Copyright © 2010 I-COM International 2010-09-06T16:36:50+0100 2010-09-06T16:36:50+0100 http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. http://www.i-com.net/blog/ http://i-com.net/images/icom-net.gif http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. I-COM International blogmaster at i-com dot net I-COM International I-COM International en SEO, SEM, Web Design, Web Development 1440 http://www.i-com.net/blog/i-dare-you-to-invoke-the-copyright-provisions-of-debill-on-this-blog-post-332/ In honour of the UK Government rushing through the Digital Economy Bill despite mass online protest about the provisions regarding copyright infringement online, we're republishing a selection of responses. Naturally, as our own ISP we are now legally required to monitor ourselves and report ourselves for copyright infringment to the copyright owners. I'm sure they'll all be very upset by the free publicity and links and as a result we'll be required to shut off our own internet access, but hey ho. Such is life in 2010 when laws about the internet are made by the people who understand it the least.The contentious clause in the Bill begins by saying: "Power to make provision about injunctions preventing access to locations on  the internet      (1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the granting by a court of a blocking injunction in respect of a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright.      (2)  Blocking injunction means an injunction that requires a service provider to prevent its service being used to gain access to the location." You can read the debate for yourselves (or watch it) at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-04-06b.836.0 I'm sure reproducing that transcript is somehow illegal under the bill.The Guardian explains the problem by asserting, "As altered, the bill now allows for ISPs to be required to block access to sites that allow "substantial" infringement. One of Lord Mandelson's principal targets here urged on by the BPI and Federation Against Copyright Theft and Federation Against Software Theft is "cyberlocker" sites that let people store files, or move them between two people easily, which, lobbyists argue, allows widespread copyright infringement. The argument then becomes how you tell whether a cyberlocker is being used for substantial infringement. But as they don't publicise their contents (they are like safe deposit boxes for the web), how can it be determined whether they are substantially infringing?One site that would immediately be trapped by this provision is Wikileaks which exists solely to republish leaked, and hence copyrighted, work. Would a Trafigura-like company in the future use the DEB to shut off UK access to the site if something embarrassing appeared there?The bill allows for the "temporary suspension" of internet connections for those deemed to have allowed multiple copyright infringement after warnings from their ISPs (who are required to maintain "copyright infringement reports" on users, anonymously). Hotels and businesses that offer free or paid-for Wi-Fi have expressed serious concerns that they would have to shut such services down." Skeptobot published a well-thought out attack on the bill, relating that,"During the minuscule 2 hours the 2nd reading took one man mashed up the #DEBill twitter feed with the parliament feed onto his TV to avoid having to multitask so much. He published his work so others could do the same." This is an activity which will be illegal under the new bill.  Skeptobot continues, "The true hero was Tom Watson (Labour MP) who quickly came to be the people's champion. His criticism of the bill didn't stop with the preposterous technical issues (ip address are not fingerprints) or the equally preposterous human rights violations (guilty till proven innocent, child downloads musics - dad loses the internet he needs for his job).He went on to point out that remixing copyrighted works is part of culture now." @solobasssteve, a professional musician, published an open letter to the Musician's Union on his blog explaining his dissatisfaction with the bill, "To shut down sites and services on suspicion of illegal activity is a civil liberties travesty. To have my internet traffic monitored in case I do anything bad is like the royal mail reading my post, in case my letters contain naughty words. While threatening to brick up my front door if they find them, or think they might have found them." One Flickr user reprinted the following exchange on Twitter, courtesy of the Director of Communications of the BPI, "A conversation on twitter on the day the Digital Economy Bill was passed between Adam Liversage (Director of Communications for the BPI, the BPI that supports/wrote some of the DEBill) and Janet Liversage.Janet: "Great. Bought a card but forgot the envelope - doh."Adam: "There's some in my study on the shelf."Janet: "yes but not necessarily ones that will fit the card I have bought"Adam: "Crop the card using scissors - job done. Or scan the card, shrink it and re-print it."Where Adam suggest stealing and repurposing a bought card.Wait, I don't mean stealing I mean making a copy leaving the original intact, and then adjusting the second copy to better suit a purpose.When you've shrunk it and sent it, the original will still exist. I assume you can just then use the original for something else, sell it on, or perhaps scan it again and again and again that's a money saving tip right there. Shame the copyright owner wont get the benefit of all those copies.Just saying; copyright, it's a bit complicated." As another blog pointed out, "1  Digital Economy Bill24545 Tweets20000 Letters written7152 Twitterers643 Members of Parliament227 Voted189 Said yes" There's some good YouTube content as well:The third reading and ensuing debate took place over 2 hours during which only 40 MPs participated and 50 clauses were discussed.  Not even half the total number of MPs bothered to vote.There is no way that a bill this controversial which affects so many people was considered at the level of detail it should have been by the people elected to Parliament and the British Government and the people elected to run that Government - both in power and in opposition - should be ashamed.If you feel that Parliament rushed the Digital Economy Bill through without due consideration, add your voice by republishing your favourite editorial in our comments (make sure you credit your source). Internet 2010-04-08 14:54:00 http://www.i-com.net/blog/i-dare-you-to-invoke-the-copyright-provisions-of-debill-on-this-blog-post-332/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/social-media-reputation-management-271/ In today's recession stricken market and unpredictable trading conditions, consumer trust is at an all-time low. Their confidence in brands is being chipped away every time a company fails to live up to customer expectations or standards. Companies can no longer rely on monitoring their offline resources and media history - more and more businesses are pushing time and money into monitoring social media sites in order to ensure they maintain a positive online reputation. In the online world, brands share their results with customers, competitors, bloggers, and users who with one review or blog can bring down the whole perception of quality for future online and offline customers.  This produces an environment where actively managing, monitoring and repairing your online brand is crucial. Brands should be aware of guidelines in each of these areas to help it stay ahead of its competitors and avoid or repair negativity online.Research Your Reputation Researching your online reputation and finding out what is being said about you and where is vital to understanding how much work you have to put into to repairing negativities or boosting positives. Make reputation research a regular occurrence and create an inventory of your findings for future reference as the web is constantly changing along with your audience Don't Try Too Hard to Impress Users You can plaster flashy design, interactive bells and impressive whistles on your sites, blogs and social media pages, but if there's nothing of substance then you will have unimpressed users leaving and potentially saying bad things about their experience to their online contacts in a public forum. Don't Treat Your Audience Like Statistics Your audience may be spending their time complaining, reviewing, tweeting, commenting or posting but if treated like statistics then they will be unimpressed with your attitude towards your customers. There are many people out there that will take an interest in your business. Don't limit your brand's focus to a selected group or segment of "important people" thereby forgetting the growing audience - any one of whom could become one of those "important people" in the future. Know Your Outlets Know the places where your brand is appearing, whether its an obscure forum, purposefully set up social media site or personal blog. After all, how can you mange or repair your reputation if you don't know who's talking about you and where they go to do it? Remember, however, that it's not just the blogs you must look out for - some of the most negative comments come from the comments sections of blogs. If you're looking to defend your brand then these comments are the ones to take time to answer.Give Your Brand Personality and a Face Companies don't have conversations, people do. Remember that these feeds and sites are portals for your customers/clients to communicate about you and with you, a person - not a faceless corporation or business. Oscar Wilde said, "Being yourself is far easier than putting on a front." You are more likely to receive positive comments or repair negative comments by having a person take an interest in what customers are saying (through social media or blogs) because people can relate to a person who is speaking with them directly and answering their feedback than they can with an enquiry for or an email address. Acknowledge the Good as well as the Bad Remember reputation is made up of both negative and positive comments, reviews and feedback. Monitoring and acknowledging the positive is just as important. If you are already known on the web or offline then you need to remember that your customers helped you get there. Engage with users and customers leaving positive comments and attempt to build a community amongst your customers because those happy customers could be your strongest defence against negative comments when they happen. Think before You Tweet Twitter is a great way to give your brand personality and seem more 'human'; but for companies using it there is a thin line between good and bad. Remember tweets are automatically set to 'public access' so your foul ups are seen by all. Learn before doing and avoid the following: Don't "hard sell" through tweets Don't spam people or harvest email addresses for spamming Don't tweet about mediocre or old industry content Don't use ALL CAPS Don't spell things rong Don't over tweet And lastly, don't tweet while intoxicated Finally, if you've learnt nothing from this post, at least take a page out of the 'book of real world' and treat online relationships similar to real-life relationships. Think of those traits in your staff or favoured people in your life (e.g., honesty, respect, confidence, uniqueness, informative and worth) then apply them to your online brand personality. Social Media Marketing 2009-11-18 10:26:53 http://www.i-com.net/blog/social-media-reputation-management-271/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/does-social-media-breed-conformity-153/ With the development of modern democracy came the idea of public and private. For years this separation of the public and the private has guided the behavior of governments and how far they could intrude into our private lives. For example, you can get arrested for public obscenity - but for the police to enter your home they have to produce a search warrant laying out clear reasons why they need to violate your right to privacy. In private - that is to say at home with family or friends - people were sealed away from the eyes of society and allowed to make their own rules in their own households. Outside the home, however, the act of simply being visible and participating in society made a person subject to the rules of that society - which were created, dictated and enforced by the members of society. While a man might be arrested by police for breaking a law, he would also be shunned by his peers if he did not adhere to what was considered acceptable behavior in terms of manners, dress and actions.In the Age of Social Media, Will Anything Be Private? The modern age of social media, however, has blurred the lines so far that it is questionable whether such a thing as a private sphere even exists anymore. We Twitter about the minutiae of our day and post staus updates on Facebook and MySpace that our employers and prospective employers can find and use to judge whether we are suitable employees - based on information we willing provide. We have social media profiles that mix friends, family, co-workers and business contacts with no real way to separate them and keep some parts of our information private. Some social media platforms - Facebook and Flickr, for example - enable us to differentiate between public and private - but many do not. People post videos on YouTube and photographs on Flickr, MySpace and Facebook of things they do in their private lives which bleed over into the public domain - and have led to arrests and firings. We even have tools like the new Google Latitude which allows our friends and even strangers to track our every move - and identify us because we have our picture splashed across our various public profiles. Increasingly, we are willingly placing our private activities into the public domain and this gives society more of a say in how we should behave and more control over our actions - if you post a drunken photo of yourself on Facebook taken when you were supposedly home with the flu and your employer finds it, would you really be surprised if there were repercussions? If you Twittered negatively about a client and you lost their business, could you complain?The Implications of a Global Public Sphere While social media has done a wonderful job of expanding what we consider to be our society from a village to a world, it has also led to new ways of monitoring and moderating our behavior - but because global society is a new phenomenon, in many instances it's also a case of mob rule - how many people have been bullied or hounded off public forums for violating some unspoken code of conduct they did not fully understand? We have yet to really understand the full implications of making our private lives fully public. While it may lead to more interaction between cultures, it may also lead to greater social conformity worldwide. In a world where people complain about the destruction of the character of local towns and villages by global brands, social media may prove an even worse disaster as people no longer take their social cues from their neighbours but from a range of "friends" from around the world. Will the public gaze of an online audience lead to the creation of an international set of rules about not just behavior, but also the creation of a new set of cultural norms to be followed worldwide - and hence the disappearance of national cultures? Increasing use of social media will also lead governments to redefine their own mandate in terms of how to use the public sphere to monitor the private sphere and what level of governance and regulation is appropriate - and how do you govern a virtual space where only some of the inhabitants fall under your legal jurisdiction? As we go forward into this new, public world we should be as aware of the dangers and the implications of making our lives entirely public as we are of the benefits. Social Media Marketing 2009-02-09 10:16:17 http://www.i-com.net/blog/does-social-media-breed-conformity-153/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/btweens-mapping-creativity-project-and-making-the-most-of-manchesters-creative-forces-92/ Last Friday marked the deadline for submissions for the 25K Mapping Creativity commission from Manchester Beacon through the b.TWEEN website.The grant on offer is for a project that can connect various creative resources around greater Manchester by bringing different communities together using both online and offline events and spaces. They are looking for projects that combine cutting edge Web 2.0 social community and enabling the participants to realise the benefits of their online interaction in a real-life physical setting.You can view the Mapping Creativity submissions and give your own input on the b.TWEEN website. Manchester 2008-09-15 14:25:02 http://www.i-com.net/blog/btweens-mapping-creativity-project-and-making-the-most-of-manchesters-creative-forces-92/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/tynt-the-scraper-site-that-your-kids-will-love-90/ Twitter has been all a-flutter with SEO consultants and search marketers complaining about new Web 2.0 site Tynt. It's no surprise.  If you look at what they offer, at first it appears to be a URL-shortening service similar to TinyURL only allowing you to give some context to the links so people know what they're clicking - that is until you give it a test drive.What Tynt actually does is scrape the target page and frame it, giving it a new URL that is a subdomain of Tynt's domain. Effectively, they're scraping content from across the web that people like and encouraging users to link to the scraped content - which, for a particularly viral piece of content, could give the page more link love than the original.This isn't just an out-an-out content scrape though because the service allows the user to add tags and notes to the page so, for example, you find a funny image on somebody else's website, you can "Tynt" it and on the "new" URL you can highlight bits of the funny image and add a comment or note. So, they could argue it's useful.However, as Eric Lander explains quite clearly on his blog, webmasters have no way to tell Tynt to stay off their sites and Tynt's scraped content is being indexed in Google.Even were the owners of Tynt to block spiders from this content it still presents a serious issue of copyright as webmasters will lose control of their content to a service which is not inherently all that useful but which people are likely to find entertaining - at least for a while - and is very likely to be used more for comedy and ridicule than for any type of serious discussion. When uploading information to the internet, at what point do we have to, rather than merely making it available for commentary, agree to allow others to actively modify it for their own purposes, uploaded to another source with no clear route back to the original context?Plagiarism and copyright violations have long been an issue on the internet and sites like Tynt look poised to make the problem even thornier by bringing scraped content into mainstream use for entertainment purposes rather than spam. Internet 2008-09-11 10:55:02 http://www.i-com.net/blog/tynt-the-scraper-site-that-your-kids-will-love-90/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/how-long-can-social-media-survive-without-cash-26/ I attended a seminar recently where the founder of a niche social networking site was extolling the many features of his creation. After half an hour gushing about the great ways people can use his site to get recommendations and make personal connections - and make no mistake, the site is pretty cool - a lady casually raised her hand and asked him, since he was encouraging people to set up their own 'Web 2.0' properties, how he was earning money, since very few people can afford to throw themselves into such a large-scale venture without earning enough to pay the bills. The only answer he could stammer out was that he was funded by venture capital. The correct answer, which everybody in the room knew already, was that he didn't really care how the site got monetized in the long run as he set the site up because he was transfixed by the idea of social media and what he was aiming to do in the long term was build a popular website that somebody with deep pockets would take off his hands in exchange for an obscene amount of money. This problem of how to monetize a website seems to be a common theme for social media sites. Founded by people who are interested in innovation and new ways to use the internet, as these properties start to mature they are faced with the ongoing problem of how to sustain themselves. Some properties such as Second Life or Habbo Hotel were designed around the idea of a marketplace. Participants in these virtual worlds buy and sell objects like in the real world, and in the case of Second Life, entrepreneurs using the site have become millionaires trading in Linden Dollars, the currency of Second Life which can be exchanged for real dollars, presumably at a commission. Many Web 2.0 properties such as Flickr and YouTube have been bought by larger internet companies and folded into larger portals. Flickr makes Yahoo some money through subscriptions. Google is still working on ways to get adverts converting on YouTube. Much has been made of advertising on MySpace and Facebook, but recent figures suggest that advertisers are cutting back their spend on social media because it does not convert the people making money off these social media properties are participants, not advertisers. Although overall spending on advertising on social media is growing, the scale of the growth is slowing down despite the number of sites on which to advertise growing rapidly. These sites are constantly in the media through speculation as to how they will continue to grow when advertisers are cutting back their spending on social media advertising and increasingly turning towards social media marketing instead. Today, as I was teasing out the ideas in this post, I came across a post on Search Engine Journal about the possibility of Twitter including Google ads on their site. Currently Twitter, despite being wildly popular, is funded by venture capital. They either need to sell or to find a way to make money from their service. As more and more people begin to use social media in their daily lives and more and more businesses come to rely on social networking for marketing and branding purposes, it becomes ever more crucial to the internet economy that these sites reach financial maturity. But, how do they get there? One model would be subscription-based, where sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace start charging us for the service, perhaps adding tiered subscriptions depending on what features are used so for example, basic social networking where you can build a profile and find your friends is a minimum charge, but making use of photo albums, video, live chat and RSS feeds will cost more. This would probably cause users to choose one service rather than spreading themselves out across the internet as they do now. Maybe for a little more you would be allowed to network or chat to people on another network. Another possibility is that the viable sites get bought up by larger properties so that we are left with two or three or four large portal sites with the full umbrella of services underneath so you could choose Googles services which might include social networking via Orkut, photo sharing via Picasa, video sharing on YouTube, blogging via Blogger and instant messaging on GTalk. Maybe theyd even buy Twitter and include microblogging. Or, alternatively, you could sign up to Yahoo and get, amongst other services, Yahoo Messenger, Flickr and Yahoo Answers and the social network attached to Answers. Under both of these scenarios, however, the vast majority of sites will eventually fold. Personally, I would hope that all of these great social media sites find a way to become financially viable because I think the internet benefits from choice and the more places and ways people have to interact online the better it is for everyone. Advanced Search Marketing 2008-06-11 10:09:07 http://www.i-com.net/blog/how-long-can-social-media-survive-without-cash-26/