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Google Vs Viacom – ridiculous to sublime?

By Richard Scarlett

Back in March, when a frustrated Viacom decided to slap Google with a $1bn lawsuit for hosting copyright-protected video clips on YouTube, it probably didn’t realise that it’d end up taking on the entire social networking system – and challenging our basic human right to freedom of expression in the process.

But according to Google, it’s doing just that.

Taking a break from its quest for world domination, Google has kept an unusually low profile since news of the impending lawsuit broke.  However, it seems that during this conspicuous quiet period, the search giant has been conducting a search of its own.  Through a legal library.  The result – plead ignorance with a defence strategy so ridiculous that it might actually work.

In deciding to take advantage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - which protects a company from liability for copyright infringement if it is just the medium by which others post unlawful content – Google is well and truly scraping the barrel and has set out to test the limits of this flimsy ‘safe harbour’ law.

I say flimsy because surely this law can never work in the case of user-generated websites such as YouTube etc.  Even if the host were to comply with the regulation and take down the offending material when instructed to, the problem is only solved until some other user decides to hit the ‘repost’ button.  That’s simply the nature of the social networking beast.

But no matter how it’s dressed up, YouTube is generating traffic from other people’s material –and is already looking at ways to monetise its profile.  Google has a tricky blame-shifting task on its hands to convince a court otherwise – and if successful, the lawsuit could set a major precedent and cause a key part of the social networking phenomenon to die a sudden and highly publicised death.

However, in the throes of desperation, Google has actually stumbled upon a good point.  YouTube aside, Viacom’s claims could seriously threaten the way that many people interact and exchange information, news, entertainment and pure opinion on a daily basis.  And if this case were in fact to set a precedent, how then would it be regulated?  Would the content of blogs such as this come under direct and constant scrutiny?

The question now becomes that of who is actually liable for what we post online – the offending user, or the host?  Although it may initially be seen as Google frantically clutching at straws to defend its $1.65bn impulse buy, this new twist may actually form a legitimate defence.

If it were anyone else I’d say that there was very little hope of success, but because of Google’s gritty egotism and self-importance (read arrogance), I think that they may just get away with it this time.

In fact, my money’s on a 2008 launch of Google Legal Services 2.0.

The Cute and the Crass

By Claire Ayles

It’s hard to argue with the success of smoothie maker, Innocent Drinks.  But those funky guys at ‘Fruit Towers’ haven’t just made it possible for us to get our five-a-day in a couple of swigs of blitzed-up fruit – they’ve also been prime movers in the use of an increasingly popular form of marketing: corporate cuteness.

For Innocent and its ‘little tasty drinks’, this branding really works.  It has a busy yet health-conscious and environmentally-friendly target market, which undeniably responds to this kind of eco-quirkiness.  Most importantly, Innocent has promoted these brand values from day one – way before it was a multi-million pound business.

But inevitably, we’re now seeing multinational conglomerates jumping on the cutesy ‘brandwagon’ in an attempt to become our bezzy mates while simultaneously selling us products and services to make us feel all warm & fuzzy – even if they’re not much cop.

Take Virgin Media.  Please.  It rebrands my Telewest service at great expense, drops some channels, enters into a very public and childish spat with Sky and – let’s not forget – puts up my prices.  Not to worry though, I may be losing money and programmes, but I have gained a rather famous friend – Richard Branson. 

I recently received a lovely letter from Sir Dick explaining why Sky was being a big nasty bully and Virgin wasn’t going to put up with it, so there.  It was written as if we were in fact godparents to each other’s kids.  I know he only wants me for my money, but I have to say I feel that my intelligence is severely insulted if he thinks that by writing me a chummy letter, he is going to make me forget about all the things that Virgin Media stands for from my (admittedly rather embittered) perspective.

So, while Innocent has got it right – because its branding actually reflects what the company is about – I simply can’t buy Virgin Media’s manufactured persona.  To me, the folks there just seem to be building a very expensive and elaborate façade, behind which they intend to hide Virgin Media’s middling-to-poor service.

Oh, and did I mention that its on demand service (Teleport) hardly ever works?  Not to worry though, at least I’m keeping Uma Thurman in lip-gloss.

(By the way, one word about those TV ads, Uma: sue)

CrackBerry users do cold turkey for RIM

By George Mensah

The BlackBerry is hailed for its revolutionary impact on wireless and mobile businesspeople.  However, last week, it was anything but revolutionary, as a network outage swept across North America. With many users clearly regarding their BlackBerry as an extension of their physical beings, this nightmarish scenario left a bitter after-taste in the mouths of many, who were left reeling for two days with ‘CrackBerry’ withdrawal symptoms.

OK, that might sound like a joke, but there are wider implications in terms of how seriously RIM are taking research and testing.  It’s true that all networks are subject to technical difficulties at one time or another - but one would think that RIM, an organisation that is estimated to have around 45% of the market for smart phones, wouldn’t be in a position to fall foul of something this big?

In a statement (eventually) released by RIM, it attributed the failure to “the introduction of a new, non-critical system routine” (‘non-critical’ is a nice irony).  But despite this seemingly plausible jargon, customers, journalists and analysts alike were left to wonder why this outage had been able to happen in the first place.

In my opinion, this is only going to foster ill will in the future, as RIM has still not released a full analysis of the shutdown, neither has it indicated it has the means to avoid it happening again.  Consumers have been given the impression that the BlackBerry is the king of the smart-phone world, with RIM promising on its website “platforms and solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information” – but its crown will certainly be under threat if an incident like this happens again.

As a high-end phone user, I can assuredly say that consumers want added functionality from smart phones. After all, it’s the full-featured capabilities that are attractive. But what every user needs first and foremost is reliability.  This localised failure by RIM should be a lesson about the need to test systems fully before offering a service designed to cater for high-end users fixated with 24-hour communications – if it’s not heeded, RIM might be surprised to find just how quickly people are able to kick the BlackBerry habit. 

(Oh dear, looks like RIM’s knocking heads with Microsoft now...)

Just how much more will we give away?

By Shazia Mowlabaccus

The discussion surrounding Britain’s apparent sleepwalk into becoming a surveillance society continues to gather momentum, as highlighted already by fellow JK blogger Ryan Whelan.  But as the situation gets progressively worse, and people’s lives are intruded on more and more, many people still fail to realise how our activities are not only being tracked by the state, but also by a large number of commercial companies, all quietly gathering huge amounts of personal information on us for marketing purposes. 

Google’s recent announcement that it will ‘anonymise’ personal data it receives from users' web searches merely acted as a sharp reminder that a lot of what we do online is being tracked. Google had previously held information about searches for an indefinite period, but will now anonymise its server logs after 18 to 24 months. 

Like most people, I fail to really think about these things, and so news such as this just reminds me of how little of our lives is not being scrutinised.  For example, companies using tools such as loyalty cards compile information on what we buy, where and how we pay for it.  Combining this with our purchase history and with the personal information we supply them when we get the card allows them to build up a profile of us and our household.  The worse thing is that we’re often willingly complicit in this process.

What scares me is that despite increasingly living in a surveillance society, current data protection laws aren't up to the job, and so companies can sell this analysis on, with us having little control over our own personal details. 

Recent marketing methods have even gone as far as the use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to trace consumers’ mobile phones and then sending them personalised offers or information about shops or locations they are near.  Ideas shown in the futuristic film Minority Report, where people are individually marketed to by companies according to the company’s profile on them, are quickly becoming a reality.  But just how far will it go? 

And more to the point, how far do we want it to go?

I’m sure I didn’t make that call…!

By Ryan Whelan

If asked, what industry would you say found it acceptable for only 60 percent of its bills to be accurate and 70 percent of extra services paid for being undelivered?  You would probably say none.

In fact, mobile service providers have been responsible for these type of shocking statistics for years now.  I can’t even begin to think about the amount of excess money generated from inaccurate bills that has already been pocketed by these huge global organisations. 

(Just maybe this is why the mobile industry has been slow to adopt real time billing, as this would significantly cut the substantial ‘revenue’ earned from inaccurate bills...)

What can we do about it? Effectively, nothing!  Unless you make an accurate record of every phone call you place and every text message you send and then measure it against your monthly itemised bill.  Even then, trying to challenge an organisation of this size will probably only end in misery.

Paying for services we haven’t received or been able to use is another big problem.  Due to the relative low cost of these individual services, many customers who have failed to receive what they paid for simply cannot be bothered to go through the rigmarole of spending an hour on the phone to try and claim back 70 pence.  Especially as the process of such a simple refund has been made incredibly complex – I wonder why?

There is a common misconception that mobile content is poor and limited.  On the contrary, the mobile internet has the ability to flourish into an even more powerful entity than its elder, more familiar cousin.  However, service providers are not doing enough to ensure the mobile internet is delivered to a high quality and this is part of the reason it has been slow to take off.  The iPhone will be introduced later this year with a barrage of new functions, but how many of these will we be able to use on UK networks?

The problem is that devices currently available on UK networks are far more advanced than the networks themselves are capable of handling, which leads to frustration amongst mobile users.  Why do service providers have difficulties delivering simple content to our mobiles?  Because they fail to accurately test and monitor these processes across all devices on their networks before implementing them.

There is only one winner in this whole saga: service providers – and this despite the fact they seem incapable of keeping up with advances in technology.  Having failed to implement 3G at an acceptable level – effectively killing the market – they are about to do the same with the mobile internet.

Remember, it's dangerous out there…

By Tom Kirkham

Ever since shopping moved online, there has been a steady stream of reports and studies highlighting the perils of purchasing on the web - what information are you handing over, who are you handing it to, where is being stored etc?  So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that more than two thirds of UK consumers now believe the benefits of allowing retail websites to store information outweigh any security concerns they might have.

Then again, it sounds like this is more a case of ignorance is bliss given that 73 percent of respondents admitted they didn't really understand the risks in the first place.  The survey highlights the need for greater internet education, and clearly many of the respondents would be wise to gen up on ID theft and credit card fraud to ensure they don't 1-Click their way to bankruptcy. 

However, on the other side of the coin, it's very easy to overstate the risks and instil within more paranoid minds the conviction that if you shop online you will almost certainly be robbed blind and your personal details sold on to spammers, drug peddlers and international warlords. 

It should be remembered that the recent TJX hack attack which saw cybercriminals make off with information from at least 45.7 million payment cards, concerned credit cards that were swiped in-store by regular high street shoppers, not naive e-tail enthusiasts.  And even if your card details aren't stolen from an internal computer system, and armed robbers don't hold up the shop while you're in the middle of paying for your goods, there's still a chance you could be mugged, beaten, stabbed, shot, run over, poisoned, drowned or subject to alien abduction as you make your way home…

OK, I may be labouring the point, but you can see what I'm getting at - shopping online is not equivalent to navigating a minefield, yet time and again that's the impression we're given.

Too many people are currently falling victim to e-tail fraud, and for all the IT security solutions in the world, the problem won't be eliminated without greater user education.  But it's important that those responsible for educating are able to communicate the need for online common sense without resorting to scaremongering, otherwise people will lose all perspective about the level of danger they face. 

Yes, online shopping has its risks, but as Lt. Frank Drebin of Police Squad puts it, "You take a risk getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan."

Italian ‘mobs’ banned!

By Andy Chatterton

Italy has passed a regulation that allows headteachers to outlaw the use and possession of mobile phones in schools.  Any pupils found breaking these sanctions can face a range of punishments, from the confiscation of their phone to exclusion from school and final examinations.

Now, while I’m the first to complain about long train journeys sitting next to someone who can’t seem to go five minutes with having a loud conversation on their phone or the disturbing/bizarre trend of people listening to music on their mobiles with no headphones (am I getting old?), the thought that someone’s entire future could be at risk because they bring a mobile phone into school seems to me to be a step too far.

There’s been a lot of stories in the press about school kids using phones for inappropriate activity - bullying, distribution of porn, ‘happy slapping’, cheating in examinations - and of course each of these incidents strengthens a call for an outright ban.  However, in an age where walking to and from school can sadly be a risky business for school kids, mobile phones are also increasingly a safety net for parents.

What would be ideal is for phone companies to offer some kind of technology that allows parents to control the time of day the phone can be used, the content accessed, the numbers calling and being called from their child’s phone…

Funny thing is, the technology already exists and is being used in North America.  But why is it not available in Europe, one might ask?  Sceptics might argue that children provide far too big an income for mobile companies to start cutting the time that they can use the phone - but surely a company offering this as a package to the whole family will be creating income and loyalty from a whole group of people, rather than just teenagers?

And let’s face it, any outright ban on mobiles in schools is frankly not going to work.  This technology savvy generation is going to have no trouble finding ways of hiding their use of mobile phones from teachers who already have too much to worry about - kids can text whole messages with the phone in their pocket, for goodness sake!

Surely the solution that keeps everyone happy is a flexible parental monitoring service that allows limits to be placed on phone use during set times of the day and night.  This would reassure parents that they could still contact their child in an emergency, while allowing pupils to use their phones during breaks and free time, causing less uproar than an outright ban and avoiding the furore that would no doubt occur if pupils were excluded from school just for taking a phone call.

Pst, heard about this new thing called Vista?

By Flora Haslam

One of the great things about working in technology PR is that everyone you know automatically assumes you understand technology.  Now in my case, while I get the intricacies of WAN application delivery and FTTH routers, this doesn't mean that I'm an expert at actually setting up and using a computer (our resident tech guru Lisa can testify to this).

Imagine my joy then when asked to set up a friend's new PC.  In fairness, I thought it couldn't be that difficult and indeed it wasn't... until we got to the point of connecting to the internet.  With over half of UK adults now having a broadband connection, you'd think this wouldn't be a problem…

However, I'm not sure how many of those are connected with a PC running Microsoft Vista, as it transpired that our basic problem was that the service provider’s software for getting onto the internet just wasn’t compatible with the new operating system.

Now, admittedly, I'm exposed to tech stories on a daily basis, but there can be few people that haven't heard about Vista - its arrival was hardly a surprise and yet AOL ("the world's largest interactive services provider") apparently wasn't ready for it.  Cue what seems like hours on hold waiting for AOL support only to be helpfully told that I need a new version of AOL especially for Vista (just in case I hadn't already worked that out), and that I should pop along to the website and download it because the CDs weren't available in the shops yet… 

Hmmm, you may have already spotted the flaw in AOL’s cunning plan here.  'Popping along' to the website when you can't get online is going to prove tricky for anyone, but it took a while for the support guy to work out why I wasn't overly happy with this solution.

What amazes me is the sheer number of services that are not yet Vista ready.  Some have been well publicised, others not so much.  Vista may still be relatively new, but if you buy a home PC now, you get the latest operating system whether you like it or not.  It's frustrating then that such a basic thing as connecting to the internet (which is, after all, what most people are going to want to use it for) should be such a trauma.    

(BTW, you'll be happy to hear the computer is now up and running.  Although the first CD AOL sent didn't work, the second one did - after another hour or so calling AOL.  The next phone bill should be interesting!)

PR wasps buzz annoyingly around IPTV honeypot

By Kathryn O’Donoghue

It was buzzing at the IPTV World Forum in London last month.  The show had more than doubled in size since last year and anyone who's anyone in this emerging industry was there to show off their products and services, meet the industry's opinion formers, and forge lucrative deals and partnerships.  The atmosphere was one of genuine excitement that this market is finally about to take off and earn these companies their millions. 

But it wasn't only the IPTV industry that was swarming - it was also the technology PR industry.

It's not hard to see the attraction of working for clients in this industry - IPTV is after all one of the hottest topics in the media at the moment.

But what was strange is that a lot of the PRs touting for business at the show went straight to the busiest booths where prospective customers and partners, journalists and analysts were already jostling for the attention of those on stand duty.  It happens at every show, and to be honest, it’s not a great reflection on the general intelligence levels of your average PR – do these people not realise that busy stands are usually busy for a reason ie. they already have good PR!

Take Ruckus Wireless, for example, one of our clients.  A number of PRs certainly tried to, having emailed in advance to say they would ‘drop by’ the company’s stand, and several more turned up unannounced, all battling for space with frankly more important visitors.  What these PRs forgot was that the main reason Ruckus and other companies were at the show was not to reassess their PR activities, but to make business contacts - distracting them from potential customers hardly seems the best way to convince them to switch agencies!

Of course, this isn’t to say that there's no place for winning new clients at trade shows.  But wouldn't it maybe make more sense to target those booths with fewer visitors (and often in genuine need of PR), where you'd actually stand a chance of getting to talk to someone for more than 30 seconds, rather than going after the companies that are already making the headlines? 

You never know – as we’ve found ourselves, even the smallest start-up can generate all kinds of attention with a decent PR company on board…

Why does mobility always mean compromise?

By Mike King

In many ways, increased mobility and the technology that supports it would appear to be a marketing person’s dream.  There’s barely any need to convince people they should give it a try – the concept is easy to understand and people want to use it. 

Trouble is, although that’s the message the mobile industry preaches, it isn’t what it gives us.  It says it does, but in reality, it usually serves up some half-baked compromise that leaves you with the feeling that this stuff will be good at some point in the future - but unfortunately, not today.   

For example, I’m a big fan of Wi-Fi (who isn’t?). It’s great for surfing the web, using email and accessing your work network remotely.  BUT, and it’s a big but, it often isn’t available where it would be most useful.  Like now, for example, as I sit here on a train writing this blog because I can’t get access to my corporate network to do some real work. 

Of course, the irritation factor with Wi-Fi can actually increase when you use it.  If you’re lucky enough to find a connection point, more often than not, you then have to mess around completing forms, registering your details and paying for access (at some ridiculous rate for a few hours access that equates to what you pay for a month’s broadband at home) before getting online. 

Not a big deal, but hardly the utopian high speed, always connected world that we’re always being promised.

If you go the always-connected route, with something like a Blackberry, the compromise is that you have to put up with limited functionality with no practical way to work on documents or do most of the stuff that you can do at home or in the office.  Of course, you’ll have email access - but very little else.

Or you can get a 3G card for your laptop giving you always-on connectivity.  But the cost is high, the service is patchy and the real compromise is that the performance is slow, and certainly nowhere near broadband (or Wi-Fi) speeds.

It’s pretty simple: we want high speed, always available connectivity so we can do what we do in the office wherever we are.  The most frustrating thing is that the technology exists to provide this - yet the mobile industry is dragging its heals, giving us bits and pieces, but leaving us feeling we are being short-changed and only getting half of what we really want.