New Media likely to play a crucial role in French poll Financial Times 18 November 2006
A furious row that erupted this week over the posting of an unauthorised video of Ségolene Royal on the internet highlighted how far FRance has plunged into contoversial territory in this presidential election campaign
Ms Royal was filmed berating French teachers for moonlighting
France's active and increasingly numerous bloggers picked up her comments, fanning them into a national controversy. Blogpulse, which monitors internet activity, reported that the clip was the third most watched video on the internet last Sunday, an unprecedented level of interest in a political issue
How the bloggers of Tehran are keeping Iranian freedoms alive Many Iranians, especially women, use the net to combat media censorship
Iran remains a staunch opponent of internet freedoms - or any freedoms at all. Despite these efforts, Farsi has made it into the top 10 languages on the net, a reflection of an extraordinary phenomenon: the way Iranians, especially women, use the net to combat government control of conventional media. It seems to date from 2001, when hardliners shut down more than 100 newspapers and magazines and detained writers.
An ex-patriate Iranian, Hossein Derakhshan, posted instructions on the net in Farsi on how to set up a weblog. Since then, the community has grown dramatically. Exact figures are impossible to come by, but it's estimated that there are 70,000-100,000 active blogs in Iran, the vast majority in Farsi.
Two points. One, the vibrancy of the blogosphere in Iran reveals something important about that society that isn't visible through the prism of its 'official' media and the rantings of its president. There's a lot of dissent, much of it (say those who read Farsi) witty, subversive and ingenious. Two, it rather undermines the view of blogging as frivolous and self-indulgent. At the moment, it is the only channel for free expression in Iran.
The encouraging thing is that the Iranian blogging community continues to grow, despite very determined efforts by the authorities to squash it.
Universal sues MySpace on copyright Financial Times 18 November 2006
Universal said it was suing MySpace.com for the copyright infringement of the music and the music videos of thousands of its artists, citing specifically the easy availability of material from rap artist Jay-Z's, as yet unreleased album Kingdom Come
And
MySpace said it was "unfortunate" that Universal had "decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation." It said the site provided users with the tools to share their own work, adding: "we do not induce, encourage or condone copyright violation in anyway."
Maximum damages $150,000 per copyrighted work
SMG finds slide in advertising painful viewing Financial Times September 2006
Shares in SMG dropped almost 20% to 55.25p yesterday after the owner of Virgin Radio and Peral & Dean advertising warned that profits for 2006 would be "materially behind" its previous expectations, leaving it in danger of breaching soome of its banking covenants
Tv and cinema advertising revenues have fallen off the cliff
junk food ad ban attacked on both sides The Guardian
New proposals to combat childhood obesity and "pester power", including a total ban on junk food advertising during children's TV programmes, were immediately attacked yesterday for placing profits ahead of children's health.
Media regulator Ofcom will ban advertising for foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) during all programmes aimed at under-16s as well as during shows such as The Simpsons, Friends and Hollyoaks, which have a higher than average proportion of children watching.
And
The British Medical Association accused the media regulator of lacking conviction. "We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and must use all the weapons in our armoury to prevent the next generation of British children being the most obese and unhealthy in history," said Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the BMA. "Ofcom clearly believes that TV advertising has an effect on children's eating habits, yet it does not have the courage to recommend a more comprehensive ban."
Giants go to war over ITV The battle for ITV
Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch, two of the world's most successful businessmen, are to clash this week over the future ownership of ITV, setting the stage for one of Britain's biggest corporate battles.
Branson and NTL, the cable media company where the entrepreneur holds an 11 per cent stake, had been preparing to make a £5bn cash offer for ITV, which has been struggling in the face of an advertising slump and management upheaval.
And
BSkyB, the satellite television operator led by chairman Murdoch and his son, James, who is chief executive, sent shockwaves through the City and the media world late on Friday when it disclosed that it has amassed a 17.9 per cent holding in ITV, shelling out nearly £1bn. It paid 135p a share, buying out US investors Fidelity and Brandes during a series of market raids.
Get a (second) life. The Financial Times 18/19 November 2006
The latest sensation is a virtual world that allows users to fuel their fantasies while creating real-life financial opportunities. But are synthetic universes a utopian vision or of a world in chaos?
And Second Life Figures Get a Life Wired
For those who have spent umpteen hours in the virtual world of Second Life, reality may be the next step.
That's the hope of Michael Buckbee, a real-life resident of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and founder of Fabjectory, a startup that sells real objects custom-created from the digital items coded by denizens of Second Life.
Buckbee, who is initially focusing on creating 3- to 7-inch statuettes of Second Life avatars, meets clients as his in-game persona, "Hal9k Andalso," and takes the screenshots necessary to turn their digital selves into polymer using the rapid prototyping machines common in industrial design firms. While his service is just a couple of weeks old, the digital businessman has almost a dozen clients already lined up.
Battle opens for control of mobile internet The Guardian
Network operator 3 yesterday promised to revolutionise the UK mobile phone industry by offering free long-distance phone calls and unlimited access to broadband-style internet services for a flat monthly fee.
Subscribers will be able to access services like eBay auctions, MSN instant messaging and Google search in the same way as they would at home for a flat monthly fee, the company said.
The move was hailed as an industry landmark. Analysts said it would put pressure on bigger rivals to follow suit. The so-called mobile internet is seen as the next big battle ground for web giants such as Google and eBay. According to Yahoo chief Terry Semel, while a billion people around the world have PCs, around three billion have mobile phones.
Up to now mobile operators have found it hard to persuade people to use internet-style services on their mobile phones. They have tended to direct them to so-called "walled gardens" of carefully screened services and charged high fees based on the time spent online and volume of information downloaded.
Opening Pandora's Box
While over longer periods of time change is constant, change itself does not occur at a constant rate. In fact Stephen J. Gould has explained the theory as Punctuated Equilibrium. That in evolution there are periods of stability punctuated by a change in environment that forces relatively rapid adaption.
Our desire in the writing our book, was to help people understand this scenario, as our evidence showed that was exactly what was happening.
Whether it be the Politics, the record/music industry, TV/broadcast, mobile telecoms, print media, FMCG, fashion, well you can pretty much name it - one needs to readdress why your business exists and what value that business is bringing to the world.
The challenge is also internal as well as external.
But Pandora's box is open, the discussion for free speech is out there, behomoths of the media world are hunted by a debt laden cable company, and our identities are up for grabs in virtual worlds.
And the broadcast industry bemons the loss of £39m of ad revenue because really they would prefer fat coffers and fat children rather than rethinking how they could best replace those revenues.
And Pandora's box, is not just about search, or blogging, or mobile or digitalisation, or the true nature of human beings, the 4C's (community, connectivity, culture, commerce), or experience or the wealth of networks, or the Long tail, citizen journalsim, gaming and virtual worlds to name but a few. But all these things, gloriously combined together that have puntuated our equilibrium
In the introduction to our book we write
If the last 10 years have caused disruption in your business, the next 10 years will cause much more so. Not driven by a controlled introduction of new technologies, but by a uncontrolled adoption of new, radical, unpredictable and even "unfair" methods by an emerging new element in consumption - the digitally empowered community. Digitalisation and the falling costline of technology has ripped through our business and social fabrics over the last 5 years, across all industries, across all countries, altering our economic and social landscapes forever. Yet what we have witnessed so far is only the beginning of a more profound, seismic shift in the very foundations of how business is conducted. We can imagine and do things which were just not possible a few years ago. Life threatening or life enhancing? This is what this book is about, the Red pill or the Blue pill? Which one are you going to take? The one thing for sure is, the structured order of our familiar industrial age has come to an end and its dying as days do, gasping for every last ray of light.
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