In 2009, just three years since its launch, Twitter was valued at $1bn (£630m). Even before it had made any substantial revenue strategy, it was close to securing $100m funding from a consortium of investors. We knew advertising plans would soon follow.

The micro-blogging site has started addressing the issues that stopped it from accessing advertising revenue which is derived out of data on its site. The company's tweet said it is developing its own tools to provide features on the site that are currently provided by third party desktop clients.

Third party services include features such as geolocations- crucial to advertising and is now offered by service providers such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop and Echofon .

Twitter has decided to go down the Google way of displaying ads with its search results and not by incorporating them into actual feeds. This means for instance if you do a search on laptops, it would feature Sony or Dell deals ads. The adverts will follow general Twitter principle of 140 characters.

What is surprising is its choice of traditional advertising model. Before securing funding, in May last year, the site said banner advertising was not of interest. Later on, it said it was open to advertising.

While, it is a relief to know that the actual feeds would be free of ads as of now, it is likely that its investors could put further pressure on the site to generate more revenue through banners, user feed-based ads and even meaning-based behaviour-targeted ads. What worked for Google may not work for Twitter- people used Google primarily for search hence, its advertising on search was spot on.

It could have subjected advertising to specific product enquiry tweets. It could have accessed revenue from large businesses by allowing them to post their updates- for instance a Lufthansa tweet that a London-Frankfurt flight is delayed. Followers get their information and Lufthansa communicates effectively but pays a price. Or even a product inquiry tweet by a user asking whether Virgin is better or Sky? There can be a million ways rather than going down the Google lane.

The beauty of Twitter was its neutrality and the ability to post data real time using mobile devices. The popularity and use of the site was so overwhelming that the US has allowed army troops to use the feature and it is now used by corporations and businesses for corporate communications, e-learning through social web and even raising help for natural disasters.

Move towards traditional advertising may have come a bit too soon even before the service is fully explored and exploited. Some enterprises and sensitive groups are likely to back out while it is mulling advertising plans and Twitter for information's sake would be a thing of past.

-Archana Venkatraman

As the traditional channels of communications collapsed in the area and as rescue professionals were stuck away for a while before getting to the scene of disaster to help victims, Tweeters, Facebookers, charity organisations and users of other social media tools collaborated to share information, raise cash and check whereabouts of the loved ones.

Immediately after the disaster struck, social web was full of minute-by-minute updates, appeal for help, witness accounts and some stomach curdling pictures from the scene.

Even now, thousands of web users from around the world are continuing to come to social networking sites for sharing news in the aftermath of the earthquake and are searching for news about missed relatives.

Twitter's "Trending Topics" today focus around- "Help Haiti" and "Yele"- posts that are raising funds for the victims. It was reported that major media channels connected with aid workers through Skype as phone lines were dead and redundant.

This latest disaster highlights the way social media sites have evolved and used as a means of raising global awareness and even for campaigning. In the past we have seen the effective use of social web in environmental campaigning, Iran elections, Hudson bay plane landing and more recently in the support shown towards Google's exit from China.

The first pictures of the Hudson bay plane incident was out on Twitter and then on terrestrial news channels where as in Iran, the authorities could not control the expression of displeasure through Twitter by Iranians.

More recently, social web has given people an alternative medium to be heard and be heard effectively.

The opinion of people and their information in these websites are so binding and hard to ignore that it helps not just raise awareness and bring transparency but force the authorities to act in favour of the emotions and views expressed through the web.

How social networking sites and the web in general have proactively played their roles in enabling loved ones get in touch with or know the whereabouts of the victims of the unprecedented earthquake in Haiti will go a long way in calming their critics.

But professionals may still have their nerves on the market, thanks to the rise and adoption of social web and mobile computing devices and impressive broadband promises in 2009 alone.

Info pros can pat themselves on their back for helping their organisations sail through the tough economic conditions after being entrusted the task of maintaining their organisation's data management capabilities, communication activities and keeping up with technology all on a shoestring budget.

As we look to come out of this deep recession at the start of the next year, their roles will become more exciting yet crucial and challenging. It will be in the next twelve months that info pros can demonstrate how their organisations gained after allowing these professionals to integrate social media in their professional activities; how their digitisation process has helped their companies to be in sync with technological advancements and how investing in right information solutions and subscribing to the right products have given their companies an edge over competition.

But it is also in the next twelve months that businesses would fail to see impact of projects initiated by info pros. If info pros cannot tangibly showcase how much, for instance Twitter has helped their marketing and communications arm in reaching out to the public, their traditional colleagues will get only further cynical. Experts have said that social media can do wonders to businesses, but info pros must be able to quantify the benefits and have the facts and figures ready.

Likewise, if research and academic info pros are not able to justify investing in information technologies, cash-strapped institutions will feel they have "wasted" money. Also if professionals have released exclusive data and products online for free which has backfired, their organisations will feel betrayed.

Amid increased pressure in 2010 when their initiatives will start showing results, info pros need confidence and conviction to justify themselves and assure their slightly-wary organisations that all steps have indeed been in the right direction.

Gathering such information may not be daunting with today's information feeds, measuring technologies and social media.

Happy holidays and of course, happy holiday tweeting!

Not until copyright laws define and cover online aggregation service.

NewsNow, the UK content aggregator is set to remove links to most national newspapers after a row with the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA).

The site will pull links out of its subscription service that relates to content from titles of eight major newspaper groups - including Guardian Media Group, News International, Telegraph Media Group, Associated Newspapers and Independent News & Media- who own the NLA.

NewsNow's move comes after a debate with NLA after the agency launched a crackdown aggregators, PR agencies and all organisations that recycle links for commercial purposes. It announced of plans to claim copyright fees against organisations which share press cuttings by emailing links to newspaper articles on an industrial scale starting from January 2010.

NLA also aimed at charging web-based news aggregators who collect news headlines, make their own feeds, tailor-make it and distribute it widely to businesses and then profit from it (the B2B service providers).

This crackdown is to ensure that a typical aggregator such as NewsNow, which links to content from newspapers and provides them to business on subscription, would be expected to pay up to £10,000 as "web database license fees".

It is clear that NLA has attempted to introduce a new revenue stream at a time when newspaper publishers are losing to freely accessible information on the internet.

NLA spokesman Andrew Hughes clarified that it will not charge backdated fees and will not charge users sharing news links for free. "Our new licences only to paid-for web aggregation services, free-to-use services are unaffected. Web aggregators copy and index website content. This requires the consent of the content owner, and charging those who use website content commercially is fair and reasonable. The reason NewsNow and most other aggregators have accepted our proposals is that detailed legal advice supports our position."

NLA said that all of the major paid-for UK web aggregators except Meltwater have agreed licenses. Meltwater's resistance and NewsNow's plans to remove links than agree to pay license-fees demonstrates the reluctance in the aggregation business to pay because, according to them, their service constitutes "content-search2.

In the last few months the debate between aggregators and publishers has been whether aggregation is a search service or content copying because existing copyright law does not cover aggregation.

While NLA thinks aggregators must pay, legal experts point that circulation of hyperlinks cannot be an infringement of copyright, and that the newspapers' own 'Print 'and 'Email a Friend' icons allow any user to access the article directly, without payment.

In a report, Robin Fry of Beachcroft said: "Most businesses have abandoned the circulation of physical press cuttings, leaving it to individuals to access stories direct from the newspaper websites. The broadsheets clearly allow this on their websites but the NLA still seem to be pursuing businesses for licences which are simply not needed.

"Our aim is to demystify the situation, as we have seen an increase in enquiries from clients on this issue, who are understandably baffled by the numerous and complicated rules and fees in this area. It's quite possible for organisations to access all their press cuttings at no cost whilst staying within the law.

"The NLA has a responsibility to explain the correct legal situation to those it seeks copyright fees from - but at the moment, many are entering into licences - and possibly paying backdated 'indemnity' fees - without really understanding if these are needed for their business."

The battle will only get bitter unless a legal framework is put in place soon.

But some were left scratching their heads too- those reluctant to take the "risky" dive into the social web, those adopting the traditional digitisation and preservation technoques, those operating on tighter budgets and those wanting more technology democracy in their workplaces.

The message came stark and clear to these reluctant professionals - you have to do it now, you have to do it fast and you have to do it right.

The professionals attended the sessions in all their sincerity, aiming to take away something effective and useful to their institutions' boardrooms. We saw it all- experts presenting their information, offering case studies and juggling questions while the information audience absorbing the information and advice, counter-arguing, questioning, agreeing and collaborating.

The closing keynote session may have already set the agenda for next year- a "Google dominated" session where experts provided insights on how Google will shape the information landscape in 2010.

In addition to the final session, many questions and discussions in individual sessions for three days too were focused on Google and that's what I want to say- Google's absense at the event was conspicuous.

While we had panelists praise as well as critisise Google and predict its move next year, at the next Online Information conference, we want to hear from the search giant about its own plans. During the post-session discussions over a few glasses of wine, I could hear some professionals expressing their frustration over predictions and not hard facts about what Google will embark on in the coming year.

And another issue that struck me was the absence of professionals who chalk out the social web policy within their organisations. Some librarians were keen to understand ways to develop a social web strategy only to find themselves full of knowledge but helpless to implement as they were not directly responsible for these strategies.

An information-explosive event, I am already beginning to think about the next OI conference where we must question experts on trends they wrongly predicted, on questions we missed to ask, on failing to spot opportunities and see more experts from internet giants who are shaping the future of online information at a lightening speed.

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.

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.

The new funding has reportedly come from two new investors Insight Venture Partners and T R Price, as well as its existing funders Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital.

There are two problems to start with. First is that Williams was not as candid about the exact amount of investment because the investors want the deal to be a private affair. Isn't web 2.0 all about sharing information and encouraging transparent and candid conversations? Internet has liberated information and has always preached professionals to provide information. Shouldn't it apply the same rules to itself?.

Unless social media companies including Facebook - which is also known for shying away from sharing plans, projections and security measures - come out in the open, it is hard for information professionals who want to capitalise on these tools to chart out their plan or realise the potential.

Amid tight budgets, it's extremely important for marketers too to define the return on investment and unless there is more information, it is hard to define ROI. The lack of information also hinders discussion on whether the amount of investment was right in the first place. And it does not set a basis to evaluate other social media technologies.

Also presumably, Twitter has secured the funds and valued itself on the basis of its whopping 45 million users in its three-year history and expecting this to grow exponentially.

Twitter is planning to roll out adverts and even provide companies with initial insight and market reaction. But the second problem is that because information on web2.0 applications are user-generated, scattered across multiple platforms and at different times, professionals and advertisers would find it difficult to target the right information for the right set of audience.

There has to be more collaboration of content in the social media technologies before any plans to leverage on them take to the sky. And there definitely needs to be more engagement between users and social media companies.

The reports found that even today, over 40% of senior executives in organisations said they restrict the use of such applications and have no training in place to manage the uptake of these tools by staff in the near future.

The concerns these executives raised were about security, lack of productivity, loss of information, data breaches, difficulty in preserving and accessing information and legal implications.

The moot point of discussion at both the events were about "Who takes responsibility for implementing and enforcing the company policy on Web2.0 use?"

Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to tackle the tricky issues of Web 2.0 because they acknowledge and identify its benefits in this internet age. Meanwhile, staff insist on "technology democracy".

People may be techno-savvy but they lack digital awareness and history shows that we pay a huge price for this lack of awareness. Young staff have been sacked for posting negative comments about employers or customers; public sector organisations have lost and misplaced highly sensitive information and personal data has been used for vetting future staff.

The question of responsibility is a tough and dodgy one. And the Recommind survey suggested that 70% respondents think it is IT department's responsibility, 17% said it was the legal department and the others were divided between dedicated Web 2.0 specialists in offices, team leaders and individual members of staff.

It's time to drop the silo approach. Not only does the IT department, legal team and staff need to work together, it is time individual users, application providers and regulatory services take responsibility too. Until now, the legislation and public awareness has always been catching up with technology. It is time to stop playing catch up and get even with technology.

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

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

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.

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.

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.