IBM sticks its head in the oven

On Monday I commented about how we have such an awful time with our heads stuck in the virtual world of our computer screens. Well IBM has already given it a lot of thought.
CEO Sam Palmisano announced a $100 million spending plan in front of more than 7,000 employees at a Town Hall meeting held on the popular virtual world Second Life. Palmisano unveiled 10 new business opportunities the company intends to pursue.
Each of those ideas will receive approximately $10 million in funding to be spent over the next 12 months. One of the ideas Palmisano will announce is that IBM is forming a new business unit to help clients use lessons learned from virtual worlds to real-world business problems.

Chief technology officer, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, is on record saying (on his blog) "using such virtual, highly visual capabilities to help us design, simulate, optimize, operate and manage business activities of all sorts is going to be one of the most important breakthroughs in the IT industry over the next decade."

"I am convinced that dealing with such business applications in a kind of SimBusiness fashion -- that is, the application feels like a realistic simulation of the business and its operations -- will not only transform IT but business itself."

I have no doubt.

Web advertsing - big under estimations - Semel

There is a fixation among so many people that the internet is the web. US online ad revenues have reached a new record according to figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). They are talking about web sites (remember those things - sort of brochures with gizmos).

The report, conducted by PwC, showed a 33% increase in internet ad revenues from the same period in 2005.

But, in a speech in London yesterday, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel said growth predictions were underestimating the market by failing to take account of the potential of video, social media and mobiles advertising. "[Video] will be ever-present throughout the internet, and it will find its proper way to advertise. "So whether it's mobile or whether it's video or whether it's more and more community, these factors have not gone into those numbers, so we think the actual growth potential of advertising online is really being understated."

And lots of it is 'community' the natural space for PR practice.

Local Newspapers stringers for the Beeb

BBC director general Mark Thompson speaking at the Society of Editors conference promised that online local TV would work in "partnership" with local newspapers, and even pay them for content.

"But in the words of one regional newspaper executive, the most constructive thing Thompson could have said would have been: "We're not going to do it."

"Thompson told the Glasgow conference this week: "In addition to our own local and regional newsrooms, we want to draw on the newsgathering clout of the UK's local and regional newspapers — and we'll pay for it.

"That means a revenue stream, but also visibility and credit on the BBC's new local service."

Not to mention an extra outlet for the video content generated by local newspaper reporters.

Vodaphone offers grungy broadband

Vodafone has said it will offer broadband for £25 a month from January 8 to Vodafone mobile phone customers.

The "Vodafone at Home" package includes line rental, unlimited broadband access, landline calls within Britain and 25% off calls to mobiles. Bla de Bla de Bla.

Rivals Carphone Warehouse, Orange and satellite TV operator BSkyB, BT et al have been battling for subscribers with grungy 2 to 8 meg Broadband a load of junk dumped on your computer (called 'giveaways') and time wasting hours - sometimes days and days and weeks of Internet downtime while they swap you to their equally slug like service.

If Vodafone could offer cellular broadband for my laptop at a price that makes sense, a decent link from phone to computer without a heap more software dumped on it (oh... and yet ANOTHER bloody email address), they may have a chance.

Welsh put forward best PR campaigns

David Williamson tells us that SWANSEA-BASED public relations agency MGB PR has notched up eight nominations in the PR industry's flagship awards.

This record number of possible prizes at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations awards is a first for Wales in the process as it now holds the title of the most-nominated PR company in the UK.

Brits lag in the blog race

Among Europeans Britons are the least switched on to web logs, an Ipsos MORI poll found.

The French are far more savvy.

The survey of 2,200 Europeans that 90 percent of French people surveyed said they were familiar with blogs, nearly twice as many as the number of Britons interviewed (50 percent).

But the rest of Europe is barely logged-on when it comes to online diaries either. The Spanish did only marginally better than Britons in recognising the term blog (51 percent), while in Germany, 55 percent were blog-aware, and in Italy, 58 percent had heard of the term reports Reuters.

Telegraph.co.uk launches bloggers 'style' guide

Telegraph.co.uk, which has 14 bloggers, has published an editorial style guide for its bloggers.

Pause in rate of blog growth

Blog growth, which is down from an average of 160,000 new blogs per day in July to 100,000 new blogs at the end of September. Technorati’s latest State of the Blogosphere report shows continuing growth in the number of active blogs, with over 57 million blogs currently being tracked. Blog numbers has slowed slightly since the last quarter, something Technorati put down to more effective measures at limiting the number of spam blogs (aka 'splogs') listed.

English langauge now accounts for less than 40% of blogs, with Japanese and Chinese language blogs in second and third place (in terms of popularity).

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BT slugging it out - again

Increasingly, broadband is allowing people to contribute back to the net rather than just being passive downloaders of content, reports the BBC. But, while uptake has helped the UK to the broadband fast track, lack of speed compared to other countries could still see it derailed.

Experts warn the UK is falling behind its European counterparts when it comes to speed. In the UK the fastest speed currently on offer is 24Mbps (megabits per second) although typically the fastest people will get is about 8Mbps. French surfers are enjoying around 24Mbps as standard. BT does not plan to roll out its next-generation broadband until the middle of 2007.

Broadband is certainly holding our attention - with high-speed surfers spending around six hours more online each week than those still using dial-up.

Internet corrupted by fraudsters, liars and cheats - suprise!

The creator of the world wide web told the Guardian that the internet is in danger of being corrupted by fraudsters, liars and cheats. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Briton who founded the web in the early 1990s, says that if the internet is left to develop unchecked, "bad phenomena" will erode its usefulness. He warns that "there is a great danger that it becomes a place where untruths start to spread more than truths, or it becomes a place which becomes increasingly unfair in some way". He singles out the rise of blogging as one of the most difficult areas for the continuing development of the web, because of the risks associated with inaccurate, defamatory and uncheckable information.

In PR we have known for over a decade about its potential and the associated hazards have been well documented for nearly as long.

'Managing Your Reputation in Cyberspace' originally published by Thorogood and now available here, showed a wide array of potential threats. It was also one of the first publications (Shel Holtz was the other key author at the time) to seek solutions.

Job hunting to be bigger online

On-Line Recruitment is suggesting that over the next 5 years (to 2011), the e-recruitment market will grow significantly both in scale and importance.

Indeed, some are predicting that recruitment will be close to travel – the most successful sector in terms of the online business model. A new Market Assessment report, E-Recruitment, from market intelligence providers Key Note, forecasts that by 2011 nearly 2.1 million jobs will be on offer via online recruitment websites, with a monthly average of 32.5 million unique visitors to these sites.

Something in me suggests that this is not the way it is going to be.

The idea of six degrees of separation, allied to the Long Tail may mean there are other options when it comes to recruiting - or finding a job.

Hubble Bubble - more silly prices for companies

Social media site Reddit has been bought by Wired publisher Condé Nast for an undisclosed sum, said to be $65m. At that price it is an expensive acquisition.

Reddit, which enables users to suggest and rank stories, is a user-generated news aggregator, with stories rising to the top based on popularity. It is little cousin to Digg which is rumoured to be in talks with MySpace owner, News Corp.

E-Zine for mobile search

SourceWire introduces us to a new magazine.

The Mobile Search Analyst is to be the first ezine focused on mobile search and its interaction with social media, social networking, mobile marketing and recommendation.

of course it would be really handy if there was an RSS feed for this new venture - There isn't so it will be mostly ignored.

Second Life puts the 'facts' straight

The Second Life Herald has gone all huffy:

Rohit Bhargava, a VP for Interactive Marketing with Public Relations giant Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, has a recent post on digitalmedia wire entitled "A Gallery of Virtual 'Firsts' from Second Life." Readers of the Herald will be surpised to learn upon viewing the gallery, that the very first virtual concert in Second Life was Suzanne Vega, the first virtual clothing store was American Apparel, the very first virtual sporting event was the recent All Star Game hypervent, and the very first virtual hotel was Starwood Aloft. Nevermind the hundreds of concerts that we have attended over the last three years in second life, and nevermind the boxing matches and car races and archery tournaments and sailing regattas we have seen over the last three years, and never mind all the virtual hotels and rental properties that have existed in Second Life, and clothing stores...is this guy fucking kidding me??? This place has been wall to wall clothing stores since day one. Many people have made their livings selling virtual clothing here for the last several years. Meanwhile, a so-called new media company called Crayon has announced that it is the first business to be launched in Second Life. Very first business launched. Can you say "bullshit"?

Of course now that Reuters has its own people in Second Life, we can expect a good bit of reporting on this sort of thing now.

Ethics are gets you customers

When price and quality are similar, ethical standards and corporate stability are important decision drivers when choosing to do business with one company over another. That’s what key decision makers in North America are saying according to a survey by Doremus, the business communications company, and the Financial Times.

Slightly fewer executives felt the same way in Asia. And in Europe, reliance on ethical standards as a decision-making factor trailed by more than twenty percentage points. A majority of Europeans feel ethics are important, but of little use as a differentiator.

Net growth

There are now more than 100 million web sites on the Internet, which gained 3.5 million sites last month to continue the dynamic growth seen throughout 2006. In the November 2006 survey Netcraft received responses from 101,435,253 sites, up from 97.9 million sites last month.

The 100 million site milestone caps an extraordinary year in which the Internet has already added 27.4 million sites, easily topping the previous full-year growth record of 17 million from 2005. The Internet has doubled in size since May 2004, when the survey hit 50 million.

Luddite lawyers not aware of the official statistics

Jason Stamper at Computer Business Review suggests that a UK law firm Mace & Jones is risking being labelled a bunch of Luddites by arguing that businesses should clamp down on iPod use in the workplace because it enables employees to slack off and shut out their colleagues.

The tabloids are going to love this one -- I can see the headlines now: "IPOD ADVICE FALLS ON DEAF EARS." Or how about, "LAWYERS SAY TURNING ON, TUNING IN IS COP OUT".

Of course, we know that the reverse is the case, social media enhances productivity according to the National Statistic Office (PDF)

Second Life delays price hike

Linden Lab, announced on Wednesday that it was delaying price increases for its private islands until 15 November.

The company had announced in a blog entry that it was imposing hefty rate hikes as of Wednesday -- from $1,250 to $1,675 (£880) in upfront costs and from $195 to $295 (£155) in monthly maintenance fees.

Blogger pain

Eric Case, a Blogger product manager, acknowledges that Blogger has had a rough time recently due to what he calls "a perfect storm" of network hardware failures and other problems, reports PC Advisor.

However, Case said these issues will be a thing of the past once Blogger moves to a more solid and scalable platform. That's where Google is hosting the Blogger beta version, which is in limited availability and includes many new and improved features.

Still, some are running out of patience. On Sunday, after what she termed an "appalling week" of Blogger problems, Nicola Brown replicated her blog Life at the Edge over to the competing Wordpress.com platform.

Google has apologised for last week's Blogger outages, describing them as a 'nuisance' and not representative of the kind of service it wants to provide. In its Blogger Buzz blog it explains that a number of unplanned outages were followed by deliberate ones as the causes were tackled.

Hmm.. if you have a lot of content invested in Blogger.com, this is not good.

Wiki's are the rage

It's been quite a month for the wiki community, says David Tebbutt . A kind of coming of age. SystemOne came out of the shadows, as did Itensil. SocialText officially released its 2.0 version and now it has a version that integrates with Microsoft's Sharepoint. Then to crown it all, Google went and bought JotSpot.

This latter deal is interesting as it could integrate a host of the applications Google has aquired in recent months.