Simply Zesty » News – Simply Zesty

44% of companies monitor employees’ use of social media in AND out of the workplace

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:06:29 +0000

A new survey has just been released , that shows how companies approach social media in the workplace, with some pretty surprising findings. When you work in a more open and flexible company, it’s easy to forget that many people, particularly in larger organisations, are subject to fairly intense monitoring or policing of access to social networks. And, somewhat worryingly, the policies adopted towards use of social media don’t just apply to the workplace, but outside of it as well. In the companies surveyed, 44% said that they had policies in place for use of social media that covered use both in and out of the workplace. Further to this, less than half the businesses in the survey said that they gave access to social media for all employees. While this is a difficult subject to broach and there is by no means a right and wrong answer, it nonetheless contributes to an unfair split in the level of access to information and connections.

71% block social networks in the workplace

To show just how extreme monitoring social networks has become, a staggering 70.7% claimed that they actively blocked social networks in the workplace. This is a huge figure and is somewhat surprising, given how pervasive social media has become in our daily lives. And while many may see this as justified, viewing social network use as something purely private, such blocking seems almost archaic :

The issue here is not so much in considering social media as a place to chat to friends, but in viewing it as a valuable source of information. Yes, restricting access to chat to your friends on Facebook is one thing, but restricting access to Twitter for example, is quite another when you consider the role that it plays in the circulation of information and news.

Who owns your content?

Where this gets even more interesting, is that such a large proportion of companies have policies that cover use of social networks outside of the workplace as well. This is a difficult reality for many people and it’s an outcome of the private becoming public. Where once you used to leave work and you had your private life to yourself, for many, that private life is being broadcast online, as you choose. For organisations however, this poses a risk if you are linked to your organisation in any way. Anything you say or do online could indirectly implicate your employer and you can understand the risk here.

But surely, as social media becomes more pervasive in our lives, this line of thinking can only go so far. We are only going to become more public and share more information about ourselves, so how far can the policing go? What’s needed instead of even more policing or moderation, is a step change in society that ultimately changes the relationship between employee and employer. Your job is your job but your life is your life. There will need to be a shift in thinking across society that what individuals do or say online (as long as it’s legal) should in no way affect your position 9-5. The alternative is a more policed society where the employer/organisation has absolute control and can enforce restrictions as they decide is best.

The need for anonymity?

This brings up an interesting issue of anonymity, which has been brought to the forefront since Google’s decision to ban users who don’t use their real names on Google +. Now while this is completely Google’s decision – their network their rules – when you consider this approach in line with how organisations are monitoring social media, it makes things rather difficult. If by default you are forced to use your real identity online but you know that your employer could be watching, it takes away a huge amount of freedom that everyone should have access to. The extent to which you have freedom and access to information online can be determined by your employer, which is a worrying thought and a fairly sobering view of the future.

Why a networked employee is a good one

Companies that restrict employees’ access to social networks, ultimately have a differing view to the benefits of social media. It’s clearly seen as something that can impinge on day to day working lives, as opposed to something that can view it. This, again, is a somewhat archaic approach. Sure, a significant part of social media is about purely connecting with friends from a social perspective. But it’s also about building connections, establishing authority and discovering new information. This can only be beneficial to an organisation. A networked employee is ultimately a better employee as it opens up the lines you have to information and the connections people build extend beyond being purely social and can benefit organisations by creating new opportunities, access to ‘influencers’ in your area and possible lead generation. Nearly 71% of companies are actively restricting this.

A New York Times project shows collaboration is the future of news

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:30:31 +0000

The future of the news industry as it stands, is somewhat uncertain. As new tools emerge for discussing and creating news content, newspapers must adapt to keep up with the changing trends. But the more that these social platforms develop, the more newspapers lose control over their content and power to set the news agenda. While many have recognised this as an opportunity, there are still many publishers that are failing to adapt to the two-way dialogue and changing news industry. Those that do, risk getting left behind as they lose eyeballs to more socialised newspapers. The New York Times has just launched a new project that shows the future of news is in crowdsourcing and collaboration.

Introducing Beta 620

The new site from the New York Times (named after their location at 620 Eighth Avenue) is an experiment in launching new projects from the Times, that can be discussed publicly before deciding whether they launch on the site in full. As well as being a place for the Times to put forward projects in development, it’s also open up to users to suggest projects, uniting the paper with developers.

The projects within Beta 620 don’t focus exclusively on news, but the general user experience in the site, including entertainment and search. It is a significant project from the New York Times as it completely opens up the news experience and shows how collaboration will play a key role in the future of news production and consumption. The purpose of the site was put succinctly by Denise Warren, senior VP at the paper who said “It’s a place that gives a permanent home to the tradition of innovation,”. This is significant as it’s a recognition that innovation might come from outside the 4 walls of the paper.

You may know better than us

The future of newspapers depends on the ability of the publisher to take the stance that their readers might know better than them. This applies specifically to how news is sourced. By opening up their potential news sources to include the public, newspapers can more effectively gather community news at a local level, as well as adapt the agenda of the mainstream, national news. While newspapers will always have a role of authority, that’s necessary if we are to trust the news we receive, that role may be more as curators than producers. Crowdsourced news on its own will not survive unless there is a single source responsible for digesting it, isolating the facts and presenting it in a coherent way to readers. The age-old process of producing news content, only now the sources are real people on the ground, as opposed to a privileged few.

Is there money in collaboration?

Central to this of course, is the need for newspapers to be able to monetise crowdsourcing and collaboration efforts if these are to dominate the way we receive our news. The problem lies in the fact that newspapers will own less and less of the content they put forward to readers, so new methods of monetisation need to be explored. Right now people are happy to contribute news content for free, in the interests of presenting a fair and accurate version of news that’s real time, but this structure will likely change in the future, as more opportunities open up for people to turn this into a career or full time job. More newspapers will likely employ ‘on the beat’ journalists, bloggers and tweeters to cement their crowdsourced offering and ensure they get the best content before anyone else. Embracing crowdsourced efforts in this way will help to ensure it can be monetised. If we know we can access some of the best real-time content that has been curated and presented in a coherent way, we will be willing to pay for this, as it offers us a unique view of content that we can’t easily replicate ourselves.

The dangers of crowdsourcing

For all the benefits of crowdsourced news, it inevitably brings with it dangers that must be explored. The risk of opening up news sources significantly is that it becomes increasingly unmanageable to to check the credibility of sources and the accuracy of information. This is where the role of curation really takes hold. When you multiply your news sources from a few to potentially thousands, you don’t forego the need to organise this from a single source that can give it a viewpoint and coherency. In this respect, crowdsourcing can only go so far if ‘news’ is still to be of any true value to readers. While I admire news projects that are completely crowdsourced and use realtime monitoring to present the news, I still believe in the absolute value of more traditional newspapers over these, provided they are able to adapt. As difficult as it may seem, we still need a news agenda if current affairs and news in general are to play a significant role in society. Only now that news agenda has opened up significantly and importantly, everyone (that knows the tools of social media) has a public platform in which this agenda can be questioned, discussed and disputed.

In this sense, crowdsourcing and collaboration will only save newspapers, if the establishment itself understands the role of social media and the part it plays in society.

Professor claims social media has turned us into vain, self-obsessed ‘children’.

Lauren Fisher — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 09:36:07 +0000

It’s not very often that I would find myself on the Daily Mail website, or indeed writing about it, but a recent article on there caught my attention straight away and drew me in further. The article is titled : ‘Facebook and Twitter are creating a vain generation of self-obsessed people with child-like need for feedback, warns top scientist’. The ‘warning’ is a pretty stark one for users of social media and in it, the professor – Baroness Greenfield – continues the argument that using social media has lead us into an identity crisis, with a childish mentality of requiring constant praise and attention. For many that use social media, the subject is likely to be slightly worrying, as it calls into question everything that we use social media for. For those that don’t use social media, or view it suspiciously, it is likely to confirm a lot of worries people have about how we’re connecting via social technologies. Is there any truth in the article?

The “evidence”

The article goes through the particularities of Facebook and Twitter to support the argument, but rather worryingly (though not surprisingly) the writer doesn’t seem to really have used the social networks herself. The ‘evidence’ starts with the assertion that Twitter is a place to share short text updates and pictures about yourself. No mention of the fact that it has turned into one of the most valuable sources for news and discussion, or examples such as where Twitter has proved invaluable in life or death situations, as was seen with the Taliban prisoner who tweeted about his plight via his captor’s mobile phone. Rather she chooses to use examples of people tweeting about what they had for breakfast as the total representation of Twitter.

The ‘evidence’ then gets even more extreme, as the article goes on to state that people are actually living their lives purely by doing things that are ‘Facebook worthy’, so they have something to tell their friends about. Interesting that this is the assumption, as opposed to seeing it as people simply wanting to share experiences with friends. No, instead we now make a decision to do something as if its popularity on Facebook is the deciding factor. The professor ends her argument by asking ”Think of the implications for society if people worry more about what other people think about them than what they think about themselves.’ As if being self-aware and conscious of other’s perception of ourselves has only just been introduced into society as a result of social media. Hint – it’s not, that’s always been a fundamental of society and the way we function as human beings. Social media cannot be blamed for this.

Social media as a scapegoat

It’s probably fairly obvious what I think about the article, and it may seem odd to even reference it when it’s likely been produced as an attention grabber (credit to them – it worked). But the problem is that this line of thinking isn’t just confined to this one article. Barely a day goes by when there isn’t an article blaming social media in general for some kind of disaster, crime, impact on children etc.. It’s a pattern that repeats itself throughout history and is typical of moral panics. First it was TV, then videos, then computer games, now social media. There is a worrying tendency to pick on the latest medium and use it as an excuse for wider problems in society, often with gross misreporting or one-sided analysis.

The problem is that social media becomes a scapegoat, and individual cases that are reported on that blame social media for xyz use social media as the sole contributing factor, instead of looking at the wider context. This is dangerous for the evolution of social media, as a fundamental communication channel and connecting system for individuals and communities all over the world. Is it turning us into vain, self obsessed-children? No more than email or the office water cooler. The fact is that there has always been a channel for ‘feedback’ and we have always sought it. How long could your story keep the others in your office entertained, how many replies would you get to the group email sent out, how many people will turn up to your party?? Social media is a vital form for feedback, but this is only one of many functions. The fact is I spend a lot more time reading through other people’s updates on Twitter or Facebook than I do on actually sending out my own updates. This is a consequence of the vast amounts of information on there, that improves my day to day life.

While my reaction to this post might seem typical, given that I’m writing a blog and there is a link to my Twitter account on the right hand side of this page, this is based on my knowledge of a trend that consistently repeats itself and is continued by mainstream (usually right wing) media. The history of moral panics is such that the majority of the media has always jumped on the latest form of technology as a contributing factor in some way and it’s worrying as it can seriously impact how technology and human communication develops. I’m not against this article purely because of the argument alone, but because of the lack of evidence to back it up. The power of a major news outlet like the Daily Mail to influence its readers on something like social media shouldn’t be underestimated. I’m not against it because as a backlash against being forced to think of myself as a self-obsessed child, but because I don’t want others to view this as the driving force of social technologies.

The democracy of social media

What seems to have been ignored in this article, or other reports that look at the ‘self-obsessed’ nature of social media, is the democratic nature of social communication. The argument that social media has given us all a platform to turn us into mini celebrities is seen as a bad thing, like we shouldn’t all be allowed our own stage on which to communicate publicly – rather that this should be the reserve of a privileged minority in the world – celebrities, politicians etc.. This is the number one reason that shoots down all the arguments against social media as being a time waster, or simply a hangout for narcissists. People are going to have to get on board with the fact that society and the fundamentals of human communication are changing. Now we all have access to a place to communicate publicly, and this is going to see very different people command a public audience than would have found themselves granted space as newspaper columnists. Clearly, this is a good thing.

5 reasons Square deserves its $1billion valuation

Lauren Fisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:08:37 +0000

Having only just recently raised $27.5 million in funding seven months ago, Square have just announced a new round of funding of a huge $100 million, with a market valuation of $1 billion. For those of you who haven’t heard of Square – they offer merchants a unique way to accept credit card payments, through a small reader that can be attached to iPhones, Androids and iPads. It offers an easy way for anyone to set themselves up as a merchant, and the company is already seeing huge success. Square is backed by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, who is currently CEO at the company. The product is completely revolutionary in the way it facilitates credit card payments, which goes a long way to explaining the recent funding. But there’s more to it than that. As well as just having a good product, there is a lot about Square that is shaking things up a bit and showing others that it’s not all about having a fancy social network – that sometimes there is huge money to be made in what might seem like a completely closed off area. So just what are Square doing right, and why do they deserve a $1 billion valuation?

Smart backing

There is certainly no shortage of talent at Square. Firstly you can count Jack Dorsey, co- founder and CEO as a pretty useful asset to the company. Jack’s experience here is unique because he has cut his teeth at one of the big 3 of social networks. Twitter has certainly not been without its troubles and Jack knows what it’s like to launch a company or service within a niche that no-one has spotted. Just as Facebook was the main social network, cash registers were the main way for merchants to accept physical payments. Jack knows how to shake things up and give people what they want before they even know they want it. But there’s more to Square than Jack alone, and they count a powerhouse of investors and board members at their disposal. They have former CFO at Facebook – Gideon Yo – advising them, which you could argue is a near invaluable asset given the market that they’re operating in. And among their board members they can count a former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, seasoned silicon VC Vinod Khosla and most recently the celebrated analyst Mary Meeker. This doesn’t even take into account all the high-profile talent backing, investing and advising in Square, and it shows that as well as a good idea and great execution, the team at the higher levels of the organisation are the ones that are going to eventually see it to success. It’s worth the valuation in their boardroom alone!

Investing in hardware

Square is also a valuable company because it’s producing something that we don’t see come out of social media stars very much : hardware. Jack has turned his attention from a purely online business, to something that involves an actual product. This is an interesting move that many others are missing, in the race to revolutionise mobile payments. While many mobile payment solutions are being explored, these are focusing on what happens within the phone itself. Square, however, recognises the fact that this is not a workable solution for many merchants. They’re not going to throw out their cash register for a revolutionary online form of payment – we’re still along way of that becoming the mainstream, if it ever will. But they may well throw out their cash register for a minimal investment in a small, square piece of plastic that lets them do their job as they did before, only better. And Square are quick to ramp up their hardware solutions. Originally launching just with the device for iPhones, they’ve now launched an iPad version, which is proving a success for the company.

Scalable

One of the reasons that Square is such a good investment with a bright future, is that it is so easily scalable. The solution that they’re offering doesn’t fit just one type of person or one type of business, but is flexible and adaptable across small to large businesses, and even individual merchants. It is a business solution that can be easily distributed worldwide and as well as offering a solution to existing merchants that are looking for something more flexible, it opens up new audiences as well, through the innovative solution it provides. Where once smaller business owners may have been forced to keep their payments online because they had no other method of processing card payments, they can now easily expand and go door to door. It’s also perfect timing, as the jobs market becomes increasingly difficult, more and more people are starting up their own ventures. Square fits in perfectly and with one piece of plastic, solves what is a very real problem for millions of vendors. And of course, the more people swipe, the more Square earns.

A million transactions

For those that might be in doubt about the potential success of Square, despite only being in existence for just over 2 years is carrying out a million transactions per month and have shipped over 500,000 readers. That translates at approximately $3million in transactions every day. With Swipe charging 2.75% per transaction, that’s some pretty impressive revenue for the startup.Those numbers are significant for such a young company and they prove that they haven’t just offered a quirky new way of doing things, but they’ve offered a quirky new way of doing things that people actually want.

Straightforward monetisation

When it comes to monetisation of a new product or concept, no-one has had to face more difficult questions than the guys at Twitter, who are seemingly just starting to get around to this now. But with Square it’s different. While they don’t make any direct money off the readers themselves, which are currently shipped out for free, they have a basic, age-old but genius monetisation model. The more you use the product, the more the company gets. Operating on a charge per transaction model works for Square just as well as it works for merchants, because it’s a model that they’re used to, but the charges are likely to be more favourable than their existing credit card solution. With so many new technologies and new routes to monetisation, Square is proving a smart investment because the way they make money is so simple. And by offering an easy solution, they’re actually creating more transactions than would have typically taken place, particularly for small vendors. Where once in order to pay your builder you had to make sure you had cash in or go to the ATM, now you can just pay with your credit card. This is the true genius of the product and it’s hard to see where their growth curve will stop.

So some might say that the valuation is a crazy figure plucked out of thin air, but at the centre of it is a serious, smart money-making business that will only continue to grow.

In a huge blow, Turntable.fm is restricted to the U.S.

Lauren Fisher — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:15:48 +0000

Turntable has had the social media crowd in a frenzy over the past few weeks, as it shows real promise to change the way we listen to music and gives us a chance to hang out with our online community in a different way, as well as tech stars that you might find in Twitter HQ for example. But that has all changed now, as users outside of the U.S. get a screen blocking them for access, due to licensing constraints. This comes as a huge blow to the site in the crucial early stages of its development. And while the majority of its userbase may well be within the U.S., they’ve still blocked off a huge chunk of their market, as well as damaging their reputation by making it seem like they didn’t cover themselves against this in the first place. It looks slightly unfortunate for Turntable, as it’s evident it’s a response to legal action taken against the site :

And at the moment it seems to be fairly quiet on the Turntable.fm front. The latest tweet from their official account was one hour ago, and alerts people of the change and that they are working to get people back in as soon as possible.

And it’s all quiet on the co-founder front, as the latest tweet from Seth Goldstein (at time of writing, one hour after the story broke and access was restricted), is a link to a general article about the site. Billy Chasen’s last tweet was 15 hours ago, so you can expect a busy few hours ahead in Turntable HQ :

“Yeah, not legal”

Things might be fairly turbulent at Turntable at the moment, as a recent interview with Sean Parker moved on to the incredible early success of Turntable, and the rather trickier question of whether the site is actually legal or not. Sean Parker responded : “Yeah, I think it might not be legal”. And if anyone knows about this kind of things – it’s him. He’s got the scars to prove it. So while it may have just been a catty remark from Parker, designed to stir up a bit of controversy, the recent blocking of users outside the U.S. shows that Turntable certainly didn’t get everything in order before they launched the site. This isn’t a strategic decision to block access, and while they will hopefully be working on a solution to allow these users back in, it’s worrying that this action comes so early on in the startup’s existence.

Why we’re moving towards a permission economy

Lauren Fisher — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:38:46 +0000

A new bill has been proposed by U.S. senator Al Franken, which calls for users to be allowed to grant explicit permission for companies to access their location data in order to advertise to them. While users of iPhones for example have to select to allow an app to use their location information, quite what you’re allowing, which includes passing information to third parties, is unclear. What this bill proposes is that there be a stage whereby the user grants consent for their location information to be shared with third parties, which if passed, could have a huge impact for location ad providers on mobiles. The proposed bill would affect both service providers and developers. This is the first time a bill has been proposed in relation to mobile privacy and it represents an important shift as we move to a permission-based economy. The bill is titled the ‘Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011′ and the title alone shows how pervasive local social networking has become and the legal implications this has as the service develops. The bill could set the tone for the new currency of permission, which will become paramount as social media marketing develops.

EU bill passed for permission to set cookies

Interestingly, alongside the proposed bill in the U.S. , a bill has recently been passed in the E.U. that calls for sites to get explicit information from the user to access and use the data. While this has long been standard practice for the likes of email marketers to add users information to email lists, what this bill covers is far more extensive, including express permission when using tracking mechanics such as setting cookies on a site. This permission can be granted either through an explicit popup for example, or it can be implied, as in Germany, that by using a browser that accepts cookies, you are thereby granting information to individual sites to set cookies. Expect a large portion of companies to opt for the latter, as it doesn’t interrupt the user experience or present a possible a barrier to entry.

Taking these 2 bills into consideration together shows that we are steadily moving into a permission-based economy, where more and more emphasis is being placed on individual’s privacy, to protect them from new communication methods that they might not be familiar with. Some may argue that this might have been too long coming – I have always had a problem with the hierarchy system that’s developed through social media, between the tech-savvy who now how to protect themselves online, and those that find out the hard way, or have no idea what information they’re sharing online. With changes such as the proposed location bill possibly coming into place, it shows more emphasis on respecting the individual user and also forces to companies and providers to attain that permission, instead of it being a given. This puts the user even more in control. Up until now companies have been able to use social technologies in pretty much any way possible to reach their consumers, now they could face certain barriers where the user gets to explicitly decide if you can have access to them. It creates a new currency of permission online, that users and brands will begin to trade in.

Protecting information

The location bill is not the only one in this area being proposed, and comes amidst a range of bills that look specifically at permission and protecting individuals. These include topics such as theft of intellectual property and also the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, which looks close to being passed. All of these bills are designed with the user in mind, and with the Privacy bill above, expressly concern users’ access to the data that is being gathered about them, or alternatively the power to block companies gathering this data at all. These bills are necessary right now due to the huge influx of information that is being shared and collected online. As we create more and more profiles on social networks and steadily build up the history of information shared on just one channel alone – think of all the tweets you’ve sent since you opened an account – there needs to be stricter rules in place to protect the individual. And here the user has the power and the brand must convince them that they deserve to access that information.

Essentially this means that brands will have to work harder to build up their potential to trade in permission. When the user knows that they have the control, they will start becoming more selective as to who gets to access them. And this is where all companies have a real responsibility to encourage the user to ‘trade’ in their permission. As with the location bill, individuals are only likely to grant this permission if they continually get a satisfactory experience. If the ads that they receive, and the way in which they receive them add to their experience, then they would be given no reason not to grant permission. If they don’t, they’ll have no problem blocking you next time. This presents possibly the biggest challenge that brands and marketers will face. Up until now, access to users online and their data has been relatively easy, if you know the right ways to engage with them. But now the risk of bad marketing means that users might decide to stop trading in permission and block companies from their online experience altogether.

Companies will trade in trust

While the bills in the U.S. have not yet been passed, they are reflective of the measures being put in place to protect individuals and put them higher up the chain of command in social technologies. This is needed now particularly with the rise of location services, as this type of information becomes sensitive in ways we’ve not experienced before. The individual will slowly become more and more aware of the control they have over the ways companies and advertisers can access them, and will have to choose who they give their permission to carefully. As social media usage proliferates, there will be a point at which users have to decide who gets to their information, which is at an absolute premium. This calls for smart marketing of course, but also trust. Clicking on an ad is one thing, but clicking to expressly allow someone to access your information is quite another. And so while the user holds the permission that can be traded, the company or service has the opportunity to build up the trust that is needed for this exchange.

This shift towards the permission economy is good news both for individuals as well as brands. While it places more control for the user over how their information is shared and stored, for the brands, service providers and sites it forces a more trustworthy relationship with users that will end up benefiting the company even more. If you do things correctly and persuade your users or consumers to give you their permission, the actual consumer experience will be more beneficial and you will be interacting with them at a point when there is already a level of investment in your service. This is a challenge, but a good one.

Guardian Newspaper Group Could Run Out Of Cash – Plans Large Digital Overhaul

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:30:33 +0000

This article on the Guardian paints a fairly stark picture about the media group that owns the Guardian and The Observer, as it states that they could run out of cash within 3-5 years if things keep going as they are now. This follows a loss of £33m in the last financial year. Andrew Miller, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group said that business operations needed to change in order to avoid the predicted loss, and this features a significant focus on and overhaul of their digital strategy. Significantly, while job losses are not being planned at this stage, digital is being prioritised, with plans for new products such as a digital U.S. edition having to come out of existing budgets. Meaning staff can expect some serious bootstrapping to back the digital strategy, which the Group are betting will take off for them. It’s impressive to see what is still a traditional news group investing so much of the company into digital, in the hope that this will pay off, and doing something drastic to save themselves among an increasingly turbulent news industry.

Bye bye print, hello digital

In no uncertain terms, the Guardian Media Group are clearly abandoning ship here and finding a way to speed up the transition to becoming a more digital-centric company, also aiming to beat off competitors here by trailblazing the move. In their own reporting, they’re calling the move ‘digital-first’, which shows the support they’re giving for this medium, and also how strongly they believe this can be monetised. They’re not making this move purely because they’ve seen the next shiny thing and have cash to burn to see how it works out for them. Their digital strategy is their (according to them) big chance to save the Group, taking planned investment away from print to put it into digital. This investment is to the tune of £25 million, showing that we can expect a radical overhaul of their products and their entire digital strategy. According to the Guardian Media Group, this is also getting them one step ahead of the competition, by becoming digitally-centric, as opposed to just adding digital on to their existing strategy.

Interestingly what this move also represents is a move away from a pure UK focus. As mentioned in the Guardian article, the digital strategy includes a planned (though not comfirmed) launch of a digital title in the U.S. What the Guardian could do here is to develop a completely new publishing model that can be brought overseas to impact other markets and change the way the news industry functions. No small feat, but are they taking on the impossible?

The bigger challenges

Part of the overhaul plans by the Guardian also include changing their core print product, for example in refection of the fact that a large percentage of their audience read newspapers in the evening. So what these readers are looking for isn’t necessarily breaking news, but more reasoned analysis, akin to the experience of watching NewsNight. This represents a shift in the consumption of news overall, with habits changing as we consume more of our content online. We know where we want to get our breaking news from – we generally go to Google to that. What we need from publishers is that content that you can’t get anywhere else, where you have access to their expert columnists and analysts. Of course the challenge for publishers is in proving that you still want to go to their titles for that. Regardless of the particular audience, newspapers will also have to turn to social media here, to give people a teaser of the experience they can get, before buying the newspaper in full either offline or online. And of course it all comes down to the monetisation model. The notion of buying a newspaper may be completely obsolete in 5-10 years, as new models evolve, borne of digital considerations and practices. Exciting times ahead…

Pandora shares soar – makes online music big business.

Lauren Fisher — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:59:43 +0000

The online radio site Pandora opened up on the New York Stock Exchange this morning, opening trading at $20.75 per share. According to VentureBeat, that’s an increase from $7-$9 per share when they first filed for their IPO. In real money, this values the company at a healthy $4.2bn , which is $1.6bn higher than expected. Though maybe not at LinkedIn’s levels, who had a flag draping the entrance of the NYSE this morning, it shows that music online is starting to turn into big business, and the appetite by investors in following the huge user demand for accessible online music, and most importantly, shareable music online. And it needs to be a serious business, as Pandora paid out 49% of its revenue to license music in the year ending Oct 31st 2010. With annual revenue at nearly $138 million, you’re talking about serious money, and a serious need to attract investment.

The race is on

The generous valuation for Pandora will no doubt create a race among similar existing music services, or startups that seek to revolutionise the way we listen to and share music online. With the not-so-pretty licensing costs that Pandora are facing however, anyone wanting to get into this space needs a significant amount of investment and a fast track to investment to keep the money rolling in. And the race is most definitely on. Turntable.fm has only really been around for a few weeks yet is already gaining huge traction online. While it’s in early beta phase, traffic figures are unreliable for Turntable (with Compete showing around 3,500 visits for May 2011), if online buzz is anything to go buy, the interest is huge, with around 20 new results every minute on Twitter alone – and this isn’t even a Twitter product :

Spotify signs deal with Universal Music

Looking at another huge player in the online music space, Spotify last week announced that a distribution deal had been signed with Universal Music, following existing deals with Sony Music and EMI Group. This is a significant deal for Spotify as it sees them move one step closed to an anticipated U.S. launch. And though the service isn’t directly comparable to Pandora, it represents another stage in online music, or social music, finally arriving and becoming a big business. The solution that Spotify offers filled a user demand in an easy way to listen to music on your desktop, while also bringing in seamless sharing aspects such as sending playlists to friends, or integrating with Facebook to see what your friends are listening to. In a way it provided a tidy solution to the messy way of accessing and sharing music online, in much the same way that Turntable has, albeit to an international audience.

Of course all of these music services have the might of Google and Apple snapping at their heels, who are both looking at cloud-based music solutions. And while they can come along and offer a service to a mass of users instantly, when it comes to music it seems there is an appetite for indigenous services – the likes of a Pandora, Spotify or Turntable that are developed specifically to offer their users a new way to listen to or share music, with an innate understanding of what users are looking for. The valuation of Pandora is certainly testament to that.

The story of online music services up until this point has been peppered with failures and controversy, due largely to the fact that the labels refused to play ball. But in the example of Spotify, who boast relationships with the 3 major record labels, it seems the time is ripe for the business end of online music to arrive. And more importantly, this is getting increasingly social, with recent campaigns such as Lady Gaga partnering up with Farmville providing a good example of music and social moving together :

Foursquare Getting Baked In To Phone And Announce Impressive Growth Figures

Niall Harbison — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:08:33 +0000

So this week I am over at one of the biggest tech conferences of the year called Techcrunch Disrupt over in New York. It features some of the biggest speakers from the around the tech world and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments from there. Crowley announced some pretty impressive numbers including nearly 10 million registered users, 2 million checkins per day and nearly 600 million checkins in the last year.There are also 10,000 developers working off the Foursquare API which Crowley says “is opening up some serious innovation”.

The biggest announcement he made was that for the first time ever Foursquare phone that is being built in to INQ phones which are already on sale although the Foursquare stuff won’t be live until August. You may remember it as the same “Facebook phone” that has Facebook baked in to it. It’s an interesting move given the fact that Foursquare is a product that always gets used on your mobile while you are out and about. 10 Million users of Foursquare is still light enough but it will be interesting to see if this speeds things up and takes them to the next level in terms of growth.

The biggest bone that Crowley has had in the past has been with Facebook and the fact that they have tried to copy Foursquare with their places product. Crowley says though that they are still seeing huge growth with a million new users added every month. He also said that he “Doesn’t think of it as a game any more and that it was never really meant to be a game. What they really want to do is help users find data in the real world. So because you have a phone in your pocket Foursquare will help you to find the best things in the real world.”

How the iPad is saving the news industry

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:05:43 +0000

I know the title of the post may sound a little convoluted, but bear with me, there’s method in the madness! We’ve long been talking about how social media, or even the entire internet could be the thing that kills the news industry, as they were slow to understand it and adapt and watched as droves of people went online to major blogs such as the Huffington Post. But there’s been something brewing among news media that could well change the entire industry and indeed see it move into the the 21st Century – the iPad. I’ve been thinking a lot about this ever since I saw a piece on Sky News a couple of months ago, where they were proudly showing off their new iPad app. The app made it’s way into countless features and promos throughout the day, pretty much to the point of overkill. Sky were clearly excited about it, and maybe they had reason to be.

Telegraph Investing in a new app

When Apple announced their strict terms for subscriptions via iPad apps (i.e. they kindly decided they were going to keep 30% of the revenues), the publishing industry revolted. It seemed like Apple had made something of such high potential value to publishers far less lucrative and accessible. Interestingly though, this doesn’t seem to have put publishers off what could be a valuable new revenue stream. The Telegraph Media Group announced their new iPad yesterday, which costs £9.99 per month of £1.19 per edition. While the charges for a single edition may seem quite hefty, £9.99 per month isn’t bad value and I can see this proving successful with Telegraph readers. It signals good news for the publishing industry that Telegraph have made this move, in the same week that Hearst Publishing have made 3 of their popular titles available for subscription, at the much cheaper rate of $19.99 for an entire year, per publication.

This is an interesting time for publishers, as there appears to be a split between those that are charging for app downloads and those that choose to keep them free. The fact is of course, that publishers need to make money in order to succeed, and they need to explore new monetisation models in order to do that. The move by The Telegraph is positive, and as a publisher they have always been relatively ahead of the social media curve, so the next few weeks could prove interesting in determining just how much money publishers can make from iPad apps. One thing is clear though, publishers are clearly in agreement that iPad apps are where it’s at, now they need to find the best route to monetise their activities.

Apple working with publishers

While their hefty subscription charges rightly hacked off journalists, it seems that Apple might be willing to work with publishers after all. Last week Time Inc reached an agreement with Apple to make all of their iPad apps available for free to existing print subscribers, meaning they can benefit from the potential of ad revenue while waiving the subscription fee. This seems typical Apple in that they’ve changed the rules for some almost as soon as they’ve introduced them, but the news for publishers is good nonetheless. If publishers have Apple on their side, then the iPad for news could become something very very interesting indeed. Flexibility is key to publishers succeeding on the iPad, as they work to introduce their readers to a new type of media so Apple’s accommodation here is welcome.

Journalists love their iPads

This may sound a little basic, but the fact is that I have yet to really find a journalist who isn’t in love with their iPad. Publishers live and die by their content, and their writers, and the fact that right now journalists are flocking towards the iPad points to the potential and importance of this medium to publishers. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the social platform that journalists use the most readily and enthusiastically - Twitter – is also what has emerged as the defacto place to consume your news content online. Journalists haven’t adopted Facebook in the same way, and we haven’t seen this really emerge as a winning platform for publishers yet. Journalists know where their readers are, they know the platforms that work for them and the fact that the iPad has penetrated media professionals in the way that it has, is encouraging for seeing this emerge as the place to engage your readers.

People are paying

The real test of how the iPad is saving the news industry of course, is whether people are actually paying for the apps on there. As a marketplace alone, it makes sense for publishers to invest in the iPad above standard mobile applications. The revenue potential of an iPad application is significant – at almost 10 times higher than that of an iPhone app, with a standard dwell time of 2.2 times longer. And publishers are starting to prove the case. Charging for its iPad app hasn’t put readers of the Wall Street Journal off, with the application generating $2.4 million in its first 4 months of circulation. Though they may have been benefiting from the shiny experience of downloading an app on your iPad, these figures are going in the right direction. The Financial Times don’t charge for their iPad app, yet revenues topped £1 million in the first 6 months through advertising.

This isn’t going to be an easy ride of course. Jemima Kiss provides an excellent analysis of how the iPad may not be the good news that publishers were expecting, with some reporting modest figures in both downloads and revenues. I strongly believe however that it’s a case of giving it time. The iPad still has a long, long way to go before it reaches the critical mass needed for it to really revolutionise the news industry, but the early signs are good. Publishers are using it, and more importantly they’re making money from it. The fact that more and more publishers are swarming to release their own iPad apps, or changing the payment options on their existing app, is an indicator of the growth in this sector. As more and gets spent on iPad apps, publishers are the ones uniquely positioned to benefit from this.

The physical experience

Where the publishing industry can benefit from the iPad in a way others can’t, is in the very physical way that people use their iPads. This isn’t necessarily something you get out on the train – your mobile will do fine for that. It’s the thing you read on a plane journey, in bed, even on a Sunday morning relaxing. And of course, the toilet. In this way it is easy for the iPad to replicate the experience of reading a newspaper, and this is something people will pay for. While people may not be willing to pay for an iPhone app to receive their content, the value comes in the shape of the iPad. Reading a newspaper is a very different experience to reading a blog, where you can typically get your content for free. Nothing will ever replace my Sunday morning paper ritual, but the iPad could. The size of the screen and the device overall lends itself to a more pleasing experience than reading off a smaller mobile screen. Publishers know the importance of replicating the reading experience, and have invested lots of time and money in trying to recreate this through their websites. The answer lies in the iPad however.

Publishers clubbing together

There has been a bit of movement lately, with publishers joining together to tackle the ‘problem’ of social media for their business. Ongo is a good example of this, who have recently launched their iPad app. Made up of major publishers including USA Today, Reuters, Financial Times & The New York Post, Ongo works as an aggregator of news content and this is a service that lends itself perfectly to the iPad. This marks an interesting shift in the way the news industry functions. There’s suddenly a real benefit in accessing your content curated for you by the publishing powerhouses, all set within the handy viewing experience of your iPad. This is not something that can be easily replicated and hints at the iPad changing the way we receive news forever.
It’s going to be an interesting few months for publishers, as they increase activity through apps and iPad editions of their newspapers. It could be one of the biggest game-changers for publishers, if they get the revenue model and content syndication right.

How social media can save newspapers

Lauren Fisher — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:13:13 +0000

Following on from my post last week about Associated Press introducing guidelines to credit bloggers, I’ve been thinking more and more about the opportunities for newspapers online and through social media, as we steadily approach a point when we need a truly new type of media to bridge the gap between grassroots blogging and traditional media. Not that either of those aren’t valuable in their own right, but the possibilities for something new are huge. And, as we’ve seen with The Times, whose readership recently dropped to 500,000, clearly for some a third way may be needed. Putting up a wall between your users and your content isn’t going to cut it and could mean you’re in bigger trouble than when you started. I want to look at some of the opportunities for socialised news or newspapers.

Crowdsource photos

Given the huge amount of real-time, on the ground news reporting that goes on Twitter, there has to be an opportunity for more newspapers to utilise the photo content that’s created around this. Now newspapers or TV News have certainly made use of ‘real’ photos before from individuals, but I think this is something that newspapers online should make a regular feature, both through sourcing genuine photo or video content, as well as providing a place for users to submit their own. For me there’s just something more genuine about seeing a photo from your average Joe that was at the right place at the right time (or made sure that they were) than seeing pretty much the same photograph circulate around different newspapers, in the same style that you’ve come to expect. If this is done in the right way, it could not only serve to make news content feel more ‘real time’ it also provides a source of revenue for those people that are out there creating this content.

Relationships with bloggers in every region

Now some newspapers have started experimenting with using bloggers on their site, but I don’t think this has yet reached its full potential. I think there’s a huge opportunity for newspapers to establish a network of bloggers in different regions around the country to provide news real-time and get a genuine local perspective when this is what’s needed. The huge amount of local news content is evident out there on blogs and social networks, but online newspapers have the advantage of being able to bring this all under one umbrella. Establish relationships with these people online and make it clear that they have an accessible communication channel through to you. Then this content is brought under a credible source and importantly gets the crucial information that local bloggers can provide, in front of thousands or millions of eyeballs. By relying on the traditional network of journalists, newspapers risk restricting their potential to get to the news first.

Now of course, this has implications for traditional journalists. A newspaper can’t be expected to magic up more money and just supplement content from bloggers alongside that of their usual articles. And I’m not suggesting that journalists are now out the window and bloggers reign supreme. That argument is being fought on a daily basis and I don’t want to inflame it! But given that there is such hostility between so many bloggers and journalists, there must be a way to make the most of what these two have. Bloggers have immediate access and means to get the content needed around the news, and journalists are in a position where they can get this content into a story, combine it with other sources and get it published. It should be a win-win.

Charge for a social media experience

The Times have certainly proven the case that people simply will not pay for content online, when it’s so readily available on other sites for free. And we’re never going to get into a situation where every single news site is charging for their content, so newspapers need to think about what they can provide, that users would be willing to charge for. The answer is in how they optimise their content for social media, but more specifically, make their content available through different social platforms. An easy example of this is through apps. I happily paid Â£2.39 for the Guardian iPhone app when it came out and if theyÂ made an app specific for Guardian Tech, I would pay for this too. This is because I recognise the benefit of an easy viewing experience through a mobile app as opposed to visiting their mobile site. I pay for it because it saves me time and optimises the content I’m consuming.

The potential for this is huge, and it can get really clever. If I could, for example, pay for a news service provided by a ‘traditional’ newspaper, that would instantly subscribe me to their content on my different social profiles then I would do it in a flash. So say I pay â‚¬5.00 for the Guadian social media experience. I give it my details and it automatically follows their relevant accounts on Twitter, adds their page content to my newsfeed on Facebook, subscribes me to their feeds in Google reader and texts me a link so I can download their apps onto my phone. And it then offers to upgrade me to their email service, where I get sent a daily summary of the content it knows I’ll like based on my social profile. I would happily pay a monthly subscription for this because it takes a job away from me that I’m going to do anyway, but also saves me time. Instead of having to go out and find content myself, it’s right there in front of me.

This is just one hypothetical example, but if newspapers focus on how to monetise through content through social technologies and provide users with an experience that can’t be replicated elsewhere for free, it could prove a hugely valuable revenue model.

Give me a live blogging section

For some stories -Â such as natural disasters or huge sporting events, live blogging/microblogging is clearly always going to win out. But I think there’s an area in this that’s not really fully been utilised yet, and that’s in providing a service that not only collates all the real-time information, but manages to organise this into the most credible sources. If you’re following something realtime, such as searching on a hashtag, you inevitably have to sit through a lot of rubbish to get to the good content. This is something that’s been addressed by the likes of Ushahidi – where they offer credibility to real time situations but attributing a creator of a topic, who adds and deletes other sources on the topic. The emphasis is on accuracy as opposed to popularity. This would be an excellent service for a journalist to provide – where they can filter and decide which content is credible or more authoritative and then present this back to the user in a live stream of information.

Now this does change the make-up of real time news, where the idea is that anyone can contribute. But this isn’t to offer a service that is purely ‘social’ – that’s already being offered by Twitter – but a new kind of service where someone you trust is filtering through the news. And it’s clear that there are situations that could be well-served by this. Paul Carr discussed the negative effects of citizen journalism, which show the need for someone to monitor the messages in certain situations.

Only publish at the weekend

I really think that the days of buying physical newspapers are numbered, but rather than advocate newspapers go 100% digital only as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did, I think that newspapers should restrict themselves to only publishing paper copies at the weekend. I get everything online and consume my news daily on there but there’s something to be said for the morning paper with a pot of coffee that you just can’t replicate with a laptop, ebook reader, or whatever is your device of choice. Just like DVDs will never kill off the cinema experience, I think the weekend paper will always be a revenue stream for publishers. I don’t think that newspapers need to publish weekly copies for much longer.

All your journalists should be on Twitter

This may not be the most popular choice, but I really think it should be a stipulation that all the journalists within your organisation should be on Twitter. Not only because it gives them access to such an important news medium in today’s society, but also because it provides them with an avenue to source exclusives. At Simply Zesty there have been a few occasions when I’ve had a news story related to our company that I’ve sought traditional press for. On these occasions I’ve always gone to journalists that I know are on Twitter and used this method before email. It’s worked so far and I think that all journalists should be on there to massively open up the news sources for their publications.

These are the areas that I really think newspapers need to explore and introduce in order to not only survive social media, but actually benefit and grow from it. Many are making great strides in introducing social technologies, with the Guardian leading the way in my opinion and I think this is one area that will really grow over the next 12 months.

Associated Press recognise bloggers as a news source

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:33:46 +0000

In a letter to its members last week, Associated Press made the announcement that bloggers should be cited as a news source. This is a significant move from the AP, given that they have a history of not exactly ‘getting on’ with bloggers. Given that such a large news organisation has made a point of recognising bloggers as a viable news source, which they should have done a long time ago, it has much wider implications on how bloggers affect the news agenda and overall news industry. We’ve already seen some developments in this area, such as publishers employing bloggers on the ground, but I think this goes one further than that.

The announcement has served to recognise the work that bloggers put into breaking and reporting stories. But interestingly they make a point of saying that they must credit information where it occured from a website, so you would hope that this would cover Twitter as well, given that so many stories break on here. The details aren’t clear on quite what this attribution would look like (is it the website or the individual that’s credited?) but this is definitely a positive and exciting move.

Importantly this has implications for the individual blogger opposed to blogs overall. Even though the AP states that attribution to a blogger or other source doesn’t have to occur at the start of a story, it still means valuable visibility for bloggers in front of a wide audience. If you’re a blogger that breaks news then this has huge implications on how high up the news chain you could get. Instead of just having to go out and find stories yourself, if you get in front of the right people, it couldÂ mean that bloggers are approached with the right information and maybe even given exclusives ahead of traditional publications. This may be looking a bit too far into the future, but the possibility for this can certainly be seen now.

Are AP slow off the mark?

I don’t want to risk downplaying the significance of the move from AP, but you could very well argue that they’re actually a bit late to the game with their most recent change. In ‘The Source Cycle‘, an analysis of articles from the New York Times & Washington Post over 6 years finds that blogs are increasingly referenced as a credible news source. And this was carried out in 2008. It’s when you look at it in this context that you realise just how much work is still to be done when it comes to recognising bloggers and importantly growing the area overall. AP is a huge news agency yet only now are they making this change.

As exciting as this announcement is, we must question who is looking after the blogger’s rights and how can they make a living from their blog? It’s one thing to attribute them as a news source, but you would hope that this change from AP may well affect the blogosphere overall and we may start to see more bloggers employed by news organisations who recognise the collective power of bloggers in regional areas. This is where bloggers’ ability to influence and set the news agenda really starts coming in to play and can change the traditional news industry.

The third way

A fascinating study by Pew into news online, finds that 99% of links to news stories in blogs, are to traditional news outlets or mainstream publishers. I find this figure incredibly surprising. Typically when I link to stories, I tend to link to other blogs not so much as a conscious decision, but because they’re what prompt me into writing a blog post myself. There’s simply more content out there on blogs, and I find it a bit juicier than that offered by mainstream publishers. Given that so many blogs rely on traditional outlets to reference in the post, you can’t help but wonder if there is a third way on offer here. Not so much journalist v blogger, but what skills do the two of them have together that can offer a unique news product?

A new project that shows just what’s possible for online collaboration and news – is TBD.com. Its a local news site that focuses on Washington, DC. The owners describe the site as an ‘integrated newsroom’ which is enough to get the juices flowing in itself! Importantly, it aims to bring different news sources and types together online, to offer realtime news from a wide range of sources. It combines in a very real way, traditional journalists, bloggers and other online news sources, in what they collectively call their community network. And the people that make up this network see their own work on the site, not just an aside as a news source. This shows the potential of what’s possible as we increasingly seek new ways to consume our news, combined with publishers finding new ways to monetise – think the Times’ paywall.

This in itself shows that there’s big changes to come in the structure of news organisations. The traditional monetisation routes need to change, and with it so does the overall layout of the newsroom. We’re seeing this start to happen now and in a couple of years our news outlets will probably look completely different. I believe that blogging is largely the reason for this change and I look forward to what’s coming next.

The Times paywall – what really happened?

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:39:34 +0000

The Times & Sunday Times made a splash when they put their big paywall up on the site last month, requiring users to pay a daily or weekly fee to view the content. There’s been lots of speculation ever since, with many (including myself) deriding the decision. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that they were forecast to lose 90% of their traffic. But the latest figures from Comscore are now out and we can see the full extent of the damage done by The Times by requiring their users to pay. The findings are certainly surprising.

27% loss in traffic

Certainly not the 90% that we were all led to believe, but according to The Independent, this is the drop in traffic the site has experienced, with unique visits in July at 1.61 million compared to 2.2 million in June. And from May to July, there’s been a 50% drop in traffic. What’s also interesting, and certainly unexpected, is that the average time spent by the user on the site has dropped since it was introduced, from 5.8 minutes to only 4 minutes. I certainly would have thought that if you’re paying for something then you would be spending more time using it, but I believe this is a reflection of the redesign on the site than the payment structure. It’s certainly encouraging news for other publishers that it’s not quite the scare story that was circulated online. Losing a third of your traffic is certainly a hard pill to swallow, but the subscription revenue will go some way towards helping with that.

And while The Times was an isolated case certainly in the UK, others are now starting to take the plunge. The New York Times Company is now testing out a paywall on of their newspapers within the group – Telegram.com

This is an interesting experiment, as it’s being tested on a local news product. In this case you could see why someone might be inclined to pay for their news : you’re less likely to be able to find it elsewhere so you’d be willing to pay for the more niche content. You can also argue that you would be more loyal to your local newspaper due to the targeted content it’s providing you with. This is certainly the case with the Worcester Telegram, where it is the only daily paper in the area.

The NY Times are clearly using this as a test-case to decide whether to implement the paywall among it’s main products, or all of them. And all the while of course, these are providing interesting case studies to other newspapers.

The fallout for advertisers

As well as the paywalls being an avenue for the publishers to increase revenue, the fallout for advertisers must also be considered. Whether they’ll be happy with a significant drop in traffic is uncertain, and you can be sure that many will start to depart from the Time online, if they haven’t done already. News International are not currently commenting on the recent announcement of their drop in traffic, so at the moment we can only speculate. But as Murdoch himself says, what we are witnessing is the start of a new business model for the internet, and I wouldn’t argue with him just yet. As much as advertisers may flee from the Times due to the traffic loss, advertisers overall are allocating more media budget to mobile advertising and new technologies, and this is where the Times could stand well, as they’ve optimised their newspaper for iPads and other tablet computers.

There are lots of conclusions that can be reached from the Times experiment, but it’s certainly too early to say anything with certainty. New trends or behaviours will always be slow to adopt and while I would have said that the days of the Times’ paywall were numbered with a 90% loss in traffic, I’m not sure if this is the case with the smaller drop that is now being reported. I would also argue that we spend less time on individual sites overall, and the loss in time on the site for the Times may be symptomatic of a wider user trend, amplified by the iPad-friendly version.

The paywall system is a long-term process and I think that given the latest figures from the Times, we’ll see others start to experiment with this, as publishers try out different revenue streams to support their business.

A dotcom nation

Lauren Fisher — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:11:16 +0000

Martha Lane Fox and the British government have a dream : to digitise Britain. Well, specifically to digitise those from the lower income groups and the over 65s. It’s an ambitious programme and certainly a worthy one. I am increasingly aware of the digital divide that’s steadily widening. There is no doubt that if you are not computer literate, or more specifically social media literate, then you are getting left behind. And that’s the situation that 10 million people in the UK apparently find themselves in.

The initiative ‘Race Online 2012‘ is certainly inspiring. What’s at the heart of the digital divide is clearly a class or income divide. In a Sunday Times article that profiles the campaign, this is highlighted perfectly. The journalist asks whether the scheme just encourages ‘poor people… to stay at home, glued to yet another screen’. Let’s thank our lucky stars said journalist is not the one spearheading the campaign. But as well as there being an income divide, there is also a gap in who is deemed deserving of internet access. What irked me as I was reading the article, was the way in which internet access in prisons was danced around, with Martha saying that she didn’t really want to talk about it, seeing it as a personal and niche view. Surely if we’re talking about digital inclusion, then inclusion for those who are supposed to be learning reform and emerge as valuable members of society, is an important issue to discuss?

Access for all?

It’s one thing saying that you want a dotcom nation, but quite another if you are saying that this is only for the privileged, not those who have previously done wrong. If the internet does everything that this promotes – prevents isolation and promotes social inclusion, then surely denying access to prisoners is only going to encourage a vicious circle? Now I’m not suggesting that we go on a free for all. I do of course recognise the dangers of allowing free access to the internet from prisons, without going into all the possible outcomes. But it is not something to be ignored, or closed off completely. Just as the education system needs to update itself and realise that a necessary skill is not to memorise lines but to able to research those lines online, so should the penal system necessarily adjust. Reform by books is not to emerge as a well adjusted citizen. If you don’t know how to use the internet then you are a disadvantaged citizen, the very concept that initiatives like this drive home. Incidentally, if you think no good can come of granting access to prisoners, I recommend a visit to Friendly-Inmates.com. Or consider it from the other perspective, how the opportunity to have a video chat with a friend or family member in prison could transform the lives who find loved ones jailed, but may not be able to physically reach them.

Prisons are not completely turning a blind eye. Limited access for educational purposes, for example, is granted in British prisons. But it is certainly a thorny issue and not one the government condones. And while I really do commend the Race Online initiative, I don’t feel it’s really getting to the heart of the problem. Pictures of grey haired citizens surfing the net or shiny computers in youth centres are one thing, but it avoids the more uncomfortable issue of something like internet access in prisons. Outside of this particular Race Online 2012 programme, there is also the issue of how the internet is featuring in education.Â These are 2 crucial areas that need attention in order to address the digital divide – both are examples of people who, for very different reasons are on the periphery of entering into society (hopefully, on the former).

Again, this is not to suggest that *nothing* is being done to address the use of the internet in education, but that not enough is being done and perhaps this is where efforts might be better focused. I’m talking about internet in education separately to the physical access to a computer and more about how it is being used. The teaching. Access to the internet without it properly featuring in the curriculum is like having a light bulb without a switch. You can’t use the thing if you’re not provided with a means.

I don’t profess to know the ins and outs of how the internet features in day to day education, but I was discussing the use of I.T. in education in Ireland with one of the brightest teenagers I’ve ever met (let alone brightest people) – Ben Chapman, a 17 y/o who goes to Scoil Mhuire Community School, Clane. What I found from talking to Ben was that because I.T. classes weren’t mandatory in his school until transition year, and because of the nature of technology, how it featured in the curriculum was basically dependent on luck. I’ve certainly heard examples of teachers tweeting homework resources, and examples where students have to take the tutor through how to navigate the internet. Whether or not your teacher is personally active online is not a good enough provision of technology in education. It was clear from my discussion with Ben that teacher training was the problem. And a far harder one to fix at that.

Getting grannies online or putting a computer in every youth centre isn’t the solution, it is a painting on the wall to divert from the elephant in the room.

Thierry cheats – the web responds

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:53:44 +0000

Thierry Henry’s handball in the France v Ireland game last night prompted the response that we might expect on Twitter and youtube. There are now multiple clips of the incident and I would show you a screenshot of my Twitter stream last night but some of it is just too rude! There was also retaliation elsewhere online that shows just why we all love social media and the power of the people.

I took these screenshots from wikipedia just minutes after the incident. They were only live for 15 minutes at the most, but we’ve got the evidence here, see if you can spot it