The government used the Queen's speech to introduce a Digital Bill that will "enhance UK's digital economy" by effectively tackling the copyright infringement online and improving digital infrastructure and content technologies.

Realising that rapid digital technological evolution calls for legislation that can resolve digital information issues such as file-sharing on the internet, book digitisation, internet privacy and even copyright violations on the web, the government has outlined its roadmap.

Addressing one of the most pressing concerns of the digital age, the proposed Bill aims at providing essential support for creative industries in a digital world, through proposals on online copyright infringement and changes to copyright licensing.

Through one of its primary elements - Online infringement of copyright - it will tackle widespread copyright infringement via a two-stage process. First by making legal action more effective and educating consumers about copyright online. Secondly through reserve powers, if needed, to introduce technical measures, such as disconnection.

But legal experts say the bill could bring in unexpected registration requirements and government control over online libraries and many other rights owners. They may need to register with the government, pay annual registration fees and be subject to codes of practice, backed up by criminal sanctions, if provisions regarding the control of 'licensing bodies' are brought in.

Copyright expert, Robin Fry, a partner at Beachcroft, said: "The government might have been thinking about the UK's fourteen main collecting societies - but unless there's a radical rethink any business selling rights to use copyright material could be forced to confront a new licensing regime.

He added: "The IT, information and the media industries have not yet picked up on the impact of this proposed law. There will be consternation in Soho and confusion in Shoreditch. This Bill already needs a desperate overhaul."

And the ISP association said they strongly oppose the proposals. The Bill also commits to public service content in a rapidly changing broadcasting landscape, through action on the provision of news in the nations, regionally and locally.

This illustrates the complexities of tackling copyright issues and other digital information related issues by playing catch-up. In a reactionary bid to tackle copyright concerns with new legislation, we are running a risk of chalking out hasty and sweeping rules that may, in fact, harm creativity.

The problems of mass digitisation and copyright and security must be resolved through due diligence, debates and inputs from experts working in the information industry. It must uphold the principles of existing copyright framework that is fair to creative enterprises and amend it to fit to the digital age rather than launching a new bill exclusively relating to the web. In addition, state intervention in the broadcast of news will only delay the flow of information to users.

Lastly, We have always argued on this blog that it is time to drop the silo approach. As complexities of having 27 varied copyright legislations across the EU challenge us, introducing a nation-specific bill will only double the woes of the European wide plan to address these concerns.

We don't need to be arm-twisted by the government, we need a bill that will resolve digital problems without impeding UK's digital growth and without limiting the amount of information accessed by the public.

Posted by P. Williams | November 23, 2009 General | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

CrossKnowledge, the European expert in the remote development of leadership and management skills through new technologies, wanted to look at the social web from "every possible" angle, certain that it is the future of business, communication and information exchange. Interesting no one thought of conducting such an experiment before!

It asked the opinion of five observers from very different segments of the information sector- a publisher of web 2.0 solutions, a consultant specialising in social networks, an HR executive, a sociologist and a teacher - to study the impact of social networking on a company's strategic vision, structure and leadership.

The academic described the new forms of work organisation; another expert spoke about the impact of 2.0 applications in development practices and skills management; a third expert explained the link between tools and bu¬siness; the consultant spoke of his understanding of the impact of so¬cial networks on business; and finally the HR professional described the implementation of a tool created within a mobile phone company.

It found that the culture of exchange and openness encouraged by social networking sites enables companies to accelerate their decision-making processes, and increase their capacity for innovation and commercial productivity; social networks boost a company's competitiveness by providing it with improved responsiveness. Far more than just a technological revolution, the predicted arrival of the company as community translates above all into a cultural change.

By creating a networked organisation, social media encourage the lasting participation of employees, clients and partners, which in turn prompts reflection on both management's role in the corporate structure and the form that training takes.

That social media are about more than just technology, they're also all about combining social interaction and content creation: they use collective human intelligence, in the spirit of online collaboration. Consequently, the impact of professional networks will change the actual structure of corporate strategy.

Of course, collating such information is extremely useful for businesses and institutions that look to integrate social web in their communication strategy and allow technology democracy. But the ultimate factor that determines the direction of the social web is the user himself.

This is the beauty of interactive social web - making every user a publisher, researcher, aggregator, information provider and content generator. And he, who is empowered by the social web, must form a crucial part of such a research if we are to understand the mysterious world of web 2.0. Ask yourself why you use it, how you use it and what it has done to your personal and professional life, if you want social web explanations.

Posted by P. Williams | November 17, 2009 Arts, Humanities & Social Science, General, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Google has launched a software application in the UK that will give consumers information about their energy consumption, usage pattern and carbon footprint thereby enabling them to save both money and energy. The "opt-in" tool receives information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provides it to customers on their screens.

Currently Google just has a deal with energy supplier first:utility in the UK. Users of other energey suppliers need to install a sensor device AlertMe Energy (for £69) to their meters and then view the data for an additional £3 monthly charges.

Powermeter provides energy information in the form of graphs on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and enables users to compare their usages and derive their average use.

However, in keeping up with users' demands for interactive tools, Powermeter aims to allow users to share their energy habits, tips and light-hearted energy-saving competitions, according to a report in the Guardian.

Google has expressed its wish to bring the social element on to the software, perhaps for a more robust uptake. But here in lies the future of interactive media - an innovative application build on the premise of providing crucial information and then building the interactive element on to it. A refreshing shift from standalone social media websites.

As rapid advances are being made in the web 2.0 tools and interactive technologies, several studies and surveys suggest that most of the user-generated content in Twitter is "banter" and that such tools are hampering people's productivity at workplaces.

Almost simultaneusly, niche and focus-group based social media applications such as Springer's The NeuroNetwork for neurology researchers and Sage's Methodspace to discuss research methodologies among others are proving beneficial in peer-to-peer information sharing, discussions and advice.

The primary function of the web - accurate information provision - was hijacked amid the launch of a slew of purely user-generated content through the latest web 2.0 tools.

Powermeter- that displays information on the web on users' customised iGoogle page brings progress in the area of information provision. It brings to our screens crucial information that is otherwise difficult to access and then builds interactive technologies around it, suggesting evolution in the mainstream social media space.

Posted by P. Williams | October 29, 2009 Arts, Humanities & Social Science, Company & Financial Information, General, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

In previous decades it was the stock market crisis that brought the economy to its knees. More recently we had the sub prime mortgage doing the same to the economy. It may well be the technology in the next two decades that could spur a recession.

The social media space, internet, digitisation, virtual conferences and many more innovations are spreading at a breakneck pace. We are so smitten by latest applications that its uptake seems almost reckless. We are just as hopelessly enthusiastic as we were when there was first the widespread opportunity of dealing in stocks and shares and later on with irresistible lines credit for housing from banks.

While individuals like innovation there seems to be some caution regarding allowing "technology democracy" within companies as the research by Economist Intelligence Unit suggests. The fear is that too much of technology freedom will descend into chaos. And experts acknowledge these risks and advice companies to adopt measures for preventing the chaos.

But web stands for integrating everything. What is professional can be deemed personal and vice-versa in the social networking space. Human resource professionals are vetting people after browsing through their digital personality, professionals are finding business sensitive information on Twitter pages and journalists can find scoops and leads from inadvertent comments and feedbacks on the social media websites.

The technology stocks are going bullish and each day, the companies are unveiling massive plans of digitisation and launching online solutions, video-on-demand, state of art file-sharing, personal communication devices and applications that will empower you with real-time information updates.

While web-conferencing helps us cut our carbon footprint and mobile devices are useful to "connect on the move", too much technology dependence not just means greater information sharing, it also reassures technology providers into supplying us with the services to cater to our demands. We don't seem to give a moment's thought to the possibility of a shocking revelation of some technology gone terribly wrong. What would happen if we were told one Monday morning that all the information on Google's cloud has been corrupted or stolen?

by Archana Venkatraman

Posted by P. Williams | September 25, 2009 General | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Credit where credit is due. The publishing sector deserves a pat on its back for steering the future of the books.

Acknowledging the role that ebooks and ebook readers would play within the sector, the industry is not just keeping pace with the latest technology but is, in fact, a step ahead- forming alliances, consolidating and providing users a peek into the future.

Unlike the music industry, which was forced to evolve following innovations such as the MP3s, iPods and even Spotify that changed the consumption of music, publishers are bracing themselves with new technologies and organisations such as British Library is enabling consumers "to get to grips" with the hi-tech devices that could change the way we read.

Google Books, Google's online library has agreed to add one million books for free to Coolerbooks.com, for Interead's ebook reader Cool-ER.

The search giant, along with Sony, is also supporting the open EPUB- publishing format that can conform to any e-reader, liberating the market and challenging Amazon's model of ebooks compatible only with its own reader Kindle.

While on one hand, content-access is becoming sophisticated, Harry Potter publisher has given content too, a 21st century makeover. Bloomsbury Library Online has virtual bookshelves that allows one to access books via public libraries or through internet enabled mobile phones.

However, a lot still needs to be tackled- getting more publishers publish books in ebook-friendly formats, making the devices more affordable and user-friendly, digitising old books in ebook compatible formats and even collaborating with communication devices manufacturers.

Typical problems that challenge the music industry today are online piracy and file sharing issues. The issues are so deep-rooted that it requires government intervention and severe clampdown to restrict the damage.

We need due diligence process to combat similar file-sharing issues, legal compliances and piracy within the ebook market, its impact on book-sellers and physical newspapers, otherwise well-begun would remain half done.

By Archana Venkatraman

Posted by P. Williams | September 4, 2009 Electronic Document & Records Management, Enterprise Content Management, General, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Within most businesses crisis drives innovation. Within technology, business innovation leads to crisis.

Privacy crisis, IP crisis, security crisis and financial crisis are just a few conflicts to name.

Let us take the newspaper business. All was fairly well for the newspaper business until a time when consumers believed that news could be free- thanks to the internet. The feeds on Twitter page themediaisdying unfolds the turmoil in the industry in a "drip-drip" format. Newspaper publishers are seeking to revive themselves by retreating free content online.

However, such a retreat comes too late after the information explosion on the internet. The proliferating information on the internet is not easily controllable.

Newspapers that currently charge for some of its content find that the articles are accessible via Google news.

The online business model is not as simple as the selling of physical newspapers is. Some subscribers are likely to share the log-in details and the number would be too less for detection. Others would post the news stories they read online on to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to share and discuss it with friends.

The world wide web is just that - a world, wide, web that caches, tags, stores, crawls, spreads, reproduces and displays the information once it lands there.

In the world of technology, free and open source have always triumphed over pay-for and proprietary software. And the internet users think it could be the same for every business.

Ailing newspapers must simply join the bandwagon and perhaps begin to nudge the likes of Google (or broadband providers), who are gaining from consumers' free-content campaign, for support.

Meanwhile, benign consumers hope such a plan won't backfire at them.

But, by the time, a solution is devised, technology would have moved one-step ahead where consumers would prefer mobile computing and e-readers and its providers will offer complementary news services, leading to a new crisis.

Posted by P. Williams | August 28, 2009 Company & Financial Information, General, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

And another newspaper [thelondonpaper] closes down because of falling advertising revenue. Archana Venkatraman

The scene will only get grimmer now on.

The fight for winning adverts turns bitter not just between the newspapers but also between newspapers and other consumer-facing companies and websites. Ailing airline company British Airways announced it was to sell advertising space on online boarding cards (presumably with some care- life insurance ads just before you get on a flight may not be quite the ticket). Meanwhile, property website Rightmove reported buoyant results citing its share of property advertising "grew substantially" even as advertising in traditional print media declined.

It is clear that advertisers operating on a shoe-string budget are swayed by a slew of companies with online presence that claim they can target users "more directly" than newspapers can. Companies such as British Airways step on the toes of traditional media institutions to rescue their business amid worsening economic climate.

Almost at the same time, consumers are increasingly considering news and information as something of a free-commodity and are not willing to pay for it.

So what seemed like a straight-forward and obvious business model for newspapers is turned upside down with the world wide web bringing along a slew of avenues for the advertisers and heralding a permanent gloom for the newspapers.

In case of BA and other brands, advertising will be complementary to their core revenue. Are newspapers too naïve to continue believing in advertising as the only and major source of income?

Arguably, the newspapers, with their compelling content have battled bravely with radio, television and even online news-sites and have continued to survive. But as the internet-savvy consumers crowd specific websites for booking tickets, shopping, viewing properties, and even investing their money and buying insurance, the newspapers must find an alternative to traditional advertising.

It may be hard to visualise a new revenue-earner different from advertising, but who would have thought of a "search engine" or "penicillin" in the early 1600s. Because, most times, identifying the problem is the first step for resolving a crisis.

Posted by P. Williams | August 21, 2009 Arts, Humanities & Social Science, Company & Financial Information, General, Market Research Information, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Technology is amazing and we all love it. Only when it works and only when we have it.

When it doesn't work it is more than useless and redundant. It makes life and task more painful than it would have been without the help of "the damn thing in the first place".

Why do we loathe it so much when it goes wrong? Surely the answer is our dependence on it. For most of us it would be a "terrible day" if we forgot our mobile phones before venturing out. Make it a "dreadful day" if it was a smart-phone and one was "on the move" the whole day.

Making technology work is all equations and mathematics. A software works only if the code is right, a site is accessed only if the password is accurate. Our brains have become administrators and house-keepers. Today, we do not know the information per se, but we know where to find that information from.

It is a mobile phone's task to remember the number of our loved ones. It is the sat-nav's task to remind us where to take the next right and it is Microsoft Calendar's task to remember our appointments and "alert" us.

Let's take it a bit further- we don't really have to remember all the spellings- there is an inbuilt auto-correction tool; while searching for a phrase, we do not really need to type the whole phrase, artificial intelligence prompts us to "drag and drop", we do not need to rewrite or reword an article, there is "copy and paste".

It is all good- real time communication, blurring geographical boundaries, liberating information, empowering humankind and creating, managing and organising intellectual property and so on.

The newer and more novel the innovation, the harder we fall for it. Second-gen devices and applications are very attractive and addictive.

I am not patronising life without technology, but it would be interesting to pause and think how much we have started depending on even secondary technological devices and innovations such as faster broadband, plastic money, wi-fi, catch-up television, text-to-voice transcriber, file-sharing, social networking, digital radio, Skype, Second Life, communication devices.

It feels wiser to take pain in remembering (and forgetting) the birthdays of our loved ones genuinely than rendering information technology a more charismatic personality.

Because, sometimes, natural stupidity is more charming than artificial intelligence.

Posted by P. Williams | August 14, 2009 General, Information Management, Professional Development | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

...Or is our digital consumption, marked by a classic characteristic of jumping on the bandwagon? Asks Archana Venkatraman

On one hand, Ofcom research suggests that people are willing to give up on celebrations and routine pleasures such as meals out and holidays to hold on to communication services, if a choice has to be made. That fits in with the EC's digital competitiveness report found that two in every three Europeans under 24 years of age use the internet every day.

But almost exactly at the same time, another research report from social media analytics company Sysymos analysed over 11 million Twitter accounts and found that about over 85% of Twitter users post less than one update a day and that 21% of users have never posted a Tweet. In addition, the social networking site Friends Reunited is sold off for a fraction of what it was worth in 2005.

Arguably, the reason for the burgeoning success for Facebook as against Friends Reunited could be attributed to its free access as against a subscription model, which was eventually dispensed with. Similar trend was spotted by the EC's report where it said that a third of young people would not pay for online services such as music and video downloads.

Have we assumed that most internet services we use will remain free and that we just have to factor the hardware costs? Media baron Rupert Murdoch has just shaken this belief to its core.

We haven't yet sorted out our digital behaviour and our inability to put a value to our digital services. We embrace digital services- general search engines, social networking sites, news sites, email accounts, YouTube and numerous download sites - that are free, without assessing their real value and importance to us. We all know of people who have opened a Twitter account to obtain a desired URL before it is too late.

The real question is how many of us would actually give up on holiday and dining-out to keep Facebook and Twitter and Skype if all three were in fact subscription-based? In such a scenario, people willing to keep communication services would have to pay for the devices, internet connection and individual websites.

It is time we start putting a price on the communication technologies we use and choose more selectively. Web 2.0 has certainly revolutionised the way we live and communicate but if we do not exercise our discretion then the companies providing these services will gain revenge, either by charging or disappearing.

Posted by P. Williams | August 7, 2009 General, Information Management, Market Research Information, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Archana Venkatraman

On Wednesday [July 29], Microsoft and Yahoo paired up to announce a ten-year deal in the search markets. The companies announced that the partnership would improve efficiency in reaching and tracking online audience.

Together Microsoft-Yahoo will hold less than 30% of the US market share, even though it is significantly more than their individual numbers. A research firm comScore suggests that Google handles 65% of the US search market. On a global context, however, the game looks even tougher for Microsoft and Yahoo with Google having 70% of the market share. But the two companies claim the deal to be a game changer within the search market.

Through the deal, Microsoft acquires a ten-year license to Yahoo's search technologies while Yahoo sites will use Microsoft Bing as their search platform.

Professionals navel-gazing to know 'what's in there for me' may not see a radically different search experience in the short run, but the competition introduced within the sector could result in innovation, more sophisticated search technology, meaning-based content, efficient organic search and further collaboration and consolidation.

In isolation, the development may mean little to professionals, but this just marks the beginning of maturity within the digital information industry. We could see more such collaborations not only between rival companies but even complementary collaboration between search companies, social networking sites and information management companies.

As one expert told me "the future of the search is about you and me", I see it coming true.

Posted by P. Williams | July 31, 2009 Company & Financial Information, Enterprise Search, General, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)