Group items tagged

Engaging in social media backfires for Nestle. Due to the Greenpeace protest against the company with regards to how the company uses palm oil in its products, a number of people posted their distaste on Nestle's Facebook page. Unfortunately for the company, the representative in charge of replying to comments was far from being amiable, or even courteous. Sample exchange of comments: Nestle: "You have freedom of speech and expression. Here, there are some rules we set. As in almost any other forum. It's to keep things clear." Paul Griffin: "Your page, your rules, true, and you just lost a customer, won the battle and lost the war! Happy?" Nestle: "Oh please...it's like we're censoring everything to allow positive comments." Social media has significant benefits for companies and how they market the products to consumers. However, if used wrongly, as with this case, massive PR clean-up is inevitable.

Another case in which intellectual property rights come into question. Apple is suing HTC for infringement of 20 Apple patents. It is interesting to note, that the majority of handsets which been specified in this case are powered by Google's Android operating system which is open source. I feel that corporations using open sources to power their products need to consider the potential repercussions. Although open source communities tend to operate with an ethic of contribution and collaborative innovation; it is inevitable that ideas and the products which stem from it will crossover from one realm to another, which in turn will lead to a figurative 'stepping on one another's toes' and ensuing law suits. In saying this, it is clear that whether or not it is open source product or not, that cases like this have almost become a symptom of the modern tech-business climate.

Bog entry: Chinese clone iPad, iPed. The product of censored infortation and trict internet regulation in China.

This article argues that reputation - such as in Apple's iPad - can be more important than need and functionality when it comes to technology. The phenomena of 'the fad' is not new, but is especially relevant with technological products and innovation. It will be interesting to see whether items such as the iPad do fill gaps in a market or are simply fad toys. The iPad's claimed 'killer function' - that of reading and subscriptions - will prove interesting when we look at how the publishing industry repsponds and whether standards much develop for newspapers/books/magazines.

A comprehensive study conducted by the Pew Center for Research in the States looks at one of the demographics that experience the 'digital divide' - people with a chronic illness. The results indicate that although people with chronic diseases are less likely to have access to the internet, those that do use it productively to contribute to the online bank of knowledge about health-realated topics, as well as forming supportive online communities.

thanks Tiana, I'm actually covering a related topic in my DRP journal article. This is really helpful.

Google to launch a new advertising product called 're-marketing' allowing google to follow you around the web, serving you up content based on what you've been doing on the internet.

I'm covering Protest Movements on my blog and will be focusing on cultural protest. This post looks at the furore around Nestle's use of palm oil in its products and what Greepeace have done to protest this, including a darkly comic spoof video of "Have a break, Have a Kit Kat" creative.

Once again tv producers are sueing the bittorent sites for infringing their products. The producer of Hurt Locker had even sued 5000 internat user for distributing the copies of the movie illegally.

From the spreadsheet and timesheet at work to the tyranny of the scales... to the constant tracking of your iphone and social media apps. Foucault's biopower.

An original article by David Armano published in the Harward Business Review. Privacy. It's the key word in most Facebook-related headlines these days. But it's not the key idea. For the author it is really about is not the limits of privacy but the notion of agility - the ability of an organization to implement rapid iterations in their products and services for better and/or worse.

Product alert - but this one is free! Symantec have released 'Norton Everywhere' which aims to provide a holistic security solution to all internet devices. What this means for DNS is rather than defaulting to the DNS server of your internet provider you can use choose to use the Norton DNS. This will filter insecure sites and guard against malicious DNS attacks. Symantec isn't the first to provide such a service. If Norton doesn't appeal there are other free DNS options such as Google Public DNS an OpenDNS. Changing your default DNS setting to one of these providers seems like a worthwhile thing to do.

SMH article about the Australian government's "Gov2.0" initiative which encourages government employees to use social media more.  

Microsoft Corp and I-O Data Device have entered into an agreement that will provide I-O Data's customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data's products running Linux and other related open source software.

Find the whole idea vaguely repulsive. See Slashdot: "The Japanese computer manuracturer IO Data is the latest in line to license Microsoft's so-called 'Linux patents,' following the likes of Novell, Samsung, and Amazon. Yes, even the press releases use the word 'Linux' to describe these patents. From the press release: 'Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data's network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data.'" http://bit.ly/bmxIO4

Canada, alongside France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom have issued a warning to Google on the grounds that the company is ignoring privacy and legislation with respect to launching their products (Google Buzz). This is a clear example of when a company, may appear to attempt to protect their users (Google vs. China) while, in the company's own interest, these rules and regulations may be ignored. How much trust should we put into any company that offers services free to the public, and exactly what liberties do we give up when we sign up for that service?

Steve Jobs announces that Apple has no intention of supporting Flash sites through iphones and ipads in the future. Claiming that Flash has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly and is too oriented to PCs. Apple has not intimated that they will offer an alternative solution. Do we believe these reasons, or are there more politics at play here? I'm inclined to think there is something more. Granted Apple does make every attempt to provide its users with a high level of reliability and useability which Flash obviously undermines. Clearly such standards are what differentiates the quality levels of Apple from Mac. The power is with the market then. Will users opt for other devices that do support Flash, or will the Apple brand keep its power despite not supporting the major software brand used to build interactive sites? Interestingly, although Flash is not recognised officially as a 'standard' HTML5 does support certain Flash features. Adobe has commented that it is committed to improving its Flash product.

Microsoft shares the same point of view on the limitations of the Flash product as Apple. Again, reliability, security and performance were identified as impediments of supporting the flawed software. Speaking about the mobile era Steve Jobs of Apple says 'low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards...' are areas where Flash is not currently accommodating. It's most interesting to watch powerful market players create pressure for change in the internet space. Adobe can ill afford to ignore these criticisms yet it's now taking opportunity to discredit the motives of the multinationals: "Apple's moves to block Flash and other technologies are designed to protect a business model that locks developers and consumers into a single, proprietary stack," Adobe spokeswoman Holly Campbell said.

Adobe is to stop making software tools that allow Apple's IPhone to run Flash. A decision made after months of discussions between the companies. Mike Chambers, Adobe's principal product manager wrote in his blog "Fortunately, the iPhone isn't the only game in town."

The search giant has hit back at state requests (or court orders) to censor content on YouTube or in Google search by releasing a map showing the number of requests for censorship by country. Google has stated this move is "part of its continuing championing of openness of information" and insists the timing is purely coincidental regarding the complaint from 10 nations that Google releases new products without due consideration for privacy implications (as posted by Liz Gan), Reading the comments in these articles is always insightful. Someone points out that a lot of the requests may simply relate to slanderous items requested by courts to be removed (rather than evil government censorship requests).