Whatever...

Worried about your e-reputation? Then pay someone to wipe your past

By Alexandra Radius

 

Anyone looking for a job these days will live in fear of their prospective employer unearthing some dubious photo on Facebook or dodgy blog post that could jeopardise their application. But never fear, new businesses are now beginning to appear that promise to repair your online reputation for you.  Indeed, here in France, the online reputation management sector is particularly hot, with numerous firms now focusing on this emerging market.

 

One example is Reputation Squad, which specialises in "e-reputation" management and is staffed by IT specialists, lawyers and communication professionals. It identifies the authors and publishers of ‘offending’ web content and asks them to delete it (or at least to modify it, by replacing the name of their client with his or her initials). If they are unable to contact the owner of the website, they simply “drown” the embarrassing story by posting SEO-enabled content that pushes it down the search engine rankings.

 

Even though I find this concept very intelligent, I also find it a little dubious. If someone can change your past, who’s to say they won’t also improve your online reputation by fabricating some positive stories?

  

For me this new trend makes the internet less democratic, as it allows those who can afford it, to manipulate their reputations to their own advantage.  Too bad for those who can’t afford it.  But I guess that’s a story as old as time.

  

However, it is difficult to see how this concept will catch on completely.  There will always be those who stand up for the freedom of the press, freedom of speech and who are prepared to  speak out against censorship of any kind – particularly in a country like France!  If we can’t believe what we read, then what is the world coming to?

Apple shakes up the app market in more ways than one

By Dana Hashem

 

Stop press.  Just a month after it announced 85,000 apps loaded onto the App Store, Apple has reached a staggering new milestone.  Yes, 100,000 apps are already here, and they're drawing iAddicts through Apple's legendary virtual doors like moths to a flame.

 

This impressive figure seemingly leaves the Android app market paling in comparison, but can Apple really afford to rest on its laurels?  According to a recent study, if an app doesn't make it into the top 1000 listings on the Apple website, the chances it will be downloaded onto more than 1.67% of iPhones is pretty slim.  While this may not present much of a hurdle to Apple's business model - after all, nobody points the finger at Tesco when a new product won't shift from its shelves - it certainly puts the figures into perspective, and raises the ominous question of whether Android will stay in the rearview mirror for long.

 

With so many apps storming through its approval process, Apple has to tread carefully if it's to maintain the brand integrity that forms the foundations upon which its mighty empire stands - and the road to app domination has not been without its hiccups.

 

You all know what I'm talking about.  Whatever possessed the powers that be to pass the infamous Baby Shaker app will always remain beyond the comprehension of any self-respecting PR, and the subsequent media fallout serves as a lesson to us all in how the tides of social media can turn in an instant.

 

The alarm bells were ringing in the blogosphere just hours after the app went live, and thanks to the rapid viral online spread of the story, it was hard for the national media to miss.  Somehow, reassurance from developer Sikalosoft that 'no babies were harmed in the making of this application' didn't quite seem to cut it, and Apple came under heavy fire for approving the app. 

 

Of course, Apple has since learned to take a more cautious approach to vetting its apps, endeavouring to position itself as more 'moral watchdog' than 'heartless corporation'.  Rest assured everyone - since the Baby Shaker blip, the company has valiantly saved us all from heresy by rejecting the Me so holy app, and also saw fit to deprive us of the tempting opportunity to part with $999.99 by banning the intentionally dispensable I am rich app.

 

And lo, the world is a better place.  Rather than passing the buck, it paid off for Apple to acknowledge its mistake and take corrective action as soon as the story broke – leaving the somewhat less contrite Sikalosoft to take the worst of the flack.

 

So will Apple lose out to Droid in the end?  Only time will tell, but with a wisened PR strategy and unstoppable momentum, it doesn't look like this app giant will be giving up its lead anytime soon.

 

Has the recession saved us from the surveillance state?

By Richard Ratcliffe

 

Prior to the start of the economic downturn there was significant concern that the UK was drifting inevitably toward a nightmarish dystopian future made up of CCTV, detention without charge and Big Brother style databases.  Outraged editorials asserted this was an assault on our civil liberties whilst official sources claimed it would make us all safer in the long run and simply a case of sacrificing a little liberty for additional security.

 

While the furore over 90/42/28 day detention periods eventually subsided, databases have continued to be controversial.  However, the news this week suggests that, for a while at least, two Government databases will be significantly scaled back.  Plans to store details of every phone call and email have been ‘kicked into the long grass’ while ministers are expected to announce that, rather than holding information indefinitely, the DNA records of innocent people arrested in England and Wales should be held for no longer than six years.

 

We have all been complaining about sub-prime mortgages, short selling and bankers for over a year now, but I wonder if we’ve at last found something to thank the recession for.  The proposed communications database was predicted to cost up to £2bn over ten years, while the DNA database would need hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money, pretty steep when you consider it has helped to solve only 0.7% of all crimes and most investigations don't use DNA at all.  

 

With an election coming up and the bank bailouts still fresh in people’s minds, it would surely be political suicide for the Government to spend such vast sums on already unpopular projects.  One thing I'm sure of is that it will have been economics and politics, rather than any genuine concern for public opinion, which have been the primary factors in these decisions.

Internet for all – claims and the reality

By Juliana Wimmer

 

For years now the UK, France and Germany have been working on their broadband initiatives. In Germany, for example, the so called “Breitbandinitiative” was founded in 2002 as a common project of governmental and economic bodies and has since tried to improve broadband coverage in the country.

 

More recently, these national initiatives have been backed at a European level.  In 2007 the European Parliament voted for the development of a European Broadband Policy while the European Recovery Plan states that “broadband connectivity is a key component for the development, adoption and use of information and communication technologies in the economy and in society.”

 

The importance of broadband as a means of improving business processes and communication is also underlined by a recent OECD study measuring that, by 2011, broadband communication will improve the productivity of developed states by as much as a third.

 

In Germany, at least, the reality seems to be a long way off the OECD’s prediction. Many German regions still have unacceptable broadband access. Indeed, five million Germans have no access to the internet because no provider is able to give them access. To add to this problem, the economic crisis has negatively impacted investment levels into German broadband initiatives, which are now considered too costly. There’s also infighting between Deutsche Telekom and its competitors about VDSL usage and only a few cities have fibre networks.

 

Having said all this, Germany (and France!) seem to do better than the UK.