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)  

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)  

...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)  

It is time to see social networking sites as just that. Networking sites. Says Archana Venkatraman

Two incidents earlier this week took the paranoia around networking tools to an absurd level. One was when MI6 chief Sir John Sawers's personal life became public when his wife innocently uploaded their holiday photographs to her Facebook account. The other was concerns expressed by UK intelligence agencies that Facebook and other social networking tools ruin the spy industry, as finding new recruits without an online trail has become nearly impossible.

In the first instance, Sawers faces a probe, and in the second, consultants are saying that having a Facebook profile is like "opening up a Pandora's box of online traceability that one can't ever truly close". The message from security experts is loud and clear - maintain a low profile at all times.

That means having no images in the public domain, or being associated with any person or organisation. What we need to understand is that while the latter is in people's control, the former is not. In today's internet age, it is hard to control information that is visible and searchable in the world wide web.

For instance, the MI6 chief was unaware of the availability of information while his wife did not consider the implications of her enthusiastic and seemingly harmless activity. Even if she had been careful with the security settings, his friends could have published the photographs and "tagged" friends' friends and so on, or he could have featured in other holidaymakers' pictures.

High profile officials must indeed have Facebook and Twitter accounts as information coming from them is fast, first hand and extremely useful. It also is important for the info pros of the future as references while documenting an event.

Instead of making them digital outcasts, they and their loved ones must be informed about the security aspects of these websites. More importantly, instead of controlling the prolific adoption of these inevitable sites, experts must advise search engines and those who run social networking sites to stop crawling through their pages for easy find-ability and to stop presenting a vast amount of information to random web search-ers.

It is the technology that has to become smarter with sensitive personal information, not people.

Posted by P. Williams | July 8, 2009 Electronic Document & Records Management, General, Information Management, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (1)  

It is well worth repeating the cliché - internet has transformed our lives. Information, news, file-sharing, catch up television, blogs, entertainment and social networking. Layer upon layer, it is a world unto itself.

While this virtual world exposes us to new challenges and conflicts, it also dangerously divides our real world into separate sects.

A YouGov survey of almost 2000 adults have revealed varying attitude towards social media. While many welcomed its adoption in business, 71% respondents said teaching social media technologies such as Twitter in schools is "inappropriate".

Meanwhile, the old school of thought is still prevalent- 50% of the UK workforce are banned from using social media in the workplace- presumably for productivity reasons. Contrarily, 20% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that a corporate Facebook would be better for sharing information and collaborating on projects.

As I have always argued, the majority of respondents who were inclined towards social media in the workplace were Generation Y-ers. This reflects how the young have changed the way they communicate.

Traditional organisations must provide social media platform to its employees for sharing ideas and views and to collaborate in a medium of their choice. Social media sites are not just a means to connect or not just used to advertise the positive aspect of one's life. Today, they are beyond a mere public relations weapon of every individual.

Several Tweeters have a fan-following for their valuable information, some human resource departments vet people by tracking their social media activity. Ambitious companies have extended their online presence with the use of these tools and even promoted products and services through them.

Business social media site LinkedIn boasts of 40 million plus members. This shows the importance of these applications and the role they are likely to play in future generations' personal and professional lives. Social networking sites such as Facebook host a multitude of groups fighting for social, economic and environmental causes. And that is why, it is important to allow children familiarise themselves with these technologies which they have a great aptitude and appetite for.

What is also shocking about the survey is that 6% have admitted that they'd go as far as not taking a job if social media tools were not made available to them. Although nominal, it reflects the division in ideologies. Besides, a survey of even younger sample could provide more alarming insights.

It must be about a happy marriage- making social media technologies a tool to achieve traditional objectives- than slipping into a divided society of Tweeters and non-Tweeters.

Posted by P. Williams | June 9, 2009 Legal, Tax, Regulatory & Patent, News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (0)  

Here we go again. The government wants to get more data about us. And store it in a monumental database. Although a Home Office spokesman has said, "Ministers have made no decision on whether a central database will be included in the draft Bill." That's probably just a way of keeping troublemakers, like the press, at bay until the inevitable decision has been made.

Dig a little deeper and you find embedded in the proposal for a Communications Data Bill and you'll find that a main element is to "Transpose EU Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of communications data into UK law." This data retention law has already been challenged for breaching human rights. Yet our lot press on regardless. I'm never sure whether our government decides what snooping it wants to do, then finds a handy European directive to cover it, or whether it is just utterly supine.

Anyway, the ball is rolling. If the plans come to pass, our communications and ISP networks will sport the equivalent of street cameras except they will be black boxes snooping on our telephone and internet activities and feeding them in real time to the database. It will know how long we spend online, who we talk to, what web pages we connect to, what emails and IMs we exchange, with whom, and so on.

The government's proposal reassures us that, "ensure strict safeguards continue to strike the proper balance between privacy and protecting the public." In other words it is using the threat of crime - terrorism specifically - to snoop on us all. If the past is a good guide to the future, it is likely cost a fortune, be late, cost even more than planned, be insecure, run up huge carbon debts and fail in its primary task.

Seems to me that the government really is biting off more than it can chew with this one.

Posted by David Tebbutt | May 23, 2008 News & Reference | Permalink  | Comments (1)