Reports released this week (21 July 2010) state that Amazon has sold 143 eBooks for the Kindle (Amazon’s own specifically designed e-reader) to every 100 hardback books in the past three months. Amazon has gone on to claim that over the last month sales of eBooks have continued to creep, now reaching almost double that of hardbacks.

This may be a reason for Amazon to celebrate, but not everyone is over the moon, book lovers have hit back at Amazon by pointing out that the low cost of eBooks leaves them lagging behind in terms of quality compared to hardbacks.

The US market surrounding e-readers is starting to look decidedly saturated as interest in the technology grows, with new e-readers being introduced by Barns & Noble, Borders and Sony over the past few months.

Strangely, the biggest threat to Amazon and the Kindle is not from any of the existing e-readers, but from Google. The internet giant has announced that they plan to bring out their own e-reader in an attempt to take a bite out of Apple and Amazon. With Google already having access to over 12 million books scanned into their database, their virtual bookshelf will already be far superior to any of their competitors.

The question we all want to know the answer to is, “Will this growing trend of e-literature reach as far as the UK market?” A London publisher is quoted in this week’s Guardian as saying that even though the US market is 2 or 3 years ahead of the UK market, there is no reason why the same trend could not be replicated here.

As the Kindle is still only available on Amazon’s US site, an aspect that is putting some UK buyers off, it seems we may have to wait a while to see if our predictions were totally correct. But for the next few months we will definitely have a keen eye trained on the growing interest in e-readers … that and trying our new found talent on the National Lottery.

Funnily enough yesterday evening I went to pick up my second iPhone 4 from Orange.  I returned my first one for being faulty. Nothing to do with the signal issue, (although that is pretty bad!  But then again I am on Orange!) but because of its shocking battery life.

This is the first Apple product I have purchased. I own an Apple 2^nd generation iPod Nano but I did not purchase this myself.  I did rush out to buy the new iPhone release a couple of weeks ago, partly because I wanted to be cool and hip, and also because I was due an upgrade, so it seemed the natural choice.

The signal issue was first made public on the 24^th June when the phone launched, so I knew about the problem surrounding the antenna issue, but this did not put me off selecting the iPhone 4 as my upgrade, and seemingly it did not deter the other million or so people who ventured out to get their hands on the new handset. 1.7 million units were sold in the first 3 days of its release!

The great thing about Apple is that they have built up a real brand and relationship with consumers. Despite hearing all these terrible things about the iPhone 4 we are so accustomed to the positive values of Apple (innovation, quality, ease of use) that most of us have probably dismissed the fact that the tangible product (the phone) is full of faults and have ventured out to buy an iPhone anyway. This is because we trust the brand values associated with the name Apple.

My personal thoughts were exactly that. Sure I thought the negative press was bad, it made me question whether to purchase an iPhone but then I thought, “Hey it’s Apple they are renowned for great innovative technology, so I will ignore the critics and get one anyway -  in the hope that I do not have any problems with it“.

There is no doubt that there is a signal issue with the new iPhone 4, this is both disappointing and disheartening to the millions of customers worldwide who have shown brand loyalty and rushed out to buy one.  The issue was brought to light when the phone first went on sale, and it has taken Apple almost four weeks to realise something needs to be done to address this issue. You only need to search online to see the mass of negative reviews from analysts, consumers and critics. This week consumer reports, which are pivotal to the success of new technology releases, claimed they could not endorse the phone or recommend users buy it because their own tests found a problem with reception.

Should Apple care about the negative PR’s potential to damage its ‘market leader’ reputation?

Personally, I think Apple’s reaction to the consumer uproar has been shocking and is an embarrassing example of reputation management to say the least.

Until now Apple was a brand synonymous with cutting edge technology, innovation, quality, good design and ease of use. I am not sure how long these brand credentials will remain unless we see a positive outcome from the Apple conference tomorrow.

Will all customers be given a free bumper case? Will Apple take a leaf out of Johnson and Johnson’s book and recall the iPhone4? The iPhone 4 may not be killing consumers but the bad press is certainly killing Apple! Or Will Steve Jobs just come up with another ridiculous excuse?

Maybe in years to come the Apple iPhone 4 scenario will become the Exxon classic textbook case of poor crisis/reputation management.

Well I am off to play with my iPhone 4!

The reach of eBook stores will continue to grow as the increasing competition pushes down prices in the eBook reader market and more people upgrade to smarter phones. Amazon has already done amazingly well to sell an estimated 3 million Kindles considering it is only available online. Super-secretive Amazon now appear to be rolling out bricks-and-mortar retail distribution with US chain Target announcing that the device would be available in its 1740 stores.

If the claims of many avid eBook fans that reading on ‘ePaper’ screens as found on dedicated devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader is vastly superior to the back-lit displays found on multi-purpose units like Apple’s iPad are true, then Amazon and Sony might be able to wrestle market share from Apple when consumers hold the devices side-by-side.

ePaper or electronic Paper is a display technology designed to mimic real paper. The screen is not back lit so it reflects light just like a book would. It is capable of displaying text indefinitely without drawing any power, so ePaper devices tend to have very long battery lives. ePaper displays can be read in direct sunlight making them ideal for ebook readers however they are only available in black and white.

Sales of the ebooks are also looking very healthy. In November 2009 an Amazon spokesperson claimed that the company sells 48 kindle books for every 100 physical with sales of Kindle books expected to “double in 2010″. In January 2010 Jeff Bezos trumped that claim stating that “When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher.”. Furthermore, over the 2009 Christmas period sales of Kindle books exceed sales of physical books.

While no unit figures are released, according to Reuters 25% of Amazon’s $25.5 billion annual revenue comes from selling physical books. If the 48/100 claim is to be believed then the company must be selling 212 books per device. (Based on a notional average price of $10 an estimated 3 million devices). Clearly this cannot be accurate, but we can see that ebooks are moving off digital shelves rapidly. A report by Forrester has found that people who buy e-readers have increased their book purchases 50 percent.

Many digital titles are only marginally cheaper than their bound counterparts at the moment. But competition in the eBook marketplace from Apple’s iBookstore may drive prices down to a point where digital editions are priced aggressively enough to make consumers switch. Once this point is reached one would expect a surge in sales of both titles and devices capable of reading them. Apple requires that pricing for e-book versions should be less than a print version if one is available, and there are limits to the maximum iBookstore price for the first 12 months after release depending on the price of the print edition.

Some authors are now questioning whether they need publishers at all. Thriller author Joe Konrath published detailed figures of his Kindle and eBook sales from last year demonstrating that if he had electronic distribution rights for his books he could easily be earning far more than the royalties from his print contracts with publishing houses. He concluded by saying ” I don’t think I’ll ever take a print contract for less than $30,000 per book, because I’m confident I could make more money on it over the course of six years than I could with a publisher over six years.”

This nicheification of book publishing is similar to the one we have seen with music and news(papers) over the last decade and also looks to be on the horizon for TV and Video. Old business models based on scarcity of supply are being rapidly eroded by unlimited choice with content producers connecting directly with consumers in a low cost digital world.

If I could write I might consider publishing a book myself.

Have you ever tried to register a domain name for your business, brand or company website only to find that someone else has beat you to it?

Are you constantly looking for a dot com only to find they are ‘dot GONE’?

Here at Zeta we know the scenario only too well – when clients come to us with a name they want but simply cannot get.  Very often they have to pay thousands to purchase their preferred domain from a reseller or domain squatter.

Well forget .com the name on everyone’s lips will soon be .co.

Yes in 22 days, 01 hours, 56 minutes and 05 seconds (20th July) general availability for .co domain names arrives. And .co is set to be BIG.

Do I need one I hear you ask? Well are you a company, corporation or a commerce website? Or maybe you’re a collaborative tool, content or community website? If so the new .co domain is something you NEED to get hold of before someone else does.

As featured in: TechCrunch, Wired, Mashable, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal the new .co format is rumoured to be the coolest domain yet – and remember it means you can get the Name you WANT.

Short, easy-to-remember .co has been designed to relieve the shortage of.com domains. And Twitter has just announced it will be adopting the .Co domain.

“Unlike other extensions that may have launched in the past, we know ours is something very unique,” said .CO Internet Director of Marketing Lori Anne Wardi (published on the Internet Council of Registrars) “Before we even launched this extension we did a lot of research in the market to get an understanding of what the perception of the public to .co would be.”

“.co is unique because it is universally recognised. After surveying thousands of consumers and interviewing 600 of them, cointernet.co found that 75% of respondents equated .co with “company”, “corporation,” or “commerce. It is a popular abbreviation in the United States, but also abroad. In fact, over 20 countries use .co as a second level domain name (i.e. co.uk, co.jp) because of this. ”

Cointernet.co is labelling this the .CO era where short and memorable domains are once again available for brands. With all the hype and an obvious rush to purchase these domains securing yourname.co should be a top priority.

OK well everything went to plan apart from England actually winning, but the point I am trying to illustrate is we spent a huge amount of money and not once did anyone question our actions.

This is why I wasn’t surprised when IMRG/Capgemini (read the full report) announced yesterday (21st June 2010) that online retail sales have has increased by 22% in May 2010, becoming the highest growth rate since June 2008.

Beer, wine and spirits experienced a massive increase of 23% and electrical goods also jumped up by 13%. Online shoppers spent £4.5 billion during the month of May which works out as an equivalent of £73 per person in the UK.

So, during a recession and with an emergency budget being announced today (which will be a pivotal moment for the country) we have managed to spend a staggering £4.5 billion online during May, the highest spend for two years.

How is this possible? National pride of course. When it comes to football and the greatest prize of all, the World Cup, nothing will stop us from getting behind our team with a crate of beer, 3D experience at the pub and a brand new 42” flat screen to entertain our friends. Of course the weather and that summer feeling have helped but it is the World Cup which strikes a common bond throughout the nation and boy do we need it!

Thank you Mr Capello for getting us to the World Cup, now get us to the final so we can drink ourselves out of the recession.

The sun is out, the world cup rocketing so let’s stock up the fridges, buy the flat screen we have wanted for the last year and cheer on our team in our brand new football gear.

Picture this; a group of beautiful women, glowing the colour orange, surrounded by a group of footballers and boisterous men.

Don’t be mistaken I am not talking about a night out with my fake tanned friends, I am talking about the latest ambush marketing stunt at the 2010 FIFA World Cup by Dutch beer company Bavaria!

It was not instantly obvious that the 36 women wearing tight figure hugging bright orange dresses at the World Cup game between Denmark and Holland on Monday 14^th June 2010 were advertising for the Dutch Brewery.

(And let’s not forget ITV pundit Robbie Earle who is said to have provided Bavaria with the free tickets to the World Cup Match who has since been fired!)

The Cup’s authorised beer is Budweiser which pays millions for the sponsorship. The stunt went slightly wrong as not only were the women ejected by FIFA official stewards at half time. Two are now rumoured to be facing a jail sentence! It has also been revealed that FIFA has also started legal proceedings against the Dutch brewer.

Was it worth it?

Well the resulting publicity from the stunt has heightened the popularity and awareness of the brand. Ironically the publicity sought by the brands who undertake ambush techniques usually arises from the general public and / or official outcry and attempts to stop the activity from taking place. This actually further draws attention to the situation, which of course is exactly what the brands hope for.

Think, if the FIFA officials had ignored the women and let them stay for the whole match …But they didn’t and low and behold, the name Bavaria has been plastered all over the national press and if you perform a quick Google news search for Bavaria beer there are pages of articles reporting on the incident.

Why Use Ambush Marketing?

Ambush Marketing is a term often frowned upon in industry circles. It is used to describe a marketing technique; often using guerrilla tactics that occurs around an event but does not involve a sponsorship fee to the event and annoyingly for the event organisers rarely breaks any laws so cannot be legally enforced.

A brand or company will abuse the publicity value of an event to gain an unfair publicity or marketing benefits despite having no financial or sponsorship involvement with the event.  For events with a large significance and a high profile such as the FIFA World Cup there are often a few selected sponsors who pay a huge fee to hold the exclusive rights. Details of the official World cup sponsors and partners can be found here:  http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organisation/partners/index.html

But why did FIFA act this way

Well FIFA like many large world sporting event organisers takes its sponsors very seriously.  Understandable when over a third of their revenue comes from commercial sponsors. Budweiser is the official World Cup beer and have paid millions for this right. Therefore FIFA vigorously peruses anyone trying to associate themselves with the tournament – doing everything in their power to prevent other brands directly or indirectly associating themselves with the World Cup.

Sponsorship of major sporting events like the World Cup attracts large-scale publicity and is an effective and lucrative vehicle for the promotion of brands. Sponsorship is a million dollar business, and the fees paid for exclusive rights are the backbones of such events.  Ambush marketing undermines events integrity, so if FIFA simply ignore such stunts, the value of sponsorship will diminish and large commercial sponsors will remove Sports sponsorship from their marketing mixes. Without the financial backing of sponsors and partners there would be no World Cup.

A Win Lose Situation

The main issue surrounding sponsorship of events like the World Cup is that the less established brands and companies with a smaller international presence will wish to expose their brand on an international scope, that only such large events like the World Cup can promise, but may never be able to maximise from the opportunity as they do not have the budget to invest the millions of pounds that sponsorship contracts demand. What ambush activities gives such brands is a snippet of the World Cup benefits for a fraction (or at no cost) of the price tag.

The companies who make use of clever, creative tactics to get noticed and self associate themselves with such international events are by far the best in my eyes. Yet, brands must be weary. As highlighted in today’s G2 supplement of the Guardian, ambush marketing can seriously backfire. If brands are associating themselves with a sport like Football they need to be able to demonstrate a long term strategy and benefits, rather than a here today gone tomorrow approach. The brand’s values, credentials and meanings must share a parallel with the event in order to create the emotional attachment between the brand and the events stakeholders.

Not the First Year for Bavaria

In the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Bavaria beer also tried a similar tactic, making orange trousers the cult outfit by giving bright orange coloured lederhosen to Dutch football fans.  FIFA officials were not impressed and fans of the Netherlands were made to remove Bavaria Brewery’s orange trousers because Budweiser was the official beer sponsor. In one of the most surreal experiences reported, the stadium officials in Stuttgart made the supporters remove their Bavaria branded attire – leaving many to watch the game in their underpants!

I wonder why they didn’t get the women this year to remove their dresses instead of arresting them?

Ambush Highlights

Here are some notable events over the past years and Brands that embarked on Ambush Marketing techniques to get themselves noticed. Highlights include:

• 1984 Olympics – Kodak sponsors TV broadcasts of the Olympic Games as well as the US track team despite Fujifilm being the official sponsor.
• 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona – Nike sponsors press conferences with the US basketball team however Reebok were the official sponsor. During televised events and ceremonies the players covered up their Reebok logos.
• One of the greatest ambush marketing stunts of all time is when Nike ambassador Michael Jordan, Mr Air Sponsorship himself, accepts the gold medal for basketball and covers up the Reebok logo on his shirt.
• In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; sprinter Linford Christie wore contact lenses embossed with the Puma logo at the press conference preceding the 100 metres final. Reebok was the official sponsor of the game. How much Christie was paid for this is unknown.
• During the 1996 Cricket World Cup – Pepsi ran a series of advertisements titled “nothing official about it”, whilst it was not directly attributable the message was covertly targeting the official sponsor Coca Cola – very clever.
• In 2000 Sydney Olympics – Qantas Airlines’ slogan “The Spirit of Australia” sounds strikingly similar to the Games’ slogan “Share the Spirit.” despite Ansett Air being the official sponsor.
• In 2008 Beijing Olympics – entire countries were tuned into the Opening Ceremonies, and worldwide, millions more saw former Olympic gymnast Li Ning light the torch and learned that he owns a shoe company with the same name, a direct rival of Adidas and quite famous in China, but not an official Olympic sponsor.
• 2010 Super Bowl XLIV – Canadian gay dating site ManCrunch is accused of ambush marketing when it submits a controversial advertisement to CBS for air during the game. The theory is that ManCrunch produced the ad knowing that it would never be accepted and hoped the controversy would drum up the intended attention without having to pay the nearly US$3,000,000 price for an advertisement during the game.

The economic growth of any country comes from the government and the private sector. I do not need to tell you about the state the British Government has been left in after thirteen years of Labour Governing. But let’s take a look about the state of UK creative industries:

I speak on behalf of those working in creative industries throughout the UK that many of us have seen a drastic cut back in Private Sector spending – huge cutbacks in client budgets since 2008 particularly in the advertising, public relations and graphic design industries. This being attributed to the massive government spending which has had a negative impact in private sector consumption and investment. When business directors and shareholders do not understand the true importance of marketing these divisions of the business are usually the first to see a slash in budget.

Lucky for those of us in the digital industry we have not suffered so much at the hands of the public sector over spend. In fact we have seen an increase in online marketing spend with more organisations and companies starting to embrace and understand the value of marketing their business and products online. In fact, 66% of companies are planning to increase their digital marketing budgets during 2010 (Marketing Budgets Report, econsultancy 2010).

Creative SME’s have competed for public sector contracts

In attempts to further conserve profits many SME’s have turned to the public sector to sustain their business. This has proved a good strategy in some cases but has generally not been the case for creative SME’s due to the rigid procurement processes which prevent smaller private sector providers from competing for public sector contracts. Sam Allen, search expert at Zeta wrote an excellent post about public sector organisations using private design agencies.

Labour ‘spin’ has resulted in a negative reputation for Marketing and PR

PR is often said to be about reputation management yet through poor and ineffective attempts to manage themselves the UK government has damaged the meaning of PR.

The government’s attempts to ‘market’ themselves and influence public opinion have always had a negative impact on the perceived value of Public Relations and there is nothing new here. However the last thirteen years or so of government ruling have left the UK industry severely tarnished. From the appalling MP’s expenses which were leaked in 2008-09 to the infamous “good day to bury bad news” email sent by Jo Moore during the 9/11 bombings – Labour has been an excellent example of poor reputation management riddled with communication crisis, slander and lies and this is giving the PR industry a terrible position.

Secondly, in an attempt to win the public votes the three main parties (hypocritically) throughout their campaigns have taken a real swipe at PR.

“They’ve threatened to slash public sector PR and marketing spend, or even to ban public sector spending on what we’d otherwise see as normal government activity. The risk is that good government takes second place to good political positioning, and that in the anticipation of a second election in 2010, the parties decided to make PR their punch bag of choice” says Francis Ingham the director of the PRCA.

A party coalition and hopes for economic recovery

The long awaited outcome of the 2010 UK General Election was finally concluded earlier last week after a long weekend of political confusion, discussion and debate.  After thirteen years of doom under New Labour ruling, signified by Spin, Conspiracies and of course the hated Recession – we hope that an alliance between Tory leader Cameron as PM and Lib Dem’s Clegg as deputy will see Britain move into a realm of stability and economic prosperity, with Cameron leading the way to an economic recovery.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition has left many UK businesses and business owners feeling a lot more optimistic about trade and the future stability of the economy. The proposed cuts to the public sector spend may finally give private sector organisations the fuel to prosper again.

A study of business owners and executives by employment law firm Citation (www.citation.co.uk ) found that 63% of business owners believe their company would perform better under the new Con-Lib ruling.

But what is the feeling of business owners and directors in creative industries and other private sector organisations? I sought to do a bit of my own research to see if this figure is representative by asking business executives and directors whether they agreed that UK business would perform better under the new ruling.

The general views reflect the findings of the Citation research. And despite the differing political opinions there is a general consensus of optimism and hope. Clive Sexton’s comments highlight that whilst the government is essentially leading the country and dictating budget and spend within the UK economy, the sustainability of individual businesses and organisations will always be determined by the drive and innovation of their individual leaders and employees.

Ruth Lopardo, Entrepreneur/Founder of www.loveitloveitliveit.co.uk Online Children’s Clothing Store

“My thoughts on the coalition as a business owner are that I’m concerned that the government will be stable enough in the medium term to see the fledgling economic recovery through without tipping the country back in to recession, especially with a Chancellor as inexperienced as George Osborne.   The Conservatives are often seen as the party of business, and whilst the Lib Dems are an unknown quantity in Government they may bring a fresh approach.  However, the current economic situation will give both the Government and businesses a very rocky ride.  The scale of spending cuts proposed by the coalition to cut the budget deficit is also of concern; if lots of customers are losing their jobs or cutting back spending in case they lose their jobs that can only be bad for business.  On a personal note, as a children’s clothing retailer, I would be very much against the application of normal rate VAT to kids clothes, that would be a disaster for my customers and for my business.”

Liz Jackson – MD of Great Guns Marketing www.greatgunsmarketing.co.uk

“I’m very pleased that after much deliberation the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have finally struck a deal. If they can put their differences aside and work for the common good then I see no reason why it shouldn’t be a success. Undoubtedly what we need right now is a government that acts quickly in cutting the deficit, removes the ludicrous ‘jobs tax’ and believes in public sector growth. Also, I think it is good to see wise political minds such as Vince Cable being drafted into the cabinet as he clearly has a vast array of political and financial knowledge that will help lead the British economy from the brink of bankruptcy towards growth.”

Roger Allen, MD of Zeta

“Britain desperately needs a stable government that addresses the issues at hand clearly without the ’spin’ and double speak which was synonymous of New Labour. The new Con-Lib coalition will combine Tory realism with Liberal policies. Political stability and sound financial management are the foundations that businesses need to prosper.” Roger also shared his opinion to leading business website, Business Wings.

Hessia Fernandes, Entrepreneur/Founder of www.cooltribe.com -  Online Green Social network

“The coalition was born more out of need than idealism so I am slightly suspicious of its agenda and its ability to last. But having said that, there is a real opportunity for both parties to make it work.  I am at the moment reserving judgement as we haven’t yet passed the PR/spin phase.  I am genuinely interested to see what happens in the next few weeks.  As a small business, my main point of concern is George Osbourne´s inexperience at managing projects of this scale, after all the economy is in dire straits and it feels like we´ve given the little schoolboy the titanic to captain in a sea full of icebergs.  For my business to grow I need a growing economy where businesses will invest in online marketing so I just hope that the budget deficit cuts don’t put too many people out of work and don’t push businesses to be more cautious with their marketing spend.”

Commenting on the 13^th May 2010, Clive Sexton – Director of leading Global Interim Management Provider –Impact Executives

“49 days to the emergency budget, 4 days to parliament assembling, 11 days to the Queens speech. It is inevitable that there will be significant and major cuts across the Public Sector, inevitable union strife, in addition there are concerns that there will also be civil unrest also across the UK, this has been building for sometime. Unavoidable higher taxes, VAT going up to 20%. So the Private sector just needs to draw a line under it all, look at new markets beyond the UK and Eurozone, where there is growth opportunity and come up with totally new propositions for the UK market and adapt those on a country by country basis and lift itself out very positively of the demise we have been in this past year plus and GO FOR POSTIVE CHANGE AND GROWTH STRATEGIES, which will be driven by INNOVATION.”

Siobhan Bales, Managing Director of Managing Director of bgroup creative agency & bdaily business news network NE – www.thebgroup.co.uk

“The coalition fills me with a real mix of dread and hope. Dread becuase of the fundamental belief systems of each party being so opposed, with liberalism wanting to take more from the self made business people, and Tories rebalancing the tax system to encourage entrepreneurship – business people pushing to grow and develop their businesses to the next level. It is a time when we don’t know the economic support infrastructure for our regions going forward. Will the coalition disbanned the RDAs or Business Links, what will happen to the real spend in 2010/11/12 on public health, tourism and enterprise promotion. All of these decisions will have a significant impact on the strategy of both of my businesses. Hope lives in a new administration, not as tired and wanting to make their mark. Successful business startup and growth sits at the heart of our economic growth in the UK. It is essential to support our businesses and create fast wins, to move confidence and opportunity for growth across our regions. This government may have the right mix to do this”.

Jamie Gavin – Founder of Jay –G Media http://www.jaygmedia.com

“I believe the Conservatives are trying to appeal to small businesses by offering normal incentives like waving N.I contributions for the first registered employee etc – which is all well and good, but I worry that if they are unable to live up to expectations and effectively recover the state of the economy there will be no economy left to operate in under con-lib.”

So what is the future for our industries (Marketing, Digital Communications and PR)?

Did our former government understand the value of the creative industries? My answer is no. They largely failed to demonstrate themselves as good communicators as you can read above. Labour is a great example of when PR goes wrong, and how to not conduct crisis communications!

What about Digital? The report for a digital Britain ensured a strong digital economy by 2020 by promising all broadband access by 2012.  Gordon Brown came across well using industry terms and  knowing exactly what he was talking about and understood the value of digital communications. I personally think it was just web-wash – another ‘promise’ that would never surface if they came to power.

However business owners and executives are hopeful that the new alliance will help British businesses perform better. I guess we have to wait and see…

The verdict was delivered after Labourhome.org owner Alex Hilton was sued by Johanna Kaschke. Kaschke was objecting to a libellous comment which appeared on the labour home site which was written by a user.  The content was accusing her of having had links with Baader-Meinhof, a German terrorist group.

Although Hilton did not write the comment or make it live, the fact that he actively moderated other areas of the website by …”exercise(ing) some editorial control on parts of the website and in particular on the homepage.” held him liable.

Because the web sphere is so diverse, understanding the legalities surrounding websites can often be very complex, and the average user might be a bit worried after reading these claims.

Zeta offers an overview of the situation as well as some helpful tips for blog and site owners who may be concerned about the recent revelations:

Today, many companies run interactive web sites where users can participate and provide comment either through commenting on content or blog posts through to interactive forums and chat rooms.

It has been the norm for most companies to pre-moderate any comments that users make and decide if they are suitable before they are shown on the website. This is particularly important in order to stop spam etc.

The High Court ruling acts as a reminder that you must be aware that you risk losing your safe harbour protections and can become liable for user generated comments that have been posted if you do anything other than just display them as they are submitted.

If you for instance moderate comments and choose if they are displayed, or if you perform any kind of editing or correction of a typo or spelling mistake, then you can no longer be classed as an information storage service and become liable for the user generated content as if it was your own.

Struan Robertson, a legal director with Pinsent Masons LLP and editor of the firm’s legal information site, www.out-law.com claims that when dealing with user generated content libel and copyright infringement are the most common problems.

We asked him, How can site owners who want to keep user interactivity at the heart of their site/blog do so without losing their safe harbour protections?

“The safest approach is to let comments go live without checking them before or after they appear. To be absolutely safe, don’t delete spam or offensive comments unless and until you receive a complaint. As soon as you start to check comments for spam, you run the risk of being liable for other content too. Obviously this approach makes for terrible quality control, and blogs become a spam fest, so there has to be a trade off. Sites that can’t afford to implement technical filters to block spam or profanities are often the ones that receive fewer user contributions – and moderating comments manually may be a risk that the site owner feels is worth taking.”

But as a site owner or publisher there is no need to stop user generated content all together. The safest approach suggested by Struan is really for extreme cases. We believe as long as you are aware of the potential issues you shouldn’t incur any problems.

Sarah Pantry, project manager at Zeta adds:
“So make sure that if you moderate your user generated content that you make sure there is nothing there that you will be held responsible for by not approving anything risky”.

Copyright Infringement
Copyright infringement is another unlawful act common to websites and blogs.  Often arising from republishing someone’s content without permission or using copyrighted images.

When writing content for blogs it is common practice to read other articles/sites online to inform your own content development, but you must be careful not to directly copy any of this content as this would put you at risk of copyright infringement. If you want to use content that someone else has written or said always cite the source and date (e.g. BBC, 2009). Copyscape is a free online tool enabling to scan your own website/blog posts to ensure that your content is original and has not been duplicated by anyone else.

If you find that your content has been duplicated without your permission the first thing to try and do is contact the offending site/user and request that they remove the content. If there is any disagreement or they are uncooperative then you might think about going down the legal route. Check out the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for more information.

However there are certain websites where you CAN directly copy content from: these are normally regarded as free article sites/free press release sites. Cite the original source to be on the safe side if you duplicate any copy from these. Whilst the content may be of interest to your readership audience, something to remember is that using content from free sites may in some instances have less SEO value to your own site because Google tries hard to remove duplicate content from its index .  The SEO experts at Zeta always prefer to use 100% original content.

The use of images is another copyright risk. Avoid using Google image search and copying images to your own blog/site – if there is a particular one you want check the owners website to see if they allow use of images or logos. Many big brands and companies will allow use of their images for PR and related purposes – or you could contact them for permission to use an image.

The best way to ensure your images are legit is to purchase from a stock photography site – there are many online, some give free stock photos. You must ensure you have legal right to use imagery. There are various different ownership options from ‘rights-managed’ to ‘royalty free’ or annual subscriptions. There are plenty of Stock Photography sites that provide great images at various different prices. Try www.gettyimages.com, www.istockphoto.com and www.shutterstock.com.  Getty being the most expensive but at the same time probably provides the best images. The rise of Flickr has born a new generation of young budding photographers that will allow their images to be used to gain more exposure or for a small fee. Why not find a photo on Flickr and get in touch with the author for a cheaper alternative.

Please share your discussions and advice surrounding this topic with us and for the benefit of other users:

Headlining the Daily Mail on Monday (5th April 2010), it was revealed that pupils as young as 11 are being given iPhones to give instant ratings on their teachers.

This move is an example of the latest Government ‘pupil power’ drive, claims the Daily Mail. But the use of modern technology in such a way is also a pre indication of the Governments latest plan for a digital Britain (You might want to read Henry’s previous post about Gordon Brown’s plan for a digital future) coming into play.

Is the Government justified in allowing pupils to decide educational policy?

The new plans revealed by the Government early this year mean that as of September 2010 all schools in England and Wales would be legally obliged to seek pupils’ opinions and views on major decisions and policy making.

The Government believes that including students will encourage them to behave and study hard if they feel they have a say in their own education.

The arguments for the move towards encouraging pupils to play this vital role in education decision and policy making is questioned by critics and the teaching community.

Children know nothing about what is right for them as they don’t have the years of experience or adult mentality\ development to make adequate objective decisions. Instead rating teachers’ ability according to ‘attractiveness’, ‘dress sense’ or perceived ‘coolness’.

What does this have to do with the iPhone?

Whilst the article in the Daily Mail was more about the long term viability of giving pupils such a democratic voice than about the iPhone itself, the points raised certainly showcase the capabilities of modern technology.

The clever headline certainly sparked my interest, but when reading into the story in full you will see that an unnamed school in Kent actually issued the phones to 20 students and asked them to send their comments to the head teacher during a quality assurance week. However the fact that this has happened suggests we could see more of this in the future across all sectors.

Could technology like the iPhone revolutionise the way schools are inspected?

It does not take a genius to work out that people will act in a pleasing way when they know they are being watched. If a teacher/school knows they are under inspection they will of course make efforts to behave according to what they feel is required to achieve good ratings. I certainly remember at my school all the teachers would go crazy when they knew the OFSTED inspectors were coming in.

Surely the best way to monitor and improve education and select the best teachers for our children is covertly, and what is most covert – yes a pupil reporting from the classroom. Natural covert participant observation – if I was now in a psychology lesson!!

I am not saying that this is the right approach to take but the capabilities of modern technology would certainly allow this to happen.

Rather than asking pupils to observe a class, and then later fill out a questionnaire or set of reports, modern technology such as the iPhone allows an almost instant exchange of information. Inspection bodies and school head teachers can instantly receive information from pupils about what is going on in classes without the need for CCTV or another teacher being present.

Could we see an OFSTED app for the iPhone developed – allowing pupils to instantly rate teachers and lessons against specific criteria at the click of a button.

Voice recording/Video Recording – allowing documented evidence of teachers’ ability to be sent to head teachers and inspection staff instantly via SMS, MMS or email.

What about other sectors?

Certainly technological advancements make it easier to invade on others privacy – the digital age is all seeing. Employers, service providers and employees could all see a shift in how their industries are audited and inspected.  Could we see the introduction of ‘ A digital mystery shopper‘, where company inspection audits are conducted by employees themselves acting on behalf of external bodies using technology like the iPhone or the iPad to document and send evidence instantly.

Traditionally if we receive bad customer service in a shop, we complain to the manager, or we write a letter. We then wait for a reply, and our complaint might be challenged. It can be a long process. But what about if I have this complaint documented on video or voice recorded on my smart phone? Well the proof becomes instant. If this company has a website I can download my complaint to…then bingo.

Conclusions

I am in complete agreement that elements of this pupil power movement are absurd. Students should not be involved in policy making and decision making directly, but allowing them to have a voice would certainly allow them to value their education more than perhaps they would if they felt they were always ‘told what is best for them’.

Rather what I have taken from this is that I believe in the next few years we will definitely see a big shift into this semantic age and school inspections, teacher selection and evaluation will take place using modern technology as a catalyst. I also believe this will expand through into other industries and sectors – and whilst elements of this are already occurring now they are not in the public eye. I believe technology will remove and challenge many ethical values.

Scarcity of Supply

Mobile network providers can only levy such massive charges because of the scarcity of supply. At the moment we are all forced to use a mobile network to get access to voice and data services on the move. But with the expanding WiFi coverage in the UK and possible introduction of WiFi towns (like Swindon), this scarce resource is set to become highly abundant.

Voice over IP

Voice over IP is a mature technology. With a major fire at BT’s central London node yesterday landline communications all over the country were disrupted. But Zeta’s voice over IP system was unaffected because IP is designed with redundancy so that a call will always find a way around a damaged node.
With Skype now resident on the apps lists of our smart phones, VoIP on the go has become a reality. So when we are all living in WiFi towns why do we need the likes of Vodafone and O2 who are making massive profits from providing rudimentary data services? We all send emails for free – any size, any length, with massive attachments – so why should we pay 5p to send a meagre 140 character SMS message? in the WiFi world we won’t need to.

Modernisation

The logical step for mobile operators is to simply become network service providers like your ISP. Everyone pays a flat rate subscription to access the network which gives us high speed 4G data rates with which we can do as we please. Fair usage aside there will be no call charges , definitely no SMS charges and video calling can finally get off the ground.

Who’s going to pull the trigger?

All it takes is for one network to switch to this model and the others will be forced to follow. If the others  are slow to react they could find there are no customers left to win. Today’s announcement is a big step towards realising this scenario – if I started a mobile operator tomorrow I would make all calls, texts and data usage free and just charge when calling another network or landline. If it’s free to move to my network with a modest monthly network fee wouldn’t you encourage all your friends to move too?