Whatever...

Touts flaunt online wad in face of credit crunch

By Rik Salmon

 

Ticket touting is nothing new.  For gig goers, the image of a scraggly man, unshaven and riddled with cockney colloquialisms, lurking outside the venue and barking obscene prices is as common as pints in plastic cups and sweaty chairs.  But while we all frown on them, touts can serve a purpose – and you can’t help but slightly admire their entrepreneurial nous.

 

However, the birth of the internet and eBay in particular has seen touting develop far beyond the pavement and into a genuinely lucrative industry.  Things reached a tipping point a couple of years ago when the government responded to campaigns from the NME and began discussing the possibility of making the process illegal, and Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis instigated a new ticketing policy that proved extremely successful in eradicating touting at his festival.

 

Yet despite these efforts, this week has seen the launch of a new secondary ticketing subsidiary of Play.com.  It’s essentially the same as touting on eBay, but with slight differences – namely the 15% commission Play.com takes from each sale.  According to the marketing blurb, the service is “based around offering value” – yet at one point this week, two tickets to go and see Kings of Leon were up for £675.59.  If that isn’t ridiculous enough, there are various ‘retailers’ on the site asking for over £100 for tickets that haven’t even sold out.

 

But Play.com isn’t alone.  Ticketmaster has also seen the potential in ripping people off, and launched GetMeIn.com, its own stab at creating a secondary ticket market populated exclusively by idiots.  Recently, £90 on GetMeIn.com would get you a ‘premium’ package to see Oasis, which included a ticket (retailed at £38), a tote bag (readily on sale at the merch stall) as well as a £10 voucher for the Oasis online store. 

 

This raises some important questions.  Firstly, what kind of person wants an Oasis tote bag?  Secondly, what happened to the credit crunch?

 

According to CNN, this is no longer a mere crunch, or even a crisis, but we are now firmly in the midst of a credit ‘quake’, so is this really the best time for companies to be launching services that sell products for up to 2,000% of their retail price?  Regardless of what’s happening over in Iceland and maybe now even Switzerland, you know the world is truly on its knees when people are happy to pay £100 to see the bloody Ting Tings.

 

 

We're all doomed - I think...

By Joe Banks

Goodness, what tumultuous times we’re living through.  Global financial meltdown beckons, with most media commentators doing their best impression of Frazer from Dad’s Army, running around with their hands in the air shouting, “We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you!”

Of course, we’ve been here before, albeit on a smaller scale, with Northern Rock last year.  And as Mike King pointed out at the time, the media played a significant role in stirring up a similar sense of anger and confusion – if customers weren’t panicking before, they certainly were afterwards, with the alleged ‘loss of confidence’ quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yes, it certainly feels quite scary at the moment – but perhaps the scariest part is the lack of clarity as to what’s actually going on.  The Byzantine workings of the financial industry are just so complicated that even the experts are having difficulty articulating how exactly we’ve got into this mess and how we might get out of it.  It’s such a big, ungraspable topic that it can literally cause a complete neural short circuit in some individuals...

However, for many people, the natural response to being bombarded 24/7 by a media yakking on about credit crunch this and bail out that is just to switch off.
 

You could argue that it’s exactly this unwillingness to engage with big issues that’s got us into this situation in the first place – and that goes for governments and industry bodies as much as the man in the street.  And when you consider how the global money markets are so dependent on good will in order to operate, with many banks existing in a never never land of credit and loans, it's little wonder this is then reflected in their customers’ credit-driven lifestyles and expectations.

As such, it’s understandable that we often do everything in our power to isolate and insulate ourselves against things we’d rather not know about – even if it means we ultimately end up under a whole heap of trouble...

Or indeed (he unconvincingly segues) under the wheels of a car.  When we want to shut out the world, it’s more often than not technology that we turn to – but while living online might diminish your ability to interact with real people, living with an iPod or mobile phone attached to your head could prove fatal.

In a cunning bit of PR fluff, Swinton Insurance has coined the term ‘podestrian’ to describe people who become a risk to themselves and others through immersion in music, conversation or text, causing them to step out in front of traffic, or dice with death by generally annoying right-thinking members of the public (such as myself) on trains, tubes, buses etc.

 

But anyway, back to the impending economic catastrophe... as another member of the Dad’s Army cast would say: “Don’t panic!”

 

Bye Rolf, I’m off to LinkedIn

By Mike King

 

After much deliberation, I’ve finally done it. I’ve deleted my Facebook page.
 

What a relief.  No more unhealthy insight into other people’s lives, constant bombardment with pointless Facebook applications or inane alerts about Facebook ‘friends’ joining ridiculous groups or changing their profile picture for the twentieth time this week.

 

Of course, when I say I’ve deleted it, I actually mean that I’ve de-activated it.  That’s as much as Facebook will let you do.  As far as I can tell, it isn’t possible to delete my Facebook page entirely.  It’s de-activated but remains dormant, just in case I want to log back in at any point in the future (no doubt this is a ploy Facebook uses to ensure its membership figures can never go down). Like the Freemasons, anyone who joins can never officially leave.
  

I was never an avid Facebook user.  Truth be told, I’ve never got into the full spirit of it.  It always seemed a bit silly to me, competing to have the most fake friends, throwing virtual sheep and poking people.  If I’m honest, I only joined Facebook for a laugh. My eldest daughters were on it along with some people at JK, but the main reason was to wind up my youngest daughter, who said that the thought of me on Facebook made her feel physically sick.
 

So, I collected some naff, bogus celebrity friends like Rolf Harris, Ron Atkinson and Theo Walcott, embarrassed my daughters a bit and then got fed up with it.

 

It was OK while it was a novelty, but I find the mixture of work colleagues, clients, friends, family and fake friends a bit of an uneasy mixture.  Having too much insight into my daughters’ social lives, frankly, isn’t healthy.  Nor is having clients able to see photos of me drunk on Christmas day that have been posted by others.
  

Of course, I can see that Facebook has its place for some people.  My daughters love it (even more when I tell them I’m de-activated). And I imagine it’s great for people with no social lives or for tracking down people you’ve lost touch with (though at my age, that usually means they’ve died).
 

Online social networking can be useful, which is why I’m on LinkedIn for instance, but ultimately I just prefer to keep in touch with my friends by phoning them, writing to them or maybe even meeting them in the pub.
 

Then again, maybe it’s time to admit that I’m just getting old...

 

(Though at least I'm not alone)

 

The Lords of the Rings fail to deliver

By Ingrid Daschner

Audi founder August Horch (horchen = to listen) Latinised his surname, using the command form of the verb audire (to listen). Thus, Audi means 'listen!'.

However, while Audi may well be very successful, listening doesn't seem to be its speciality. And despite being manufactured at sites around the world, being truly international also isn’t a strong point with the ‘Lords of the Rings’ – at least not when it comes to leasing.

We really wanted an Audi here in the Munich office.  But the leasing department were bothered by JK's form of business: Limited Company, or in short Ltd.

Now, Johnson King Ltd has been entered in the Munich Register of Companies since March 2000.  But that didn't interest Audi.  Nor did the fact that we have leased Mercedes and BMW cars on contract without any problems in the past.

We even presented Audi with business-management evaluations.  But even that didn’t interest them.  For a Limited Company, there is just nothing doing at Audi HQ in Ingolstadt – it’s just too much trouble to change their procedures.

Contrast this with the blossoming trade in personal and company data on the German black market.  For the equivalent of two decent pizzas, you can acquire CDs telling you a lot, if not everything, about people and companies: names, addresses, bank and credit‑card data, turnover, profits, health-insurance, tax numbers etc.  Unscrupulous businessmen are infiltrating companies and bypassing their deficient data protection measures to purloin gigabytes of data so as to earn a bit on the side by selling it.

I'm actually rather proud of the iron principles of German industry, with its awareness of tradition, solidity, adherence to principles, honesty...  But its lack of flexibility combined with a lax attitude to personal information is increasing getting out of step with the modern world.

Anyway, that's one less Audi in Munich, and the competition should be glad – there are over 30,000 Limited Companies registered in Germany, all of whom will be able to lease an Opel, BMW, Mercedes or Ford.  But not an Audi.

Careless talk costs... damages and legal fees?

By Andrew Chatterton

This week saw Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, saying that he was increasingly worried about the amount of misinformation spread across the internet.  It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Sir Tim, who I’m sure didn’t envisage the future of his great idea being based on porn and gossip.

The very nature of the web means that anyone can write whatever they like on any subject they want.  But should this actually be allowed?  Some of the opinions and thoughts on the web wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a ‘proper’ newspaper or magazine, so why, in a medium with a potentially unlimited readership, should the web be any different?
 

Sir Tim suggests that websites be given a label for trustworthiness once they have been proved reliable – but who is going to issue these labels?  Who’s going to decide what is valuable, trustworthy information and what is rubbish?  The Government?  George Bush?  Me?  OK, probably not me, I grant you, but my point is the same: who is unbiased enough in their judgement to make this call?  I would suggest no one.

However, voicing your opinion on the web, especially if someone else thinks that you’re spreading ‘misinformation’, can already have nasty repercussions.
 

Sheffield Wednesday supporters have over the years had a fair amount to complain about, and might think that the internet offers the perfect place to express these fears and questions.  Indeed, forums that bring together groups with a similar interest is more what Sir Tim perhaps had in mind for the web – but the Sheffield Wednesday board has had other ideas.
 

Comments on a fans forum have led to their lawyers demanding to know the names and email addresses of 14 people who had posted.  The comments they had made were deemed to be ‘false and seriously defamatory messages’, and threatened proceedings included ‘claims for injunctions, damages, interest and legal costs’.

So what was the misinformation spread that had caused such offence?  “What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we have become”.  Not exactly terrifying abuse is it, just a fan’s opinion – but is it misinformation?
 

Neither story paints a great picture for the future of the web.  China is a good example of what can happen when one group’s control of the internet can seriously restrict citizens’ rights, but on the other hand, the use of the internet for terrorist or paedophilic activities obviously has to be acted upon.

In an online world of endless opinions but no easy answers, has Sir Tim in fact created his own Frankenstein’s monster?

“Hold the line please caller, we’ve lost your data”

By Rebecca Surtees

 

Government data loss has been in the news all year – not a day goes by without another tale of lost discs or stolen laptops.  Of course, people are concerned about this – and why shouldn’t they be?  Some of their details are probably floating around on an unencrypted memory stick on the verge of being ‘misplaced’ or sitting on an unprotected database waiting to be hacked.

 

A recent report suggests that the NHS is next in the firing line.  According to a survey carried out by one of London’s top teaching hospitals, over three quarters of the hospital’s memory stick-wielding clinicians are roaming the capital with sensitive patient data alongside their holiday snaps – and worst of all, only six percent of these devices are using security measures to safeguard the data.
  

This got me thinking about my own public sector data loss experiences – for instance, being informed by my local hospital’s receptionist that I “hadn’t been born according to the system records”, while waiting in agony with a fractured ankle.  Having also been spun the classic line that the x-rays and blood test results I’d been chasing for weeks had been (mysteriously) ‘lost in the system’, people might just say I’m harping on about bad experiences, but the cynic (and tech PR) in me says it’s more than that.
 

OK, these survey findings are just a snapshot from one institution, but who’s to say they don’t reflect other areas of the NHS?  In today’s tech climate, and judging by the data loss fiascos so far, simple password protection that can be cracked in a matter of seconds just isn’t good enough where patient records are concerned – let alone allowing staff to remove such personal data from the workplace in the first instance.

 

Managing data on portable devices has long been a tricky subject for organisations of all kinds.  However, not only should sensitive information be encrypted as standard, but the Government must also be seen to be actively educating public sector users on safe data practices, as well as enforcing internal security policies.

 

One thing’s for sure - if the necessary measures aren’t taken, the data protection road can only get rockier.

The Fog of PR

By Richard Scarlett

Congratulations to Barclays Bank: so far, not one customer using PINsentry – its two-factor authentication device – has been the victim of online fraud.

However, as someone who carries out a lot of online transactions, my feelings toward this little calculator-type device – that the marketeers promised would provide stronger authentication, greater security and peace of mind – aren’t necessarily as welcoming or congratulatory as you might expect.

As a tech PR, my technical abilities are (I like to think) pretty good.  So it was with great reluctance that I resorted to the customer helpline when I couldn’t get my device to work.  After a very long chat, it emerged that the card that I was issued was in fact ‘last generation’ and unable to work with the ‘new generation’ card readers.  With the helpline running at £1.25 per minute, my patience was fast running out.

Not wanting this to become a frustrated rant about said bank, let’s just say that the issue was resolved and I am now securely shopping and banking online once again.

However, while Barclay’s PR machine may want us to believe that PINsentry is the bulletproof solution to card fraud and ID theft that we’ve all been waiting for, I’m not so sure.  But this exaggerated sense of security could actually cause people to take more risks when online eg. logging on from ‘dirty’ PCs, or buying from sites that they wouldn’t normally touch, with the belief that the device will protect them from everything.

And even though banks may claim not to see any evidence of fraud among those customers using PINsentry and the like, I can’t help thinking that these devices are just a decoy to deflect attention from poor security elsewhere – especially as we live in an age where people in positions of responsibility still think it’s OK to download classified data onto a laptop and leave it in the car, lose USB sticks full of unencrypted private customer records, or send CDs full of sensitive information unsecured in the post.

I think that the banks should ditch the smokescreen consumer devices and focus more on evaluating their own internal security policies and procedures.  That way, customers will no longer be forced to jump through ridiculous hoops, have usability compromised, or even be followed around by Big Brother Banking – or have to put up with the PR song and dance that says it’s all for our own good.

Can you get goosebumps online?

By Carol Pender

It’s that time of year again – back-to-school for millions of kids, with parents frantically making last minute purchases for the new academic year.  But as an article in the Daily Telegraph points out, while this used to mean making sure you had enough pencils, Tipex and smelly rubbers, today’s must-have school tools include the latest laptops, printers and software.

It’s not as if the transition has happened overnight, but it got me thinking about all the ways that technology and particularly the internet, has changed our lives – and wondering whether it’s all really been for the best.  Maybe there’s no right or wrong answer, but I can’t help getting a little nostalgic about “the good old days”.

For example, I came across a story in the French daily paper Le Monde about an initiative to record classical concerts and make them available exclusively for purchase on the internet. With the music industry in general in the doldrums, this could revive interest in orchestral music and maybe even help discover new talent, as the internet does for other musical genres.

But it’ll never replace the experience of actually going to a concert and getting goosebumps when you listen to that Mozart symphony – or even that Radiohead classic – live. And what about the simple pleasures of going to Fnac, browsing through the different sections, and going home with a carefully selected CD?

Having the latest news at home and abroad available at the click of a mouse is great and pretty amazing when you think about it. But in terms of enjoyment factor, can it really compete with sitting down for a couple of hours with the Sunday papers and a pot of coffee?

The same applies to downloading a film versus watching it on the big screen, buying your groceries online versus going to the market, sending an email versus making a call etc etc. Don’t get me wrong, as an expat, I love email and am the first to admit that it has helped me stay in touch with many a person I could have lost contact with. But it’s really not the same as hearing a friend’s voice.  

Of course, the internet is expedient, practical and cheap, and there are some things for which it has become irreplaceable – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t buy their airline tickets and reserve their hotels online. And I’m sure everyone has gotten a few laughs out of the latest YouTube or Mozinor video.

But there needs to be a balance between our lives online and the real world, otherwise we could forget why certain things were important or exciting in the first place.

OK, I'll stop ranting now.  Maybe I'm just having a mid-life crisis at the tender age of 34?!

Pitchspace’s solution just exacerbates the problem

By Flora Haslam

This week’s Guardian tech podcast – aside from asking whether PR is needed anymore (something which I won’t go into here as it’s fairly obvious which side of the fence I’d sit) – introduces us to an interesting new concept: a matchmaking service that aims to put journalists in touch with stories without having to wade through mountains of irrelevant PR-generated fluff. 

Pitchspace is headed up by James Cox, who I might be inclined to trust a little more if he didn’t sound as though he’s never, ever worked in PR.  You really have to listen to his interview – classic comments include the idea that journalists will write your story if you send them a hamper from Harrods, that to start off in PR you need to invest in a database costing thousands of pounds, and that it’s all about product PR.

I’ve no doubt that journalists are faced with an incredibly irritating barrage of ill-targeted emails every day, only a tiny percentage of which are of any use.  But is a content aggregation service, where PRs post stuff and journalists search/RSS it, really going to make life that much easier?  I’ve also not heard many journalists say that what they’d really like are stories and pitches that have already been provided (in an identical format) to every other hack in Britain. 

Finally, is this really such a radical approach – Sourcewire, anyone? 

Yes, there are a lot of badly written releases and pitches out there, as well as some shamefully bad targeting – but I just can’t see how this system will improve things.  It’s certainly not going to make PRs write better materials and means that those who are new to the field are going to have even less idea about what individual journalists are interested in and care about.  Call me old-fashioned, but whatever happened to reading the publication or site you want to be in to find out who and what’s relevant?

I always thought that if you had a decent story that’s well-targeted and well-presented, then you’re sorted.  But then maybe I’m wrong. 

Quick trip to the Harrods website and rest of the day in the pub for me then...

Wi-Fi in the home is an open door for hackers

By Kathryn Mills-Webb

While stories about the ‘theft’ of Wi-Fi access occasionally surface in the press, most home wireless users are still not aware of the potential consequences of allowing neighbours free access to their Wi-Fi connection.  After all, most of us have probably accessed an unsecured wireless network at some point, and with monthly download limits now almost unbreakable for the average consumer, there seems little wrong with sharing the bandwidth.

However, if we carry on like this, more people could end up like the unfortunate Kenneth Haywood, a US expat in Mumbai questioned recently on charges of terrorism - someone had piggy-backed on his wireless network to send an email claiming responsibility for a bomb that killed more than 40 people. 

This isn’t just scaremongering.  As this example illustrates, vulnerable home Wi-Fi networks are increasingly the first port of call for hackers and various online ner-do-wells looking for an untraceable starting point to launch an attack from. 

While the above is an extreme case and one that most Wi-Fi users are unlikely to face, the implication is that all users should ensure their networks are properly secured and not open for any freeloader in the vicinity to use. 

While the Government and the EU seem keen to put an end to piracy and illegal file-sharing, they seem less keen to protect consumers from other activities that may be taking place in their name without their knowledge.  ISPs may rightly point out that all computer users are given the option of protecting their wireless network when they set it up – but there perhaps needs to be a bigger driver to educate subscribers as to why this is a good idea and what might result if they don’t.

Of course, a further issue is that the WEP encryption usually offered to consumers is considered to be weak protection against wireless hacking, and that we should be being encouraged to use the more secure WPA protocol... but that’s another story.