The Eco Zoo

http://www.ecodazoo.com/

Is there a point to business training? Britain's most mickey mouse training courses

A funny article from Sathnam Sanghera on the Times. I am actually quite into personal development myself but the cynic in me helps maintain my sanity (and sense of humour).

Beyond PR featured in the UK top marketing blog

As seen on FasterFuture. Keep linking!

Google v. Your Privacy

Google is taking a lot of flack on user privacy. The company has been forced to handover Youtube's log data to Viacom and is now being questionned about its streetview pictures in Europe. See ZDNet Garett Rogers and dot.life for summaries/references.

Biofuels to blame for 75 per cent increase in price of food

The rise is far greater than previous estimates including a US Government claim that plant-derived fuels contribute less than three per cent to food price hikes. Telegraph.

Man sues old schoolfriend for libel after he made 'fake' entries on Facebook

A company boss whose personal details were displayed on Facebook under a fake entry yesterday launched a landmark High Court claim for damages. See This is London.

Icann's new naming system is a brand owner's nightmare

According to John Mackenzie, a partner with Pinsent Masons: "This has the potential for utter chaos (...) The attraction for domainers and cybersquatters is not going to be setting up a registry that matches someone else's brand, it will be in the generic TLDs. All of a sudden, every brand will be forced to register their name at .shop, .buy and .london to stop anyone else getting it."
Article on Outlaw.com
Given how companies are already struggling to cope with existing limited domain names, not to mention the confusion over the .eu domain name, this will fun to watch.

Why are gas prices rising?

The Daily Mash has the answer with its article: "The bosses of Britain’s six biggest energy companies said the only control they had over the price of gas was deciding how much they were going to charge people for using it." Always funny, always spot on.

Google launching research and media planning tool for professional ad planners

"Simply enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you've added to your media plan. (...) Using Google Ad Planner, you can quickly create media plans and export to a .csv file, which can be opened in most spreadsheet applications. Or, you can export to DoubleClick's MediaVisor, which helps you manage all your other media planning, buying and campaign management activities."

Apply for Google Ad Planner beta login here.

Technorati launches bloggers ad network

Article on Tech Crunch

Photoshop Disasters, the Blog

Lazy Photoshop work coming out of the woodwork, thanks to the Photoshop Disaster blog. Look at the Daily Mail... This has to be a prize winner.

FIRST APPRENTICE TO SELL AN EMAILER WINS, SAYS SUGAR

Priceless, from the Daily Mash.

What makes a viral ad?

Great article and examples from the CEO of JWT India . His tips:

• Controversy is the mother of advertising.
• Get viewers to wonder whether it is real or not
• Ignite communities
• Thrown down the gaunglet
• Make it hilarious if it has to be fun
• Titillate...

Cannabis blunder at Tokyo airport

Amazing.... "A customs officer hid a package of the banned substance in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security. Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in. Anyone finding the package has been asked to contact customs officials". Lucky they don't have the death penalty for drug traffickers in Japan.

From the BBC.

University of Southern California releases generally accepted PR practices study

This is an academic study conducted by Jerry Swerling, Professor and Director of PR at the USC. I am blogging about it as although this is a US study, the findings apply to European markets:

• In 2007, PR budgets increased on average by 7%
• Organizations remain reluctant or unable to allocate adequate resources to PR evaluation, preferring to focus on execution (so true...)
• Increasingly the PR function reported directly to the C-Suite at 64% reporting to human resources, legal, finance and strategic planning.
  
• PR was ranked as the top contributor to success among respondents at government agencies and among all but the very largest not-for-profits, suggesting that one of the benefits of working in the government or not-for-profit arena is the extent
  to which PR is seen as an important player.
  

The recommendation for best practices in PR are as follow:

• GAP Best Practice #1: Maintain a higher than average ratio of PR budget to gross revenue (GAP PR/GR Ratio).
• GAP Best Practice #2: Report directly and exclusively to the C-Suite.
• GAP Best Practice #3: Optimize the C-Suite’s understanding of PR’s current and potential contributions to the success of the organization as a
• whole.
• GAP Best Practice #4: Establish an effective social responsibility strategy for your organization.
• GAP Best Practice #5: Establish an effective digital-media strategy for your organization.
• GAP Best Practice #6: Establish an effective issues-management strategy for your organization.
• GAP Best Practice #7: Optimize integration and coordination within the PR/Communications function, and between it and other organizational functions.
• GAP Best Practice #8: Encourage highly ethical practices across the organization, beginning with communication.
• GAP Best Practice #9: Encourage the organization-wide adoption of a long-term strategic point of view, beginning with communication.
• GAP Best Practice #10: Encourage the organization-wide adoption of a proactive mindset, beginning with communication.
• GAP Best Practice #11: Encourage the organization-wide adoption of a flexible mindset, beginning with communication.
• GAP Best Practice #12: Optimize the integration of PR and reputational considerations into top-level organizational strategies.
• GAP Best Practice #13: Measurably contribute to organizational success.

My suggestions for the next GAP are questions on how PR agencies or clients use/integrate the web in their programs.

Check out the full study at USC.

BrandTags: See what people think of brands

This is brilliant! Look at a brand logo and enter the first word that comes to mind. You can see the collective brand association about each brand. If you could enter your demographics, this would be a nice market research tool. Trends data would be useful too so you could see how perception shifts and you could tie that back to campaign activities.

Check it out: BrandTags.

Do you know who I am! Ladbrokes CEO bullies British Airways.

Bookmakers Ladbrokes has instructed staff not to fly with British Airways following an incident involving its chief executive's daughter who was on her way back from Barbados (the flight was overbooked and they offered a standard compensation for her and her friend to take the next flight). I am with BA on that one. The Daily Mash sums up my feeling in a hilarious article: "A JUMPED-UP bookie has threatened to boycott British Airways after a stewardess refused to rearrange his caviar into the shape of Charles Bronson in Death Wish II". The customer is always right and some have more rights than others... or at least feel like it. BA apologized... But as the Daily Mash pointed out, they will certainly now be seeking their racing tips from the bloke that runs William Hill instead.

Fifidel: real time negotiation engine for product sales

Fididel is an online marketplace based on real-time negotiation of sales. Interesting concept. Open to US transactions only at present.

Affordable Mobile Broadband on the go with Three

During my short stay in the US, at least as far as I recall, most public places offered free Wi-Fi access. It is a commodity. In the land of high price/low value, I found to my astonishment that even Starbucks (who pioneered free Wi-Fi in their shops in the States) is charging £5 for local Wi-Fi access, which is outrageously expensive. Some independent cafes offer free Wi-Fi such as the excellent Tuttis in Holborn but they are a rarity. The alternative is to use pay-as-you-go services such as The Cloud but not all the places I go to use it as their Wi-Fi provider and I wouldn’t want to pay for a service I could not access everywhere (prices start from a hefty £4.50 per hour on pay-as-you go or £10 a month for subscription).

If you are a business nomad, you would want to consider Three’s mobile broadband offer. I am testing it courtesy of the folks at 3MobileBuzz.

The first SIM I received was faulty but I got it replaced quickly. This is my second experience with their call centre and I must say that once again they did a great job: professional and courteous. So dealing with it wasn’t the hassle I anticipated.

Setting-up your connection is pretty easy, at least on a Mac:
- Insert the SIM card in the USB modem. You only need to do that once.
- Plug-in the dongle
- When it mounts, click on the “Mobile Connect” application.
- Click on “Connect”.

That’s it, you are online.

Connection speed varies a lot. My very first test was at my school in Baker Street. The connection was unfortunately too slow to check-out my emails. I did subsequent trials at various locations around London and the speed was good enough to check emails and surf the web. I plan to try a Skype video call this weekend, which would be the ultimate deal clincher for me.

Three has a special offer and retail their USB modem from £49.99. On contract plans, you get 1GB allowance for £10, 3GB for £15 and 7GB for £25. This is similar to the 2 other companies offering mobile broadband in the UK: Vodafone is also charging £15 for 3GB allowance so is T-Mobile. The latter has an “unlimited data” plan, which is in fact a 10GB allowance for £35 a month. Telecom plans are notoriously difficult to compare as companies have all incentives to make it look like it is different from their competitors so I am going to ask a few questions to my contacts there so I could work out where the real value is in the market.

In the meantime, I will make the most of the sunshine with some outdoor blogging.

The triumph of form over substance: Boris Johnson wins London

Prepare to turn the clock back as London enters 4 years of stagnation. What is Boris' policy on transport apart from bringing back the routemasters? (Tories like to romanticize the past). What is his policy on housing apart from hating any building taller than St Paul's? I could go on for ages. People forgot how bad London was before Ken, they are going to get a taste of it pretty soon.

How Europe can shape the global system?

Good article about the end of the "unipolar" world doctrine as preached by the neocons (which is also the end of American influence) and how Europe could carve itself a role in today's multipolar world. Anecdotally, European standards are the reference in manufacturing processes across a wide range of goods in Asia. Financial Times

On a totally unrelated topic, I am testing Three's new mobile broadband offer and will report on it very shortly.

SYSTEM NO LONGER WORKS, CONFIRMS UNITED NATIONS

All explained in the Daily Mash:

"We're planting crops for fuel instead of food in order to make it cheaper to drive to the shops where we then buy food that is much more expensive because we've planted crops for fuel instead of food."(...) "Meanwhile, the banks are borrowing money from taxpayers so that they can then lend the same money back to the taxpayers at a higher rate of interest than they borrowed it from them in the first place."

It is so funnily true that it is sad.

The world 50 best restaurants, where is Asia?

Published by Restaurant magazine, The San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants is recognized around the world as the most credible indicator of the best places to eat on Earth.

In 2008, Spanish El Bulli is number one again, The UK's Fat Duck back to number 2, French Pierre Gagnaire is number 3.

I mapped the top 50 per countries only to find out that there are no restaurants listed in Asia. I can't believe that there are no kitchen in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo that serve better food than in Hakkasan or Nobu (just to mention 2 "asian fusion" restaurants listed in the UK).

A decade of web design

"The web looks very different today than it did 10 years ago." By usability guru Jakob Nielsen.

The terminal 5 song (swan song?)

Fantastic!

Hey this is my 500th post!

I shall celebrate by sharing this great song from Hot Chip. No hidden meaning here, I just like it. Thanks for reading!

Muxtape: a simple way to create and share mp3 mixtapes

http://muxtape.com/

Funny: how products differ between packaging and reality

An iPhone for £78 (US$150)

That is 99 euros to you and only available from T-Mobile in Germany. O2 confirmed that it had no immediate intention to cut prices.

The secret strategy behind viral videos on Youtube

My friend Val flagged this article on Techcrunch US: The secret strategy behind viral video, written by the co-founder of Comotion, a viral marketing agency. This post apparently broke the record of the most commented post. It reveals some trade secrets on how to make a video popular on Youtube (and similar video sharing sites). Good read. The comments are interesting too as the article broke many "cluetrain manifesto's naive beliefs": internet users may have a bigger voice now but it is still corporations that are writing most of the script.

Technology of tomorrow, soon available in London

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia, Richard Branson, Virgin, Carly Fiorina, ex HP and Steve Wozniak, ex Apple will gather at the Royal Albert Hall on the 3oth of September to talk about how we consume, use and apply technology in our lives and in business.

The event's website hosts a few video interviews. I might attend. These are the topics I am interested to hear about:

• What are the strategic challenges in delivering new products or services to market?
  
• How does a CEO manage through technological change?
  
• How does the right leadership strategy influence the fostering of innovation in your people?
• What new technologies are likely to shape the consumer technology market, and how will social lifestyles evolve as a result of these technologies?
  
• Are we expecting to see greater network bandwidth, if so, how will that affect feature rich application software?
  
• What does mobile computing look like in the next 5 years from the PDA/Mobile to PC computing?
  
• What does Web 3.0 look like in terms of using the cloud (internet) to do more computing?
  
• How will social and business networking technologies evolve on the web?
  
• What new web-based applications can we expect to see in the next 5 years?
  

The Daily Mash

I discovered The Daily Mash too late... yet it almost beats the Onion on the satirical laughing scale. I'll have to make up by trolling through their archives.

You can opt-out of Facebook but you can never leave

Alex Pell writes on how Facebook makes it so difficult to resign from its services.

The way out? "To delete your details permanently you must first unearth the anonymous-looking customer service form that is hidden away at tinyurl.com/2xv52v. (...) When completing this form tell Facebook in both the subject and the message fields that you wish to have your account deleted. To check if this has been done properly either create a fake Facebook account or ask a friend to search for your details a few days later."

French ruling party taking a beating at local elections

From the Times. I think that while many French voters were put off by the President' showbiz approach to government, the majority just understood what he meant by "change"... As this election results shows, the French do not have an appetite for reforming their system yet. This could dampen the government's initiatives and push the country back into its well worn cycle of "immobilisme". Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!

Have you heard of eco-tourism? Help me test a new business idea and win...

Hello Dear Readers,

I am working on a new business project in the area of sustainable tourism / eco-resorts. I am particularly interested to hear from Canadians, Brits and Americans as these are our target customers. Your opinion will make a difference on how we position and market our project:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OI4Mv_2bxYjAgEjOHF57X7xw_3d_3d

This survey takes 5 minutes to complete only and you will stand the chance to win a $50 Amazon voucher.

Thank you for your help, and good luck with the draw.

Misery makes Britons happy, says US writer

"Former New York Times journalist Eric Weiner claims Brits are never happier than when at their most miserable."
The Telegraph

Warner music declares war on Apple with £5 iPod album

Warner: £5, Apple: £7.99. Price war! It is about time...

Daily Mail

Note2be, teachers rating website lost court case

A French tribunal condemned Note2be (see my previous post) to remove all personal and identifying informations regarding teachers. The website can still rate schools but not individuals. The site owner are appealing the ruling.

This could apply to any website ratings individuals (plumbers, accountants, consultants...).

French article in Liberation.

Man charged £11,000 to download 4 episodes of Friends on his mobile phone

Wife used an unlimited broadband package from Vodafone mobile to order the programs in the UK, husband went to Germany with the phone while the download was still in progress. The bill: £11,000 ($22,000). Ofcom said it will investigate.

Article in the Telegraph.

'Pilgrim' abandons cashless 'peace walk' to India after encounter with the French

At least, this is how it sounds in the Evening Standard. Mark Boyle and two companions planned to walk to India relying solely on people's generosity to fund their trip. They made it as far as France: "Not only did no one speak the language, they also see us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers, which is the complete opposite of what the pilgrimage is really about." They called off the trip and are now back in the UK.

Scott Adams on Sarkozy and France's catchphrase "du moment" : "Casse toi pauvre con"

From my favorite blogger: The Dilbert blog.

The comments are degenerating into love/hate the French, Freedom Fries and the meaning of "con". The latter was a slang for female genitalia (until the 70s) as well as meaning "jerk".

Super Monk: Animation

Apparently made in France. Great stuff.

Supermoine
by supamonks

Top 10 cheap eats in Tokyo

In the Guardian.

French teachers rating website to be sued, ruling to affect user generated content in France

Note2be (a play on "not" and "note" meaning a grade in French) allows French pupils to mark their teachers. Within 3 weeks or its launch, it was sued by the national teachers union on the grounds of "disrupting public order". The court is due to decide on the 3rd of March.
So why are teachers so unhappy? According to Aurelie, a 24 years old primary school teacher "On the Internet, everything is graded. We are not products». Oh the irony...

Article in French in communist paper Liberation.

French President: "Casse toi alors pauvre con!"

Nicolas Sarkozy is known for his "franc-parler" (straight-talking). While visiting the "Salon de l'agriculture", a customary political exercise for all French presidents, he came across a passer-by who refused to shake his hand "not to be dirtied". Sarkosy's response "then piss-off you jerk!". Reactions have been divided: those who were shocked by his language, those who sympathized (after all, he has been trailing in cow dungs for a few hours fending the crowds) and those who think he could have used more dignified insults.

Facebook's first decline in users

Users fell 5% to 8.5 million in January from 8.9 million in December in the UK, according to data from Nielsen Online. BBC article.

Blip or trend?

Edited: "Three Skypephone, second-thought due to lack of customer service". Happy ending.

I had the opportunity to experience Three's (lack of) customer service today and I am not impressed. I topped up my account on their website and got an error message, informing me that I may have been charged and should contact customer services. The irony is that none of the option on their automated service deals with this kind of queries. I tried another number and here again, I was trapped in endless automated loops. No option to speak to a human being. I was left to send an email and to hope for a reply within a few days...

I will keep you updated.

Update: I had a call from Three at lunch time. The error is now fixed. The option to speak to a human being is there but quite hidden. The guy I spoke to was courteous and efficient though so that makes up for it. Case closed.

Update 2: I have receive an email from an executive at Three regarding my negative experience. The issue I highlighted above was fixed in a matter of 2 hours by phone. I will suggest that an option to speak to customer rep be made more prominent in the automated options for phone support. Apart from that, I am still happy with my Three Skypephone and I am happy to recommend it as well.

Cool Mobile Startups Products From the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Article on BusinessWeek. It is not obvious but you have to click on the pictures at the bottom of their page to see each product.

My favorites: GestureTek (let you play games and use applications by detecting movements from your phone, like a Wii nunchak) and Audience, a noise suppression technology that recognizes your speech and filter out background noise for clearer voice chats.

Poor young people use Yahoo!, rich old people use Google

Intriguing research from Hitwise. Yahoo!'s users tend to be younger than Google too (which would partially explain the wealth gap). The size of the bubbles is the propensity to have spent $500 online.

Tips for Yahoo! - How to Negotiate with Microsoft

Sadistically Entertaining Japanese TV Game

Facebook to make it easier to quit Facebook

NY Times.

Thanks to El Blogador.

Why Illegal Downloaders Will Not Face a UK Ban

There are been a lot of gesticulations from the music industry recently, culminating to a release about how ISPs could be forced to enforce a "three strikes" system and ensure that those found downloading copyrighted materials do not ever come close to an Internet connection again. Read the Telegraph among others on the subject.

I personally think that the music industry should be spending more time working out a business model that is in tune with 21st century consumers instead of threatening privacy laws and its customer base. For an enlightened viewpoint, read the Register: "ISPs are calling on the record industry to put its money where its mouth is on illegal file-sharing, by underwriting the cost of lawsuits brought by people who are wrongly accused of downloading or uploading music" and Matt's excellent analysis of why this is stupid on torrentfreak: "This idea makes as much sense as trying to ban people from singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to each other over the telephone network, or burning down libraries to protect the publishing industry."(...) "CD sales are falling because nobody uses them anymore, and Hollywood is in rude health despite the pirates. There should be no more talk about changing laws and spending tax payer’s money on this ‘problem’ until someone proves there really is one."

UK's Top 20 Chinese restaurants

To celebrate the year of the Rat. Gong Xi Fa Cai!
The Times.

Our media are mass producers of distortion

Nick Davies, from the Guardian talks about his new book, Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media.

The most striking fact is a research on 2,000 UK news stories conducted by Cardiff University:

• Only 12% of the stories were wholly composed of material researched by reporters.
• 80%, of the stories were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry.
• On stories written from press releases only 12% had their facts thoroughly checked.

I am too lazy to research whether that study was properly conducted in order to reach its conclusion...

MacBook Air Unboxed!

Funny!

Metronomy 'Radio Ladio'

Microsoft to buy Yahoo! for $44.6Bn?

It if happens, Yahoo's shareholders won't believe their luck... Tim Weber, business editor of the BBC News website: "It is a shotgun marriage, but the person holding the shotgun is Google." That sums it up nicely. BBC News.

How to present like Steve Jobs

A 10 parts framework written by Carmine Gallo for Business Week. Black turtle neck and NB sneakers are optional.

First read on Damien Mulley's fluffy links.

Qtrax, first music major endorsed P2P service... NOT!

Qtrax, a new free music P2P download service, backed off claims that it has deals with all four major music companies after they publicly denied agreed terms with the start-up.
Guardian

Choosing forgiveness over permission is a risky PR strategy. Qtrax got huge amount of coverage, especially after the majors denied their agreements. They will always be able to make further announcements when deals are finalized and blame their over-enthusiastic nature for their first release: Now there is media interest to hear what they have to say and users know they exist. On the other hand, it adds unnecessary pressure to their negotiations with the music industry and their credibility will be dented. The end result: A lot of confused users will check-out Qtrax.com. I hope that their PR strategy was planned and that they provide some explanations on their website to capture this spike in traffic.

French government sues Ryanair over Bruni-Sarkozy advertising

Carla: "With Ryanair, all my family can come to my wedding"

Seen in Le Figaro, en francais.

Happy Holidays, Best Wishes for 2008

I hope you enjoy the holiday season and I wish you a happy, healthy and
prosperous new year.

KENTARO: Tasogare Highway High

I am going to Tokyo in a few days so I am getting in the mood...

Kokiriko Bushi

I still can't make my mind whether I like it or if the "chiptune" grates me.

I tried Three’s new Skype phone and I liked it

Before leaving for California, I was approached by Matt from 3mobilebuzz.com to test Three’s new Skype phone. I don’t usually bother reviewing products (albeit for a few books) but I live in London and my new company is in Mountain View, California. I am on Skype daily with our partners over the world, and often with our family and friends in Singapore. A phone plan that integrates Skype sounded like a godsend to me.

Two months later, upon my return to the UK, I received as promised 2 phones for a month long trial.

The phone
The silver ring around the Skype button is borderline bling but overall the phone is sleek and elegant in its simplicity. And it has a really nice feel when you hold it. I guess Three must have spend weeks with focus groups just to get the right weight, not too heavy, not too light resulting in this smooth feeling handset that fits nicely in the hand.

The specs
Decent colour screen, 2MB camera, takes pictures, videos and many other things that I could not be possibly bothered to mention, as I am not that geeky. Specs are there if you are interested (select a phone and click on "Mobile details").

The interface
Among the phones I used, Motorola consistently ranked worst in terms of clunky, non-intuitive user interface. Nokia is doing a pretty good job but I always had a soft spot for Sony-Ericksson. I am adding to my favourites Three’s interface which is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. Good job for people like me who would rather never use a functionality than opening a user manual.

Skype
This is the crux of the matter. You can call and receive calls on Skype using Three’s network, which means you don’t rely on finding a wifi connection. Finally, I could talk to my Skype friends without being glued to my laptop. Because I am using Three’s network , voice quality was much better than my normal Skype calls. When logged-in to Skype (just press the “Skype” button), you will see your contacts and their status. To call, just select a contact and you are on. You can use Skype chat as well but the Three Skypephone does not support Skype Out or Skype In.

Live TV
The picture quality of live TV is impressive. Sharp and good streaming. On offer: BBC1, BBC3, BBC News, National Geographic, FHM, MTV…

Facebook, MSN, eBay and the likes
It has all that if you need it. There is a handy shortcut to Google Search on Three’s launcher (like a “Start menu on Windows). There is a direct link to Youtube as well so instead of spending too much money on video calls, post your clip on your Youtube channel for your friends to watch and reciprocate.

Finally, the price…
Now this is where it gets complicated, there are lots of information on rates and plans but it is a bit all over the place on Three’s website, and the small print is hard to find.

Pay As You Go (no contract)
You can buy a handset for £59.99 that includes a £10 top-up. You can use Skype for 30 days with a “fair use” policy (4,000 Skype minutes and 10,000 chat messages per month) but you need to top-up again with a minimum of £10 every 30 days.

Contract
Contracts are 18 months, which is far too long to consider for someone like me who spend months abroad. The cheapest plan is £12 a month and gives you 100 minutes or text messages. The phone comes free with the same “fair use” policy for Skype.

Live TV is £5 a month and add another £5 for unlimited web surfing. This will go on top of PAYG or contracts.

Verdict...
I showed the phone to a couple of friends and they all agreed that it is a looker with great functionality, with Skype, Live TV an mobile web among their favourite features (in order). As far as I understand, rates are competitive but my hunch is that you need to spend lots of time on Skype at time when you don't want to be at home to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you may be better off sticking to Skype on your laptop and a cheap call plan for calls/texts. The 18 months contract is a no go for me but I may look into the PAYG option after I speak to Three’s sales reps to clarify call rates for that option.

Overall, the Skype Phone is on top of my 2008 must-have list and I am glad I tried it.

Surface Computing to go mainstream 3 to 4 years from now?

Think Minority Report:

The story of stuff: how the real world works

A must-watch movie. Help spread the word and change a system that has turned you into a shopping zombie.

"The Story of Stuff:

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. (...) It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

BlogNation to shut down amidst much mud-throwing 2.0

I read Blognation and TechCrunch from time to time. I found the whole Arrington / Sethi saga entertaining at first then slightly pathetic (story well summarized by Patrick de Laive). The bottom line is that some bloggers have too large an ego and a nefarious tendency to air their dirty laundry in public (PR execs... beware!). I can only sympathize with Blognation’s writers and readers who lost a decent outlet for global news.

Back to how much Facebook has replaced blogging now...

Facebook to license platform methods and tags to counter Google's OpenSocial

Extract from Facebook's announcement:

"Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins -- users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications."

Bebo already announced that it will focus its efforts on applications compatibility with Facebook (while continuing to support Open Social).

Are we heading towards a format war between Google and Facebook?

The one semester of Spanish lovesongs... already a Facebook hit!

Sat-nav blunder takes coach full of Christmas shoppers to Lille...in Belgium, instead of Lille in France

From the Evening Standard

Adobe and Yahoo put online ads into documents

"Yahoo! has partnered with Adobe Systems to make contextual text ads appear alongside PDF documents in a format similar to a search engine."

Will your Dell laptop PDF brochures have HP ads all over?

Big Tech blog

You Will Control 25% of Entertainment by 2012

Nokia's latest study,"Glimpse of the Next Episode" predicts that within five years a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups rather than coming out of traditional media groups.

I told you so.

Mobile Crunch.

Bubble 2.0, the song

Funny: Gym Membership video

Facebook's Beacon More Intrusive Than Previously Thought

"Stefan Berteau, a Computer Associates security researcher found that Facebook's Beacon goes much further than anyone has imagined in tracking people's Web activities outside the popular social networking site: Beacon will report back to Facebook on members' activities on third-party sites that participate in Beacon even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined having their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends."

Full article on Washington Post

Victory! Facebook stopped invading my privacy.

More than 50,000 users (that’s 49,999 and me) have forced Facebook to change the way controversial ad system Beacon worked.

Story on BBC.

Facebook’s official reaction:

Facebook Update on Changes to Beacon

No stories will be published without users proactively consenting

We appreciate feedback from all Facebook users and made some changes to Beacon in the past day. Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends' News Feeds.

Here's how the Beacon changes work:

- Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

- Users must click on "OK" in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

- If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click "OK" to publish or click "remove" to not publish.

- Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

- Clicking the "Help" link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

These changes are in addition to those made earlier to improve the notifications on partner sites as follows

- Users were sometimes moving away from a page before a notification could be fully displayed. We changed the process so that we confirm the full display of the notification before any information can be sent back to a user's Facebook account.

- The notification appears more rapidly and is more clearly displayed.

There has been misinformation in the market about some key aspects of how Beacon works:

- Participation in Beacon is free for all partner sites.

- Beacon only allows for the sharing of specific actions on the specific sites participating in Beacon.

- Beacon only has the potential to display actions to a selection of a user's friends through News Feed and on a user's Mini-Feed.

- Facebook is not sharing user information with participating sites and never sells user information.

As with all its products, Facebook will continue to iterate quickly and listen to feedback from its users

Innocent advertising on Facebook

Here we are, the beginning of the Myspace-ization of Facebook:


Whenever you befriend an innocent fruit juice, be it honeyed mango or crushed strawberry, your Facebook "friends" will be automatically notified:
Note that Facebook added two icons on the right of each mini-feed story. Whenever you are privy to such privileged information, click on the little cross. That should stop the pain, at least temporarily.

The 20 Worst Venture Capital Investments of All Time

Read more on InsideCRM

1. Amp'd Mobile
2. Procket
3. Webvan
4. Caspian Networks
5. Pets.com
6. Optiva
7. Kozmo.com
8. CueCat
9. DeNovis Inc
10. PointCast Inc
11. eToys
12. AllAdvantage
13. FastForward
14. Xoma
15. Flooz.com
16. Vanguarde Media Inc
17. Pixelon.com
18. Bolt Media Inc
19. DigiScents
20. Boo.com

Read more on InsideCRM

Thanks to the new El Blogador.

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Intriguing...

France is on strike!

The train network is paralyzed with heavy cancellations and delays as French get a taste of the daily life of British commuters.

The Economist for a more serious take on the issue.

Virtual habbo thief arrested

A 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money in Habbo hotel. He will be sentenced to spend 3 years in a virtual Habbo cell. BBC News.

What Chefs do when they are bored

Awesome pictures of animals made with food.

Facebook's advertising illegal in the State of New York

A 100-year-old New York privacy law states that “any person whose name, portrait, picture, or voice is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained” can sue for damages.

Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook, said the ads are a “representation” of the action users have taken: choosing to link themselves to a product thus it would be difficult for someone to object because that person had already chosen to publicly identify themselves with the brand doing the advertising.

Full article in the NY Times.

Facebook to Turn Users Into Endorsers

Facebook will allow brands to create profiles on Facebook. Feeds will display messages like "John Q is a fan of Toyota Prius". Friends of John Q will see banner ads for Toyota throughout Facebook’s site with a photo of John Q and the fact that he likes the Prius.

Article on NY Times.

Mobile phones: introducing Google Android

Google launched a new operating system for mobile phones (also known as cellphones across the pond and handphones across the pond across the pond). Motorola, Samsung, Qualcomm, LG, Sprint and T-Mobile are part of the Open Handset Alliance that could adopt Android. Here is a FAQ on what Android means.

As I am typing this, sipping a Cabernet Sauvignon, watching a rerun of Star Wars' "Attack of the clones"on HBOFW and laying-out a user journey for Karmony's Facebook app (to be released this week), I cannot help thinking how much Google has become the default "site" for much of my web needs. I only search on Google, Gmail is my primary personal email address, Google News is my first point of call to see what's going on in the world, I welcomed OpenSocial as it will make our job easier as developers (for Karmony) and I cannot wait to get a phone where I can play with Google Maps (which is not an overpriced/over hyped iPhone)... It all becomes a bit scary how much a single company wields power over the web...

Is Wikipedia legally responsible for its content?

"Non" said a French court judging on a defamation case brought up by three individuals. Article in French from Silicon.fr

Video Announcement of Google OpenSocial: How it works.

Google OpenSocial on Youtube.

Google lures MySpace for OpenSocial

"OpenSocial is going to become the de facto standard (for developers) instantly out of the gates. It is going to have a reach of 200 million users, which is way bigger than anything else out there," Chris DeWolfe, chief executive and co-founder of MySpace, told reporters.

From Reuters

I reckon that Facebook should join in.

PR pitching bloggers: Wired editor Chris Anderson's bans PR spammers

"I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I'm interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that's why my email address is public). Everything else gets banned on first abuse." Full post here.

Chris then publishes a list of about 300 banned email addresses, a real who's who of public relations practitioners. Comments to the post are entertaining, mostly supportive of the initiative. There are some PR guys whining in the lot (the entertaining part).

Personally, I hope that this will be a wake-up call for lazy PR execs who spam bloggers with press releases or who infringe editors/journalists' personal space. I do receive about 2 emails a week, nothing like what Chris Anderson must be dealing with. I rarely follow-up as they often consists of a copied and pasted press release about some topics I couldn't care less about (some company won an award in Oregon...). Sometimes there is a short note offering me an interview with some executives I never heard of (to talk about awards won in Oregon...).

When I was working with Hill & Knowlton, we went to great length to build relationships with bloggers. It takes a lot of time and efforts but the end result is that you don't end up in a banned list like Chris Anderson's, for all to see and to spam you in return.

The next 25 years of video games: behold The Matrix

Best article I read so far on where gaming technology could bring us. Credit to David Wong and Steve Woyach on Cracked.com

Google to take on Facebook with OpenSocial?

Google is about to launch a set of APIs allowing developers to create applications working across some "social networks" such as LinkedIn, Friendster, Ning or Newsgator. Slide and Rock You are already in the game. Read more on GigaOm.

Best analysis of what it means is on ZDNet.

Full Californian experience: my first earthquake

Magnitude 5.6 on the Richter scale... It shook for 30 secs, just time for us to get out of the house. Impressive. But no worries, we are all fine.

Organic food really IS better for you, claims study

From Evening Standard. Best value for money organic food, delivered to your door in London is Riverford. I have been using them for 6 months now and never looked back (thank you Gaylene for introducing them to me).

Microsoft buys stake in Facebook as human species slowly splits into two

Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M, valuing the company at $15Bn using the "anything to beat Google will do" discount ratio. Oliver Curry, an "evolutionary theorist" expect the human race to peak in year 3,000 and split into a genetic upper-class and dim-witted underclass. The Facebook have and have-not?

Double glazing salesman 'punched customer for getting quote from a rival firm'

If only they knew of comparative shopping website... Story on ThisisLondon

French Tech Connection Party in San Francisco

I'll be at the Tech Connection Party hosted by French Tech Connection on Tuesday in San Francisco. If you read this blog free beer for you when we meet up.

Google acquires Jaiku

See Jaiku's Q&A on the acquisition. No comments yet from Twitter's bigger supporter :-)

Interflora, flowers experts, not delivery experts

The good thing about working for yourself is that when you have a bad experience with a company, you can tell it as it is, without worrying of offending a client, a prospect or your colleagues. I will make ample use of that new privilege. I am in Santa Clara for 2 months to raise funds for my new start-up, Karmony. My wife is working in London. It is not easy. I ordered a bouquet of flowers via Interflora to be delivered to her office on Monday, as a surprise. The bouquet arrived on Tuesday. The flowers looked tired. In addition to my personal note was a brochure with all the flowers' prices... This is so unprofessional. I hope that this post will add to others who experienced such poor service from Interflora, and forces the company to take notice.

Industry Experts Blog Hot Topics in Online PR, Marketing

The International Association of Online Communicators (IAOC) has just begun the Fall 2007 season of the popular educational blog show, "This Week on IAOCblog.com." The program is free and open for PR, marketing and online communications professionals, educators and students, as well as anyone interested in discussing hot topics and trends in Internet marketing communications.

The Fall season kicked off September 24 with guest blogger Peter A. Gloor of MIT's Sloan School of Management, who blogged about analyzing workplace communications. The season continues Oct 15 with computer communications expert Dave Taylor answering that menacing question: Is it okay to get paid to blog?

The blog show features a different guest blogger each week. Our guests are renowned professionals, educators and authors in the field of online communication.

Here is the Fall lineup:

October 15-19, 2007
GUEST: Dave Taylor, Blogsmart, Ask Dave Taylor
TOPIC: Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?

October 22-26, 2007
GUEST: Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business
TOPIC: Should CEOs Blog?

October 29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog
TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

November 5-9, 2007
GUEST: Lois Kelly, Foghound
TOPIC: Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

November 13-16, 2007
(Nov. 12 is Veteran's Day)
GUEST: Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert
TOPIC: Blogger's Code of Ethics: News or Ruse?

"This Week on IAOCblog.com" takes place at http://www.iaocblog.com/. For more information, please visit this site or contact dreich@tulane.edu.