a combative Commons performance, the new Home Secretary confronted head-on the doubts of a succession of Labour backbenchers to plans for biometric identity cards.

He was challenged by Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, to rule out a role for Capita � the support services company involved in several controversial public computer contracts � in creating a national identity database.

But Mr Clarke told her bluntly: �There is a Luddite tendency in this House that says we should have no IT projects because there have been mistakes in the past. That is a legitimate position to take but it is not one I am able to support. There are large numbers of areas where the use of technology should be a major asset.�

Mr Clarke told MPs that he was not prepared to exclude any bidder from the process.

Mr Clarke further denied claims from MPs of all parties that a national identity database amounted to a fundamental increase in the power of the State over the citizen.

Bill Cash, the Tory MP for Stone who disagreed with his own party�s backing for the Bill, brandished a copy of George Orwell�s 1984 as he argued that it represented a sea change in the relationship between the individual and the State.

Twice Mr Clarke compared the proposed national identity register to the introduction in 1837 of the requirement to register the birth of every child in England and Wales.

MPs pressed him to explain how identity cards would help to combat terrorism when they had not prevented the Madrid train bombings this year.

Mr Clarke said: �It is clearly the opinion of the police and all the other security services that this Bill will make the identification of people easier and that is why we support it.�

Others, such as the Tory MP Francis Maude, pressed him to say how the supposed benefits of an identity card scheme could apply unless it became a legal requirement to carry a card at all times. The Home Secretary admitted that the Bill could indeed lead to a compulsory identity card scheme, if Parliament approved, but said that it did not create police powers to require people to identify themselves.

Although the Conservative front bench supported the Bill, there were rebel motions opposing its second reading from six Tory MPs led by the former Cabinet minister Douglas Hogg and by 15 left-wing Labour MPs, including Clare Short. Instead, the Tories tabled a separate motion calling for the Bill to be referred to a joint committee of MPs and peers rather than a standing committee of MPs. Under a timetable motion, its committee stage will finish on January 27, two and a half weeks after the Commons returned form the Christmas recess.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary who had privately expressed doubts about the Bill, spoke of the need to balance security against liberty, saying that the duty to protect life must be weighed against the protection of our way of life.

He told MPs that he would not have countenanced identity cards before the September 11 terrorist attacks. �After 9/11, I accept we have to consider them,� he said.

He set out five tests on which the Conservatives would judge the Bill during its passage. Challenged on whether the Opposition would continue to back it at its third reading if the Government refused to make changes, Mr Davis replied: �We will make a judgment � and, if it hasn�t changed at all, I think we will make a judgment which is pretty sceptical of it.�

THE CARD DEAL

2002: Home Office launches consultation on identity cards

2003: Home Office research and surveys

2004: Government launches ID Card Bill

2005: Bill should pass into law

2005-07: Technology to be tested and agreed

2008: First cards issued

2013: Cards could become compulsory

December 20, 2004 at 10:24 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Tech's future: It's all about fun

Tech's future: It's all about fun | csmonitor.com

From iPods to Web-surfing TVs, consumers clamor for digital toys.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WALNUT CREEK, CALIF. – There is no ambiguity about Kimberly Meyer's marching orders. Her daughter does not want just any MP3 player to listen to the music she downloads from the Web. No, her Christmas list is as precise as a Martha Stewart recipe for Bundt cake: She wants an Apple mini iPod - and she wants it in lime green.

Mrs. Meyer's daughter is not some tech-geek devotee of all things Apple. In fact, Meyer can't think of a single Apple item in the entire house. But this isn't about gigabytes and USB ports. It's about Madonna, Michelle Branch, and 10,000 songs in your pocket.

With its iPod, Apple has tapped into what many analysts say is the future of American technology: entertainment. And this holiday season, the computer industry as a whole is making its first significant foray into the world of digital cameras and plasma-screen TVs.

The momentum has been building for a while, as tech companies look to new markets now that sales of personal computers have slowed. But the recent rise of the Internet, combined with the explosion of digital media, has fueled the shift by turning every photo, song, film, and TV into nothing more than a package of digital information that can be moved around and played at will.

Now, as technology companies step in with an array of products that give consumers more control over their movies and music, they are recasting Silicon Valley's business sense and revolutionizing an entertainment industry still baffled by the realm of bits and bytes.

"Technology companies understand how to move a word document file around," says Rod Bare, a tech analyst at Morningstar in Minneapolis. "It doesn't take much more effort to move around a music file ... and if you're sitting in a tech company, you're looking at all the information that can be digitized."

Everyone is a movie producer, DJ

In the broadly defined universe of entertainment, that's almost everything - from photo albums to episodes of "The Biggest Loser." Hewlett-Packard, a leader in printing, has already jumped into the digital camera and photo printing markets. Microsoft, which introduced its XBox game system several years ago, has reintroduced a brand of Web TV that allows users to surf the Internet by TV. And Dell now sells MP3s and flat-panel TVs on its website.

It's just the beginning. This year, both Dell and HP are offering Media Centers - computers that work like a normal machines but are specifically tailored to help users manage their digital music and photos. The next generation media center, which is just now entering the market, is a computer that hooks up to the TV and looks like a VCR. Through a remote control, users can record TV like a TiVo, play music like an MP3, and show movies that are saved on a computer in the den through a wireless Web connection.

"It's a growing trend," says Venancio Figueroa, a spokesman for Dell. "If you look at the usage model ... the PC is moving from a productivity tool to an entertainment platform."

On one hand, as computers become a more seamless part of everyday life, it moves America closer to the digital home. Yet it also underscores the increasing importance of entertainment and the individual in contemporary culture, as the ever more on-demand world spawned by the Web allows users to tailor every aspect of the media to their tastes.

"It turns out, the Internet revolution was not a technology revolution but a media revolution," says Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. "It's a shift from mass media to personal media."

Speaking cosmically, he is by no means certain that this is an entirely good thing: "Digital technology is so bewitching that it risks turning everything into entertainment ... and the lesson from Rome onward is that all great civilizations fail by turning everything into entertainment."

Certainly, it will put more power in the hands of each consumer. He suggests that the greatest symbol of the mass media was the TV. "It delivered the world to your living room, but all you can do is press your nose to the window and watch," he says.

Personal media makes each person a participant. Recording TV on a computer allows users to potentially edit out commercials and watch programs any time they choose. With music, people can download one song at a time and build their own albums. As the more tech-savvy members of society have begun doing this on their own, Silicon Valley has jumped in to make it easier for everyone.

Creating buzz with new gadgets

Moreover, Apple has found that makina a foray into entertainment can create a buzz that boosts stock prices. "If you want to be highly valued, you have to be visible and people have to like what you sell," says Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. Today, with laptops little more exciting than toasters, he says, businesses are looking for "a popular product people get excited about."

The excitement about the iPod has shown itself in ways both familiar and peculiar. With Apple's MP3 on virtually every hot gift list, sales are strong. Market analysts forecast that Apple will sell 3.5 million iPods during the Christmas quarter. Yet one schoolteacher's love for the iPod has taken a unique twist. He has created his own 60-second commercial for the iPod. Although it was only posted a few weeks ago, the online ad has already drawn 37,000 hits, according to Wired News. It's the first consumer-generated ad industry watchers can recall.

Consumers in control

While the ad might help Apple, the personalizing of the media hints at something more troubling for the entertainment industry. If computer users can mix and burn their own CDs, for instance, why would they buy CDs from the store? If TV viewers of the future can program their recorders to skip ads at will, how will networks pay their bills? In many ways, technology companies are fueling a future that Hollywood is desperate to avoid.

"The control-points are broken," says Mike McGuire, an analyst for Gartner G2 in San Jose. "What these [tech] companies are doing is reacting to the phenomenon that the consumer is in absolute control."

By the looks of it, Meyer's daughter is in control at home. Meyer, who refused to give her real name, says she has already bought an iPod for her husband with the idea that he and his daughter could share. Her trip to the Apple store here in Walnut Creek, Calif., suggests that didn't work.

The same is true in front of the Apple store a half hour away in Emeryville, where Ron Kirk says it took him 3-1/2 weeks to find an iPod for his daughter last Christmas. This year, he's here to buy her a new carrying case. "She loves it," he laughs.

December 13, 2004 at 07:29 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Britons growing 'digitally obese

BBC NEWS | Technology | Britons growing 'digitally obese'

Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in "weight".

Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found.

It found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices, making the UK "digitally fat".

"Virtual weight" measurements are based on research by California Institute of Technology professor Roy Williams.

He calculated physical comparisons for digital data in the mid-1990s.

He worked out that one gigabyte (1,073,741,824 bytes) was the equivalent of a pick-up truck filled with paper.

The amount of data people are squirreling away on their gadgets is clearly a sign that people are finding more things to do with their shiny things.

'Digitally obese'

If digital hoarding habits continue on this scale, people could be carrying around a "digitally obese" 20 gigabytes by next year.

"Britain has become a nation of information hoarders with a ferocious appetite for data," said Martin Larsson, general manager of Toshiba's European storage device division.

"As storage capabilities increase and the features and functionalities of mobile devices expand to support movie files and entire libraries of multi-media content, we will all become virtually obese," he told the BBC News website.

The survey reflects the increasing trend for portable devices with built-in hard drives like music and media players from Apple, Creative Labs, Archos, iRiver and others.

This trend is set to grow, according to analysts. They suggest the number of hard drives in consumer electronics gadgets could grow from 17 million last year to 55 million in 2006.

"Consumers are driving the move towards smaller devices that have greater functionality, and industry is trying to keep up," said Mr Larsson.

"People are looking for more than just phone calls and text messages on the move, they want things like web browsing, e-mailing, music, photos and more."

Bigger please

Many are finding memory keys and memory sticks are simply not big enough to hold everything.

"Floppies and memory keys have their place, but they don't have anything like the capacity or flexibility of a hard drive so are unable to meet the demand for more and more storage capacity in consumer devices," said Mr Larsson.

The cost of making hard drives has dropped and is continuing to do so because of improved technologies so they are proving to be more cost-effective than other forms of memory, he added.

The amount of data that can be stored has grown by 400% in the last three years, while the cost for every gigabyte has fallen by 80%.

It is also getting easier to transfer files from one device to another, which has traditionally been a slow and problematic area.

"Transfer of data between different memory types has improved significantly in recent times, and will be further helped by the standards for hard drives which are currently being developed by the major manufacturers," said Mr Larsson.

According to technology analysts IDC, a fifth of all hard drives produced will be used in consumer electronics by 2007.

December 13, 2004 at 07:28 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Study: Big Growth in European Broadband

Yahoo! News - Study: Big Growth in European Broadband

Fri Dec 3, 4:44 PM
More than half of Europe's Internet users now enjoy a broadband Web connection at home, according to a market research report from Internet audience tracking firm Nielsen/NetRatings.

The growth of broadband has helped to expand the number of European Internet users past the 100 million mark, Nielsen/NetRatings said.

UK and Italy Ahead

As of October 2004, 54.5 million Europeans accessed the Internet via a broadband link, up 60 percent from 34.1 million a year earlier, according to the research firm.

The greatest growth was seen in Italy, at 120 percent, and in the UK, where the number of broadband users almost doubled. Consumers have been drawn to broadband because of lower prices and more offerings for broadband services, which offer fast and always-connected Internet access.

In Europe, as in North America, consumers have the choice of cable TV broadband services and telephone-based digital subscriber line (DSL) subscriptions.

Overall Internet Growth

Along with a rise in consumers changing their slow, dial-up accounts for broadband subscriptions, there has been a growth in the overall number of Internet users in Europe.

The total number of European Internet users rose by 12 percent to 100 million in the 12 months to October 2004, led by consumers in France, Italy, the UK and Germany, Nielsen/NetRatings said.

"Twelve months ago, high-speed Internet users made up just over one third of the audience in Europe," Gabrielle Prior, European Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, says in a statement.

"Now they are more than 50 percent -- and we expect this number to keep growing. As the number of high-speed surfers grows, Web sites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their visitors and encourage new ones."

Internet use in the United States has followed a similar trend. "In October 2004, 53 percent of the American online population connected via broadband compared to 41 percent in October 2003," according to Marc Ryan, senior director and analyst, Nielsen/NetRatings.

Lower Estimate

The Yankee Group has a more cautious stance on broadband Internet usage in Europe than Nielsen/NetRatings, while agreeing that there has been a sharp rise in broadband subscriptions.

"We forecast 31.1 million paid broadband subscribers at the end of 2004 for Europe, a 62 percent increase from 2003," Patrick Mahoney, a Yankee Group analyst, told Newsfactor.

"The reason this differs so much from Nielsen is because our numbers reflect paid residential subscriptions, not users -- one subscription can have many users."

December 4, 2004 at 01:45 AM in Internet evolution, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

Self-service IT goes bananas

ITBusiness.ca

11/26/2004 5:00:00 PM - An important training lesson learned in the check-out lane

by Neil Sutton

Let's face it: self-service is a relative term.

It seems fairly appropriate when you're at the gas pump or the salad bar, but less so at the grocery check-out, even when you're swiping bar codes across a scanner yourself.

I had my first "self check-out" experience at a Loblaw's superstore
that opened up recently just north of Toronto. Practically any new big box retail outlet will draw crowds for its first couple of weeks either through its sheer novelty or the promise of grand opening bargains. Such was the case at this Loblaw's -- the place was teeming with overeager shoppers and the line-ups were daunting. It was then that I spied two lonely check-outs, curiously bereft of cashiers.

These self check-outs had all the usual features -- a scanner to capture the bar code information, scales to weigh produce, and a display that totaled the purchases.

A man with a small child was trying his hand at one, but was having difficulty getting the bar codes to scan. I lined up behind him and thought, "Man, this is amateur hour." I could have had this guy's stuff scanned and bagged in two minutes. He muddled through, trundled off with child in tow, and I stepped up to the plate.

Easy-peasy. I'll be done with my cart of groceries in no time while the rest of these losers wait in line. I was doing pretty well and had a decent rhythm going with the swiping and bagging. Then came the produce. Never has a bunch of bananas so befuddled a human being since apes descended from the trees and started walking upright.

No bar code.

In a move that ultimately takes the "self" out of self check-out, two employees who were waiting in the wings stepped forward and instructed me to manually tap in a four-digit code to indicate "banana." The apples and tomatoes sitting in my cart followed suit.

These women have stations in the store to aid the checkout-challenged. When a banana-wielding luddite can't figure out when to do next, they swing into action.

This really isn't unlike practically any enterprise scenario in which employees are presented new technology -- the basics are pretty self-evident, but throw a banana problem in the works and it's time to put a call in to the help desk.

Companies spend vast amounts of money sending employees on training excursions to figure out how to handle the banana problems of IT. Whether it's an HR portal, a business intelligence suite or a new PDA, staff require time and training in order to master the technology's potential.

Here at ITBusiness.ca, we devote a reasonable amount of our coverage to "training" stories since it's a universal issue within the industry. Many enterprises are using e-learning tools to communicate IT changes to their staff. It's a relatively cost-effective way of doing it and users can generally learn at their own pace. Others prefer more hands-on training and actual classroom sessions. Those tend to be more expensive and time-consuming, but the personal attention can often yield better results.

Then, of course, there's the help desk and dedicated IT workers who provide ongoing support -- answering questions, smoothing over problems and just generally troubleshooting.

The patient young women who presented me with a solution to the banana problem in the Loblaw's are the equivalent of help desk, but surely their jobs are just transitory. Sooner or later, people are going to have to figure out how to scan bananas for themselves or self check-outs will never take off.

I first heard of the technology when I started working at ITBusiness.ca almost five years ago. NCR provided a briefing at its Atlanta office and talked about the impact self check-out would eventually have on the retail industry. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see an awful lot of these devices out there.

The problem is, there really isn't any training for the public at large. Most people have watched enough cashiers swipe bar codes to intuit how do to it themselves, but the nuances of self-checkout are somewhat baffling. (I haven't even mentioned the "bagging platform" that chirps at you if you remove a bag before you've finished swiping all of your groceries. Then there's the bizarre array of payment options. Coin-feeder, anyone?)

Maybe we'll get there eventually -- after all, pumping your own gas was once considered unthinkable -- but for now, self-checkout's going to be playing second banana.

November 26, 2004 at 10:50 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age (USA)

A Nation Online: Broadband Age

NationOnlineBroadband04.pdf

November 22, 2004 at 10:52 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Report: Fast-Internet Use Doubles in U.S.

Yahoo! News - Report: Fast-Internet Use Doubles in U.S.

By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans using fast Internet connections doubled from 2001 through late 2003, still below some expectations and especially low among minority groups and people in rural areas, according to a report by the Bush administration.

During the election campaign, President Bush (news - web sites) advocated affordable access to high-speed Internet services for all Americans by 2007.

The Commerce Department (news - web sites) report, prepared in September but undisclosed until after the election, said use of fast Internet connections grew dramatically through October 2003 to 20 percent of U.S. households. The report praised such services for fueling online banking, entertainment and commerce.

Some experts said growth was disappointing, far behind countries that include South Korea (news - web sites), Taiwan and Canada. The report also identified troubling figures for use or availability of high-speed Internet services among blacks, Hispanics and people in rural areas.

"It shows we continue to have a significant divide between urban and rural America in the infrastructure for the economy of the 21st century," said Gregory L. Rohde, who was top telecommunications adviser under President Clinton (news - web sites).

Only one-in-seven blacks and fewer than one-in-eight Hispanics lives in a household with fast Internet service, said the report, titled "A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age."

One in four white Americans used high-speed connections at home. In urban areas, 40.4 percent of households used fast connections; only 24.7 percent of rural users did.

Significant numbers of rural Americans said they couldn't subscribe to high-speed services because none was available. Most Americans who did not use fast connections said service was either too expensive or they did not need it.

"This is lousy," said Harris Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading industry trade group in Washington. "We're just not keeping up with our competitors. We're not even keeping up with countries we don't consider competitors. It's not acceptable."

The government's report was prepared in September. But the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (news - web sites) did not disclose its findings � based on the Census Bureau (news - web sites)'s population survey of 57,000 U.S. households � until Friday, when it published the report on its Web site.

"It takes us awhile to get these reports prepared and compiled and published," Commerce spokesman Clyde Ensslin said. "We are occasionally questioned about the timing of reports. That comes with the territory. The review and approval process was not complete in September."

___

On the Net:

Report: www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/anol

November 22, 2004 at 10:48 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Wanted by the Police: A Good Interface

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Wanted by the Police: A Good Interface

Policing Sgt. Thomas Navin of the San Jose Police Department enters data into a patrol car's computer system. The system has baffled some officers.

By KATIE HAFNER
Published: November 11, 2004
AN JOSE, Calif.

SAN JOSE has a reputation as one of the safest large cities in the nation, with the fewest police officers per capita.

Yet a number of the 1,000 officers in this city of 925,000 in the heart of Silicon Valley have been worrying about their own safety of late. Since June, the police department has been using a new mobile dispatch system that includes a Windows-based touch-screen computer in every patrol car. But officers have said the system is so complex and difficult to use that it is jeopardizing their ability to do their jobs.

Policing Sgt. Thomas Navin of the San Jose Police Department enters data into a patrol car's computer system. The system has baffled some officers.

Officers complain that routine tasks are so difficult to perform that they are discouraged from doing them. And they say that the most vital safety feature - a "call for assistance" command that officers use when they are in danger - is needlessly complicated.

"Do you think if you're hunkered down and someone's shooting at you in your car, you're going to be able to sit there and look for Control or Alt or Function?" said Sgt. Don DeMers, president of the San Jose Police Officers' Association, the local union and the most vocal opponent of the new system. "No, you're going to look for the red button."

Officers also say they were not consulted about the design of the user interface - how information is presented and how commands are executed using on-screen and keyboard buttons. Many have said they wish the department had retained and upgraded the old system, in place since 1990.

Such complaints have a familiar ring. Anyone who encounters technology daily - that is to say, just about everyone - has a story of new hardware or software, at work or at home, that is poorly designed, hard to use and seemingly worse than what it was intended to replace. Yet because the safety of police officers and the public is involved, the problems in San Jose are of particular concern.

At the heart of the dispute is the question of how much the technology itself is to blame, how much is a training problem and how much can be attributed to the predictable pains associated with learning something new.

Any new technology, whether it is a microwave oven or the controls of a Boeing 777, has a learning curve. And often the user interface, the all-important gateway between person and machine, is a dizzying array of buttons or keys that have to be used in combinations. It can take weeks, sometimes months, of training and adapting for people to become comfortable with a new system.

Police department officials in San Jose have acknowledged that the off-the-shelf system, which cost $4.7 million, has had some bugs, yet they say the software vendor, Intergraph Corporation, of Huntsville, Ala., has fixed many of them.

"The city and Intergraph have worked together to iron out the software and work-flow issues that sometimes accompany the introduction of a new system," said Alice Dilbeck, vice president for customer services at Intergraph.

And at public safety agencies elsewhere in the country where similar software has been introduced, employees have eventually grown used to the new technology.

Still, questions and complaints remain, not only among patrol officers but among dispatchers who say that with the new system, unlike the old, they are unable to perform several tasks at one time.

With the system, officers in the field can receive orders, send messages, write reports, call up maps of the city and, using the Global Positioning System, see not only where they are but where other patrol cars are at any given time.

When first installed, the system was unstable. A day or two after the new system went into operation, it crashed, and for several days it was periodically down. "That didn't engender a lot of trust," said Sergeant DeMers of the police union.

Ms. Dilbeck acknowledged, "That was a really bad start."

When the system was running again, a number of bugs were discovered, said Aaron Marcus, president of Aaron Marcus & Associates, a user-interface design consulting firm in Berkeley, Calif., that studied the new system at the request of the union.

Some of the map information, it turned out, was inaccurate, screens were cluttered with unnecessary information, the on-screen type was difficult to read and officers could not easily perform one of the most basic tasks - the license-plate check.

"This is almost a casebook study of what not to do and how to do it wrong," Mr. Marcus said.

Perhaps the biggest misstep of all, Mr. Marcus said, was that the officers themselves were not consulted beforehand, especially when it came to the design of the interface.

Jakob Nielsen, a principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, a technology consulting company in Fremont, Calif., agreed.

"It's a prescription for disaster to develop a big system without testing it with users before it's launched," Mr. Nielsen said. "There are always issues in the user interface that need to be smoothed over."

The San Jose police chief, Rob Davis, said that those who were in charge of planning for the new system "have reviewed it and in retrospect would probably agree that if they had involved more of the end users during the planning phase it would have made the rollout easier."

Since the complaints first arose, Intergraph has fixed bugs and streamlined some of the more cumbersome tasks such as the license plate checks. Ms. Dilbeck and others have spent weeks at a time in San Jose working to eliminate bugs.

"I'm getting very good feedback about the upgrades," Chief Davis said.

Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that the San Jose officers had grown used to the city's 14-year-old text-based system.

"It's a debatable issue as to whether you should fix the old or go for a new paradigm," Mr. Marcus said, "because the old software wasn't off the shelf, it was customized."

The amount of training that was initially given to officers, three hours, was considered by many to be inadequate. "You expect our officers to be able to operate in life-and-death situations with three hours' training?" Sergeant DeMers said.

Sgt. Thomas Navin, supervisor of the department's systems unit and the person who has been most responsible for training on the mobile systems, acknowledged that training was "bare-bones basic." Additional training has since been offered.

But the fact that the system is based on Windows complicated the issue, since not everyone was familiar with pull-down menus and other basic features. "There are people who are Windows savvy and those who aren't," Sergeant Navin said. Officers in their late 50's and early 60's tend to resist the new system more than younger officers do.

Also, officers were trained on desktop computers with track pads on the keyboards, not the touch screens they would eventually be using.

Another point of controversy was the red Code 99 command, used when an officer is in danger and needs help. Originally the system had one key for Code 99, but it was later changed to a two-key combination because the single button code was resulting in too many false alarms. Now it is the two-key method that prompts some complaints.

Over all, the new system is an improvement over the old, some department officials say, in part because it contains a mapping feature based on global positioning data provided by the city. But the maps contain errors, Sergeant DeMers said.

Officers say they are being distracted by the tasks they are expected to perform on the new system when their full attention should be given to what is happening outside the patrol car. Sergeant DeMers said one officer recently was so distracted by what he was doing on the 12-inch touch screen that he crashed into a parked car.

During a recent tour of the system with a reporter in the passenger's seat, Sergeant Navin typed in a message to another officer, Sgt. David Bacigalupi, asking his opinion of the Intergraph system. "You can't print what I think," came the officer's response.

Later, as Sergeant Navin drove through the streets of San Jose, his taps on the screen inevitably led to some swerving, inadvertently bearing out his colleagues' claims - even though he was clearly well versed with the ins and outs of the system.

"In practical reality, especially when responding to an emergency call, they have to do some of these things while en route," Mr. Marcus said.

The fact that the officers and police dispatchers were not consulted about their preferences and requirements has come back to haunt the city. In July, the union asked for meetings to discuss the new system, saying it was having an adverse impact on officer safety. "Legally, they can't just implement something like this unilaterally," said John Tennant, general counsel for the union.

Even after some extensive tweaking, there still seem to be some fundamental bugs, Mr. Marcus said. "Much of the design was incorporating a Windows desktop graphical user interface with complex menu hierarchies, which just doesn't make sense in a vehicle."

Dispatchers have been similarly unhappy, citing delays with the new system that could endanger officers.

It takes longer to give officers information about the prior arrest record of someone they have just caught, said Melissa Albrecht, a San Jose dispatcher for 15 years. "Does that two extra minutes make a difference when they're standing there with a felon?" she asked. "It could.'' In September, Ms. Albrecht sent a six-page memorandum to the police chief listing her concerns.

She credits Intergraph with many improvements. But the system still does not allow dispatchers to perform several tasks simultaneously, and this causes delays. "What they keep throwing at us is that the system works as designed, and my question for them is, 'Does this design work for us?' " she said.

For perspective the San Jose department might do well to borrow a page from a city to the south.

The San Diego Sheriff's Department has had the Intergraph touch-screen system in place for six years, and although there were bugs and resistance at first, the kinks have been ironed out and the deputies are now used to it.

"Some of our people had never done anything with a computer," said Hanan Harb, who manages the department's dispatch center. "We had to do basic Windows training, and it's hard to make that leap if you're not computer literate to begin with. It's a big learning curve." Now that people have grown used to it, and now that this is what they know, "it's very easy for them," Ms. Harb said.

Dr. Nielsen said the Chicago Police Department had similar problems in 1999 when it rolled out an ambitious computer system without having tested it with on-the-beat police officers first.

"Chicago learned its lesson and now has a much better system, developed with user involvement," Dr. Nielsen said. "It's sad that the San Jose Police Department had to learn the same lesson all over again. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

November 10, 2004 at 09:24 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Even Digital Memories Can Fade

The New York Times > Technology > Even Digital Memories Can Fade

By KATIE HAFNER
Published: November 10, 2004
The nation's 115 million home computers are brimming over with personal treasures - millions of photographs, music of every genre, college papers, the great American novel and, of course, mountains of e-mail messages

Yet no one has figured out how to preserve these electronic materials for the next decade, much less for the ages. Like junk e-mail, the problem of digital archiving, which seems straightforward, confounds even the experts.

"To save a digital file for, let's say, a hundred years is going to take a lot of work," said Peter Hite, president of Media Management Services, a consulting firm in Houston. "Whereas to take a traditional photograph and just put it in a shoe box doesn't take any work." Already, half of all photographs are taken by digital cameras, with most of the shots never leaving a personal computer's hard drive.

So dire and complex is the challenge of digital preservation in general that the Library of Congress has spent the last several years forming committees and issuing reports on the state of the nation's preparedness for digital preservation.

Jim Gallagher, director for information technology services at the Library of Congress, said the library, faced with "a deluge of digital information," had embarked on a multiyear, multimillion-dollar project, with an eye toward creating uniform standards for preserving digital material so that it can be read in the future regardless of the hardware or software being used. The assumption is that machines and software formats in use now will become obsolete sooner rather than later.

"It is a global problem for the biggest governments and the biggest corporations all the way down to individuals," said Ken Thibodeau, director for the electronic records archives program at the National Archives and Records Administration.

In the meantime, individual PC owners struggle in private. Desk drawers and den closets are filled with obsolete computers, stacks of Zip disks and 3�-inch diskettes, even the larger 5�-inch floppy disks from the 1980's. Short of a clear solution, experts recommend that people copy their materials, which were once on vinyl, film and paper, to CD's and other backup formats.

But backup mechanisms can also lose their integrity. Magnetic tape, CD's and hard drives are far from robust. The life span of data on a CD recorded with a CD burner, for instance, could be as little as five years if it is exposed to extremes in humidity or temperature.

And if a CD is scratched, Mr. Hite said, it can become unusable. Unlike, say, faded but readable ink on paper, the instant a digital file becomes corrupted, or starts to degrade, it is indecipherable.

"We're accumulating digital information faster than we can handle, and moving into new platforms faster than we can handle," said Jeffrey Rutenbeck, director for the Media Studies Program at the University of Denver.

Professional archivists and librarians have the resources to duplicate materials in other formats and the expertise to retrieve materials trapped in obsolete computers. But consumers are seldom so well equipped. So they are forced to devise their own stop-gap measures, most of them unwieldy, inconvenient and decidedly low-tech.

Philip Cohen, the communications officer at a nonprofit foundation in San Francisco, is what archivists call a classic "migrator." Since he was in elementary school, Mr. Cohen, 33, has been using a computer for his school work, and nearly all of his correspondence has been in e-mail since college.

Now Mr. Cohen's three home computers are filled with tens of thousands of photos, songs, video clips and correspondence.

Over the years, Mr. Cohen, who moonlights as a computer fix-it man, has continually transferred important files to ever newer computers and storage formats like CD's and DVD's. "I'll just keep moving forward with the stuff I'm sentimental about," he said.

Yet Mr. Cohen said he had noticed that some of his CD's, especially the rewritable variety, are already beginning to degrade. "About a year and a half ago they started to deteriorate, and become unreadable," he said.

And of course, migration works only if the data can be found, and with ever more capacious hard drives, even that can be a problem.

"Some people are saying digital data will disappear not by being destroyed but by being lost," Dr. Rutenbeck said. "It's one thing to find the photo album of your trip to Hawaii 20 years ago. But what if those photos are all sitting in a subdirectory in your computer?"

For some PC users, old machines have become the equivalent of the bin under the bed. This solution, which experts call the museum approach to archiving, means keeping obsolete equipment around the house.

Simon Yates, an analyst at Forrester Research, for example, keeps his old PC in the back of a closet underneath a box. The machine contains everything in his life from the day he married in 1997 to the day he bought his new computer in 2002. If he wanted to retrieve anything from the old PC, Mr. Yates said, it would require a great deal of wiring and rewiring. "I'd have to reconfigure my entire office just to get it to boot up," he said.

Peter Schwartz, chairman of the Global Business Network, which specializes in long-range planning, says that a decade or two from now, the museum approach might be the most feasible answer.

"As long as you keep your data files somewhat readable you'll be able to go to the equivalent of Kinko's where they'll have every ancient computer available," said Mr. Schwartz, whose company has worked with the Library of Congress on its preservation efforts.

"It'll be like Ye Olde Antique Computer Shoppe," Mr. Schwartz said. "There's going to be a whole industry of people who will have shops of old machines, like the original Mac Plus."

Until that approach becomes commercially viable, though, there is the printout method.

Melanie Ho, 25, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been using computers since elementary school. She creates her own Web sites and she spends much of her day online.

Yet she prints important documents and stores a backup set at her parents' house 100 miles away.

"As much as a lot of people think print will be dead because of computers," she said, "I actually think there's something about the tangibility of paper that feels more comforting."

Proponents of paper archiving grow especially vocal when it comes to preserving photographs. If stored properly, conventional color photographs printed from negatives can last as long as 75 years without fading. Newer photographic papers can last up to 200 years.

There is no such certainty for digital photos saved on a hard drive.

Today's formats are likely to become obsolete and future software "probably will not recognize some aspects of that format," Mr. Thibodeau said. "It may still be a picture, but there might be things in it where, for instance, the colors are different."

The experts at the National Archives, like those at the Library of Congress, are working to develop uniformity among digital computer files to eliminate dependence on specific hardware or software.

One format that has uniformity, Mr. Thibodeau pointed out, is the Web, where it often makes no difference which browser is being used.

Indeed, for many consumers, the Web has become a popular archiving method, especially when it comes to photos. Shutterfly.com and Ofoto .com have hundreds of millions of photographs on their computers. Shutterfly keeps a backup set of each photo sent to the site.

The backups are stored somewhere in California "off the fault line," said David Bagshaw, chief executive of Shutterfly.

But suppose a Web-based business like Shutterfly goes out of business?

Mr. Bagshaw said he preferred to look on the bright side, but offered this bit of comfort: "No matter what the business circumstances, we'll always make people's images available to them."

Constant mobility can be another issue.

Stephen Quinn, who teaches journalism at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., moves frequently because of his work. He prefers to keep the amount of paper in his life to a minimum, and rarely makes printouts.

Dr. Quinn has a box in the bottom drawer of his desk that contains an eclectic set of storage disks dating back to the early 1980's, when he started out on an Amstrad computer.

All of Dr. Quinn's poetry ("unpublished and unpublishable" he says) and other writings are on those various digital devices, along with his daily diaries.

At some point, he wants to gather the material as a keepsake for his children, but he has no way to read the files he put on the Amstrad disks more than 20 years ago. He has searched unsuccessfully for an Amstrad computer.

"I have a drawer filled with disks and no machinery to read it with," Dr. Quinn said.

That is becoming a basic problem of digital life. Whatever solution people might use, it is sure to be temporary.

"We will always be playing catch up," said Dr. Rutenbeck, who is working at pruning his own digital past, discarding old hard drives and stacks of old Zip disks.

"It feels really good to do," he said, "just like I didn't keep a box of everything I did in first grade."

November 10, 2004 at 04:57 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

BlackBerry, Bluetooth Miss a Shot to Move Into More Hands

Yahoo! News - BlackBerry, Bluetooth Miss a Shot to Move Into More Hands

Sun Oct 3, 4:08 AM ET

Add to My Yahoo! Technology - washingtonpost.com

By Rob Pegoraro, The Washington Post

BlackBerrys and Bluetooth share an embarrassing trait -- these two uses of wireless technology have remained stubbornly irrelevant to many mainstream users, despite the benefits they might offer and the hype they often get in the press.

Many busy executives have become utterly dependent on the always-on e-mail access provided by Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry handhelds, but these devices' high costs and business-oriented features haven't constituted an attractive bundle for people who mostly use their cell phones to talk.

In a similar manner, Bluetooth has drawn a fervent following among enthusiasts who use it to link their phones to headsets, computers and even cars -- but it has remained invisible to customers of the nation's largest carrier, Verizon Wireless, which until recently did not carry a single Bluetooth phone.

These two technologies, however, just got another shot at breaking out into the mass market. RIM's new BlackBerry 7100 is the first BlackBerry that looks and acts more like a phone than a palm-sized computer, thanks to a crafty little keypad that works for both dialing numbers and entering text. Motorola's V710, meanwhile, finally brings Bluetooth to Verizon customers -- along with such high-end features as a built-in camera, camcorder and MP3 player.

The 7100, sold by T-Mobile for $300 (with a $100 mail-in rebate available), is easily the more remarkable device. At first, it looks as if it uses a painfully miniaturized keyboard in the usual QWERTY layout. Not so; the phone has a standard numeric keypad, plus a column of keys on either side. Most of the keys bear two letters apiece.

To free you from the awkward process of having to press a key twice to get the second letter on it, the 7100's SureType software looks at the words you could spell with any given series of key presses, then offers the likeliest match. For instance, if you press 8 (B, N), 3 (U, I) and 2 (T, Y) in order, SureType will suggest the most common word those letters spell out, "but." Other possibilities -- "buy," "bit," "nut," "nit" -- appear below for you to select with the 7100's jog-dial control.

This is the same concept behind the predictive-typing software on other phones, but here you can type on a keyboard layout that feels familiar.

The trick is to avoid constantly looking at the screen as you type, or you'll be too distracted by the alternate spellings. Just bang away at the keys, and most of the time SureType will be uncannily accurate -- it's even smart enough to add an apostrophe when you type "theres" or look into the phone's address book to see if you're trying to type somebody's name. I had few problems instant-messaging with a friend.

Sometimes I did have to enter a word manually, and in a few cases SureType offered some out-of-left-field spellings. But overall, it's an amazing piece of work. It's the best idea in handheld text input since the Graffiti software on Palm handhelds.

If only the rest of the 7100 was as smart as this. RIM's software, the weak point in earlier BlackBerry handhelds, hasn't gotten much stronger on this model. Although the 7100 includes the same type of address book, calendar, to-do and note-taking programs as Palm or Pocket PC handhelds, it's not close to competing with them -- thanks to RIM's unwillingness to learn basic principles of interface design.

The 7100's control menus are clogged with irrelevant and confusing options, it's too easy to lose data or settings, and even such basic actions as adding an appointment to the calendar take too many steps.

The Web browser included on this phone can display standard Web sites, but it frequently hangs up while trying to download their content. Like other BlackBerry devices, this one can access your e-mail -- but RIM has yet to offer non-business users the option of turning off mail delivery. As long as the 7100 is on T-Mobile's network, your e-mail will keep piling up in your inbox, whether you care to read it or not.

The 7100 ships with Windows-only desktop software to synchronize the 7100's applications with Microsoft Outlook and a few other applications via a USB cable. The Bluetooth on the 7100 -- a first for a BlackBerry -- does not allow data transfer between computers; the only thing I could do was use a wireless headset.

And that brings me to the Motorola V710. Verizon, having decided to offer Bluetooth for the first time, made the same mistake as RIM, but much more so -- it went out of its way to take away Bluetooth capabilities.

Specifically, the V710, sold by Verizon for $300 with a one-year contract, can't use Bluetooth to synchronize its address book with the one on your computer, nor can it transfer files to and from your computer -- even though Motorola built in both features.

Instead, the V710's Bluetooth support is limited to allowing a connection to a computer as an external modem -- a task so poorly explained by Verizon's documentation that I resorted to a Google search for help, which turned up usable instructions in somebody's weblog -- and linking the phone to Bluetooth headsets and hands-free kits.

Brenda Raney, a Verizon spokeswoman, said the company will release a software update that would restore address-book synchronization, but she did not explain why that feature got cut in the first place.

File transfer, however, won't be added, even though that would be the simplest way to move pictures and video taken with the V710 to a computer. Why? Verizon is afraid people would steal the downloadable programs sold through its "Get It Now" service.

But if people want to use Get It Now programs without paying, they can link the phone to a computer with a cheap USB cable and transfer all the stuff they want.

This is an embarrassing debut for Bluetooth on Verizon. Much like the woeful software on the BlackBerry 7100, it risks turning off newcomers to the technology entirely. That would be a sad waste, but the wireless industry works like that sometimes.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.

October 4, 2004 at 01:54 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (36) | Top of page | Blog Home

Asynchronous discussion groups as Small World and Scale Free Networks

Asynchronous discussion groups as Small World and Scale Free Networks

Asynchronous discussion groups as Small World and Scale Free Networks by Gilad Ravid and Sheizaf Rafaeli
What is the network form of online discussion groups? What are the topological parameters delineating the interaction on such groups? We report an empirical examination of the form of online discussion groups. We are interested in examining whether such groups conform to the Small World and the Scale Free models of networks. Support for these expectations provides a formal expression of growth, survival potential and preferential attachment in the connection patterns in discussion groups. The research questions were tested with a sample of over 8,000 active participants, and over 30,000 messages. We find that the social network resulting from discussion groups is indeed a Scale Free Network, based on In, Out and All Degree distributions. We also find that, for the same sample, discussion groups are a Small World Network too. As expected, the clustering coefficients for these groups differ significantly from random networks, while their characteristic path lengths are similar to random networks. Implications of the topology for the design and understanding of discussion groups include the stability and control of such groups, as well as their longevity.

Contents
Background
Asynchronous Forums
Social Networks
Scale Free Networks
Small World Networks
Methodology
Results
Discussion

September 17, 2004 at 05:32 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Smart Mobs

Smart Mobs - Book Summary

Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some of its earliest adopters to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks. The technologies that are beginning to make smart mobs possible are mobile communication devices and pervasive computing - inexpensive microprocessors embedded in everyday objects and environments. Already, governments have fallen, youth subcultures have blossomed from Asia to Scandinavia, new industries have been born and older industries have launched furious counterattacks.

Street demonstrators in the 1999 anti-WTO protests used dynamically updated websites, cell-phones, and "swarming" tactics in the "battle of Seattle." A million Filipinos toppled President Estrada through public demonstrations organized through salvos of text messages.

The pieces of the puzzle are all around us now, but haven't joined together yet. The radio chips designed to replace barcodes on manufactured objects are part of it. Wireless Internet nodes in cafes, hotels, and neighborhoods are part of it. Millions of people who lend their computers to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence are part of it. The way buyers and sellers rate each other on Internet auction site eBay is part of it. Research by biologists, sociologists, and economists into the nature of cooperation offer explanatory frameworks. At least one key global business question is part of it - why is the Japanese company DoCoMo profiting from enhanced wireless Internet services while US and European mobile telephony operators struggle to avoid failure?

The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities. Their mobile devices connect them with other information devices in the environment as well as with other people's telephones. Dirt-cheap microprocessors embedded in everything from box tops to shoes are beginning to permeate furniture, buildings, neighborhoods, products with invisible intercommunicating smartifacts. When they connect the tangible objects and places of our daily lives with the Internet, handheld communication media mutate into wearable remote control devices for the physical world.

Media cartels and government agencies are seeking to reimpose the regime of the broadcast era in which the customers of technology will be deprived of the power to create and left only with the power to consume. That power struggle is what the battles over file-sharing, copy-protection, regulation of the radio spectrum are about. Are the populations of tomorrow going to be users, like the PC owners and website creators who turned technology to widespread innovation? Or will they be consumers, constrained from innovation and locked into the technology and business models of the most powerful entrenched interests?

September 17, 2004 at 05:28 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Employers Begin to Get The Message

Yahoo! News - Employers Begin to Get The Message

By Leslie Walker
Jonathan Anderson and Varghese George take opposite approaches to workplace use of instant messaging, an electronic method for exchanging quick text messages between colleagues.

Both bought special tools to reduce the risks their companies face from the software, such as preventing hackers from riding the channel to sneak inside corporate computer networks, or stopping employees from using the systems to send confidential reports to people outside.

George, chief executive of Westex Group of Rockville, said he bought technology to block all instant messaging by his company's 20 employees. "I saw instant messaging as a killer of time," he said, adding that some folks at his equipment and material supply firm were using their computers for idle chit-chat.

But Anderson, who manages security for TEC International of San Diego, gave his company's 110 workers a souped-up messaging program from Microsoft Corp. so they could chat more securely. He said he uses monitoring tools mainly to control who can transfer files via the messaging systems.

"We've been pushing instant messaging because it allows instant communication between people who are not necessarily available by other means," said Anderson, whose firm helps chief executives do professional networking.

Anderson and George illustrate the debate percolating in workplaces about how to confront the growing popularity of instant messaging (IM), which typically sneaks into offices under the radar of corporate technology departments and only gradually wins official blessing. While some managers think messaging makes workers more productive, others worry that any business benefit may be more than offset by the introduction of nasty computer worms and viruses and other problems.

As a result, a new crop of software tools has arrived to help businesses get a grip on instant messaging. Some simply let companies block message traffic or specify which IM programs their employees can use.

Others store a copy of every sent message and let the company decide which of the higher-ups can read them.

"People are still figuring out what their corporate policy will be on IM," said Eric Rohy, product manager for Websense Inc. of San Diego, which sells tools for monitoring instant messaging and Web surfing. "I would say it is fairly evenly divided among those who block it and those who don't."

Jon Sakoda, co-founder of IMLogic, a software maker started in 2001 to address the IM challenge, agreed. "Last year, instant messaging was the sleeping giant, and companies were literally asleep at the wheel," he said. "This year, people are awakening to the problem, but haven't necessarily come up with solutions."

Workers who download and start using free IM software programs from America Online or Yahoo on their company computers without permission from the boss can be "disruptive," said Kailash Ambwani, chief executive of messaging vendor FaceTime Communications Inc. of Foster City, Calif. "The problem is that all of the policy and control and management infrastructure that you have with e-mail does not exist with instant messaging," he said. Viruses can spread faster through messaging than e-mail, he argues, because while IM messages are received instantly, it may take days for people to open their e-mail.

FaceTime and IMLogic offer free, downloadable programs that will tell companies how many employees are using messaging and how often, a tactic designed to persuade them to buy IM management software. This week, IMLogic went further and released a free download that not only reports on usage, but also allows managers to block both IM traffic and peer-to-peer file transfers.

Websense is better known for its Web-monitoring software, which watches and records all the sites employees visit and lets companies block access to particular sites, such as those offering pornography or gambling. Or they can generally set quotas dictating how long employees can spend online visiting certain areas. Last year, Websense added a feature that lets managers determine which IM software workers can use, and in February it added the ability to specify which employees may send and receive attachments.

In addition to IMLogic and FaceTime, software makers specializing in IM include Akonix Systems Inc. and Stellar Technologies Inc. Pricing varies, with one-time licensing fees ranging from $15 to $60 per user, plus annual maintenance charges of 20 percent or more.

Stellar's software, which Westex Group uses, enables managers to monitor who's doing what online -- both with IM and Web surfing -- from reports displayed on Web pages. Charts show the top IM users by employee name, along with their IM screen names and how many messages they have sent. Bosses can click on a screen name and read transcripts of each message, word for word. Clicking on a message brings up a box with even more information -- including the sender's network log-on, the address of the computer from which it was sent, time of transmission and which IM program was used. Managers can set filters to flag messages containing words or phrases, such as "job hunt" or "I hate the boss."

Don Innis, president of Stellar Technologies of Naples, Fla., said companies are often taken aback to learn how many workers are sending sexual or otherwise inappropriate messages: "We all like to think these things don't happen in the workplace, but they do."

FaceTime's tools are often bought by firms in regulated industries such as financial services and health care, where federal laws require companies to audit and archive all electronic communications in a searchable format so they can produce records if necessary. As a result, many financial and health care companies are years ahead of other corporations in grappling with IM.

Companies that don't face strict archiving rules often buy a more general monitoring program, such as one sold by Websense. A typical customer is Golden State Foods of Irvine, Calif., one of the largest manufacturers and distributors for McDonald's. The company gives employees an IBM Lotus Notes messaging tool called Sametime and uses Websense to block IM programs except AOL's.

With about 3,000 employees at far-flung distribution and manufacturing centers, Golden State Foods also needed controls for the Internet kiosks it installed in lunchrooms so workers could do personal business during breaks. Websense enables Golden State to set time quotas and to enforce them by automatically logging off workers when the time is up.

"We give them 90 minutes of quota time to go do shopping and banking and get other personal things done," said Mike Bourque, the firm's information technology director.

Leslie Walker's e-mail address is walkerl@washpost.com.

September 16, 2004 at 07:56 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

Web data transfer to handsets made easier

By MAY WONG
Associated Press
PALO ALTO, Calif. � Have you ever gone on-line to get driving directions, only to leave the printout behind? Have you made movie plans, but forgot to jot down the show times? Or do you simply need an easy way to feed phone numbers to your cellphone?

A trio of entrepreneurs believe they have a solution.

With cellphones becoming more like computers and people carrying them wherever they go, the founders of Vazu Inc. have developed what they consider an easy way to transfer phone numbers and other data from PCs and the Internet onto handsets.

They quietly released their first product earlier this year for users to transfer contact information from desktop address books without any special cables or software. With little publicity, "Vazu Contacts" won rave reviews and garnered thousands of users in 40 countries.

But cellphones are becoming more of an anchor tool in daily life: part mobile phone, part personal digital assistant, part camera, part MP3 player � and one day, with the arrival of mobile commerce applications, part wallet as well.

Vazu hopes to capitalize on that trend by creating a channel for folks who want to easily populate their phones with data.

So at this week's elite DEMOmobile tech show in San Diego, Vazu is launching more ambitious products designed to turn cellphones into even handier reservoirs of information.

Instead of just phone contacts, the new applications promise to deliver any snippet of information from a website to a mobile phone with ease, from street addresses to train schedules and driving directions.

"It's the power of the Web and connecting it to your phone," said Ramiro Calvo, Vazu's chief executive and co-founder. "And we've gone from personal addresses to searchable content to anything on the Web."

"Vazu Click" is a free, plug-in application for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser. It lets users highlight and send Web text to cellphones. It also automatically tags phone numbers on a Web page so users can send the number to their cellphones by simply clicking on the Vazu icon.

With "Vazu Seek," which is still in a "beta" test mode, users can go to the Vazu website, search phone directory listings and send the results to their handsets.

Later, the company aims to feed cellphones with song files and images.

"Contacts is the beachhead, and we're expanding to other digital content, breathing new life into the phone," Mr. Calvo said.

PocketThis Inc. and Xpherix Corp. have similar PC-to-phone technologies, but sell their services through wireless carriers. Vazu is targeting cellphone users directly, regardless of their mobile provider.

With "Vazu Contacts," users send an e-mail with an attachment containing address book information to an on-line Vazu account. From there, it is delivered to the cellphone via text messaging. Users can even send data directly to a friend's Vazu account or cellphone.

Because Vazu keeps a record of what users send, contacts can be transferred to a new handset with just a few keystrokes should an old one get lost or upgraded. No more thumbing in contacts one by one.

The service currently works with address books for Microsoft's Outlook, Apple Computer Inc.'s Mail and Novell Inc.'s Linux Evolution e-mail programs. All you need is a cellphone that supports text messaging � and most phones do.

"It's cool," said James Cox, a British information technology consultant who recommended the service on his Web journal after trying it out. "I uploaded about two dozen phone numbers, and within a minute or so, they were all on my phone."

Cox had previously used Apple's iSync software to transfer some of his contact numbers, but complained it didn't work smoothly. He said he's looking forward to using Vazu when he upgrades to a new phone soon, something he does about once a year.

Vazu's products are free for now, though users still have to pay wireless carriers for text messages. The Palo Alto-based company may later charge either a subscription or usage fee, or possibly for premium services such as restoring archived data. Vazu is also exploring advertising and partnerships with Internet portals and wireless carriers.

The vision behind Vazu took shape about two years ago after Mr. Calvo, Soujanya Bhumkar and Ken Thom � all Silicon Valley veteran managers � started to meet weekly. After many nights of pizza, their hodgepodge of brainstorming ideas whittled down to the mobile phone application. The trio brought engineer Jay Geygan onto their founding team and set out to work.

The founders hope the name � derived from the Spanish word "va" and the German word "zu," both of which roughly mean, "go to" � will become a vernacular verb similar to "Google" and "TiVo."

"In the end," Mr. Bhumkar said, "we want people to say `Vazu me,' and it will mean, `send to my phone.'"

September 10, 2004 at 07:05 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (31) | Top of page | Blog Home

A New-Age Reference

Yahoo! News - A New-Age Reference

By Leslie Walker
One of the Internet's more fascinating social experiments was born at a time when it seemed all the dot-coms were dying. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia started in January 2001, has since surprised Web watchers by maturing into a popular reference site.

Wikipedia's success is particularly remarkable because unlike regular Web sites, it is created entirely by the people who visit it. With more than 340,000 English-language articles, this community-edited encyclopedia is already considerably larger than its leading rival, the Encyclopedia Britannica, which offers 75,000 articles online in a subscription service.

The free Wikipedia also features a publicly authored current-events page recapping the day's top news, and it is rapidly expanding into other languages -- more than 10,000 articles have been created in each of roughly a dozen languages besides English.

Yet some worry that because it charges users nothing, this new-age reference work may siphon readership away from old-school encyclopedias and take a devastating bite out of their revenue -- without delivering the same levels of accuracy and quality.

Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, pays 20 in-house editors to work with 2,500 outside advisers on writing assignments. Wikipedia contributors, by contrast, are unpaid volunteers who can write and change anything they want on the site -- and often rewrite each other dozens or hundreds of times. Many are anonymous, too, identified only by their computer's numerical Internet address.

But Wikipedia's founders say what others regard as a weakness is part of the site's real strength -- that it is a community. The same openness that allows vandals to wreak havoc, they contend, also enables other contributors to restore order and self-police the site.

"The interesting thing about a community is that it scales inherently," said Jimmy Wales, the site's founder and chief executive. "The more people who come to the Web site and cause problems, the more people we have who are dealing with them."

Wales, a former options and futures trader based in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the free online encyclopedia is being developed under the auspices of a nonprofit foundation named Wikimedia. It has raised about $100,000 from contributors so far, far less than producing the encyclopedia has cost, according to Wales, and the company will need more money if it is to achieve its ambitious aim of producing print and CD-ROM copies for distribution in Africa and elsewhere.

"It is our goal to put the sum of all human knowledge in the form of an encyclopedia in the hands of every single person on the planet for free," said Wales, who modeled his idea of a free encyclopedia created by volunteers on the efforts of software developers who created the Linux (news - web sites) operating system.

Yet Wikipedia also owes its existence to a special type of software invented by programmer Ward Cunningham in 1995. His software, which takes its name from "wiki," the Hawaiian word for "quick," allows groups to jointly create and edit Web pages, using a special formatting style that is different from the HTML format used for regular Web pages.

Anyone visiting a Wiki page can click on a link that says "edit text of this page" and change the words or links by entering text in a box that opens up and clicking "save." They can review prior changes by clicking on a "recent changes" link. Since past versions are archived, contributors can undo edits if they think someone has injected inaccurate or biased information.

This results in tugs of war, especially over hot-button issues.

Wikipedians -- as the site's 9,000 regular contributors are called -- are constantly removing what they call "vandalism" from pages, including a posting on the "abortion" entry in July that said: "ABORTION SHOULD BE ILLEGAL, IT IS VERY HARMFULL FOR THE WOMEN. WOMEN HAS SO MANY OTHER CHOICES OTHER THAN ABORTION. This is a warning!!"

Such diverse points of view have led some to question the reliability of Wikipedia's entries. Britannica's editors are among those who take a skeptical view, noting that Wikipedia publishes a disclaimer stating that it does not vouch for its own validity. "We very much take responsibility for all the content we include in any of our products," said Britannica editor in chief Dale Hoiberg.

He added that Britannica subjects its articles to an editorial review process with at least six stages and works to ensure the content is accurate, comprehensive, balanced, consistent and full of context.

Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., conceded that at its best, some Wikipedia entries reflect the collective wisdom of many contributors. But he added: "The problem with an effort like that is that at other times, it may reflect just the wisdom -- or lack of wisdom -- of the last contributor."

Wales conceded that Wikipedia's quality may not be up to the level of Britannica, but he added that the 236-year-old encyclopedia had better watch out. Wikipedia is proposing to implement editorial controls soon that Wales thinks will put it on par with Britannica.

"That kind of quality is important, and we do believe we can reach that kind of quality within a year," he said. Within a few weeks, Wales plans to propose a review process that would essentially allow certain articles to be flagged as "stable" so they could be included in print or CD-Rom versions. The way Wikipedia works now, anything can be edited almost endlessly. Editing could continue, but a new layer would be added that identified certain entry versions as attaining an editorial standard.

Larry Sanger, Wikipedia's co-founder, said the unlimited public editing process can have a downside. "I was recently looking at some of the philosophy articles that have been edited and re-edited. I actually think some of them have gone backwards lately," he said. Sanger teaches philosophy at Ohio State University,

Yet Sanger shares Wales's view of Wikipedia as a living community with an amazing growth rate and promising future.

While Sanger believes commercial encyclopedias such as Britannica and Microsoft's Encarta will continue to exist side by side with Wikipedia, Wales contends the commercial efforts won't survive for long unless they change and adopt a more open philosophy.

"I think their cost basis is too high compared to what we can do," Wales said, "particularly since we are moving in the direction of peer review."

Britannica execs scoff at the idea Wikipedia could put it out of business, claiming its online revenue has grown 45 percent in the past year, more than offsetting substantial declines in its CD-ROM sales. Cauz, Britannica's president, said nearly 200,000 consumers are paying $60 a year or $10 a month for Britannica's Web service. The encyclopedia reaches an additional 20 million readers through sales to schools and other institutions, he said.

"We will always be appreciated by people who like scholarly work," he added.

That likely is true, but this topic bears watching for anyone interested in the larger questions of whether -- and how -- the Internet's free dissemination of knowledge will eventually decrease the economic value of information.

Leslie Walker's e-mail address is walkerl@washpost.com.

September 8, 2004 at 10:47 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes

Eyetrack III - What You Most Need to Know

By Steve Outing and Laura Ruel
Eyetrack III project managers
News websites have been with us for about a decade, and editors and designers still struggle with many unanswered questions: Is homepage layout effective? ... What effect do blurbs on the homepage have compared to headlines? ... When is multimedia appropriate? ... Are ads placed where they will be seen by the audience?

The Eyetrack III research released by The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools could help answer those questions and more. Eyetracking research like this won't provide THE answer to those questions. But combined with other site metrics already used by news website managers -- usability testing, focus groups, log analysis -- the Eyetrack III findings could provide some direction for improving news websites.

In Eyetrack III, we observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content. In this article we'll provide an overview of what we observed. You can dive into detailed Eyetrack III findings and observations on this website -- use the navigation at the top and left of this page -- at any time. If you don't know what eyetracking is, get oriented by reading the Eyetrack III FAQ.

Let's get to the key results of the study, but first, a quick comment on what this study is and is not: It is a preliminary study of several dozen people conducted in San Francisco. It is not an exhaustive exploration that we can extrapolate to the larger population. It is a mix of "findings" based on controlled variables, and "observations" where testing was not as tightly controlled. The researchers went "wide," not "deep" -- covering a lot of ground in terms of website design and multimedia factors. We hope that Eyetrack III is not seen as an end in itself, but rather as the beginning of a wave of eyetracking research that will benefit the news industry. OK, let's begin. ...

September 8, 2004 at 10:38 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

Lower costs prompt UK Internet boom

Lower costs prompt UK Internet boom

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of newcomers to the Internet in Britain has surged this year to its highest level since the dotcom heyday of 2001, according to a study.
Falling fees for access to the Net were a factor behind the boom, market research firm NOP World said on Saturday.

In all, 26.8 million Britons -- nearly half the population -- connected to the Internet at home or work during the first half of the year, 40 percent of them via high-speed broadband connections.

In that period, 1.9 million Britons went online for the first time in their lives, the fastest growth spurt in the past three years, the study said.

The rise in Internet usage is having a noticeable impact on Britons' daily lives, researchers noted.

"The online and offline behaviour of broadband users is significantly different from the general population," they said. "We are seeing a knock-on impact through many off-line activities for broadband users, such as a decrease in TV viewing."

Britain has only recently caught up with its European neighbours in rolling out broadband as significant price discounting by Internet service providers takes effect.

The evidence of continued strong demand for Internet access should soothe concerns that the phenomenal Internet growth rates of years past are on the wane. The UK government has been keen to promote the country as "broadband Britain," a business-friendly market for the 21st Century.

September 4, 2004 at 01:36 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

How Americans Use Instant Messaging

Pew Internet & American Life Project: Instant Messaging

2004 Pew Internet & American Life surveys reveal that more than four in ten online Americans instant message (IM). That reflects about 53 million American adults who use instant messaging programs. About 11 million of them IM at work and they are becoming fond of its capacity to encourage productivity and interoffice cooperation.

ome 42% of online Americans use instant messaging, and 24% of instant messagers say they use IM more frequently than email. This translates to 53 million American adults who instant message and over 12 million who IM more than emailing. On a typical day, 29% of instant messengers�or roughly 15 million American adults�use IM.

The new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also finds that instant messaging is especially popular among younger adults and technology enthusiasts. 62% of Gen Y Americans (those ages 18-27) report using IM.
Within the instant messaging Gen Y age group, 46% report using IM more frequently than email.

�It comes as no surprise that instant messaging is especially popular among younger Americans because many more of their peers subscribe to IM programs,� said Eulynn Shiu, a research associate at the Pew Internet Project who co-authored a report on the new findings. �Once one friend becomes available via instant messenger, usage among peers grows dramatically.�

IM is more than a tool for chatting. It is also a popular tool for self-expression. Instant messengers take advantage of customizable features such as profiles and icons to enhance their online presence. A third of IM users (34%) have posted a profile for their IM screen name that others can see, and nearly half (45%) post away messages when they are not available to chat.

Twenty-one percent of IM-ing Americans instant message at the office; they find it encourages interoffice cooperation and increases work productivity.
When asked who they contact most often during IM sessions at work, 40% of at-work IM users reported instant messaging coworkers, 33% reported friends and family, and 21% interact with both groups equally.

�There is no doubt that IM use will intensify,� said Amanda Lenhart, research specialist at the Pew Internet Project and co-author of the report.
�Younger Americans, in particular, have incorporated IM into their lives in multiple ways, using it to keep track of their friends, coordinate work meetings, and share files. IM use at home and in the workplace will grow as these creative and time-saving uses of the technology percolate through the generations.�

July figures on Americans Internet use by the tracking firm comScore Media Metrix show that:

# AOL Instant Message (the proprietary service to AOL subscribers) was used by 37% of those who traded IMs during the month. On a typical day during the month more than 5.7 million IM-ers were using this application.

# Yahoo! Messenger was used by 33% of those who traded IMs during the month.
This was the single most popular service used at work and the average user of the application spent 423 minutes using the application during the month � the highest total among the applications.

# AOL Instant Messenger (AIM Service) was used by 31% of those who traded IMs during the month. This application had the greatest reach among college students and on any given day there were nearly 6 million people using the application, making it the most popular application on a typical day.

# MSN Messenger Applications were used by 25% of those who traded IMs during the month.

Some other data highlights from the report:

# IM users often send instant messages to people in the same location as they are: 24% of IM users say they have IM-ed a person who was in the same location as they were � such as their home, an office, or a classroom.

# IM users are multi-taskers: 32% of IM users say they do something else on their computer such as browsing the web or playing games virtually every time they are instant messaging and another 29% are doing something else some of the time they are IM-ing. In addition, 20% of IM users say they do something else off their computer such as talk on the phone or watch television virtually every time they are instant messaging and another 30% say they do other things offline at least some of the time they are IM-ing.

# The IM universe of most users is very modest: 66% of IM users say they regularly IM between one and five people. Only 9% of IM users say they regularly IM more than 10 people.

# 15% of IM users say they use a wireless device such as a phone or wireless laptop to send and receive IM messages.

# 17% of IM users use different screen names to contact different groups of friends or colleagues.

# 51% of IM users say they have received an unsolicited IM from someone they didn�t know.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit initiative, fully-funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts to explore the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, health care, schools, the work place, and civic/political life. The Project is non-partisan and does not advocate for any policy outcomes. For more information, please visit:
http://www.pewinternet.org.

September 2, 2004 at 08:01 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Intellisync Revenue Soars on Mobile Growth

ComputerWire Staff

While Intellisync Corp has been seeing a surged of new business, its shares took a hammering Friday after it withdrew its forecast of 2005 revenue in the $70m to $82m range and said it was now aiming at $70m, a 65% increase. The company blamed weaker-than-expected demand.

In its fourth quarter to July 31, the net loss was $1.7m, down from $1.8m on revenue 82% higher at $13.3m. But for $2.1m charges for amortization of purchased assets and other intangible assets, the company would have broken into the black after eight quarters of revenue growth.

For the year, the company posted a loss of $9.5m, up from a loss of $7.7m on revenue that increased 70.2% to $42.3m.

With analysts expecting fourth-quarter revenue in the $14m range, the market was unimpressed by the figures. Intellisync (NASDAQ: SYNC - news) believes that its approach has been vindicated by contracts wins with Verizon (NYSE: VZ - news) to offer a platform for non-RIM devices and with PeopleSoft (NASDAQ: PSFT - news) to extend it mobile access products.

August 31, 2004 at 08:29 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (24) | Top of page | Blog Home

Homegrown Satellite Radio Software Draws XM Fire

Yahoo! News - Homegrown Satellite Radio Software Draws XM Fire

Sat Aug 28, 9:12 AM By Kenneth Li
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Catching Blondie's reunion tour broadcast at 4 a.m. wasn't an option for XM satellite radio subscriber and single father Scott MacLean.

"I was missing concerts that were being broadcasted when I was asleep or out," he said.

So the 35-year-old computer programmer from Ottawa, Ontario, wrote a piece of software that let him record the show directly onto his PC hard drive while he snoozed.

The software, TimeTrax, also neatly arranged the individual songs from the concert, complete with artist name and song title information, into MP3 files.

Then MacLean started selling the software, putting him in the thick of a potential legal battle pitting technically savvy fans against a company protecting its alliance -- and licensing agreements -- with the music industry.

MacLean says he is simply seeking to make XM Radio -- the largest U.S. satellite radio service with over 2.1 million members paying $10 a month for about 120 channels -- a little more user-friendly.

"The larger issue here is they came out with one lock and another creative person goes out to create a key," said Michael McGuire, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner. "It's very hard for policy and copyright law to keep up with the pace of technological change."

A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) said his organization had not reviewed the software, but said that in principle it was disturbed by the idea. "We remain concerned about any devices or software that permit listeners to transform a broadcast into a music library," RIAA (news - web sites) spokesman Jonathan Lamy said.

The RIAA and XM are both busy figuring out if any copyright laws and user agreements have been broken.

MacLean's software essentially marries the song information with an analog recording of the broadcasts, then stores this in MP3 files. The user can leave the software running unattended for hours and amass a vast library of songs.

That feature has been a central concern in the music industry as it lobbies regulators to place restrictions on free copying of digital broadcasts before many more radio stations add digital broadcasts. About 300 stations already offer digital broadcasts.

Music labels fear that the convenience of MacLean's software will lead millions more to copy and distribute songs over file-sharing networks such as KaZaA, a music industry source said.

Media companies were dealt a blow last week when a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that online file sharing software companies in the spirit of the original Napster (news - web sites) were not liable for acts of copyright infringement its users committed.

More than 2,400 XM listeners have downloaded the program since he made it publicly available on Aug. 12, MacLean said, and nearly 400 paid for the full version at a cost of $19.95. He raised the price on Tuesday to $29.95. The software can be found at http://www.nerosoft.com/TimeTrax.

These users are using TimeTrax -- in combination with the software that came with XM's receiver, the PCR -- as their main gateway to XM Radio on the PC.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:XMSR - news) said it was concerned about the software, based on a description of its features.

"That's a product that's not authorized by XM," Chance Patterson, vice president of corporate affairs, told Reuters last week.

"That program is something we don't condone ... It's our expectation they will be shut down," he added. "We're also researching any potential legal violations."

Patterson said the device the software relies on, the PCR receiver, represents a small fraction of its sales. The lion's share of its sales come from receivers built into new cars and stand-alone units that connect to home stereos, which can not be hooked up to computers.

The software could conflict with XM's plans to improve its service. XM has said it plans to launch in October a new car and home radio receiver that lets users pause and rewind live broadcasts. XM also has a deal to stream its broadcasts over next-generation TiVo (news - web sites) recorders.

In a letter seen by Reuters, XM's lawyers told MacLean to discontinue his sales and provide the company with a list of purchasers.

He said he had no intention of complying and added that he had no such list.

August 30, 2004 at 07:35 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

The Digital Transition

Yahoo! News - The Digital Transition

Sun Aug 29,12:01 AM
By Rob Pegoraro
If my car died tomorrow, I'd have a lot less angst picking its successor than I would if my TV conked out. The "digital transition," as it's called, has given the television market some of the same frustrating inscrutability as the computing market, with an extra dose of technological, regulatory and economic uncertainty.

And yet: People are buying these things. Not just the techno-victims who will snap up any unproven gadget with a four-figure price tag, but regular folks who simply want a better set when their old one implodes.

Finding that better set without buying more or less than you actually want is the real trick of the digital-TV market. Here are six riddles to keep in mind:

Digital and high-definition TV aren't the same thing, except when they are. HD is a subset of digital TV, a generic term that covers 18 possible combinations of picture resolution, screen proportions, scan mode and frame rate. Only six of them count as HDTV -- only two of which broadcasters actually use.

(Why 18 digital-TV formats if so few are used? Much of the consumer-electronics industry remains stuck at a kindergarten-playground level of conflict resolution; when the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) had to pick a standard in the mid-1990s, embracing all 18 formats available was the best it could do.)

One of the two HD formats is called 720p to indicate its 720 progressively scanned lines of resolution; "progressive" means that the entire image on the screen is refreshed 60 times a second, the way a computer monitor works. The other is 1080i, for 1,080 interlaced scan lines; in this case, half of these lines are refreshed every 60th of a second, the way old-fashioned analog TV works. Both 720p and 1080i are wide-screen formats, with a 16:9 aspect ratio close to a movie-theater screen's proportions.

Vendors, however, often try to fudge whether a set is HD-capable in ads. Pay attention to an HD set's resolution -- except when it doesn't matter.

Many digital sets -- including some large, pricey plasma screens -- only support a third, lower-resolution format called 480p (short for 480 progressive scan lines). This format, still a big step up from analog TV (which uses 480 interlaced scan lines), is often marketed as "Enhanced Definition." But on those 42-inch plasmas, the difference between ED and HD won't be hard to spot. When in doubt, look up a set's resolution in pixels; if its vertical resolution (the second number listed in a figure like "640 x 480") is below 720, it's not HD.

Conversely, on smaller sets -- say, under 25 inches across -- it is difficult to see the difference between 480p and 72op or 1080i from normal viewing distances. On those televisions, you can get away with enhanced definition, saving yourself a few bucks.

Like analog TV, digital TV broadcasts can be received in a variety of ways -- over the air, or, for a much larger selection of channels, over cable or via satellite. But digital cable or digital satellite isn't the same thing as digital TV. The services that cable and satellite providers have sold for years are analog at heart; they're only "digital" in the way they transmit that conventional signal. Real, HD-capable digital TV via cable or satellite costs more than "digital" cable or satellite and brings a smaller selection; many cable channels haven't brought out HD versions, although this is quickly improving.

Then there's over-the-air reception, something that seems an anachronism but need not be with improving digital receivers. If you get an acceptable analog signal, you can get a terrific digital signal, as our latest tests have found. But while any analog TV sold today only needs an antenna to tune into what's on, most digital sets are missing any digital tuning hardware.

A set sold as "HD-ready" isn't ready for HD. That phrase, "HD-ready," really means that the set can display an HD picture if it's fed a digital signal by an external box -- a cable, satellite or off-air tuner. A small but growing number of TVs called integrated sets now include an over-the-air tuner, often called an "ATSC" tuner after the Advanced Television Systems Committee that devised the digital system.

A smaller number of sets can tune in to digital and HD cable signals without needing an external cable box. Those with a "QAM" tuner can get unscrambled digital cable, but not premium fare such as HBO; this is the functional equivalent of a "cable-ready" analog set. Those with a "CableCard" slot can get a full set of channels if you pop in a small ID card provided by your cable company, but it won't allow any interactive cable services, such as video-on-demand.

An HD set that included a satellite tuner might be a good idea, but it doesn't exist. Sorry.

Many of the technologies I've mentioned here are new; CableCard sets, for instance, went on the market only at the beginning of last month. So it still pays to hold off on an HDTV purchase if you can -- just not for too long. This is an issue of technology, economics and politics: The technology keeps getting better and the prices keep getting cheaper, but political considerations are forcing manufacturers to put in features that viewers probably won't appreciate.

Last year, the FCC (news - web sites) unwisely voted to require that, as of July 1, 2005, any device capable of receiving a digital signal off the air must support the "broadcast flag." This scheme is supposed to stop full-quality copies of digital programs from circulating online. The idea is to boost the selection of HD shows available over the air and thus speed the digital transition (the government needs stations to switch to the new digital frequencies they've been given for free so it can, in turn, auction off part of the old analog spectrum).

I doubt that the broadcast flag will stop Internet copying of programs -- people will just share lower-quality copies of programs that take less time to download -- but I am pretty confident that the flag will do a fine job of inconveniencing law-abiding viewers. You would be wise to buy an HDTV, or least an off-air tuner, before the FCC's deadline, assuming its manufacturer hasn't implemented broadcast-flag support ahead of time (as if customers are screaming for this feature today).

If you buy too late, or you buy a set that's already flagged, there's still a way out of this copy-restriction mess. Make sure digital-TV hardware has analog connections. Analog component-video inputs and outputs offer almost the same quality as digital connections, but they can't enforce the copying limits of the broadcast flag or its equivalents in cable and satellite transmissions. Make sure that your digital tuner, however it gets its signal, can send the picture along to a TV or a video recorder via a high-resolution analog output.

Digital television has spent most of the past decade as a moving target, and that's not likely to change for the next few years. But I think -- or maybe I just hope -- that if you keep those principles in mind, you can find a digital set that has the useful lifespan of a TV as you've known it, not that of a computer. It's been wonderful to see such rapid progress, but at a certain point, digital TV has to become as boring as analog.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.

August 29, 2004 at 10:05 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

PluggedIn: Multifunction Devices Draw Back-To-School Crowd

Yahoo! News - PluggedIn: Multifunction Devices Draw Back-To-School Crowd

Tue Aug 17,12:57 PMBy Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The consumer electronics gizmo that offers many functions in a small package is what's compelling back-to-school shoppers to open their wallets.

Tablet personal computers on which users can type or handwrite their notes, next-generation handhelds that double as video players and advanced camera phones are among the hottest sellers, analysts say.

One of the highlights is Averatec Inc.'s C3500 convertible notebook, whose display swivels back on itself and can be used to take notes longhand. While such a product isn't new, the Averatec PC is a hit because of its comparatively low price, analysts said. It starts at $1,349.99 before a $50 mail-in rebate, according to the company's Web site.

"I've been told consistently that that has been one of the hottest products," said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies.

The C3500 is also a full-fledged computer that uses Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows XP (news - web sites) Tablet PC operating system software and a low-voltage Athlon processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news). It has high-speed wireless Internet access, a DVD drive and a 12.1-inch screen.

Bajarin said the price is more than acceptable for college students, since most convertible tablets cost $2,300 to $2,500.

Handheld computers have long been a staple of high-school and college students, but more advanced machines that can double as a video camera are particularly popular with young people heading back to school this year.

One such device is PalmOne Inc.'s (Nasdaq:PLMO - news) Zire 72, which starts at $299 and uses the Palm operating system software from PalmSource Inc. (Nasdaq:PSRC - news)

With a 1.2 megapixel built-in camera, users can take pictures and, if they buy an expansion memory card, can shoot video and listen to MP3 digital music files.

"Now I've got all my class schedules on there, and I can even do video," Bajarin said. "That's much more attractive than the standard camera phones."

That said, the more standard camera phones that are seemingly omnipresent are still a must-have for high school and college students.

"Certainly camera phones are popular, but there's also a lot more interest in video instant messaging now," said analyst Stephen Baker of research firm NPD Group. Students are digging deep into their closets and pulling out Web video cameras, he added.

Internet media company Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and others have rolled out video instant messaging. Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL - news), with its iChat software, also offers the service.

Also combining a phone, e-mail, Web browsing, instant messaging, a digital camera, personal information management functions and games are the "hiptop" devices from Danger Inc., Bajarin said.

They're known as the Sidekick when sold by Deutsche Telekom's U.S. mobile operator T-Mobile USA, which has given them a suggested price of $249.99.

Actresses Jennifer Aniston and Demi Moore have whipped out their Sidekicks during television appearances, and actor Ashton Kutcher uses one. The product has also appeared in rap videos.

"It's got the cool factor and part of that is being helped by its use on television shows," Bajarin said.

And, of course, Apple's iPod is still a hot seller, particularly for college students. With more than 3 million of the digital music players sold and better availability of the multicolored iPod mini players, those devices should be strong sellers during the back-to-school season, analysts said.

"That one's somewhat of a given," Bajarin said of the iPod.

The success of the iPod and another strong season for notebook PCs point to the importance of portability and Internet connectivity for today's students, analysts said.

"Any notebook that gets thrown out on the shelves in August is going to sell like crazy," NPD's Baker said. "It looks like this year is going to be just as strong as last year."

August 18, 2004 at 11:27 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Korean Internet use creates a digital divide

Korean Internet use creates a digital divide

By Seung eun Myung, CNETAsia
The Internet is taking off in a big way in Korea - but not if you're a country girl
The Internet is at risk of causing divisions in Korea's population, according to new figures released by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), which show young men in the cities are by far the most likely to be Net savvy.

MIC's figures show that of the 68.2 percent of Korea's population accessing the Internet last month, the most frequent users were young males, with use lowest amongst women and in Korea's rural areas.

The MIC figures show a strong correlation between age and Internet use, with 86.4 percent of 30-year-olds logging on regularly, but only 27.6 percent of 50-year-olds doing the same.

More than 45 percent of respondents said they are a member of at least one Internet community, while 37.1 per cent utilise instant-messaging services.

The figures also show that only 46.2 percent of Korean's rural population regularly surf the Internet.

More than 17,300 residents from 7,030 households across Korea were interviewed in the bi-annual survey, conducted by the MIC and the National Internet Development Agency.

However, the research suggests that since the start of commercial services in 1994, Korea's Internet use has steadily increased and its penetration rate is now starting to match that of mobile phones.

Frequent Korean surfers spend an average of 11.5 hours a week on the Web, an hour less than they did six months ago. They primarily use the Web to surf for information, play online games and check their email.

Seung eun Myung is a staff reporter at ZDNet Korea.

August 13, 2004 at 01:14 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Study probes roles Internet is playing in U.S. users' lives

Yahoo! News - Study probes roles Internet is playing in U.S. users' lives

By K. Oanh Ha, Mercury News
Like most Americans, single mom Diane Ybarra uses the Internet to make her life a little easier. She buys event tickets online, plans carpools and parties virtually and routinely e-mails friends to keep in touch.

Yet, the Santa Clara mother of two teenagers prefers to browse birthday cards at a store and try clothes on before she buys them. And that, too, matches the Net habits of most Americans, according to a study released Wednesday by the non-profit Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The survey of nearly 1,400 Internet users found that by far, getting information and communicating with family and friends were the two most popular activities online.

Nearly 90 percent of Americans who go online said the Internet plays a role in their daily routines and 64 percent said their daily activities would be affected if they could no longer use the Internet.

Convenience is a big factor. In fact, the most popular online activity is getting maps and directions, with more than half surveyed saying they don't use paper maps or ask for directions anymore.

Yet, for most things, from paying bills to shopping, the real world nearly always wins out over the virtual one.

"The Internet is making a big mark on how we live our lives but it hasn't taken over our lives," said Deborah Fallows, the report's author and a project senior research fellow.

Ybarra e-mails friends and family because it's fast and easy -- but she abhors the idea of sending electronic greeting cards.

"It's tacky," she said. "I like picking something out, feeling the paper, looking at the colors of the graphics. It makes it more special."

Of the 18 everyday activities the study asked about, a majority of people preferred to do almost all of them offline. The only exception: getting directions.

"You don't have to find the map under the seat somewhere and then try to find a paper and pen," Fallows said.

Popular activities Mapquest, based in Denver, with 35 million unique visitors each month, is reaping the benefits. Mapquest is the most popular map site on the Internet, and its traffic continues to grow 15 to 30 percent each month, said Jim Griner, the firm's director of marketing. Some of the more surprising yet popular destinations people look for: prisons and churches.

Other popular Internet activities included communicating with friends and family, checking weather reports and getting news.

Only a third of Internet users who buy everyday items did so online, while only 44 percent of those who pay bills and conduct banking do so on the Internet. Though the number of people conducting transactions online is relatively low, it's one of the fastest-growing segments of users, Fallows said.

For Bank of America, which bills itself as the top online bank, getting customers to pay bills online is key, since those customers are less likely to switch to other banks, have higher deposits and are more likely to use other banking products, said spokeswoman Betty Riess.

Currently, half of households who have checking accounts with Bank of America use online banking, while an even smaller number pay bills online. The bank has tried to address customers' security concerns and anticipates more customers will convert over time.

Gender differences Yet even avid Internet users such as Sunnyvale Web designer Robin Fisher are more comfortable paying bills the old-fashioned way. "I prefer a paper trail," Fisher said.

The report also found that men are more likely than women to use the Internet to gather information and for entertainment. Women, however, were more likely to use the Internet to communicate.

The Pew study said over time, people will rely more heavily on the Internet. One-third of Americans who go online -- mostly educated, affluent, longtime Internet users with high-speed connections -- already are more likely to do everyday activities online exclusively.

"The Internet is an evolution," Fallows said. "It's never going to be a black or white issue, online or offline. More likely, it'll be shades of gray."

Contact K. Oanh Ha at kha@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3457.

August 12, 2004 at 08:09 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (36) | Top of page | Blog Home

Britons embrace digital lifestyle

BBC NEWS | Technology | Britons embrace digital lifestyle

Britons are spending more time than ever using digital goods, like mobile phones, DVD players and the net, says a comprehensive Ofcom report.
The communications watchdog found people spend more time on mobiles than they do on landlines, with nine out of 10 households owning at least one.

Broadband is also becoming an essential part of people's lives, with 55,000 new connections made each week.

Ofcom's annual Communications Market report tracks trends in digital media.

It offers a panoramic picture of digital habits, including the net, gadgets, mobiles, digital TV and radio.

What it suggests is that people are finding extra, or new, activities with which to fill their time, like downloading, communicating online, texting, and surfing 24-hour news services.

Doing digital

"The advance of digital technology brings increased consumer choice and greater innovation, through broadband access, digital television, music downloads, digital radio and more," Ed Richards, Ofcom's senior partner of strategy development said.

As people grow more comfortable with technology, there is more willingness to spend hard-earned cash on digital services and gadgets.

DVD players has proved remarkably popular, with more than half of Britons own one.

The amount spent on fixed, mobile and net services rocketed by �1.3bn in 2003. In real terms, Britons dedicated 4% of their household purse for such services.

The report suggests time spent online has exploded since 1999, from two hours a week on slower dial-up connections to an average of 16 hours a week in homes with broadband.

More than half (53%) of Britain's homes are now online, with a third of those enjoying a broadband connection.

The report predicts that high-speed net connections will surpass five million by next month.

Competition between broadband providers, as well as efforts to upgrade telephone exchanges, has meant such a speedy connection is far more affordable and accessible.

With more people on broadband, more services, like music download sites, have come online to give them something to do with their fast net.

- 53% of homes have at least one digital TV
DAB digital radio covers over 85% of the UK
- 89% are able to access broadband services
- 21% of people use mobiles as main device for calls
- 20m people use their mobile at least once a week instead of a landline

Source: Ofcom

August 12, 2004 at 07:46 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Caught in the Web

ITBusiness.ca

by Shane Schick
8/11/2004 5:00:00 PM - Internet addiction may or may not be real, but that's not worrying the enterprise

According to an international news report, a number of Finnish conscripts have been excused before their full term ended because they couldn't handle the time away from the Web. It should be noted that the compulsory length of time these young men are required to spend in the forces is six months. If less than a year offline puts them into such a state, they must be Internet addicts. Right?

The truth is that no one really knows, despite a growing branch of psychological literature around Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD). Although there are a number of firms offering to treat this problem, most likely it is merely a branch of a more comprehensive counseling service. The most authoritative (and by that I mean skeptical) resource I've found online is an article by a psychologist named Dr. John M. Grohol, who has been updating his research on the subject since 1999. Grohol points out that most of the information around IAD is based upon a few scant surveys, which are often heavily skewed towards white men and fail to take into account pre-existing medical disorders. IAD, he argues, is simply something the mental health profession has coined in order to give itself something new to talk about.

"For most people with 'Internet addiction,' they are likely newcomers to the Internet," he writes. "They are going through the first stage of acclimating themselves to a new environment -- by fully immersing themselves in it. Since this environment is so much larger than anything we've ever seen before, some people get 'stuck' in the acclimation ( or enchantment) stage for a longer period of time than is typical for acclimating to new technologies."

There's some truth in this. People I know who don't have office jobs often tell me how quickly they've become "addicted" to their home PC and spend more than the usual amount of time in chat rooms. That's because it's not the Internet itself that's addictive, but the behaviour of socializing in what some consider a more safe environment.

In the Finnish military's case, however, Grohol's theory would appear not to apply. Doctors there concluded the conscripts stayed up all night playing games and didn't have any friends. The Internet was a place to escape, not to interact. That also has little to do with the technology and much more to do with the mental health issues of those behind the keyboard.

Theorized disorders like IAD are emerging at a time when IT users are being criticized (and increasingly monitored) by employers who blame their perceived lack of productivity on the amount of time they spend managing e-mail and surfing the Web. These same firms are moving more and more functions onto the Internet, and implementing collaboration and knowledge management software to even the most entry-level employees. The marketing of these sorts of tools frequently makes light use of the word "addiction" in an oddly positive way -- as though it's wonderful to find something so useful we simply can't do without it. You tell me who's losing it.

August 11, 2004 at 07:01 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

The Internet and Daily Life: Many Americans use the Internet in everyday activities, but traditional offline habits still dominate

Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Internet and Daily Life

The vast majority of online Americans say the Internet plays a role in their daily routines and that the rhythm of their everyday lives would be affected if they could no longer go online. Yet, despite its great popularity and allure, the Internet still plays second fiddle to old-fashioned habits. Fully 88% of online Americans say the Internet plays a role in their daily routines. Of those, one-third say it plays a major role, and two-thirds say it plays a minor role. The activities they identified as most significant are communicating with family and friends and finding a wealth of information at their fingertips. And 64% of Internet users say their daily routines and activities would be affected if they could no longer use the Internet.

Download file

Still, while nearly all Internet users go online to conduct some of their ordinary day-to-day activities online, most still default to the traditional offline ways of communicating, transacting affairs, getting information and entertaining themselves. For instance, they are more likely to do these things offline than online: get news, play games, pay bills, send cards, look up phone numbers and addresses, buy tickets, check sports scores, listen to music, schedule appointments, and communicate with friends.

August 11, 2004 at 01:17 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Egg combats Chip and PIN memory fears with online recall

finextra news: Egg combats Chip and PIN memory fears with online recall

24 May 2004 - UK Internet bank Egg has launched the world's first 'PIN browser', so that forgetful customers can securely view their credit card personal information number online.

Customers logging on to Egg can now call up their PIN by entering the three-digit security code on the back of their cards. The new service is being launched amid fears that a UK-wide conversion to PIN-based transactions at the point-of-sale could be stymied by consumers suffering from information overload.

Jerry Toher, marketing director at Egg, comments: "With the vast amount of information consumers are required to remember there is a great temptation to write (PINs) down however this is not advisable."

In an Egg-commissioned survey of over 1000 adults conducted in February, ICM found that 41% of people admitted to being more forgetful now then they used to be, with nearly a quarter (22%) attributing this to the increasing number of passwords or codes they need to remember. Nearly a third (31%) admitted to forgetting one of their pass codes every month.

The research found that nearly all Brits (92%) use access codes at least on a weekly basis and a nearly a third (28%) use them several times a day.

Commenting, Professor Evan Heit, Warwick University, says: "Whether a fact will actually be remembered will depend on other psychological factors such as whether it is personally relevant or meaningful, and whether it will be confused with other information. So, for example, a person would not be able to learn a lot of different passwords because these would be meaningless and easily confused."

The latest research tallies with an earlier survey commissioned by Visa which found that two thirds of consumers in the UK have problems remembering multiple PIN codes.

August 11, 2004 at 08:08 AM in Smart Cards, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

Chip and PIN launches memory campaign

finextra news: Chip and PIN launches memory campaign

10 August 2004 - The UK's Chip and PIN programme is to launch a campaign to help people memorise their security numbers, as research reveals that more than one in four UK citizens struggle to remember passwords and access codes.

With chip and PIN, credit and debit card holders will need to remember their four-digit PIN - the same number they would use to withdraw money at a cash machine - to verify purchases at the point-of-sale.

The Chip and PIN programme team has produced an online guide featuring hints, tips and memory tricks for consumers struggling with information overload.

The initiative comes as research conducted among 1,814 people across the country shows that 28.7% find it diffuclt to remember their PINs and code numbers.

The Chip and PIN team has recruited the help of psychologist Donna Dawson in an effort to overcome consumer fears about the new technology.

"On the surface, numbers appear to relate only to the logical parts of our brains," she says. "To make numbers more memorable, they must appeal to the creative side of our brains as well. By using methods of association - like visualising numbers as objects relating to their shapes, by linking them to important dates, or by rhyming them with other words - the vast majority of people will be able to remember four-digit PINs simply and quickly."

Two in five UK cardholders (41 per cent) had been issued with a chip and PIN card by the end of May 2004. Major retailers including Dixons, Wilkinsons, Asda and Tesco are currently making the upgrade in stores across the country.

August 11, 2004 at 08:06 AM in Smart Cards, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

Korea has over 30 million Internet users

Korea has over 30 million Internet users

By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 10 August 2004, 11:48
OVER 30 MILLION KOREANS are now regularly using the internet, according to a survey by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Internet Development Agency.
The country has a population of 45 million.

Korea is the fifth country in the world to have topped the 30 million mark, following after the United States, Japan, China and Germany. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Information and Communication announced that there were 30.67 million internet users at the end of June � up from 29.22 million six months ago.

Just under 70% of the population happen to be "internet users" � that is, they are on the internet for an hour or more each month � which marks a 2.7% increase from last December, and 4.1% from the same time last year.

Over 95% of Koreans between 6 and 29 go online regularly, 86.4% for Koreans in their 30s, 58.3% for 40-50 year olds, and 27.6% for those in their 50s.

The survey showed that the average Korean internetter will spend about 11.5 hours a week online � primarily to check for information and e-mail, and to play online games (like GunBound)

August 10, 2004 at 08:21 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

100 mln books published in human history, 200K movies, 50K CD-ROMs

IT Facts.biz - just the facts

About 100 million different books have been published in history, according to the estimates from Carnegie Mellon University. About 28 million sit in the Library of Congress. On average, a book can be condensed to a megabyte in Microsoft Word. Thus, the books in the Library of Congress could fit into a 28-terabyte storage system. Only about 2 million to 3 million audio recordings (mostly music) have ever been published for public consumption. The Internet Archive has begun to store digitized recordings of concerts as well and has about 15,000 shows in its database to date. There are between 100,000 to 200,000 theatrical movies (half of them from India) in existence and about 20 terabytes of TV broadcasts a month. The Web grows by about 20 terabytes of compressed data a month as well. (One terabyte equals 1 trillion bytes.) Since 1984, about 50,000 software titles, including CD-ROMs, have emerged.

August 10, 2004 at 08:18 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Customers walking away from slow POS lineups

ITBusiness.ca

by Neil Sutton
7/27/2004 12:05:44 PM - A study by Leger Marketing shows Canadian retailers may be losing $1.7 billion due to poor point-of-sale management.

A study by Leger Marketing shows Canadian retailers may be losing $1.7 billion due to poor point-of-sale management. The study, conducted for Moneris Solutions Corp., shows that 56 per cent of Canadians have walked away from a purchase because of long waiting times at the checkout. Montreal-based Leger Marketing spoke to 1,510 Canadians in a May telephone poll. About 60 per cent of them said the maximum acceptable waiting time is five minutes.

"It is extremely significant," says Rena Granofsky, a retail analyst with Toronto-based J.C. Williams Group. "You've just turned away business that you never even knew you had, and there's really no way to track it other than surveys like this. What you really want to do is make sure your POS systems are as quick as possible (and) that you have enough of them."

"Merchants could be doing everything right but just because of the nature of their business, they get long lineups. That's where the technology comes into play," says Kevin Tait, senior manager of communications with Moneris.

Toronto-based Moneris the result of a joint investment from Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada. In February, the company announced its intention to move its transaction-processing retail clients away from legacy architecture to an IP-based platform. Many businesses have already moved to an IP architecture for transaction processing, including Moneris clients FutureShop and Staples. There are some hold-outs, particularly among Tier 2 and Tier 3 retailers, which operate smaller storefronts, and still use dial-up technology for their POS transactions. "I'm sure you've stood in line where you can actually hear the terminal dialing up after your card's swiped. The new terminals (on an IP-based platform) are more like high-speed Internet. You swipe the card, you're already connected, the transaction goes through and gets authorized," says Tait.

The move to IP for retailers is practically inevitable, according to NCR Canada president Brian Sullivan. There are still some large chains that use their own networks for transaction processing, but most retailers have by now built IP networks into their POS strategies. "An IP-based terminal offers a little more functionality but it also becomes part of a bigger picture � how am I going to deal with information in my enterprise? � of which payment is a small subset of many things that go on," says Sullivan.

August 10, 2004 at 07:41 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

Barbarian Inventions

Stephen's Web ~ Knowledge ~ Learning ~ Community

July 29, 2004
I think there's a theme. There may be a theme. But don't spend time looking for one; it's not written that way.
One
Please let me be clear about my objection to registration.

One

Please let me be clear about my objection to registration.

For access to services where a unique ID is by definition required - participation in a mailing list, for example, posting a personal blog or discussion board comment, accessing personalized content - then I have no problem with registration. I have many such user IDs and even have a registration form on my own site for the same purpose.

But when links are posted on the open internet, as though they are accessible with a single click, and the user is presented with a registration form instead the content they were expecting when they clicked on the link, then that's where it becomes not just annoying but damaging.

Such links are nothing more than spam. A type of link spam. Trying to lull readers in with a false promise in order to sell them something for a price.

Sure, the price is low low low. Sure, the product or service can't be beat. And, of course, the company couldn't survice without your business. I know the message from the newspapers. And I'd be more sympathetic if I didn't see exactly that same message from the links pretending to be email messages polluting my in-box.

We've heard on this list from people with years of newsroom experience attesting in favour of registration. Well I come in to this debate with years of internet experience. I remember when the Green Card Lottery swept across usenet. I remember when commercialization of the internet was still a living issue. So I can say this with some authority: I've seen this play before.

We will be hearing from various studies and surveys that most people don't mind registration, that most people provide accurate information, that most people see it as the cost of supporting content on the internet. These people are responding at a time when registration sites are relatively few in number. But as they begin to report success, the bandwagon effect takes hold.

Ask the same people what they think in an age before every second link takes them to an advertisement, not the content it promised. People will have much shorter tempers by then. You can't depend on the surveys to guide you here. You have to ask yourself - is what we're doing fundamentally honest? Because while a little dishonesty today may be tolerated, a lot of it in the future won't be, and people will react with a much stronger than expected anger, because they will feel that their tolerance and good nature has been abused.

The message is: stop the false advertising. What I see, though, is the false advertising accelerating. I saw an item today about Wall Street Journal RSS feeds. Now what use is an RSS link from the WSJ? Unless you are one of the few who subscribe, it's nothing but spam. I hit a link today from the Kansas City Star - it let me in to read the story, but the second time (when I went back to verify a quote) it demanded a registration. It was basically trying to trick me, an occasional visitor, into providing a link to its onsite advertising.

Now the beauty of Bugmenot is that it really only works against those false advertising sites. If your site isn't putting out misleading links all over the internet, people aren't going to be getting annoyed at you and using Bugmenot to gain access. And even if someone has created some Bugmenot accounts, there won't be people using those accounts because you're not duping people into staring at a registration screen. So there's no reason to worry - or to get upset - unless you're polluting the web with misleading links.

And from where I sit, if your major means of interacting with the web and welcoming new readers is with a lie, then you should not be surprised if people respond in an angry manner.

Newspapers themselves can be honest with links. Put "(Registration Required)" in your page titles so that aggregators and Google display appropriate notice in link listings. Don't ask for registrations for content you intend to widely publicize. If you run a registration site, keep the deep web deep - don't pollute out browsers with misleading advertising. Or best of all, participate in the exchange that defines the web by putting your content out there for free (the way the rest of us do) and save registration for where it's needed.

So think of Bugmenot as an honesty meter. If its creating unwanted (and unregistered) traffic, then your means of promoting yourself online is in some way dishonest, and you are paying the price for that. And don't expect anyone to be sorry about the fact that you're paying that price.

You reap, you know, what you sow.

Two

Re: Dreyfus. Community in the Digital Age: philosophy and practice. 2004.

In Kirkegaard's book Present Age: "More basically still, that the Public Sphere lies outside of political power meant, for Kierkegaard, that one could hold an opinion on anything without having to act on it. he notes with disapproval that the public's 'ability, virtuosity and good sense consist in trying to reach a judgment and a decision without ever going so far as action.' This opens up the possibility of endless reflection. If there is no need for decision and action, one can look at all things from all sides and always find some new perspective......All that a reflective age like ours produces is more and more knowledge....i" by comparison with a passionate age, an age without passion gaines in scope what it loses in intensity".....Life consist of fighting off boredom by being a spectator of everything interesting in the universe and of communicating with everyone else so inclined. .....

Such a life produces what we would now call a postmodern self---a self that has no defining content or continuity and os is open to all possibilities and to constantly taking on new roles.....the anonymous spectator takes no risks....When Kirkegaard is speaking from the point of view of the next higher sphere of existence, Khe tells us that the self requires not 'variableness and brilliancy but 'firmness, balance and steadiness (Either /Or)...Without some way of telling the significant from the insignificant and the relevant from the irrelevant, everything becomes equally interesting and equally boring, and one finds oneself back in the indifference of the present age.

It is, of course, illusion that there could be a life free of choice, even for the most dispassionate and idle spectator. The fact of being human forces choice on us every minute of every day.Willthe ground support me if I take a step forward? Will this food nourish me or poison me? Should I wear clothing today? It is true that these choices are in a certain sense mundane and everyday. But at the same time, they are foundational, the most important choices a person can make - a committment to at least a minimal ontology, a decision to continue living and the means toward that end, an understanding and acceptance of social mores. It is true that most people make such choices without reflection - showing that there must be something to meaningfulness over and above choices - but it is also true that people who seriously reflect on such choices, who consider both alternatives to be genuine possibilities, nonetheless in the main come to the same resolution as those who make such choices automatically. In matters that are genuinely important, choice is itself an illusion. And in cases where choice is not an illusion, it is also the case that the decision is not so fundamental. The two outcomes are of relatively similar value, at least in comparison to fundamental questions of existence, life and living.

If by failing to make a choice in this or that matter, if by remaining dispassionate and accumulating, as it were, more knowlege, if by doing this one may remain insulated from any consequences, it seems evident that the choice one would have you make in such a case falls in the opposite extreme, a choice not about that which is fundamental, but about what is trivial. Though it may be true that we may suffer some consequence by acting one way or another, if a failure to act affects us not in the least then there is no motivation for action, and the choice we believe we face is illusory, and therefore the meaning we would derive from making such a choice illusory also. The choices that engender meaning in our lives are not those we can duck in order to live in a post-modern idyll, but those we cannot avoid, similar in nature to those of a fundamental nature, but less wide in scope.

To make a choice simply to attain the distinction of having chosen is to trivialize the nature and import of making a choice. If one chooses a religion only in order to claim membership in the ranks of the converted, such a choice mocks the devotion that resaults from the presentation of religious phenomena or experience. If one chooses a political affiliation only in order to have voted, then this decision renders meaningless the resolution of affairs of state implicating individuals and nations in matters of economy and war. It is, indeed, the making of such decisions purely for the sake of making a decision, by a person who has no stake in the outcome, that causes the greatest amount of hardship and suffering. The firmness, balance and steadiness of a person who has made a choice for sake of making life less boring is to be feared the most, because such a person has made a choice that did not need to be made, and would have no motivation to alter or sway their course of action in a direction more compassionate or rational. "She has a very deep conviction to some very shallow ideals," it was once said of a politician friend of mine, and the result was action without knowledge, and in the end, nothing more than an illusion of relevance.

Many people criticize me for the moral and political relativism I advocate in numerous spheres; this does not mean that I have made no choices, but rather, that I have made choices - about value, about right, about religion, about society - only when such choices were required by circumstances, and only applicable to a scope in which such a choice were relevant. Kierkegaard is right, though the process of choosing, one can come to believe, and to thereby make the facade originally accepted a reality in fact. But the sort of choice he advocates, there is no need to make. Like Julian of Norwich, presented with religious phenomena or experience that make a previous life incomprehensible, a choice of religion may be the most rational or sane alternative. But God, as they say, does not speak to everyone, and those to whom God has not spoken need not formulate a`reply.

When life presents itself as a fighting off of boredom, of finding nothing or more or less important, the usual cause is not that a person has not committed him or herself to a certain set or beliefs or a certain course of action, but rather, because the person has not accumulated enough knowledge to understand the choices that need to be made. The post-modern stance of observing, countenancing, and experiencing a wide variety of moral, social, political and religious beliefs (among others) is the rational and reasonable approach; when one does not have enough data to make a decision, and a decision is not forced, the rational course is to gather more data, not to prematurely make an ill-informed decision. This to me would seem evident! Why, then, laud the merit of meaningless choicesin order to give life meaning? The meaning of life will present itself soon enough; in the meantime, the only thing a person ought to do is live it.

Threeo

Re: Unshaken Hands on the Digital Street, by Michael Bugeja.

The author assumes that interaction with the physically present must take priority over the physically distant (and electronically connected). Remove the assumption in this article, and require that it be supported through argumentation, and the impact of the dialogue is lost.

In fact, it seems to me, the order of precedence of interaction ought not not be resolved by proximity, which is typically merely accidental, but by two more salient factors: priority (that is, all other things being equal, the interaction that is most important to the actor takes priority) and precedence (all other things being equal, the interaction that began first takes priority). Most interaction is a case of these two stipulii conciding in two people: for each, the interaction with the other is the most important of those available at the moment, and will continue until concluded. 'Interruption' is the process of one person suggesting that the importance of an interaction is greater than one already in progress, and it is (of course) the right of the interrupted to make the determination as to whether this is so.

In the pre-digital age, priority and precedence coincided with proximity. That is, all the choices of interactive possibilities were of people located in physical proximity, and physical proximity being a limited quantity, predence assumed a much greater importance. But it would be a mistake to equate proximity withy priority and precedence; with electronic communications, it is now possible to have a situation in which a communication by telephone is of greater priority than a presently existing in-person interaction. When a telephone rings, this is an interruption, and the receiver typically makes an assessment (often by looking at the caller ID) as to whether the telephone call is likely to be more important than the present interruption.

What is also true, in an increasingly crowded and mobile world, is that the value of physical proximity is diminished. In less mobile, less crowded times, one could assign a high degree of probability that a person wishing communication while in close proximity was also a person with whom communication would be a priority - it would be a spouse or child, a business associate, or a customer. But today's physical interactions are increasingly with strangers with whom one has no prior attachment, and so the probabilities have now tipped the other way: it is more likely that a telephone call, from one of the few people in the world to know your number, is of greater importance than a conversation with a stranger on the street or in the office.

When a person in physical proximity interrupts a person using a mobile telephone or similar electronic device, the probability is that their priority to the person being interrupted is less than the priority of the person being talked to. Where once people apologized for being on the telephone when a stranger wished to speak, it became apparent that no person need apologize for talking with his spouse, child or friend, and that it is the stranger imposing the interruption and making the request. Breaking off a telephone call (or even shutting off an MP3 player) to help a lost tourist is a mark of altruism, and as the stranger had no prior claim on the person's time, such behaviour ought to be thanked rather than criticized when written about in an article.

The mistake being made in the article below is in the assumption that the virtual interaction is somehow less real, somehow inherently less important, than the proximal physical interaction. "By the time they attend college, they will come to view technology as companionship." But this is a fallacy, a confusion between the message, which is a product of the media (a "phone" call), and the content, which is a product of the interaction (a call "from John"). More straightforwardly, the vast majority of online and electronic interactions are with real people, and there is no a priori reason to assign a real person lesser importance on the basis that they are distance (and, given such a person's prior attachment with the caller in question, very good reason to assume the opposite, that the distant person is of greater importance than the proximal). Electronic communications may be caricatured as communications with the non-real, but to draw any conclusion of important from this characterization is to ignore an obvious and self-evident truth: real people communicate electronically.

The characterization of the product of electronic communications as "dumb mobs" is an assassination ad hominem. Were it true that drunken parties the only consequence of such forms of virtual communication (were it true that such parties were known to be caused by such communications at all, as though they had not occured prior to the advent of the telephone) then perhaps one might have a case. But electronic communications have conveyed messages as vital as the boirth of a child, the formation of a business, the death of a relative, humanity's step on the moon, and so much more. Empirical observation shows that the party-generation capacity of electronic communications is a minimal, and infrequently emnployed, use of the medium. It makes no sense, then, to assign to the communication the morality of the mob.

The reactions of a person who, by dint of physical proximity, assume priority and precedence over any and all electronic interactions, are, quite frankly, the reactions of a self-important boob. They convey the impression of a person who believes that his or here mere physical presence ought to command the over-riding and immediate attention of all who come within his or her purview. They show no respect for the importance a caller may place on communicating with friends, family or associates, and demand immediate and sole attention to the matter at hand, namely, him or herself. In a world of competing interests and of increasing demands for interaction, people have learning that they must from time to time take their turn. This author strikes me as one who hasn't learned this yet.

Four

While it is a fact that each of us, as knowers, is situated in the world (situated bodies) and we learn by bumping (commonsensical understanding) into the world; What constitutes knowledge is not reducible to any of us or to our bodily presence, any more that what constitutes the English language depends upon the use of English by any speaker of the language or what constitutes mathematical truths depends upon any person's calculations.

Trivially, this is an assertion to the effect that a recognizable entity (such as knowledge, langauge or mathematics) that has an existence outside ourselves is not reducible to states of affairs inside ourselves. If we argue from the outset that these are social phenomena, then it follows by a matter of definition that they are not reducible to mental entities. But this is no more revealing than to say that a house is not reducible to our perception of a house. Such a statement is necessarily true, assuming the independent existence of the house.

More interesting is the perspective where we are silent on the external existence of the house. We presume that our perceptions of a house are caused by a house, but it is also possible that our perception of a house was caused by something that was not a house, or caused by the convergence of discrete perceptions that have no discrete external status at all. After all, we can have perceptions (or, at least, thoughts) of a unicorn, without at the same time asserting that a unicorn has an independent external existence.

The real question is, is our concept of a house reducible to our perceptions of a house. That is to say, can we arrive at the idea of a house through some form of collection and organization of perceptions? The logical positivist answer to this question was that we could, though the entities and mechanisms proposed (an observation language, logical inference) proved manifestly inadequate to the task. A similar stance seems to be being taken here. Our concept of a house cannot be reduced to a set of mental entities; no mechanism of inference appears to be adequate to the task.

When we look at this more closely, we see that the assertion is that the entity in question - our idea of a house - is not composed of the entities from which is is supposedly derived. That is to say, we could replace one or even all of our mental entities (thoughts, perceptions, etc) with distinct instances of those entities, and yet the perception of a house would remain unchanged. This gives it a unique ontological status.

Consider, for example, what would happen were we to attempt the same thing with the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall is composed of bricks. Were these bricks removed, and replaced with new bricks, we would no longer say that the Great Wall of China exists; rather, we would say that we have constructed a facsimile of the Great Wall, and that the real Great Wall is now a pile of rubble somewhere.

By contrast, consider the image of Richard Nixon on a television set. This image is composed of pixels. Were we to replace one or all of the pixels (as happens 72 times a second, more or less, depending on your screen refresh rate) we nonetheless say that we are seeing the same image of Richard Nixon. The image has a continued existence even though all of its physical components have been replaced.

Why do we say that one set of pixels and another set of pixels constitute the same image? It is clearly that the two sets of pixels are organized in a similar way. For example, both sets of pixels have two clusters of dark pixels near the mid-point of the image - what we would call Richard Nixon's eyes. We say that the two sets of pixels constitute a single image because the organizations of the two sets of pixels resemble each other. Take one of the sets of pixels, and organize them randomly, and we would say that we no longer have an image of Richard Nixon, ever were we to have exactly the same set of pixels.

Now it is tempting, when identify a similarity such as this, between sets of unrelated collections of physical entitities, to say that some discrete physical entity must have caused this similarity to occur, that there is a real Richard Nixon that this image must be an image of. But of course the same reasoning would force us to agree that there is a real Donald Duck. Since Donald Duck is an animation, and does not exist except in the form of similarly organized pixels, it is evident that such reasoning is in error. But then we must ask, what is it that makes a collection of pixels into Richard Nixon or Donald Duck?

The being an image of Richard Nixon is not contained in any or all of the pixels. Nor may we assume that it is caused by an external entity. All external possibilities thus being exhausted, the explanation for the fact of an image being Richard Nixon must lie in the perceiver of the image. We say that the image on the screen is an image of Richard Nixon because we recognize it as such. This organization of pixels is familiar to us, so much so that we have associated it with a name, 'Richard Nixon', and even apparently unassociated utterances, such as 'I am not a crook.'

In a similar manner, entities such as knowledge, language and mathematics (as commonly conceived) exist only by virtue of the organization of their constituent parts. No particular instance of a fact, a word or a calculation is a necessary constituent of these. But something is called a piece of knowledge, mathematics or language only if it is recognized as such.

Most of our understanding in the world of what it is like to be embodied is so ubiquitous and action-oriented that there is every reason to doubt that it could be made explicit and entered into a database in a disembodied computer. We can attain explicit knowledge through our understanding with the world, by virtue of having bodies. We can find answers to questions involving the body by using our body in the world.

There is a lot packed into the seemingly innocuous phrase, 'made explicit', and the phrase is sufficiently distracting as to throw us of our course of investigation.

Consider, again, the image of Richard Nixon. What would it be to 'make explicit' this perception? One suspects that it needs to be codified, cast into a language. Thus, we say that our perception of Richard Nixon is 'made explicit' when it is associated with the phrase 'Richard Nixon'. (Is there another sense of 'made explicit'? Does the discussant have some other process in mind?)

When the image of Richard Nixon is made explicit in this way, however, a great deal of information is lost. The original perception is abandoned - nothing remains of the organization of the pixels; the pixels, and the organization that characterized them, form no part of the phrase 'Richard Nixon'. Nor either is the act of recognition contained in this phrase. The association of the image of Richard Nixon with similar, previously experienced, phenomena, can no longer be accomplished.

What is important to recognize here is that the information has been lost, not because the original image was produced by our bodies, and that the phrase wasn't (an assertion which is, as an aside, patently false - where else did the phrase 'Richard Nixon' come from if not from our bodies?). It is because the image of Richard Nixon has been completely replaced by this new entity, which represents the original entity only through association, and not through resemblance. Only if, on being presented the phrase 'Richard Nixon', we could call to mind the original image (the original organization of pixels) would we be in the position to make the same set of associations as the original viewer.

If I am presented with 'A' I can immediately infer that 'A is for Apple'. But if I represent 'A' with 'B', then I no longer have the capacity to make that inference. There is nothing in 'B' that would lead me to say 'Apple' (and the expression 'B is for Apple' even seems absurd). Presented only with 'B', therefore, I am unable to equal the cognitive capacity of someone who has been presented with 'A'. It is not therefore surprising to see people say that the accomplishment of such cognitive capacity on the part of a system presented only with 'B' is impossible.

But it is not impossible. It is impossible only if it is impossible to present the system with an 'A' instead of a 'B'. It is impossible, for example, if the having of an experience of 'A' is something only the first sort of entity can have, and that the second sort of entity cannot have. And that comes down to this: is the stimulation of a neuron by a photon the sort of thing that only a human can have? Put that way, the question is absurd. We know that photons stimulate things other than human eyes; that's how solar power works.

Perhaps, then, recognition is the sort of thing that can only be accomplished by a human. Presented with the same organization of photonic stimuli, is it the case that only a human can recognize it as Richard Nixon, while a non-human system is restricted to, say, associating it with 'Richard Nixon'? Again, the answer to this seems to be no. While it is true that most computers today think and store information only in symbolic form, it is not reasonable to asert that they must. A computer can store an image as an image, and given multiple images, nothing prevents a computer from performing the cybernetic equivalent of recognition, the realization that this is similar to that.

The question here is whether the perception of a given phenomenon - any phenomenon - dependent on the physical nature of that phenomenon, in such a way that the given instance of the perception could not be replaced with a similar instance without it becoming a different perception.

It is clear that the exact physical instantiation of the perception is not required. If I were to lose an eye, and were to have this eye replaced with a donor eye, such that the eye (and therefore any action of the eye) has a completely distinct physical constitution, it is not clear that I would no longer be able to see. Indeed, our intuitions and our research run in the other direction. We can replace eyes (and other body parts) without changing the perceptions that these body parts produce. Seeing with a donor eye is just like seeing with our original eye, or so much so that the difference is not worth remarking upon.

One asks, now, whether the physical constitution of the donor eye be the same as the physical constitution of the original. Is it necessary that the donor eye be a human eye. Were the donor eye to be instead an artificial eye, strikingly similar, or course, to the original eye, but nonetheless indisputably of non-human origin, is there anything inherent in the function of this new eye that would make it not capable of enabling the same perception as the original eye? It is true that today's artificial eyes produce only shadow-like vision. But this attests only to the fact that it is difficult to make eyes.

More significantly, would it be possible, with the replacement eye, to recognize an image of Richard Nixon as being an image of Richard Nixon? It seems manifest that it would. For, as observed above, what makes an image an image of Richard Nixon is not the physical constituent of the image, nor even the origin in an external cause of the pixels, but rather, the organization of the pixels and the recognition of this organization as being similar to other perceptions we have already had. And even were all of a person's perceptions obtained through this artificial eye, there seems to be nothing inherent in the physicality of the eye that would make this impossible.

As we more through the other organs of the senses, and as we move deeper into the cerebral cortext, we wonder, then, at which point this stops being the case. At what point do perception, recognition, and cognition, cease to be founded on the organization of the pixels, and start to be founded on the physical constitution of the pixels? At what point does it become necessary for a thought to be grounded in a human brain before it can be said to be a thought about Richard Nixon? The nature and function of the human eye is not different in kind from the nature and function of the deeper layers of the brain; what works with the eye would seem, in principle, to work with the deeper layers of the brain. So what is it about the human brain that makes it impossible for a computer to emulate.

If we think of computers as symbol processors, then the answer is evident. At some point, a translation from perception to symbol must occur, and at that point, so much information is lost that the processes behind that transformation are no longer capable of performing the same sort of inference a brain that does not make that transformation can perform. But is there anything inherent in computation that makes it necessary that all processing be symbolic? Is there any reason why a computer must store knowledge and concepts and ideas as strings of symbols and sentences? There is no doubt that today this is a limitation of computers. But it is not an inherent limitation; it exists because designers stipulate that at some point in processing physical input will be converted into symbolic data.

Yet, already, in some instances this never happens. When I capture an image with a digital camera, and upload it into my computer, the image is not converted into symbols (and it would be absurd to do so). The original state of the pixels, as they were inflenced by photons, is what is stored. Of course, this image is not intermingled with other images, as it would be in a human brain. It is stored separately as an 'image file' and displayed or transported as an entity when requested. Even so, this, at least, is an instance of non-symbolic data representation in a computer.

Suppose, instead, when an image were loaded to my computer, it were compared with every other image previously stored in by computer, and that the image displayed was not the original image, but rather, whatever image (or composite) was suggested by this presentation. Something like (exactly like) recognition will then have happened, and the second stage necessary for perception will have occured.

So long as we don't transform input into symbolic form, thereby stripping it of important information, there is no reason to assume that the cognitive capacity of a system handling that information is reduced. And if there is no reason to assume that the cognitive capacity is reduced, there is no reason to believe that the cognitive capacities of humans could be emulated by a computer.

Human beings respond only to the changes that are relevant given their bodies and their interests, so it should be no surprise that no one has been able to program a computer to respond to what is relevant. Bodies are important making sense with the world. Forms of life is organized by and for beings embodied like us. Our embodied concerns so pervade our world that we don't notice the way our body enables us to make sense of it. So, if we leave our embodied commonsense understanding of the world aside, as using computers forces us to do, then we have to do things the computer's way and try to locate relevant information replacing semantics. Prof. Dreyfus criticizes AI as the epistemological considerations concerning how human bodies work in intelligent behaviour.

It is evident that humans force computers to think symbolically, by virtue of such things as interface and operating system design. But do computers force humans to think symbolically?

The answer is no, and the reason for that answer is that humans are not symbol processers. Let me repeat that. A computer cannot force a human to reason symbolically because humans are not symbol processors.

Oh, sure, we have the capacity to understand and interpret symbols. But this is done in the same manner that we undertsand and interpret an image of Richard Nixon. The symbol is perceived, not as a symbol, but as an image (you have to *see* or *hear* the letter 'B'). The presentation of this symbol will call to your mind other perceptions with which it has become associated. And if you're lucky (most of us aren't, but that's another paper) the presentation of the associated 'A' will generate in you the capacity to draw the same associations as had you been presented an instance of 'A' in the first place, leading you to think, 'Apple'.

In other words, for humans, symbols are not what we use to think, but rather, what we use to communicate. We represent a mental state (a perception, say, of Richard Nixon) with a symbol (the phrase 'Richard Nixon') and send the symbol with the hope and expectation that the presentation of the symbol 'Richard Nixon' will generate in the receiver a mental state resembling your original mental state (a perception of Richard Nixon).

What is important to keep in mind here is that the information received from other people, by means of an encoded information transfer (ie., a sentence) does not become some kind of different and special *kind* of information in our brains. Information transferred to us as symbols does not remain exclusively as symbols in our brain, for the precise reason that the brain immediately wants to begin associating symbols with other types of perceptions.

The fact that we process symbols in the same way we process other types of information is what makes them work. Were we to process symbols differently, then they could not evoke other types of memories, and we would have two separate and distinct regions of thought, one for symbols, and one for images, and symbols could never be associated with images, and thus someone's utterance, expressed to us as a string of symbols, "Watch out!" would never translate into action.

To suggest that receiving information symbolically instead of receiving it directly causes us to assume a different moral, ontological, or inferential stance regarding this information is absurd. It is absurd, because it assumes that symbols never evoke other forms of perception, when it is manifest that the only reason symbols work at all is because they do.

Computers do not force us to leave our commonsense understanding of the world aside. Nothing could force us to do that. Not even one of Dreysfus's papers.

Five

Adam Gaffin wrote: Sure! Now add another reason to register: Get e-mail at 4:45 p.m. every weekday advising you of any traffic problems you might encounter on the ride home (brought to you by Aamco or Midas ...)

Now *that* is something I would sign up for (or would were I the sort of person who commutes in a large city). Send it directly to my car. Have the car advise me not to take my usual route home. Information about other parts of the city available on request.

I would sign up for it because I would understand that I cannot receive such information unless I tell the vendor where to send it. I may also be willing to provide demographic information (such as, where I work and where I live, more or less) because it is directly relevant to the information I am receiving.

I might tell you what kind of car I drive if the service also offered me information on things like service updates and recalls, gasoline prices and lineup lengths at service stations along my route, and related communter information.

The very same service delivered to PDAs or information managers might concern bus routes or commuter trains. It would be a real value to know just how far away the next bus is from my stop (some bus services are offering this already - but are newspapers?)

I don't know whether you call this 'news' but that's irrelevant. I don't segment out 'news' as a special sort of information in my life. The fact that the information marketplace segments it that way is mostly an accident of history. What we have is a voluntary exchange of informational value for informational value. Nothing wrong with that.

Terry Steichen wrote: I disagree, particularly from the providers' perspective. News publishers *must* keep some kind of a central news focus, or they risk losing their identity and their offering will degenerate into an informational hodge-podge. They'll end up competing with everyone and no one at the same time, trying to be all things to all people.

Hm.

It didn't bother them when they added a sports section and assigned reporters to travel with the team, reporters who over time came to be seen as part of the team.

It didn't bother them when they added an entertainment section and began running glossy publication stills and prefab promos for upcoming releases.

It didn't bother them when they added a lifestyles section and began running recipes, horoscopes, Dear Abby and the daily comics.

It didn't bother them when they added a fashion section, draped scantily clad models with no underwear on their front page, and featured in-depth articles on the trouble with treacle.

It didn't bother them when they added 'Wheels', a secton consisting of one page of text-based promo for a new car line and eleven pages of car ads.

It didn't bother them when they added the home and gardening section, featuring columns written by marketing representatives for city nurseries and planting advice offered by seed houses.

It didn't bother them when they added a travel section, running glossy images of idyllic beaches (shanties carefully concealed by shade trees) provided by travel agencies and travelogues written by employees of these travel agencies.

Why should it bother them now?

Epilogue

There is a tension between the producers of media, both online and traditional, and between the consumers of this media. Greater connectivity and greater capacity for content creation have given the concumers the capacity to produce their own media, and this poses what is deemed to be unacceptable competition to the consumers, who find that their traditional modes of production, business models and distribution channels are threatened. In every domain, it seems, we hear the call for a closed network, whether it be in the form of bundled libraries, proprietary social networking sites, digital rights and authentication, learning design, or media formats. The developers of processes and standards for these multiple domains, heeding the demands of the producers, are complying with development that have the effect, if not the intent, of preserving a one-way flow of communication. Slowly, however, the consumers who create are developing their own technologies, standards and communication channels. This is a development that ought to embraced, not ignored or impeded. When we in education cease to heed the demands of traditional producers, and open ourselves wholeheartedly to the idea that content is created, distributed and owned by the consumer, only then will the promises of the network age be realized, and the era of online learning truely begun.

August 7, 2004 at 10:24 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home

Online Media Drop Gimmicks for Conventions

Yahoo! News - Online Media Drop Gimmicks for Conventions

Sat Jul 24,11:23 AM By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK - Gone from Internet coverage of the political conventions are most of the gimmicks, like 360-degree cameras that Web surfers can control from their homes. Also gone are television-style reports at USA Today's Web site and an original newscast from America Online Inc.

While 2004 brings better use of high-speed Internet connections, Flash animation technology and independent Web journalists known as bloggers, media organizations are largely returning to the basics on the Internet.

They are dropping the bells and whistles in favor of what they do best: covering the news.

Internet media descended on the 2000 conventions declaring a revolution, prompting many pundits to recall the arrival of television at a convention in 1948.

Last time, two online outlets, Pseudo Programs Inc. and AOL, produced original programming from skyboxes typically reserved for broadcasters. Republicans had their "Internet Alley," Democrats their "Internet Avenue" � where online outlets were grouped together in the media center.

Pseudo, out of cash, shut down just one month later. AOL passed on a skybox this year. Next week's Democratic National Convention in Boston won't have an Internet Alley or Avenue (though it will have "Bloggers Boulevard" for the independent bloggers making their debuts).

ABC News is dropping 360-degree images � "gimmicks that turned out to be a waste of time and energy," said Bernard Gershon, general manager for the ABC News Digital Media Group. "Except for the people who created it, very few people looked at it."

Though ABC plans only three hours of broadcast coverage all next week, it will run several more over the Internet, on mobile phones and through the relatively few TV sets capable of receiving digital signals.

The added video coverage, anchored by Peter Jennings, will be available on ABC's site to paid subscribers only, but the feed will be given for free to AOL customers, letting AOL focus on adding online polls, chat rooms and other interactive features for its subscribers.

While AOL's resources were "pretty spread" when it tried original programming in 2000, "now we can concentrate on what we know how to do and work with ABC on what they know how to do," said Lewis D'Vorkin, editor in chief for AOL News.

Not that the conventions will be devoid entirely of the bells and whistles common in 2000. The New York Times' Web site will have 360-degree images, while CNN's convention-floor webcam will offer 24-hour feeds, including those of janitors cleaning up.

But the focus will be on complementing other media, not duplicating or replacing them. MSNBC.com won't do gavel-to-gavel webcasts, and CNN's online video feed will draw upon fewer camera angles, reporters and analysts than its cable counterpart.

"If you're in front of the TV, that's where you should watch it," said Mitch Gelman, executive producer of CNN.com. "What you want to come to online for is for in-depth analysis and complementary elements like quizzes and quick votes."

He said the Web site will also be the place for people at work to catch up on the previous evening's proceedings, through transcripts and video clips available on demand.

USA Today, meanwhile, is dropping TV-style video, choosing not to compete with Web sites of broadcasters, given their extensive access to footage, said USAToday.com's editor in chief, Kinsey Wilson.

The site will instead focus on producing multimedia pieces using Flash, a technology for combining text, audio, photos and video. Its delivery is made easier by the growing availability of high-speed connections in homes.

The Boston Globe's Web site will supplement hometown coverage of the parties, protests and proceedings by asking readers with camera-equipped mobile phones to e-mail photos. Along with other media outlets, it also arranged with delegates to file blog entries.

In fact, blogs are being heralded this year just as traditional Internet outlets were four years ago.

Democrats have given media credentials to more than 30 independent bloggers. Many traditional news organizations, including The Associated Press, will have their own blogs offering analysis and insights. CNN's BlogWatch will review other blogs at the convention.

Sites are also committing less to better respond to news development. The Boston site is dropping prescheduled chat sessions, while the Times is forgoing its twice-daily, 20-minute video segments on politics.

"We wanted the flexibility to tell the story in the best possible way," said Leonard Apcar, editor in chief of the Times site.

With less emphasis on technology for the sake of technology, this year's coverage on the Internet will be mostly about playing to its strengths � reaching the work audience already done with the morning paper and lacking access to television.

"The big difference between here and four years ago is that the gee whiz element of the Internet has ended," said Stephen Bromberg, executive editor for Fox News Channel's Web site. "People now just expect to get the news from the Web site."

___

Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org

July 24, 2004 at 02:36 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

Not 'networking' as we know it

ITBusiness.ca

by Shane Schick
7/20/2004 5:00:00 PM - Why online tools are making social butterflies in the enterprise.

My colleague Greg Meckbach must occasionally wonder if he should rename his magazine, Communications & Networking. Although it's clear from the moment you thumb through its pages the publication covers everything of interest to systems administrators and Canadian telecom carriers, Greg still gets approached by public relations agencies with story ideas about the other form of networking. This audience for these ideas, which has traditionally conducted their affairs at golf clubs, cocktail parties and gallery openings, might be better served by something called Communications and Hobnobbing.

Over the last year, however, a growing interest around maintaining and expanding personal contacts through the Internet started to keep pace with face-to-face events. "Social networking" according to the online Wiki Encyclopedia, "allows the newly-populous Internet to serve as both a buffer and a safety net for introduction to friends by friends once possible only in person." Friendster is the obvious example, but there are many others, like Meetup or Orkut. There is some really interesting software in this area, particularly the open source Barnraiser.org for creating "digital youth centres" and StumbleUpon.com, a Web discovery service that integrates peer-to-peer and social networking principles with one-click blogging.

The tools behind social networking -- portals, e-mail and instant messaging -- are relatively simple, but the context in which they are used represent a unique style of collaborative content management. This is in part because, like auction sites that depend on reputable buyers and sellers, social networks succeed only by establishing trust relationships among the user base. This is something most business people will be very familiar with, which is why a few services have popped up exclusively for the executive class. As they mature, expect these sites (especially the new entrants) to distinguish themselves by an ever-narrowing set of niches. There will be social networks for accountants, for example, because only one accountant can understand another accountant. IT will be no different.

Vendors must realize this, which may explain part of the reasoning behind Microsoft's recent decision to integrate its Live Communications Server with AOL Instant Messaging, Yahoo! Messenger and its own MSN Messenger. This is a corporate-only play, and reflects an industry-wide expectation that these forms of communication will increasingly take part between offices, not dorm rooms. Researchers at the University of Michigan, meanwhile, are working on Small-World Instant Messaging (SWIM), which builds upon the idea behind social networking by profiling entries in each user's address book according to expertise. SWIM mines users' homepages and browser bookmarks, for example, to construct a keyword vector to represent the user's information identity and then deploys a referral agent that automatically handles the information-querying process. This saves users from asking one friend in their social network a question, only be passed on to someone else.

Enterprises have spent millions of dollars on knowledge management projects to keep their best practices in house, but social networks may take some of the most valuable data to the outside world. Particularly among contract workers and consultants, these networks may represent the only organization to which they feel any real loyalty. It's not just what you know, and it's not just who you know, either. Social networking is proving it's both.

July 20, 2004 at 06:47 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Living the Broadband Life

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Living the Broadband Life

By KATIE HAFNER
Published: July 15, 2004
San Diego
DEBRA GIBB has had a high-speed Internet connection in her home longer than anyone she knows. In late 1996, when Time Warner Cable began trials here for its cable modem service, Ms. Gibb leapt at the chance to become one of the first residential broadband users in the nation. She was beta tester No. 6 in San Diego, she said.

Since then, Ms. Gibb, 47, her husband, Tom, 46, and their teenage twin sons have been in the vanguard of the broadband way of life that now defines this city of 1.2 million people.

Like many San Diegans, the Gibb family use the Net for the same things people elsewhere do - e-mail, shopping, games, trip planning. But they do more of it. Broadband, with its "always on" connection, is so ingrained here that residents can't imagine life without it. For them, the Internet is like hot and cold running water - available 24 hours a day with a flick of the wrist.

San Diego was one of the first cities in the nation to get residential high-speed Internet connections, and some 55 percent of households with Internet access have high-speed cable modem or D.S.L. service - a higher percentage than in any other metropolitan area in the country, according to a survey by comScore Networks, a market research firm. Next in line, according to comScore, are Boston, where 53 percent of wired households have high-speed connections, and New York, with 51 percent.

San Diego and other cities with such heavy broadband use serve as signposts for what other cities might come to expect in a future when such service is an omnipresent and vital part of daily life.

Before getting in their cars, for instance, San Diegans routinely check traffic online. If conditions look unbearable they can use their broadband connections to work from home.

According to comScore, Internet users in San Diego are more likely than others elsewhere to shop online. They spend more money online than Internet users in other cities, and they visit more Web sites.

San Diegans use the Web to read the news, to check the tide's comings and goings and to tap into the surf-cams that line the local beaches so they can find the best waves.

They use the Web to reserve and renew library books and, increasingly, to buy their groceries.

Ms. Gibb, who until recently was vice president for operations at a local telecommunications company, does much of her shopping online, often starting with eBay. She still shops locally, she said, but seldom leaves the house before checking on essentials like a store's hours. She rarely uses her phone book. So steeped is she in the broadband way of life that when traveling, she will not even consider staying in a hotel that does not offer high-speed Internet access.

When the Gibbs were house-hunting three years ago and thinking of leaving Scripps Ranch, a sprawling development of about 12,000 homes at the northeast corner of San Diego, they found a house they loved in Poway, just three miles north.

"Everything about it was perfect," Ms. Gibb said. "It had a great layout, and five acres. Everything." But when they found out that no broadband service was available in the neighborhood, they decided not to buy. "It was like saying there was no electricity," she said.

San Diegans use the Web to buy their cars, and if they could go online to fill their gas tanks, they would. "You can't buy gas online, but you can track gas prices locally," said Mark Juergensen, 43, a Scripps Ranch resident who, like Ms. Gibb, was one of the earliest broadband users in San Diego.

Scripps Ranch was one of the first places in San Diego to get Time Warner's high-speed service, called Road Runner. The average annual income in Scripps Ranch is $73,000, and that relative affluence is one of the reasons it was chosen as a testbed.

For Mr. Juergensen, a software engineer, the benefits of his broadband connection go well beyond online price comparisons. His company is 45 minutes north of Scripps Ranch, in San Clemente, and he is able to work from home two or three days a week. That would not be possible if he had only a dial-up connection. "File sizes have gotten too big," he said. "It's rare I work with anything that isn't 10 megabytes."

July 17, 2004 at 06:17 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

Fiat and Microsoft team up to surf Web in car

Fiat and Microsoft team up to surf Web in car

MILAN (Reuters) - Surfing the Web while in a car might not seem the easiest thing to do but Italian carmaker Fiat and software giant Microsoft say they plan to make it an everyday reality.

The two companies said on Thursday they had signed a long-term strategic partnership to make the inside of a car as tech-friendly as a state-of-the-art desk with Internet, phone and digital organiser, but with no need to use your hands.

With the arrival of hands-free sets and Bluetooth wireless technology people are already used to chatting on their mobile phones from the steering wheel.

But the new Fiat-Microsoft venture aims to enable drivers to talk to a computer to surf the Web, tell the sound system to play a different song and even let a garage engineer check out the car's electronic system from afar.

More and more cars, especially at the high-end, are equipped with route mappers and even televisions.

Last month Apple Computer Inc. also unveiled an adapter enabling users of its iPod digital music player to connect them to the stereo systems in some BMW and BMW Mini Cooper cars using standard controls on the steering wheel.

While other mass automakers are stripping down electronic systems -- one of the most complex parts of a car -- Fiat said it was committed to spearheading in-car technology and the deal will likely bring such features to the average driver.

"Fiat Auto has always developed...innovative cars that are affordable to everyone," Pieter Knook of Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices unit said in a statement.

"We are very enthusiastic about working with them and giving people the best and yet most practical solutions...giving them a more pleasant and safer experience".

July 15, 2004 at 11:39 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home

Household Internet Use Survey

The Daily, Thursday, July 8, 2004. Household Internet Use Survey

2003
The number of Canadian households surfing the Internet continued to grow in 2003 according to the Household Internet Use Survey. However, growth rates remained relatively stable largely because the majority of households were already plugged in.

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An estimated 7.9 million (64%) of the 12.3 million Canadian households had at least one member who used the Internet regularly in 2003, either from home, work, school, a public library or another location. This was a 5% increase from 2002, but well below the annual gains of 19% and 24% observed in 2000 and 2001.

Households with high income, members active in the labour force, those with children still living at home and people with higher levels of education have been in the forefront of Internet adoption.

Internet use was highest at home. About 6.7 million households had at least one member who regularly used the Internet from home, a gain of 7% since 2002. These households accounted for nearly 55% of the total, up from 51% in 2002.

Lower income households are making strides in logging on. Nearly 45% (1.3 million) of the households with income between $24,001 and $43,999, had someone who used the Internet from home in 2003, which is up 13% from 2002. This group of households had the highest growth in connections from home and work, as well as the combination of various locations. In contrast, the proportion of households regularly using the Internet from home remained relatively unchanged for the lowest income quartile.

Canadians continue their quest for speed
Of the nearly 6.7 million households with a regular user from home in 2003, an estimated 4.4 million (65%) had a high-speed link to the Internet through either a cable or telephone connection. This was up from 56% a year earlier.

At the same time, the proportion of households that had a low-speed connection fell from 44% in 2002 to 35% last year. Internet service providers have increased their expenditures on high-speed infrastructure in a competitive battle to provide subscribers with a wider range of online services.

Note to readers
The Household Internet Use Survey (HIUS) was conducted as a subsample of the Labour Force Survey. The HIUS collected information on the household as a whole. In total, 34,674 households were eligible for the HIUS and 23,113 (66.7%) responded. Data gathered in January 2004 covered household Internet use for the 2003 calendar year.

The respondent provided a proxy response to questions for all members of the household. Of households indicating that they regularly used the Internet, about 89% of the individuals who answered the survey for their household were one of the members that regularly used the Internet from various locations.

Regular-use households are those that responded "yes" to the question "In a typical month, does anyone in the household use the Internet?"

Of the estimated 4.4 million households with high-speed connection, the majority (61%) had a link through cable. The remaining 39% had a high-speed telephone connection, also known as a digital subscriber line, or DSL.

However, the number of DSL connections increased nearly 30% in 2003, compared with a gain of only 21% for cable. This may be an indication of price competitiveness of DSL over cable connections, or increased accessibility of households to high-speed telephone infrastructure within their neighbourhood.

Fewer households report downloading music
More and more households were using the Internet to search for medical or health-related information or to use online banking services. However, fewer reported downloading music.

Just under 38% of regular users from home reported downloading music in 2003, down from a high of 48% in 2001. This may be the result of a highly-publicized campaign by the music industry against downloading music for free.

Almost two-thirds (65%) of households had at least one member who used the Internet to search for medical or health-related information, compared with 61% in 2001. This was the third most popular use after e-mail and general browsing.

About 57% of households using the Internet at home had someone who accessed online banking services, well above the proportion of 44% in 2001, the biggest proportional gain of any use. This growth may indicate consumers are becoming more confident in the Internet's security aspects.

Four in five high-income households had Internet at home
The survey divided households into four equal groups based on income, each representing 25% of the income spectrum from highest to lowest.

In 2003, 82% of households in the highest income group had a member who used the Internet from home. This was more than double the proportion of 33% among these households five years earlier. However the strongest growth (+13%) was observed in the second income quartile, households with income between $24,001 and $43,999.

Rates of Internet use still varied substantially across family types, with children still a key factor. Single-family households with unmarried children under the age of 18 had the highest rate of Internet use from home last year, about 73%.

However, growth rates in Internet use from home were strongest among single-family households without children and one-person households. The number of households in each group increased just over 11%.

Also, the higher the level of education in the household, the more likely it is to have an Internet connection from home. Nearly 77% of households with someone with a university degree were connected from home.

In contrast, only about 12% of households in which the highest level of attainment was less than high school were connected from home. However, households with high school attainment grew fastest.

Internet use highest in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta
Internet use from home increased in most provinces in 2003. The highest rates of use were in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta where roughly 6 out of every 10 households were connected to the Internet at home.

All the other provinces had rates of Internet use from home that were below the national average of 55%.

Some of the biggest proportional increases occurred in the Atlantic provinces. In Nova Scotia, for example, the proportion of households connected to the Internet from home increased from 46% in 2002 to nearly 53% last year. The gain in New Brunswick was from 37% to nearly 43%.

Of the 7.9 million households in census metropolitan areas, about 58% or 4.6 million were connected to the Internet from home in 2003, just above the national average. This was an increase from 55% in 2002.

Slight reduction in non-connected households
In 2003, 809,000 households indicated that a member of the household either used the Internet infrequently, or had pulled the plug entirely. The size of this group had remained constant for three years, but was slightly reduced this year.

In 2003, about 3.6 million Canadian households had never used the Internet. Most of the households in this group (87%) were either families without children or one-person households.

As well, many of these non-users earned below-average household income with 49% of non-users in the lowest group.

Available on CANSIM: tables 358-0002 to 358-0006 and 358-0017.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4432.

Additional data tables related to the information presented in this release are available online. From the Canadian statistics page, choose Culture, leisure and travel, then Internet.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Jonathan Ellison (613-951-5882; jonathan.ellison@statcan.ca), Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division.

July 8, 2004 at 05:20 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

JohnKerry.com May Have to Do Without 'Edwards'

washingtonpost.com: JohnKerry.com May Have to Do Without 'Edwards'

By David McGuire
Special to the Washington Post
Wednesday, July 7, 2004; Page E01
Indianapolis native Kerry Edwards is feeling pretty good about his decision to immortalize his name on the Web six years ago.

Yesterday, shortly after presidential candidate John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) announced that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) will be his running mate, the 34-year-old bail bondsman and owner of Kerryedwards.com said he took down the picture of his child that graced the Web site and put up a for-sale sign.

It didn't take long for the phone to ring.

"Our campaign did inquire about KerryEdwards.com, but because of the money they were asking for, we took a pass," said Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan. He said Edwards wanted a five-figure payment.

Edwards said he did not discuss an exact figure with the campaign, and he would not name a price in an interview. But he did say the price would have to be right for him to part with the now-hot address. "I'm not going to give away my name for $1,000," he said.

He added that one person offered him $15,000 for the domain and that another offered to split advertising revenue generated from the page. He wouldn't identify either bidder.

Meehan said the Kerry organization, at least for now, will stick with its Web address, www.johnkerry.com. "It's a site we've branded, and we have over a million subscribers and we're looking to decide what we're doing going forward."

Edwards's potential windfall highlights a 21st-century quandary for the newly christened Kerry-Edwards campaign, which may hit a snag if it tries to break ground on a new online home.

Web addresses ending in .com and .org can cost $8 to $35. Ever since the Internet became popular, many people have speculated that the Internet domains they buy today could be worth thousands, or maybe millions, of dollars tomorrow.

Other obvious choices for a campaign Web site -- including KerryEdwards04.com, KerryEdwards2004.com, and KerryEdwards-2004.com -- have already been registered, according to publicly available Internet records. The listed owners of those sites could not be reached yesterday.

Internet records identified the owner of the addresses Kerry-Edwards.com, Kerry-Edwards2004.com and Kerry-Edwards2008.com as Kevin Draftz of Chicago. A man who answered the phone at the Web sites' contact number identified himself as Draftz. He described himself as a 42-year-old "lifelong Democrat" and said he wants the Kerry campaign to pay him "thousands of dollars" for the addresses Kerry-Edwards.com, Kerry-Edwards2004.com and Kerry-Edwards2008.com. He bought the addresses on Jan. 19, the day of the Iowa caucuses.

"I'm now just waiting to hear from Mr. Kerry," he said, adding that the campaign had not called as of late yesterday afternoon. He said that his first choice of buyers is the Kerry campaign but that he would not rule out the possibility of selling to the competition. One proud owner of a handful of Kerry-Edwards domains says he will not turn them loose for any price. Mark Alexander is the editor of the Chattanooga, Tenn., Federalist Patriot, a conservative e-mail journal with 500,000 subscribers. Alexander said he bought Kerry-Edwards04.net, Kerry-Edwards04.org and Kerry-Edwards04.info in 2003.

"We predicted early on in this thing that this would be a Kerry win and that he would almost have to pick Edwards as his running mate," Alexander said. All of Alexander's Kerry-Edwards addresses link to a Web site designed to look like Kerry's official site but are loaded with criticism of the candidate. The site's banner reads "John Kerry President?"

Democrats have also registered Web sites that attack the other side's candidates. Zach Exley, a Kerry-Edwards staffer and the former online chief of MoveOn.org, owns the anti-George Bush Web site www.gwbush.com.

Alexander said he ran the site by his lawyers, who concluded that because he was not trying to extort money from the Kerry campaign, he was not "cybersquatting."

A 1999 law made it illegal to register an Internet domain name with the intention of forcing a trademark owner or a namesake to pay to reclaim it. The Internet addressing system's main oversight body also disapproves of the practice and offers a dispute resolution process for people who feel their names or trademarks have been improperly registered as Internet addresses in a bid to extort money.

But "use for political commentary is clearly okay," said Wendy Seltzer, a staff attorney for the San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation and an expert in intellectual property law. Seltzer said Edwards probably is not breaking the law because he registered the address in good faith several years before Kerry made his announcement.

But speculators who bought the domains to sell them to the Kerry campaign at higher prices might get in trouble if the campaign sues to recover them, Seltzer said. Draftz said he is aware of the law but does not think he is violating it.

David McGuire is a reporter for washingtonpost.com.

� 2004 The Washington Post Company

July 7, 2004 at 08:33 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology and its early adoption

Pew Internet & American Life Project: VoIP Awareness in America

While telephone calling using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has attracted considerable attention in the business community and among policymakers, 27% of Internet users in the United States – or 17% of all Americans – have heard of the service.

Full report follows:

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July 1, 2004 at 09:57 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (90) | Top of page | Blog Home

Program Lets Users Share Slices of Web

Yahoo! News - Program Lets Users Share Slices of Web

Sun Jun 27, 3:05 PM ETAdd Technology - AP to My Yahoo!

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Trolling the Internet (news - web sites) often yields cool tidbits, but they aren't easy to share. If you're planning a trip with friends, for example, and find six good hotel deals, you're probably just going to e-mail them six separate links to check out.

But what if you could send them a single Web page that had pictures and price lists for all six hotels, arranged neatly in boxes, captioned by your personal, witty commentary?

A free Web service being launched Monday by a startup called Amplify LLC lets you do precisely that. Amplify users can create their own pages, called "amps," filled entirely with content of their choosing � pictures, text, audio or video clips � and links back to the source material.

The result combines the look-what-I-found quality of Web logs with the free-form creativity of collage.

The goal is to help users overcome information overload by letting them experience the Internet as they shape it, "not just the way the Web is set up for them," said Eric Goldstein, the head of New York-based Amplify.

Users can share their amps with anyone else, even non-users, simply by sending them a link to it. The company also hopes strangers will share their amps on the Amplify Web site, turning it into a hub for collages of material on topics ranging from news to games.

The ability to share bits of content in a centralized setting will be familiar to people who have used collaborative work software programs such as Groove Networks or Lotus Notes.

But privately funded Amplify believes its service will stand out for being free and easy to use with the help of a browser toolbar. Amplify expects to derive revenue solely from advertising.

June 27, 2004 at 07:17 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

A Quiet Revolt Puts Costly Journals on Web

The New York Times > Books > A Quiet Revolt Puts Costly Journals on Web

By PAMELA BURDMAN
Published: June 26, 2004
When Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, decided to release a groundbreaking study in an upstart online journal, his colleagues were flabbergasted. The research, demonstrating how brain implants enabled monkeys to operate a robotic arm, was a shoo-in for acceptance in premier journals like Nature or Science.

"Usually you want to publish your best work in well-established journals to have the widest possible penetration," Dr. Nicolelis said. "My idea was the opposite. We need to open up the dissemination of scientific results." The journal Dr. Nicolelis chose � PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science � aims to do just that by putting peer-reviewed scientific papers online free, at the Web site www.plosbiology.org.

The high subscription cost of prestigious peer-reviewed journals has been a running sore point with scholars, whose tenure and prominence depend on publishing in them. But since the Public Library of Science, which was started by a group of prominent scientists, began publishing last year, this new model has been gaining attention and currency within academia.

More than money and success is at stake. Free and widespread distribution of new research has the potential to redefine the way scientific and intellectual developments are recorded, circulated and preserved for years to come.

"Society pays for science," said Dr. Nicolelis, whose article in the October issue of PLoS got worldwide attention. "We have the technology, we have the expertise. Why is it that the only thing that has remained the same for 50 years is the way we publish our results? The whole system needs overhaul."

At the big-sticker end are publications like The Journal of Comparative Neurology, for which a one-year institutional subscription has a list price of $17,995. Access to Brain Research goes for $21,269, around the price of a Toyota Camry XLE.

According to the Association of Research Libraries, journal prices went up 215 percent from 1986 to 2003, while the consumer price index rose 63 percent.

Though the highest-priced journals are in the sciences, libraries have had to offset those price increases by buying fewer books, often in other disciplines like literature and the humanities, association officials and librarians at the University of California said.

For those plotting end runs around for-profit publishers, a prime target is the Amsterdam-based Elsevier, which publishes some 1,800 journals in science, medicine and technology, including Brain Research.

"Elsevier doesn't write a single article," said Dr. Lawrence H. Pitts, a neurosurgeon at the University of California at San Francisco and chairman of the faculty senate of the 10-campus system. "Faculty write the articles for them, faculty review the articles for them and faculty mostly edit the journals for them, and then we get to buy the journals back from a company that makes a very large profit."

Similar sentiments motivated the editors and entire editorial board, 27 people in all, of Elsevier's Journal of Algorithms to defect en masse recently to start a nonprofit competitor, ACM � Transactions on Algorithms � said David S. Johnson, one of the editors.

Elsevier's managing director, John Regazzi, says the problem is not Elsevier's prices, but tight university budgets that can't meet the increasing volume of research worthy of publication. "Very few of our customers pay list price across all of their collections," he said. "If you look at the full cost of what an institution pays and you look at the number of downloads by users of the system, you're basically looking at $2 to $3 articles. We have a wide range of options for how universities can decide to subscribe." The company's pretax profit for the last three years has been between 30 and 34 percent, Mr. Regazzi said.

But more and more academics are viewing traditional publishers as obstacles to wide dissemination of studies paid for by public monies. Several open access alternatives are being hotly debated in academic online discussion groups and in the mainstream science press. The criticism even extends to some nonprofit publications, like the journal Science, which nearly tripled prices for its largest subscribers over the last two years.

Late last year, two scientists at the University of California at San Francisco called for a global boycott by authors and editors of six molecular biology journals published by Elsevier. They timed the campaign to coincide with the moment that the the University of California system was renegotiating its contract with the company.

"The mission and mandate of scientific publishing is to provide a formal record of scientific discovery, not to make publishing companies rich or editors famous," said one of the organizers, Keith R. Yamamoto, a prominent microbiologist and the vice dean for research.

Since University of California professors write, vet and edit a significant portion of Elsevier's wares, a deal was struck. The public university system reduced its bulk cost for online and print access to about 1,200 journals from $10.3 million last year to just $7.7 million annually for the next five years, according to published reports confirmed by Daniel Greenstein, the librarian of the university system. Other prestigious, but smaller universities are pursuing a different strategy.

"We have been cutting Elsevier journals and other for-profit journals as their prices have risen higher than inflation," said Michael Keller, the university librarian at Stanford. "The result is a fairly limited list � 400 Elsevier subscriptions."

PLoS became a publisher last year following a failed campaign to persuade journals to open up articles within six months of publication, said Michael B. Eisen, a computational biologist at Berkeley. Mr. Eisen is a co-founder of PLoS, with the biologist Dr. Patrick O. Brown of Stanford and Dr. Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel laureate who is chief executive of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and former director of the National Institutes of Health.

The editors of PLoS follow normal peer review procedures. For revenue, they rely on author fees of up to $1,500 per article (typically drawn from research monies), voluntary university memberships, and grants. Although these voluntary university memberships can run into the thousands, Mr. Eisen said, the advantage is unlimited public access to priceless intellectual heritage.

But Mr. Keller of the Stanford libraries, who produces the online versions of Science and about 360 other nonprofit journals through Stanford's HighWire Press, argues that the voluntary memberships are just subscriptions in disguise.

Dr. Nicolelis's appearance in PloS Biology's debut issue helped vindicate this new model. PLoS has since attracted papers from leading lights in science like Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford researcher and a winner of a MacArthur "genius" award. Wired magazine also favored the founders with an award in April for "cracking the spine of the science cartel."

Traditional publishers hint that despite their new cachet, open access publications aren't sustainable in the long run. PLoS Biology and the new PLoS Medicine, due out this fall, are heavily subsidized by grants.

Dr. Alan I. Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says his publication, Science, already coping with the loss of print subscribers and advertisers, would have to charge authors $10,000 an article to survive in the open access mode. He also noted that revenues from Science � which was started by Thomas Edison � support some of association's programs, including one to provide free access to scientists in the developing world.

"I agree with the motivation," Dr. Leshner said, but added, "We just can't throw away a business model developed by Thomas Edison in 1880 based on `Trust me, it will work.' "

But to others, old models are precisely the problem. "Surely the combination of uncertainty and hope associated with this unproved model is vastly superior to the certainty and hopelessness that surrounds the current and failed commercial one," Mr. Greenstein of the University of California system wrote as part of a running debate about open access publishing on nature.com.

The pressure is beginning to have an effect. More publishers have begun opening their archives 6 to 12 months after publication. Molecular Biology of the Cell, published by the American Society for Cell Biology, now opens up its archives after two months, and as its editor-in-chief, Mr. Yamamoto hopes to convert the journal to open access soon. Even Elsevier made a recent concession to university libraries that are moving into digital publishing and archiving, offering blanket permission for authors to post their journal articles on their own institutions' Web sites.

"We're watching open access very carefully," Mr. Regazzi said. "We're trying to learn from it."

June 26, 2004 at 04:00 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (50) | Top of page | Blog Home

LCBO uncorks document-sharing project

ITBusiness.ca

6/23/2004 5:00:00 PM - Real-time information exchange with Microsoft EPM speeds task completion

by Robert Smol

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is in the process of completing trials aimed at centralizing its project management environment.

The system will comprise Microsoft Project Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services. Once implemented, it will significantly decrease the time and effort needed to pass project-related information between users and will allow easier tracking of project status by managers, according to the LCBO.

"We wanted greater efficiency and ease of access by centralizing our projects on a common location, a common server," said Ivor Davies systems analyst for the LCBO. "We wanted to have all our all our IT projects in one common location where everyone was using a standard template, a standard calendar."

Microsoft�s EPM (Enterprise Project Management Overview) technology will allow executives and other stakeholders access to project-specific information including real-time updates on project status.

"The executives and a lot of the people who were the stakeholders in charge of the projects weren�t really getting a lot of visibility into what was going on with the projects" said Joe Galati, product manager for Microsoft Office Project. "You might have to say, �OK, I want a report on these projects.� Then people would have to go off and running, go to their reports, have their meetings, and, after a few weeks, come back and give an update."

Such a cumbersome system made it difficult for managers to assess whether or not projects were on track.

Heather Collins, manager of end-user computing at the LCBO said that Microsoft EPM technologies provides a single point of contact for all project-related information such as timelines, documentation, status reports, communiqu�s, and group collaboration. The features within Microsoft Enterprise Project Management will allow her company to put a document up, and have all parties put their input into the document.

"Everything is in a single point so that you know exactly where you are going to get it, and for documentation, it is not being passed back and forth between people via e-mail or hard copy," she said.

"There is a very easy to use and familiar interface to actually find out what tasks you have to work on, and update your tasks," said Galati.

Collins said the LCBO will be able to dispense with the long, laborious meetings where participants are required to go through a document section by section ensuring everyone has their input.

A 50-person pilot project will be completed by the end of this month. The LCBO plans to begin a full implementation in July.

June 25, 2004 at 09:54 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home

Poorer people closing PC gap

By TERRY WEBER
Globe and Mail Update Four out of five Canadian households now have a personal computer, and while a disparity still exists, those with lower incomes are closing the ownership gap, a new survey suggested Wednesday.

The study, conducted by research firm ACNielsen, said 81 per cent of Canadian households now own at least one computer, up from 78 per cent in 2003.

The biggest gains, the survey said, were made by low-income and older households.

According to the findings, households with annual incomes below $20,000 saw a 5-per-cent increase in computer ownership from last year. Sixty-three of households in that bracket now have PCs, compared with 58 per cent year earlier.

On the other end of the spectrum, 93 per cent of households with incomes over $70,000 had computers, up from 91 per cent in 2003.

�While disparities in PC ownership still exist, decreasing prices are making computers much more affordable for those at even the lowest end of the income spectrum,� Sharon Skurnac, senior director of consumer marketing for ACNielsen Canada, said in the report.

By age, the biggest increase was seen in households headed by someone in the 5- to-64 bracket, with ownership rising 6 per cent to 81 per cent in 2004.

The highest overall ownership percentage, however, was in the 35-to-44 group. Eight-seven per cent of households headed by a person in that age range had a PC.

The findings were based on a survey of 10,000 households, conducted in the first quarter of this year.

The study also found that computer upgrades accounted for much of the PC purchase activity. About half of the households that own a computer said the PC they most recently purchased was a replacement for an older model.

Fifteen per cent said it was an additional PC for the home, and 25 per cent said it was a first-time purchase.

About 69 per cent of households also reported spending more time on the computer than they did a year earlier. More than three-quarters of PC-owning households use their computers mostly for e-mail.

June 24, 2004 at 01:49 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home

Reagan Casts Giant Shadow Online

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Fri Jun 11,10:19 PM ETAdd Technology - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo!

By Robert MacMillan, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) was a giant on the American political landscape, so it's no surprise to find the late president standing just as tall on the Internet, casting a formidable shadow, virtually speaking, across cyberspace.

The last time a former U.S. president passed away -- Richard M. Nixon on April 22, 1994 -- the World Wide Web was just a toddler. But this is the first time that the United States has lost a president -- especially one who inspired equal amounts of love and loathing -- in the full swing of the digital age.

It would be easy to gauge the "Reagan effect" on the Internet by plugging in the number of Google search results from typing in "Ronald Reagan" (1.45 million) or those of Yahoo (2.35 million). But those numbers lie in more than one way. At the very least, they reveal an unprecedented outpouring of sadness, praise, scorn and historical chronicles of varying degrees of accuracy.

Following is a tiny cross-section of the Internet that highlights some of the major and most interesting online sources of information on Reagan. It is by no means comprehensive, but it attempts to use the Internet to assemble the most basic mosaic out of the bottomless well of information that people have posted online about the 40th president.

The Straight Story

There are several "official" sources of information on Reagan. The White House gives a brief biographical sketch with links to a biography of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, portraits of the Reagans and similar entries on every other president. Also see Reagan's biography as produced by the state of California.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library has an enormous photo gallery and a trove of other information such as videotapes of his speeches that can be ordered from the site. Reaganlibrary.com is a separate site but also is an official part of the presidential library. It includes interesting links to a list of gifts the Reagans received (it is partially finished at this time) and handwritten letters to Soviet premiers Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev. The site also features an exhaustive list of books chronicling Reagan's life and times.

In a similar vein, 2,800 pages of Reagan's archives are available for purchase at Paperless Archives. One of the best excerpts is a letter from Nixon to Reagan dated Aug. 13, 1987: "You gave the lie to the crap about your being over-the-hill, discouraged, etc... Don't ever comment on the Iran-Contra [sic] matter again... The committee labored for nine months and produced a stillborn midget. Let it rest in peace!"

The U.S. Army, Military District of Washington provides information on the military's involvement in Reagan's funeral arrangements and a biography of Maj. Gen. Galen B. Jackman, Nancy Reagan's military escort during the viewing and funeral process.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation includes a condolence book and a lengthy tributes list from heads of state such as U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and former President Jimmy Carter, as well as an uncharacteristically perfunctory e-mail from National Review founder and Editor-at-Large William F. Buckley.

Reagan's life in Hollywood gets thorough treatment from the Internet Movie Database, which notes that Reagan, among his many other performances, was the chief victim of a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1973. If you're curious about what films the Reagans watched on their weekend jaunts to Camp David, a full list is here.

The Medical Dossier

The George Washington University Medical Center in Washington is home to the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine. Reagan was treated at the hospital in 1981 after surviving an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr.

But Reagan's legacy leaves its greatest impact on medicine in the form of Alzheimer's research. Reagan informed the nation in 1994 that he was suffering from the incurable disease, leading to more attention and research funding to understand its causes and to seek a cure. The Alzheimer's Association has a special section on its Web site dedicated to the late president. Among them: a page asking users to donate money toward Alzheimer's research in Reagan's name, and information on grants handed out by the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute for studying Alzheimer's.

They Praised Him...

Many sites eulogize Reagan, elevating him with the sort of adulation that few other American notables have ever managed to claim. Americans for Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist -- himself a not-so-behind-the-scenes architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution in the U.S. Congress -- runs the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project. Its most ambitious goal at this time seems to be an effort to replace Alexander Hamilton's face on the $10 bill with Reagan's. Publius press also features "comprehensive" roundups on Reagan at Reagan2020.com.

Presidentreagan.info, run by a group called Kottmann Consulting, presents a glowing tribute to Reagan. The site contains defenses of his presidential policies, a biography, a blog and links to sites like the Franklin Mint that offer Reagan-themed gifts.

Ronaldreagan.com offers similar information. Its gift shop (also available in German and Spanish) features a $149 presidential bomber jacket, a photograph of Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in matching jeans, blue buttoned-down shirts and cowboy hats. It also offers a Reagan "quote of the day." (Today it's: "Excellence demands competition. Without a race there can be no champion, no records broken, no excellence--in education or in any other walk of life.")

Young America's Foundation hosts Reaganranch.org, which provides visitors with a map and virtual tour of the Reagans's Rancho del Cielo. The foundation bills itself as a site where young people can learn about Reagan and "his ideals of individual freedom, limited government, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values."

So what did they name after Reagan, anyway? There's a good list (and here's another), but a sampling includes: an aircraft carrier, a high school in San Antonio, Texas, elementary schools in Bakersfield, Calif., and Nampa, Idaho, the Ronald Reagan Middle School in hometown Dixon, Ill., the Reagan building in Washington, D.C., Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., and even the Reagan suite at the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

And speaking of what you can buy, eBay and Amazon.com feature a number of auctions but relatively small numbers of buyers. One popular item on eBay is a sketch of a horse that Reagan, a prodigious doodler, once drew (his inscription reads: "Told you I could not draw"). Forty bids were placed for this item, with the winner paying $2001.89. Also see the "Bowl one for the Gipper" T-shirt and the action figure.

And They Skewered Him...
The Onion handled Reagan with its usual questionable taste -- a brief item on George W. Bush turning the Reagan funeral into a $5,000-a-plate fundraiser and a note that Nancy Reagan is "available at 82."

Liberal satire site Whitehouse.org lets visitors play the Ronald Reagan Memory Game, a variation on whack-a-mole featuring the Reagans, Oliver North and Michael Jackson among others. Also featured are several vintage posters showing how the Gipper used to hawk Chesterfields. The site, aiming for a balance of whimsy and clumsy humor, concludes that Reagan was "an affably senile zombie propped up by a Nixon-groomed cabal of brilliantly nefarious underlings." Damnation by faint praise?

Quickchange.com labeled Reagan's two-term presidency the "Bonzo years" and posted a selection of as many as Reagan's real and reported gaffes that they could find. Deoxy.org pointed out that one anagram of "Ronald Wilson Reagan" is "Insane Anglo Warlord." Other reported quotations are available here.

Reagan and the Press
Online news sites have devoted thousands of words and photos, audio and video, to Ronald Reagan. In Dixon, where Reagan attended high school, the local paper links to an outside group's tribute site and offers a host of locally focused articles.

MSN's Slate site includes several years' worth of articles, including Christopher Hitchens's "Not Even a Hedgehog: The Stupidity of Ronald Reagan" and "Ron and Mikhail's Excellent Adventure: How Reagan Won the Cold War" by Fred Kaplan.

CNN.com features a package full of galleries, stories, video and audio clips. The "in his own words" gallery is a nice touch, offering pictures of the former president next to some of his more memorable quotations.

The New York Times has a slick flash presentation that offers five short videos on different aspects of Reagan's life including an interesting segment about his early days in Hollywood. The Times's Steven Weisman narrates all of the segments.

Oliver North reminisces about the "greatest president of my lifetime" in a three-part series on Fox News. The site also offers Fox fans an opportunity to pay tribute Reagan in a segment called Mourning the Gipper.

ABC News offers a couple of interesting pieces on Alzheimer's -- one on Reagan's battle with the disease -- and another focusing on ways to stop the disease.

CBS News resuscitates a 1989 poll claiming that Reagan had a 68 percent approval rating when he left office.

MSNBC is chockablock with Reagan special features, including a useful interactive "where are they now" guide to some Gipper-era luminaries (about three-quarters of the way down this article), both famous and infamous, including Alexander Haig, Caspar Weinberger, Margaret Thatcher and John Hinckley Jr. Also see the BBC's story on the special relationship between Thatcher and Reagan, as well as interesting insights on Reagan's international stature.

--washingtonpost.com Staff Writer David McGuire contributed to this article.

June 12, 2004 at 11:19 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Broadband options improve for country dwellers

TheStar.com - Broadband options improve for country dwellers

ELLEN ROSEMAN

Laura and Tom Byrne are lawyers in Columbus, Ohio. Each summer, they pack up their kids and head to a cottage they own on an island in Lake Temagami, an hour's drive north of North Bay.
"We have a phone, but no electricity," says Laura Byrne. "We use a generator for the computer and we have propane lights and fridge. We're roughing it with all the modern conveniences."

They had no reliable Internet service until they installed a satellite system earlier this year. The cost was $1,650 for the dish, plus $130 for monthly service.

With a wireless router, both husband and wife can be on the Internet at the same time.

"The connection is as fast as from my office," Byrne says. "This opens a lot of doors. When we're gone, it will make it easier to handle the business."

If you want to work from a remote location, a good Internet connection is essential. But high-speed service by telephone or cable is not always available.

That's where a satellite-based connection comes in. More expensive than a dial-up Internet connection, it can pay for itself with the extra business revenue you generate.

"For anyone who wants high-speed Internet in a rural area, this is the only alternative," said a reader, who moved from a downtown Toronto condo to a country house near Stratford last year.

"Cost should not be an issue if you need it to operate a business from a rural setting. Besides, you can write off the cost as part of your expenses."

Hughes Electronics Corp., a large U.S. company, makes the Direcway satellite dish. It's sold in Canada by a number of licenced distributors, including Bell ExpressVu.

"High-speed Internet by telephone covers almost 80 per cent of our territories in Ontario and Quebec," says Yannick Boutin, a Bell spokesperson.

"But with the satellite solution, called DirecPC, almost anyone can get it."

Keep in mind that the dish must have a clear line of sight to the sky where the satellite is located.

The Byrnes worried about having to cut down trees on their two-acre property. But the company that installed their satellite, Galaxy Broadband Communications Inc. in Oakville, managed to work around the trees.

"If there's no clear line of sight, you can always put up a dish in your neighbour's yard and run a long cable to your house," says president Rick Hodgkinson.

Galaxy launched the satellite modem for people working in remote areas last October. It has close to 1,000 customers, including a woman who lives on a mountain top without electricity or telephone.

"She's a documentation writer for a large software company," Hodgkinson says. "With our service, she can send and receive large files ... instead of making a treacherous weekly commute to town."

Hughes has introduced a system with improved upload speeds, he says. That's important since the service uses a phone line to request information from, or send files to, the Web.

The upload is about twice as fast as a dial-up connection � "at best," says Hodgkinson � while the download of information through the satellite is about 10 times as fast.

(For more information on high-speed Internet by satellite, go to http://www.bell.ca and search for DirecPC. You can also go to http://www.galaxybroadband.ca or http://www.lincsat.com.)

Another choice for remote users is the accelerated Internet service offered by Netscape Online. Using technology created and manufactured by Slipstream Data of Waterloo, it can improve the speed of a regular dial-up connection without any additional hardware.

Internet access is made faster by compressing images and text on Web pages before they are sent to your phone line. The data travels over phone lines faster because there is less of it.

(For more information, go to http://join.netscape.ca.)

Ian Sanderson lives on a farm near Durham, northwest of Toronto. He recently switched to Netscape Online for a monthly cost of $18.95, less than what he used to pay for his Internet service.

"I can load pages in the blink of an eye," he says. "It's a lot faster than the dial-up I had before."

Sanderson works as a police officer in Durham. He uses the Internet to play online games and get e-mail, not for business.

"I'm as rural as you can get, definitely the middle of nowhere," he says. "I live off a major highway, way down a dirt road."

Accelerated dial-up is a new category of Internet service. There are many regional providers, but Netscape is the only national service.

"It's more mature in the United States, where high-speed Internet is more expensive than in Canada," says Steven Koles, general manager of Netscape.

According to his research, 35 per cent of Canadian households do not have access to high-speed Internet by telephone or cable. As for satellite, it's expensive to install and may have performance issues (because of the slow upload).

Launched last November, the accelerated Internet from Netscape is available in 1,000 locations from Victoria, B.C. to St. John's, Nfld. You can check the Web site to see if it's offered where you live.

"There's nothing to install, no hardware, unlike high-speed Internet," says Koles. "It's all done with software."

Next week, we'll continue our series on moving to the country. How can you buy a plot of land for under $20,000 and pay for it with a credit card?

June 7, 2004 at 08:05 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

Human Responses to Technology Scrutinized

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By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer
Not long ago, a British poll found that three quarters of people have hit their computers in frustration.

A German carmaker recalled an automobile with a computerized female voice issuing navigation information -- because many men refused to take directions from "a woman."

A study found that people try to be nice to their own computers: They are more likely to report problems with the machine when asked about it while working on a different computer.

Psychologists, marketers and computer scientists are coming to realize that people respond to technology in intensely emotional ways. At a conscious level, people know their computers and cars are inanimate, but some part of the human brain seems to respond to machines as if they were human.

"The way people interact with technology is the way they interact with each other," said Rosalind Picard, director of Affective Computing Research at the MIT Media Lab, during a recent lecture in Washington organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (news - web sites).

The tech world is slowly catching up to this insight as well. From automated voice systems that greet callers by saying, "Hi, this is Amtrak. I'm Julie!" to sophisticated programs that can register human emotions, applications of "affective computing" are growing rapidly.

Marketers see a gold mine in this research, which holds the promise of increasing sales in the same way that cheerful and helpful salespeople at a store are more likely to sell mechandise than are clerks who are surly.

At the same time, the work raises troubling ethical questions. They range from whether it is deceitful to encourage people to interact with technology as if it were human to deeper concerns about what it would mean if computers could really form emotional "relationships" with people.

Today, such concerns seem remote, because most technologies are almost deliberately antisocial -- computers do not respond to emotional cues such as frustration, anger or anything else -- and regularly act "inappropriately." (What person, other than one of Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s movie characters, would ever say, "You have performed an illegal operation"?)

In one familiar example, cited by Picard: You're on deadline. A character barges in when you are very busy. It offers useless advice and does not notice when you get annoyed. It is impervious to hints. You explicitly tell the character to go away and, in response, it winks and dances a jig.

Picard flashed a slide of the ubiquitous Microsoft Office Assistant, the paperclip icon with the sly smile -- an example of a program oblivious to a computer user's emotions. Picard's research has shown that as annoyance with a computer grows, people grip the mouse more tightly and tense up in their chairs. Other studies have found that large numbers of people have kicked their computers or hurled abuse at them.

Scientists are responding in two ways to demands for "emotionally intelligent" computing. The first involves designing ways for a computer to read a person's emotions. Special sensors on seats can deduce from a person's posture whether she is interested or bored. Other sensors measure heart rate to tell when someone is stressed; a camera can determine whether a brow is furrowed. Through complex computer processing, explained Karen Liu, a graduate student in Picard's lab, these signals are registered as signals of confusion or frustration.

"In a way," Liu said, "we are giving machines eyes and ears."

Other software can then respond appropriately. At the MIT Media Lab, which studies how electronic information overlaps with the everyday world, robots are being programmed to help people recognize when they are stressed and to remind them to relax and avoid repetitive-strain injuries.

Similar techniques are being used to enhance teaching software -- by detecting when a student's interest is flagging.

The second, cruder approach involves encouraging people to believe that machines respond in social ways. The automated reservation systems used by Amtrak and many airlines fall into this category. When done right, said Clifford Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford University and a pioneer in understanding the ways people relate to machines, users go along with the deception. Done wrong -- when "Julie" cannot respond to a simple question, for instance -- people get even more frustrated than they would be with a machine that makes no pretense at being human.

"It turns out if 'Julie' speaks in that machine-like speech, people hate it when it says, 'I,' " Nass said. "They think it's clear you are not an 'I.' When it is recorded speech, people are more comfortable with the 'I' -- up to the point it fails them."

The second approach also plays on people's vanity. People usually prefer a spellchecker program that occasionally compliments them on getting a tough word right, Nass said.

Matching a person's personality with advertising messages might radically increase sales, Nass said. For instance, Amazon.com might sell more books if it found out whether a customer is an introvert or an extrovert by asking whether he prefers going to a party or reading a good book -- and then tailoring descriptions of products accordingly. Introverts tend to like factual messages; they distrust flowery language. Extroverts are the opposite, Nass said.

The researcher said that software can help students learn better when a virtual "teacher" is accompanied by a virtual "student." That way, Nass said, the "teacher" can occasionally direct questions to the virtual student, and the real student does not feel picked on all the time. And the virtual student creates an illusion of a classroom setting, in which the real student can receive praise from both the "teacher" and a virtual peer.

Such techniques, Nass said, are really no different than the routine deceptions in human interactions. "We spend enormous amounts of time teaching children to deceive -- it's called being polite or social. The history of all advertising is about deceiving. In education, it's often important to deceive people -- sometimes you say, 'Boy you are really doing good,' not because you meant it but because you thought it would be helpful," Nass said.

"When I go into Nordstroms, I am treated fabulously. Do those people really like me?"

June 6, 2004 at 11:30 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

Canadian Netizens Download Page

NFO CFgroup - Services

2003

2004

June 4, 2004 at 02:27 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

SI to Move Ammunition Training Online

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Mon May 31, 1:00 AM ETAdd Technology - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo!

By Anitha Reddy, Washington Post Staff Writer
SI International Inc. won a contract worth up to $5 million from the U.S. Army to design and build an online system to train students in the use and disposal of ammunition and explosives.

The Army's Defense Ammunition Center said 5,000 to 10,000 students from the military, the Pentagon (news - web sites), state and federal agencies and allied nations would take courses each year through the system, planned for use by 2005.

By cutting out the breaks and question-and-answer session of a typical week-long instructor-led course, students on a computer would be able to cover the material in as little as eight hours, said Keith Anderson, the program manager overseeing the contract at SI.

The system would rely on sophisticated three-dimensional imaging to teach students how to identify different kinds of ammunition. Simulation technology would also let students participate in virtual sweeps of weapons sites or view demonstrations of proper storage techniques for explosives.

Oklahoma State University is working closely with SI International on the project and will eventually analyze student coursework to see if the Web training is effective.

SI, based in Reston, is also responsible for assembling a panel of ammunition experts that will be available as needed for the Army.

The contract has a term of one year but could be extended by three years. SI employees are to work on the project at offices in Reston, Rockville and Oklahoma City.

May 31, 2004 at 10:58 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (30) | Top of page | Blog Home

Bank of Ireland Chief Quits Over 'Adult' Web Sites

Yahoo! News - Bank of Ireland Chief Quits Over 'Adult' Web Sites

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The chief executive of Bank of Ireland Plc, Michael Soden, resigned on Saturday after admitting looking at Internet Web Sites containing "adult material" on his personal computer.

Soden, who took over as group chief executive at Ireland's second biggest bank in March 2002, said he had done nothing illegal, but had breached company policies and apologized for any embarrassment caused.

"I wish to announce that I have tendered my resignation as group chief executive at Bank of Ireland with immediate effect," said Soden in a personal statement released by the company.

"This arises from access by me on my PC to Internet sites that contain content that infringed the group's policies on these matters. The content accessed was not illegal, but did contain links to material of an adult nature."

Soden said he had made it "a central part of my tenure" at the bank to set the highest standards of integrity and behavior.

"I now accept that accessing this material was inappropriate and would cause embarrassment to Bank of Ireland and to the people who work there," the statement added. "I deeply regret any such embarrassment."

In a separate statement the bank said it was beginning the search for Soden's successor immediately, and would make a further comment next week.

Soden, a Dublin native, joined Bank of Ireland from National Australia Bank in Melbourne, where he had been executive general manager of global business and personal finance.

He had previously held a number of senior positions in international banking, including chief executive of Citicorp Investment Bank in Canada, and Security Pacific Hoare Govett in London.

His resignation came on the same day the chairman of state airline Aer Lingus, Tom Mulcahy, resigned after being caught up in a tax scandal at Bank of Ireland's main rival, Allied Irish Banks plc, where he was a former chief executive.

May 29, 2004 at 04:43 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (29) | Top of page | Blog Home

Survey: E-Government Slowly Winning Acceptance

Survey: E-Government Slowly Winning Acceptance (TechNews.com)

By Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2004; 6:14 PM
Telephones, letters and face-to-face contact still beat out the Internet when it comes to how Americans choose to interact with their government, according to a report released earlier this week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

But the Internet's popularity as a way for obtaining government information and services continues to grow -- percent of the Internet users who took part in the survey said they used the Internet either to obtain information from a government Web site or to obtain services from a government office or agency.

The report was based on a telephone survey of 2,925 randomly dialed participants conducted earlier this month; 63 percent of the respondents said they were Internet users.

Overall, the survey found that people who contacted the government during 2003 preferred more traditional communications means by a margin of 54 percent to 37 percent. Nearly 74 percent of Internet users who said they contacted the government during the year used the telephone, wrote letters or showed up at a government office in person.

Only slightly more than half of Internet users -- 54 percent -- said they went online to conduct business with the government, such as renewing their vehicle registrations, applying for a passport or writing a letter to a local elected official.

The study shows that agencies should not "put all their government outreach eggs into one basket," study author John Horrigan said. "It's important to see how e-mail and the Web complement the traditional means of contact. One way to get the biggest bang for your buck is to figure out how these people use the different tools."

The Pew report "validates that the direction that we're going in is the right direction. We recognize that every person wants to deal with their government in the medium that they feel comfortable with," said Karen Evans, the White House official in charge of e-government efforts.

Making it possible for citizens to obtain government services via the Internet costs much less than dealing with people on the telephone or in person, making e-government an increasingly popular tool at the federal, state and local levels, said Lisa Mascolo, managing partner at Accenture's federal government practice in Reston, Va.

Mascolo said government offices will get a better citizen response to their e-government efforts if they make their sites easier to find and navigate.

"We came to the conclusion that up to 26 percent of the people didn't really know where to find or how to find the Web sites," she said. "And once they get there, [agencies] need to encourage them to use the Web site, not just for research but to conduct their business with e-government."

Accenture contracts with multiple government agencies at all levels on e-government and other services. The company released its own e-government survey earlier this month. Their primary conclusion was that people's e-government activities mainly involve research, not actually getting services taken care of.

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� 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

May 27, 2004 at 10:35 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (30) | Top of page | Blog Home

Sony Says 'Cell'-Based TV Ready by 2006

Yahoo! News - Report: Sony Says 'Cell'-Based TV Ready by 2006

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp (news - web sites) (6758.T) plans to offer a broadband television by 2006 that would incorporate the powerful new "Cell" processor it is developing with IBM Corp (NYSE:IBM - news) and Toshiba Corp (6502.T), a Japanese business daily said on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Sony Chief Executive Nobuyuki Idei said it would use Cell to power its next-generation game console as well as a network television that will offer functions similar to a personal computer.

The Cell processor will be up to 10 times more powerful than conventional chips and able to shepherd large chunks of information through a high-speed Internet network.

Sony has said Cell -- due to start test production in early 2005 -- will power the next-generation PlayStation game console, which will probably double as a home server, as well as other digital home electronics.

For the three business years ending March 31, 2007, Sony has earmarked 500 billion yen ($4.42 billion) to spend on semiconductor development for Cell and other key devices. In the interview, Idei also said a potential acquisition of movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc (NYSE:MGM - news) would be aimed at effectively incorporating MGM's software library into Sony's film division.

Earlier this month, Sony said it was in exclusive talks with MGM on a possible takeover that would provide Sony with access to MGM's 4,000-plus film library that includes the James Bond and Rocky titles.

Seeking to allay concerns that the acquisition could dent Sony's finances at a time when it is trying to restructure its electronics division, Idei said the acquisition price would not cause people to worry.

May 24, 2004 at 08:25 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home

Boeing Sees Internet on 12 Carriers by Year-End

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Mon May 24,10:25 AM ETAdd Technology - Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Steven Scheer
OVER THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN (Reuters) - Aerospace giant Boeing Co (NYSE:BA - news) expects about a dozen or so major airlines to offer its in-flight Internet service by the end of the year, a company official said on Monday.

Mike Woodward, director of Boeing's Connexion for Europe and the Middle East, said five carriers had signed up for its semi-high speed Internet service and another two had announced their intention to get it.

Germany's Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) launched the service last week on an Airbus A340.

"We have 15 active proposals with various airlines," Woodward said in an interview with Reuters from a flight over the Mediterranean Sea from Israel.

"We can expect to have 12 (total) major global carriers by the end of the year," he said. "We expect the first U.S.-based customer by the end of the year."

In addition to Lufthansa, Woodward said Scandinavia's SAS (SAS.ST), Japan Airlines (9205.T), All Nippon Airlines (9202.T), Singapore Airlines, China Airlines and Korean Airlines should have Internet service aboard their flights by the end of 2004.

"By the end of the year, there will be 60 aeroplanes flying with Internet service," he said.

Internet access is provided by Boeing's Connexion via satellite antennas mounted on the top of the aeroplane. Surfing speeds are around 200 kilobits per second and passengers may access their own e-mail accounts as well as communicate in real time through Instant Messaging (news - web sites) services even as high as 30,000 feet.

But passengers need to bring their own laptops with a wireless modem. They can then sign up for the service.

REVENUES SHARED

The cost to the passenger is $15-$20 on short flights and $30 on flights of more than six hours, but a plan can be chosen starting at around $10 for half an hour. Woodward said airlines share in revenues with Boeing.

He declined to say how much Boeing invested in the project or the cost to airlines but noted the capital expense is significantly less than installing in-flight entertainment systems in every seat.

Woodward said airlines have warmed up to the idea of providing Internet service now that their finances are improving. Airlines see Internet access as a way to increase revenues and market share, he noted.

"The last three years obviously have been a challenging time in the airline industry," he said. "We are seeing a lot of recovery and a tremendous amount of interest from major airlines around the world."

Although customers choose specific carriers for a variety of reasons, Woodward believes some passengers may choose an airline based on in-flight services.

"We think the ability to stay connected is in very high demand -- especially from business travelers," he said. "Once the service starts to become available, passengers will begin to expect this service on long-haul flights in three to four years."

Woodward added that the company's market research has shown that leisure travelers also want Internet service and that many passengers will pay the flat rate for the entire flight.

"It is not just for business passengers," he said. "It's a choice to use time more efficiently. People can work or entertain themselves with unlimited content available on the Internet."

May 24, 2004 at 08:23 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

55% of adult Internet users have broadband at home or work

Pew Internet & American Life Project

The number of Americans with access to high-speed Internet connections either at home or work is growing. As of March 1, the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 68 million adult Americans log on via broadband either at home or work. Fully 48 million adult Americans have broadband connections at home.

Download full report

This is the first time the Project has tried to capture the total broadband universe and the relatively high figures suggest that broadband use is much greater than is widely presumed.

Impatience with tiresomely slow dial-up connections seems to tip home users into the broadband column, and this impatience plays a larger role than price of service in home adoption. Broadband in the home is increasingly the norm for the wealthier and better educated in America, as well as long-time Internet users. But there is evidence that relatively novice Internet users are moving from dial-up to broadband more rapidly than before.

Rural users lag in broadband adoption, and infrastructure availability is a reason for this. Here are some highlights from the Pew Internet Project�s February 2004 survey:1

55% of all adult Internet users � or 34% of all adult Americans � have access to high-speed Internet connections either at home or on the job.

39% of adult Internet users � or 24% of all adult Americans � have high-speed access at home, an increase of 60% since March 2003.

A surge in subscription to DSL high-speed Internet connections, which has more than doubled since March 2003, is largely behind the growth in broadband at home.

DSL now has a 42% share of the home broadband market, up from 28% in March 2003.

For the first time, more than half (52%) of a key demographic group � college educated people age 35 and younger � has broadband connections at home.

Only 10% of rural Americans go online from home with high-speed connections, about one-third the rate for non-rural Americans.

1. Between February 3 and March 1, 2004, the Pew Internet & American Life surveyed 2,204 Americans age 18 or over (1,371 Internet users). Margin of error is +/-2 percent points for the full sample and +/-3 percentage points for Internet users. 63% of respondents were Internet users in this survey.

May 24, 2004 at 02:13 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (30) | Top of page | Blog Home

28% of American adults are wireless ready

Pew Internet & American Life Project

More than one quarter of all Americans use devices – either laptop computers with wireless modems or cell phones – that enable them to go online to surf the Web or check email. According to a March 2004 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 28% of Americans – and fully 41% of all Internet users – have within the past month used a laptop that can connect wirelessly to the Internet or a cell phone that lets them send and receive email.

Full report

This means that 56 million American adults are �wireless ready.� That is, they have used devices that allow them to connect to the Internet by wireless means.

The March 2004 survey asked respondents the following questions:

 In the past month, have you used a laptop computer with a wireless modem?  In the past month, have you used a cell phone that can send and receive email?

For the wireless-enabled laptop, 18% of Internet users said they had used such a device. For cell phones, 29% of cell phone users said they had used a cell phone in the past month that can send and receive emails. Taken together, the share of American adults who have used either type of device that can connect wirelessly to the Internet comes to 28%, or 41% of adult Internet users. These questions are a measure of people�s technological capability to go online wirelessly, not a measure of how many Americans use wireless connections or how often they do it. For the latter issue, our February 2004 survey found that 17% of Americans have logged on to the Internet with a wireless connection, 6% on the typical day.

However, there is evidence that Internet users who are wireless ready take their online use on the road. Among Internet users with wireless ready devices:

 10% say they go online from some place other than home or work on an average day.  23% say they do this once or twice a week.  44% say they have at one time logged onto the Internet away from home or work.

This means that, on a typical day, approximately 5 million Americans with wireless ready devices go online from some place other than home or work. Some of this away-from-home activity could take place at friends� homes, or using computers at cyber caf�s or libraries. However, much of it is likely to be students doing schoolwork in coffee shops, professionals logging on to free wireless hot spots that some cities now provide, or travelers using the wireless network at an airport.

Who can go online wirelessly?

Young adults are more likely than older Americans to have wireless-ready computers and Internet-connected cell phones. For instance, 22% of the Internet users in Generation Y (those ages 18-27) have used laptops with wireless connections in the past month, compared to 17% of Baby Boomers (those ages 40-58). Even more dramatic differences are evident with phones. Fully 45% of Gen Y Internet users also have phones that can use the Internet, compared to 25% of Baby Boomers.

As is always the case with technology adoption, those who live in high-income households and those with high levels of education are more likely to be wireless ready that those who have high school diplomas and those who live in households with moderate or lower levels of income.

Finally, those who have a great deal of experience with the Internet and those with broadband connections are more likely to be wireless ready than Internet newcomers and those with dial-up connections.

The Pew Internet Project surveyed 2,200 adults age 18 and over between February 17 and March 17, 2004, 1,518 of whom were Internet users. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points for results based on the full sample and plus or minus 3 percentage points for results based on Internet users.

May 24, 2004 at 02:05 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home

Moving to the country a cottage industry

TheStar.com - Moving to the country a cottage industry

ELLEN ROSEMAN

Art Caston is a self-employed consultant who spends half the year at his cottage near Port Carling, Ont.
"I'm living the life I wrote about in my book," says Caston, who with co-author Don Tapscott envisioned a world where you could work any time, anywhere, with the help of affordable, empowering technology.
Their book Paradigm Shift: The New Promise Of Information Technology, was published in 1992 by McGraw-Hill.

"I predicted it all, but I'm still amazed at how far we've come and how fast," says Caston.

For the past 12 years, he's run his own firm, Proact Business Transformation Inc., which specializes in a technology known as enterprise architecture. His only employees are his wife Penny and their two grown children.

He has an office in Aurora (a half-hour drive north of Toronto) but does his creative work � writing, product development, documentation of guidebooks � about two hours' further north in the Muskoka area, where he's had a cottage for the past 30 years.

He'd like to spend the entire year up north, but his work requires travelling to be close to his clients. And there's another issue: No access to high-speed Internet.

"I have dial-up at my cottage, which is totally frustrating," he said last week. "I'm in Aurora and delayed going up today because of the Web conferences I had to do with colleagues in Mexico City and San Francisco."

He can't use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) for long-distance calls and teleconferences without a high-speed connection. And he gets frustrated sending e-mail because of the limited use of attachments.

Last year, Caston investigated a wireless provider offering high-speed Internet in his area. But he felt there was a security problem that could compromise the confidentiality of client information.

Bell Canada can't supply DSL (digital subscriber line) technology to his cottage. Cable TV can't get over the rocks surrounding him. And interactive satellite TV is in its early days and is very costly.

"Carriers are missing a real opportunity here," says Caston, who turns 60 next month.

"With computers, once you get used to higher capacity, you learn to fill it. I'm going to find a solution, even if it's wireless, because it's essential now."

Internet service is a major consideration if you're moving from the city to country and you want to work from a remote location.

It's especially important if you work in an Internet-related business, as John Bulloch does.

Bulloch moved to his waterfront home in Innisfil, just south of Barrie, when he retired as founder of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

He started an electronic learning business, Vubiz Ltd., with his brother Peter (who lived in Mississauga) and Jim Rapino (who lived in Thunder Bay).

Vubiz is no longer a virtual company, with 18 employees in Mississauga including Rapino, the president. Bulloch continues to live an hour's drive away and comes down once a week.

"I'm in daily contact with them and I do the strategic stuff, but I'm not needed every day," he says. "I'm becoming less important as the company takes off."

Being close to a medium-sized city has advantages, since Bulloch has access to high-speed Internet through Rogers Cable.

"The importance of broadband is the many e-services you can get, such as video," he says.

Now 70, he promised his wife Mary when he started the company in 1996 this would be his last entrepreneurial venture.

"I've done it six times," he says. "It's a big advantage for me to be able to combine retirement with doing something still socially significant."

Dennis Kwasnicki lives in Hillsburgh, a town of 800 people south of Orangeville.

He moved there with his wife Diana in 1997. Tired of renting in Toronto at $1,300 a month, they bought a house for just under $200,000 on a large lot (66 by 165 feet). They can walk to stores and the one bank in town.

"Here, our mortgage was $1,200 a month," he says. "We've now paid it off, which we couldn't have done in the city."

Diana commutes to Guelph, a half-hour's drive away, where she does marketing for a training company. Dennis, who has a sales and marketing background, is self-employed and sells automated cash machines to local businesses.

"I like the flexibility," Kwasnicki says of his work, which generates a six-figure income.

"If you're considering a move to the country, think ahead to how you take your skills from corporate jobs and apply them in small cities. Businesses here always need help with marketing."

While he spends more time in his car than before, calling on customers and making weekly trips to pick up his paycheque in Mississauga, he's not driving in rush-hour traffic.

The one thing he misses: "Jumping on the TTC to go to hockey games."

Now 53 and 45, Dennis and Diana had an easier time than many couples moving to a small town because they had no children living with them.

"Are the school-aged children prepared to make the traumatic loss of friends and the shift to a different school system, including the bus travel of about an hour each way, each day?" asks one rural dweller, in response to this Money 301 series.

"Don't forget to build that nice little unheated waiting shed at the end of the drive if you choose to live in a rural area � and don't forget the lack of after-hours recreational facilities."

Even if you have no kids to worry about, you may not survive the transition to rural life because you can't cope with the isolation of working from home.

Next week, we look at the pros and cons of telecommuting.

May 23, 2004 at 09:12 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (29) | Top of page | Blog Home

WWW Conference Mulls Web as Personal Memory Store

Yahoo! News - WWW Conference Mulls Web as Personal Memory Store

Thu May 20, 3:23 PM ETAdd Technology - Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Imagine being able to record every interesting conversation you have ever held in your life, not to mention all the photos and writing you have done.

Top Internet researchers attending the annual World Wide Web conference in New York this week are wondering what it will mean when individuals can recall nearly every waking moment. It's a vision of the world where everyone becomes a digital pack rat.

Among the major topics on the agenda of WWW2004 (http://www.www2004.org) are ways to make use of the treasure trove of personal data electronic devices create every day.

Researchers have gathered to hear technical papers on grand themes ranging from how to use the Internet to browse back through one's "life history" to how scientists can collaborate on Web-wide demographic or life-sciences studies.

"There is very little reason for anyone to throw anything away," Rick Rashid, head of research for Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), said of how the latest Internet software, cheap data storage and networked communication, can help preserve personal memory.

Forget, for the moment, your mother's advice about the wisdom of spring cleaning. And suspend those nagging Big Brother doubts you may have about what can happen when mountains of personal data slips out into public view.

This is the realm of what's possible, not problematic, event organizers say.

Other presentations seek to solve smaller, but no less irritating issues, such as how to create a smarter "back" button on Internet browsers.

"The good news is that much of this stuff will turn out to be real, regardless of the initial hype," said Stu Feldman, head of Internet strategy for computer services giant International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news), and co-organizer of this year's WWW conference.

One paper describes how to publish instantly updating Internet textbooks, where chapters can be updated automatically as new information is uncovered and published.

Researchers are using tiny radio sensors to record a person's heart-rate, triggering immediate Internet alerts to one's doctor when dangerous activity is detected.

Another project involves taking advantage of the work done in Web semantics, or machine-readable languages, to make electronic mail easier to search and use.

Links to many of the presentations can be found at (http://www.w3.org/2004/03/w3c-track04.html/).

INTERNET AS SUBSTITUTE BRAIN

Microsoft is looking into how to use personal "memory landmarks" to search for any document using not just the date and time they were created, but various emotional connections a person may associate with the event.

Rashid talks of defining the "memorability" of events.

One such Microsoft project is called "Stuff I've Seen," which allows Internet surfers to label and annotate all useful Internet content they find, then return to it later and find their previous annotations alongside the information.

Udi Manber, chief executive of A9, a unit of Amazon.com, said his company is studying ways to improve the usefulness of Internet search, including one demonstration project to allow users to create annotated diaries as they surf the Web.

In partnership with leading search engine Google, Manber showed off a method for people to retain the history of previous search results. Any Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news) account holder can go to A9's site at (http://www.a9.com) and try out the search history system for themselves.

In a keynote speech to the conference, Microsoft's Rashid described what consumers might do with a terabyte of data storage that costs around $1,000 and is capable of holding more than 1 trillion bytes of computer data.

"You can store every conversation you have ever had, from the time you are born to the time you die," Rashid said.

A person could have snap picture with a 180-degree fish-eye view of one's surroundings for every minute of every day for the rest of one's life.

Microsoft researchers in the United Kingdom have built prototypes of such a life-recording device called SenseCam. They are gearing up for a second generation of photo capture systems no bigger than a necklace pendant, Rashid said.

"Obviously this raises a whole lot of issues about privacy and the control of one's personal information," Rashid said.

"But this is where we are going. It's already the case that kids are walking around with cameraphones taking a lot of pictures. This is just an extension of that," he said.

May 21, 2004 at 09:51 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Internet Lowers Real Estate Commissions

Yahoo! News - Internet Lowers Real Estate Commissions

Wed May 19,12:49 PM ETAdd Technology - AP to My Yahoo!

LITTLE ROCK - Real estate and mortgage brokers have less of a hold on clients from the start of the home-buying process, according to a national study which researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock helped organize.

More Americans are doing Internet research before they make their first calls when starting to buy a home � a practice that's lowered commissions in certain regions, the study concluded.

While less than 1 percent of 5 million homes bought and sold every year are closed online, the study found more than 70 percent of all home buyers start their search on the Internet.

Researchers at UALR, Syracuse University and Penn State surveyed 4,600 randomly selected real estate agents across the nation. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation (news - web sites).

Results showed that the traditional real estate industry sees online brokers as a threat.

Some agents are lowering their commissions and providing fewer services to customers who have researched on their own. For example, a client could choose whether to pay for services such as open houses or printed flyers.

But more people want to work with professionals the nearer they get to buying and selling a home, the report said.

People were found to enlist traditional agents for three reasons: lack of "face time" with online professionals; unwillingness to hunt for houses alone; and a perceived lack of motivation from online brokers who work on salary instead of commission.

In the future, Internet sales could grow if online companies can persuade customers that closing a home online is more convenient than filling out a great deal of paperwork, the study said.

"This research demonstrates that the Internet is changing how people look for homes, as well as how they buy and sell their homes," said Rolf Wigand, who holds the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Chair in the Department of Information Science at UALR. "These developments clearly show that they are changing the real estate industry and are making the residential home market more transparent."

May 21, 2004 at 09:48 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (58) | Top of page | Blog Home

Online experience overtaking physical factors in consumer perceptions of banks

finextra news: Online experience overtaking physical factors in consumer perceptions of banks

12 May 2004 - Online banking and bill payment services are overtaking traditional factors such as physical location in consumer selection and perception of banks according to US market research by Vividence.

The latest Vividence Customer Experience (CE) rankings for the online banking industry found that Bank of America and its lesser-known rival National City provided the best overall online experience to prospects, with a statistical tie for the top spot in the rankings. Chase and Fleet prospects were the least satisfied with their online experience.

For the study, Vividence monitored 2000 prospective customers as they interacted with ten leading banking Web sites.

Close to 50% of consumers in the study said online banking and bill payment services are a very important factor in choosing a bank, while the importance of physical location and ATMs continues to recede (42% stating it as a factor compared to 47% in previous studies).

Despite the importance of the Internet experience, consumers are frustrated with the inadequate instructions and support provided for most online bank applications. One-quarter of all prospects that chose to start the application process did not complete it - "an abysmal record as compared to the completion rate of online applications and registrations in other industries," says Vividence.

Web sites that provide information upfront regarding the length of the application process and information requirements have the highest completion rates. National City, which clearly delineates the requirements upfront, has the most user-friendly application process according to the study, while Washington Mutual has the lowest completion rate.

Consumers voiced other frustrations with bank Web sites, with the average user experiencing a problem every three and a half minutes. Approximately one-in-three (31%) prospects complained that they could not locate customer service options on the site they were visiting and one-in-five (21%) expressed concerns about privacy and security issues.

With ever-present links to its 'Help Centre' and strong FAQs, Wachovia was ranked as providing the best access to customer support, whereas Bank One and Fleet were seen as offering poor service as illustrated by their failure to provide a customer support link on their homepage.

Prospects also reacted poorly to sites that used highly technical or legal language in their privacy statements. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase were the sites most prospects felt managed privacy and security issues the best.

The initial online experience at a particular bank site has a significant influence on the likelihood that a prospect will sign up for additional online services, says Vividence.

Less than half of Wachovia prospects indicated they would also use online bill pay services according to the study, whereas close to 80% of Bank of America prospects indicated they would use such services. The study found that Bank of America benefits from an accessible online bill pay demonstration and clear, persistent messaging about its online bill pay services.

The research indicates that the consumer experience online has a direct effect on brand perception and loyalty. In this latest study, National City received the greatest improvement in its brand perception with just five per cent of prospects reporting a highly favourable opinion of the bank prior to their online experience and 57% doing so after experiencing its Web site.

May 17, 2004 at 05:26 PM in Loyalty, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (63) | Top of page | Blog Home

Canada ranks second worldwide in connectedness: Conference Board

Backbone Magazine - The Strength of E-Business

Canada has been a worldwide leader in the race to technical excellence and is still a very strong player, but a new Conference Board report warns maintaining this current position will take some work.

Canada ranks second behind the United States in the Conference Board�s annual Connectedness Index, falling behind the U.S. for the fourth consecutive year. The study, Cashing in on Canadian Connectedness, also found Canada sharing second place with Sweden, and warned countries such as Finland, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany are closing the gap.

�Canada has made a quantum leap into the information economy in the past decade, but simply being well-connected is no longer sufficient to maintain our competitiveness with other leading countries,� said Brian Guthrie, the Board�s director of innovation and knowledge management. �The key is to improve applications and content that can drive the use of ICTs (information and communication technologies).�

May 17, 2004 at 11:39 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (12) | Top of page | Blog Home

Intel's Barrett Sees Ad Push for Digital Home

Yahoo! News - Intel's Barrett Sees Ad Push for Digital Home

Fri May 14, 6:12 PM

By Michele Gershberg
NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Intel Inside," the famed slogan for No. 1 computer chip maker Intel Corp (Nasdaq:INTC - news), could take on a new meaning as the company foresees an advertising campaign for the budding integration of digital technologies in the home.

Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett said on Friday the company's upcoming big ad push would revolve around the "digital home," with the personal computer serving as a hub for managing everything from digital photos to music files and video recordings.

"The digital home is a major topic that not just Intel but everybody is talking about," Barrett said in an interview with Reuters. "So you probably should expect there would be a major campaign on the digital home on the horizon."

Barrett said the campaign could follow a similar model to market the company's Centrino notebook computer chips.

In February, Intel shifted the thrust of its marketing for Centrino from business customers to home users, with ads in popular magazines like People and cable television channel Comedy Central. The ads were created by Havas (EURC.PA) agency Euro RSCG MVBMS in New York.

Outside the United States, Intel has made a bigger advertising pitch in emerging markets which are building up their technology infrastructures, Barrett said, without giving spending figures.

"We have a major campaign this year to expand our presence in emerging markets, both countries and metropolitan areas," Barrett said. "Our goal this year is to have physical marketing 'Intel Inside' presence in about 1200 metropolitan areas in emerging markets."

He added there was not yet reason for concern that foreign anger over the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites) was affecting leading American brands.

"The major worldwide brands still carry a lot of value in emerging marketplaces," Barrett said. "If you took 'Intel Inside' ... you would probably find our brand is stronger on a relative basis in China than it is in the United States."

May 16, 2004 at 09:21 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

Price war predicted for broadband

Times Online

By Dan Sabbagh
PRICE competition in the telecoms sector is set to intensify after BT reduced its wholesale broadband prices by 70 per cent and Ofcom, the regulator, hinted that it would end retail price controls.

The move gives BT�s rivals the chance to invest in their own networks and to develop new products in a move that could presage the biggest shake-up of the telecoms market in more than a decade.
Following pressure from Ofcom, BT pre-empted a formal inquiry into the amount it charges other companies to gain access to its local telecoms network � the last mile between the telephone exchange and the home. Its broadband rental charges will fall from �4.41 a line a month to �1.40 by September 1.
Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of BT, said: �We believe our wholesale price cuts will enlarge the market for broadband in the UK. Now we�re saying to the rest of the industry: put your money where your mouth is.�
BT�s competitors welcomed the price cuts. Wanadoo, the internet provider backed by France T�l�com, indicated that it was now willing to consider investing �hundreds of millions� of pounds in the UK to develop services such as video on demand in 2005 and pay television thereafter.
BT�s new wholesale rates allow rivals to lease its copper wires, but the competitors will be required to deploy their own equipment. Industry sources estimate that the capital investment required is at least �100,000 per exchange.

In a related development, Ofcom sources indicated that the regulator was seriously considering scrapping the existing retail price control on BT, which is due to expire in July 2006. Ofcom believes that it should try to intensify network competition and intervene at the wholesale level, rather than dictate exactly what BT�s consumer prices should be.
Last month Stephen Carter, chief executive of Ofcom, announced an inquiry into BT broadband tariffs, and began the investigation by warning the company that its prices were too high. Yesterday he said that BT�s price cut was �definitely a plausible outcome of the review�, adding: �This means we�ve avoided months of trench warfare.�

May 14, 2004 at 09:43 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (35) | Top of page | Blog Home

Texting

Scotland - May 11th:

Texting is the big thing here. Listening to people in the pub (where else) I overheard someone say they 'had just received a text from their son, and he is on his way'. Its as natural as taking a phone call.

May 11, 2004 at 09:07 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Text messaging reaches new high

BBC NEWS | Technology | Text messaging reaches new high

The British love of text shows no signs of abating as numbers sent hit record levels.
According to the Mobile Data Association (MDA), 2.1 billion text messages were sent in March 2004, a 25% rise on the total from the same month last year.

On average, around 69 million text messages are sent every day in the UK.

Older people are also catching the bug and using text in an increasing variety of ways.

Versatile

Regular listeners to the independent radio station Saga Radio, which is aimed at the over 50s, have been flooding the station with messages following the launch of a texting facility.

It is evident that in the last five years texting has grown from a popular craze among teenagers to an essential communication tool.

"The launch of text messaging at Saga Radio shows how versatile text messaging is, which makes it an attractive form of communication for everyone," said Mike Short, chairman of the MDA.

Text messaging show no signs of abating. The March figures are an increase of nearly 80 million on February's total.

April 28, 2004 at 12:49 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Suicide on Web site prompts calls for controls

Suicide on Web site prompts calls for controls

By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A grisly surveillance video of a man's suicide that appeared on a pornographic Web site has prompted calls for tighter controls on the use of security cameras in New York's low-income housing.
The image of a distraught Paris Lane, 22, shooting himself in the head was captured on film in a Police Department surveillance system that lacks safeguards for privacy, experts and the victim's family said at a hearing on the case on Thursday.

"I'm not against surveillance cameras," said the victim's mother Martha Williams. "But I do have a problem with who handles the tapes, the hands they fall into.

"My child was killed twice," she said. "The first time he did it to himself. The second time, online did it to him."

The grainy footage shows Lane in the lobby of a public housing apartment building on March 16, hugging a girl, putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Lane, who wanted to be a rap star, was despondent because his girlfriend was breaking up with him, police said.

Since then, the images of the suicide appeared, were taken off and reappeared on a Web site filled with violent and racially offensive images under a heading, "Introducing: The Self-Cleansing Housing Projects."

"It goes on, comes off, goes on. It's a joke," said Lane's mother. "That's why something has to come out of this hearing. I want my son's tape off that Web completely."

Police say the case is under investigation. Sources told the New York Post earlier this week they tracked the tape to a computer account of a suburban police officer who said he got it in an e-mail from a friend.

At the hearing sponsored by Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, a former police officer who worked in the security unit testified the cameras help lower crime but officers receive no training to deal with privacy issues.

"If anything, this case clearly demonstrates the need for more safeguards," said Hiram Monserrate, the former officer who is now a member of the New York City Council.

The city uses about 3,100 cameras in low-income housing where some 5 percent of the population lives, said Beth Haroules, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. Nearly all those people are minorities.

"Approximately 434,000 New Yorkers -- low or moderate income New Yorkers of colour -- will be subject to NYPD surveillance," she said. "This is a shocking number."

She said cameras provide security, but, "it is critical that there be safeguards to ensure that people who live in public housing projects are not compelled to give up their privacy."

Lane's family has hired lawyers to decide how to proceed with possible legal action against the city.

April 10, 2004 at 04:20 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home

You Can Rent Movies Online, but Should You?

washingtonpost.com: You Can Rent Movies Online, but Should You?

By Rob Pegoraro

Sunday, April 4, 2004; Page F07
The idea of renting movies online seems a lot less silly than it did two years ago, when a site called Movielink debuted.
Internet connections have gotten a little faster, we've had time to get used to the idea of the computer as home theater and Movielink (www.Movielink.com) has been joined by a competitor, CinemaNow (www.cinemanow.com).

Most important, music services like Apple's iTunes and Roxio's Napster have shown that people will buy fairly priced downloads, even when the same stuff is available for free on file-sharing systems.

But the movie-rental sites themselves haven't improved nearly as much, to judge from a week of trying out each. CinemaNow and Movielink now offer better downloading options that reduce or eliminate the lengthy wait to transfer a movie to a computer.

But they still carry too few titles at too high a price. There's very little here to lure anybody from ordinary movie-rental stores, DVD-by-mail services like Netflix, or cable and satellite pay-per-view options.

Both CinemaNow and Movielink look and work alike in some respects. You must run Windows to watch anything at either site. Both require loading their own download-management software as well, but Movielink is more annoying to use -- the site can't even be viewed in any browser but Internet Explorer and was agonizingly slow.

Forget using either site without a broadband Internet account -- these movies weigh in at 500 or more megabytes apiece. Although you can start watching movies before they've finished downloading, that still involves a wait of at least a few minutes and as much as an hour, depending on your connection. (Over a 608-kbps digital subscriber line, "Finding Nemo" took 2 hours and 22 minutes to finish downloading.)

CinemaNow's streaming-media options permit almost immediate viewing, but to avoid sacrificing quality you'll need enough bandwidth to accommodate its full 700-kbps feed.

These sites' rental rates start at $2.99 for up to 48 hours of viewing -- the clock starts ticking when you first begin watching, not when the download completes -- but all the flicks I rented cost $3.99 or $4.99 and allowed 24 hours of use.

CinemaNow offers a few other pricing choices. You can sign up for $9.95 or $29.95 "Premium Pass" monthly subscriptions that include unlimited rentals; the more expensive plan adds access to an "After Dark" collection of adult movies. The site also sells 30 rather obscure titles as so-called permanent downloads -- "Manilow Live!" can be yours for $14.99 if you have a hankering for the syrupy singer's work.

You can't copy any of these downloads to a CD or DVD for viewing on a DVD player or move them to another computer. If you own a laptop with a TV-compatible connector, such as a composite-video or S-Video jack, you can plug it into your set for viewing on a bigger screen, but otherwise each rental stays welded to your hard drive.

Movielink offers its titles in RealVideo and Windows Media formats; CinemaNow only provides Windows Media downloads. Picture quality varies but never comes close to DVD; for instance, Movielink's wide-screen-formatted titles have a resolution of 512 by 288 pixels per frame, or less than half that of a wide-screen-enhanced DVD.

To my eyes, these services' downloads come closest to regular cable TV, aside from occasional outbreaks of pixilation or blurring in busy or cluttered scenes.

Both CinemaNow and Movielink suffer from a pathetically thin selection -- 854 and 747 titles as of Friday afternoon. Since many movies are made available to these sites only for limited periods before moving to cable and satellite TV (for example, "Finding Nemo" was no longer available after Saturday from either service) those numbers fluctuate over time.

Unless you're looking for a movie from the past few years, the odds weigh heavily against you finding it on either site. Half of the titles I considered renting -- for instance, "Heathers," "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Office Space" -- weren't available.

The older the flick, the worse your chances: Of the top 10 titles on the American Film Institute's "greatest American movies" list, Movielink provides only one ("Lawrence of Arabia") and CinemaNow offers none.

Movielink's chief executive, Jim Ramo, explained that until the late '90s, studios didn't buy Internet distribution rights, which means the site must negotiate with individual copyright holders for each movie. Ramo noted that he can't provide "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," because the rights to the song "Twist and Shout," which plays in one scene, would cost too much to obtain.

Who would want to put up with services as dysfunctional as this? It's hard to imagine.

College students who have broadband Internet but lack TVs in their dorm rooms might appreciate not having to return a DVD to the store. Then again, most college students don't have money either and will probably stick to the free file-sharing services.

And I suppose that After Dark library at CinemaNow could also draw customers who are tired of hearing snarky comments from video-store clerks.

Otherwise, though, the only people these sites seem to have been designed for are movie-studio executives. (Movielink is owned by the five largest studios; a smaller studio, Lions Gate Entertainment, owns CinemaNow.)

Until they learn from the example of the music industry -- offer their content at a discount online, but at a quality comparable to what you'd get in the store -- this online video-rental business isn't going anywhere.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.

� 2004 The Washington Post Company

April 4, 2004 at 09:54 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

File swappers upbeat on legal ruling

TheStar.com - File swappers upbeat on legal ruling

Copyright fears are put to rest No more looking

`over my shoulder'

RACHEL ROSS
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Many file swappers let out a sigh of relief when they heard Internet service providers wouldn't be forced to reveal the names of alleged file swappers.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association wanted contact information for 29 individuals it claimed were breaking copyright law by making music files available on the Internet.

But the judge in the case ruled that uploading a song to the Internet or downloading a track for personal use doesn't violate copyright law.

"I feel a lot more comfortable," said 21-year-old Will Duong.

The Ryerson University student says he downloads six or seven songs a week.

Duong said when he first heard the music industry was going to sue people who swapped songs online it made him nervous.

"Now I won't have to look over my shoulder."

Brian Sousa, a 17-year-old student from Oakwood Collegiate, is also relieved.

"It just makes me feel a little safer," Sousa said as he left the HMV store in the Eaton Centre.

Sousa admits he downloads a lot of music, about 30 songs a week, but says he buys a lot too. Yesterday, he picked up CDs from two of his favourite artists: Nas and Tupac Shakur.

"There are some CDs that I buy because I want the whole CD," he said. But if he only likes one or two songs, he'll download them from the Internet instead.

Toronto musician Kevin Jollimore, 44, said he supports that kind of behaviour and the judge's decision Wednesday.

The lead singer of Sin City Boys downloads music himself and occasionally finds his own songs on file sharing networks such as Kazaa.

"I don't really mind," he said. "Once (the music) has been created you should just let it go."

Jollimore said he believes in art for art's sake. He said he's happy if downloading hurts "fabricated" artists such as Britney Spears because they are only in it for the money. He doesn't feel he should have to pay to download music from artists he likes either, if he already bought the CD.

"I spent thousands of dollars listening to the Rolling Stones," he said.

"I own many of their albums in three or four formats. If I download a few Stones songs to my computer is that really stealing?"

Geoff Harvey, who works at a bookstore in downtown Toronto, thinks the music industry would be better off if it lowered prices. People just aren't willing to spend $20 or more for one or two good songs, he said.

Harvey thought the judge's decision was great. But he doesn't think it'll stick.

"It's not final. Obviously, they are going to appeal," he said.

Additional articles by Rachel Ross

April 2, 2004 at 07:43 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Gadget snapshots from Cebit

BBC NEWS | Technology | Gadget snapshots from Cebit

Armed with a SonyEricsson P900 cameraphone and a wi-fi enabled PDA, BBC News Online's Jon Kossmann picks out the latest gadgets on offer at the giant Cebit technology show in Germany.

THAT'S WHAT I CALL HANDY

The Motorola MPx fits snugly in the palm of the hand. An incredibly versatile Pocket PC device with tri-band GSM, GPRS, Bluetooth and Wi-fi all built in.

It will run the soon to be released Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, which has the ability to support landscape or portrait usage. Expected to be available around autumn this year for around 750 euros (�500).

IS IT A CAMERA, IS IT A PHONE?

Here is a beautiful example of why the manufacturers of digital cameras are starting to get worried - the new Sony Ericsson S700 with a 1.3 megapixel camera.

They are calling these handsets "Dual Front", as one side looks like a mobile and the other like a camera.

I am sure that by the end of the year they will have broken the 3 megapixel barrier on the mobile phone.

MICROSOFT GETS CREATIVE

Here is the pocket multimedia player we have heard so much about recently. Sporting an 80 GB hard drive, this beauty can store and play all your pictures, music files and video files, (in Windows WMV format).

The screen is gorgeous and it is a lot lighter than I expected. This one is going to be a hit until Apple take their iPod into the video/image world.

POCKET CONVERGENCE

Everything really is getting smaller and smaller, while at the same time more and more powerful.

At Cebit, there are USB flash memory sticks of every description.

This one, which caught my eye, combines MP3, Mpeg-4 video and an MP3 player in one small device.

VIRTUAL LASER KEYBOARD

This ingenious device connects to a Pocket PC, Palm or Windows device and projects a keyboard on any flat surface using a laser. You can then type using the virtual keys.

It was very responsive and accurate when I tested it, but a shame it does not use Bluetooth to connect to the device. It should be available in the autumn.

FRAUNHOFER 3D SCREENS

The institute responsible for the MP3 format has moved on to the third dimension, bringing a plethora of 3D hardware including this incredible screen which displays a 3D image without the need for special glasses.

A camera at the top tracks the position of your eyes to create the effect.

VIRTUAL ENGINEERING

Siemens shows off more 3D hardware, which as well as providing a heads up display of what you are looking at, actually recognises the component in view, then displays information on it to the headset display.

Audi also has shown some recognition devices to help their engineers look like cyber-cyclists too.

CELEBRITY TWINS

Swedish company, Softhouse, has come with a fun application where you can send a picture to their server by MMS and it then uses facial recognition to match your face with a celebrity.

Apparently I'm an 81% match with Brendan Fraser. Obviously, it's him that looks like me, not the other way round.

FLIP AND CLICK

New mobiles of all shapes and sizes competed for attention at Cebit.

The hall was buzzing with talk of new picture phones, 3G handsets and data phones.

This cameraphone from the people behind Japan's i-Mode service, NTT DoCoMo, comes with a snazzy twist-flippable display.

March 22, 2004 at 07:00 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (60) | Top of page | Blog Home

Extract from: Content Creation Online: 44% of U.S. Internet users have contributed their thoughts and their files to the online world, re Weblogs/Blogs

Pew Internet & American Life Project

In this survey, we found that a mere 2% of Internet users in this survey reported writing a weblog or online diary. Earlier surveys and a follow up check in early 2004 indicate that between 2% and 7% of Internet users publish a ‘blog. Within this tiny group, only about 10% report updating their blog daily. Most weblog writers update their blogs once a week or less often.

Even though only a small number of Internet users are writing blogs, a slightly larger number of Net users are visiting them. Eleven percent of Internet users report visiting blogs written by others. And of these blog readers, a third report posting to or commenting on the blog entries that they have read.

Blog readers most frequently visit the online diaries of friends (56% have done so), strangers (46% have visited the blogs of people they have never met) and family members (a quarter report visiting family blogs).

March 1, 2004 at 06:57 AM in Blogging & feeds, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Nearly Half of U.S. 'Net Users Post Content - Report

Yahoo! News - Nearly Half of U.S. 'Net Users Post Content - Report

Sun Feb 29, 5:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly half of U.S. Internet users have built Web pages, posted photos, written comments or otherwise added to the enormous variety of material available online, according to a report released on Sunday.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that about 44 percent of the country's Internet users have created content for others to enjoy online.

pdf file: Content Creation Online: 44% of U.S. Internet users have contributed their thoughts and their files to the online world

Posting photos and allowing others to download music or video files were the most popular activities, the nonprofit research group found. Other users said they posted written material on Web sites or newsgroups, created their own Web sites, or set up "Web cams" to allow others to see live pictures.

While only 2 percent of U.S. Internet users said they had created "blogs," or online diaries, 11 percent said they read the blogs of others.

Younger Internet users were most likely to set up blogs, the report said, while older users were more likely to have built their own Web sites. Most who maintained Web sites said they did not update them more than once every few weeks.

The group based its report on a survey of 2,515 adults conducted in March and April 2003.

March 1, 2004 at 06:35 AM in Internet evolution, Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (85) | Top of page | Blog Home

A new and simpler way to catch up with news

I have been using Feeddemon exclusively since Jul 2003, but didn't take the time to study the functionality until I read Nick's post noted below.

I took the time to set up "watches" for the things which interest me, and that I look for in the news.

So now, even though I have subscribed to around 2,000 feeds, that fact is totally transparent to me. I can read my news quickly and easily, and where I need to I can store important items in the news bins.

Worth a look for Feeddemon users. Its a powerful tool to manage enormous amounts of information quite simply.

Internet Changes Everything: Feed Overwhelm

February 26, 2004 at 12:29 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

The really simple future of the web

Great article from the BBC. RSS feeds are beginning to show signs of traction.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | The really simple future of the web

E-mails coming out of your ears? No time to stop and read your favourite websites? Is the luxury of being able to "surf the web" just a distant memory?
An old idea, which could have ended up on the dot.com rubbish tip, might be just what is needed to help solve your problems.

Most people have never heard of this idea, let alone seen what it can do. But legions of techies, bloggers and website developers tend to get very excited about it, believing that it's the best way to keep in touch with the web. Some believe it could even spell doom for spam.

The idea - let's call it RSS - comes from a bit of work done in the 1990s at Netscape and elsewhere. The point of it was that key bits of websites, such as headlines, could be sent out in a bare form, stripped of all fancy graphics and layouts. These could then be incorporated easily into other websites.

So what is it about this idea which gets people so excited?

- How one RSS reader looks
- RSS stands for 'Rich Site Summary'
- It's often referred to as 'Really Simple Syndication'

The most compelling use of RSS is that it lets users read dozens of websites, all on the same page. The sites can be scanned in seconds rather than having to be laboriously loaded individually.

Many sites and most weblogs now provide a feed of their content in RSS format. More are likely to join them as the audience grows.

A program (usually called a reader) collects a number of different sites' feeds chosen by the user, and displays them in much the same way as an e-mail inbox.

Typically one of these programs (dozens of which are available) will have a window listing all the sites the user has chosen. Top, for argument's sake, might be the BBC News Online Magazine. Other sites chosen will be listed below.

When a new story is published in the Magazine, the listing would be in bold, perhaps with a number in brackets indicating the number of new stories available - just as an inbox would indicate the number of unread e-mails.

RSS stands for 'Rich Site Summary'
It's often referred to as 'Really Simple Syndication'
The right-hand window of the reader would show a menu of stories currently in the Magazine index (headlines and first paragraphs). If the user cannot resist reading the full story, they would click on the headline and the full webpage would load.

The beauty of the system, apart from the speed of looking at many different sites, is that all the feeds are chosen by the user. No-one gets to set their agenda, and crucially no-one can intervene to send spam.

BBC News Online and our sister BBC Sport site have made available feeds to every part of our sites. There are about 100,000 people using the site in this way - a number which has been growing at 50% a month since the service was launched last year.

E-mail breakdown

James Crabtree, of think tank The Work Foundation, says there's growing belief in the technology community that e-mail is a system close to breakdown, thanks in part to spam, unread newsletters, and sheer weight of messages.

"E-mail is becoming a very big problem, and RSS is perhaps one of the ways out of it," he says.

Danny O'Brien, co-editor of technology newsletter Need to Know, says there's scope for very specific information to be sent out. "It's really not hard to have your own personal RSS feed - you could suck in your appointments or latest news from your boss," he says.

"If you're a regular eBay shopper, you could set an RSS feed to keep an eye for bargains there; Amazon RSS lets you look for new books in your favourite category. Apple's iTunes Music Store has RSS feeds so that you can see what new albums are available, and so on."

James Crabtree says: "At the moment, not many people really know about using RSS. But if more people knew what it was, I think they would use it. It's just a really handy way of getting the information you want without having to surf around for it."

So how to go about it?

There is a range of different RSS readers available, some of them for free (click the Google link on the right for more details). Mac users currently seem to have the edge in easy-to-use programs, but there are many for PCs too. There are also websites which will do the same job as a reader without the need for a download.

There is a step-by-step guide to using RSS on this page -Using RSS

Otherwise look for the words "RSS Version" on the bottom line of any index page within the site, and click it for full instructions.

We would like to know your views about how you find the RSS feed of the Magazine or any other part of BBC News Online. Let us know using the form below.

Some of your comments so far:

RSS is rapidly becoming indispensible. How about RSS feeds for the BBC's TV and radio listings?
Richard Carter, UK

RSS - fantastic! Never heard of it 'till now, but it sounds brill, especially for slower connections - I don't want pictures and ads, just info.
Simon Timperley, UK

I'm a webdesigner, and I find people asking for RSS feeds more and more. Recently a client asked me to build news feeds into his website, including the BBC one. It would be good to see more feeds available, as they are easily turned into webpages and demand seems to be growing!
Flash Wilson, UK

February 22, 2004 at 07:53 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (18) | Top of page | Blog Home

Virtual people get their own games

This was pointed out by Dan. The virtual people in the new Sims game, can create more virtual people. Pretty soon we won't have to do any thinking for ourselves, or at least thats the positive spin on this evolution!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual people get their own games

Human players of The Sims, which gives them control over virtual people, can now have their creations run their own cities full of virtual people.
This has become possible thanks to a classic version of the SimCity game made for The Sims by keen player Steve Alvey.
Sims that do a good job of looking after their tiny, virtual city can earn a living from it as mayor and will slowly see their city grow in size as more citizens flock to it.

Since The Sims first went on sale in 2000 it has become one of the most successful computer games of all time.

The game lets players control the lives, loves and jobs of virtual people.

Making money

Interest has been maintained with a steady release of expansion packs for The Sims that lets players send their virtual people on holiday, date or become superstars.

The game also allows players to create their own in-game extras that can be used to decorate the homes of the Sims they control or give the virtual people something else to do.

Now Steve Alvey, who maintains a Sims fan site call Sim Slice, has developed a version of the classic SimCity game that lets Sims play the city simulation game.

Just like the original Sim City game, Slice City gives players the job of creating a functional mini-metropolis populated by invisible virtual people that must be kept happy and be provided with all the social amenities they need while keeping pollution and crime under control.

Sims that do a good job of running the virtual-city-within-a-virtual-city will generate money that will help maintain their lifestyle in the world of the Sims.

Bad Slice City controllers will see their creation crumble and their profits dwindle to nothing.

Players can even buy extras for their Slice City such as a city hall, well-known monuments and even a marina.

Electronic Arts has kept interest in the original Sim City alive too by putting the classic game online so people can play it for free.

February 17, 2004 at 03:34 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Survey: Most Papers Now Offer Web-Only Help-Wanted

Survey: Most Papers Now Offer Web-Only Help-Wanted

By Jennifer Saba

Published: February 16, 2004

NEW YORK A new survey finds that 69% of the largest 232 newspapers in the U.S. now offer the option of Web-only help-wanted advertising for employers, compared with 45% in January 2003. The findings were released today by New York-based market research company Corzen Inc.

The significant increase illustrates that "a number of newspapers are making a transition from print-centric recruitment advertising to a strategy that encompasses both print and the Web in a meaningful way," said Bruce Murray, CEO of Corzen.

Most newspapers normally require that employers buy a print ad if they wanted to run on the Web, thus protecting lucrative print revenue. Employers can pay as high as $30 per line, with an average ad running between five and eight lines. And that's just for one day. It could cost a company about $700 to run an ad for one week in print at a large paper.

But the rise of Web-only recruitment sites like Monster and Careerbuilder forced many newspapers to rethink that approach. On average, those sites charge only $200 per month per ad with unlimited space. Now, many newspapers are charging competitive prices -- essentially $200 for 30 days.

Some papers are starting to price less in order to reap more, substantially increasing volume at a lower rate to make up the difference between print and online advertising. For example, some papers charge lower rates for jobs that pay $8 an hour or under.

The rise in recruitment advertising will also depend on the overall economic climate. "Historically, recruitment advertising has tracked general employment conditions pretty closely," Murray said.

February 16, 2004 at 11:16 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home

Qaeda Sympathizers Turn to Rap to Battle 'Infidels'

Yahoo! News - Qaeda Sympathizers Turn to Rap to Battle 'Infidels'

By Miral Fahmy
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's newest weapon against the West is a violent English-language rap tune urging young Muslims to wage holy war.

The song is being broadcast on the Internet in an attempt to lure music-loving youth into the terror network, which is blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities and other bombings around the world.

Titled "Dirty Kuffar" or "Dirty Infidels," the song is performed by a London-based group which Islamists said was deeply sympathetic to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s network.

A music video accompanies the catchy yet violent lyrics, belted out by the group's lead singer Sheikh Terra -- rap lingo for terror -- and the Soul Salah Crew, a take-off on gritty British rappers So Solid Crew. Salah means righteousness or piety in Arabic.

The song calls on Muslims to wage jihad, or holy war, against "Crusaders and apostate Arab rulers," saying they will be "thrown inna fire."

"Be prepared for the battle with the infidels," it says.

The video, which uses footage from news agencies and television, opens with images of a U.S. soldier killing an Iraqi man and then cheering.

"Dirty Kuffar wherever you are; From Kandahar to Ramallah; OBL (Osama bin Laden) Crew be like a shining star; like the way we destroy them two tower ha ha," one singer raps in front of images of the September 11 airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center.

Another frame shows the balaclava-clad Sheikh Terra, brandishing a pistol and a Koran, while denouncing a long list of Arab and Western heads of state -- mostly from countries that have cracked down on militant groups -- as "dirty infidels."

In the video, al Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahri morphs into a lion while President Bush (news - web sites) becomes a chimpanzee. Saudi Arabia's King Fahd turns into a devil and Egypt's "apostate" President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) becomes a vampire.

The video also shows Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites), reviled in the Middle East for his hardline policies against Arabs, turning into a pig. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) is labeled a traitor.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is not spared -- a text reading "Allah doesn't protect tyrants" is superimposed on images of the bushy-haired Saddam shortly after U.S. troops captured him in December.

"Send 'em home in body bags," reads another blurb above images of U.S. troops in Baghdad. A U.S.-led military force toppled Saddam in April.

Reuters received a copy of the video from the Committee for the Defense of Legal Rights, a London-based Islamist group headed by Saudi dissident Muhammad al-Massari.

February 10, 2004 at 08:57 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

Your PC a gold mine for snoops

Good advice for those with an active web lifestyle - thats probably the majority of Canadians.

TheStar.com - Your PC a gold mine for snoops

ELLEN ROSEMAN

Last week, we talked about shredding your personal papers before putting them in the garbage or the recycling bin. This protects you from having your information used for fraudulent purposes by identity thieves.
But don't forget about securing your computer, which can be a gold mine for data snoops. Here's just some of the information that may attract a hacker:

A contact management package. It lists the people you know, what they do and any personal information you may have about them.

A personal finance management package. It can display your net worth, bank account numbers and details on loans, lines of credit, credit cards and mortgages.

An income tax program for filing your tax returns. It will have your social insurance number and details on investments, medical expenses and charitable donations.

A history of where you've been browsing on the Web. This reveals your hobbies and interests, plus any major purchases you may be researching.

The Start Menu on your tool bar. It shows the documents, spreadsheets and personal packages that you have recently used.

Your e-mail messages. Those you choose to keep, both what you send and what you receive, says a lot about your priorities.

Since many of us use computers to bank and invest, we have to take care online to guard our financial secrets.

"Taking care online is just like protected sex," says Rosaleen Citron, chief executive officer of WhiteHat Inc., an information technology security provider.

"You wouldn't run down the street with your personal information number on your T-shirt. So don't run down the Internet with an open communications port."

WhiteHat works with large companies to safeguard their data from hackers. It also has a Web site where it dispenses cautionary advice to the public, http://www.whitehatadvisory.com.

Closing down your computer to identity thieves starts with a common-sense measure: Don't step away without blocking access to others.

When you go for a break at the office, a colleague could pass by your desk and check the contents of your files. A guest in your home, someone working on repairs, even one of your children's friends, could use your machine to buy goods and services using your accounts.

To protect yourself, Citron recommends putting in a password-protected screen saver that will pop up within a few minutes of your leaving. Don't write the password down and stick it to your monitor or under your keyboard.

Also, make sure to install anti-virus software and a firewall. This two-step system helps keep your computer impregnable to outside attacks, similar to a deadbolt lock and a burglar alarm for your home.

Hackers can infiltrate your computer system through a virus, as we saw recently with the lightning fast spread of the MyDoom worm. Their ingenuity seems unlimited.

A good anti-virus program will update its virus definitions automatically and scan your hard disk during any downtime. But when you turn on your computer, you should also look for updates to your operating system and Internet browser, such as new security patches.

As for a firewall, it protects your computer while it's connected by modem to the Internet (if you have a dial-up system) or all the time if you have high-speed (always on) access. You can download a free firewall called ZoneAlarm from the company's Web site, http://www.zonelabs.com.

Many households (mine included) have a wireless network installed, so we can run several computers from the same Internet connection. Hackers can break into a wireless system fairly easily.

"If you're moving to wireless, don't use it directly out of the box," Citron advises. Change the passwords and system identification numbers provided, because hackers know them and keep trying to break in till they find an access point that's open to them.

Internet scammers casting about for your personal information have a new way to lure unsuspecting victims. They go "phishing" by sending an official-looking message from a company you deal with, asking you to update key data (credit card numbers or passwords).

They may say your account will be closed down unless you validate your billing information. Then, they direct you to a Web site that looks nearly identical to a well-known company's site.

The solution: Don't reply to any bad-news e-mails, say from Visa or MasterCard, telling you there's a problem with your account that you need to correct online. Most large companies will not handle customers this way.

The Ontario consumer ministry released an identity theft kit last week, with advice on protecting information online and at home. Its online at http://www.cbs.gov.on.ca.

To make sure an Internet transaction is secure, look for a lock or key symbol located at the bottom right corner of the screen, or make sure the URL begins with https://.

When you do a legitimate financial transaction online, sign out of the Web site later and clear your Internet file or cache.

Most financial institutions give instructions under their security sections.

Finally, even though you've deleted files from folders, remnants may still be on the computer's hard drive. Use a secure hard-drive overwrite utility to reduce the risk that others could recover your data, the ministry says.

And before you sell, recycle or discard your computer, make sure that any personal information really is deleted.

Next week, we look at computer software that helps you find papers you've stored in files and drawers at home. Is it worth buying?

February 8, 2004 at 01:37 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

Mind over gray matter

A fascinating article about evolution of how humans think, and how relativley recently that was developed. It suggest the human mind continues to evolve.

TheStar.com - Mind over gray matter

York philosopher's new book explores controversial relationship between culture and consciousness

OLIVIA WARD
TORONTO STAR

The first humans had large well-developed brains that catapulted them to the top of the evolutionary food chain 150,000 years ago.
But, says a York University philosopher, it took thousands more years until primitive man — and woman — learned to use them the way we do today.
"If we were thrown back to the era of the ancient Greeks, about 3,000 years ago, we'd be with people who thought exactly like us," says David Martel Johnson. "But earlier, even in ancient Egyptian times, that really wouldn't be true."

Johnson's newly published book, How History Made the Mind, goes to the heart of a scientific controversy between those who believe the physical brain is the most important factor in development of the mind, and those who believe culture is the determining factor.

It's a largely abstract debate, and evidence for either side is inconclusive. But Johnson's approach gives tantalizing clues to a new way of looking at human thought.

"This sounds complex, but it has a simple message," says the tall, silver-haired professor, a former master of York's Vanier College. "The idea that the mind is identical with the brain leaves out something crucially important: the influence of culture."

Johnson's theory takes its place in the relatively new discipline of cognitive science, the study of the mind and how it works.

Launched only 50 years ago, the field is a catch-all for mathematicians, psychologists, linguistics specialists, anthropologists, biologists and artificial intelligence experts as well as philosophers.

Everyone, says Johnson, except the people who study the ancient and not-so-ancient past.

"What philosophers don't recognize and archeologists do, is that modern behaviour came very late to mankind," he says.

In Johnson's view, it took some 100,000 years or more before mankind first formed the kind of abstract thoughts that led to painting on cave walls, fashioning jewellery and designing complicated tools.

"Before that time people thought in very concrete terms, not in symbols," he says. "They hunted prey, mastered survival and buried their dead, just as the Neanderthals did."

It's a theory opposed by strict followers of Charles Darwin, who believe that because of their large brains, the first humans were capable of the same thought processes we know today as soon as they evolved from apes.

Instead, says Johnson, the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, which occurred just 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, laid the foundations of the modern mind, and did it "almost overnight."

The Upper Paleolithic period arrived at the end of the last Ice Age, when major changes in the earth's climate and environment helped humans to flourish. The wide variety of intricately fashioned hunting and domestic equipment, as well as arts and crafts that the era's nomadic people left behind was evidence also of a worldwide transformation in human society.

"It was like a miracle, something that caught fire and spread, unstoppably," Johnson says. "We know it happened, because the stones and bones tell us so. It's history, and we can't ignore it."

What happened to change our species so dramatically?

Some scientists say the end of the Ice Age's big chill released a firestorm of human creativity. Others suggest a genetic mutation was responsible.

But, says Johnson, this startling period was only the first stage in the evolution of human thought.

Thousands more years would go by before the next seismic shift in consciousness, the "Greek Revolution" that took place around 1,000 B.C., and fostered the poetry of Homer, and later the philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

"The crucial factor is objectivity," Johnson says. "The ancient Egyptians, for instance, were very cultured people. But their minds worked differently. In their view of themselves they were always right, and their enemies were always monsters."

However, he says, the Greeks of Homer's time, 800 B.C., saw even their enemies in "evenhanded terms," as humans like themselves, with similar strengths and flaws. The development of writing made it possible to read the thoughts of the great poet and his intellectual descendents, as hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform gave clues to the minds of earlier civilizations.

"The Greeks looked at things as they were, and that is the beginning of what we call the Western Tradition. It's the mind as we now know it, capable of objective thinking," Johnson says.

His theory of history's influence on the modern mind was sparked by Princeton scientist Julian Jaynes, who wrote a much-disputed book titled The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Jaynes argued that the first flicker of human consciousness and introspective thought was born in Greece, symbolized by Socrates' declaration, "the unexamined life isn't worth living."

According to Jaynes, a new kind of thought arose because all the accumulated experience of the past wasn't enough to help people cope with the increasingly sophisticated societies that were taking root at that time. A new kind of thinking was required, one that looked at the world objectively. The Greeks rose to the challenge and developed "conscious thought."

February 8, 2004 at 01:35 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

LiveWire: Fans Rock Out to Online Music Reviews

Yahoo! News - LiveWire: Fans Rock Out to Online Music Reviews

By Derek Caney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Were the Beatles a better band before they released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?" Were 1980s "indie-rock" band the Replacements a better band after they signed to a major label? Is Led Zeppelin the most overrated band in history?

If these topics can keep you and your friends engaged for hours at a time, then face it, you are a rock music geek.
Don't be ashamed. Many long, tall, cold ones have been downed during these sometimes heated debates. But when it comes to the Internet, geeks tend to agree on the music Web sites that satisfy their adenoidal tendencies.

They aren't digital download sites. They don't offer slick live footage and they aren't run by billion-dollar media conglomerates. They are sites that offer vast databases of information and have built their fan base mostly through word-of-mouth.

The best example is the All Music Guide (http:/www.allmusic.com), which is one of the most comprehensive searchable databases of artists, albums, songs, labels and individual musicians.

Each entry includes a comprehensive biography of the artist and reviews of most records in that artist's catalog with details on the dates of release and Billboard chart positions.

The site, which garners 4 million visitors a month, ranks No. 8 in the music category, as compiled by Web site measurement service Hitwise, behind behemoths Launch Yahoo, MTV and VH1, but ahead of such luminaries as Rolling Stone magazine's Web site (http:/www.rollingstone.com) and Billboard magazine's site (http:/www.billboard.com).

Tony Sachs, owner of NYCD, a record store in Manhattan, said the site is a resource for customers. "We have two computers in the store," he said.

"One of them always has AllMusic.com up. Last week, I did $200 of business from a customer because I let him look up all the artists and albums he wanted," Sachs said.

The site initially started in 1995 as an offshoot of All Music Guide reference books and has since grown into a business that licenses its database to the likes of America Online, Barnes & Noble and eBay. It is owned by Alliance Entertainment of Coral Springs, Florida.

For geeks who bother to leave their house, PollStar.com has searchable concert itineraries in venues across the country. Users can sign up for a service in which they submit their favorite artists. When itineraries are set, the Web site sends users an e-mail of newly announced dates.

Not only does Pollstar track national acts like Britney Spears or Coldplay, but they also track small indie acts.

"I was traveling to New Orleans on business and a few weeks before I went, I plugged in the city and the dates that I was traveling," said Seth Fineberg, a financial trade journalist and self-avowed rock geek. The site told him that indie rock act Holly Golightly was appearing while he was in town.

"They track some really obscure indie artists," Fineberg said. He uses Pollstar, an offshoot of a trade publication of the same name, to confirm rumors of tours and shows that he hears in newsgroups and discussion groups.

Record shopping is perhaps the most natural habitat for the rock geek. But the larger chain stores and download sites have made independent record shops an endangered species. Many rock geeks have taken their scouring efforts to the Web.

While eBay and Amazon may be the best-known names in Internet retail, a far more comprehensive selection is available on the Global Electronic Music Marketplace, or GEMM (http:/www.gemm.com).

Its selection of rare and out-of-print records outstrips the larger retail sites. Individual stores deal directly with customers, but use GEMM as a listing service, for payment processing and for its competitive commissions.

An offshoot of the rock geek is the gearhead -- the guys who memorize serial numbers to determine the year the guitar was made. For gearheads, Harmony Central (http:/www.harmony-central.com) is invaluable.

Harmony Central is a database of product reviews of musical instruments, bulletin boards and chat rooms to help musicians find the right instruments and collect tips on playing them.

"I look at the site probably three times a week to look at the unfiltered consumer reviews," said Ross Snel, a freelance writer who plays guitar in a New York band called Barbiana Complex.

The site's best feature is its user review database, which allows users to search for equipment by model and make. Reviewers rate the products on a scale of one to 10 in categories like sound, reliability and customer support. The accompanying commentary is usually plain-spoken and rarely condescending.

(The Livewire column appears weekly. Comments or questions on this one can be e-mailed to derek.caney(at)reuters.com.)

January 17, 2004 at 10:54 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

PC sales up 12 percent in quarter, 10.9 percent for 2003: survey

Yahoo! News - PC sales up 12 percent in quarter, 10.9 percent for 2003: survey

Thu Jan 15,12:22 PM ETAdd Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Worldwide personal computer sales grew 12 percent in the fourth quarter, lifting growth for the year to 10.9 percent, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.

Gartner reported Wednesday that sales for the October-December period were 48.4 million and 168.9 million for the year, based on preliminary data.

"Strong consumer demand, robust notebook growth and falling prices were the three key driving forces for shipment growth in 2003," said Charles Smulders, of Gartner.

"The professional market also showed positive growth, but it was still slow progress. In the US market, enterprise buyers were still cautious on IT spending, but they did show gradual increases in purchases in the second half of the year."

Dell was the top seller in 2003 based on worldwide shipments with a 15 percent market shares but Hewlett-Packard (14.3 percent) was the top vendor in the fourth quarter of 2003, helped by a strong focus on the US consumer market.

The number three worldwide seller was IBM, followed by Fujistu-Siemens and Toshiba.

But Gartner noted that PC makers were changing their products to make computers do more, and sell other products as well.

"The fourth quarter of 2003 was a turning point for several large PC vendors as they entered the computer electronics space, with a portfolio of products that bridged the PC and consumer electronics markets, such as Media Center PC and consumer electronic devices, such as LCD TVs," Smulders said.

January 15, 2004 at 06:45 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

MoveOn Puts Power of Internet to Use in Politics

Yahoo! News - MoveOn Puts Power of Internet to Use in Politics

By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK (Reuters) - MoveOn.org, an online grass-roots activist group that aims to influence millions of voters with an anti-Bush television ad this month, has harnessed the power of technology like never before in U.S. politics, experts say.

The group, which promotes liberal political causes from its Web site, has attracted 2.3 million members and raised millions of dollars by making the most of the Internet's low cost, immediate impact and broad access, they say.

"This is the election that is realizing the potential of the Internet," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "We haven't seen anything that's comparable to this kind of mobilization before."

The MoveOn ad, chosen late on Monday after a contest with some 1,500 entries from amateurs and professionals alike, shows young children doing tedious, menial jobs such as washing dishes and hauling garbage, followed by the line: "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush (news - web sites)'s $1 trillion deficit?"

The 30-second piece by Denver ad executive Charlie Fisher was chosen by a celebrity-studded panel of jurors, including political strategist James Carville, rock musician Michael Stipe and the public online. The contest got its share of bad publicity when two entries compared Bush to Adolf Hitler, but none of the Hitler ads was a finalist.

The winner was announced at a music-filled, high-energy gala in New York on Monday, where supporters cheered on outspoken celebrities like comedians Al Franken and Margaret Cho and moviemakers John Sayles and Michael Moore.

SEX SCANDAL START

The Internet-based MoveOn, which got its start as an anti-impeachment movement during the White House sex scandal of the Clinton administration, has found the right recipe for using the Internet, said Ron Faucheux, a contributor at the Washington-based Campaigns & Elections Magazine.

"They have put together what will probably be a model for new advocacy groups for the future, for the left, the right and the middle," he said. "It's the combination of Internet, television, newspaper and grass roots. It's not just a Web site sitting there by itself."

The liberal group, backed by such deep pockets as financier George Soros, has 2.3 million members who donate money, staff phone banks and sign petitions. It raised millions of dollars last year and was among the first to plant former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (news - web sites) firmly on the political map in a virtual primary last summer.

Taking his lead from MoveOn's Internet push, Dean too has harnessed the Internet to raise millions of dollars from people who do not normally contribute to political campaigns.

"We really believe this isn't an apathetic country, that people want to be involved in making the country a better place," said Eli Pariser, MoveOn's campaigns director. "What we provide is a simple and easy way for people to do what they already want to do which is to speak out and have an impact."

MoveOn has bought $300,000 worth of advertising time on CNN to run the contest-winning ad in the days around the president's Jan. 20 State of the Union address, he said.

It also is hoping to run the ad during the NFL Super Bowl on Feb. 1. Such 30-second slots average $2.25 million and reach about 88 million people, according to Advertising Age magazine.

MoveOn is reminiscent of "Get Out the Vote" movements in 1972, when 18-year-olds got the right to vote, said Jamieson.

"A lot of people feel alienated by the Washington power establishment, big interest groups and political parties and big money," said Faucheux. "There's a lot of voters in this country and political activists looking for ways to participate."

January 13, 2004 at 10:30 PM in Politics, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Cable and Internet Loom Large in Fragmented Political News Universe

The always excellent PEW latest survey points to the further erosion of traditional media in favour of internet for political news in the US.

Pew Internet & American Life Project

The 2004 presidential campaign is continuing the long-term shift in how the public gets its election news. Television news remains dominant, but there has been further erosion in the audience for broadcast TV news. The Internet, a relatively minor source for campaign news in 2000, is now on par with such traditional outlets as public television broadcasts, Sunday morning news programs and the weekly news magazines. And young people, by far the hardest to reach segment of the political news audience, are abandoning mainstream sources of election news and increasingly citing alternative outlets, including comedy shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, as their source for election news.

Today�s fractionalized media environment has taken the heaviest toll on local news, network TV news and newspapers. Four years ago, nearly half of Americans (48%) said they regularly learned something about the presidential campaign from local TV news, more than any other news category. Local TV still leads, but now 42% say they routinely learn about the campaign from local television news. Declines among nightly network news and newspapers � the other leading outlets in 2000 � have been even more pronounced (10 points network news, nine points newspapers).

The Pew Research Center�s new survey on campaign news and political communication, conducted among 1,506 adults Dec. 19-Jan. 4, shows that cable news networks like CNN and Fox News have achieved only modest gains since 2000 as a regular source for campaign news (38% now, 34% in 2000). But as a consequence of the slippage among other major news sources, cable now trails only local TV news as a regular source for campaign information. In several key demographic categories � young people, college graduates and wealthy Americans � cable is the leading source for election news.

In that regard, the relative gains for the Internet are especially notable. While 13% of Americans regularly learn something about the election from the Internet, up from 9% at this point in the 2000 campaign, another 20% say they sometimes get campaign news from the Internet (up from 15%).

The survey shows that young people, in particular, are turning away from traditional media sources for information about the campaign. Just 23% of Americans age 18-29 say they regularly learn something about the election from the nightly network news, down from 39% in 2000. There also have been somewhat smaller declines in the number of young people who learn about the campaign from local TV news (down 13%) and newspapers (down 9%).

Cable news networks are the most frequently cited source of campaign news for young people, but the Internet and comedy programs also are important conduits of election news for Americans under 30. One-in-five young people say they regularly get campaign news from the Internet, and about as many (21%) say the same about comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show. For Americans under 30, these comedy shows are now mentioned almost as frequently as newspapers and evening network news programs as regular sources for election news.

But people who regularly learn about the election from entertainment programs � whether young or not � are poorly informed about campaign developments. In general, Americans show little awareness of campaign events and key aspects of the candidates� backgrounds: About three-in-ten (31%) can correctly identify Wesley Clark as the Democratic candidate who had served as an Army general and 26% know Richard Gephardt is the candidate who had served as House majority leader. People who say they regularly learn about the campaign from entertainment programs are among the least likely to correctly answer these questions. In contrast, those who learn about the campaign on the Internet are considerably more knowledgeable than the average, even when their higher level of education is taken into account.

TV Still Dominates

While cable news and the Internet have become more important in informing Americans about the election, television as a whole remains the public�s main source of campaign news. When individual TV outlets are tested, 22% say they get most of their news from CNN, 20% cite Fox, and somewhat fewer cite local news or one of the network news broadcasts.

By this measure, newspapers, radio and Internet are viewed as secondary sources of campaign news. At this stage, the Internet remains a secondary source � even among Internet users. About three-quarters of Americans who use the Internet (76%) say television is their first or second main source for news about the campaign (37% cite newspapers, 20% the Internet). Still, the number of Americans overall who mention the Internet as a main source � as first or second mentions � has nearly doubled since 2000 (from 7% to 13%).

Bias Concerns Grow Among Democrats

The survey also finds that the nation�s deep political divisions are reflected in public views of campaign coverage. Overall, about as many Americans now say news organizations are biased in favor of one of the two parties as say there is no bias in election coverage (39% vs. 38%). This marks a major change from previous surveys taken since 1987. In 1987, 62% thought election coverage was free of partisan bias. That percentage has steadily declined to 53% in 1996, 48% in 2000, and 38% today.

Compared with 2000 a much larger number of Democrats believe that coverage of the campaign is tilted in favor of the Republicans (29% now, 19% in 2000). But Republicans continue to see more bias in campaign coverage than do Democrats. More than four-in-ten Republicans (42%) see news coverage of the campaign as biased in favor of Democrats; that compares with 37% in 2000. Among independents there also has been a significant decline in the percentage who say election news is free of bias (43% now, 51% then), though independents remain divided over whether the coverage favors Democrats or Republicans.

The survey finds that two-thirds of Americans (67%) prefer to get news from sources that have no particular political point of view, while a quarter favors news that reflects their political leanings. Independents stand out for their strong preference of news that contains no particular viewpoint (74% vs. 67% of Republicans and 60% of Democrats).

With the race for the Democratic nomination about to enter a critical phase, the campaign has yet to break out in terms of public interest. But attention is not notably lower than at a comparable point in the last presidential contest. Nearly half of Americans (46%) are following news about the nomination contest very (14%) or fairly (32%) closely; in January 2000, slightly more (53%) said they were following the campaign, but at that point there were nomination contests in both parties.

The survey also finds:

Political endorsements � whether made by politicians, celebrities or advocacy organizations � continue to have little impact on most Americans. Moreover, among the small number swayed by such endorsements, the effect is mostly mixed. On balance, endorsements by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore would have a somewhat negative impact, although most people say they would not be affected either way. An endorsement by a person�s priest or minister is a net positive, but 80% say such an endorsement would not matter (up from 70% in 2000). Newspaper endorsements are also less influential than four years ago, and dissuade as many Americans as they persuade.

Internet users rely on the web sites of major media outlets for campaign news, rather than Internet-based news operations. Among Americans who use the Internet, 40% say they regularly or sometimes learn about the campaign from the news pages of web portals like AOL and Yahoo.com, and 38% say the same about web sites of major news organizations like CNN and the New York Times. Just 11% regularly or sometimes learn about the campaign from online news magazines and opinion sites such as Slate.com.

Since 2000, there has been sharp decline in the percentage of Republicans who say they regularly learn about the campaign from daily newspapers, as well as local and nightly network TV news. And with the rise of Fox News the political profile of the campaign news audience has become more partisan. Fully twice as many Republicans as Democrats say they get most of their election news from Fox News (29% vs. 14%). Significantly more Democrats than Republicans get most of their election news from one of the three major networks (40% vs. 24%).

January 11, 2004 at 08:01 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Overview: The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

OT, but this is an outstanding site, and everyone interested in their career should read and practise these five simple "patterns". (pdf here)

The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

�You don't just luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities.�
-- Barbara Bush

�We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?�
-- Jean Cocteau

The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers reveals the subtle yet powerful factors that determine career success: why some people ascend to the top and prosper, while others equally talented never reach their expectations.

The idea that there are patterns in extraordinary careers is not conventional wisdom. Many believe that success is the result of either luck or larceny.

It turns out that extraordinary careers follow a strikingly consistent trajectory, marked by five distinct patterns that distinguish the very top from the rest of the pack.

So what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? They are as follows:

1. Understand the Value of You
People with extraordinary careers understand how value is created in the workplace, and translate that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each phase of their careers.

2. Practice Benevolent Leadership
People with extraordinary careers do not claw their way to the top, they are carried there.

3. Overcome the Permission Paradox
People with extraordinary careers overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: you can't get the job without experience and you can't get the experience without the job.

4. Differentiate Using the 20/80 Principle of Performance
People with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well but don't stop there. They storm past pre-determined objectives to create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.

5. Find the Right Fit (Strengths, Passions & People)
People with extraordinary careers make decisions with the long-term in mind. They willfully migrate towards positions that fit their natural strengths and passions and where they can work with people they like and respect.

January 11, 2004 at 07:40 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Livewire: Consumers Flock to Web for Mad Cow Information

Yahoo! News - Livewire: Consumers Flock to Web for Mad Cow Information

Sat Jan 10, 7:30 AM ETAdd Technology - Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Reed Stevenson
SEATTLE (Reuters) - When the first case of mad cow disease surfaced in the United States three weeks ago, the biggest problem wasn't finding facts on the cattle brain destroying disease, but sorting through a jumble of Web sites overflowing with information.

Consumers, trade groups and even local governments flocked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites)'s Web site on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)) (http://www.fas.usda.gov/dlp/BSE/bse.html), calling it by far the best resource on the Web.

"The USDA Web site is the best place for information," said Kiran Kernellu, communications manager for the National Meat Association.

Kernellu said she follows the live briefings and reads transcripts of news conferences by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and USDA Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven on the Web site.

Officials from the USDA's Web site did not respond to requests for comment, but according to Web traffic tracker Hitwise, the number of visitors to that site more than doubled on Dec. 23, when the agency first reported the infected cow, and has remained the top agricultural Internet address since then.

BSE, the deadly, brain-wasting disease, was discovered in a slaughtered dairy cow in Washington State in December, causing more than two dozen countries to halt imports of U.S. beef and fanning fears that consumers could contract a human form of the disease known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (news - web sites).

For those interested in more information about the rare human neurological disorder, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Foundation's Web site (http://cjdfoundation.org/Internet.html) is a key resource as well.

Other sites rich in information on Mad Cow disease include the explanatory How Stuff Works Web site (http://www.howstuffworks.com/mad-cow-disease.htm) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites)'s collection of Web resources (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/cjd.htm).

While there is no shortage of Web sites offering information about Mad Cow disease, other sites by consumer rights advocates, animal rights activists and vegetarians have also sprung up to promote their own causes.

The Organic Consumers Association Web site (http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm) provides articles and commentary on Mad Cow disease, along with a petition form for stricter standards for beef entering the food supply.

People for the Ethical Treat of animals (PETA) also has a Web site (http://www.peta.org/feat/madcowus/) called "It's Mad to Eat Meat" offering links to vegetarian resources as well.

In retaliation, the Web site of The Center For Consumer Freedom (http://www.madcowscare.com) argues that consumer fears are being fueled by "scaremongers" who are trying to capitalize on the outbreak.

A FALSE LEAD...AND HUMOR

For those searching for information on Mad Cow via the popular search engine Google (http:www.google.com), initial results could be disappointing.

The top hit on Google is a link to "The Official Mad Cow Disease Home Page (http://mad-cow.org/) which, according to the header on the home page, hasn't been updated since April of 2001. A link from that page to news and commentary, in fact, takes Web surfers back to the Organic Consumers Association Web site.

While some are searching for Mad Cow information on the Web, others are stumbling upon Mad Cow humor.

There some collections of Mad Cow jokes on the Web, but they are far outnumbered by more general ruminant-related jokes.

Among other humorous sites are "How to Spot a Mad Cow" at (http://viswiz.imk.fraunhofer.de/%7Esteffi/madcow/madcow.htm) and "The Meatrix" (http://www.themeatrix.com), a spoof of the popular science fiction Matrix films.

According to the site's creators, the animated "Meatrix" movie has been viewed by more than 3 million people that bills itself as an expose "about the lies we tell ourselves about where our food comes from."

That's because The Meatrix was created by the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, an organization that "works to end the destructive and dangerous practices of factory farming and to promote sustainable agriculture."

"We knew we were successful with this when a school football team in Arkansas started discussing the safety of their meat after watching 'The Meatrix'," said Diane Hatz -- communications and marketing director for GRACE.

January 10, 2004 at 08:41 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The power of internet

Remember when you had to wait for 2 weeks to get your holiday pictures. Well here is the latest holiday snap from Mars taken earlier today.

We take it for granted, even get frustrated when NASA don't update the website fast enough, but this is a seminal change in expectation level for timliness about information and data. The immediacy of internet is damatically appealing to us in a way we can never let go.

January 6, 2004 at 11:51 PM in Internet evolution, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Daily Telegraph has RSS feed

Telegraph newspaper online | RSS feeds

Daily Telegraph joins the growing group of UK newspapers which are leading the world with RSS feeds, which you can conventiently follow in your newsreader.

Others available are, Scotsman & Guardian. My favourite paper, The Times is still to provide one ... surely its coming soon.

January 1, 2004 at 02:01 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Software called Grokker could be the future of search

CNN.com - Going deeper than Google - Dec. 17, 2003

Going deeper than Google

(FORTUNE.COM) -- Loyal readers may remember my passionate enthusiasm a year ago upon the release of a new Web search product called Grokker (Making online searches more useful).
This software tool takes the data culled by an online search and organizes it visually into categories that enable you to quickly dig deeply to find the exact site or information you need. Grokker broke new ground, but later ran out of gas when the Northern Lights search engine, on which it was based, went out of business.

Now Grokker is back as a smarter and less expensive ($49 instead of $99) application that works on top of many different databases, including the all-important Google. I'm as excited this time as I was a year ago. This really could be the future for finding information.

The new Grokker was released Monday by startup Groxis. It makes me wonder if Google really does have search as sewed up as we often assume. When you use Grokker you realize just how brain dead even the best search tools are today.

Grokker is not a Web service but an application that sits on your PC. (A Mac OS X version should be ready in about four weeks, say executives.)

Grokker takes the raw output of a search and organizes it into categories and subcategories. Groxis has put more intelligence into the software this time, so it is not dependent, as it was with Northern Lights, on categories established by others. This means that a wide variety of types of databases can be Grokked-now Grokker can search with six different engines simultaneously -- Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, Fast, Teoma, and WiseNet.

It also can organize searches for products on Amazon or for files on your own desktop. Google capability is coming within weeks, Groxis says, as a separate software component that users will add. Soon you will also be able to use it in conjunction with AskJeeves, eBay, social networks like Linkedin, and job site Monster.

Grokker creates a visual representation of a search. When you type in, say, "nanotechnology," Grokker starts organizing data from the multiple search engines. You see a big circle, within which are smaller circles with labels including "conference," "technology," "science," "research," "reports," "news," "molecular," "material," and so on. Each represents a subset of data on nanotechnology.

Click on, say, "molecular," and that circle will enlarge so you can see several further subcircles, one of which is "molecular assemblies." Click on that, and another category becomes visible entitled "molecular assembly sequencing software."

Now you could, in theory, have typed that exact phrase into Google and gotten to the same Web sites. However, in many cases you can't be sure what you're looking for because you simply don't know what's out there. Grokker gives you an easy way to delve into a data set, and it often leads to info-revelations.

For example, a Grokker search of the Amazon database, also using the initial term "nanotechnology," included a category circle labeled "children's books." I would not have predicted that children's books on nanotech existed. But a few further clicks reveal a book entitled "Nanotechnology: Invisible Machines," for 9-12 year-olds, as well as -- even more unexpectedly -- "Submarines and Underwater Exploration," for kids 4-8. If you didn't know to look for it you'd never have found it, most likely.

A search using Amazon's own onsite search tool, in which I asked for books for 4-8 year-olds related to the subject of nanotechnology, found no matches.

Says R.J. Pittman, CEO of Groxis: "Google has indexed several billion pages, but there are between 550 and 600 billion in total on what's referred to as the invisible Web or deep Web. Within a year Grokker will have ten times the reach of Google in terms of available Web pages."

Adds Paul Hawken, the environmentalist and entrepreneur who is chairman of Groxis: "Google can't do it because their technology is based on lists." Hawken came up with the idea for Grokker a couple of years ago when he grew frustrated with the difficulty of finding information about environmental issues. He hooked up with some ace programmers and Grokker is the result.

Groxis may get traction first in the education market. Both the Los Angeles and Chicago school districts have already taken trial licenses to see whether Grokker would be useful for their students. The University of Nevada bought a license for 500 seats, and is putting Grokker in campus computer labs.

The real competition for Grokker is the amazing ability of Google and other search engines to place at the top of a thousand-site list just the one you were looking for. If you're good at stipulating the terms for a Google search you may find Grokker unnecessary. When I used the inferior predecessor I found that there was no reason to use Grokker for the vast majority of searches.

But for some very important projects -- like finding a certain type of real estate broker in a specific region -- it was incomparable. I was able to find a broker in minutes with Grokker that had been completely absent from my Google searches.

In the most personally gratifying moment of the demonstration CEO Pittman gave me last week, he typed in "David Kirkpatrick." There inside the big circle were two other circles representing me and my work at FORTUNE. A smaller circle was labeled "New York Times." That's where a much younger (and very talented) business journalist of the same name writes. Since I've been writing for more than a decade longer than the other DK, it's nice that Grokker figured that out.

Grokker can be downloaded for $49, or you can get a 30-day free trial, at Groxis.com.

December 30, 2003 at 10:06 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

America's Online Pursuits; who's online and what they do

Pew Internet & American Life Project

PEW are a great source of publi opinion, and as it relates to internet & society. This latest end of year report, covers who is online, and what they do.

Interesting takeaways:
- growth in online base is slowed
- those online have embedded internet as part of their life, especially high-speed users, who now account for 31% of all users.

- Online activity has consistently grown over the course of our research.
Internet users discover more things to do online as they gain experience and
as new applications become available. This momentum often fuels increasing
reliance on the Internet in everyday life and higher expectations about the
things people can do online.

- Despite this growth in activity, the growth of the online population
itself has slowed. There was almost no growth over the course of 2002 and
there has been only a small uptick in recent months to leave the size of the
online U.S. adult population at 63 percent of all those 18 and over.

- Different people use the Internet in different ways. The report is full of
examples of how people in different demographic groups use the Internet for
different purposes.

- Experience and the quality of online connections matter. Those with more
experience online and those who have high-speed connections at home
generally do more online more often than those with lower levels of
experience and those with dial-up connections. The growth of the cohort of
veteran users, those with at least three years of online experience, has
been striking. Nearly three-quarters of Internet users have at least three
years of experience.

- Online Americans' experience with the commercial side of the Internet has
expanded dramatically in spite of the economic slump. Financial and
transaction activities such as online banking and online auctions have grown
more than any other genre of activity.

- Email continues to be the "killer app" of the Internet. More people use
email than do any other activity online. Many report their email use
increases their communication with key family and friends and enhances their
connection to them.

- Big news stories drive lasting changes in the news-seeking audience
online.

Other findings in the report:

- The size of the online population on a typical day grew from 52 million
Americans in March 2000 to 66 million in August 2003 - an increase of 27
percent.

- 87 percent of U.S. Internet users said they have access at home and 48
percent said they have access at work in our August 2003 survey. 31 percent
of Internet users who go online from home have broadband as of August 2003.

- 31 percent of those who use the Internet at home have broadband
connections.

December 29, 2003 at 07:26 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The economy according to eBay

Yahoo! News - The economy according to eBay

Mon Dec 29, 6:20 AM ET

By Kevin Maney, USA TODAY
In 2003, the nation finally felt worn out. That's the conclusion when looking at the year through the unique lens of eBay, the gigantic, freewheeling online marketplace where one can buy anything from a Beanie Baby to a backhoe.

In a year of lives lost at war and jobs lost to a difficult economy, of a crisis of faith in two institutions - mutual funds and the North American electrical grid - that previously seemed unshakeable, judiciousness took hold.

At the beginning of 2003, BMWs, Gucci and Prada reigned supreme on eBay (EBAY). All were among the 10 most-searched terms. Last year, the No. 1 search was for Gucci.

Here at the end of 2003, the most-searched items have shifted to Fords, anything pink (forget which designer), and gold (the kind you store in a wall safe as a hedge against geopolitical or economic disaster).

There are many ways to analyze 2003. You can sift through major news events. You can chart best-selling books and top-rated TV shows. You can dissect the stock market. But if you want the gestalt of America - the unified essence of this nation at this time - there might be no better place to turn than the massive databases that run eBay.

There sits a repository of culture and commerce unlike any before it. No executive decides what eBay sells. Instead, millions of individuals post items on the Web site in response to shifting nuances in the marketplace. Because it is so fluid, the site captures the collective mood and unique extremes of the 86 million people who use it.

"EBay is the perfect manifestation of everything the Internet makes possible," says Aliza Sherman, a Web pioneer now teaching and writing in Laramie, Wyo. "It is for and by the people. It is organic."

So USA TODAY came here to eBay's campus, where the lobby features a Pez dispenser collection and conference rooms have names like Fiestaware and Matchbook, and asked the company's computer wizards to cut the site's data every which way, looking for trends and oddities that help define the year we're leaving behind.

Of course, it's not perfect. As much information as eBay collects, there's still a lot it doesn't yet know about its marketplace. The company is in the process of installing better ways to mine its data. At this point, conclusions are less an exact science and more artful extrapolation. Using eBay's data to find larger trends is a little like watching a movie trailer and trying to figure out the whole movie's story. Then again, people do that all the time.

In that spirit, some tidbits about 2003 from the eBay files:

� The Aug. 14 blackout in the Northeast shook confidence in the power grid. In the week after the blackout, sales of portable generators jumped 67% vs. the previous week. But it wasn't just a knee-jerk spike. Generator sales on eBay are running at an annualized rate of $12 million, up 191% over 2002. It seems we're sure another outage is coming, and we want to be ready.

� Wireless home computer networks have hit the mainstream. Sales on eBay of equipment for so-called Wi-Fi networks, which can let computers connect to the Internet wirelessly, have grown 243% over 2002. It is the hottest technology category.

� SARS (news - web sites) scared the pants off a lot of people. At the height of the epidemic, in May, eBay's "protective masks" category shot up 118% for the month. Sellers were listing masks singly, by the box and by the pallet.

� People are just stinkin' weird. One listing offered to sell Paul McCartney's germs from a used tissue. After baseball fan Steve Bartman interfered with a pop foul ball in the Chicago Cubs' playoff series, someone tried to sell his personal contact information on eBay. (EBay pulled the listing.)

Currently, you can, if you wish, buy a kangaroo scrotum. It costs about $10.

Downshifting in vogue

Skulking through all the eBay data, though, is the mounting weight of persistent economic malaise.

Though government numbers show the economy is rebounding after more than two years of doldrums, the eBay economy suggests something different. In fact, it seems to show a lag effect. People and companies downshifted as 2003 wore on.

For instance, eBay tracks searched words, which in turn are indicative of what buyers are looking for. Word searches for all of 2002 reflect a society still spending freely. Among the top 10 searches for the year were BMW, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Coach.

Similar terms dominated the top 10 into early 2003, until August, when there was a sudden shift. The Iraq (news - web sites) war was dragging on. Companies were still cutting jobs and keeping raises flat. The blackout hit. California was in political chaos with its recall vote. And just then the luxury names dropped off eBay's top 10, replaced by more mundane words such as Ford, Chevy and diesel.

In September, "salvage" made it to the top 10.

Meanwhile, the economy drove individual sellers to eBay, hoping to make extra cash in tough times. In July, Bill and Peterene Stanhope of Pembroke, Mass., listed a 14-acre island they owned off the coast of Maine. Bill's importing business was suffering, as was Peterene's business of making bookmarks. They needed to sell the island, which they'd bought years earlier, to make ends meet.

For similar reasons, eBay's industrial products market took off in 2003. As an example, doctors and dentists, squeezed by insurance companies, turned to eBay in 2003 to buy medical equipment. In general, medical professionals are wary of buying used equipment. But the category is up more than 100% over last year.

"I don't see any huge economic recovery," says Neal Sherman, whose company, The Advantage Group, uses eBay to liquidate goods for companies and public entities. It recently listed the entire contents of a supermarket, minus the food, and sold a yacht for the state of Maryland for $275,100.

"Take coffee equipment and mixers - a good operator in flusher economic times would buy those new," Sherman says. "When times are tough, they save money and buy it in the aftermarket."

From everything Sherman sees, the aftermarket for used business stuff is turbocharged. For that matter, the economy is exactly why Maryland went through Sherman and eBay to sell the governor's yacht. The state needs cash to offset its budget deficit.

War, Cubs, Arnold

If America 2003 hasn't exactly been a nation of peace, eBay shows we were a nation of pieces.

The war in Iraq began March 19. Those of us at home seemed to want a piece of it. Some individuals tried to use eBay to sell fragments of Baghdad's toppled statue of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). (This was another time when eBay pulled the listings, citing its policy of not allowing profiteering from disasters.) Also after the war started, the site did a brisk business in military model toys, up 50% vs. the year before. Items such as the Iraqi most-wanted trading cards sold well, too.

The war proved a boon to eBay's category for pieces of gold. Sales are up more than 70% over a year ago. People generally buy gold when they believe bad times will drive down the value of the dollar.

In October, when the Cubs seemed on the way to their first World Series (news - web sites) championship in more than 80 years, everyone wanted a piece of that, too. EBay's sales of Cubs paraphernalia shot up more than six times over the year before.

During Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s campaign for California governor, everyone wanted a piece of him. EBay's sales of Schwarzenegger-related items - from a 1969 Iron Man magazine with him on the cover to Terminator 2 talking dolls - climbed 1,500%.

Finally, there was the Feb. 1 Columbia disaster, when the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry. Fragments were scattered across the Southwest. EBay landed at the center of controversy when some people tried to sell pieces of Columbia on the site. The listings were pulled. More legitimately, sales of space-related model kits jumped 95% in February, compared with February 2002.

Best buy? Maybe eBay

Overall, the success of eBay itself says something about 2003.

First, it shows that the Internet revolution didn't end when the 2000 dot-com bubble burst. Sure, a lot of things didn't work and went under - Pets.com, online grocer Webvan. But businesses that made it are transforming markets.

Just look at what eBay and the Internet have done in 2003 to the $300 billion used car business. About $7 billion worth of cars, most of them used, will sell through eBay this year. About 30% of used cars will be sold on the Net. A market that used to be local has become national in a year or two.

The eBay concept is even transforming politics, as seen in the campaign of Democrat Howard Dean (news - web sites). "You can draw a clear connecting line from eBay to Google to the Dean campaign," says Steven Johnson, author of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. "All are bottom-up systems organized by lots of individuals acting in small ways, as opposed to top-down systems where a small elite calls the shots."

As a company and phenomenon, eBay continued to grow in 2003. In 1998, its gross merchandise sales - the total value of all transactions - were $700,000. In 2000, at the height of dot-com mania, they hit $5.4 billion. This year? The number should pass $20 billion.

The stock market values the company at about $41 billion - about $11 billion more than the market value of Ford Motor. That says a lot about what society thinks of eBay and its future.

Speaking of the stock market, eBay is in sync with developments there, too. After nearly three years of stock market gloom, the Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq turned upward in 2003 - but eBay did even better.

With such news comes the possibility that our humbling will not last.

At the close of 2003, mad cow disease in the USA is a worry. But Saddam Hussein is captured, stocks are up, companies are reporting better profits, and managers seem poised to hire once again. IBM this fall said it will create 10,000 jobs in 2004.

Perhaps we'll soon be in a different mood, and eBay will be there to capture it as the likes of Gucci, Prada and BMW once again rise to the top of our desires.

December 29, 2003 at 10:53 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Cyber Blackmail Wave Targets Office Workers

Yahoo! News - Cyber Blackmail Wave Targets Office Workers

Here is a new issue ... targeting of office workers with threats to compromise their PC, and therefore their job. Easy to understand how people could be scared by this tactic, but I hope anyone who gets this, reports it immediately.

Mon Dec 29, 7:21 AM ET

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Cyber blackmail artists are shaking down office workers, threatening to delete computer files or install pornographic images on their work PCs unless they pay a ransom, police and security experts said.

The extortion scam, which is believed to have surfaced one year ago, indiscriminately targets anyone on the corporate ladder with a PC connected to the Internet.

It usually starts with a threatening e-mail in which the author claims to have the power to take over a worker's computer through an exploit in the corporate network, experts said.

The e-mail typically contains a demand that unless a small fee is paid -- at first no more than $20 or $30 -- they will attack the PC with a file-wiping program or download onto the machine images of child pornography.

"They prey on the nice secretary who wouldn't do anything wrong. When she gets one of these e-mails she thinks 'Oh, my goodness what am I going to do?' So she puts it on her credit card and transfers the funds to the (suspect's online bank) account and hopes it goes away," a British detective specializing in cyber-crime told Reuters.

The officer advised against cooperating with the fraudsters. "If a person pays up, say it's just 20 euros, then they have identified a soft target. They may come back for more, next time demanding more money."

HARD CRIME TO CRACK

In the annals of cyber-crime, investigators acknowledge the racket is one of the most difficult to crack. Because the ransom is small, people tend to pay up and keep quiet.

Police said the number of cases is tailing off but because it so often goes unreported, there is little evidence the crime is actually in decline.

According to Finnish computer security firm, F-Secure, a large Scandinavian university was hit earlier this month.

Several university officials received an e-mail from a fraudster who appeared to be based in Estonia, said F-Secure research manager Mikko Hypponen.

The e-mail said several security vulnerabilities had been detected on the university's network and that unless the e-mail recipient transferred 20 euros ($25) to the author's online bank account, he would release a series of viruses capable of deleting a host of computer files.

Hypponen said he advised the university to take the necessary precautions, alert police and not pay. "A lot of these cases are simply bluffing. But I'm sure there are both bluffs and actual cases," said Hypponen.

Police say crime gangs have turned cyber extortion into a tidy business of late.

A preferred tool is the crude, but effective denial-of-service attack on a company's network, capable of crippling it with an overwhelming flood of data.

There are scores of cases of companies -- particularly small and medium-sized firms -- receiving extortion threats that demand the victim transfer money to the fraudster's bank account or the attacks will grow in severity, police said.

Fraudsters also send out streams of menacing e-mails with hollow threats of cyber sabotage. The scam works even if only a handful of the countless recipients follow through and pay up.

"It's getting simpler," said Hypponen. "If you wanted to extort money from a small company you would have had to hack them and convince them you have stolen their information. Here, you don't have to do anything but send an e-mail around."

December 29, 2003 at 10:51 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession

Yahoo! News - Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession

Thu Dec 25, 7:47 AM ET

By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California prosecutors took the unusual step of setting up a Web site on the Michael Jackson case to alleviate a media frenzy and, in doing so, triggered a debate on use of the Web within the legal community.

Some legal experts said that posting documents detailing the criminal charges against the 45-year-old entertainer was a breakthrough for public access. Others countered that it would undermine the spirit of the law and court proceedings, creating even more of a circus-like atmosphere.

Over the last five years, the Web has often been used to spin the views of one side or another in sensational civil cases, like the Microsoft class-action case.

But lawyers and law professors said it was rare for a governmental prosecuting attorney's office to set up a Web site devoted entirely to a particular criminal case.

Many said they expect it to become a trend, and, while a specialized Web site appears to be an anomaly in criminal cases, media-hounded prosecutors in other high-profile cases like the Kobe Bryant rape case and the upcoming Scott Peterson (news - web sites) murder trial have also put links on their Web sites to documents.

"The Web has been such a driver of information in civil cases, it has really changed defense tactics. The legal battles that now go on over the Web are not insubstantial," said Katrina Dewey, editor of the LA Daily Journal legal newspaper.

"And now, this (trend) just moved it into the criminal arena," she said, referring to the Jackson Web site set up by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon at (http://www.sbscpressinfo.org).

To be sure, loads of court case data has long been available on the Web and the legal profession has changed dramatically with the Web's emergence.

People can stay abreast of changes in the law or government agency regulations by using various Web services, like (http://www.watchthatpage.com) which collects data from sites a lawyer or anyone might have special interest in.

Lawyers, journalists and the general public can also get news fed to them with software that scans major legal Web sites and legal online newsletters or Web logs, or blogs, for short.

Law-related blogs -- known as "blawgs" -- have sprung up with the rise of the blogging self-publishing trend in general. Popular blawgs include an appellate court site at (http://www.appellateblog.blogspot.com).

Some law firms create blogs for the sole purpose of making data available to the general public, like the Washington, D.C. firm, Goldstein and Howe, whose popular U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) blog, SCOTUS Blog, is at (http://www.goldsteinhowe.com).

There are a variety of specialist legal sites, including Doug Isenberg's Internet and patent technology law site, GigaLaw.com, at http://www.gigalaw.com/. Nolo Press of Berkeley, California, offers a variety of resources for do-it-yourself lawyers at http://www.nolo.com/.

Other popular court news Web sites include (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and (http://www.crimelibrary.com), both of which are owned by the CourtTV.com television network.

Many U.S. courts also cite decisions, court news, summaries of recent opinions and docket information.

To get familiar with what various federal courts have online, go to (http://www.uscourts.gov).

But while many law professors said the Internet is a great learning and research tool, some hold more traditional views when it comes to using it as a forum during an ongoing trial.

"Many documents are available online through the courts, but there involves a process in getting them," said William Weston, who is an associate dean and professor of Concord Law School, the nation's first all-online law school where students can earn a law degree wholly via the Internet.

In fact, to most people unfamiliar with legalese, reading documents online is like reading Greek.

In the Jackson case, however, the Web site is specifically designed to be user-friendly and even provides frequently asked questions about the case -- a step considered troublesome by some legal experts.

Weston said he was concerned that people may be compelled to download the documents, editorialize and then spread them further around the Web.

"When you throw details out on the Internet, it diminishes the dignity of the court. It now puts the case in the court of public opinion," said Weston.

Reuters/VNU

December 27, 2003 at 02:10 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The internet in a cup

Economist.com

Coffee fuelled the information exchanges of the 17th and 18th centuries

WHERE do you go when you want to know the latest business news, follow commodity prices, keep up with political gossip, find out what others think of a new book, or stay abreast of the latest scientific and technological developments? Today, the answer is obvious: you log on to the internet. Three centuries ago, the answer was just as easy: you went to a coffee-house. There, for the price of a cup of coffee, you could read the latest pamphlets, catch up on news and gossip, attend scientific lectures, strike business deals, or chat with like-minded people about literature or politics.

The internet in a cup
Dec 18th 2003

The coffee-houses that sprang up across Europe, starting around 1650, functioned as information exchanges for writers, politicians, businessmen and scientists. Like today's websites, weblogs and discussion boards, coffee-houses were lively and often unreliable sources of information that typically specialised in a particular topic or political viewpoint. They were outlets for a stream of newsletters, pamphlets, advertising free-sheets and broadsides. Depending on the interests of their customers, some coffee-houses displayed commodity prices, share prices and shipping lists, whereas others provided foreign newsletters filled with coffee-house gossip from abroad.

Rumours, news and gossip were also carried between coffee-houses by their patrons, and sometimes runners would flit from one coffee-house to another within a particular city to report major events such as the outbreak of a war or the death of a head of state. Coffee-houses were centres of scientific education, literary and philosophical speculation, commercial innovation and, sometimes, political fermentation. Collectively, Europe's interconnected web of coffee-houses formed the internet of the Enlightenment era.

The great soberer
Coffee, the drink that fuelled this network, originated in the highlands of Ethiopia, where its beans were originally chewed rather than infused for their invigorating effects. It spread into the Islamic world during the 15th century, where it was embraced as an alternative to alcohol, which was forbidden (officially, at least) to Muslims. Coffee came to be regarded as the very antithesis of alcoholic drinks, sobering rather than intoxicating, stimulating mental activity and heightening perception rather than dulling the senses.

This reputation accompanied coffee as it spread into western Europe during the 17th century, at first as a medicine, and then as a social drink in the Arab tradition. An anonymous poem published in London in 1674 denounced wine as the �sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape� that drowns �our Reason and our Souls�. Beer was condemned as �Foggy Ale� that �besieg'd our Brains�. Coffee, however, was heralded as

...that Grave and Wholesome Liquor,
that heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker,
Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad,
and cheers the Spirits, without making Mad.

The contrast between coffee and alcoholic drinks was reflected in the decor of the coffee-houses that began to appear in European cities, London in particular. They were adorned with bookshelves, mirrors, gilt-framed pictures and good furniture, in contrast to the rowdiness, gloom and squalor of taverns. According to custom, social differences were left at the coffee-house door, the practice of drinking healths was banned, and anyone who started a quarrel had to atone for it by buying an order of coffee for all present. In short, coffee-houses were calm, sober and well-ordered establishments that promoted polite conversation and discussion.

With a new rationalism abroad in the spheres of both philosophy and commerce, coffee was the ideal drink. Its popularity owed much to the growing middle class of information workers�clerks, merchants and businessmen�who did mental work in offices rather than performing physical labour in the open, and found that coffee sharpened their mental faculties. Such men were not rich enough to entertain lavishly at home, but could afford to spend a few pence a day on coffee. Coffee-houses provided a forum for education, debate and self-improvement. They were nicknamed �penny universities� in a contemporary English verse which observed: �So great a Universitie, I think there ne'er was any; In which you may a Scholar be, for spending of a Penny.�

As with modern websites, the coffee-houses you went to depended on your interests, for each coffee-house attracted a particular clientele, usually by virtue of its location. Though coffee-houses were also popular in Paris, Venice and Amsterdam, this characteristic was particularly notable in London, where 82 coffee-houses had been set up by 1663, and more than 500 by 1700. Coffee-houses around the Royal Exchange were frequented by businessmen; those around St James's and Westminster by politicians; those near St Paul's Cathedral by clergymen and theologians. Indeed, so closely were some coffee-houses associated with particular topics that the Tatler, a London newspaper founded in 1709, used the names of coffee-houses as subject headings for its articles. Its first issue declared:

All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment shall be under the Article of White's Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; Learning, under...Grecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St James's Coffee-house.

Richard Steele, the Tatler's editor, gave its postal address as the Grecian coffee-house, which he used as his office. In the days before street numbering or regular postal services, it became a common practice to use a coffee-house as a mailing address. Regulars could pop in once or twice a day, hear the latest news, and check to see if any post awaited them. That said, most people frequented several coffee-houses, the choice of which reflected their range of interests. A merchant, for example, would generally oscillate between a financial coffee-house and one specialising in Baltic, West Indian or East Indian shipping. The wide-ranging interests of Robert Hooke, a scientist and polymath, were reflected in his visits to around 60 coffee-houses during the 1670s.

As the Tatler's categorisation suggests, the coffee-house most closely associated with science was the Grecian, the preferred coffee-house of the members of the Royal Society, Britain's pioneering scientific institution. On one occasion a group of scientists including Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley dissected a dolphin on the premises. Scientific lectures and experiments also took place in coffee-houses, such as the Marine, near St Paul's, which were frequented by sailors and navigators. Seamen and merchants realised that science could contribute to improvements in navigation, and hence to commercial success, whereas the scientists were keen to show the practical value of their work. It was in coffee-houses that commerce and new technology first became intertwined.

The more literary-minded, meanwhile, congregated at Will's coffee-house in Covent Garden, where for three decades the poet John Dryden and his circle reviewed and discussed the latest poems and plays. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary on December 3rd 1663 that he had looked in at Will's and seen Dryden and �all the wits of the town� engaged in �very witty and pleasant discourse�. After Dryden's death many of the literatured shifted to Button's, which was frequented by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, among others. Pope's poem �The Rape of the Lock� was based on coffee-house gossip, and discussions in coffee-houses inspired a new, more colloquial and less ponderous prose style, conversational in tone and clearly visible in the journalism of the day.

Other coffee-houses were hotbeds of financial innovation and experimentation, producing new business models in the form of innumerable novel variations on insurance, lottery or joint-stock schemes. The best-known example was the coffee-house opened in the late 1680s by Edward Lloyd. It became a meeting-place for ships' captains, shipowners and merchants, who went to hear the latest maritime news and to attend auctions of ships and their cargoes. Lloyd began to collect and summarise this information, supplemented with reports from a network of foreign correspondents, in the form of a regular newsletter, at first handwritten and later printed and sent to subscribers. Lloyd's thus became the natural meeting place for shipowners and the underwriters who insured their ships. Some underwriters began to rent booths at Lloyd's, and in 1771 a group of 79 of them collectively established the Society of Lloyd's, better known as Lloyd's of London.

Similarly, two coffee-houses near London's Royal Exchange, Jonathan's and Garraway's, were frequented by stockbrokers and jobbers. Attempts to regulate the membership of Jonathan's, by charging an annual subscription and barring non-members, were successfully blocked by traders who opposed such exclusivity. So in 1773 a group of traders from Jonathan's broke away and decamped to a new building, the forerunner of the London Stock Exchange. Garraway's was a less reputable coffee-house, home to auctions of all kinds and much dodgy dealing, particularly during the South Sea Bubble of 1719-21. It was said of Garraway's that no other establishment �fostered so great a quantity of dishonoured paper�.

Far more controversial than the coffee-houses' functions as centres of scientific, literary and business exchange, however, was their potential as centres of political dissent. Coffee's reputation as a seditious beverage goes back at least as far as 1511, the date of the first known attempt to ban the consumption of coffee, in Mecca. Thereafter, many attempts were made to prohibit coffee and coffee-houses in the Muslim world. Some claimed it was intoxicating and therefore subject to the same religious prohibition as alcohol. Others claimed it was harmful to the health. But the real problem was the coffee-houses' alarming potential for facilitating political discussion and activity.

This was the objection raised in a proclamation by Charles II of England in 1675. Coffee-houses, it declared, had produced

very evil and dangerous effects...for that in such Houses...divers False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majestie's Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm.

The result was a public outcry, for coffee-houses had become central to commercial and political life. When it became clear that the proclamation would be widely ignored and the government's authority thus undermined, a further proclamation was issued, announcing that coffee-sellers would be allowed to stay in business for six months if they paid �500 and agreed to swear an oath of allegiance. But the fee and time limit were soon dropped in favour of vague demands that coffee-houses should refuse entry to spies and mischief-makers.

Dark rumours of plots and counter-plots swirled in London's coffee-houses, but they were also centres of informed political debate. Swift remarked that he was �not yet convinced that any Access to men in Power gives a man more Truth or Light than the Politicks of a Coffee House.� Miles's coffee-house was the meeting-place of a discussion group, founded in 1659 and known as the Amateur Parliament. Pepys observed that its debates were �the most ingeniose, and smart, that I ever heard, or expect to heare, and bandied with great eagernesse; the arguments in the Parliament howse were but flatte to it.� After debates, he noted, the group would hold a vote using a �wooden oracle�, or ballot-box�a novelty at the time.

Sweet smell of sedition
The contrast with France was striking. One French visitor to London, the Abb� Pr�vost, declared that coffee-houses, �where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government�, were the �seats of English liberty�. Coffee-houses were popular in Paris, where 380 had been established by 1720. As in London, they were associated with particular topics or lines of business. But with strict curbs on press freedom and a bureaucratic system of state censorship, France had far fewer sources of news than did England, Holland or Germany. This led to the emergence of handwritten newsletters of Paris gossip, transcribed by dozens of copyists and sent by post to subscribers in Paris and beyond. The lack of a free press also meant that poems and songs passed around on scraps of paper, along with coffee-house gossip, were important sources of news for many Parisians.

Little wonder then that coffee-houses, like other public places in Paris, were stuffed with government spies. Anyone who spoke out against the state risked being hauled off to the Bastille, whose archives contain reports of hundreds of coffee-house conversations, noted down by informers. �At the Caf� de Foy someone said that the king had taken a mistress, that she was named Gontaut, and that she was a beautiful woman, the niece of the Duc de Noailles,� runs one report from the 1720s. Another, from 1749, reads, �Jean-Louis Le Clerc made the following remarks in the Caf� de Procope: that there never has been a worse king; that the court and the ministers make the king do shameful things, which utterly disgust his people.�

Despite their reputation as breeding-grounds for discontent, coffee-houses seem to have been tolerated by the French government as a means of keeping track of public opinion. Yet it was at the Caf� de Foy, eyed by police spies while standing on a table brandishing two pistols, that Camille Desmoulins roused his countrymen with his historic appeal��Aux armes, citoyens!��on July 12th 1789. The Bastille fell two days later, and the French revolution had begun. Jules Michelet, a French historian, subsequently noted that those �who assembled day after day in the Caf� de Procope saw, with penetrating glance, in the depths of their black drink, the illumination of the year of the revolution.�

Can the coffee-houses' modern equivalent, the internet, claim to have had such an impact? Perhaps not. But the parallels are certainly striking. Originally the province of scientists, the internet has since grown to become a nexus of commercial, journalistic and political interchange.

In discussion groups and chatrooms, gossip passes freely�a little too freely, think some regulators and governments, which have tried and generally failed to rein them in. Snippets of political news are rounded up and analysed in weblogs, those modern equivalents of pamphlets and broadsides. Obscure scientific and medical papers, once available only to specialists, are just clicks away; many scientists explain their work, both to their colleagues and to the public at large, on web pages. Countless new companies and business models have emerged, not many of them successful, though one or two have become household names. Online exchanges and auction houses, from eBay to industry-specific marketplaces, match buyers and sellers of components, commodities and household bric-�-brac.

Coffee, meet WiFi
The kinship between coffee-houses and the internet has recently been underlined by the establishment of wireless �hotspots� which provide internet access, using a technology called WiFi, in modern-day coffee-shops. T-Mobile, a wireless network operator, has installed hotspots in thousands of Starbucks coffee-shops across America and Europe. Coffee-shop WiFi is particularly popular in Seattle�home to both Starbucks and such leading internet firms as Amazon and Microsoft.

Such hotspots allow laptop-toting customers to check their e-mail and read the news as they sip their lattes. But history provides a cautionary tale for those hotspot operators that charge for access. Coffee-houses used to charge for coffee, but gave away access to reading materials. Many coffee-shops are now following the same model, which could undermine the prospects for fee-based hotspots. Information, both in the 17th century and today, wants to be free�and coffee-drinking customers, it seems, expect it to be.


Copyright � 2003 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

December 26, 2003 at 09:48 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Broadband so near yet so far

BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband so near yet so far

I feel this guys pain ... "always on" high speed internet, isn't an automatic utility by any stretch. I believe satellite might be the only way to go in the future.

Neil Croft campaigned to get his local village telephone exchange upgraded for ADSL broadband. But when the village was hooked up, Mr Croft found he lived too far away to actually get it himself.

I am a senior consultant for one of the UK's leading technology service companies, managing projects around the country, so the ability to be able to work from home would be an enormous boost to my productivity.

I am also a serious geek with five computers of my own at home plus my wife's laptop.
All these machines access the internet. My wife works with adults with learning disabilities and does a lot of work creating PowerPoint presentations for educational and communication purposes.

She is always looking for clipart and animations which are rarely small files.

Whilst where we live is not that remote - we can see the M18 from our bedroom window - we like to shop online to save driving the car.

As well as a fast connection, I really want the "always on" element of ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) broadband.

Kick in the guts

When BT announced their ADSL exchange registration scheme in our area, we were very excited.

I immediately registered broadband4maltby.co.uk (now defunct), and together with two other locals, we started our campaign to get enough people interested to get the exchange upgraded.

We posted leaflets through letterboxes, asked shops to put posters in their windows, put posters on lampposts, and we had a service provider pay to put leaflets in the local free press.

After some badgering, a Precision Test Officer was eventually sent out to check the line, which was worse than the line records indicated

I badgered the local press to print articles, but most of those attempts were unsuccessful.
I also lobbied the local and parish councils and local MPs.

Our campaign started around June 2002 and we got the exchange upgraded on 21 May 2003. We were over the moon.

But when I placed my order, it was rejected.

I complained to a publicity contact I had at BT Wholesale who passed me on to an incredibly helpful lady at broadband deployment.

The line checker told me I lived too far away from the telephone exchange, so I could not get the service I campaigned for.

I contacted a friend at BT who I knew, and he confirmed that my line records said I was too far away.

I felt like I had been kicked in the guts.

After some badgering, a Precision Test Officer was eventually sent out to check the line, which was worse than the line records indicated.

Extension hope

As one of the houses behind mine could get ADSL, I waited until he had ordered it and I had seen it working.

Then I ordered a new telephone line to be installed in my other neighbour's garden shed fed from the pole which was nearer the exchange.

I installed an extension down the length of my garden to the shed and put a new socket in my house.
So sure was I that I would get ADSL this route, I even purchased a router for �150 to connect my network at home.

Imagine my dismay when not only did this new line fail the line test, but the reason was the because the exchange-side wire pair took a different route to my enabled neighbour.

There were no spares in the short route and BT were not prepared to swap my pair with a shorter pair.

BT has announced a couple of trials this month, some long-reach equipment in Milton Keynes and some wireless trials at four locations around the UK.

If these are successful, cost-effective and widely deployed quickly, then I think it is a start at trying to find alternative means of getting broadband to people in my situation.

But by 2005, a 512kbps connection will seem incredibly slow compared to much of the world.

BT do not appear - publicly at least - to have much of a strategy for increasing the available bandwidth to anyone other than those living next to the exchange car park.

ADSL is already "old" technology, and BT or whoever really need to be looking to replace the local loop with something a bit more 21st century.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3334033.stm

Published: 2003/12/25 04:31:50 GMT

� BBC MMIII

December 26, 2003 at 09:21 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Embedded is top web word of the year

Yahoo! News - Web Site Picks Year's Most Deeply Embedded Word

By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. Web site specializing in language named what it called the top word, phrase and name of the year on Thursday, picking them all from the war in Iraq (news - web sites).

Embedded," as in the reporters assigned to accompany military units during the war, beat out "blog" and "SARS (news - web sites)" as the top word of 2003, Web site yourDictionary.com (http://www.yourdictionary.com) said.

"Embedded was the best word to distill the events of an extraordinary year into eight simple letters," Paul JJ Payack, president of YourDictionary.com, told Reuters.

Previous top words include 2000's "chad" (from the hanging squares of paper on Florida presidential ballots), 2001's "Ground Zero" (the site where the World Trade Center collapsed) and 2002's "misunderestimate" (a presidential slip of the tongue that became frequent comedy fodder).

"Shock-and-awe," the phrase the U.S. military used to describe the type of campaign it would wage in Iraq, topped other Iraq-related terms like "rush to war," "weapons of mass destruction" and "spider-hole" as the top phrase of 2003.

The name most on people's lips during the year was Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), the former Iraqi leader recently captured in a hole in the ground.

He beat out "Ahh-nold" (as in newly-elected California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)) and "W." (as in President Bush (news - web sites)).

The site's lists, created by taking nominations from users around the world and then having them judged by "professional wordsmiths," take some liberties with Bush.

One of 2003's leading words is "Bushisms," to describe the president's oft-satirized verbal style. The site published a list of the president's top-five mispronunciations, including "new-cue-ler" (for nuclear) and "Anzar" (for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar).

As for 2004, Payack said there was already an early contender. "'Mad cow' was on the list a few years ago, because of what was happening in the U.K. 'Mad cow' could be big next year."

December 25, 2003 at 11:39 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession

Yahoo! News - Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession

Thu Dec 25, 7:47 AM ET

By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California prosecutors took the unusual step of setting up a Web site on the Michael Jackson case to alleviate a media frenzy and, in doing so, triggered a debate on use of the Web within the legal community.

Some legal experts said that posting documents detailing the criminal charges against the 45-year-old entertainer was a breakthrough for public access. Others countered that it would undermine the spirit of the law and court proceedings, creating even more of a circus-like atmosphere.

Over the last five years, the Web has often been used to spin the views of one side or another in sensational civil cases, like the Microsoft class-action case.

But lawyers and law professors said it was rare for a governmental prosecuting attorney's office to set up a Web site devoted entirely to a particular criminal case.

Many said they expect it to become a trend, and, while a specialized Web site appears to be an anomaly in criminal cases, media-hounded prosecutors in other high-profile cases like the Kobe Bryant rape case and the upcoming Scott Peterson (news - web sites) murder trial have also put links on their Web sites to documents.

"The Web has been such a driver of information in civil cases, it has really changed defense tactics. The legal battles that now go on over the Web are not insubstantial," said Katrina Dewey, editor of the LA Daily Journal legal newspaper.

"And now, this (trend) just moved it into the criminal arena," she said, referring to the Jackson Web site set up by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon at (http://www.sbscpressinfo.org).

To be sure, loads of court case data has long been available on the Web and the legal profession has changed dramatically with the Web's emergence.

People can stay abreast of changes in the law or government agency regulations by using various Web services, like (http://www.watchthatpage.com) which collects data from sites a lawyer or anyone might have special interest in.

Lawyers, journalists and the general public can also get news fed to them with software that scans major legal Web sites and legal online newsletters or Web logs, or blogs, for short.

Law-related blogs -- known as "blawgs" -- have sprung up with the rise of the blogging self-publishing trend in general. Popular blawgs include an appellate court site at (http://www.appellateblog.blogspot.com).

Some law firms create blogs for the sole purpose of making data available to the general public, like the Washington, D.C. firm, Goldstein and Howe, whose popular U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) blog, SCOTUS Blog, is at (http://www.goldsteinhowe.com).

There are a variety of specialist legal sites, including Doug Isenberg's Internet and patent technology law site, GigaLaw.com, at http://www.gigalaw.com/. Nolo Press of Berkeley, California, offers a variety of resources for do-it-yourself lawyers at http://www.nolo.com/.

Other popular court news Web sites include (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and (http://www.crimelibrary.com), both of which are owned by the CourtTV.com television network.

Many U.S. courts also cite decisions, court news, summaries of recent opinions and docket information.

To get familiar with what various federal courts have online, go to (http://www.uscourts.gov).

But while many law professors said the Internet is a great learning and research tool, some hold more traditional views when it comes to using it as a forum during an ongoing trial.

"Many documents are available online through the courts, but there involves a process in getting them," said William Weston, who is an associate dean and professor of Concord Law School, the nation's first all-online law school where students can earn a law degree wholly via the Internet.

In fact, to most people unfamiliar with legalese, reading documents online is like reading Greek.

In the Jackson case, however, the Web site is specifically designed to be user-friendly and even provides frequently asked questions about the case -- a step considered troublesome by some legal experts.

Weston said he was concerned that people may be compelled to download the documents, editorialize and then spread them further around the Web.

"When you throw details out on the Internet, it diminishes the dignity of the court. It now puts the case in the court of public opinion," said Weston.

Reuters/VNU

December 25, 2003 at 10:51 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Internet Unites Soccer Fans Starved in America

Yahoo! News - Internet Unites Soccer Fans Starved in America

Article doesn't say how many internet users there are but it gives percentages of those using soccer sites. Not surprisingly soccernet.com comes out overwhelmingly on top.

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Trying to get news about soccer in America -- let alone European or Latin American leagues -- is one challenge of being a fan in the United States, where football, baseball and basketball rule.

Take one of soccer's greatest goals: A sweet left-foot volley scored in the 2002 Champions League final by Real Madrid's Zinedine Zidane to help his club beat Germany's Bayer Leverkusen and claim the European crown.

Many diehard soccer fans in the United States never saw it -- unless they had satellite or cable television and were able to watch the match at work during the day. Certainly there was no mention of it on television that night or in any mainstream newspapers the next day.

World stars like France's Zidane, his Brazilian (news - web sites) teammate at Real, Ronaldo, and French star Thierry Henry of Arsenal, could walk unrecognized down any main street in America. Here, David Beckham is known more for his marriage to a former Spice Girl than for his heroics with Manchester United, Real Madrid or as captain of England.

So if you want to wear a shirt with your favorite player's name on the back or watch videos of their greatest plays, or hear interviews, the Internet is the place to go.

The official UEFA Web site (http://www.uefa.com) provides the latest news from Europe's governing body for the sport, as well as updated live scores and radio commentary of Champions League and UEFA Cup matches. The site, with eight language options, also has an official store to purchase replica jerseys of all the top European clubs, from AC Milan to Panathanaikos.

For an annual fee of $39.95, fans get access to full-match video replays of games after they have been played, as well as video archives going back 10 years. So fans can savor that Zidane goal, or Manchester United's dramatic last-minute win over Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final.

The most visited worldwide soccer site, out of an estimated 263, is ESPN's Soccernet (http://www.soccernet.com). Two weeks ago, it accounted for 29.03 percent of all the hits to soccer sites, according to Hitwise, a Web site measurement service that tracks habits of 10 million U.S. Internet users.

Uefa.com was a distant second, with an 8.63 percent market share, and LiveScore.com (http://www.livescore.com) a site devoted to betting online on soccer and other sports results, came in third with a 6.8 percent share.

According to Hitwise, which calculates market share, rather than actual numbers of hits, the top 20 world soccer sites included three clubs -- Real Madrid (http://www.realmadrid.com) in 16th place, Manchester United (http://www.manutd.com) at 19 and Liverpool (http://Liverpoolfc.tv) at 20.

"I check the Man U site fanatically two or three times a week to catch up on the player news, transfers, that kind of thing," said Jack Keane, a Manchester United fan who lives in New Jersey. He owns a Manhattan bar, Nevada Smith's, which shows English Premier League, Italian Serie A and Spanish La Liga matches every weekend.

Keane said he also regularly calls up the UEFA site, as well as Soccer365 (http://www.soccer365.com) and ESPN deportes (http://www.espndeportes.com) a Spanish language site. And he checks out Soccertv (http://www.soccertv.com) for all the schedules of matches available on TV all over the world.

"The biggest complaint from fans in America is that you can't watch matches here. And if they are on TV, it's on pay-per-view," said Keane.

"The papers? forget it," he said, the Internet is the only real way to keep in touch for millions of fans in the United States, united by their immigrant status and love of the game.

The official site of Spanish powerhouse Barcelona (http://www.fcbarcelona.com) is in English, Spanish and Catalan. In addition to news, interviews and match reports, fans can order club apparel, get discounted tickets for the club's other sports teams and visit the Barca football museum.

The Web site for Chelsea, (http://www.chelseafc.com) currently third in the English Premier League, has an offer for a free year's subscription to AOL Broadband, allowing fans to watch videos of all matches and replay goals.

Real Madrid, the reigning European champions, offers visitors to its site (http://www.realmadrid.com) personalized T-shirts from stars like Zidane, Beckham, Raul or Figo. You can also send customized Real greetings cards to friends.

And Inter Milan (http://www.inter.it) features not only a poll on whether the club will win the Italian title, but even offers the team's training schedule.

December 21, 2003 at 05:05 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Head Out (Wirelessly) on the Highway

Head Out (Wirelessly) on the Highway

A fascinating glimpse of how the web lifestyle is really taking hold in unexpected places with wireless as the catalyst.

Head Out (Wirelessly) on the Highway
PULL OVER - Claude Lanthier at a truck stop with Wi-Fi Internet access near Park City, Utah. "I love the privacy of it," he said.

By JEANETTE BORZO

Published: December 4, 2003</em>

LIKE many business travelers, Lance Tindall enjoys using the wireless technology called Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet when he is on the road. But Mr. Tindall, who works for Crete Carrier of Lincoln, Neb., does not travel with a briefcase. Nor does he log on from an airport lounge. Parked at a truck stop, he browses the Internet from his 18-wheeler.

Mr. Tindall, a 41-year-old long-haul truck driver, is one of a growing number of truckers enjoying Wi-Fi connections, or hot spots, spreading to truck stops across the United States and Canada.

"I connect just about every day, and every connection on the road now is wireless," Mr. Tindall said in an e-mail interview. Calling Wi-Fi "a godsend," he added, "You don't even have to leave the truck to connect."

Business travelers are at the forefront of the Wi-Fi craze. The number of Wi-Fi users in North America is expected to exceed four million this year, up from 1.9 million in 2002, said John Yunker, a Wi-Fi analyst for Pyramid Research of Cambridge, Mass. More than 65 percent of current users are business travelers, he added.

To long-haul drivers - there are more than three million of them in the United States alone, according to the American Trucking Associations - the truck-stop hot spots are the equivalent of those offered in business hotels, because the truck cabs are not only workplaces but often sleeping quarters as well.

And the truck stops are often the equivalent of five-star establishments. The Flying J truck stop near Lebec, Calif., along Interstate 5 in the mountains dividing Los Angeles from the Central Valley, not only has a fueling station, for example, but also a restaurant, an inn, 18 showers, a store, a barber shop and space for 285 18-wheel diesel trucks to park overnight.

Of course, while the Wi-Fi access may persuade the truckers and other travelers to stop, it also gives them one less reason to get out of their vehicles.

"I love using Wi-Fi from the truck," said Claude Lanthier, 46, whose cab has an 8-by-7-foot room with about nine feet of headroom. With two bunks, a microwave and a television, the cab is an after-dinner haven for Mr. Lanthier, a nonsmoker who doesn't like smoky cafes and often travels with his wife. "I love the privacy of it. If it's bad weather, you don't even have to get out of the truck."

Truck stops have offered various Internet options for years, but the connections have often been slow and expensive, and required drivers to go inside.

"There was no mobility," said Jeff Norman, a 28-year-old trucker from the Detroit area who used a Flying J data port to log on before Wi-Fi became available. "If I had to go to the bathroom, I had to pack everything up. It is so much easier with Wi-Fi."

Flying J, an oil and travel services corporation based in Ogden, Utah, introduced Wi-Fi service in May, and has expanded coverage to 145 of its 160 travel plazas across the continent. It plans to join forces with terminals owned by corporate-truck fleets across the continent with the goal of reaching 300 locations within three or four months.

Another company, Truckstop.Net of New Plymouth, Idaho, began providing commercial Wi-Fi service at truck stops in August. It plans to expand its network from 25 stops to 300 by year's end.

TravelCenters of America, based in Westlake, Ohio, is testing Wi-Fi at its truck stop in Monroe, Mich., and is "planning on rolling out a network within six months," said Don Wilson, a project manager. Eventually, it hopes to bring Wi-Fi to all of its 153 stops in the United States and Canada.

Wi-Fi service, available by subscription for terms from 15 minutes to a year, provides a new source of revenue for the truck stops. It can also attract truckers who might otherwise continue farther down the road to fuel up or take a shower.

"We expect it to be profitable," says JJ Singh, Flying J's vice president for financial and communications services. "And we hope it will provide another way to grow loyalty to our brand."

Mr. Tindall, the trucker for Crete Carrier, appreciates Wi-Fi for its convenience.

"It is good for updating directions, routes, road construction updates," he said, and for sending or receiving faxes "without having to stand around inside a truck stop and wait."

Mr. Tindall, a Persian Gulf war veteran from Edwards, Mo., also travels with a digital camcorder for shooting pictures and movies that he views, edits and e-mails from his laptop computer. In the event of an accident, he can easily transfer photos of the damage to the laptop and e-mail them to the company "so they can see the damage right away and decide where to get you fixed," he said.

Martin Fisher, a 39-year-old Canadian trucker who sometimes works as a photographer, recently picked up a load of damaged goods, but he did not have to worry much about lost time or disputed claims.

"I was able to take pictures and send it to my dispatcher right away," Mr. Fisher said.

James Page of Abbyville, Kan., is using his yearlong subscription to Flying J's Wi-Fi service to keep up on his finances. "I do all of my banking online because I am on the road for more than a month at a time," he said by e-mail.

Others favor Wi-Fi as a way to pass the time while waiting to pick up a load. Mr. Norman, a trucker who is often gone from home for as long as three weeks, passes some of the time lingering in Arthurian legends: his favorite online game is Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot.

Many truckers use the Internet simply to stay in touch. With a brother in San Diego and a sister in Ottawa, for example, Mr. Lanthier - who once swapped the central processing unit and motherboard out of his home computer to upgrade it to a Pentium 4 system that "is fast like you wouldn't believe" - said Wi-Fi is a great way of communicating with the family.

Indeed, Mr. Fisher said, "The only problem with Wi-Fi is that it isn't everywhere yet."

December 4, 2003 at 08:28 PM in Web lifestyle, Wireless | Permalink | TrackBack (105) | Top of page | Blog Home

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - RSS Enables Simple 'Headline News' on the Run

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - RSS Enables Simple 'Headline News' on the Run

Dan Gillmor has uncovered an excellent application of RSS for a mobile device to pick up news headlines.

RSS Enables Simple 'Headline News' on the Run - posted by Dan Gillmor 12:12 AM

I'm beginning to envision the future of "headline news" -- RSS style on handhelds.

UPDATED
This is a new Treo 600, which Handspring (now PalmOne) loaned me while I'm in Hong Kong for experimenting with new journalism ideas. I found an RSS reader for it, and show you here what it looks like.
I'm using the GPRS data connection via a local mobile phone company, downloading RSS into the reader. It scoops up only the Title and Excerpt fields (or a part of the actual posting if no Excerpt is there) from the blog's RSS feed, and displays text only, which is perfect for this application.
This is a great start, being able to read this way. But the two-way Web means I need better ways to write, too. My blogging software doesn't give me an easy way to make a quick posting into just those two fields, with an extremely low-bandwidth page that's easily readable on the handheld.
Does any blogging package have such a feature? Add a quick photo upload from the phone and we're really talking about something incredibly useful.
This has real potential, I think.

December 4, 2003 at 09:02 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (10) | Top of page | Blog Home

snellspace: Data Emergence, Self-hosted identities, Auto Discovery and the Future of Web Browsing

snellspace: Data Emergence, Self-hosted identities, Auto Discovery and the Future of Web Browsing

Jon Udell, Sam Ruby and Stefano Mazzocchi have been talking about the concept of Data Emergence.
Data Emergence is the incidental creation of personal information through the selfish pursuit of individual goals.
This is most definitely not a new concept. Internet Marketers have been leveraging Data Emergence through the collection and analyzing of click stream data, surveys, purchase histories, etc. Amazon.com personalized product references is a prime example of this.
Traditional techniques for capturing emergent data have many problems, however:
1) When data emerges about me, and even though legally I own the data, I generally have no control over where it is stored, how it is used or who gets access to it
2) Once data is captured, it generally cannot be shared or used for any purpose other than what the party capturing the data decides to use it for.
For example, let's say I go to Amazon to search for a book. Amazon's backend systems capture information about who I am and what types of books I like to read. For me, the creation and capture of that information is passive. I have very little control over it. Amazon puts that data in their database and every time I go back to their website they make use of it to personalize my experience. However, when I go to BN.com,%

This is the traditional approach where each individual content provider must capture and collect any information about me it can in order to be able to make a guess as to how I'd like to interact with the information or services they are providing. This is horribly inefficient and their guesses are usually wrong. I've never visited a web site that I've enjoyed interacting with.

This is the right approach. Content providers should not be trying to guess how I want to interact with their information. They should just be providing the information. I will customize my experience as I see fit.

My "Smart" Content Aggregator would automatically capture any data that emerges about me and would store that information in a way that gives me easy access to it. I could use and share that information in any way that I see fit.

Ok, enough rambling, back to lunch.

Posted by jasnell at February 6, 2003 12:29 PM | TrackBack

December 2, 2003 at 02:45 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (70) | Top of page | Blog Home

Social software concepts

Social Software

This piece outlines some concepts behind social software and networking, and this quote is particularly interesting.

"We must bring to cyberspace “social capital,” the notion popularized by the political philosophers James Coleman and Francis Fukuyama. Social capital represents the matrix of behavioral norms and reciprocal expectations that allow any social network to function. These informal constraints provide the essential context within which societies can establish formal institutions, procedures, and rules of law. The core of social capital’s process is self-restraint, a willingness to forgo potential advantage..."

The Network is the Market

By Ross Mayfield

Tribe.net is a Craig's List meets Friendster style Social Networking Service that is just coming out of beta. What's different is the explicit transactional nature of the network, emphasis on tribal organization tools and how it relies on social capital to underpin transactions
In the interest of full disclosure, Tribe.net founder and CEO Mark Pincus is an investor in my company, Socialtext. That means I have had the benefit of talking with Mark about what he is building, and its an excuse for me to explore some Social Networking themes.

Within the Social Networking models paradigm, Tribe.net connections are declarative, making it an Explicit Social Network. Declarative like Ryze or Friendster where connections are browsable. Connections between people are confirmed ties, like Friendster, and you can only see the network that you are four-degrees of separation within. Ryze, it should be noted, took some steps recently to display both confirmed and unconfirmed ties.

But the purpose of Tribe.net is less connections, but the information flow they enable: tribal constructs and messages (classified ads). Information flow is to facilitate trade.

The Network is the Market

Social Networks (unlike Political or Creative Networks) are fundamentally transactional. We each have a group of people, no larger that 150, that we passively track and trade with. We have relationships of a kind with each of them and are aware of their relationships with each other. What we are monitoring is social capital. When someone wrongs another, if you have both people in your Social Network, you become aware of it and adjust your tacit social credit ratings.

Unless you are a little weird, you don't keep explicit ratings of your friends. You make a note to self, sometimes without full cognition that you are, move on and let it effect how you trust others in the future. Trust and reputation is fundamentally social credit.

Explicit ratings have a place, in larger networks/markets where the vast majority of transactions are with people you have at best a representational relationship with. Commerce with strangers is really scary, because they can dupe you without consequence. We all know how eBay scaled low-entry commerce through explicit ratings with social credit rather than financial credit. Allowing people to bank their actions, not just their assets. But there is value not just in scaled and scale-free networks.

This weekend we had an old-fashioned multi-family garage sale. First dibs were given to the other families to take what they wanted without having to pay. There were other garage sales on our block, kids ran from sale to sale having fun and a couple swaps occurred. Now I live in a strange neighborhood, mostly with overworked VC parents, but garage sales are the one time where people really hang out with their neighbors. The point is not only do we prefer to trade with people we know. Trade can be an excuse for conversation. The positive externality is each transaction can form the basis for more than transactions, but basic social capital that underpins relationships.

Richard Wilhelm recently made an argument for increased use of social capital instead of financial credit for Internet commerce:

...Mutual trust, when it exists, is a far better and more efficient alternative; it substantially lowers transaction costs, and it can offer a big competitive advantage. One World Bank study, using a regression analysis covering the 1980s, suggests that a 10 percent difference in the degree of generic trust among the citizens of a nation is reflected in a 0.8 percent variance in that country’s rate of economic growth. With average annual growth worldwide in the range of 1 to 3 percent during the same period, it is easy to see the payback in building trust...
We must bring to cyberspace “social capital,” the notion popularized by the political philosophers James Coleman and Francis Fukuyama. Social capital represents the matrix of behavioral norms and reciprocal expectations that allow any social network to function. These informal constraints provide the essential context within which societies can establish formal institutions, procedures, and rules of law. The core of social capital’s process is self-restraint, a willingness to forgo potential advantage...

[Source: Strategy+Business (reg. required)]

Value of the Small

Tribe.net is built upon the Value of the Small -- the smaller the network the stronger the ties and the more valuable the information flow. The weakness of the Value of the Small is if the network's design allows new participants and information flow.

Tribe.net allows you to post or search for classified ads within varying degrees of distance -- both relational (degrees of separation) and locational (geography). It therefore attempts to capture the Value of the Small by affording users the ability to constrain network size under search, but broaden it to weaker ties as needed.

Social credit is not made explicit through an eBay-style reputation system. Instead, it relies on conversations and connections for restraint. The challenge for all markets, however, is liquidity -- how the market scales. Unlike a Private Network like LinkedIn, where information flow is squarely constrained by risking social capital at every node in an information flow, Tribe.net relies upon explicitness. Relationships are declared, so if someone defaults on a transaction and there is enough communication to reveal the default, the defaulting party may risk their relationships.

Tribe.net encourages conversation by having almost no constraints in messaging modes. You can post listings (classified ads) for free, can send direct messages and post to message boards. If the cost to communicate is near zero, feedback loops proliferate to support social credit.

Benefits of Organization

If there is one thing people naturally reward others for in our complicated world, its organization. When someone brings people together its a valuable form of emergent leadership. When someone aggregates things together in a usable form, it becomes a resource. In both cases we reward leaders, designers and bricolageurs with social credit and sometimes even pay them.

Ryze's best feature, IMHO, was the creation of what they used to call tribes and now call networks. They allow people to construct networks for a multitude of purposes. I formed the Blog-Network to allow bloggers to find each other within Ryze, which has grown to 550 members.

Similarly, weblogs allow people to construct their own Conversational Networks. A blogroll constitutes explicit connections. Its easy to set up a blog with many authors and enable comments for open contribution. The emergent order between blogs form something comparable to a social networking service.

Tribe.net, as the name implies, has a dedicated focus on empowering people to create their own communities. Members are explicitly listed, conversation occurs through a message board, member listings are aggregated and events are scheduled. Tribe organizers are afforded convenient mechanisms for promoting their Tribe within the larger network. The cost of group forming is plummeting to zero.

Its too early to say if Tribe.net will succeed. My sense is it largely depends upon the cultures Tribe leaders foster, how the network scales and if norms of reciprocity beget social capital. Initially, social capital within the network is weak and the market for listings will be illiquid. Unlike LinkedIn, more valuable transactions will not occur from day one. Since it doesn't place constraints on connections or information flow it could grow rapidly.

It can be said that this Social Networking Service serves a special niche between eBay and Craig's List, between Newspaper Classifieds and Garage Sales, between Friendster and LinkedIn -- where the market is the conversation.

November 8, 2003 at 11:55 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

New technologies

How to Save the World

Of the 10 top technologies, I figure there is really only one - "home networking". They have another one, "wireless broadband" but it's really the same point. Its all about seamless internet access from anywhere in your home. The web lifestyle.

I have the hardcopy, but thanks to Dave Pollard for the softcopy story

BUSINESS 2.0: BEST NEW TECHNOLOGIES
How to Save the World

1. HOME NETWORKING
Ultra-wideband: Imagine a television that can wirelessly send three different programs to separate monitors. Low-power, low-cost, and with roughly 45 times the data transmission speed of run-of-the-mill Wi-Fi, this wireless technology is finally ready to debut in the living room.

2 SUPPLY CHAIN
RFID: While they've been talked about a lot, radio frequency identification tags have yet to appear in a big way in the supply chain. Wal-Mart (WMT) is making it happen: All its suppliers must use the tags for pallets and cases of merchandise by 2005.

3 WIRELESS BROADBAND
802.16: WiMax enables wireless networks to extend as far as 30 miles and transfer data, voice, and video at faster speeds than cable or DSL. It's perfect for ISPs that want to expand into sparsely populated areas, where the cost of bringing in DSL or cable wiring is too high.

4 ENERGY
Micro fuel cells: Japan's largest wireless phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, plans to introduce cell phones powered by miniature fuel cells -- which run on hydrogen or methanol -- late next year. Look for them to also show up as expensive add-ons for high-end laptops.

5 HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS
Gecko tape: Lizards climb walls using the mechanical adhesive force of millions of tiny hairs on their feet. A synthetic version of those microscopic hairs allows gecko tape, developed at England's University of Manchester, to stick to almost any surface without glue. Applications include gloves that allow a person to climb a glass wall, the ability to move computer chips in a vacuum, and new bandages.

6 SOFTWARE
Antispam software (that works): If you've tried filters, whitelists, and blacklists, chances are you still receive plenty of junk e-mail. "Challenge/response" technology may be the answer; it requires senders to manually verify their identity before e-mail is passed along to the intended recipient.

7 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
OLEDs: Organic light-emitting diodes are brighter and use less power than normal light-emitting diodes. (They rely on carbon with nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen elements -- thus, the "organic" tag.) They're perfect for screens on cell phones, digital cameras, and camcorders, and even for a new crop of affordable flat-panel monitors.

8 LIGHTING
LED lightbulbs: LEDs will outrun obsolescence by moving into the home. Philips is already pushing its Luxeon line of LED lightbulbs, which can last 10 to 50 times as long as incandescent bulbs while consuming 80 percent less energy.

9 COMPUTER MEMORY
MRAM: Magnetoresistive random access memory is (in theory, anyway) more than 1,000 times faster than the fastest current nonvolatile flash memory and nearly 10 times faster than DRAM. "Nonvolatile" means it retains memory when the power is off. Add in its low power consumption, and it's perfect for use in an upcoming crop of computers and cell phones.

10 MEDICINE
Bioinformatics: Researchers, such as those at IBM Life Sciences, are finally getting a handle on building complex protein models to aid in drug discovery. The new, computationally accurate models mean that potential drugs can be identified more quickly and stand a better chance of working.

November 8, 2003 at 01:51 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Giving up control to win the race

Wired 11.11: VIEW

This is an interesting concept. In this article by Professor Lessig of Stanford, he talks about Joe Trippi, campaign manager for the Dean campaign. This is Trippi's 7th presidential campaign. "This is just what traditional politics would never allow. As Trippi explained, "This is my seventh presidential campaign. ...... You give commands to your state directors, who give it to the county directors, who order the precinct captains around. .....getting the audience to type, candidates get the audience committed. Engagement replaces reception ....."

Whats interesting is the degree of trust Trippi and Dean have placed in the internet community. As he says, "you will absolutely suffocate anything that you're trying to do on the Internet by trying to command and control it." This very statement is key ... some would say don't use what you cannot control. But on the other hand for Dean it is working at least so far. It raises interesting questions:

1) Is their room on the internet for several politicians to develop their mindspace online? At the beginning of the dotcom era, we spoke of first mover advantage.
2) Is it sustainable and will it last? John Kerry has started buying ads on blogs. That represents money which will not be spent on TV advertising - this poses an interesting problem for other campaign planners now.
3) Is the support on internet a representation of the population at large? Blogs are not mainstream. Dean isn't counting on blogs only, but blogs are a significant portion of the force that is moving his message. Are the spokespeople in those blogs representative, given the tend to be those on the "early-adopter" category. With 6,000,000 plus blogs in place now, when do they get to be representative?

Wired - The New Road to the White House
Wired 11.11: VIEW

How grassroots blogs are transforming presidential politics.

By Lawrence Lessig

When they write the account of the 2004 campaign, it will include at least one word that has never appeared in any presidential history: blog. Whether or not it elects the next president, the blog may be the first innovation from the Internet to make a real difference in election politics. But to see just why requires a bit of careful attention.

Politics has always been about engaging people to act. It is still that today. But for the past 50 years, the most efficient tool for engaging people to action (however lethargic) has been broadcast media. The key to victory has been mainlining a message through as many outlets of media as possible. Broadcasting is the drug; the bigger pusher usually wins.

Yet over time, we grow immune. Surrounded by images pushing every passion imaginable, the only sane response is to develop increasingly thick walls to block them out. One result: Broadcast has become increasingly weak. Still, candidates compete using the tools of broadcasters, since victory is always just relative. But the weakened power of broadcast politics creates a strong incentive to develop an alternative.

Enter the blog, a space where people gab. As implemented by most campaigns, it is a place where candidates gab down to the people.

But when done right, as the Howard Dean campaign apparently is doing, the blog is a tool for building community. The trick is to turn the audience into the speaker. A well-structured blog inspires both reading and writing. And by getting the audience to type, candidates get the audience committed. Engagement replaces reception, which in turn leads to real space action. The life of the Dean campaign on the Internet is not really life on the Internet. It's the activity in real space that the Internet inspires.

None of this works unless the blog community is authentic. And that requires that members feel they own their gabbing space. A managed community works about as well as a managed economy. So the challenge is to find a way to build community without the community feeling built.

It is here that Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, had his insight. After a short stint at Progeny Linux Systems, Trippi recognized, he told me, "you will absolutely suffocate anything that you're trying to do on the Internet by trying to command and control it."

Instead, Trippi adopted a method for campaign development that parallels the most successful community model for software development - free or open source. Trippi let control of the blogs go and thus was born the first open source presidential campaign. The Dean campaign engages hundreds of blogs without policing who says what when, or who is on-message how much of the time.

This is just what traditional politics would never allow. As Trippi explained, "This is my seventh presidential campaign. In all of them, everything I learned was that you're supposed to have strong military command over everything in the organization. You give commands to your state directors, who give it to the county directors, who order the precinct captains around."

That style may have worked when there were thousands of local political organizations that mattered to national results. But it doesn't work when the aim is to build new organizations. To do that, you need a style that allows for a million ideas to form, in the froth of engagement that is the stuff of blogs. And that style requires that you give up some control.

The Internet community is still unsure about this development model. Companies still struggle with whether they can give up control over their message or product. Campaigns understandably hesitate as well.

But in the world of politics, the best theory is what works. And the lesson of the Dean campaign so far is that community can't be broadcast. It gets built not from slick commercials squeezed onto a Web page, but from tools that enable, and thus inspire, hundreds of thousands of people to something that American politics has not seen in many years: hundreds of thousands of people actually doing something.

It may not work. There is always time to trip. But the Dean campaign has shown yet another context into which open source ideals can usefully migrate. Set a framework within which your clients can become your contributors, and you will have many more clients and contributors. As Trippi commented about a blog fundraising challenge that raised more than a $2,000-a-seat vice presidential lunch, "Who can argue with $508,000 coming in over a $3 turkey sandwich?"

November 3, 2003 at 07:21 AM in Politics, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Blogs are changing the political landscape

The political blog is now a real thing. Howard Dean has gone from no-where nationally a year ago, to l,eading the charge in fund-raising, and today leading in Iowa primary according to the polls. Its significant, and people like Joe Rospars obviously get it, and recognise the power that can be obtained through use of the net.

When you look at Deans blog the site is a great update on whats going on with Dean, by the hour. There is lots of activity, with links to sites in support of Dean.

But thats where it gets interesting. Those linked sites aren't exactly "on message" to use a press conference expression. They are Dean supporters, but they support with their own words, and their own opinions. Some of the links are even blatant publicity seekers with no political message, but are just looking for viewership in this busy site.

Use of internet requires a willingness to give up some control - the payback for Dean is a firm lead in the Democratic campaign.

November 2, 2003 at 09:46 PM in Politics, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Of blogging and unemployment - Michael Hanscom, ex Microsoft employee

eclecticism > Of blogging and unemployment

Michael will go down in history as the first (first known and in public) blogger to be fired becuase of a post on his blog. Apparently Microsoft didn't see the humour in a picture of Apple computers being delivered on campus.

In fairness to MS it does border on competetive intelligence about the company.

<strong>VERBATIM from Michael's blog on Oct 27th, 2003:</strong>
"The day started like any other day — get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."

"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."

And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.

It seems that my post is seen by Microsoft Security as being a security violation. The picture itself might have been permissible, but because I also mentioned that I worked at the MSCopy print shop, and which building it was in, it pushed me over the line. Merely removing the post was also not an option — I offered, and my manager said that he had asked the same thing — but the only option afforded me was to collect any personal belongings I had at my workstation and be escorted out the door. They were at least kind enough to let me be escorted out by one of my co-workers, rather than sending security over to usher me out, but the end result is the same.

More frustrating for me is that, having read stories here and there on the 'net about people who had for one reason or another lost their jobs due to something on their weblogs, I thought that I had done what I could to avoid that possibility. To my mind, it's an innocuous post. The presence of Macs on the Microsoft campus isn't a secret (for everything from graphic design work to the Mac Business Unit), and when I took the picture, I made sure to stand with my back to the building so that nothing other than the computers and the truck would be shown — no building features, no security measures, and no Microsoft personnel. However, it obviously wasn't enough.

So, I'm unemployed. I am somewhat lucky in that I'm not technically unemployed — I am still on the roster for my temp agency, who has been very good to me so far (and hopefully will continue to be), but as their ability to place me anywhere does depend on the current job market, it's not a foolproof guarantee of employment coming in quickly. I've put a call into them and let them know of the situation and that I'm available and willing for whatever can be found, so with any luck, they'll be able to find a placement for me. However, it appears that it's also time for me to start hitting the streets and shopping my resume around again.

Wish me luck.

November 2, 2003 at 09:22 PM in Blogging & feeds, Microsoft, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Howard Deans Internet Push: Where Will It Lead?

Not that I care for Dean the politician, I am very impressed at how he has extended the typical political campaign firmly into the internet world. The media focuses on the money raised, but that's hardly the point. The real issue is touched on this article, and its about re-inventing how you communicate with voters. There is an evolving school of thought which says mainstream politicking will be beaten out by individual efforts online to gravitate political support.

The price referred to below in the quote from the article is dead on. I see it not as a price but a benefit. Its only a price if you assume the old way is better. With all the crap available in terms of information overload, I believe the only answer is to let people have some control over it, ergo they will have bought into the message. If they skew it a little in their chatter on blogs or sites, then it doesn't matter so long as they believe and vote.

PS .. how can they write an article like this without mentioning blogs ... oh well ...

QUOTE:
Mr. Dean's staff looks to the Internet in everything it does, said Max Fose, whose company handled Mr. McCain's Internet effort in 2000. "That's why he's so successful," he said. "People on the other end of the computer feel connected."

The price of this connection is that the Dean campaign surrenders a degree of control over its message, allowing supporters to create their own Web pages and post messages largely uncensored on the online campaign diary that is a primary link between the staff and their digital supporters"

Howard Deans Internet Push: Where Will It Lead?

By GLEN JUSTICE

HESE are good times to be an Internet consultant working in politics. Just ask Ben Green, whose firm, Crossroad Strategies, has handled online duties for clients like Senators John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"It's tough to keep up with the demand," he said. "We're getting inquiries daily, as opposed to once a month or once a week."

He has Howard Dean to thank, at least in part.

Dr. Dean used the Internet to build a base of small donors and fund-raisers, a strategy that transformed a former governor from the 49th-largest state with no national fund-raising network into the best-financed Democrat in the presidential campaign. It has also recast the way many in Washington think about how money is raised. In a world in which the highest-spending candidate wins at least three quarters of the time, the curiosity among politicians and big contributors is understandable.

Many wonder whether Dr. Dean's success has cut a permanent path into politics for outsiders and whether many candidates will be willing to relinquish a degree of control over message and method, the approach that Dr. Dean used to build a decentralized Internet-based campaign.

Dr. Dean's Internet fund-raising presents the first new addition in years to time-tested strategies like direct mail, phone solicitation and events in restaurants and hotels that mix donors with candidates in exchange for a check.

It has many hoping for a new vein of money for cash-strapped party committees or Congressional challengers unable to finance a candidacy otherwise. "If you have the right issues and you can generate some excitement, you can rely on the small donor," said Representative Robert T. Matsui of California, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Skeptics argue that large numbers of small, anonymous donors will never eclipse high-dollar, face-to-face fund-raising. The story of Internet solicitation, they say, is one of isolated successes, and its current popularity will live or die on the fate of Dr. Dean's candidacy. Many also point to Senator John McCain, who had success raising money online in his 2000 presidential campaign but ultimately lost the race.

"If your message resonates online, it may or may not mean anything politically," said Cliff Stoll, a California-based author who is skeptical of many claims made for the power of the Internet.

Still, advocates say Dr. Dean's success has left a permanent imprint on the fund-raising world. Internet solicitation is relatively cheap. It also has the power to turn small contributors into larger ones over time, by allowing them to donate incrementally in amounts that don't strain most budgets.

Many who envision a day when the Internet plays a more prominent role believe it will actually influence the campaign's message when a candidate decides to run. Already, Internet consultants are beginning to join campaign managers, media specialists and other top advisers at the head table. The candidates who emerge may even change, as challengers play to the online audience's affection for insurgents with a biting message.

Consultants say not every candidate will be able to adjust to the type of campaign that generates interest and credibility on the Internet, particularly longtime incumbents or others used to tightly controlled, top-down organizations.

Successful Internet solicitation means more than just starting a Web page, as most politicians did years ago. Rather, it is a tactic intended to keep Internet supporters engaged.

Fund-raising challenges are blended with the candidates' positions and information on relevant issues, a calibration that requires the campaign to listen closely. Dr. Dean seems to understand the give-and-take with backers. "They would never support you if you just sent e-mail and told them what the daily message is," he said.

His campaign treats Internet supporters as an extended staff, able to raise money and organize with little external direction. At his headquarters in Burlington, Vt., a cluster of technicians and staffers a few feet away from the campaign manager sends out a constant stream of electronic updates — including challenges to raise money — that are personal and informal.

By meeting and beating a series of these challenges, Dr. Dean's online supporters became the backbone of an outfit that raised more than $25 million through September.

Mr. Dean's staff looks to the Internet in everything it does, said Max Fose, whose company handled Mr. McCain's Internet effort in 2000. "That's why he's so successful," he said. "People on the other end of the computer feel connected."

The price of this connection is that the Dean campaign surrenders a degree of control over its message, allowing supporters to create their own Web pages and post messages largely uncensored on the online campaign diary that is a primary link between the staff and their digital supporters.

Internet consultants say their ideas are getting a better reception as campaigns like Dr. Dean's show results. Some say they are getting more clout in smaller contests, like state legislative races. In larger elections, circumstances vary.

"We need to see some people lose because of the Internet before it gets taken seriously," said Phil Tajitsu Nash, an Internet consultant who co-wrote "Winning Campaigns Online" (Science Writers Press, 2001).

Those who need money are often more receptive to Internet fund-raising. Dr. Dean's strategy was born because his campaign didn't have the money to put large numbers of paid staff in the field early on. When supporters of Gen. Wesley K. Clark wanted to draft him into the presidential race, they used the Internet to solicit nearly $2 million in pledges.

The Democratic National Committee, which has been beaten by more than two to one in fund-raising by its Republican rival through September, hit on a cost-effective strategy this month to attack President Bush.

The committee e-mailed an advertisement to 1.4 million Democrats that called for an investigation into claims that White House aides had leaked the name of a Central Intelligence Agency agent. It then asked supporters to finance a drive to put the ad on television. The committee raised enough money to air the ad in Pennsylvania.

"It's still the age of TV," said Bruce Bimber, director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "But this stuff matters."

November 1, 2003 at 09:09 PM in Blogging & feeds, Politics, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The blogger who was fired by Microsoft

This post from the Accordian Guy - it speaks for itself. A Microsoft blogger posted a picture which sounds quite harmless, and was intended to be humorous, but here is the result.

<strong>Quote:</strong>

<strong>by Joey deVilla on October 29, 2003 12:32PM (EST) </strong>

Michael Hanscom, author of the weblog eclecticism, got fired for what is -- in my opinion, anyway -- a harmless post on his blog.

Michael was a full-time temp working at the MSCopy, the print shop at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. MSCopy shares a building with the Shipping and Receiving department. Last Thursday, while passing by shipping and receiving, Michael saw something that he thought was amusing: a truck offloading a delivery of brand new Apple Power Macintosh G5 computers. He took a photo and posted it in a blog entry titled Even Microsoft wants G5s.

Microsoft fired him last Monday:

<em>...as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.

It seems that my post is seen by Microsoft Security as being a security violation. The picture itself might have been permissible, but because I also mentioned that I worked at the MSCopy print shop, and which building it was in, it pushed me over the line. Merely removing the post was also not an option — I offered, and my manager said that he had asked the same thing — but the only option afforded me was to collect any personal belongings I had at my workstation and be escorted out the door. They were at least kind enough to let me be escorted out by one of my co-workers, rather than sending security over to usher me out, but the end result is the same.

More frustrating for me is that, having read stories here and there on the 'net about people who had for one reason or another lost their jobs due to something on their weblogs, I thought that I had done what I could to avoid that possibility. To my mind, it's an innocuous post. The presence of Macs on the Microsoft campus isn't a secret (for everything from graphic design work to the Mac Business Unit), and when I took the picture, I made sure to stand with my back to the building so that nothing other than the computers and the truck would be shown — no building features, no security measures, and no Microsoft personnel. However, it obviously wasn't enough.</em>

Michael writes in his latest post:

<em>A few people have inquired about how I'm doing financially. I have to admit — things are a little dicey here. Rent is due in a week, and while I'll be able to dip into some emergency money to get me through this round, I will need to have stable income by the time November 5th rolls around or I'll be in very dire straits.
November 5th is my birthday, so I'm going to celebrate it Japanese-style and give him a present: I'm going to send him US$20 via PayPal. If you've got even a couple of bucks lying fallow in your PayPal account, perhaps you might want to send him a little (there's a PayPal button on his "About" page) just so he can make the rent. </em>

October 30, 2003 at 10:40 PM in Blogging & feeds, Microsoft, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

90 Percent of Kids Use Computers

Yahoo! News - 90 Percent of Kids Use Computers: "90 Percent of Kids Use Computers "

Survey indicates, about 90 percent of people ages 5 to 17 use computers and 59 percent of them use the Internet. That means in 20 years time, 2023, that internet will be pervasive, assumed, and part of our lifestyle.

Yahoo! News - 90 Percent of Kids Use Computers: "Wed Oct 29, 4:10 PM ET

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer
WASHINGTON - Need some help navigating the Net? Your best consultant might be a kid.

At school and at home, today's children and teens are so computer savvy and comfortable online that they've become technology pacesetters, two new government studies show.

About 90 percent of people ages 5 to 17 use computers and 59 percent of them use the Internet — rates that are, in both cases, higher than those of adults. Even kindergartners are becoming more plugged in: One out of four 5-year-olds uses the Internet.

The figures come from a new Education Department analysis of computer and Internet use by children and adolescents in 2001. A second report from the agency, based on 2002 data, shows 99 percent of public schools have Internet access, up from 35 percent eight years ago.

"Children are often the first adopters of a lot of technology," said John Bailey, who oversees educational technology for the department. "They grow up with it. They don't have to adapt to it. ... Students, by and large, are dominating the Internet population."

By the time they're age 10, 60 percent of children use the Internet. That number grows to almost 80 percent for kids who are 16.

"The dramatic increase in younger kids' use of technology is not disconnected from what's going on with their parents and their families," said Peter Grunwald, whose California research firm tracks technology trends by annually surveying students and parents.

"Younger kids are likely to have younger parents, and it is those parents, especially mothers, who have a much higher comfort level with technology than older parents — or even younger parents of five years ago."

A substantial number of children have or plan to have their own Web sites, Grunwald said.

Like adults, young people are going online for a range of reasons, the government research shows. Almost three in four use the Internet for help with school assignments, while more than half use it for writing e-mail, sending instant messages or playing games.

Girls, who not long ago used computers and the Internet at lower rates than boys, have essentially eliminated that difference, the research shows. But there are other notable gaps.

Almost two-thirds of young white people use the Internet, but less than half of black people ages 5 to 17 do, and slightly more than a third of Hispanic young people log on. Part of the reason is access — 80 percent of black students use computers at school, for example, but only 41 percent do so at home, according to the 2001 report.

"We need to address the limited access to technology that many students have outside of school," Education Secretary Rod Paige said. "There is much more we can do."

From rural areas to the suburbs to cities, almost every public school is wired for the Internet and schools now have one computer with Internet access for every five students, the research shows. As a result, more children and teens use computers at school than at home.

However, young people are more likely to access the Internet at home than at school — an indication, Bailey said, that many teachers are not yet comfortable enough with the online tool to incorporate it into class. That must be a target area for improvement, he said.

Schools are using the Internet to keep parents updated about their kids' performance and to improve student access to a range of textbooks, advanced courses and test preparations. Almost all schools say they use measures to block Internet access to inappropriate Web sites.

Beyond Internet availability, basic computer access continues to shape class instruction.

At Waston Lane Elementary in Louisville, Ky., 5-year-olds spend 15 minutes a day on the computer, listening to stories and pronunciations of letters. They also practice computer skills by coloring the electronic way — clicking on colors to fill in shapes.

The report on computer and Internet use by children and adolescents was based on September 2001 interviews conducted with members of about 56,000 households. The report about Internet access in public schools was based on a fall 2002 survey to a representative sample of schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

___

On the Net:

Computer and Internet Use by Children and Adolescents: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid2004014

Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid2004011"

October 30, 2003 at 01:28 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Usage Search Statistics for ladlass.com - October 2003

Usage Statistics for ladlass.com - October 2003: "Top 20 of 88 Total Search Strings

Its quite fascinating who searches internet, and how they search. Here are the searches which hit this site in October to date.

October 19, 2003 at 12:40 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Does web site design matter?

My news reading has changed the way I use internet sites. I use a News Reader to pull in the news I want, and I pick the display style which I use for them all. So they all look the same, as indicated below. I no longer navigate using the news sites navigation; I navigate within the newsreader.
Internet becomes "my internet" and I no longer care about other people navigatio - I just want the information from their site, and I will decide how to display it.

Japan Times

BBC

October 17, 2003 at 07:52 AM in Blogging & feeds, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Social Software

Release 1.0

This description of Social Software from Esther Dyson is very articulate and clear. As I worked on my blog I was marching down the track of alternative business models driven by internet, real eBusiness, but have come to realise that the blog itself is a key catalyst in that change. I keep going back to the Cluetrain statement, that "markets are conversations". I believe that, and as a first step, companies have to learn how to converse internally. Email "talks", teamrooms are little more than document libraries, but nothing we have today allows us to "converse".

"Social software – software that supports group interaction – is one of the most profoundly important uses of the Internet. It is a category that groups together several kinds of application, from online community applications to groupware to collaborative tools, but the common thread is that it amplifies or expands our social capabilities. Because it comprises all the complexities of group behavior, from collaboration to one-upmanship to backstabbing, designing social software is a problem that can't be attacked in the same way as designing a word processor. Designers of social software have more in common with economists or political scientists than they do with designers of single-user software, and operators of communal resources have more in common with politicians or landlords than with operators of ordinary websites."

October 13, 2003 at 11:53 AM in Blogging & feeds, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Top Executives Prefer Web over Newspapers

This from Forbes Research. Web is now the official preferred method of information gathering amongst Chief Executives.

"Among large company executives, 51 percent named the web is their most important business information resource, followed by newspapers at 22 percent. 'This new data supports a growing body of evidence that we've arrived at an inflection point in the media consumption patterns between online and offline media,' says Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com. 'We can now unequivocally point to the web as a primary business information resource for today's business leaders.'"

October 12, 2003 at 09:22 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Yahoo! News - Excessive Texting May Be Sign of Addiction -Clinic

Yahoo! News - Excessive Texting May Be Sign of Addiction -Clinic: "Sat Oct 4, 5:07 PM ETAdd Technology - Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

In the "gimme a break" category; if texting is addiction, then what about reading, or cleaning house. This is NOT addiction.

LONDON (Reuters) - Too much text messaging? You may need professional help.

More and more people are succumbing to so called 'technology addictions,' spending hours tapping on mobile phones or surfing the Internet, one of Britain's best known psychiatric clinics said on Saturday.
'There has been a huge rise in behavioral addictions,' including excessive texting, said a spokeswoman for the Priory Clinic which treats 6,000 patients a year for a range of addictions including gambling, eating disorders and drugs.
In the Sunday Telegraph newspaper the head of the clinic's addictions unit said some patients were spending up to seven hours a day text messaging.
'We have a situation where some people look down on alcoholics and cocaine addicts, but then go and spend five hours in an Internet chat room,' Dr Mark Collins told the paper."

October 5, 2003 at 11:14 PM in Blogging & feeds, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Average web usage

Interesting fact for web design. Average time on a web page - 55 seconds. Its an average, which presumably includes a bunch of pages which are not read at all, but directionally interesting.

United States: Average Web Usage
Week ending September14, 2003

Number of Domains Visited Per Week
22


Time Spent Per Week
07:45:54


Time Spent During Web Visit
00:32:47


Duration of a Web Page Viewed
00:00:55


Active Digital Media Universe
98,207,394


Current Digital Media Universe Estimate
184,448,608

September 21, 2003 at 12:59 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

DSL growth outstrips demand for cable, except Canada

The Register: "According to the stats, DSL makes up 47.6 million lines, while cable modems account for 30.3 million broadband connections.

Seems that Rogers are doing a good job at bucking a worldwide trend to DSL for Hi-Speed internet connection. Personally I think the world has this right, and I have lesss faith in cable connectivity because its inherently less reliable and secure, and becomes more so as more people use it.

But that's not the case everywhere. Of all the leading broadband nations, only the US and Canada have substantially more cable modems than DSL lines.

And only in North America is cable broadband growing faster than DSL, at 18.2 per cent rather than 15.5 per cent. "

DSL growth outstrips demand for cable
T: "By Tim Richardson
Posted: 19/09/2003 at 11:22 GMT

Take-up of DSL is outstripping demand for cable broadband services, according to research from Point Topic.

Its latest tot-up of global demand for high speed Internet services puts the total number of broadband lines in the world at 77 million at the end of June - up 24 per cent from 62 million lines at the end of December.

Leading the charge was DSL, with demand shooting ahead at 30 per cent during the first six months of the year, compared to 16.5 per cent take up for cable.

According to the stats, DSL makes up 47.6 million lines, while cable modems account for 30.3 million broadband connections.

But that's not the case everywhere. Of all the leading broadband nations, only the US and Canada have substantially more cable modems than DSL lines.

And only in North America is cable broadband growing faster than DSL, at 18.2 per cent rather than 15.5 per cent.

Overall, the USA is by far the largest broadband market with more than 20 million broadband lines. South Korea and Japan account for 10.9 million and 10.4 million lines respectively.

Earlier this week the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported that one in ten Net users in the world has a broadband connection.

Its figures showed that at the end of 2002, the number of broadband users had jumped 72 per cent to 62 million punters. ®"

September 21, 2003 at 12:16 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Quotes from to visionaries - Gates and Idei

“IT will provide over twice the productivity in the next 10 years as it did in the last 10 years.”
— Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft

“The next wave of the Internet is going to be huge, and the companies that create products that work together will be the winners.”
— Nobuyuki Idei, Chairman, Sony Corporation

September 20, 2003 at 09:49 PM in Business Models, Internet evolution, Web lifestyle, Web/Tech | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Broadband security

This from a study released by The National Cyber Security Alliance, a coalition of dozens of online companies and government agencies dedicated to online computer safety. It includes AOL.

While each statement is true, the overall positioning is somewhat alarmist. And it provides the platform for the new AOL strategy which essentially positions them as a firewall!

Note to self ... got to get off this AOL thing!!

Study summary:
91% of Broadband Users Have Spyware Lurking on Home Computers

97% of Broadband Parents Do Not Use Parental Controls

67% of Users Do Not Have Properly and Securely Configured Firewalls

62% Do Not Regularly Update Anti-Virus Software

Despite Vulnerabilities, 86% Keep Sensitive Information on Home Computer

Study on Broadband security.pdf

September 20, 2003 at 09:40 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Yahoo! News - Age, Not Wealth, Determines Internet Use--UK Study

Yahoo! News - Age, Not Wealth, Determines Internet Use--UK Study

An astounding 98% of students in the UK use internet!

Age, Not Wealth, Determines Internet Use--UK Study
Yahoo! News - Age, Not Wealth, Determines Internet Use--UK Study: "Thu Sep 18, 1:37 PM ETAdd Technology - Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Age, not money, is the primary factor determining Internet usage patterns in developed Western countries, research published on Thursday said. "

No less than 98 percent of students in Britain regularly use the Internet while only 22 percent of British retirees surf the Web, according to the findings of a new survey by Oxford University's Internet Institute.

"All youngsters, whether or not they are numerate or literate, appear able to click on the Internet," the study said.

The research calls into question the prevailing notion of the "digital divide," a term coined to describe the disparity between Internet uptake in rich and poor communities.

The idea worried British politicians, who feared wealth would create a gulf between the computer literate and the rest, depriving the poor of a skill crucial for landing better-paid jobs in an increasingly technical world.

But Professor Richard Rose, the lead researcher on the project which surveyed 2,030 British citizens above the age 14 this summer, said the idea of a wealth-based divide was wrong.

"It's all about age. It's not so much about (social) class," he said.

The pattern of Internet usage was similar across western Europe and, increasingly, in developing economies too, he said.

Russians under 30, for example, were 10 times more likely to surf the Web regularly than Russians over 60.

The Oxford survey findings show that the Internet, already a fundamental part of life for the younger generation in the wealthiest nations, could become as familiar to this age group as television.

September 18, 2003 at 06:00 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Broadband Behavior: I Want My Info Now!

Broadband Behavior: I Want My Info Now! :: AO

Broadband and home networking, especially wireless networking transform the internet experience. The sheer accessibility and speed eliminate a lot of the aspects of internet which many find annoying (World Wide Wait). Layer in the plus four years tenure online and behaviours really shift.

Television and newspapers are the biggest losers, because the sites and tools to collect and view news quickly and easily are prevalent.

Broadband Behavior: I Want My Info Now! :: AO

Tenure online has a profound impact on behavior. The longer you’re online, the more your behavior changes, the more you adapt, the more likely you are to be in an always-on environment and the more likely that will accelerate the change in your behavior. According to a UCLA study that AOL participated in, 50% of online users in the United States have been online for four years or more; 27% six years or more. That is a line of demarcation. Behavior starts to really change after four years. Our research says that tenure and an always-on environment go hand in hand. The environment mirrors the tenure effect, and they both affect user behavior.

At AOL we did research with over 25,000 consumers to develop a picture of the always-on lifestyle, what it means for our consumers. First of all, always-on users just plain use the Internet a whole lot more. 43% of broadband subscribers have multiple sessions a day, versus 19% of narrow band users. They spend twice as much time online. This year at AOL, for the first time, 52% of our users said they consider the Internet a necessity, a must-have part of their lives.

Broadband users communicate more online. There are 88% more e-mail sessions among broadband users than narrow band users, and almost 40% more instant messaging. A broadband household is three times more likely to have a PDA than the average U.S. household. Again, all of the forms of communication and staying connected accelerate with tenure and accelerate in an always-on environment.

Broadband users also consume more media. Almost half—48%—of broadband households listen to Internet music or radio daily. At AOL, our highly-tenured members (four years plus), are four times more likely to download music; 55% watch video clips every day. The role of online content is important, and growing.

There is an impact on TV. 40% of our highly-tenured members watch six hours a week less television than narrow band users. That’s a big number; and as the tenure increases, and the always-on environment grows, that will have ramifications for the television industry. It won’t end the television industry, but it will begin to have a meaningful effect on TV usage and viewing patterns.

There is a significant difference between how narrow band and broadband users allot time on the computer. Narrow band use is batched. A narrow band user tends to say, "Okay, I have a couple of things I’ve got to do today. I’ve got to get a movie time, go to the yellow pages to find the nearest dry cleaner, write an e-mail." So they batch those activities. They go online, do their tasks all at once, and then go offline.

But because with broadband the Internet is always there, users in the always-on environment go to it more often, and use it just to grab quick bits of information. Maybe they just want to know a movie time, or look something up in the yellow pages. They do it when they want; they don’t batch the online tasks, because they don’t have to.

In the always-on environment, not surprisingly, we’re beginning to see newspaper usage go down. In fact, the most important reason broadband users cite for going online is the ability to get information quickly. They just want to get it right away, right there. They are three times more likely to look for news and 25% more likely to look for entertainment information than the average Internet user.

Very importantly, 73% of broadband users call the Internet a better source of information than newspapers or television. The Internet is their preferred source for getting information. That’s a big number.

Personalization is very big in an always-on environment. Over 40% of broadband users have personalized their home page. And almost the same number say this is an important consideration for them in terms of what they want online. Not surprisingly, they want to have a voice too. They do much more blogging and content offering. 60% of users in a broadband environment have created online content or shared files. That’s more than twice the number in the narrow band environment. Broadband users spend five times as much time online versus dial-up users. On AOL, they have 80% more community sessions than narrow band users do. They share 40% more files.

Also, when this group of users is online they engage in a greater variety of activities. The average narrow band user engages in three activities a day, usually e-mail, chat, and going to a website. A broadband user, on the other hand, will engage in seven different types of activities in a typical day, including blogging and file-sharing. The character of activities, and the breadth of the activities, starts to change in the always-on environment.

What you see is more usage of different kinds, and very focused on sharing and self-expression. And yes, broadband users do shop. 64% more money is spent by online consumers in a broadband environment than a dial-up environment. Highly-tenured members buy three times as many books, seven times as many software games, and five times as many travel services, versus lower-tenured members in a narrow band environment. In fact, half of Internet users wait at least two years before they buy something online. The reason is that they don’t feel comfortable. They don’t feel safe. They’re not ready.

But that changes over time. As consumers become more tenured their online behavior changes. They get used to the speed and ease of the Internet, and then it’s hard to go back to the old way of doing things. They want their information now.

This blog was adapted from a keynote address delivered by Jonathan Miller at the recent AO Summit.

Next week: The Broadband Business Model

September 17, 2003 at 11:19 PM in Web lifestyle, Wireless | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

AOL Reinvents Itself in Brazil with New Service

Yahoo! News - AOL Reinvents Itself in Brazil with New Service

AOL never ceases to amaze me. They are rolling out a pure ISP service in Brazil, with no AOL software to get in the way. This quote is quite amazing that it would come from anyone in the internet business, and says a lot about AOL's mentality:

"We understand that the (Brazilian (news - web sites) Internet) user is used to Internet Explorer and pages in HTML," Milton Camargo, the president of AOL Brasil told reporters at a news conference.

September 17, 2003 at 08:28 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Future of Digital Books Lies with Babies, Boomers

Yahoo! News - Future of Digital Books Lies with Babies, Boomers

eBooks are one of those things which make eminent sense but never take of but new research suggests this will change. I disagree - ebooks will never make it so long as we have the types of computer screens we have today, and I include the latest LCD widescreen monitors.

There is just something about reading long documents on paper which cannot be replicated on screen, and until someone comes up with different screen technology, which looks and feels more like paper its unlikely to take off. Several Japanese companies are working on "foldable" screens so I will hold re-judgement on this till I have seen them.

Future of Digital Books Lies with Babies, Boomers
Yahoo! News - Future of Digital Books Lies with Babies, Boomers

Sun Sep 14,10:46 AM ET
By Franklin Paul

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Don't slam the cover on digital books just yet.

Readers hungry for a good page-turner will still turn to bookstores and libraries, but cheaper computers and changing consumer habits suggest that electronic books, or e-books, still have a future.

To be sure, that future is years away, particularly after Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS - news), the world's largest bookseller, last week shook the nascent market by shutting its eBooks (news - web sites) store. Daniel Blackman of barnesandnoble.com said downloadable books have not lived up to their hype.

"There is a market ... but it has not materialized to the point that we will be able to support the business," he said.

As with digital music, multiple books -- say, Shakespeare's collected works -- can be stored on a memory card the size of a stick of gum, making them popular with travelers, students and professionals. They are read on hand-held devices running operating systems by Palm or Microsoft, or on a PC or notebook computer.

E-books may find their niche with tech-savvy youth unfazed by the notion of browsing literature on a screen, and the growing legion of retirement-age readers, according to Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group.

"Two audiences that will benefit best are young people who loathe the idea of a library ... and aging people who want the convenience of large type on demand," or freedom from lugging heavy hardcover tomes.

For now, e-books are an afterthought in the publishing world. Less than 500,000 electronic books were sold in the United States in 2002, compared with more than 1.5 billion printed books, estimates research firm Ipsos-Insight in Chicago.

GROWTH EXPECTED, SLOWLY

Back in 2000, downloadable books enjoyed the same kind of ebullience lavished over all things Internet, with research firms projecting sales of about $250 million by 2005.

That excitement waned after a brief period of hype, which saw the likes of Microsoft Corp.(Nasdaq:MSFT - news), Palm Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM - news), Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:ADBE - news), Gemstar and Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc. (AMEX:FEP - news) developing gadgets on which one could read stories or software to mimic the look of a printed page.

Seen as too heavy, too expensive and not as much fun to read as paperbacks, tablet-like e-book devices failed to catch on. Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. (Nasdaq:GMST - news), which aspired to be the world's top e-book supplier, quit the business in July and stopped selling the gadgets.

"The typical American consumer isn't ready for an e-book," Barrie Rappaport of Ipsos said. "It doesn't fit in their lifestyle at this point. As far as reading goes, people like to touch paper."

Moreover, while major publishers have committed to e-books, concerns about piracy -- which has ravaged the music industry -- may limit the number of new titles that are made available.

Still, Palm, Microsoft and Adobe continue to improve their respective reader software, which are free. Palm, Adobe and retailer Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news), which also sells downloadable books, said they plan no major strategic changes.

'GREAT FUTURE'

"We think that in the long term, e-book technology has a great future," said Adobe's Russell Brady. "Market acceptance has not taken off quite as quickly as was predicted, but we are certainly continuing to invest in this area."

They are encouraged by the evolution of pocket-sized computers and lower notebook prices, providing more screens on which e-books can be read. More than 20 million handhelds have been sold and new models sell for less than $100.

"(On Wednesday) we sold 2,000 e-books. It was the largest retail day at Palm Digital Media in 2003, and we are having the largest month ever," Ryan WuerchMost, chief executive of privately held Web retailer PalmGear, said last week. PalmGear recently bought Palm Inc.'s digital publishing unit.

He estimated that PalmGear, whose offerings range from "Beowolf" to best-sellers by Stephen King and Al Franken, will sell some 1.3 million e-books over the next 12 months.

To further raise awareness, sellers must cut prices, according to IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian.

"It is too early to declare the demise of the digital book," she said. "(But) to raise awareness there needs to be competitive pricing in place to get people to adopt the technology."

September 15, 2003 at 07:11 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Mission criticality

Internet seems to have reached that point in its evolution where its taking on the characteristics of traditional channels.

Legal:
Five or six years ago talk of legalising, and legislating internet activity was simply poo poohed as talk by people who don't get it. It was impossible, so get over it. Well, try telling that to Pete Townsend, the Romanian soBig author, the 12 year old who was accused of downloading music along with 260 others .... Legal action against
internet mis-use is becoming pervasive, and quasi normal.

Free:

"Everything on the internet is free and to be given away. Companies must understand they cannot charge for anything over the net." This was the mantra in early mid 90's, and lasted right up to the dot com crash in 2001.

Stability & utility

Internet has lost the "toy" image and is gaining ground as a useful system to lever companies into a lower cost to service. Its open architecture which has evolved dramatically from early html days, has provided the means for companies to alter business strategies in ways which wouldn't have been feasible pre internet. For example a bank which has built itself on a
product basis, can pull the systems together into a customer centric offering. A diversified telco can re-package multiple offerings, with different call centre support into one customer package.

html itself has evolved through 4.0x into xml, and xhtml as well as all the other derivatives. We have java which has evolved into j2ee and a very suitable platform for businesses. Then the various scripting languages, javascript, perl, php provide simple easy to execute platforms.

September 13, 2003 at 04:34 PM in Business Models, Internet evolution, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Blunkett revives plan to let agencies trawl phone and net users records

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Blunkett revives plan to let agencies trawl phone and net users' records

I am a supporter of police, law and order, authorities etc. However it is illuminating to consider the power of internet and wireless in the context of ability to track individuals in this proposed bill in the UK. Cell phone companies will have to track individuals location, ISP's will track which pages you surfed, and your emails.

The danger in this degree of tracking is that government will find out all kinds of things which will be "of interest" but not necessarily help to catch bad guys, although I hope it does that too.

<strong>Agencies to trawl phone and net users records
Guardian Unlimited | Online | Blunkett revives plan to let agencies trawl phone and net users records

Stuart Millar
Saturday September 13, 2003
The Guardian </strong>

Ministers are to press ahead with plans to ensure that communications companies retain the records of every telephone, internet and email user, in the face of determined opposition from industry and civil liberties groups.
The Home Office announced yesterday that phone companies and internet service providers will be asked to stockpile customer records for up to 12 months so that they can be accessed by law enforcement and other public bodies.

The data includes names and addresses of subscribers, calls made and received, internet sites visited, sources and destinations of emails, and mobile phone data which can pinpoint the user's whereabouts to within a few hundred metres.

The voluntary code of practice published yesterday has been delayed for more than 18 months because the communications industry sees it as unworkable and has consistently refused to sign up to it. But yesterday the government made clear that if the voluntary approach did not work, it would force the companies to store the data.

The Home Office also unveiled a new list of public bodies that would be given access to the data.

Six agencies - each judged to have a serious crime-fighting role - will be given automatic access to the full range of customer records. They are the UK atomic energy constabulary, the Scottish drugs enforcement agency, the maritime and coastguard agency, the financial services authority, the office for the police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, and the radiocommunications agency. Ambulance services and fire brigades will also have automatic access for the investigation of hoax calls.

A second list of public bodies, including specific departments of all 468 local councils in the UK, will be allowed to access subscriber data only, and only with the prior approval of the interception of the communications commissioner, Sir Swinton Thomas.

Only the police, the intelligence services and the Inland Revenue were given the power to demand communications records without a warrant by the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, passed in 2000.

Last summer, David Blunkett, the home secretary, faced a huge backlash after the Guardian revealed plans to extend the list to include seven Whitehall departments, all local authorities, NHS authorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and 11 quangos ranging from the postal services commission to the food standards agency.

But the Home Office minister Caroline Flint said yesterday: "We have consulted widely and listened carefully. The result is a framework that addresses the legitimate concerns of the public over issues of privacy while at the same time recognising the importance of access to communications data in terms of public protection and the investigation of crime."

Despite these concessions, ministers are certain to face a big political battle on the issue.

Currently, records are only kept for as long as the company needs them for legitimate business purposes, such as billing and marketing. The only exception - under anti-terrorism legislation brought in after the September 11 attacks - is data that can be retained for longer because it is to be used in terrorism-related investigations.

Ian Brown, the director of the foundation for information policy research, said: "If sensitive data is stored for anti-terrorism purposes, it should not be available to a wide range of officials such as tax inspectors."

Last night, the Home Office said this "disparity" was being addressed.

Shami Chakrabati, the director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "After the original 'snoopers' charter' was published last year, the government was forced to retreat ... we hope the same happens again."

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September 13, 2003 at 10:04 AM in Business Models, Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Usability 101: the What, Why, and How of User-Centered Design

(Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

A useful summary of what makes web sites tick. It comes down to usefulness.

Usability has five quality components:

Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Usability 101
Summary:
What is usability? How, when, and where can you improve it? Why should you care? This overview answers these basic questions.
This is the article to give to your boss or anyone else who doesn't have much time, but needs to know the basic usability facts.

What
Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word 'usability' also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.

Usability has five quality components:

Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

There are many other important quality attributes. A key one is utility, which refers to the design's functionality: Does it do what users need? Usability and utility are equally important: It matters little that something is easy if it's not what you want. It's also no good if the system can hypothetically do what you want, but you can't make it happen because the user interface is too difficult. To study a design's utility, you can uuse the same user research methods that improve usability.

Why
On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here? There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty.
The first law of e-commerce is that if users cannot find the product, they cannot buy it either.

For intranets, usability is a matter of employee productivity. Time users waste being lost on your intranet or pondering difficult instructions is money you waste by paying them to be at work without getting work done.

Current best practices call for spending about 10% of a design project's budget on usability. On average, this will more than double a website's desired quality metrics and slightly less than double an intranet's quality metrics. For software and physical products, the improvements are typically smaller -- but still substantial -- when you emphasize usability in the design process.

For internal design projects, think of doubling usability as cutting training budgets in half and doubling the number of transactions employees perform per hour. For external designs, think of doubling sales, doubling the number of registered users or customer leads, or doubling whatever other desired goal motivated your design project.

How
There are many methods for studying usability, but the most basic and useful is user testing, which has three components:
Get hold of some representative users, such as customers for an e-commerce site or employees for an intranet (in the latter case, they should work outside your department).
Ask the users to perform representative tasks with the design.
Observe what the users do, where they succeed, and where they have difficulties with the user interface. Shut up and let the users do the talking.
It's important to test users individually and let them solve any problems on their own. If you help them or direct their attention to any particular part of the screen, you have contaminated the test results.
To identify a design's most important usability problems, testing five users is typically enough. Rather than run a big, expensive study, it's a better use of resources to run many small tests and revise the design between each one so you can fix the usability flaws as you identify them. Iterative design is the best way to increase the quality of user experience. The more versions and interface ideas you test with users, the better.

User testing is different from focus groups, which are a poor way of evaluating design usability. Focus groups have a place in market research, but to evaluate interaction designs you must closely observe individual users as they perform tasks with the user interface. Listening to what people say is misleading: you have to watch what they actually do.

When
Usability plays a role in each stage of the design process. The resulting need for multiple studies is one reason I recommend making individual studies fast and cheap. Here are the main steps:
Before starting the new design, test the old design to identify the good parts that you should keep or emphasize, and the bad parts that give users trouble.
Unless you're working on an intranet, test your competitors' designs to get cheap data on a range of alternative interfaces that have similar features to your own. (If you work on an intranet, read the intranet design annuals to learn from other designs.)
Conduct a field study to see how users behave in their natural habitat.
Make paper prototypes of one or more new design ideas and test them. The less time you invest in these design ideas the better, because you'll need to change them all based on the test results.
Refine the design ideas that test best through multiple iterations, gradually moving from low-fidelity prototyping to high-fidelity representations that run on the computer. Test each iteration.
Inspect the design relative to established usability guidelines, whether from your own earlier studies or published research.
Once you decide on and implement the final design, test it again. Subtle usability problems always creep in during implementation.
Don't defer user testing until you have a fully implemented design. If you do, it will be impossible to fix the vast majority of the critical usability problems that the test uncovers. Many of these problems are likely to be structural, and fixing them would require major rearchitecting.
The only way to a high-quality user experience is to start user testing early in the design process and to keep testing every step of the way.

Where
If you run at least one user study per week, it's worth building a dedicated usability laboratory. For most companies, however, it's fine to conduct tests in a conference room or an office -- as long as you can close the door to keep out distractions. What matters is that you get hold of real users and sit with them while they use the design. A notepad is the only equipment you need.
Learn More
We'll be running full-day tutorials on user testing and the usability lifecycle at the User Experience 2003 conference in Chicago and London.
My next column will address the main usability misconceptions. Check back in two weeks. (Subscribe to my email newsletter to be notifed of new Alertboxes)

August 31, 2003 at 11:54 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Hutton Inquiry

Lord Hutton is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of the death of Dr David Kelly. The future of the Labour Government, andcertainly Tony Blair PM is at stake. The inquiry has been ongoing for 2 weeks ... today there were 1,000 pages of evidence submitted on the website. The best thing an investigative reporter could do is stay at home and read all that.

Internet has not just the capability of disseminating large amounts of information; it has provided the will to disseminate and the desire to satisfy the public. I am not even sure the public expects this amount of information freedom, but once provided it can never be taken back.

its all about transparency, and internet is the tool.

August 29, 2003 at 12:24 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Web makes sense of news sites

"SEATTLE (Reuters) - In a year marked by war, Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign to become California's next governor and the largest blackout in U.S. history, news junkies are facing a surging flood of news. "

Yahoo! News - News Sites Make Sense of Web's Flood of Info: That's why many are turning to Web sites that can sift through stories published around the clock on the Internet such as Google News (http://news.google.com) and Columbia Newsblaster (http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/).

News sites, or "aggregators," are not new to the Web, but these sites and a few others are gaining in popularity because they constantly take a wide sample of news and distill them into digestible headlines, without human intervention.

Web makes sense of news sites
Yahoo! News - News Sites Make Sense of Web's Flood of Info:
Sun Aug 24, 9:23 AM ET

By Reed Stevenson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - In a year marked by war, Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign to become California's next governor and the largest blackout in U.S. history, news junkies are facing a surging flood of news.

"That's why many are turning to Web sites that can sift through stories published around the clock on the Internet such as Google News (http://news.google.com) and Columbia Newsblaster (http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/).
News sites, or 'aggregators,' are not new to the Web, but these sites and a few others are gaining in popularity because they constantly take a wide sample of news and distill them into digestible headlines, without human intervention.

"In general computers are better at dealing with large volumes of information," Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products, said. "It would be virtually impossible for human beings to cluster (organize) stories based on topic."

Google, the popular Internet search engine, launched its news service nearly a year ago to collect news from more than 4,500 global sources. Google News displays top stories and has news categories for global, United States, business, technology, sports, entertainment and health.

Google News is similar in design to Google's minimalist search pages, and displays relevant news pictures alongside the first few sentences of every top story.

Google appears to have bigger plans for its news service, which has no advertising. It is still in beta mode, or a test mode that precedes a full-blown Web service, Mayer said, because it still has a few kinks that need to be fixed.

Mayer did not say whether Google would eventually charge users for access to the Web site.

Newsblaster, a research project at New York's Columbia University, does something different with top news stories: it creates news summaries of three to five sentences automatically, without a human editor.

"The idea was basically to handle very large quantities of news sites and look for similarities and differences among them." said Kathy McKeown, professor and chair of computer science at Columbia.

"But we can't do it without the original reporting by the reporters," McKeown said.

TIPS & TRICKS

News junkies have come up with various shortcuts to keep up to date.

One method is to search for news about a specific topic, country, person or company in Google News, then to save the search as a bookmark. Calling up the bookmark brings up a Web page with the latest news collected by Google on that particular subject.

Yahoo News has long had the ability to send customized news alerts via e-mail and the New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT - news) offers news tracking for a yearly fee.

Google also recently added a Google News Alerts (http://www.google.com/newsalerts) feature that allows users to have Google News search results sent to them automatically via e-mail whenever a matching news article is detected by Google.

McKeown said that her team plans to eventually give Newsblaster the ability to track news as well.

Google also recently added an Advanced Search feature to Google News to allow user to search by date, location and other specific parameters.

Other Web sites are also stepping up to challenge Google News and Newsblaster's lead in collecting news.

NewsInEssence (http://www.newsinessence.com/nie.cgi), a Web site operated by a research group at the University of Michigan, also ranks and summarizes news from around the Web.

Although Google News and Newsblaster currently only track news in English, both said that they are considering offering news in various languages. Google already has news sites in French and German as well as various English language versions for Australia, India, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Since Google News and Newsblaster don't have reporters producing stories, they are not included in Nielsen Netratings' monthly ranking of top news sites, which in June ranked the Web site of MSNBC, a joint venture between Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and NBC, at the top of its list. That was followed by CNN, Yahoo News and AOL News.

NBC is owned by General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - news) while CNN and America Online are units of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news)

In fact, news aggregators such as Google News and Newsblaster drive much of the traffic toward those sites, said Google's Mayer. Google declined to say how much Web traffic passes through Google News.

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com), operated by Internet media company Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), also collects news from various sources, including Reuters Group Plc and the Associated Press, but it pays for content, which is in turn often offered to Web visitors for free with advertising.

News aggregation, however, is not a new concept. During the dot-com bubble, PointCast received millions of dollars in funding in the hope that its "push" model of sending customized feeds of news stories over the Internet would revolutionize news distribution.

(The Livewire column appears weekly. Comments or questions on this one can be e-mailed to reed.stevenson(at)reuters.com.)

August 26, 2003 at 02:49 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Yahoo! News - PluggedIn: Gadget Lovers Seek Reliable Power After Blackout

This is exactly the issue now after the blackout, and per my earlier post. Phone worked fine, but no internet for nearly 24 hours is not an option. There has got to be a way.

Yahoo! News - PluggedIn: Gadget Lovers Seek Reliable Power After Blackout

Yahoo! News - PluggedIn: Gadget Lovers Seek Reliable Power After Blackout
Sat Aug 23, 7:32 AM ET Add Technology - Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Eric Auchard

NEW YORK (Reuters) - High-tech New Yorkers who sport the latest electronic devices like haute couture fashion are reconsidering the value of lower-tech emergency gear after the recent meltdown of a major chunk of the U.S. electrical grid.

Gadget addicts who were literally power-less for 24 hours or more are revising their checklists of must-have features so they will never again be left in the dark, cut off from friends, family, colleagues and reliable information or news.

"Maybe we consumers will need to have communications options because we don't have a clue what will work in an emergency," Tom Wolzein, a Wall Street media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, mused in a note to clients after the blackout.

Cellphone networks, overflooded by frantic callers eager to communicate their difficulties, initially failed from the sheer volume of calls rather than any specific electrical problems. Rechargeable computers gave out within hours. Network equipment petered out as back-up battery supplies wore out.

One by one, feature-packed gadgets faded to black as power died. The high-speed high-tech world ground to a halt from Detroit to Toronto to New York, as the modern conceit of limitless, cheap and pervasive electricity found its Achilles Heel.

"As consumers, our focus may well shift from the deal in a bundle to affordable redundancy," Wolzein said of the unexpected failure of the most sophisticated phones, wireless (news - web sites) devices and computers.

As power returned, a steady stream of consumers flocked to electronics retailers, hardware stores and supermarkets to stock up on batteries, flashlights and transistor radios.

"Everyone wants to know where the batteries and flashlights are," electronics salesman Carlos Zabala, 22, said as he directed shoppers at the entrance of an office supply story in Manhattan on Monday. "They can think of nothing else."

A mini-maglite flashlight that runs on two "AAA" batteries offers an adjustable light beam and can be converted quickly into a free-standing electric candle. It carries a back-up lamp inside the tailcap and retails for around $10.

SharperImage.com offers light-emitting diodes for $15. The size of a piece of candy, they can fit on a keychain and throw off a beam up to 30 feet. In contrast to old-fashioned light-bulbs, the Mini Torch is meant to last 100,000 hours.

There's also the "five-in-one" rechargeable radio and spotlight hybrid for $40. It features an AM/FM radio, a spotlight, and a siren. It recharges by solar cell in the sun or hand crank in the dark.

MAKE YOUR OWN POWER

The most industrious geeks sought to manufacture their own power during the crisis. When one Manhattan technologist's cordless phone failed, he taped together six "AAA" batteries to reproduce the 12-volt power supply necessary to run the phones. By fiddling with the wires he was able make calls.

Power inverters and battery chargers typically are sold in camping stores. These convert the direct current of batteries into the alternating current rechargeable devices require.

Chicago-based Tripp Lite has a portable model for around $30 that allows high-tech gadget users to plug into a car cigarette lighter like any AC office outlet.

An industrial-strength version of the Tripp Lite inverter sells for $300 that can run whole appliances off a car battery as long as the motor is running and gasoline is available.

With the lights out, automobile batteries emerged as distributed power generators for city blocks. Neighbors turned to car owners for help recharging appliances. Car stereos became the center of impromptu street parties around the city.

A few were far better prepared than others.

"I've got everything I need," Julio Carmona, a New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) trading clerk, boasted last Thursday as he stood on 42nd Street after commuter trains stopped running to his home in Poughkeepsie, 80 miles north of New York City.

Carmona carries an emergency kit with flashlight, face mask, whistle and first aid items with him as he commutes to Wall Street and back each day. It is a precaution he said he has taken since the September 11 attacks nearly two years ago.

Also part of his kit is a handheld Casio television with a 2.3 inch screen that he used to keep tuned in to local news updates. For a time, Carmona may have been the best informed pedestrian among the many thousands left stranded along 42nd Street after power failed.

For a detailed discussion of what devices worked and which ones didn't during the blackout, Gizomodo (http://www.gizmodo.com), a New York-based Web site devoted to the latest high-tech gadgets, featured a lively discussion on Monday.

August 23, 2003 at 07:10 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

PCWorld.com - Computer User Challenges RIAA

This is interesting. "Jane Doe" is fighting the RIAA saying the industry subpoena of personal info is unconstitutional.

PCWorld.com - Computer User Challenges RIAA

August 23, 2003 at 06:34 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Power failure status Aug 16th, 2003

The power failure seems to be over in the US today, with NY State claining 100% power back up. Canada on the other hand is running at about 60% so we have some way to go.&nbsp; It is still expected we will get some black outs.

August 16, 2003 at 03:57 PM in Web lifestyle, World Affairs | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 14th, 2003 - 50 Million suffer power outage but telephone works!

This was interesting. It was a real crisis which really brought home how much we count on electricity. Lets go beyond the obvious about air conditioning, power garage doors and traffic lights all being out. So this BBC story (Net survives power outage) about the internet surviving is irrelevant to me as a user. Its great for the high priests who monitor internet infrastrucuture, but meaningless to the user.

Telephone .... I couldn't get on to the 'net, my blackberry was sporadic, but the darned phone worked except for one outage of a few minutes (which I think was specific to my condo, and not general).

Electricity is needed for:
1) Wireless router
2) High speed modem
3) desktop computer
4) laptop works fine, but without 1) & 2) its useless.

We underestimate the telephone ... its a hardware device, and sits there quietly but it works without power in my home. Why can't internet do that. Why can't internet get into my house same as telephone without power. Thats a new problem which the telephone company should solve.

August 15, 2003 at 10:51 PM in Web lifestyle, World Affairs | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

AOL Launches Advanced E-mail, Messaging Product

Hidden in this article it notes that AOL is under Federal investigation for inflating its user numbers. Also mentions that their dial up base is experiencing a "sharp decline". This confirms my earlier comments, re "AOL is dead".

AOL Launches Advanced E-mail, Messaging Product
Tue Aug 5,12:21 AM ET Add Technology - Reuters Internet Report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - America Online on Tuesday launched stand-alone, advanced e-mail and instant messaging (news - web sites) software as the AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) unit tries to offer more choice in hopes of stemming subscriber defections.

The product launch comes as America Online also rolls out the latest version of its Internet service, AOL 9.0 Optimized, and as it tries to curtail the sharp decline in its dial-up subscriber base while trying to woo high-speed users.

The company said the stand-alone product, AOL Communicator, can consolidate e-mail from multiple accounts into a single application and offers more flexible e-mail management and better spam filters. It will be free to AOL subscribers.

The release comes at a time America Online faces federal probes into its accounting of advertising deals, questions about discounted bulk sales of Internet subscriptions to its marketing partners in 2001 and concerns about its shrinking dial-up subscriber base.

The SEC recently requested documents related to the bulk deals, a person close to the company said last week.

Analysts have been encouraged by early peeks at AOL 9.0, calling it one of the biggest changes in the service in years and a step in the right direction, but they said it is unlikely to be enough to offset the company's near-term woes.

August 5, 2003 at 11:37 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

MP3 music goes hi-fi

The Slimp3 from the UK is the latest device to permit MP3's to be played on a normal stereo. Basically it picks up the MP3 from the computer, and streams it on to the stereo. This requires special software, which needs to be able to stream the music seamlessly.

August 4, 2003 at 09:50 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Pentagon Scraps Online Terror Futures Market

This is a very interesting concept, which of course has been shot down as politically unconsionable. But if you can get pas the pathetically poor deveopment of the model, there is a concept here which is precisley the benefit which internet can bring. Instead of trading in finance, how about trading in opinions. Educated opinions of those who are permitted membership, and of course the output should not be public, at least not all of it. Gathering and synthesising the worlds best opinions, would subliminally uncover real facts too, and could uncover new trends which are otherwise not picked up through traditional intelligence gathering.

July 30, 2003 at 08:24 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The electronic genie

The e-revolution has opened up archival treasures to easy access by millions The Pandora's box: will this digital gold too-easily

There is a story that neatly summarizes the challenges archivists face as they grapple with the digital revolution. Digital isn't simple as it sounds, and open standards which didn't exits in 1986 are a critical advantage of the internet world.

The Electronic Genie
The e-revolution has opened up archival treasures to easy access by millions The Pandora's box: will this digital gold too-easily

There is a story that neatly summarizes the challenges archivists face as they grapple with the digital revolution.

In 1986, the British Broadcasting Corporation created the Domesday Book Mark II, an electronic version of the original record of English lands that was written at the instigation of William the Conqueror in 1086. The BBC's version contained 25,000 maps, 50,000 pictures, 60 minutes of video and millions of words. It cost 2.5 million pounds to create.

Only 17 years after its creation, the Domesday Book Mark II can't be read. The BBC computers used for the project no longer work and the disks on which it was stored are not readable by other computer systems. But the 917-year-old original is still available to researchers in London's Public Records Office.

Welcome to the archivist's digital dilemma. For as much as some local archivists and librarians admit they must embrace the e-revolution, they are not comfortable with it in its present state.

At its best, they say, it can provide a lightning-quick and cost-effective set of tools for accessing and duplicating yesterday's treasures for the greater benefit of all the masses today and tomorrow.

But what some Toronto archivists also see is a technology that, for all its good points, can also be complex, expensive, and frighteningly impermanent. It's this last complication — working against the very raison d'etre of archiving — that leaves some archivists undecided as to whether digital is a blessing or a curse.

"Reaching a judgement is not straightforward," says Carole Moore, chief librarian of the University of Toronto's Robarts Library.

"By digitizing archival holdings and making them available on a Web site, you're extending access. It also makes it possible to offer materials that are too fragile for handling in their original format. But digitizing also increases the challenges."

Trying to understand those challenges is a dizzying task. It cuts across all the principles and practices of archiving.

Moore says you must break the issue into two categories: preservation and accessibility. On the last point, she and other local archivists agree that, just as it has changed the way society creates and disseminates information, digital technology has ushered in a new era of archival utility.

Never has so much current and historical data been so freely available to even the most casual of researchers, businesses, and browsers, thanks to the Internet portals of archival institutions around the world.

In the area of preservation the problems arise, thanks to the relentlessly rapid evolution of the technology and the daily creation of millions of digital-only documents for which there are no analog back-ups. The problem is that digital programs are no sooner born than they are replaced.

July 28, 2003 at 07:40 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

AOL is dead

It just doesn't know it yet

I was starting to not believe my own prediction which dates back to 1997 that AOL could not possible survive. Their model, which replicates and competes with the world wide web just seemed too expensive and well, redundant. In return they provide a custom interface which they claim makes it simple to navigate (sounds like user design, which many companys have realised) and sell their access to members at a premium. My guess is that 90% of AOL users are starting to look more and more at the www and less and less at AOL content .... and the premium for AOL is why?

Well two news stories over the weekend indicate AOL user base is falling. It also seems they have been inflating their number of users by counting some of those free CD's they hand out. Its the old gig of adding new registered users to the total, and not deleting the ones who stop using. All the smart companies have moved to "active" usage" - x users in the last month for example. No other stat matters.

Did AOL hype its member numbers?Executive admits `cleaning up' files

Sources allege deep discounts

JULIA ANGWIN
WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK—AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit may have hyped subscriber numbers.

Don Logan, the executive who oversees AOL and Time Inc., hinted at that this week when he said one reason for the company's unexpectedly high subscriber losses was the result of "cleaning up the files."

People familiar with the situation said part of the cleanup involves the termination of subscribers generated by a little-known initiative. Starting in 2000, AOL began selling limited-usage online accounts in bulk for as little as $1 (U.S.) to $3 a month to marketing partners, including large retailers. A regular limited-usage subscription then cost about $10, while a regular subscription was about $20. The partners then could offer the service to employees for a discount and pocket the difference. It isn't clear how many of those subscriptions were offered to employees or even activated. No rules govern reporting such subscribers.

People familiar with the situation said AOL generated at least 830,000 subscribers through these sales, mostly during 2001 and 2002. That would have accounted for 16.7 per cent of total subscriber growth, which was slightly fewer than 5 million, during that period. Currently, AOL has 25.4 million U.S. subscribers, down from a peak of 26.7 million on Sept. 30, 2002.

July 28, 2003 at 07:39 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Pirates of the Internet

The bill says if you share a single tune with your pals online, as millions do every day, you are a felon. Penalty: up to five years in jail

Whats interesting is the sheer magnitude of the issue and despite the noise from American lawyers, can it be stopped, or do they have to accept a shift in the business model.

Pirates of the Internet
The bill says if you share a single tune with your pals online—as millions do every day—you are a felon. Penalty: up to five years in jail

By Steven Levy
NEWSWEEK

Last month I attended a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee with an intriguing title: "The dark side of a bright idea: Could personal and national-security risks compromise the potential of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks?"

I CERTAINLY WAS AWARE that some members of Congress wanted to snuff out the grass-roots phenomena of people's swapping copyrighted songs on the Net. But I assumed that the crime of file-sharing, joyfully committed by an estimated 60 million pirates, was mainly a problem of lost revenues for the music industry. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, giving the opening testimony, argued otherwise, calling file-sharing networks a grave security risk to this nation. In reality, the hearing was nothing but one of several signs of a new hardball offensive against file-sharing for the same old reasons: protecting the business model of the record labels.
What was the alleged national-security issue? Strictly yellowcake. Researchers testified that because of a confusing interface in file-sharing services like Kazaa, a clumsy user could inadvertently expose private files to everyone on the network. In theory, this could even happen to a government worker using Kazaa for personal use on an official computer--thus exposing our deepest secrets. No one was able to cite an instance where a government secret was actually exposed by this method.

By the end of the session, the only committee member in attendance, chairman Orrin Hatch--himself a songwriter who sells CDs on his personal Web site--zeroed in on what really bugged him: people sharing copyrighted songs on the Internet without paying for them. Then he ran an idea by one of the panelists: what if you had a system that could detect whether people were getting songs without paying for them and could warn those infringers that what they were doing was wrong? And then, if they didn't stop, the system would remotely "destroy" their computers.

"No one's interested in destroying people's computers," said the panelist.

"Well, I'm interested in doing that," said the senator. "Warn them, do it again, and then destroy their machine! There's no excuse for anyone violating our copyright laws."

Fortunately Senator Hatch hasn't yet codified his Dr. Strangelovean no-due-process piracy antidote into upcoming legislation. But in the House, Reps. Howard Berman and John Conyers have introduced a bill that encourages a different approach: jail 'em! Among other provisions, the bill lowers the bar for criminal prosecution to the sharing of a single music file and allocates $15 million to go after copyright offenders. Representative Berman says that he anticipates that prosecutors will go only after someone who, knowing the consequences, uploads massive amounts of music. But the bill says in black and white that if you share so much as a single tune with your pals on the Internet--as millions do every day--you are a felon. Penalty: up to five years in jail. (Better fill up your iPod before you go.)

Meanwhile the Record Industry Association of America, the trade and lobbying arm of the big music labels, last week sent out hundreds of subpoenas to Internet service providers and universities to find the identities of those sharing music so it can drag them into court and sue them for thousands of dollars. Is suing your customers the best way to run an industry?

My guess is that the vast majority of those 60 million file sharers would never steal a physical object from the store. In a mixture of self-interest and rebellion they've taken the measure of the record industry's karma (overpriced CDs, a history of ripping off artists), noted that stealing files isn't like stealing stuff (maybe they'll buy a disc later) and concluded that file-sharing isn't that bad.

Carey Sherman, president of the RIAA, and his buddies in Congress think the time for patience is over. "We've reached a point where we have a legitimate marketplace for downloading music, and we want to give it a chance," says Sherman, referring to the spiffy services like Apple's iTunes Music Store, the new Buy.Com store and subscription services like Rhapsody. But the game is just starting, and the best way to make sure that these services come up with compelling innovations is to match them off against the Kazaas of the world, which are far from perfect (the quality is erratic, they put spyware on your computers, they're loaded with porn). You can compete against free--ever hear of bottled water?

Ultimately the Internet is going to be great for music lovers, artists and even the record labels, if they are willing to hang loose while new business models emerge. But right now the RIAA and its congressional water carriers are hitting the wrong notes. It makes no sense to bring thousands of people into the dockets--and maybe the prison system--for turning on a friend to the fuzz tones of the White Stripes or the inspirational melodies of Orrin Hatch without a license. There are better things for prosecutors and the courts to focus on.

Like real national security.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

MSNBC Terms, Conditions and Privacy ©2003

July 27, 2003 at 07:49 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Trophies of dead grim fact of history

Internet replaces wooden pikes

War ... is also about symbols'

OAKLAND ROSS
FEATURE WRITER

"In olden days, victorious soldiers used to saw off the heads of their fallen enemies, mount them on wooden pikes and parade them through the streets, while brandishing their weapons and cheering their gods.

Not much has changed.

The only difference, nowadays, is that they don't use wooden pikes.

They use the Internet.

"That's the first thing I thought of," said Bert Hall, a professor of military history at the University of Toronto."

There have been other examples of how internet is altering the speed with which people around the world can learn about news but this one is a good example. Within minutes of the photo's being made available by DoD they were on the 'net and being viewed around the world.

July 25, 2003 at 06:50 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Phone & net services split

CRTC takes aim at competition - Sympatico not tied to home line

TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Forced to keep Bell Canada as your local phone provider just so you can keep your Sympatico high-speed account?

Consider yourself unshackled.

The country's telephone watchdog has ordered Bell, Telus Corp. and other established phone carriers to sell their respective high-speed Internet services to all customers, irrespective of where they get their local residential phone service.

That means if you move your local phone bill to Sprint Canada Inc., you'll be able keep your high-speed Sympatico account with Bell, which has treated the two services as inseparable.

Charles Dalfen, chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, said the ruling was about removing obstacles to fair competition and giving consumers more choice. The move "should enhance competition," he said.

It's the latest in a series of regulatory decisions this year that have slapped new rules on established carriers, part of an effort to boost competition in the local residential phone market, where Bell has a 98 per cent grip in Ontario.

"I'm thrilled with this decision," said Bill Linton, chief executive of Sprint Canada Inc. and its Toronto-based parent, Call-Net Enterprises Inc.

Sprint Canada began offering residential telephone service in May, 2001, and has more than 171,000 local subscribers across the country. Call-Net has long argued that Bell, by refusing to sell its digital subscriber line (DSL) service to Sprint local subscribers, has significantly impaired the development of local competition in Canada.

Call-Net filed an application to the CRTC in January to argue its case, which was supported by Halifax-based cable firm EastLink Inc. and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa.

Citing 2002 data, Call-Net said 17 per cent of customers who cancelled local service with Sprint Canada said they did so because they couldn't get DSL from Bell.

Call-Net also found that 11 per cent of potential customers decided against joining Sprint for the same reason.

The problem becomes more pressing as high-speed services gain popularity over dial-up Internet services, Call-Net said.

The regulator found that Bell and the other incumbent carriers have been "unjustly discriminating against their competitors and giving themselves undue preferences."

This position was supported by the Competition Bureau, which filed an opinion on the matter.

"They're moving in the right direction, and I applaud it," said Linton, adding that he expects the commission will continue to level the playing field with other rulings later this year.

Sheridan Scott, chief regulatory officer for Bell, said Canada's largest phone company didn't feel it had an obligation to separate local from DSL service but, given the CRTC order, will do its best to comply.

"The commission decided that this is a matter they would deal with, and we respect that," said Scott, adding the ruling is consistent with past CRTC decisions aimed at promoting competition. The decision takes effect immediately, but Scott said Bell will have to resolve some technical issues first.

Willie Grieve, the head of government and regulatory affairs at Burnaby, B.C.-based Telus, said it could be some time before the carriers are in a position to technically comply.

"We can't do it right today," said Grieve, adding that Telus will take the next week to assess what system modifications will be needed. "There's a day coming where we will, but how long it is between today and that day is an open question."

Analysts considered the ruling positive for Call-Net, but many described it as a small victory that won't have a huge impact on the company's revenues.

"It will help them, but it's not the goose that laid the golden egg," said Mark Quigley, research director for the Yankee Group in Canada.

Call-Net needs to offer a high-speed DSL service of its own — packaged along with local, long-distance and wireless services — before it becomes a compelling story for consumers, he said.

July 22, 2003 at 07:40 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The death of convergence?

Cinram have purchased the DVD/ CD manufacturing division of AOL Time Warner. In the small print they also picked up exclusive rights to produce media from other AOL Time Warner movie divisions.

When AOL bought Time Warner it was hailed as the architypical internet era convergence play ... well we can safely now say that experiment as it turned out to be, is dead. Its not that Steve Case didn't get it .... he just didn't get it right. Convergence is happening at the device end, but who says that means the 'manufacturing" end has to be converged? Nothing in business is that logical. Case didn't think about the cultural aspects which are dramatically different in the media environments. Also just because he says converge, doesn't mean that anyone including him, knows where to start.

July 19, 2003 at 07:10 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The human side

Always on internet has one huge disadvantage as I saw tonight, and its the same whenever this happens. It wasn't "on". Typically I will turn to my PC periodically, during ads on tv or whatever, and check news, check email, or post a blog. So when I cannot get access its like having the phone cut off, or no hot water. Your life gets atached to it, and when its not there, its very frustrating, and deeply annoying.

July 17, 2003 at 11:28 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Accenture: Customer satisfaction driving egovernment

Apr 09 2003: Canada leads the world in terms of overall egovernment maturity, according to a new study from Accenture.

For the third year in a row, Canada was judged to have the best egovernment initiatives.

Accenture’s analysis considered a variety of factors, including how well each government’s services incorporate customer relationship management (CRM) practices, as well as the level of maturity with which each government delivers electronic services.

According to the study, Canada’s eGovernment initiative is differentiated by its customer-service vision; methods for measuring success of services; broad, integrated approach to offering government services through multiple service-delivery channels; and a cross-agency approach to online services.

Further, the government has placed its citizens and businesses at the core of its eGovernment initiative, identifying services for individual customer segments, and government executives view eGovernment as an evolutionary process that is part of a broader service transformation effort.

Rounding out the top 10 countries in terms of overall egovernment maturity are Singapore, the United States, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Ireland.

Accenture also found that customer satisfaction is the key factor driving the development of online government services around the world.

Approximately 93 percent of government executives surveyed by the company said that improving satisfaction was a key factor in influencing adoption of online government services.

Eighty-three percent said that customer demands for new and better services was also a factor driving the development of services, while 77 percent cited the need to meet performance targets.

Only 51 percent of executives surveyed by Accenture said that the pressure to reduce costs was a factor influencing adoption of online government services.

July 16, 2003 at 08:28 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Canada trumps US in broadband use

Apr 08 2003: New research from comScore Media Metrix indicates that Canada has a higher percentage of broadband Internet users than the US.

According to the company’s latest study, more than half of Canadian Internet users have high-speed broadband connections.

As of January 2003, broadband users represented fully 53.6 percent of the Canadian online population, compared to just 33.8 percent of the US online population.

The study also reveals that Canadian broadband users consume more online content than their American counterparts. Collectively, Canadian broadband Internet users account for 63 percent of all time spent online in Canada, whereas their US counterparts account for 54 percent of Internet usage time in America.

As of January 2003, Canadian Broadband Internet users spent 55 percent more time online than dial-up users and viewed almost twice as many Web pages over the course of the month.

The study indicates that Canadian Broadband users are also more likely to engage in activities involving streaming content and online shopping, while dial-up users are expectedly more likely to spend their time online with activities that are less impacted by speed.

July 16, 2003 at 08:26 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Easier than manuals, and more

I have a pretty good quality teapot, and decided it needed cleaning. It is made in one piece, out of a specially cast metal alloy, and manufactured in one place in England. I could not recall the cleaning details, so picked up my laptop and had the answer in 30 seconds from the company website. Whats intersting about this, it was at 7am, before breakfast, and I wasn't quite awake.

The concept of locating the manual and then reading it for the information is impossible to comprehend at that time. Whats also interesting, is that while looking for the cleaning instructions on the web site, I saw the ccatalogue information, price list, and order form. Without realising I naturally and subliminally associated the convenince of getting the information with the propsect of future purchase. If I need another one, or the sugar bowl, I will buy from that web site.

July 15, 2003 at 07:53 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Web Lifestyle

Internet is best experienced when always on, such as with ADSL, or Cable. Then it becomes pervasive and as available as TV television or tap water. Booting up a computer, then dialing in througha modem is how most people learned about internet, but it is a very slow experience, and puts hurdles in the way. The convenience of the computer being always on, email always up to date like a phone call, & instant access to information transform the internet experience. Whe a wireless network is layered on, and you can experience freedom from wires, then internet is always on and always where you are. On the deck, in the garden, or in any room.

This level of convenience means that internet is always the most convenient way to do anything, or look anything up. Whether its news, the question of the day on CNN, following the Indy car race, or checking the TV guide. Internet, or more properly, the web becomes a way of life; the web lifestyle.

July 13, 2003 at 11:06 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home