Clova realpolitik

The Times Online RSS Feeds

The Times of London delivers RSS feeds effective June 1st, 2005. The last of the big UK newspapers, but the one I read first, finally comes through. Welcome news.

RSS - bringing the worldwide web to you - Doors - Times Online

By Nigel Powell

In the beginning there was the web, and it was good. We fired up our web browsers, entered the site address and navigated ourselves to these wonderful new pages of information and delight. But slowly things began to change. We found that keeping up to date with our growing number of favourite sites was becoming more of a chore than a pleasure. We would spend hours browsing our essential pages and still not be done by lunch, and this was not A Good Thing. Then, just at the point where most of us were about to give it all up in a desperate bid to escape information overload, along came a saviour, a white knight bearing the promise of the age. The RSS standard was born.

June 3, 2005 at 08:27 AM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home

Mapping, and where it will take us

Some really cool stuff is going on, in the world of online maps, and this will translate into new business models in the future.

Having seen the GPS display and location specific advertising in Japanese cars, thats just one clue to the future.

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

This is a cautionary tale for Microsoft: them who has the best API's will get used in the most interesting new ways.

April 9, 2005 at 05:22 PM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home

2004 in review

Through my research blog, Internet Changes Everything, I watch for significant events and changes in our world caused by internet. Here is a review of the trends I noted in 2004.

Spam::
A very hot topic at the beginning of the year, the big ISP's took that very seriously, and it feels like thats starting to have an impact. Microsoft, Earthlink and Yahoo went after suspected email spammers at the source.

The same article notes that AOL saw a 75% reduction in email attempts. I am a little more sceptical, and suspect email spammers have seen the cost of the effort to send out emails is'nt seeing the return required, and people were just put off by email, and began to re-think their email approach, purchase anti spam tools, better email services, and greater care in what they click on the web.

Within my blog I noted the first half of the year was all about the spam problem, but the second half was about the big guys employing anti spam tools. Perhaps its all working!

Phishing::
This was the big new story of the year. Criminals were able to encourage bank customers to input their username and password into fake bank sites, and either create fake bank cards, or enter peoples online banking and steal money.

This story is just breaking, and the consultants/ security groups continue to debate the amount being stolen. In any event the larger issue is the very trust in the web for secure activities, and this is something the banks have to solve, over the next couple of years.

Browsers::
The most fun story of the year was the evolution of Firefox. Browser wars are back, and Microsoft is on the losing end of a business battle, rather than poorly articulated legal battles against them.

This one is seriously going to change the way we use the internet and in a good way. This could even be connected to the reduction in spam because Firefox has built in security features, not the least of which is that it ignores ActiveX, and bad and old in the tooth Micrsoft tool.

I liked one suggestion (within Microsofts forum), that Microsoft just drop IE and take Firefox, open tool as it is and embrace it. In any event, non embedded browsers are here to stay.

Blogs::
No year end review in 2004 can be complete unless I mention blogs. But I wont repeat all the usual Dan Rather stuff, which is well covered even in Time Magazine. For me the power in blogs is more to do with the original concept of internet as a community, and the power of asynchronous discussion and debate. This was the orginal benefit of email long ago pointed out by Bill Gates, and this will be the true benefit of blogs, as the good ones build on each others views and information to get to an even better level.

I would see blogs in this way impacting corporations relations with their customers, lawyers with their clients, and organisations/clubs with their members.

News RSS Feeds::
Separately from bogs, RSS feeds took on a life of their own, as all the big news organisations began to distribute their news this way. Couple that with embedded RSS support in Firefox, and the browser takes on a new liife and getting the news your way, has never been easier.

Web Lifestyle::
More of an ongoing trend, I see the true web lifestyle getting closer. Broadband is pervasive now, and everyone is getting wireless connections at home. Phones have a long long way to go in North America, but I see 2006 becoming a turning point there as 3G starts to hit here.

Then the real web lifestyle with internet on your blackberry, phone, laptop, and desktop integrated with tools from likes of Yahoo, Microsoft, and the telco's to make your life even easier.

Happy New year!

December 28, 2004 at 09:03 AM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

The real power in VoIP

Finextra: Lloyds TSB to switch to new fibre core in £500 million IBM deal

The real impetus for this change at Lloyds comes home when you realise that with 3,500 locations all on the same network for telephony, this takes them outside the normal telecommunications network.

They can eliminate normal long distance costs, and replace with their own network costs, with the telephony being operated by Vanco summed up with this quote "We view this deal as an important first step towards releasing the carrier stranglehold on the financial services market".

December 7, 2004 at 07:27 AM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home

The newspaper model of the future?

Here is a newspaper that "get's it" and is levering the web to better understand its customers and redefine their priorities.

Marginal Revolution: The newspaper model of the future?

This revolution has occurred, says the paper's publisher Augustine Edwards, thanks to his decision to listen to "the people." Three years ago, under Edwards's guidance, LUN installed a system whereby all clicks onto its Web site (www.lun.com) were recorded for all in the newsroom to see. Those clicks — and the changing tastes and desires they represent — drive the entire print content of LUN.

December 3, 2004 at 01:41 PM in Business Models | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home