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Avoiding the subject line of death

By Tom Kirkham

Stop press!  A new study has revealed that internet daters must take great care with the screen names they choose, or risk putting off potential lovers. 

Flirtatious names like “fun2bwith” and “i’msweet” are top ranked by both sexes, with physical descriptors such as “cutie” or “blueeyes” close behind.  Given that for many years now my screen name has been “gashedforehead”, this is enough to cause me some concern… 

Not that I’m an internet dater… But if I was, I’d be mindful that screen names, like real names, rarely tell the whole story.  Massive growth in the number of online users means that with most web services, you don’t stand a chance of getting the alias you want, unless you substitute the vowels with numbers and spell the word backwards.

Real names offer even less choice, and tend to say more about the parents than the child (‘Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily’ and ‘Princess Tiáamii’, for example).  Nevertheless, they’re a key component of our personal brands, and can be a problem in a world increasingly dominated by electronic communication. 

For instance, if I was a journalist and received an email from John Brown offering me an interview with David Smith, I’d be sorely tempted to ignore it.  Likewise, if I received correspondence from someone called Princess Tiáamii, I’d probably delete it as spam.

So, if you’re a PR with a boring name, what can you do to achieve the same results as somebody like Max Power?  Well it may sound obvious, but so often we see dull email subject lines and opening gambits full of meaningless and inane word chains and acronyms, which hardly scream out ‘open me!’ or ‘read on!’. 

In the world of internet dating, smart users will compensate for a bland screen name by posting a compelling personal ad.  They won’t put, ‘Single male, GSOH, WLTM nice girl for friendship and maybe more...’; it’s the equivalent of writing a lead line that says, ‘Are you interested in meeting the VP marketing of US company Paradigm Shifters Inc...?’

There will always be many aspects of our personal brand over which we have little control.  So it’s important to remember that when communicating online, you’re actually in a position of relative power when it comes to creating a strong first impression – providing you take time over your words, and ensure they deliver maximum positive impact.

Until next time then…

Tom “Babelicious” Kirkham

Tech bloggers – key influencers or just more of the same?

By Jacqui Depares

It should come as no surprise that PR is a highly dynamic industry, always looking for new communication tools to get clients’ messages across to their respective audiences as competition, particularly in the tech sector, continues to grow.

I saw a good example of the huge impact that new media has made in this respect when my brother sent me a link to a new series of online programmes he’d helped create for a musician wanting to generate interest in his new album.  With over 70,000 hits in the first 48 hours of its posting, it’s fairly clear that this was a major PR triumph.

The communication mediums we can use in today’s technology savvy society are clearly evolving, with showbiz/gossip blogs often playing a significant role in making or breaking a celebrity.  But how does this translate in the wider business/tech world? Can a blogger really define the fate of a vendor?

In the US, particularly the B2C space, this is definitely the case.  Technology bloggers there have massive influence in the media and PROs go to great lengths to encourage these individuals to write positively about their clients.  A negative story can cause major ripples in an organisation and result in some serious crisis control taking place.

However, the picture is different in the UK market.  Technology blogs exist – but they’re either online publications that just happen to be using blogging software or are directly linked to a publication, and therefore have as much (or as little) reach as the publication itself.  So is there any point in specifically targeting them?

My gut response would be no.  Yes, pitches, briefings etc should all be tailored around the needs of that particular journalist/blogger (with many writers now wearing both hats) – but I certainly don’t think that the UK PR industry needs to launch a full on assault on the blogging community. 

And I’m not alone in my thinking – journalist Stephen Pritchard in last week’s PR Week argued that “targeting bloggers risks stretching PR companies’ limited resources even further”.  With already a huge media base to target, I think that PROs would be best advised to focus their efforts on traditional PR outreach – investing time in building and maintaining relationships with key journalists. 

Now of course, given I’m writing this on a blog, you may be thinking this all seems a little hypocritical.  So just to make it clear: blogs are an important tool for PROs (and PR companies!). I’m just not that convinced they currently have enough influence in the UK media to warrant us – certainly in the B2B arena – dedicating huge amounts of time targeting them.

Nice story, shame about the real world

By Mike King

A recent story from SaaS company Nasstar predicted that IT departments would disappear by 2013.  Hats off to them I thought, they’ve come up with a decent angle to ensure good pick up of the story in the IT press.  And it worked – I’ve already seen the story picked up by PC Pro, Computer World UK and Computer Weekly, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come. 

Of course, as a SaaS company, you’d expect Nasstar to be telling everybody that the need for on-site IT will disappear and in five years time, users will all logon to the internet for everything they need.  But even so, a good solid example of effective PR.

However, back in the real world, the thing that detracts from their argument is the claim that there is far less that can go wrong with hosted rather than on-premises IT. 

From my experience, finding a company that can provide a consistently reliable email system is nigh on impossible so the thought of relying on external service providers for every business critical application is unlikely to catch on any time soon.  Apart from anything else, at least if there’s a problem in your own environment you can get on and fix it.  Service providers, on the other hand, are past masters at passing the buck.

A fundamental shift in the attitude of service providers and a massive improvement in the reliability and performance of the whole broadband infrastructure needs to happen first. I don’t doubt that it’s coming, but those things aren’t quick to fix.  Five years?  Really? 

So, nice story – but I just don’t believe it.

Another year, another CeBIT!

By Ingrid Daschner

Harald Schmidt, a German TV entertainer with a penchant for uncomfortable truths and crude puns, once said: “Hanover may not be the arse of the world, but it does give you a good glimpse of it.”

Well, that’s not quite how I would describe the capital of Lower Saxony, but then our business doesn’t leave me enough time to investigate all sides of Hanover. For when the annual CeBIT exhibition is upon us, my life is dominated by the frantic run-up to the fair, numerous press kits and non-stop pitching.

Yet somehow it’s actually rather enjoyable – although I fully understand when I ring journalists up just before CeBIT when they say with a sigh of relief: “I’m so glad I don’t have to go to Hanover this year!” When I hear this, I can’t help feeling just a little bit envious… but I wouldn’t want to do without this dinosaur of a show, still defiantly calling itself “The World’s Greatest IT Fair”.

For instance, one thing that was completely missed by the non-CeBIT brigade this year was the opening event, which was honoured with the presence of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Microsoft’s Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Quite a line-up!

On saying that, I won’t comment on the German Chancellor’s pronouncement that, “it will take another one or two generations for computing to become as much second nature as motoring” – clearly, she’s not exactly an IT specialist...

This year, the trendy subject of “green IT” was everywhere, with an amazing amount of vendors focusing on issues such as energy consumption and recycling, or are at least pretending to do so. It should be interesting to see over the next few years who actually turns their words into action...

Other trends included much use of the word “virtualisation”, and all online activities being promoted under the banner of “Web 2.0”. And as always, there was no shortage of eye-boggling abbreviations – such as SOA, BI and PLM – which are so popular in our industry, but totally unintelligible to ordinary mortals.

My main problem with the exhibition this year was that the gigantic Hall 1 with its confusing roof ‘bunkers’ caused so many of us to be late for meetings. With its maze of aisles, Hall 1 rapidly turned into an adventure playground. Rumour has it that when a number of stands were dismantled, two journalists were discovered who had lost their way while trying to find the WordPerfect stand in 1995. Apparently, they had somehow managed to live on Cola and crackers among the remains of a long-lost software company which had disappeared in the take-over swamps of the nineties...

Of course, post-CeBIT always means pre-CeBIT, because while I’ve somehow managed to survive Hanover and its trade fair once again, I have no illusions about this being my last visit. Next year will undoubtedly see a repeat performance of everything that goes with it: congestion on the motorway, overpriced private accommodation in identical Lego-style red-brick bungalows, a tiny number of hotel rooms, crowded restaurants serving lousy food, awful weather, missed appointments and grumpy journalists.  They’ll all be there – as every year. Q.E.D...

Does fraud protection really need to be this complicated?

By Ryan Whelan

This week, the Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs) released figures announcing that fraud on credit and debit cards soared by 25% last year and reached a record high, with losses of £535m.  Card Not Present (CNP) fraud now amounts to more than half of all such losses at £291m.

We’re led to believe the banks are doing everything in their power to protect our money and identities, but most of us know of at least one person that has fallen victim to credit or debit card fraud, if not actually experienced it first-hand.  In fact, only last week I received a call from my mother telling me that money had been taken from her account and spent in China – but of course, she’s never been to China!

Coincidentally, my mother has the dubious pleasure of banking with Barclays, which has recently issued all of its customers with PINsentry - a real step forward in online security, claims Barclays.  I would beg to differ, as I’m sure would most Barclays customers.  It is so ‘secure’ that even the holder of the account cannot access their funds without possession of both the calculator lookalike device and their card, which does not bode well in a world where our pockets are already filled with mobile phones, wallets, keys and MP3 players. 

PINsentry works by asking the user to insert their card and PIN code, and in return they are provided with a one-time eight digit code to log on with.  As with many of the new methods being introduced, including SecureCode by Mastercard and Verified by Visa from Visa, PINsentry might add a small layer of additional security, but in doing so it also compromises usability. 

This method has also forced a number of users to resort to pre-generating and carrying around a set of valid codes for when they are not at home – which is hardly great from a security point of view either.   The emphasis here appears to be solely on blocking fraudsters rather that making life simple and more secure for the account holder. 

Chip and PIN may have tackled fraud at the checkout, but it’s clearly failing to keep up with trends in online shopping.  As such, we are currently forced to use two methods to authenticate ourselves; Chip and PIN on the high street and 'fixed' password-based systems online.

Yet Apacs appears to still be promoting Chip and PIN as the catch-all answer to fraud despite the revelation by Cambridge University researchers of successful attempts to obtain PIN and credit card details by hacking Chip and PIN terminals.

Come on Apacs, wake up, admit defeat, and try finding another solution to fraud that doesn’t just force the problem back on the user!

Majors’ online headache is of their own making

By Rik Salmon

The recent announcement that EMI was set to cut up to 2,000 jobs came as no surprise to many music fans.  While it could be argued that any business willing to pay this man £80million in return for Rudebox deserves everything it gets, the news provided further fuel to the supposed ‘death of the music industry’ tale we keep hearing so much about.

Ever since the early 1990s, the public has had to pay upwards of ten pounds for an album on CD, because no other option was available.  The record labels were all too aware of this and happily maintained the status quo. The rise of high speed broadband connections in the home, however, has shifted the power back into the hands of the consumer.

With the Big Four labels now frantically pointing fingers and sending the BPI scuttling out to do their bidding, the rise of online music downloads has predictably been credited as the primary factor in a downturn in profits. But is it just the case that the majors were simply too slow in reacting to a shift in consumer behaviour, and are now paying the price for not establishing an online presence sooner?

As they belatedly arrive years behind everyone else screaming foul play, they would have us believe that ‘illegal downloads’ are contributing to the demise of a much loved art form.  But is the music industry really in such a bad state?

For years now, independent labels have led the way by adapting to the market and actively working alongside music bloggers, sending them new releases to be hosted free of charge online for an ever-growing community.  It is this kind of proactive and forward thinking action that has enabled the independents to move with the times, whereas the majors maintain their defensive and uncooperative stance.

With recent developments such as Radiohead’s pay-what-you-like release of In Rainbows, and Prince’s free album giveaway with hip taste-maker the Sunday Mail in support of an unprecedented run of 21 dates at London’s 02 Arena, it is now clear that artists are regaining control and exploring other more lucrative revenue streams than traditional music releases. 

So while it’s always regrettable for people to lose their jobs, it’s hard to feel too much sympathy for the crumbling super powers of the music industry because they’ve been lining their pockets for quite long enough.

The serious business of gaming

By Dominic Walsh

The annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco proved to be a storming success.  Mobile phone convergence received a shot in the arm, new developments in artificial intelligence were discussed, interface alternatives to the keyboard and mouse were proposed, and a Microsoft demo product went faulty on them.

Admittedly, the interface alternatives were a balance board or guitar, the artificial intelligence was mostly concerned with playing football, the mobile convergence was to do with Second Life (again), and the Microsoft demo was... well, business as usual.

Talking of which, and despite it being primarily a games show, there was also plenty for a B2B audience to mull over too.

First, mobile convergence.  Given the interest in/hype over Second Life as a social networking and business tool, it’s interesting that its major mobile debut should be made at a gaming conference - will this perhaps result in business exploring the potential of other themed online worlds that have a far greater user-base, such as World of Warcraft (which has over 5.5 million subscribers in Asia alone)?  The development of online worlds for mobiles points to their growing sophistication and capability – and it's less effort to carry a mobile phone on business than a laptop. The interface still isn't useful for all applications, but progress is certainly being made.

Alternative control methods are also of interest to users other than gamers. Touchscreens are already being touted as the next step for mobile phone interfaces, and Microsoft's Surface technology is also moving the interface away from highly specialised applications and into more general use, whether for design or just organising files.  And once they can cope with more complex commands, even thought control-based interfaces could move beyond gamer headsets’ current "jump, duck, shoot" capabilities.

There was more, of course – the enthusiasm for online developer communities, continued moves to make as much content as possible downloadable, and a growing push towards user-generated content.  But what has really come to the fore this year is that gaming is most definitely a business, with as much interest, activity and potential as, say, storage, telecoms or messaging.

You might still think in terms of spotty teenage inadequates feeding fifty pees into Sega Rally – but the truth is that the users, developers and related industry have all moved on to more serious territory.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have another go on Minesweeper.

I’m A Nanobot… Get Me Out Of Here!

By Tom Kirkham

US inventor Ray Kurzweil has this week courted controversy by predicting that machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029. 

However, given the amount of people now regularly following television programmes such as “I’m a Celebrity…” and “X-Factor”, frankly I think Mr. Kurzweil is being rather conservative in his estimation… Surely robots will be able to match the intelligence of your average reality TV viewer a lot sooner than that??!

OK, I’m being facetious, but it does scare me that while machines continue to get smarter at an alarming rate, an increasing proportion of the public seems content to spend every evening observing former models and washed-up pop singers writhing around in tanks full of creepy-crawlies, or watching George Galloway pretending to be a cat.

I recognise the value of a little mindless escapism – the problem is, it’s not just our light entertainment programmes that are being dumbed down.  Sections of the media seem to be suffering the same fate.  I live in a city where approximately 861,000 people each day now read a free paper that has seemingly as much in common with Heat magazine as it does with a newspaper.  What’s more, a further 858,000 people read its rival, even though it appears to be exactly the same!

In contrast, the most recent statistics show that national broadsheet readership remains in decline – only The Independent has recorded a rise in daily readership, though has the smallest audience of the nationals anyway.  While the shift towards online media may offset this, typing 'Britney Spears' into Google News still brings up a lot more entries than 'Darfur' or 'Northern Rock'.

Ray Kurzweil believes that machines and humans will eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health – certainly an astonishing claim.  I’m just worried that in years to come, if anyone still wants to interview a leading thinker like Mr. Kurzweil, they’ll be more likely to ask him what’s on his iPod rather than to outline his vision of Dalek-like man-machines.

Yes, I absolutely recognise that, to a large extent, the media works by providing exactly what their respective audiences want to read.  But at some point you have to ask, is it really going to take putting nanobots into people’s brains to make them realise that a Paris Hilton wardrobe malfunction probably isn’t as important as the political crisis in Kenya or the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state? 

And if the nanobots do in fact achieve human-level artificial intelligence, you'd suspect they’d raise a pretty strong objection to being implanted in the first place!

The Art of IT

By Susan Siegl

While browsing on the website of the upcoming CeBIT event, I came across an interesting cultural award, the Künstlerpreis.  On the weekend of March 8 and 9, eight nominated artists of various categories will give performances as part of the programme, each focused on a specific IT area.

The Arts and information technology have developed a strong relationship over the past few decades, particularly as artists explore the new possibilities on offer.  Initially, computers were only used for digitilisation of existing works, colour changes or the creation of illusions.  Later, images started to be created on the computer, leading to virtual realities with interactive elements being built.  Nowadays, the internet can connect communities of artists or producers, enabling them to create a joint work.

However, I believe that the Arts have only just begun to explore the options that technology offers.  Yet even some of the most well-known museums for modern art such as MOMA in New York still mainly rely on the classical styles.  Only occasional shows – for instance the annual festival Ars Electronica – highlight new media arts.

Of course, information technology has influenced not only fine but also performing arts.  For film producers, the possibilities that CGI have created are practically limitless.  It's almost sweet to think now of the mechanical King Kong or the rubber shark in Jaws, which can still be admired at Orlando's Universal Studios.  Imagine the herd of Jurassic Park dinosaurs we could have visited if only they hadn't been digitalised!

One innovation I recently came across is the creation of artwork out of internet security threats. The Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu has developed with his Malwarez technique a way to display spam, phishing mails, spyware and viruses as graphic objects, based on the codes provided by a security service provider he cooperates with.  Take a look here at how deceptively beautiful these images are!

So next time my mailbox is jammed with spam, I will just try to see these messages as nice, flowery, fragile creatures...

Is file sharing really such a nightmare?

By Jonathan Mathias

Like Kazaa and Napster before it, BitTorrent, the brilliantly efficient file sharing protocol, is the latest peer-to-peer technology to be denounced as a threat to the future of society as we know it.

Placing vast amounts of music, movies, games and software a few clicks away, 'torrent' sites don't actually host content, they merely facilitate its exchange – a small file is downloaded which contains information on how a given movie or album should be broken up and reassembled when sent between other users – this has so far enabled the torrent sites to avoid prosecution. 

By its very nature, this technology facilitates the fast exchange of files without the overheads of needing huge storage space and bandwidth – so for instance, artists and copyright holders could register their material with a legitimate, private tracker site which could then charge users for access to the torrent file.

 
We constantly hear execs, studios and labels whining that file sharing is killing the industry, yet instead of openly advocating a proactive approach to solving the problem, the plutocrats seem to think that if they have a loud enough and long enough tantrum, they’ll be able to continue dictating how content is made available – thus artificially extending the lifespan of existing distribution channels.

However, the growing success and popularity of mixed pay and free download services such as 4OD and iTunes shows that, high quality, safe and fairly priced material is a better option than ‘free’, but unreliable and often illegal file sharing alternatives. 

With more and more download services from the film, music and software industries becoming available, it’s clear that technology and consumers are already changing an out-dated business model.  I fear we'll hear a lot more whinging though from the fat cats before the file sharing debate is finally won.