WTF - IBM patent LOL

OMG! As circulated on the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list, IBM have patented a method that allows expressions such as LOL found in IM and SMS to be turned into their longhand brethren. To restate the abstract:

"Electronic messaging systems, a machine-accessible medium, and methods for text-based electronic communication. In one embodiment, a plurality of databases are provided. The databases each define shorthand terms with one or more longhand terms. A shorthand term is targeted within a text message, and the databases are searched for corresponding longhand terms. The longhand terms are selected for display according to factors such as user preferences, the identities of participants to the text communication, and the context of the text message. Abbreviations, shorthand, and other jargon sent by one user is thereby interpreted. For example, one of the longhand terms may be substituted in-line with the text message. Alternatively, all matches for the shorthand term found in the databases may be listed in descending order according to relevancy."

Patent details here

Contagious review

Contagious offer their review here of the most influential technologies and trends of 2009.

Queasy feelings over CView

As the New Scientist reports here, Virgin begin their monitoring of 40% of their customer-base so as to establish the amount of traffic made up of copied music, movies, e-books, games and software. This is caused significant concern amongst privacy organisations such as NoDPI.

Provided by Detica, a surveillance and deep-packet inspection company, the system is being used to try and gauge the size of the alleged piracy problem. CView, as the system is known, will take a snapshot of the scale of peer-to-peer music transfers over a few months.

Google and Bing reveal year's top searches

The Telegraph report on the most searched-for terms of 2009 including Michael Jackson, swine flu, Twitter and Facebook. See here.

Twitter moves closer to monetization

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, says next year is when Twitter will start making money, and “non-traditional” advertising is how. Report from Wired here.

Ikea harnesses Web 2.0

Forwarded by a colleague from work [thanks Kate!] is this innovative little campaign by Ikea. Very cool and fun and truly highlights the use of social media for a well defined target audience.

Microsoft allows advertising on PC desktops

The Telegraph reports here that Microsoft has opened up its Windows 7 operating system to advertising, allowing brands to advertise on PC desktops. There appears to be something of a trend occurring here given Apple's patenting of an OS-based advertising system (described below).

How to read a barcode

Silly, fun, and for folk who have more time on their hands than me, Wired offer here a lesson on how to read barcodes.

Public Services 2.0: The Impact of Social Computing on Public Services

A report from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre here describes the impact of social media and Web 2.0 (or social computing) on the European people, industry and policy .

T-Mobile staff sold personal data

A report from the BBC here clarifies that staff of T-Mobile have passed on millions of records from thousands of customers. Data was sold on to other phone firms, who then cold-called the customers, as their contracts were due to expire.

EU privacy reform

Changes to EU privacy directives via the proposed telecoms reform will require publishers to gain users' consent before placing cookies on their machines for online advertising practices such as behavioral targeting, retargeting, and audience segmentation. This means that information may only be used a user’s explicit consent. The amendment that is part of the proposed EU telecoms reform states national governments should:

‘ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information’

This raises difficulties for the online advertising industry, where many businesses rely on the placing of cookies on users' machines as a means of generated tailored advertising. Companies that use cookies for behavioral advertising targeting such as Google, AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many advertising networks, would be forced to gain users' consent before collecting any data on user interactions. Cookies without direct user consent would only be allowed when they are "strictly necessary" to provide a service "explicitly requested" by the user, for example storing shopping cart information on e-commerce sites. Also see article from ClickZ here.

WPP CEO Offers Outlook on Advertising's Future

ClickZ report here on WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell who identified three areas where the company is placing its bets for growth in coming years: a geographic shift in power, the rise in new media, and an increased focus on marketing information and insights.

"There's a shift in power, which I still don't think we fully understand here standing in New York, from the West to the East -- and modify that to the South," said Sorrell, keynote speaker at ad:tech New York, referring to China and India in the East and Latin America in the South. "Every single client we deal with is focusing on these parts of the world for growth."

U.K. Falls Behind on Online Privacy

Advertising Age report here on the UK government's potential international embarrassment over its failure to safeguard British citizens' privacy from behavioural targeting on the internet. In unusually strident language Ad Age highlight the Phorm controversy and the illegal tests they carried out in 2006 and 2007. The U.K. authorities now have two months to satisfy the European Union that they have taken appropriate action and brought data-protection procedures in line with EU rules, which guarantee the confidentiality of electronic communication.

NoDPI vs. IAB opt-out guidelines

NoDPI comment here on the stand-off of perspectives on behavioural advertising. Whilst the IAB in the UK (and a variety of trade associations in the US) seek opt-out as default, legislators in Europe favour an opt-in approach. As Alexander Hanff questions: will the IAB withdraw their existing guidelines as they are not compliant with EU and UK law?

Should brands use Twitter?

Interesting article from the Guardian here on the do's and don'ts of social media. George Nimeh, managing director of marketing firm Iris Digital, said: "Twitter is challenging for brands, because it is made for talks and chats, and their public relation language is very different. If they want to use Twitter, they have to learn to act different and sound human.

"There are some, who just use a popular hashtag and fire their message, and brands have to learn that this doesn't work. So the do is, be nice and talk to people like they are human beings. The don't, don't be an asshole."

Apple Files Patent for OS Advertising

AdLab have picked up on Apple's filed patent to build in unavoidable advertising into OS systems. The patent in full can be found here. The abstract to the patent documentation states that by employing advertising, 'the presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made as part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as the operating system, for free or at a reduced cost'. Given that unlike Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and other players who have all employed advertising for some time, could this be Apple's answer to obtaining extra funding for cloud computing ambitions?

Creative ad agencies must adapt or die in digital age

An interesting article from the Guardian highlights a warning from the president of the Omnicom Media Group who posits that creative advertising agencies are failing to adapt to the new digital landscape and are losing out to media buying agencies in a "Darwinian" ad world. More here.

UK Office of Fair Trading to probe use of personal data by online retailers

The Guardian report here that websites using behavioural data to set customised pricing are to be scrutinised by Britain's competition watchdog as part of a probe into misleading advertising and pricing.

1Mb Broadband Access Becomes Legal Right In Finland

Cnet report here that Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday.

Google's vision for future of search

The UK's Telegraph have an interview with Alfred Spector, vice president of research and special initiatives at Google who said that the company remains dedicated to “fast innovation” around a variety of new technologies, including automatic language translation and voice-activated web search. Article here.

Web Display Ads Attract Fewer Clicks

The New York Times report here on a recent study, by the research firm comScore, that found that the proportion of American Internet users clicking on display ads at least once a month fell to 16 percent from 32 percent over the 20-month period ending in March. And on top of that, just half of those clickers accounted for the overwhelming majority of all clicks on display ads.

The Privacy Debate – An obstruction to innovative technologies or the vanguard of individuality?

This should be extremely useful to my students of Future and Innovations. Alexander Hanff of the pressure group NoDPI delineates some of the arguments surrounding privacy and the role of data in the "information society". He argues that the privacy debate has become a significant cross roads to the future of communications and commerce. See here.

Mixed reports on advertising spend

For the eighth consecutive quarter, Bellwether's survey of the advertising sector has found more UK companies reporting marketing budget reductions than increases. However, the latest survey found the smallest percentage of companies cutting spending in a year.

The Guardian further reports (here) that: "Although marketing spend is still falling, this latest Bellwether report is an encouraging sign that budget cutting is slowing," said Rory Sutherland, the president of the IPA. "While companies are still understandably wary, the report reveals a strong rise in business confidence and the suggestion that GDP may well have risen in the third quarter."

UK is first economy to spend more on online than TV advertising

The Guardian report here that the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year. The Guardian go onto describe that the IAB's figures show that of the total of £1.75bn spent on internet advertising, £1.05bn, or 60%, was spent on search advertising on websites including Google, up 6.8% year on year. Online classified advertising grew by 10.6% year on year to £385m, about 22% of total internet ad spend. But online display advertising, such as banners on websites, fell by 5.2% year on year, to £316.5m. This was an 18% share of all internet ad spend. The ray of light within the online display ad sector was the nascent, but rapidly growing, online video advertising sector. The IAB estimated that this sector grew by close to 300% year on year, to almost £12m.

In some ways I feel a certain amount of vindication. When I started my PhD that addressed interactivity, creativity and opt-in/opt-out debates six years ago, online advertising was still very much in its infancy. Although it had been around since the early 90s, the prevailing attitude (amongst advertising and media academics as well as lay folk) was that it was all about pop-ups and banners. Truly the industry has developed. However, although it has grown up, in many ways it is in its teenage years and there are significant life choices to made that will determine its outcome, particularly in relation to behavioural advertising and the potential monetising of users' communication streams through ISP gateways. Interesting times ahead, for sure.

Facebook and Nielsen to measure impact of ads

New Media Age report here that Facebook has partnered with Nielsen Online to help marketers measure the impact of advertising on the social network.

The Nielsen Brandlift service will use opt-in polls on the Facebook home page to measure consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intent. The service aims to give marketers more information on the effectiveness of display advertising on social networks, which isn’t as easy to measure as other online ad mediums such as search.

The difficulty of measuring the effectiveness of advertising on social networks is holding marketers back from spending with them. The IAB is to release a white paper defining social media ad metrics to encourage greater understanding (nma 4 June 2009).

ComScore, Omniture to Swap Audience Data

comScore and Omniture have entered into a data-sharing partnership with both companies hoping to assuage concerns about the validity of audience data among publishers and advertisers. More here.

Doubleclick recieve Google treatment

Reuters reports here on the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange introduced on Friday that represents the first major overhaul of the system since Google acquired DoubleClick for more than $3 billion in March 2008. It is a key plank in Google's plan to supplement its market-leading business of serving text-based ads alongside Web search results with the more visual, graphical ads that appear on websites - a market dominated by online rivals Yahoo and Time Warner Inc's (TWX.N) AOL.

F.C.C. Seeks to Protect Free Flow of Internet Data

The New York Times reports here that in a move to make good on one of President Obama’s campaign promises, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose Monday that the agency expand and formalize rules meant to keep Internet providers from discriminating against certain content flowing over their networks, according to several officials briefed on his plans.

TV product placement 'approved'

The BBC report here that ministers are set to allow "product placement", where firms pay to have their brands prominently showcased in popular programmes, for the first time on British television (with the exclusion of the BBC). Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce a three-month consultation on the changes in a speech to the Royal Television Society next week.

This is expected to bring in £100m of extra funding for commercial broadcasters. It has not only implications for placement, but also the creation of programming and editorial control. It also allows recoup of losses from the transformation of advertising based on an interrupt model to one that fits with contemporary audience media habits.

UK alcohol advertising ban

This week the British Medical Association (BMA) have proposed a blanket ban on alcohol advertising (see here). The Guardian offers a breakdown of the impact on the ailing TV, newspaper and magazine sectors, that would result in more than £180m-a-year in ad revenue disappearing from company balance sheets. Article here.

Young people today write far more than any generation before them

Wired offer an illuminating article here reporting on an investigation that scrutinizes US college students' prose. Andrea Lunsford professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, the leader of the project, comments, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it — and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

Profits halved at advertising firm WPP

The Guardian reports here that profits at WPP, the world's largest advertising company, almost halved in the first six months of the year as the global recession forced companies to slash spending and the owner of agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy & Mather had to meet the cost of cutting more than 7,000 employees to cope with the drop in business. Martin Sorrell suggests that the economy will not recover to anything like its former heights – "As to whether life will ever be the same again: I think it will be the same but different," Sorrell admitted. "It will be more dominated by new markets and more digital."

Amnesty International Uses Eyeball-Aware Ad To Enhance Message

Interesting post from "The Future of Ads" describing Amnesty International’s bus stop ad as a great example of how interactivity and eyeball-aware ads can be used to engage viewers and add another level of meaning to the overall message. The ad is for a campaign that aims to bring awareness to the problem of domestic violence, and uses a small camera to detect faces. When no one is looking, the screen shows a man abusing his wife. When the camera detects a face, the ad waits a few seconds for the message to sink in, and then the couple stops fighting and does their best to look normal. Ad and article here.

The Gap Steps Up to Social Media in New Denim Campaign

The Gap, once admired for its TV commercials as much as its clothes, is banking on a new line of denim wear to help revive its sagging brand. But, as ClickZ describe here, don't expect to hear about it on television.

Consumerism is 'eating the future'

According to this article from the New Scientist, not only are we simply doing what all creatures do: we're doing it better. In recent times we're doing it even faster because of changes in society that encourage and celebrate conspicuous and excessive consumption.

"Biologists have shown that it's a natural tendency of living creatures to fill up all available habitat and use up all available resources," says William Rees of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "That's what underlies Darwinian evolution, and species that do it best are the ones that survive, but we do it better than any other species [...]." This in part is attributed to advertising and the stimulation of a [Galbraithian] consumer society, post WW2.

Murdoch aims to tear up the online rule book

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, which owns television stations and newspapers around the world including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World, is trying to tear up the everything-for-free rule book. This week Mr Murdoch said users of all of News Corp's online newspaper and television news websites can expect to pay for access by the end of June next year. Article in full from The Telegraph here.

Microsoft and Yahoo confirm 10-year search advertising deal

As reported widely having picked this up on the radio whilst putting the final touches to dinner, Microsoft and Yahoo have confirmed a 10-year global search advertising deal forecast to generate income of $500m (£305m) a year. Microsoft will handle the search technology, while Yahoo will provide the search-advertising sales force. Though such a proposition has been mooted for some time, getting the two parties to agree at the debating table has proved more difficult. The Guardian has a good account here and The Economist another here.

Disney Lab Watches Web Surfers to See Which Ads Work

The NYT has an interesting article on Disney and their research into the effects of online advertising. They have set up a test facility in Austin, Texas, that measures and assesses users reactions to online advertising through quantitative and empirical means. With more than sufficient funds, they aim to find the holy grail of advertising usage and what formats work and which do not, and in what kinds of contexts do they meet with greater or lesser success. Tools and techniques employed include tracking eye movement, heart-rate monitors, skin temperature readings and facial expressions (probes are attached to facial muscles) to reach conclusions. More here.

There's life in virtual reality after all

The Economist has an article here observing that virtual worlds are proving more popular than once thought. Although describing Second Life as a passing fad, they highlight that in America, nearly 10m children and teenagers visit virtual worlds regularly, as estimated by eMarketer, a market researcher. This figure is expected to climb to 15m by 2013. As of January, there were 112 virtual worlds designed for under-18s with another 81 in development, according to Engage Digital Media, a market research firm.

Newspapers: transition to a public service model?

An article for The Guardian observes that many media companies are trapped in old ways of thinking. They see news as merely a commodity. They refuse to acknowledge that the news business is no longer as profitable as it once was, nor will it likely ever be so again. But many papers can remain sustainable if they are managed properly and driven less by profit imperatives than a commitment to public service. Article here.

Google Moon

You might not be able to walk on the moon, but you can fly around it with Google Moon.

The Power of the Brand as Verb

Steve Ballmer told The New York Times that Bing “works globally” and has the potential “to verb up.” That is, some day, Mr. Ballmer hopes, people will “bing” a new restaurant to find its address or “bing” a new job applicant for telling events in his past. The article here accounts for the postives and negatives of "verbing-up". Let's just hope it doesn't do a Monica.

Mobile to save newspapers?

Wired reports that there's a crucial distinction that might yet save news organizations. Users are pretty clearly uninterested in paying for content on the open internet, but what they are, in practice, willing to pay for is mobile content. IPhone apps are already a billion-dollar business. Juniper Research recently reported that mobile music revenues (for downloads, ringtones, ringback tones and the like) were over $11 billion in 2008. And the success of Amazon's Kindle — on which newspaper subscriptions cost anywhere from $6 to $14 a month — points toward a potential lifeline for news organizations. Full article here.

Sat-nav eroding local knowledge

Sat-nav feels like state-of-the-art technology, but it's a century since the first auto-navigation device was invented and, says BBC's Joe Moran, there are fears such systems are starting to erode local knowledge. This has interesting implications for space and our understanding of augmented reality, and the layering of virtual data over real places, particularly if systems could start to fail from next year as the US Air Force's satellites deteriorate. More here.

Industry fails to allay consumer fears over behavioural targeting

New Media Age has an interesting article in light of the recent climbdown by BT and Talk Talk. The records that consumers’ perception of targeting has remained negative, with more than half (52%) believing it’s irrelevant. The research showed 72% of people favoured opting out of receiving targeted online advertising. Article here.

TalkTalk unwilling to go it alone (Phorm)

The Times reports that after BT’s move, Charles Dunstone, head of Carphone Warehouse, said: “We were only going to do it if BT did it and if the whole industry was doing it. We were not interested enough to do it on our own.” More here. The Guardian report here that Virgin Media, meanwhile, has decided to review its opportunities in online advertising but is also not expected to implement Phorm's technology in the near future, having gone cool on the idea after intense criticism from campaigners.

Phorm & BT: Nail meet coffin?

The Guardian reports that BT has quietly ditched a controversial system that tracks the internet habits of its customers, developed by the technology firm Phorm, which has been attacked as online snooping by privacy campaigners. BT was a key player in the development of Phorm's Webwise system, which uses information about which sites an internet user visits to target them with relevant advertising on subsequent pages. Article here.

Neuromancer turns 25: What it got right, what it got wrong

Ultimately Neuromancer is a book about the increasing presence of technology in the life of human beings. This may well be the dominant story line of the 21st century. Macworld examines Gibson's prophecies and which have come true and which, perhaps thankfully, remain the remit of fiction.

Twitter followers 'can be bought'

Twitter users who lack an audience for their messages can now buy followers. Australian social media marketing company uSocial is offering a paid service that finds followers for users of the micro-blogging service. More from the BBC here.

Industry Groups Agree on Strict Guidelines for Behavioral Targeting

ClickZ report that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, in conjunction with several other organizations, has unveiled its long-awaited principles for behavioral advertising. The principles call for all entities collecting and using data for behavioral targeting, including Web sites, to disclose the practice in a "clear, prominent, and conveniently located" manner both on their own sites and at the time of data collection.

That second notification might come in the form of a "uniform" icon or text link in the behaviorally-targeted ad themselves. Clicking on the icon or link would take users to information describing details of the behavioral ad practices, and allowing them to choose how or if their data can be collected or employed. Most likely, users will be taken to an industry-wide site or third-party site providing educational information, and data usage options associated with all parties involved in enabling the ads in question. Article in full at here.

The question remains as to whether self-regulation will provide the level of protection consumers really require. As I argue in a forthcoming book titled "Behavioural Digital Advertising" (2010), a more robust and educational approach is needed to "being digital" and participation in digital culture. Leaving behavioural advertisers to educate us and children about protecting our dataselves is not enough.

Coke, Pepsi Make Nice on Twitter

Coke was first to say a "gracious (but competitive) hello" to Pepsi and follow its rival. Later Pepsi responded with its own greeting, tweeting "Can rivals and tweeps coexist? We're willing to find out. :)" Both are now following each other. More from Advertising Age here.

Journalism Rules Are Bent in News Coverage From Iran

“Check the source” may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers. More from the New York Times here.

Online advertising: Display has fallen short but to make money, something must be done

Optimists in Silicon Valley are talking about a "renaissance" in online display advertising. Among pessimists in the British newspaper world the words most often used are "pipe dream". More from The Guardian here.

Michael Jackson Tops the Charts on Twitter

The NYT reports that shortly after TMZ, a news entertainment site, published a report around 5 p.m. stating that Mr. Jackson had died after suffering a heart attack, thousands of messages expressing disbelief, grief and remembrances flooded the Twitter microblogging service, causing the site to load more slowly than usual and crash multiple times. Article here.

Iran Tries To Pacify Protesters With Lord of The Rings Marathon

A Slashdot reader reports here that Iranian state television's Channel Two is playing a Lord of the Rings marathon in an attempt to keep people inside watching hobbits and not protesting in the streets. Normally, people in Tehran are treated to one or two Hollywood movies a week, but with recent events the government hopes that sitting through a nine-hour trilogy will take the fight out of most of the protesters. Perhaps this was not the best choice in films if you want your people not to believe that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future." Original story from the Salon here.

Astroturfing: a technique to create the impression of grassroots support for a cause or product

Interesting report from The Guardian on Wednesday here who note the difficulty in trying to define the moral boundary between viral and stealth marketing, and between slick political organising and voter manipulation. An EU directive enacted in Britain last year made astroturfing illegal, and there have been similar moves in the US. But it is hard to police: lawmakers are swimming against a huge technological and commercial tide.

Situational advertising?

Behavioural advertising is not just a growth area, but perhaps rather an unavoidable principle of some advertising today and all advertising tomorrow. A new development in this field comes from a group at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, NH. As Technology Review report here, they have created software that uses the microphone on a cell phone to track and interpret a user's situation.

Digital Britain: IAB pleased with attitude to behavioural targeting

New Media Age report Nick Stringer, head of regulatory affairs at the IAB, said the report was positive and that, unlike the interim report, the full report recognises the 'value of behavioural targeting'. Moreover as noted yesterday, it emphasis the role of self-regulation which unsurprisingly has been well received by industry figures. More here.

Digital Britain

The report has now been released and is available in PDF here.

I have not had to time read and digest in full, but a quick word search highlights pg. 201 to be of particular interest to those of us interested in behavioural advertising and the emphasis on 'effective self regulation'. The report also identifies targeted advertising as an important revenue earner, 'though one that can provoke a very strong consumer reaction' (pg 220). It also states that 'involved in the provision of behavioural advertising (including ISPs, advertising networks, advertisers and online publishers) will need to bear the value of their brand in mind'. This is curiously expressed, although surely with Phorm in mind?

Undoubtedly more analysis on this will follow.

The internet is as vital as water and gas

Gordon Brown writing for The Times observes that: 'Just as the bridges, roads and railways built in the 19th century were the foundations of the Industrial Revolution that helped Britain to become the workshop of the world, so investment now in the information and communications industries can underpin our emergence from recession to recovery and cement the UK's position as a global economic powerhouse'. His article is in anticipation of the Digital Britain released tomorrow. Article here.

IAB Europe Tightens Focus on Privacy and Regulation

ClickZ report that the IAB Europe says it is now focusing its efforts, and the majority of its resources, on addressing the regulatory challenges currently facing the European online advertising industry.

At the Interact Congress hosted by the pan-regional trade body in Brussels last week, the issue of regulation, specifically with regards to online privacy and data collection, was a recurring theme. It reared its head in almost every panel session throughout the day.

In response to increased scrutiny from European lawmakers and subsequent concern from industry, the IAB Europe says it is now dedicating the majority of its resources to the area in attempt to stave off formal regulation. More here.

The Next Ad You Click May Be a Virus

On a Saturday night at the end of May, visitors to the forums section of Digital Spy, a British entertainment and media news Web site, were greeted with an ad that loaded malicious software onto their computers. The Web site's advertising system had been hacked. More here.

ASA and Google

Google made £1.6bn last year delivering ads linked to searches in the UK. But despite controlling 80% of the search-advertising market - which makes up 58% of all online advertising spend in the UK - the internet company is still not involved in the costs of policing those ads which appear on its site. More from The Guardian here.

Phorm raises £15m to expand targeted online advertising service

The Telegraph reports that Phorm, the controversial targeted online advertising company, has raised around £15m through a placing with large investors to expand. More here.

How Privacy Fails: The Facebook Applications Debacle

Light Blue Touchpaper from Cambridge University have been investigating a massive privacy breach on Facebook’s application platform which serves as a sobering case study. More detail here.

Internet Ad Spending Declined in Q1, Says IAB

ClickZ report here that companies spent about $5.5 billion on Internet advertising during the first three months of 2009, a 5 per cent decline from the same period in 2008.

The new hidden persuaders

With a nod and a wink to Vance Packard, Wired offer their view (ably assisted by Google Analytics, NetRatings CiteSensus and ShareThis) of contemporary data mining, they describe that, as 'marketers, retailers and governments map your desires in ever-greater detail, your purchasing decisions, your lifestyle choices, even your political preferences are influenced in ways you barely perceive. From the behavioural targeting that seeks to track your online life to the brain scans intended to trigger your purchasing decisions, the modern persuader’s toolkit claims scientific validity as never before'. Article in full here

About Digg's New Ad Format

Digg have created a new advertising format that makes ads "diggable" and puts them in the general news stream. More from Adlab here.

Just a few on Twitter do all the tweeting: study

No great surprise here, but a Harvard study shows that a tiny fraction of those who use the fast-growing social network phenomenon Twitter generate nearly all the content. This dents its credibility as a means of understanding public opinion. More from Reuters here.

Berners-Lee: We no longer fully understand the web

Berners Lee observers, 'The web is now a massive system of connected people and technology and we have to study it as one. It connects people as they make and follow hyperlinks to a degree that results in complex properties no one expected. It has something like 1011 web pages in it and there are a similar number of neurons in the brain. The brain is something very complicated we don't understand - yet we rely on it.' More from the New Scientist here.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent private companies profiling users' internet stream from within ISPs

A petition has been launched against behavioural advertising companies. The Number 10 Downing Street petition can be found here. Your call folk!

Ghostery

This is probably one of those tools and applications I'm last to find out about, but Ghostery is an add-on for the Firefox browser that notifies users about invisible web bugs, ad networks and widgets that contained on every web page. Very illuminating! Downloadable here.

Phorm Repositions as Content Customizer to Woo Consumers

ClickZ report that in an attempt to encourage users to opt in to its behavioral ad platform, U.K.-based Phorm has launched a consumer-facing content recommendation engine designed to provide users with personalized Web content. The company unveiled the product, dubbed Webwise Discover, at a press conference in London yesterday, although the firm hinted at the launch in April. More here.

The Future of Social Media: The Walls Come Crumbling Down

Wired write: The social web trend is more or less complete. Oprah's gone Twitter, your co-worker has a MySpace problem, and if your parents aren't bugging you with Facebook movie quiz invites, they probably will be by the time you're done reading this. People are flocking to these sites in record numbers, as Facebook now boasts over 200 million users worldwide, and Twitter has grown 3,000 percent since last year. But for the social web to evolve into its final stage and take flight, the walls that separate these services, their users and everything they create will have to come down. More here.

45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web

A user from Hack-a-day takes a 1964 300baud modem and surfs the web, loading up Wikipedia along the way. See below:

Back From Web 3.0 - With Some Problems to Solve

All the talk of "scraping data" and semantic technology at the recent Web 3.0 conference raises a key issue: how to marry advertisers' wishes with consumers' privacy concerns. More from Advertising Age here.

Internet takes No. 1 ad spend slot in Denmark

Jon Lund of the New Media Trends blog describes that the internet surpassed daily newspaper, TV and radio to become the leading advertising medium in Denmark in 2008. With revenues of euro €392.7m (£346m) the internet accounted for 21% of the total Danish advertising spend of €1.9bn (£1.7bn). By contrast, daily newspapers took 19% percent, with weekly local and regional newspapers at 18% and TV at 17%. More here.

Sky News launches ad-funded video app for iPhone

The momentum for advertising via mobile applications gathers steam as Sky News has signed Bacardi as the first brand to advertise on its ad-funded video news iPhone app. More form New Media Age here.

Augmented Reality Is The New Second Life

Adlab write here that people have been comparing Twitter to Second Life, but I think "augmented reality" is a more accurate analogy, with most advertisers getting lured by the futuristic wow-factor, riding the hype cycle, and pretty much misunderstanding the potential of the medium. The thing has officially entered the collective industry consciousness, too, now that Wall Street Journal picked it up.

Contagious also have a selection of links to advertisers using augmented reality here.

Secrets of Google

Googlenomics actually comes in two flavors: macro and micro. The macroeconomic side involves some of the company's seemingly altruistic behavior, which often baffles observers. Why does Google give away products like its browser, its apps, and the Android operating system for mobile phones? Anything that increases Internet use ultimately enriches Google, Varian says. And since using the Web without using Google is like dining at In-N-Out without ordering a hamburger, more eyeballs on the Web lead inexorably to more ad sales for Google.

The microeconomics of Google is more complicated. Selling ads doesn't generate only profits; it also generates torrents of data about users' tastes and habits, data that Google then sifts and processes in order to predict future consumer behavior, find ways to improve its products, and sell more ads. This is the heart and soul of Googlenomics. It's a system of constant self-analysis: a data-fueled feedback loop that defines not only Google's future but the future of anyone who does business online. More from Wired here.

The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online

Wired describe that Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism. Extended article here.

Emerging advertising media of the 1930s

Adlab raided the Modern Mechanix site to see what advertising media were budding in the 1930s. More here.

How mobile phones will enhance reality

The New Scientist has an instructive article examining Augmented Reality. They comments that the technology allows you to point a phone at an object and see an enhanced version of reality on the screen – whether a mountain labelled with its height, a person tagged with their name, or celestial objects properly labelled in the night sky. More here.

Advertising Age Viral Chart

With 785,160 views, Vodafone's "Make the Most of Now" makes its debut as the week's most watched. Available here.

Confidence in online ad innovation remains low

A poll conducted by New Media Age reveals that over 30% of the digital industry sampled believes innovation in online ad formats has ground to a halt. More here.

Google and Swine Flu: without data, "more likely we all are to die".

Forcing Google to delete user data after six months could dent its ability to predict pandemics such as swine flu, said the search giant's co-founder. More from the BBC here.

Behavioral targeting firm NebuAd rebrand or shut operations?

ClickZ report that behavioral targeting outfit NebuAd, which caused controversy with its ISP-level targeting technology, appears to have ceased operations. Article here.

Edit: I relayed this morning yesterday but this is not as clear as it might appear, and perhaps shows a weakness of blogs in only passing on reports without digging for facts. Last night No DPI reported that NebuAd opened an office in the UK last year and it seems they have now moved their operations here and rebranded as Insight Ready Ltd. More here.

Twitter sees tools, not ads, for revenue

Reuters report that Twitter is working on various ways to make money from its fast-growing microblogging service, but advertising is an option that is not currently being considered. More here.

BBC: 'The jury's out on Phorm'; targeted ads good in principle

Interesting article from the Guardian here accounting for the BBC's ambivalent position regarding Phorm, particularly given the BBC's public status.

Phone firm customers warned over data

Applications on your phone which show where you are, which road to take, or where the nearest petrol station is might be handy, but they could - in theory at least - send all your location information back to the mobile phone company. More from the BBC here and the Future of Identity in the Information Society (FIDIS) here.

NHS viral video on teen pregnancy banned by YouTube

Grainy, unbranded clip posted to YouTube by NHS Leicester appears to show teenager giving birth in schoolyard. More from the Guardian here.

Mobile Marketing: Is 'App-vertising' the Answer?

Enter "app-vertising," a new name for an emerging mix of branded mobile applications and in-application advertising that is finally poised to deliver on the promise of mobile marketing. More from Advertising Age here.

Wolfram Alpha: a search engine that computes answers instead of looking them up

The latest search engine, to be launched on May 18th, is Wolfram Alpha. It is named after its inventor, Stephen Wolfram, a British prodigy who earned his PhD in physics at the tender age of 20 and made a fortune from a calculation and graphing software package called Mathematica—and who raised eyebrows when he proposed, in a self-published tome in 2002, that the entire universe is but a giant calculator that has been running for billions of years. The Economist's take on Wolfram Alpha here.

Missile data found on hard drives

The BBC reports that sensitive information for shooting down intercontinental missiles as well as bank details and NHS records was found on old computers, researchers from the University of Glamorgan say. More here.

Wolfram Alpha and Google Face Off

Last week, as physicist Stephen Wolfram was demonstrating his new Web-based "computation engine"--Wolfram Alpha--to the public, Google announced a data-centric service of its own. Alpha accesses databases that are maintained by Wolfram Research, or licensed from others, and deploys formulas and algorithms to compute answers for searchers.

Using some prelaunch log-in credentials provided by the Wolfram team, David Talbot writing for Technology Review decided to run his own Wolfram Alpha versus Google test. He used a handful of search terms that could produce data-centric answers and tried variations in a few cases to see what might happen. Article here.

Maurice Levy: Print will struggle to recover after recession

Speaking at the FIPP World Magazine Congress in London, Tuesday May 5th, Levy said that newspapers' and magazines' share of the advertising market would continue to shrink in 2011, despite economists' forecasts that overall growth in media revenues could return by that time.

"The current crisis is not the cause of the problems of the media industry, it's just a brutal accelerator and identifier of long-term trends," he told the congress of international magazine executives. "Let's face it. The traditional model for analogue media [print] is broken."

Levy, whose company owns ad agency networks across the globe including Saatchi & Saatchi, said his businesses were increasingly faced with clients wanting "a couple of words on a search engine page", rather than an expensive TV campaign.

Almost half the money spent on digital advertising now went to search engines, he added. Article in full from the Guardian here.

Click here for more tax: Google to help the BBC, say ministers

Interesting article from the UK's Daily Mail that describes that Google could be be hit with an online advertising tax to boost the coffers of the BBC, under proposals being discussed by the Government.

Ministers are considering taxing search engines, download websites and broadband providers to fund public service TV and the roll-out of broadband. Article here.

Jacqui Smith's secret plan to carry on snooping

The UK Times reports that spy chiefs are pressing ahead with secret plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in Britain despite an announcement by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of a ministerial climbdown over public surveillance. The £1 billion snooping project — called Mastering the Internet (MTI) — will rely on thousands of “black box” probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure.

Last week, in what appeared to be a concession to privacy campaigners, Smith announced that she was ditching controversial plans for a single “big brother” database to store centrally all communications data in Britain. Article in full here.

Are adverts becoming more offensive?

The MediaGuardian asks, are ads becoming more offensive? Anyone who reads the Advertising Standards Authority's annual report, out last week, could easily conclude they are. 2008 was a bumper year, in which the ASA dealt with a mind-blowing 26,433 gripes, up 2,241 on 2007. What is going on? More here.

Immaterialism

The New York Times has an interesting article on consumption and digital artifacts, with distinct implications for virtual environments such as Second Life, Gaia, social networks and other means of exchange. The article describes that as 'more of us live more of our lives in digital contexts, it seems plausible that immaterialism will become more common. Consuming things made of bits might sound weird, but actually it offers a lot of the same attractions that make people consume things made of atoms.' More here

Web tool 'as important as Google'

The BBC describe here that a web tool that "could be as important as Google", according to some experts, has been shown off to the public.Wolfram Alpha is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram.

The free program aims to answer questions directly, rather than display web pages in response to a query like a search engine.

The "computational knowledge engine", as the technology is known, will be available to the public from the middle of May this year.

Eight things you didn't know about the internet

So what forces are shaping it, how big has it grown, and will it ever evolve a mind of its own? To find out, New Scientist posed eight simple questions here.

Phorm come out clubbing from the ropes

The Media Guardian report here on Phorm's new pages titled "Stop Phoul Play" (accessible here). It states that it is the 'website that hits back at the "privacy pirates'" smear campaign against Phorm'. As the Guardian notes, it adopts a bizarre and somewhat desperate tone of voice appearing highly unprofessional.

This blog is perhaps more sensitive to the concerns of marketers and advertisers than others, but this move is perplexing. In describing how "they" work (viewable here), Phorm describe 'unfortunate fellow bloggers who refuse to tow the party line – they are all swarmed by “letter-writers” and oddballs who intimidate and bully the poor unfortunate'. Whilst representatives of NoDPI are keen to engage with the blogosphere to put their point of view across, there has certainly been no intimidation here (see their responses to my post about the recent Town Hall meeting here). Perplexing!

Sky to launch green-button TV advertising

New Media Age report here that the service, which is accessed via the green button on the Sky remote, allows viewers to watch extra ad features such as extended edits, behind-the-scenes footage or exclusive content.

Governmentality and internet monitoring

The BBC reports here that communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics as the government backs away from the creation of a central database to record communications in the UK. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says the data is needed to combat terrorism and other crimes.

Critics have called the idea excessive and an infringement of civil liberties. Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force.

The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance. Reuters describe here that the Home Office research has estimated the proposal would cost up to 2 billion pounds to implement.

BBC Worldwide uses behavioural targeting across non-UK sites

New Media Age report that the BBC, one of the largest sites to embrace the technology, with 26m users outside the UK, is working with behavioural targeting specialist Audience Science to collect and analyse data on users visiting its sites to serve them more relevant advertising. More here.

Second Life: humanity close to passing the Hofstadter-Turing Test?

A version of the Turing Test now running in Second Life could one day prove that humanity is truly intelligent. More from Technology Review here.

Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

Second Life may have been one of the first virtual worlds of its kind, but six years on, the competition is fierce. Linden Lab, the firm behind Second Life, has been working with IBM to enable multiple online destinations to become connected.

"The virtual world space is about your presence, your identity, your avatar, and your interactions with others," said Mr Kingdon.

"So, if all of a sudden if you want to move to go to another virtual world, you want to be able to take your identity with you," he said. More from the BBC here.

Virgin Media steps away from Phorm as top sites opt out

Virgin Media is set to sign a deal with behavioural targeting specialist Audience Science in a move to distance itself from controversial company Phorm. More from New Media Age here.

Spotify: Mood-targeted ads coming soon

An interesting twist on contextual advertising from Spotify. Article from the Guardian here.

Tipping point? Wikipedia blocks Phorm

The Open Rights Group report that Wikipedia have added their weight behind the campaign against Phorm. More here.

Google reports stronger profits

Eric Schmidt (Google chief executive) said that Google was well positioned with regards to the advertising slowdown that has hit many companies hard.

"Advertisers are still spending, but they are lowering their bids," said Mr Schmidt.

"The shift to online advertising gives us a big advantage and outpaces any losses from [falling] economic activity," he added. More from the BBC here and the New York Times here.

Amazon exclude all their domains from Phorm’s WebWise

Amazon adds its name to mySociety, Netmums, and LiveJournal who have opted out of Phorm's Webwise system. More from NoDPI here and the BBC here.

EU Commission launches case against UK over privacy and personal data protection

The Open Rights Group report that the EU Commission has opened an infringement proceeding against the United Kingdom after a series of complaints by UK internet users, and extensive communication of the Commission with UK authorities, about the use of a behavioural advertising technology known as ‘Phorm' by internet service providers. See here for ORG coverage and here for the EU Commission press release.

ZenithOptimedia: TV ad market 'will fall at least 12% this year'

ZenithOptimedia predicts continuing crunch across sectors in UK, with the newspaper advertising market hit particularly hard. The UK TV ad market will fall by at least 12% this year, with automotive ads down 27% and the retail sector down 45% in the first quarter, according to a global forecast by ZenithOptimedia.

UK internet advertising will grow just 2.3% this year - fuelled almost wholly by search ad spend - 5.9% next year and 12.9% in 2011. More stats and implications from the Guardian here.

Terroism and search engine optimisation techniques

Whitehall officials will train pro-West Islamic groups to manipulate their Google search ranking in an attempt to drown out extremist voices online. The Register reports here..

Social media and branding: accelerated natural selection?

At Advertising Age's Digital Conference last week Unilever Chief Marketing Officer Simon Clift commented, "No matter how big your advertising spending, small groups of consumers on a tiny budget might hijack the conversation," he said. "So this internet thing is much bigger and more interesting than just finding successors to TV advertising." It's a lesson learned partly from Greenpeace, which last year hijacked "Onslaught," Dove's follow-up to the massively viral "Evolution" video, with what turned into a widely watched and discussed parody focusing on Unilever's purchases of palm oil resulting in destruction of Indonesian rainforest. More from Advertising Age here.

INFORMATION Management: A Proposal

A dull title disguising what was to becomes the Web. Originally designed as a means for academics to share information, it is notable that academics are more or less bound to the traditional paid-for journal system and an aeon-long publishing process. More from the Economist here.

Live Journal Opt Out of Phorm’s WebWise

No DPI [deep packet nspection] report that Live Journal, arguably one of the largest blogging portals (and indeed one of the first) on the Internet have listened to one of their users and Tupshin Harper - Director of Engineering and Operations at Live Journal has taken steps to have all Live Journal domains and sub-domains added to Phorm’s “Do Not Intercept” list. More here.

Now on YouTube: First Movie Ever Made

Wired writes here that in the latest effort to bridge the disconnect between the government and new media, the Library of Congress officially launched its YouTube channel Tuesday.

The debut includes 70 historical videos from its vast collection, such as the first-ever movie (a man sneezing), 100-year-old films from the Thomas Edison studio and industrial films from Westinghouse factories.

Phorm Town Hall Meeting

An interesting night at the London School of Economics (LSE) with presenters including: Lord Norman Lamont (non-executive director), Kent Ertugrul (founder & CEO of Phorm), Kip Meek – Phorm & Digital Britain (non-executive director), Sarah Simon (Finance and Strategic Development Officer/self-declared ex banker) and Mike Moore (Global Commercial Director) who described moving traditional media online. Mark Burgess (Senior Vice-president of Technology) joined for the panel discussion.

The session was split into two halves with the first consisting of presentations by the speakers about where Phorm are now, implications for Digital Britain, thoughts about the potential for newspapers and how the traditional media section can derive revenue from behavioural advertising, and also how Internet providers themselves need more revenue for their services.

This was set against a backdrop of weariness of having to deal with privacy questions and concerns, and Kent leading off with a discussion of how critics from privacy groups try to stir public interest and concern via high profile legal cases. Kip Meek described that Phorm can address some of the big five issues in the Digital Britain report – especially poor business model regarding broadband investment [UK consumers pay fixed rate for BB, so no incentive for players to invest in extra infrastructure and speed]. In addition, Phorm can also improve economics of traditional content creators and for advertisers and would be-advertisers.

Sarah Simon described that most consumers (74% of web users) won’t pay for content services (The State of the Media Democracy Survey 2009, Deloitte) and there’s not enough ad revenue to go round to fund all web sites (esp. free content ones), and how small websites are being forced to sell their ad through ad networks rather than direct to user. Result: Display ad is declining in 2008.

Mike Moore explained how print newspaper circulation is in decline. Many print newspapers are set to close in future in US and UK. Newspaper circulation online however is up a lot. E.g., The Daily telegraph ( Feb 08-09) +113%. But ad revenue has not increased. Why? In newspapers advertising revenue is spread across serious journalism and peripheral elements (e.g. jobs, travel, autos and property) but online serious news does not get as many readers [appraisal]. He then showed a slide from Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian that was tantamount to stating that this the greatest threat to journalism and the public sphere we have ever seen.

The questions were remarkably tame although they were asked why they have been so coy about opt-in/opt-out? Kent answered that ‘We deal with large no of ISPs who make their own choice re how to present this to consumers. They will each consider what is best for their consumer’. Interestingly many of the potential benefits to consumers were also those that can be found in contextually based systems, e.g. relevance and a better experience for the user. Similar points can be made about the concerns over journalism. Sarah also said that we can expect growth in display market [not so good for users]. Further, there is a current disparity in pricing between display and search: search revenue may go to display.

I asked about users and deep-packet inspection, users’ perceptions of privacy and whether users care about having a choice to opt/in or out? Kent answered that users care about privacy. There’s been an attack on deep-packet inspection – but privacy is about practice and not technology. There was no time for follow-up.

One questioner asked about the letter from the Open Rights Group, sent several weeks ago asking people/Google to boycott Phorm [Google say they are now considering it] and are Phorm being portrayed as evil – a scapegoat to industry.
Kent answered: ‘Phorm are more open than any other player in advertising industry. If we are proposing something commercially irrelevant, we will fade away. But if commercially relevant, you can expect disruption, [I’m] quite struck about resistance of people to understanding what the system does – [we] have been explaining this for a year now.

They were also asked about whether their PR spend is value for money, having spent a fortune on PR employing five companies, yet still much opposition remaining [21000 people signed petition asking government to protect privacy regarding online advertising].

Kent: ‘There’s a Cycle. Create a story. Report on it, Stoke the flames. We have been accused of many things in past e.g. will break internet, Russian connection, etc. We need to move on from these’.

Other question include:

Q. How will you address mobile platforms and IPTV?.
Kent: 'Mobile gives a real privacy issue, because you can’t deny that you know who the user is on a mobile platform. But in mobile, the need for relevance is even greater than elsewhere […] IPTV – [there is the] assumption that people should be captive in front of TV and you must watch ads regardless of interest. Phorm offers ability to make the ad so relevant an useful that you should be able to skip it if it isn’t useful to you rather than being captive in front of TV. Business model will change […] Will say more about this in future'.

Q. Development now complete. Rollout?
Kent: ‘lots of preparation before going public with anything. ISPs don’t want to damage their relationship with their customers.

People are upset about the position Phorm occupies in the system – i.e. at the ISP level rather than in the opt-in system like Facebook or Google. Users see ISP level as sacrosanct. Surely everyone is pro-choice’.

Mark [the Phorm technologist]: 'You can be pro-choice in theory/abstract – but are Google allowing this in practice? Regarding ISP-level – yes it’s novel and people don’t expect ISPs not to be neutral set of wires. But a long time ago ISPs stopped being neutral in this way, as they must identify their bandwidth and those who are hogging it. You have a relationship to trust with the ISP – so ISPs need to be able to say that what they are doing is better than what exists regarding privacy online. Data will go through neutral black-box – automatic – and random no assignation to the data'.

Q: Can you prove this?
Mark: ‘we have made invitations in past for a Hans Blix character for external people to audit us’.

Kip: ‘it is an understandable concern. I share the surprise as to how this situation regarding online privacy was allowed to happen. But Phorm is trustworthy and has been scrutinised over past year. Today’s presentation is about saying that privacy is an important issue but we should also look at the benefits of Phorm’.

Kent also added later: ‘You are probing because we are talking about the ISP and ISPs are held to a higher standard because they have such a central part in the internet operations. We are making valuable contribution by allowing you to ask us these questions – but they really should be asked to the thousands of websites [that collect IP/cookie data]’.

In summing up the meeting Kent commented:
'It was seven years ago that we started working on this technology. Have seen the value of patience, engagement, communication, problem-solving, speaking to people who don’t like us. Regarding privacy – we will continue to listen but it has been a long time since anything new and factual has been brought up. This is about more than privacy – it’s about introducing a profound change to people who publish free content'.

ClickZ's account of events here.

Classified adverts booming online

The traditional advertising market may be in decline, but online classifieds are bucking the trend. More from the BBC here.

Phorm eyes launch after hard year

The BBC reports here that online advertising firm Phorm is pressing ahead with plans to launch more than a year after it first drew criticism from some privacy advocates.

Phorm executives will meet with members of the public on Tuesday, following a similar meeting in 2008. The service has proved controversial for some campaigners who believe it breaks UK data interception laws. The firm received clearance from the Home Office and police closed a file on BT trials of the technology.

"We have been supported or endorsed by all of the leading stakeholders," Phorm chief executive Kent Ertugrul told BBC News. "Ofcom, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Home Office, leading privacy advocates like Simon Davies, the advertising industry and publishers have all backed our service," he said.

He added: "We are very, very happy with where we are one year on."

[I will be at the public meeting being held at the LSE this evening so will report back with gossip later.]

UK is ideal home for electronic Big Brother

Interestring article from the New Scientist describing when it comes to spying on emails and online behaviour, the British government is particularly well placed. A new analysis suggests that more internet traffic passes through the UK than any other country bar the US. Article here.

Whatever happened to Keep Calm and Carry On?

Londoners may have seen advertising that asks them to trust their instincts and report suspicious behaviour to help combat terrorist activity. The Guardian asks how much more surveillance do we need? Do we really need citizens to watch people watching the CCTV? Now it is not just the state that will be watching you, Mrs Jones at number 22 will have you in her sights from behind those net curtains. Will terrorists really behave so transparently? Article here.

Decline in UK advertising spend slowing, says IPA's Bellwether report

The Guardian reveal that the UK advertising industry may have reached the bottom of its decline, despite 45% of companies reducing their 2009 marketing budgets in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest Bellwether report into advertising budgets by trade body the IPA. More here.

Net firms start storing user data

The BBC reports here that details of user e-mails, website visits and net phone calls will be stored by internet service providers (ISPs) from Monday under an EU directive [presumably the data retention directive]. The plans were drawn up in the wake of the London bombings in 2005. ISPs and telecoms firms have resisted the proposals while some countries in the EU are contesting the directive.

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group states that [R]etaining traffic data creates potential risks of abuse by state agencies. Traffic data can be extremely useful for political control, eg by intelligence agencies. Experience shows that the risk of powers being abused, especially where they are exercised in secret, must not be underestimated even in Europe. More here.

Changing interfaces

Tech Review report on the changing nature of interaction between people and computers, and the development of human interaction with computers to brain-computer interface (BCI) technology here.

Google sees voice search as core

Google has said it sees voice search as a major opportunity for the company in building a presence on the mobile web. More from the BBC here.

Personal data: the oil of the internet

The authorities in Brussels fired a warning shot across the bows of online advertisers today, signalling new rules to combat surfer profiling and breaches of privacy in the interests of commercial gain. More from the Guardian here.

Skype to move into mobile [cellular] services

Skype, the Internet calling service that has more than 400 million users around the world, is aggressively moving onto mobile phones. The Luxembourg-based company, a division of eBay, plans to announce on Tuesday that it will make its free software available immediately for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch and, beginning in May, for various BlackBerry phones, made by Research in Motion.

Skype tested its service in London in the last two years with Hutchison 3, a British mobile network. It said it drew more customers to Hutchison 3 and increased its revenue for each user, since people were making calls on their cellphones using Skype that high calling rates would have discouraged otherwise. Article in full from the New York Times here.

A democratic Facebook?

Light Blue Touchpaper describe here that Facebook now has enough users to be the fifth largest nation on earth (recently passing Brazil), and operators of such immense online societies need to define a cyber-government which satisfies their users while operating lawfully within a multitude of jurisdictional boundaries, as well as meeting their legal obligations to the shareholders who own the company. The non-legally binding Statement of Principles outline an admirable set of goals in plain language, which was refreshing. However, these goals are then undermined for a variety of legal and business reasons by the “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities“, which would effectively be the new Terms of Service.

It makes you think doesn't it?

Scientists from Seattle are endeavouring to map the brain, gene by gene. Nothing to do with digital advertising, but fascinating nonetheless. More from Wired here.

Meme warfare and branding

Do changes in media lead to changes in the concept and processing of brands? Some thoughts from Adbusters here.

Facebook Aims for Privacy Edge

ClickZ reports here that Facebook has hired former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Timothy Sparapani as its new director of public policy. A change of direction given the privacy climate or a misguided attempt at a PR victory?

A 3D web moves closer to reality

The 3D web moved closer to reality as Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, joined forces with graphics consortium Khronos. More from the BBC here.

Twitter introduces text ads

Twitterers may have noticed very discreet and rather nicely designed ads creeping into the sidebar on profiles. More from the Guardian here.

Social network sites 'monitored'

Jaw dropping news this morning as I turn on the television and am told that social networks are to be monitored by the UK government. Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposal a "snoopers' charter". It is not so much the monitoring of social networks, but rather the issue of unintended consequences or "expandable mutability " whereby surveillance technology intended for one purpose ends up being use for another. Given the rise of techniques such as behavioural advertising and monitoring at ISP/network level surely more user and consumer caution is needed? More from the BBC here.

Call to 'shut down' Street View

A formal complaint about Google's Street View has been sent to the Information Commissioner (ICO). More from the BBC here.

Database state

Light Blue Touchpaper unveil their report, Database State. This is a report written for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust on
the failings of public-sector IT in Britain, and how to fix them. There’s press coverage in the Guardian, the Mail, the Independent, and the Telegraph. Blog post here.

Open Letter - Call for major websites to opt out of Phorm

The Open Rights Group has sent an open letter to Chief Privacy Officers or equivalent at:

(i) Microsoft
(ii) Google / Youtube
(iii) Facebook
(iv) AOL / Bebo
(v) Yahoo
(vi) Amazon
(vii) Ebay

See letter here.

Been to a place somewhere near you

Google's Street View mapping system has arrived. After a summer last of year Google vans snapping our streets, the results are now online for all to see. Here's my university (you don't want my home postcode do you really?!):


View Larger Map

Group asks U.S. FTC to probe Google privacy safety

In a complaint filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center faults Google's practices relating to its so-called cloud computing services, which store user-generated documents and other personal information on Google servers instead of on an individual's personal computer. More from Reuters here.

Who protects the Internet

Beyond postmodernist theorisation of virtuality and digital culture, John Rennie is keeping the cables connected and data flowing. A fascinating article from Popsci.com on who keeps the Internet together here.

Phorm and others will help fight Google's dominance, say politicans

The Guardian comment that privacy campaigners will be disheartened to hear that the man charged with leading the country into a brave new digital future, Lord Stephen Carter, is a fan of their bete-noire, targeted advertising company Phorm. Article here.

Google serves up behavioural ads

Google has entered the sometimes controversial arena of behaviour-based advertising. More from the BBC here.

How to Make Display Ads Suck Less

A refreshingly honest look at why display advertising is creatively poor from Advertising Age here.

Twitter Could Bring Search Up to Speed

As is becoming clear, Twitter is proving itself more than an assemblage of banal announcements and instead a useful barometer of what is going on in real-time. Tech Review offers their account here.

When Everyone’s a Friend, Is Anything Private?

As the scope of sharing personal information expands from a few friends to many sundry individuals grouped together under the Facebook label of “friends,” disclosure becomes the norm and privacy becomes a quaint anachronism. More from the New York Times here.

Web Users Less Wary of Behavioral Targeting

"One surprise is that over the last 12 months, consumers are actually increasing in comfort about it," said TRUSTe VP of Strategic Partnerships and Programs Colin O'Malley. "People still remain concerned, but over time, as awareness increases, discomfort decreases." More from ClickZ here.

TRUSTe report here.

Omniture Adds Twitter Analytics to Arsenal

ClickZ report here that Omniture is making it possible for customers to measure brand activity on Twitter through SiteCatalyst, its main platform. The program counts the number of times a brand is mentioned and presents it in a bar graph that can be sorted by day. The tool classifies Twitter users into segments, such as customers, vendors, employees, and other categories.

ITV admits defeat on content-led turnaround from advertising slump

The Media Guardian reports the full extent of ITV's problems here. Caused by declining advertising spend and expanding media options for advertisers, the future looks difficult for ITV and potentially for adverting reliant broadcasting broadly.

Guidelines for behavioural advertising

The IAB has developed a set of guidelines for behavioural advertising, a format that has caused controversy. They have created an easy to read consumer guide here. The BBC has also reported it here and more guidelines for businesses in pdf form here. These have been signed by key companies including: Phorm, AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Key principles involve:

• Notice. A company collecting and using online information for behavioural advertising must clearly inform a consumer that data is being collected for this purpose.

• Consent. A company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide a mechanism for users to decline behavioural advertising and where applicable seek a consumer's consent.

• Education. A company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide consumer with clear and simple information about their use of data for this purpose and how users can decline.

This is intended in part so as to make it easy for consumers to opt-out of advertising, although for many quarters this is not enough who prefer an opt-in system.