The Original Sims

Mark Sweney Guardian Unlimited Tuesday November 27 2007 

BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV are to launch a video-on-demand service offering more than 10,000 hours of TV programming.

The project has a working title Kangaroo as first revealed by MediaGuardian in June. Its launch next year could be a watershed moment in the development of on-demand video media in the UK.

Kangaroo, which one source has described as "wanting to do for broadband what Freeview did for digital TV", will be a joint venture in which BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 have an equal share.

In a joint statement, the partners said Kangaroo "will work independently as an aggregator of both joint venture partners and third-party content".

 

More …

Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent The Guardian Tuesday November 27 2007

Companies could be infringing privacy if they dig up information about job applicants from social networking websites, an internet expert has warned.

John Carr, chairman of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, believes that employers and education officials could be crossing the line when they look up information about applicants on the web.

"There are lots of rumours about young job applicants being screened on Google or even university tutors looking at people applying for further education," he said.

"If that really is happening, then it could be illegal - when the kids are posting a picture of a party, they are only doing it to let their mates look. They are not doing it for an application form."

More …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7108627.stm

An ICO website aims to help young people protect personal detailsMillions of young people could damage their future careers with the details about themselves they post on social networking websites, a watchdog warns. The Information Commissioner’s Office found more than half of those asked made most of their information public. Some 71% of 2,000 14 to 21-year-olds said they would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some material.

FT Published: November 23 2007 23:23 | Last updated: November 23 2007 23:23

A simmering unease about threats to privacy from a new feature on Facebook is threatening to come to the boil, presenting the fast-growing social network with the first test of its unusual plans for making money from its site.

By automatically alerting a user’s online network of friends to things bought on other websites, the feature can reveal highly personal information, critics say.

Facebook, however, says its users can choose to keep their purchases secret, or to limit the number of online friends to whom their purchases are disclosed.

Known as Beacon, the feature was one of several money-making ideas Facebook launched this month to try to turn its users’ actions – such as their online purchases and their stated preferences for certain brands – into recommendations that might influence the buying habits of their friends.

Though it caused unease around the internet when first announced, the Beacon system has attracted a renewed burst of unwelcome attention in recent days thanks largely to the efforts of MoveOn.org, the online political action group.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7108627.stm

An ICO website aims to help young people protect personal detailsMillions of young people could damage their future careers with the details about themselves they post on social networking websites, a watchdog warns. The Information Commissioner’s Office found more than half of those asked made most of their information public. Some 71% of 2,000 14 to 21-year-olds said they would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some material.

0615:To Liverpool for the day to visit the Sail Training International conference. I’m looking at how we might be able to cover the Tall Ships visit to Belfast in August 2009 and possibly we can cover the race across the north Atlantic live on the web.

The conference was essentially for people active in the organisation but still worth while. Very good presentation by Ocean Youth Trust Ireland.

When in Liverpool got a call to say that the new bbc.co.uk/northernireland homepage was live at last. This page has been in production for a very long time mostly in search of a look and feel and working with the audience to see what they want. Ease of navigation and uncluttered. Once that was decided we spent a great deal of time on the navigation, sub navigation and the functionality. The user shouldn’t have to understand how it works, just that it does. I’m looking forward to the feedback.

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Broadcast Magazine Published: 13 November 2007 09:31

Jon Anthony on why television producers should look at what is actually working on the web rather than try to replicate their traditional business online. The broadcast industry is an industry run by suits, of which only a select few actually have any real understanding of the new technologies that arrive now on a monthly basis. The most common question around the boardroom table these days is "how can we make money out of the internet".

BBC News Online - Monday, 12 November 2007, 08:09 GMT

Users are being warned not to post personal details on their profiles. A quarter of the 11 million Britons who use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook may be leaving themselves open to identity fraud.

Get Safe Online, a government-backed campaign group, is warning against posting personal details online.

Media Guardian Jemima Kiss Tuesday November 13 2007

Youth social networking site Bebo will offer free content from major broadcasters - including the BBC - and record labels when it launches a series of media channels today.

The Open Media platform will also feature programmes from the BBC, ITN, Channel 4, BSkyB and Endemol in the UK, and CBS, Turner, MTV and ESPN in the US. Programmes will Include Robin Hood and The Mighty Boosh.

Companies can embed their own media player on their Bebo channel, including their own advertising, and customise the page for their brand. Following the launch at noon today in London and New York, additional media companies will be able to add their content through a "self-service" system.

From Pointer Online: Posted, Nov. 9, 2007

Last week, The Plain Dealer suspended its political blog, Wide Open, after learning that two of its contributors had donated money to political campaigns. The blog — which was the idea of Jean Dubail, assistant managing editor/online — will likely be re-introduced in a few weeks with new bloggers, under the agreement that they can support campaigns but not get paid, Goldberg said.

Susan Goldberg“Our mistake in looking at this in hindsight was in paying people. Just like when we hire a freelancer to review a play, we would never hire somebody who was an investor in the theater production," Goldberg said during a phone interview. "We can’t have people on our payroll who won’t play by our rules.”

New York Times - By STEPHEN LABATON Published: November 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to impose significant new regulations to open the cable television market to independent programmers and rival video services after determining that cable companies have become too dominant in the industry, senior commission officials said. The finding, under a law that gives the commission expanded powers over the cable television industry if it becomes too big, is expected to be announced this month. It is a major departure for the agency and the industry, which was deregulated by an act of Congress in 1996.

Officials say the finding could lead to more diverse programs; consumer groups say it could also lead to lower rates.

November 8, 2007, 5:28 pm New York Times By Saul Hansell

Mark Zuckerberg promised no less than a revolution with his idea that ads you see on Facebook will be attached to the names and photos of your friends who like the products being advertised. There is at least one problem with this idea: It may be illegal under a 100-year-old New York privacy law. The statute says that “any person whose name, portrait, picture, or voice is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained” can sue for damages. Moreover, such a use is also a criminal misdemeanor.

FT
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson Published: November 8 2007 09:02

Warner Bros has signalled its intention of expanding more aggressively into the video games industry with the acquisition of TT Games, the UK publisher of the LEGO Star Wars series which has sold 12m copies around the world. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will give Time Warner’s Hollywood studio a stronger in-house capacity for developing game spin-offs of its film franchises, but will also allow it to create video games which are unrelated to its movies.

New York Times By LOUISE STORYPublished: November 7, 2007

FACEBOOK wants to put your face on advertisements for products that you like. Facebook .com is a social networking site that lets people accumulate “friends” and share preferences and play games with them. Each member creates a home page where he or she can post photographs, likes and dislikes and updates about their activities. Yesterday, in a twist on word-of-mouth marketing, Facebook began selling ads that display people’s profile photos next to commercial messages that are shown to their friends about items they purchased or registered an opinion about.

FT
By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles and Kevin Allison in San Francisco
Published: November 5 2007 04:56

MySpace has raised the stakes in its battle with Facebook after completing the first phase of a pilot scheme that allows it to sell advertisements targeted to the individual tastes and interests of its millions of users.

The online social networking group, which is owned by News Corporation, has dubbed its new advertising sales system “hyper targeting” because it uses the personal information which users input about themselves to tailor personalised online adverts.

FT By Kevin Allison and Matthew Garrahan Published: November 5 2007 04:57

Social networks are charging ahead with new technologies that exploit the detailed personal information their users provide in spite of concerns about the intrusiveness of online advertising. In rolling out new technologies designed to help advertisers better target their users, MySpace and Facebook hope to avoid the controversy that has dogged so-called “behavioural” advertising, where search engines and online advertising networks serve ads to users based on their individual web-surfing habits.