Did The British Invent The Internet?
By Tom Foremski - February 8, 2010
Interesting article on BBC News about early British computer pioneers.
By splitting data into packets and threading them on the same line, the carrying capacity of that link could be boosted and the whole network made more powerful.
Roger Scantlebury, who worked with Dr Davies, presented the ideas about "packet switching" to a conference in the US, where they were picked up by the creators of the nascent Arpanet, the fledgling internet.
Does that mean Britain invented the internet?
"Yes and no," said Mr Scantlebury. "Certainly the underlying technology of the internet, which is packet switching, we did invent."
British researchers also worked on hyperlinks, another crucial Internet technology, way back in the early 1970s.
David Yates was project manager of a program called Scrapbook which rolled together word processing, e-mail and hypertext - a system that incorporated many elements of the World Wide Web.
Scrapbook went live on 28 April 1971...Scrapbook helped people across the 28 acres of the NPL campus collaborate or projects without having to sit next to each other.
Clearly, the British had developed many of the technologies that went into the Internet. And Tim Berners-Lee, is a Brit and he invented the world wide web...
So maybe the British did invent the Internet but with typical British modesty, didn't want to blow their own horn. At least until now.
Please see: BBC News - Alan Turing and the Ace computer
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Analysis: Online Retailers - Caught Between A Rock And A Big Hard Place
By Tom Foremski - February 8, 2010
I never believed in online shopping price comparison services. Because I never believed that retailers would allow their sites to be scraped and their prices easily compared.
Why would they do that? What advantage is there in allowing third-party services to undermine their business?
I have rarely been able to find a straightforward price comparison that was able to factor in everything, such as shipping, taxes, and extras.
The East coast camera retailers, for example, would advertise low prices online but then charge you extra for flash memory, shipping, warranties, and 'camera kits,' that quickly negated any savings.
And it makes sense that retailers would try to make it as difficult as possible to get a clean price quote because otherwise they are at the mercy of the lowest price competitor. They would also be at the mercy of their stupidest competitor -- the one that charges an unrealistic price, too low to maintain profitability or viability.
Today's New York Times has a report by Brad Stone on yet another aspect of online pricing - manufacturers seeking to control what price retailers can advertise on their products.
The Fight over Prices on the Internet - NYTimes.com
On some pages of e-commerce sites selling products like televisions, digital cameras and jewelry, a critical piece of information is conspicuously missing: the price tag.
Customers have to go to the online checkout to see the price. These missing prices are more likely to be methods of thwarting price comparison engines rather than manufacturers' price controls.
Retailers have long managed to get around pricing controls by giving other things away. For example, Apple dealers aren't allowed to under cut each other on price but they can give away printers and other products, which effectively undercuts Apple's recommended retail prices.
What is much more interesting is this tidbit, buried deeper in the NYTimes article, almost at the very end:
Wow. Turning Amazon into an affiliate! How ironic, since Amazon is one of the largest affiliate marketers, offering a percentage of revenues sold by third parties.
This is the danger that online retailers now face: what if their suppliers want to sell direct?
A search engine, such as Google or Bing, would be able to make it very easy to find the online stores of the manufacturers of many goods. This would be like a huge outlet store in the cloud.
In most cases manufacturers are already drop-shipping orders on goods collected by online retailers. Why not cut out the middle man?
In addition, the manufacturers would be collecting important customer data -- data that is currently kept by the retailer. They would be able to develop a direct customer relationship for the very first time (beyond the voluntary 'warranty' cards found with many products).
And if you know who bought what and when, it becomes easy to work out who will probably be needing a new washing machine, or computer, because the old one is on its last legs. Your marketing goes direct -- which cuts out a lot of costs.
Fortunately for the retailers, manufacturers don't know how to market well, or how to manage a direct customer relationship. At least, not yet...
Amazon has some protection from this trend in that it has layered on a lot of cool features and services, such as customer reviews, and secure online payment systems. That will help in retaining customers and making it less attractive for its suppliers to sell direct.
But it's clear that there are troubling signs ahead, that the Internet does make it possible for manufacturers to sell direct; and that search engines could create the storefront; they could aggregate customer reviews; and offer secure payment services (Google Checkout).
Online retailers are caught between a rock (search engines) and a hard place (suppliers selling direct). Both have sound business reasons to squeeze out the middle guy.
This is less true for retailers that also have physical locations such as Wal-mart or Best Buy. Will Amazon make a bricks and mortar acquisition?
Posted to A Top Story | Disruptive | TrendWatch
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Major European Newspapers Behind Paywalls
By Tom Foremski - February 7, 2010
The Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt have launched paywalls, and Le Figaro, a major French newspaper is expected to have its paywall ready later this month, reports Paidcontent.org.
The Times, Rupert Murdoch's flagship UK newspaper, is expected to have a paywall in the 2nd quarter of this year.
The good news for US newspaper companies is that they can learn important lessons from the early European newspaper paywall ventures.
Today's New York Times has a report about the debate over newspaper paywalls. Brad Stone writes about the different views of Rupert Murdoch, and Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian.
Media Cache - Free vs. Paid, Murdoch vs. Rusbridger - NYTimes.com
Having “ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition,” Mr. Rusbridger said in a recent speech, “this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content — whether in print or digitally.”
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
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SAP Replaces CEO With 2 Co-CEOs
By Tom Foremski - February 7, 2010
SAP, the world's largest business software company, said Léo Apotheker has been replaced as CEO.
Dennis Howlett, on ZDNet, writes that Mr Apotheker's departure wasn't unexpected. But it was surprising that the company acted so soon.
SAP is headquartered in Germany and has a large presence in Silicon Valley. The company beat analyst estimates for Q4 but profits fell 12% and revenues were down 9% from a year ago.
UPDATE:
Vinnie Mirchandani in Deal Architect writes: Enterprise software is entirely bereft of soul
...the reality is the customer has been forgotten in enterprise software, not just at SAP. It’s about squeezing as much out of old technology as possible. As I wrote earlier in the week. “I wish the other bigger vendors had the cajones to acknowledge they similarly mostly live off profits from software 15- 20 years old, from consultants which implement that old software and provide services from data centers which were designed during the Cold War.”
Leo was expected to do more of the same in his new role as CEO. So, he did – unbelievably pushing maintenance price hikes in the middle of the deep recession. For all his talk about taking on the partners who have piled 5 to 10X costs on top of SAP’s own expensive solutions, he really could not – they were part of the “field” he created.
Posted to A Top Story | Enterprise IT
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Anyone Have A Jet? Doctors And Nurses Stuck In Miami - Need To Get To Haiti
By Tom Foremski - February 6, 2010
I just received a call from Amy in San Diego. She noticed my recent post about using Silicon Valley's corporate jets for Haiti.
Her husband is a doctor and he is with a group of about 15 other doctors and nurses. They are stuck in Miami with no transport to Haiti. Can anyone help?
If you can help please call or text me at this number 415 336 7547 and I will put you in contact with Amy.
Let's Use Silicon Valley's Jet Fleet To Rush Aid To Haiti - SVW
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How The Real-Time Web Turns 'Conversational' Media Into Noise
By Tom Foremski - February 5, 2010
In the movie "Amadeus" Mozart says:
"In a play, if more than one person speaks at once ...it's just noise. No one can understand a word. But with opera, with music.... With music you can have individuals all talking at the same time. And it's not noise. lt's a perfect harmony!"
That's what struck me as a fundamental limitation of using online real-time feedback for live events.
In this brave new world of 'conversational' media - real-time creates a real limitation. And no amount of technology can solve this basic issue: you can't have a conversation if everyone is speaking at once.
You can have online conversations if they are within a time-line, such as comments on a blog post. But it doesn't work in real-time. Think of the noise of a crowd -- it's an aggregation of hundreds of conversations.
This might all seem a bit obvious but it's worth pointing out because there is a lot of chatter about the 'real-time' web these days and what it means, and what it can enable.
Thursday evening I was on an interesting panel about "Realtime Feedback Loops."
My fellow panelists were:
- Ravit Lichtenberg, CEO Ustrategy
- Sylvia L. Marino, Executive Director - Community Operations & Social Media,Edmunds.com
- Liza Sperling, Real-Time Sentiment & Trends Analyst, Scout Labs
- Van Riper, Founder & Leader, Silicon Valley Google Technology User Group
- Bill Johnston, Director, Online Community Research Network, ForumOne
- David Libby, SVP, MS&L Worldwide
- Evan Solomon, VP of Marketing, JustinTV
- Marc Smolowitz, Executive Producer - Media & Technology Consultant
Here are some notes:
- Jennifer Lindsay wanted to find out if there was some way that conference events could be done differently, using real-time feedback loops, so that people that weren't there could participate in the discussion.
- Sylvia Marino said that it didn't work out, to mix people attending an event virtually, and those in the room. She said that outsiders often didn't have the same understanding of the ideas and concepts that were being discussed by people physically present, and that they found it hard to engage in the conversations.
- Ravit Lichtenberg made some excellent points about the need for moderators to be able to filter real-time feedback. Often, facilitators will arise naturally within a community.
- Van Riper told a story of a group of people who hadn't attended one of his events, becoming very hostile to messaging around the event.
- Shel Holtz, who was in the audience, made one of the best contributions. He said that you have to know what to do with the real-time feedback, what's its purpose? For example, there's little point to have real-time feedback during a keynote speech.
Justin.tv was there to record the event. Thanks to Rich Reader for organizing the panel.
Posted to A Top Story | PRWatch
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Upcoming Charity Events
By Tom Foremski - February 5, 2010
Social Media Week Closing Party Friday Feb 5
"Join us as we support Social Media for Social Good and raise a glass (and money) for NetSquared to expand its support of non-profits using Web 2.0 and social media tools and methodologies.
With over 1,000 people participating in various events across San Francisco during Social Media Week, this party is the perfect way to end an action packed five days.
Individual tickets are on sale for $20 in advance ($30 at the door), and includes two (2) drink tickets. A cash bar will also be available. $10 from each ticket will be donated to NetSquared so they can continue to do their great work educating other non-profits in how to leverage social media technology. "
Mashable and Social Media Club Present the Social Media... - Eventbrite
Michael Brito tells me about Silicon Valley Tweetup: Giving to families in need
We have decided to raise awareness and accept monetary donations to the San Jose Family Shelter. Here are the details of the event (you can RSVP here):
When: Tuesday, February 23
Where: Rosie McCanns at Santana Row
Time: 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
$10 donation at the door (you will get drink tickets and food too)
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Unpaid Techcrunch Reporter Sacked For Bribe Attempt
By Tom Foremski - February 4, 2010
This is what happens when you have unpaid or low paid writers. Daniel Brusilovsky, a reporter for Techcrunch, was sacked after someone accused him of asking for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a company.
Mike Arrington, founder of Techcrunch said that all of his posts have been erased from the archives. And that Mr Brusilovsky did manage to get at least one computer from an unnamed source in exchange for coverage. [An Apology To Our Readers]
He was described as an 'intern.' Which means he was unpaid, or paid the minimum California wage.
[Update: John Furrier from Silicon Angle says he spoke Daniel and was told he did not receive any payment from Techcrunch and had no contract.]
Some observers said that he didn't know what he was doing because of his age, 16. But he spent nine months at Techcrunch and saw how things are done. He knew what he was doing.
However, we don't know what exactly happened. He hasn't given his side of the story and responded to Mr Arrington's specific allegations.
At least not much damage was done. It's not as if Mr Brusilovsky was bribed to squash a "Deep Throat' sourced story.
Techcrunch's stories are all very innocent, mostly about some new product feature. or a startup profile. I doubt readers would be able to distinguish the bribed stories from the rest.
Are other reporters and bloggers for online news sites vulnerable to bribery? Yes, they are, especially if they aren't paid or low paid -- which is the case with most. Low wages are endemic among the online press corps because advertising supported news sites don't make much money per post.
I'm surprised more stories haven't surfaced about this type of behavior. It's no wonder that the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer found a large fall in trust for all media.
Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
- - -
Please see:
Weblog of Daniel Brusilovsky » Blog Archive » The Line Was Crossed
Tech Journalism Wunderkind in Bribery Scandal - Techcrunch - Gawker
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
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Study: Grim News For Print, Radio, TV As Marketers Shift Budgets To Social Media And Other Channels
By Tom Foremski - February 4, 2010
A global study by Econsultancy, commissioned by ExactTarget, an email and personal marketing firm, has found that 41 per cent of marketers will decrease their spending on print and other offline media this year.
The study questioned 1,000 company and agency marketers around the world.
- 28% are shifting their overall budgets to digital in 2010.
- 66% of companies plan to increase online marketing budgets.
- 30% of companies are keeping online marketing budgets at the same level.
- Forecast: 17% increase in digital marketing budgets for: social media, mobile marketing, email marketing, and search.
70 per cent of in-house marketers plan to increase their budgets for off-site social media marketing efforts, using agencies to engage with audiences on Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites.
But according to agency respondents the biggest impediment to digital marketing investment is a general lack of understanding of digital marketing channels. Just under half (48%) of agency respondents cite this as the key reason, which prevents their clients from investing more money in this area.
Linus Gregoriadis, research director at Econsultancy. "Social media marketing is the area where companies are most likely to be spending more money during 2010, but areas such as search engine marketing and email marketing will remain buoyant."
Foremski's Take: It's hardly surprising to see online marketing budgets growing. What is surprising is that the shift to digital marketing isn't faster.
The problem is that digital marketing is a very fragmented area and is becoming even more fragmented as new media channels, such as Twitter, open up. Marketing executives are faced with the daunting challenge of having to manage and measure the effectiveness of many online marketing channels.
The addition of tools and technologies that help target marketing at individuals will increase the complexity of the job. While much is spoken about the benefits of targeted marketing at individuals, little is said about the headaches of managing such programs.
Buying a Super Bowl ad is easy. Launching, managing, and monitoring the performance of highly targeted marketing campaigns across many digital channels is very difficult.
There is a huge amount of data generated by digital marketing. That data is valuable because it holds the keys to greater efficiencies. But that data can also overwhelm marketers with too much information and choices -- freezing decision making.
But that's the reality for today's marketing executives...the CMO of a large company probably has the most challenging job in the C-suite.
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
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Télécoms Sans Frontières - How A Simple Phone Call Helps In Haiti
By Tom Foremski - February 4, 2010
[Myriam Annette is communications coordinator for Télécoms Sans Frontières. Here is an extract from her first hand report:]
The scale of the devastation in Haiti continues to shock me. One million people are homeless and food and water remain scarce.
As we drive through Port-au-Prince, we see temporary camps covering every public square, park, soccer field and garden. Thousands of kids under the age of 5 are living in those camps. According to one report, more than 1 million children are now orphans.
Since the earthquake, our humanitarian calling operations have reconnected more than 5,000 families by providing them with free 3-minute international phone calls.
In the last three days, nearly 1,000 survivors used TSF's satellite-based telephones to reach their family in other countries.
These calls continue to remind us how something as simple as a phone call can offer help and hope amid the suffering.
As Shirley Lafleur, a 24-year-old mother told me: "My mother, my baby and I are still alive and we need help. We need money to buy food and water and continue to survive. Thanks to TSF's calling operations, I was able to get in touch with my sister in Orlando, in the USA, to tell her about our situation in Haiti and ask for financial aid. This call was essential to me."
Beyond setting up satellite phones and internet connections at UN coordination centers, TSF teams also have been providing technical and telecommunications support for the UN's humanitarian affairs agency (OCHA) and children's agency (UNICEF) and for the Organization for Migration (IOM) as they manage the many temporary camps throughout the region.
- - -
You can make an online donation to help the work of Télécoms Sans Frontières here.
Support for TSF's mission in Haiti is provided by the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership.
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BritWeek Innovation Awards Competition - Open For California And UK Firms
By Tom Foremski - February 4, 2010
The first-ever BritWeek UKTI Business Innovation Awards competition has been announced.
- Submission Deadline: February 19
- Applicants must make a robust case in an essay of no more than 1,000 words for how the nominated company's innovation in design, technology or service has improved products, experiences and/or services. The nomination form is available for download at www.britweek.org/2010/InnovationAwards
- Winners are selected by a panel of renowned innovators, including entrepreneur engineer Sir James Dyson andinternationally recognized creativity guru, Sir Ken Robinson.
- Award presentation will be at a dinner in Beverly Hills on May 4th
The British are the largest foreign investors in California. Britweek celebrates that connection through a series of events from April 20th to May 9th, 2010. http://www.britweek.org
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Factual Raises $1m From A-List Investors, Andreessen et al....
By Tom Foremski - February 3, 2010
Factual is an interesting company, it is trying to establish an "open data platform' where people can create and share huge amounts of data in the form of tables. One such project is the 4 million record website data table that shows which sites use Creative Commons licenses.
Gil Elbaz is the founder, his company Applied Semantics was acquired by Google in 2003. The basic idea is that if more data were available in a structured format, people could make better decisions.
Gil Elbaz reported today that he has raised $1 million in seed financing from a Silicon Valley A-list:
Andreessen Horowitz - Founders, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz
Bill Gross - Founder/Chairman, Idealab
Danny Rimer - Index Ventures
Esther Dyson - Founder, EDventure Holdings
Founder Collective
Gunderson Dettmer
Lee and June Stein
Mårten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL
Miramar Venture Partners
Richard Rosenblatt - CEO, Demand Media
Scott Kurnit - Founder, About.com
Thomas Lehrman - Founder, Gerson Lehrman Group
Tom Unterman - Founder, Rustic Canyon Ventures
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Hitwise: Facebook Becoming Major News And Media Distributor
By Tom Foremski - February 3, 2010
Heather Hopkins, senior analyst at Hitwise, which tracks traffic to large web sites, says Facebook is become a major news reader.
She adds:
"Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch."
Please see: Facebook Largest News Reader?
Posted to MediaWatch
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AdSafe Report: User Generated Content Can Harm Brands
By Tom Foremski - February 3, 2010
AdSafe Media, which monitors online advertising, reported that in Q4 2009, that about 27 per cent of online display advertising on sites with user generated content was inappropriate for brand advertisers due to problem subject matter.
Problem content included hate speech and invisible traffic. AdSafe said that about 25 per cent of all display ads were on sites with UGC content.
David Hahn, VP of Product for AdSafe, said he was concerned about "the large percentage of invisible, UGC and hate speech associated inventory we observed in Q4. Without full visibility of display inventory, brands and agencies are unable to understand the quality or brand appropriateness of inventory."
Foremski's Take: As many media sites add user generated content to their publishing mix, to generate additional pageviews, they could face problems from existing brand advertisers.
They will need to moderate their UGC content, which will add to their costs. But this could also be an important point of distinction, since moderated UGC will be of higher value to advertisers and should result in improved advertising rates.
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
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Silicon Valley Wages Have Still Not Recovered From Dotcom Dotbomb
By Tom Foremski - February 3, 2010
It's nearly ten years since the dotcom bubble became a dotbomb, leading to tens of thousands of lost jobs, lost wealth, and lost dreams.
It's been a long, slow recovery. Which is probably good compared to the volatility of the late 1990s. But wages still haven't recovered.
The San Jose Mercury reports on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. Silicon Valley tech workers had rough decade
Wages in 11 high-tech industries averaged $120,000 in 2000, when investors' money was raining on the valley and competition for workers was fierce. By 2002, in the depths of the crash, average wages sank to $87,300, but by mid-2009, they had recovered to $105,500.
The Merc always puts together some great graphics:
Posted to A Top Story | Silicon Valley
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Edelman Surveys Show Trust Is Very Volatile Across Media And Businesses
By Tom Foremski - February 3, 2010
We share a common belief that trust is an important currency in today's world especially in the digital realm.
Trust, we are taught, is hard won. It takes a long time to establish trust yet it can be destroyed in minutes.
But is that really true?
I've been looking at the Edelman Trust Barometer reports and it shows that trust in businesses, in media both social and traditional, in NGOs, in governments, jumps up and down by large margins from year to year.
I've been particularly interested in trust in social and traditional media. In the latest report, trust in peers, which represents social media, plunged by 20 points from 47 percent of those surveyed in the prior year, to 27 percent. Trust in other forms of media also fell by large margins.
[Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens]
Yet in 2008 I reported that the Edelman survey showed: Mainstream Media Trust Soars
"American's trust in mainstream media jumps an astonishing 36 per cent to 45 per cent from 33 percent in the prior year. "
It looks like 'trust' is a very volatile commodity. It's not a slow build. It can be quickly reestablished.
- How will this affect businesses and their competitive strategies?
- Is it worth taking risks with 'trust' because any wrong turns can be relatively quickly repaired?
This could lead to anti-social business practices, as companies pursue questionable strategies for short-term profits because new 'trust' can be quickly built back up.
It would be good to see future Edelman Trust Barometers cast some light on the reasons why trust is such a surprisingly volatile quality.
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch | PRWatch
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Here's How To Manage Your Online Reputation
By Guest Writer - February 3, 2010
Cartoon by Guhmshoo.
[This is part of a guest post I received from Michael Fertik, CEO & Founder, ReputationDefender, which offers tools to help manage online personal information.]
By Michael Fertik
Soon, companies (and governments and people) will start to use evidence computationally aggregated from social media sites to make decisions about you that affect your lives.
Today, they can use information gathered directly from Google, Facebook, and other sources to make those decisions. If you talk about doing keg stands on your social networking page, you might not get hired. Fair enough.
But that's the version 0.5 application of what I'm talking about. Shortly, we'll see version 1.0.
The data stored inside social networking sites will be collected and used to determine if you are eligible for health insurance coverage, for educational opportunities, or for discounts on coveted consumer desiderata.
I'm on the record saying that soon insurance companies will be able to make decisions as to whether or not to offer you coverage based on your Web activity.
Recently, the world saw the beginning of this; a woman was denied medical benefits based on photos that appeared on her Facebook page.
Again, this is version 0.5 of what is to come. Version 1.0 of Internet data exploitation will be more comprehensive.
Here's one hypothetical scenario.:
If your emails contain references to breast cancer fundraising, if you're of a certain age or if you have participated in an online discussion forum about breast cancer, there are digital footprints connecting you to a terrible affliction that can be cross-referenced to actuarial tables that put you at higher risk of suffering from breast cancer one day.
So now, your name gets on a list that is distributed to insurance companies that then charge you higher premiums for medical insurance coverage.
Frightening, yes, but it follows the simple logic of commerce in the free market. A company looking to mitigate risk and maximize profit will start to use the data sets that are available to them to make the best decisions they can for their own purposes.
Yup, the machine is getting smarter, and as a society, we want to get all the myriad social scientific benefits we can from aggregated data streams about human behavior.
But, unwelcome consequences often come with it.
Putting together the bits and bobs from all we've accumulated on social networks into one, aggregated narrative can paint a detailed picture for third parties, whatever their intent.
So what can you do to prepare the future? What can you do to maximize your control over your digital footprint? Here are some clear steps to get you started:
1. Take the time to remember ALL the social networks for which you've signed up. They are all part of your digital footprint.
2. Try to recall (or recover) the passwords you had for each of the profiles you created. Either update them or erase the information you no longer want to share, but don't let them remain obsolete.
3. Grab your name on all the social networks that open up. Claiming your personal username real estate on social networks prevents people from impersonating you later and allows you to create the digital footprint you want -- with the maximum Google power that comes from having your real name in the headline or URL -- if you ever decide to use them. You don't need to use all of the social networks, but it makes sense to grab your name on them for the future, just in case.
4. Be careful what you post. Be careful about how much you post about your travel and purchase habits. Recently, a group of teenagers were arrested in LA for robbing the homes of celebrities whose day-to-day goings and comings were visible on various Websites. The kids allegedly waited until the celebrities were meant to be out of the house and then they broke in.
There's no reason this can't happen to everyday people who are tweeting about their two-week vacations or posting live photos from the beaches of Acapulco. The moral here is that managing your digital reputation is part and parcel of managing your personal digital footprint, your personal digital security.
Ultimately, social networking sites can serve as huge boons to your online identity and reputation, but they must be carefully managed, controlled, and protected.
Posted to Guest Posts
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Does More Media Lead To Less Total Media Trust?
By Tom Foremski - February 2, 2010
In my recent post about the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, social media fared badly. But ALL media fared nearly as badly.
Why is that?
- Is it because we now have more media now than ever before, both social and traditional sources of media?
- Is it because more of any thing, devalues that thing? We have more media in more forms, at more times, than at anytime in our history. Is trust in media being lost because trust has become more diluted?
- Traditional media still leads as a source for social media. But traditional media is under pressure, with fewer resources. That means more mistakes, less time to check sources, resulting in a lower quality product. That can't be good for building trust in media.
- Is social media losing trust because of all the social media marketeers that seem to be the loudest voices in many streams?
That would make it seem as if social media can be manipulated, or used to an advantage by businesses. Which is exactly what the social media mavens are saying. A key finding of the Edelman Trust Barometer is that trust in businesses is fragile.
Therefore, is it business involvement in social media that is affecting people's trust in social and traditional media?
- Trust seems to be a volatile commodity. Our common belief is that trust takes time to build yet can be destroyed in minutes. So does that mean rebuilding trust across all media will now be a long hard slog?
The Edelman survey has raised some interesting questions.
Here's a recap of findings from the Edelman Trust Barometer:
- Trust in information from friends and peers, "people like me," dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent.
- Trust in information from digital media--blogs, social networks, and free content sources like Wikipedia or Google news, remains low: only between 11 percent and 22 percent of respondents express trust in information about companies from these sources.
- Trust in credibility of TV news declined by 20 points, from 44 to 24 percent.
- Trust in news coverage on the radio dropped by 17 points, from 48 to 31 percent.
- Trust in newspapers fell by 14 points, from 46 to 32 percent.
- Only 38 percent trust media (as an institution) to do what is right, down from 46 percent in 2008.
- - -
Please see:
2010 Prediction: The Media Tsunami Is Coming...
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
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Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
By Tom Foremski - February 2, 2010
The annual Edelman Trust Barometer always yields some interesting results. The tenth survey consisted of 4,875 interviews (25 years to 64 years):
The finding that jumped out at me was this one (buried in the report):
- Trust in information from friends and peers, "people like me," dropped by 20 points, from 47 to 27 percent.
- Trust in information from digital media--blogs, social networks, and free content sources like Wikipedia or Google news, remains low: only between 11 percent and 22 percent of respondents express trust in information about companies from these sources.
Wow.
This is bad news for PR agencies. Social media has been the 'point of the spear' for so many firms. This is what has been bringing in new business.
This is bad news for all the 'social media experts' out there trying to convince companies to buy their services because of the potential brand damage from not responding to 'conversations' in social media.
What's the point in jumping to engage if people don't trust their peers anyway?
This is bad news for 'citizen' journalism. People don't trust news written by their peers. So much for traditional media outlets trying to pad out their coverage with local bloggers. This potentially lowers trust in the media brand.
This is bad news for many startups that offer real-time monitoring of the 'social' web. There is less need for their services.
It's not just social media...
Other types of media have also fallen in the Edelman Trust Barometer, but not all to the same extent as trust in peers.
- Trust in credibility of TV news declined by 20 points, from 44 to 24 percent.
- Trust in news coverage on the radio dropped by 17 points, from 48 to 31 percent.
- Trust in newspapers fell by 14 points, from 46 to 32 percent.
- Only 38 percent trust media (as an institution) to do what is right, down from 46 percent in 2008.
- Media companies (as an industry) have declined in credibility by 16 points (from 48 to 32 percent).
- In the U.S., media companies are tied with the insurance industry for last place. Banks are second from the bottom.
- Top trusted industry is technology and it has widened its lead over other industries.
- Tied for the second most trusted industry is Biotech and Automotive at 63 percent, followed by Energy, Retail and Food at 61 percent.
Here is Richard Edelman, head of the largest independent PR agency presenting some of the findings at an employee event:
Please see:
Does More Media Lead To Less Total Media Trust?
2010 Prediction: The Media Tsunami Is Coming...
Posted to A Top Story | MediaWatch
February 2, 2010 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW
Craigslist Et Al Take $13.6 Billion Out Of Classified Ads Sector
By Tom Foremski - February 2, 2010
Rick Edmonds, over on Poynter Online, notes that the classified ads sector dropped to $6 billion in 2009. This compares with $10 billion in 2008, and $19.6 billion in 2000.
Much of that drop can be attributed to Craigslist, which doesn't charge any money for most of its classified ads listings. With about 30 staff, Craigslist has managed to usurp a huge amount of newspaper ad revenues.
You can't compete against an organization that charges nothing. And Craigslist charge nothing for most of its classified ads because it can. It doesn't want to make money on its ads.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is very rich, but these are 'accidental' riches, it is an embarrassing position for him. Same for Jim Buckmaster, the CEO. Jim spent ten years at a commune in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
From Answers.com:
"We try to maximize social capital rather than financial capital," explained Jim Buckmaster in a 2006 Daily Telegraph article of the philosophy that held sway at craigslist from the start. "We get a lot of personal satisfaction from all the thank-you notes we get from people. We have it pretty darn good. We just don't see any reason to try and put a bunch of zeros at the end of bank balances that are perfectly adequate."
"We're not so much anti-capitalist," said Buckmaster, who lived in a rented house and had never owned a car. "We're fortunate enough to have built a very healthy business, even though we haven't attempted to." Newmark, who owned a modest home in San Francisco and drove a Toyota Prius, explained it thus in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001. "I have no objections to being rich, and I'm sure not anti-commercial, but we made a conscious decision about what craigslist was all about. And it's not about making money."
How can newspaper's compete when their competitor doesn't want to make money?
Craigslist execs often say that the newspapers are profit hungry corporations.
But, classified ads revenues put a lot of dinners on a lot of tables in a lot of communities. People employed in taking classified ads were regular working people.
And the ad money supported tens of thousands of hard working journalists, earning fairly low salaries. The ad money subsidized news gathering operations that are essential to local communities.
That represents a hell of a lot of 'social capital.'
It remains to be seen if "citizen" journalism can fill an expanding hole in quality news coverage.
I'm not criticizing Craigslist specifically, because if it wasn't them, it would be someone else exploiting this opportunity. But it shows how the Internet enables a team of just 30 people to replace the work of ten of thousands, more likely hundreds of thousands of people.
If you extrapolate from Craigslist, to many other industries that are being disrupted by Internet economics, you have to question how will people earn a living?
In the past, we have managed to create new kinds of jobs. And to some extent, new jobs are being created, such as in search engine optimization, or social media experts. But these are hardly mainstream jobs.
It seems to me that all this progress in creating ever more efficient industries will require a restructuring of society. And that's never a pleasant prospect.
- - -
Please see: A Saturday Post: The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches, Anything That Can Be Digitized - SVW
Posted to Disruptive
February 2, 2010 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW
Comments
Cindy on Did The British Invent The Internet?
Tom, this has come from a brilliant BBC series The Virtual Revolution, on how the internet is changing global politics and the world.
I've just been writing about how us Brits are good at invention but poor at commercialisation compared to the US http://bit.ly/acw6NI.
My favourite quote from a former Design Council chair is “If Bill Gates had
Tom Foremski on Did The British Invent The Internet?
Thanks Chris. Let's just say 'we all' invented it, including Mr Gore :)
Chris Tolles on Did The British Invent The Internet?
Tom:
British work on Packet Switching was done independently of American effort, led by Paul Baran at RAND (and predates it.
You Brits get the web and even the computer. The telephone, telephone netowrk, and the Internet are US Intellectual Property and Inventions.
Tom Foremski on How The Real-Time Web Turns 'Conversational' Media Into Noise
Yes, I agree, the tools will reveal patterns. But that comes after, that's the analysis that comes after the fact. There is way too much importance being given to 'real-time' in the wrong places. Real-time technologies are important but in other ways than many people seem to be thinking about them today.
Fliptrx on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
As a native American it is my firm belief that rocks do in fact go to Heaven.
Catholics and Presbyterians however do not !
Karl Long on How The Real-Time Web Turns 'Conversational' Media Into Noise
"rather treating them as synaptic firings and looking for patterns"
you guys are very poetic. Totally agree, there are patterns in the noise, that's where the gold is. As they say "where there's muck there's brass"
Chris Saad on How The Real-Time Web Turns 'Conversational' Media Into Noise
"...with music.... With music you can have individuals all talking at the same time. And it's not noise. lt's a perfect harmony!""
Wow, I LOVE this line.
I agree with your premise Tom, but I disagree with your conclusion.
The value of real-time is not the individual responses necessarily, at least not on aggregate, but rather treating them as synaptic firings and lookin
Karl Long on How The Real-Time Web Turns 'Conversational' Media Into Noise
Great post Tom and I totally agree. Real Time is noise when it comes to news because the closer it gets to 'real time' the less context, reflection, and thinking is involved, so not only is it noise, it's uninformed noise.
I was having a conversation about this with @chrissaad and @jowyang a few months ago. The result of this conversation was that the interesting thing about parsing re
Bev on The Size of Derivatives Bubble = $190K Per Person on Planet
Are derivatives being created to short countries, states?
.......
http://jsmineset.com/
The Bi-Polar Moving Bretton Woods Meetings
Posted: Feb 07 2010 By: Jim Sinclair
Dear CIGAs,
1. Bretton Woods was folded.
2. The floating exchange rate system is about to be folded.
3. By default or desig
dan tynan on Unpaid Techcrunch Reporter Sacked For Bribe Attempt
it's far worse than you think.
http://www.esarcasm.com/11346/exclusive-inside-the-techcrunch-child-labor-scandal/
tsk, tsk.
dt
Valerie Landau on Tribute To Silicon Valley's Top Pioneer - Doug Engelbart - 85th Birthday
We just authored a book "The Engelbart Hypothesis: dialogs with Douglas Engelbart"
http://engelbartbook.com/
and had an 85th birthday bash at The Tech.http://valerielandau.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/doug-engelbart-85th-birthday-is-january-30/
Mike Cane on The Mysterious Apple A4 Chip - Where's MSFT's and GOOG's Chip?
I don't think there'd be DRM in this first edition of the chip, but I could be wrong. However, your thinking is another puzzle piece that makes this ultimately possible:
Why The iTunes/App Store Model Will Ultimately Fail
http://snurl.com/u8vtb
Tom Foremski on Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
I ran into Shel Holtz and he said he once asked Richard Edelman what exactly was being measured, and he said it was 'confidence that organizations will do the right thing,' which I guess is a type of 'trust sentiment' rather than trust itself.
Joe R. on Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
So if trust in all sources of information declines, doesn't that beg the question: what, if anything, DO people trust? There has to be something, right? Do they only trust what they see with their own eyes now?
Marshall Clark on Study: Grim News For Print, Radio, TV As Marketers Shift Budgets To Social Media And Other Channels
As they say in advertising, no one ever got fired for buying a prime-time TV spot.
Given how hostile the current business environment is to CMOs, it's not surprising that they've been conservative in their digital media allocations to date. That said, it's clear the popular opinion in the marketing world has shifted towards digital for all the reasons you mentioned, Tom. Now that i
Tom Foremski on Craigslist Et Al Take $13.6 Billion Out Of Classified Ads Sector
Craigslist enables a lot of value to be created and so do other types of Internet enabled services. A lot of the value is 'off the books' in that it isn't easily measurable in terms of dollars...
pcurve on Craigslist Et Al Take $13.6 Billion Out Of Classified Ads Sector
One man's pain is another man's gain. $13.6 billion is a lot of freed up money that people spent on other things. If people spent that $13.6 billion on goods made overseas, then Craigslist has done a lot of damage to this country. But if they spent it on other local services and goods, no harm done really.
But since Craigslist costs nothing, people are selling/buying/trading far more
Andy Swindler on Here's How To Manage Your Online Reputation
Great article. Very insightful. I completely agree that current reputation models are limited in their usefulness to what's publicly exposed and frightening to think about how the data could be used. All the big guns come to mind since they are all based on traditional (out-dated) social business models.
I've recently launched a website called http://GoH
Arik Abel on AdSafe Report: User Generated Content Can Harm Brands
The ability to protect a brand's messaging is one of the main deciding factors in brands choosing to test the waters of the user-generated movement. We offer a platform where moderated user-generated advertising is created and shared, and along with moderation of original content, curation is also important - which I've seen discussed a lot in the Twittersphere in the last 3 months as well. <
Tom Foremski on Back to the Past: Apple becomes more closed with each new device
Steve, yes, IBM accidentally created an open standard and then tried later to bolt the barn door. Microsoft and Intel made sure that their 'open' standard would suceed through cross-licensing technologies and selling software and hardware to anyone. Apple is doing the right thing by constructing a more closed platform because it can lock-in premium pricing for its products, and gain a performan
Seb on Back to the Past: Apple becomes more closed with each new device
"Maybe that will change with the iPad, which is a much more closed system than any of Apple products from the past ten years."
I don't quite understand why you're saying things like that. IPad is not more proprietary than iPhone - it's been already reported that you can run the iPad OS on the iPhone. And surely you'll be free to jailbreak your ipad just as you can do with the iphone.
Tom Foremski on Does More Media Lead To Less Total Media Trust?
Douglas, I think you hit it on the head, Edelman is not measuring 'trust' it is measuring a type of sentiment.
Steve on Back to the Past: Apple becomes more closed with each new device
Your revisionist history is somewhat amusing. Lets be clear, the IBM PC was only open because they were late to the game (microcomputer market) and needed a solution fast. They used off the shelf parts and even licensed their OS from someone else (because they had no choice). The only think proprietary was the 4k bios which of course was reverse engineered by Pheonix technologies. IBM later
Douglas Paul Ambort on Does More Media Lead To Less Total Media Trust?
Upon reading your post I am reminded of something said to me by a Wall Street CIO: "Trust does not scale!"
Trust is a circumstance of one-to-one relationships.
And if online relationships are virtual, then so too is online "trust" virtual - that is, "almost" trust, but "not completely according to strict definition."
I would assert, then, that online "trust" is not fragile
Tom Foremski on Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
Thanks Scott, I'm using the top line numbers that Edelman representatives provided.
Scott Monty on Wow! Edelman Survey Finds Trust In Peers Plunges!!! Bad News For Social Media Mavens
Tom, maybe I missed that part of the report. The statistic I see has trust in "people like me" going from 47% in 2009 to 44% in 2010, as shown in Fig. 8 on page 5 of the report.
If there's another figure elsewhere that shows a drop of 20 points for this category, I'd like to be sure I see it.
Kelsey on Here's How To Manage Your Online Reputation
Very insightful, and scary. It is amazing to me how many people post personal information on their social media sites including when they are going to be away from their home, when they are coming back, and now with smart phones people are updating where there exact location is throughout the day. Seems like a home invaders dream come true.
It will be interesting to see how insurance
Tom Foremski on Craigslist Et Al Take $13.6 Billion Out Of Classified Ads Sector
Vlad: I agree with you. Change happens and is happening. Stopping change would be ridiculous. I'm pointing out that we will have to come up with some answers to some hard questions. It's better to be prepared than to be surprised.
Kristie Wells on Social Media Week Notes..."Real-Time Data Is Like A Fish Finder"
Tom, thanks for joining us at Social Media Camp. I also loved this talk from Brian, Jeremy and Jolie. Common sense rules, but not many folks follow. We have video from each session and will get that up this week as I think there was a little something for everyone to peruse.
Vlad on Craigslist Et Al Take $13.6 Billion Out Of Classified Ads Sector
YES! Sure, jobs - that's all what REALLY matters.
We shouldn't kill the illegal drugs industry - it creates so many jobs: starting from regular poor Afgans, going to taliban, drug dealers, cops chasing drug dealers, doctors trying to cure drug addicts and funeral firms helping to burry those drug addicts too.
Most of them are really good, regular people. They will all lose the