RSS vs Twitter in local government: a serious imbalance?

Image via Wikipedia

eGovernment Register reports today on 'social media' use in local councils (LAs), noting that work by Liz Azyan published on her blog at LGEOResearch.com shows it at:

		Number	% of LAs
	Facebook	48	11%
	Twitter	128	30%
	YouTube	63	15%
	RSS	122	28%
	Web dev blogs/feeds	6	1%

Now I would argue that RSS is a bit misclassified here as 'social media'. That's one interpretation of it but another is as a data feed. That's what the Mash The State campaign is about, having feeds which can be 'auto-discovered' and are machine readable.

What shocked me in these numbers is that Twitter has in a few months been adopted by more councils than RSS over many years. You have to ask as well what 'RSS' use is being reported. Is it merely a feed of press releases extolling the greatness of the council as opposed to, say, planning applications or sports events? Mash The State's campaign is actually about the incredibly modest goal of all councils have a PR RSS feed by the end of this year. The bar has been set low by a campaign group: this speaks volumes.

So why is Mash The State modestly and quietly plodding along but Twitter shooting off and quickly overtaking? Fashion, what else could it be?

Local government webbies have spotted this trend and worked on that because it's easier and, frankly, because Twitter is in the news and can be thus more easily portrayed as a 'must-have'. It's 'low-hanging fruit', an 'easy win'.

It's not just Twitter. Web development blogs can be incredibly useful for webbie teams to get feedback on site development - that's why companies from Google to last.fm run them. But they require that bit extra of time and resources, and planning and arguing (and understanding) for their usefulness. So why are they so rare and why is there no research or group arguing for them or people demonstrating their ROI and giving them momentum?

Same goes for Facebook and YouTube (and the absent Myspace and Bebo): their collective use far outweighs Twitter so why are they much less prominent?

There's another danger here which is that which being prey to fashion has for the longer-term embedding of web in local government.

For councilors and many council staff (plus service users), who want to see and experience clear benefit, the potential for (open source) applications such as those being developed by #rewired state and #youngrewiredstate is far greater to my mind than it is from Twitter. But in the political and PR battle for the attention of Lgov webbies, especially its movers and shakers, are they losing attention and therefore potentially funding and other resources, like developer time?

These numbers should make Lgov people stop and think hard about what we're doing and where the priorities are. Yes Twitter is great and I love it but let's not just cheer what they say about the progress of social media and quote the Twitter number, let's look at the laggards and ask what we can do to get those numbers up to where they should be.

Embedding video: why isn't it obvious to the MSM?

I blogged a few days ago about the BBC's new use of Flash video across the news website — my main question was to ask just why they won't allow embedding by others of their content. Or rather, why they will allow it when that content is nicked, republished on YouTube etc. (they aren't policing this with take-down notices) but won't enable it.

As I commented, this makes even less sense when much of that content - yes, news content - would be of interest to exactly the audiences they are desperate to appeal to. Start with teenagers embedding news about climate change on Bebo/MySpace and think on. It's hard to see where the negatives are but presumably they think there are some.

Of course, I tried to comment but actually gave up after re-hitting the button periodically over about eight hours.

So I just don't know but my, I think fair, assumption is we're talking slow-moving, dinosaur like corporations and behomoths who just don't get it - where media consumption is moving to and why they're losing out. The success of video online shows that the web can actually increase your viewership/revenues if you stop trying to fight and control and start responding quicker.

This is an across the 'MSM' (mainstream media) thing and speaks to why they're being so quickly outgunned/flanked on the web, because I just tried to promote an ITV drama and found I couldn't. Free marketing and they don't want it.

I love Jake Arnott's books and they have dramaticised his fourth, 'He Kills Coppers'. Radio Four gave an ITV drama a four star review. But I am so pissed off that I can't embed a preview here that I'm not going to link — and the ITV page for it isn't top in Google results, you'll have to look. And the link must be what they want: all hail traffic to their website. Why? You can get your revenue via ads in the embed!

This is absolutely terrible marketing and completely inexplicable: because I've yet to hear an explanation.

Michael Grade presumably thinks me promoting one of their dramas is about 'not handing control to a third party' (i.e me). He should try talking to Comedy Central instead of the bitter people running the music industry.

It's part of Viacom, run by Barry Diller and they say:

"We definitely feel that [allowing embedding of] video on the Web is a huge tool. It drives word-of-mouth discussion about a show."

NB: I haven't mentioned ITV's use of Silverlight, rather than FlashVideo. That's a deal whose stupidity and short-sightedness should be blindingly obvious.

• Postscript #1 (BBC): Oh yey of little faith ...
• Postscript #2 (ITV): I have a response back:

At present we do not have any plans to make our programmes available for embedding/downloading due to rights issues.

BBC finally embedding video

As I noted a while back the BBC had started embedding video - on the occasional tech page/blog - and has now decided to use Flash Video embedding everywhere around the news site. The details are announced today on their Internet blog.

Which is all good but the blog post doesn't explain why they aren't providing the embed code for others which other big media players are starting to allow. See clip reuse en masse in the US Primaries.

This is also obvious to me in the Madhi Kazemi campaign, I end up with Sky clips but not CNN when the latter has done a much better job, and seeing that would undoubtedly help their credibility/viewership. Just linking doesn't cut it any more when someone else's clip is right there.

This all seems a bit daft when they evidentially aren't policing the reuse of their clips via YouTube/LiveLeak etc. You could also make the argument that if you want to reach - for example - da youth, then allowing them to reuse your stuff, especially news clips, on their blogs and Bebo pages would be one good way of doing that.

There wouldn't be that many copyright issues either, you'd think, since it's BBC News, not some third party.

On the one hand they don't seem to mind their clips being reused/promoted (two sides of the same coin) but on the other they're not going to make it easy. That sounds like their defacto policy.

I assume the beeb behemoths are behind that decision ....

Simon Dickson (hat-tip) makes some good points on the implementation. Have they sacked all the usability experts?

PS: Still seeing that flat, unhelpful, bad communication '502' error message for failed comments, beeb people ...

• Postscript: Oh yey of little faith ...

More online women entrepreneurs would boost our economy

"Women need to know that even if they have never programmed a line of code in their lives, there is a great variety of user-friendly tech solutions to explore and implement, allowing people from all walks of life to reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs."
Amy Tiemann

~~~~

I was struck by a line in a Mail On Sunday article about Julia Reynolds, the women responsible for transforming Tesco's clothes operation — she's moving to a dotcom.

The article is about how she couldn't stand the macho dickheads running Tesco any longer and was packing her trunk and leaving.

"I'd just had my fill of chest-beating alpha males. I had some of the most horrendous things said to me and it is only now that I can laugh about them."

She remembers comments such as, 'Who the f*** are you to be driving a [nice] car like that?' and 'Who the f*** do you think you are to have a big job like that?'

What interested me is that she'd choosen a dotcom, online retailer figleaves.com — something she said she wouldn't have entertained only two years ago.

Obviously, this isn't 2001 and the general business viability of dotcoms in the UK is pretty well established now. Or is it? A BBC Money Programme story last week looked at a women dotcom entrepeneur and she related just how difficult it was to get start-up capital. She finally found 'angel' investors but it was very hard and you were left wondering if being a woman was a hindrance with getting investors.

Women's relationship with the web is evolving. In 2007, eMarketer predicted there would be 97.2 million U.S. female Internet users aged 3 and older, or 51.7 per cent of the total online population.

A recent study by the Pew Internet Project in America on teens in social media found that blogging growth among teenagers is almost entirely fuelled by girls — it describes them as a new breed of “super-communicators”.

• Some 35% of girls, compared with 20% of boys, have blogs
• 32% of girls have their own websites, against 22% of boys
• Girls have embraced social networking sites on a massive scale, with 70% of American girls aged 15-17 having built and regularly worked on a profile page on websites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, as opposed to 57% of boys of the same age
• But boys are twice as likely to post videos online

Hitwise estimate that almost 55% of all British users of social networking websites were women. Similar research by Nielsen Online shows that women aged 18-24 account for 17% of all users of the social sites, while men in the same age group account for 12%.

Game-Vision showed that 30% more women bought computer games in the six months to July 31, 2007, than in the same period in 2006. The survey also found that there were more female owners of Nintendo’s handheld DS console in the UK than men (54% against 46%). The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) says that women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 per cent) than boys age 17 or younger (20 per cent).

According to the US National Foundation of Women Business Owners (NFWBO):

• 26% of the 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the U.S now have homepages (compared to 16% of men business owners).
  
• 17% of women business owners now cite business growth as is the most important reason for using new technology, compared to just 10% of men business owners.

There is quite a history of women's involvement in dotcoms. Most famously there's Martha Lane Fox, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, Natalie Massenet, who set up the popular shopping site Net-a-Porter, Julie Pankhurst, the co-founder of Friends Reunited, Karen Derby, founder of Simplyswitch.com, Sally Robinson, a farmer's wife from Yorkshire who started an online business selling bras, and Lopa Patel, founder of redhotcurry.com.

But Carol Dukes, ex-managing director of EMAP online and Carlton online, cautions about the focus on so-called 'dotcomdivas'.

If you look at the actual numbers of women doing start-ups, there are very few of us - maybe three out of 100 companies. We are still treated like a freak show: "Check it out! It's a woman running an Internet company!" There are women opening hairdressing salons, shops and PR agencies and nobody turns a hair.

I had a look to see what the government is doing in this area. There appears to be a lot of concern - and funding - to improve the numbers of women scientists and engineers, but not web entrepreneurs. In sharp contrast to the States, there doesn't appear to be much coming from government which is aimed specifically at women. What I did find on the primary service, BusinessLink, specifically about the web and women, was one broken link.

Internet-based businesses are described as perfect for women who need to juggle family commitments and need flexible working.

Research, commissioned by insurance group AXA found that 34% of new and expectant women were planning to set up their own business from home.

The most popular ways of doing this were to use the web and email to carry on offering professional skills like accountancy on a consultancy basis, or to move into retail - buying or selling goods on email or launching a mail order service.

Shriti Vadera MP:

Getting more women into business is a challenge, not just for gender equality but for national economic success. We would have 700,000 more businesses if proportionally as many British women as American women started businesses

Shaa Wasmund, a serial entrepreneur who has worked with inventor and business tycoon James Dyson says.

We need to completely and utterly rethink business support. It needs to be overhauled right the way up from the Learning and Skills Council up to the small business advisory services like Business Link.

These services need to be real and relevant for women, not just run by civil servants.

More use of technology, particularly the internet, is the key to this, she says.

Better government support for women web entrepreneurs isn't about 'PC' — it's about growing the economy and making the most of all the talents.

Online marketing and UK eGov Frontierspeople

In January my fabulous egov webbie colleague Jeremy Gould organised the first UK Barcamp for government, held at Google HQ. BarCamp is a newish way of organising gatherings that's a breath of fresh air over the usual stale conferences.

It was an enormously successful event, for the first time drawing in a significant non-government input from the, often isolated, other people in NGOs, SMEs etc as well as bloggers with an interest. I was very sorry I missed it, not the least because it's exactly the sort of event I've wanted to see for - actually - years.

However ... and not having been there I recognise the limb I'm climbing onto (I used to review concerts and this is a classic, don't review if you weren't there) ...

One subject which I noticed was absent from discussion and follow-up and also didn't appear in the stated interests of the attendees was online marketing although I'm sure Search was discussed - it was @Google UK HQ after all.

Of course this is a first, so everything wouldn't make it in, although the 'agenda' at a BarCamp is all about what interests attendees, but it wouldn't surprise me if marketing was completely absent as my experience is that the area just doesn't register in the UK GovWeb scene. It wouldn't have been a focus for attendees because Social Media (in particular), online democracy and similar 'frontier' areas are 'subjects du jour' and there hasn't been the prior resonance, the history, with marketing as a topic for the people in this scene to put it on the agenda.

Elsewhere, it's never been a subject of interest within eGov. What there has been has been either irrelevant or dated (see DirectGov marketing and paulcanning posts passim) but - largely - notable by its absence. There is still no basic advice for government webbies on basic webbie things like Search Marketing / Search Optimisation (though government will advise SMEs on it!).

I hate to reuse the same word but here we go ... this is another disconnect. Marketing and especially Search Optimisation is an absolute essential for any web project.

Simply put, the 'findability' of any site is dependent on it and if something can't be found it won't be used. It precedes Usability.

I can't put it any simpler: if you don't market, how are you going to get used?

The eGov prism through which this topic is missed can be seen in something like discussions about whether councils or specific services (like Youth) should have a Facebook or Bebo page. The eGov discussion would revolve around what you would do with it, how you would use it to 'engage', policy etc. Wonky stuff.

But look at how Presidential candidates (and now some UK candidates) use these huge sites — it's mainly about extending their web presence. Making themselves more 'findable' because they are there in as many places as the potential voters might find them. That first, then maybe they might actually do more with that presence. That's how candidates have behaved online.

Never mind what you might do with a Bebo page, for example, if you simply stick one up that links to somewhere else that helps someone - especially the Youth - find you, boosts your overall presence and promotes your landing page(s). Just doing that is credible to audiences, anything more is pre-empting and assuming attitudes - you don't need to do more.

This is just the beginning, the very basics of online marketing - extending your presence.

Any web site manager looking through their logs will see a host of traffic sources. Looking at my blog; it's bits of traffic which adds up. Different posts finding different audiences through me pinging, links I've asked for and links which self-generate, referral, even one Wikipedia link which has brought lotsa traffic. And Email isn't insignificant as a traffic source. This is exactly how any other site builds traffic.

I've written a lot about how massive efforts like DirectGov really don't help punters through thinking themselves 'special' and not behaving like the rest of the web. How people use lots of different search terms and most won't find them what they want from government via Google, (which is how most people find anything online). Search is not easy (the mighty BBC is screwing it up right now) but it's not like others don't know how to do it and it's not like government doesn't have inbuilt advantages (trust).

The simple fact is that marketing is largely absent from the projects not just devised by big bad bureaucratic government but also those of the Frontierspeople: hence the gap at BarCamp. (Relative) successes tend to come from unsought viral promotion or exclusivity. They don't come from any thought through online marketing strategies because - put bluntly - there are none in eGov.

Any comparison with other sectors just shows this gap in its sharp relief. Who else would keep building sites with no strategy to drive traffic, let alone target an audience?

What actually is depressing is that, without wanting to sound martyrish, I'm scratching around to think of who else is raising the topic. There just seems to be very little resonance for marketing within eGov.

Am I wrong?

I'm scratching around for reasons and the only one I can think of which makes sense is look at the personnel. Who is coming from online marketing backgrounds into eGov? How does this knowledge make its way in? By contrast geeks. tekkies and wonks (of which I'm at least one meself) we have a-plenty.

Solutions? Again, I'm scratching but I think the quickest is to connect with the Frontierspeople equivalent in online marketing and not wait on the bureaucracy. I would also guess that this sector - being citizens and tax-payers themselves - wouldn't all be disinterested in contributing. It's just a shame that we'd (eGov) be coming from such a low base in that potential engagement.

But first we, eGov, just need to recognise online marketing as a vital, core part of creating websites. That hasn't happened yet.

Tabloids kill kids?

A seventeenth teenage suicide was announced today in Bridgend. And one of the parents faced a press conference to denounce media coverage.

Sharon Pritchard and husband Vincent appealed to the media to stop high profile coverage.

They said: "We have lost a son, and media coverage made a difficult time unbearable. We did not wish to speak to the media. Not just for ourselves but for other families.

"We feel the media coverage could trigger other people who are already feeling low - to take their own lives.

"We feel that Nathaniel might have thought it was a way of getting attention without fully thinking through the consequences."

They said they never believed there was any 'internet pact'.

Much of the media has been speculating about the guilt of Bebo/MySpace, with zero evidence, though encouraged by the web-naive local MP, Madeleine Moon, who is now complaining about the coverage she generated. Teens in the area are actually using social networks to work against suicide. In the entire history of the web there are only a very few isolated examples of online 'suicide cults'. Yet the tabloids haven't stopped speculating in their ignorance (or worse).

People who know the subject well are angry too.

Suicide Prevention Charity Calls for End to Media Coverage of Bridgend Suicide

5 February 2008

With reports today of another young death in the Bridgend area being attributed as a possible suicide, Papyrus, the national charity for prevention of young suicide, is calling on media to resist further coverage surrounding the recent tragic suicides in Bridgend. Although this latest death is not yet confirmed as suicide, the charity reiterates its concern regarding copycat instances. It is well known that insensitive media reporting of suicide can prompt copycat cases, says the charity.

“Media coverage must stop,” said Anne Parry, chair, PAPYRUS. “We believe there is nothing further to be gained. We are seriously concerned that any more coverage would be counter-productive and exacerbate the current state of affairs, with disastrous results. At worst it could lead to further suicide attempts. We are asking media please do not draw further attention to this situation. We are also calling on other charities to support our initiative.”

I just looked up 'suicide town' in the UK Press:

Mail: 'Two cousins in 'suicide town' hang themselves within hours'
Metro: 'Police probe death in Bebo suicide town'
Express: '17TH TEENAGER DEAD IN SUICIDE TOWN '
Sun: '17th victim in 'suicide town''
Telegraph: 'Suicide websites blamed for deaths'
Times: 'Is an e-suicide cult sweeping the UK?'

The tabloid wing of the BBC: 'Web worries after suicide spate'; 'Call to ban 'suicide chatrooms''

Guardian: 'There's no such place as 'Suicide Town''

Here's the rules, updated by the Press Complaints Commission [PCC] in 2006, my emphases:

Until now, reporting of suicide has been covered by the Code’s general provisions on Intrusion into Grief and Shock, which require the press to carry out inquiries with sympathy and discretion and to handle publication sensitively.

However, as part of its annual Code review, the Committee considered international evidence highlighting the dangers of imitative deaths following reports of suicide.

In the light of that, the Committee, which writes and revises the voluntary Code to which the British press subscribes, felt that the risk of copycat suicides should be addressed specifically.

Code Committee chairman Les Hinton, Executive Chairman of News International [fox? henhouse], said: “During our annual review, we received convincing evidence, from the Samaritans and others, that media reporting of suicide often prompted copycat cases. It is an international phenomenon.

“We have attempted to minimise that risk - while maintaining the public’s right to know - by emphasising the need for care to avoid excessive detail, unless it is in the wider public interest to give the information.

[Here's the agreed clause: *5ii: When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used. - The asterisk indicates that under the new sub-clause exceptions could be made if editors could demonstrate that it was in the public interest.]

“For example, while it might be perfectly proper to report that the suicide was caused by an overdose of Paracetamol, it would probably be excessive to state the number of tablets used.

“We have consulted with the industry on this and it has been accepted. The new rule, in effect, codifies a practice already currently followed by many editors.”

The existing code was that reporting of suicide was covered by the Code’s general provisions on Intrusion into Grief and Shock, which require the press to carry out inquiries with sympathy and discretion and to handle publication sensitively.

So if the PCC already has rules and if the press isn't reporting details then 'suicide town', according to the self-regulated press doesn't constitute 'Intrusion into Grief and Shock'?

Apparently not, as the tabloid press seem to think they've done nothing wrong.

The Director of the Society of Editors, Bob Satchwell, told the BBC:

"There are a lot of things that can be done to help prevent suicide but one of those is not blaming the press or saying that they should stop reporting.

"I have read in the media a lot of harrowing and really frightening stories from some young people who were interviewed and they need listening to."

Speaking of the specific use of 'suicide town', this dick said:

"I think there are bigger issues here.

"There seems to be an unusual number of suicides in Wales and particularly this area and indeed Madeleine Moon has said so herself in the House of Commons.

"There are an unusual number of suicides occurring and there is a role which the media can play in trying to help in this situation."

I would love to see the parents take on the PCC with this:

Sharon, said: "Media coverage put the idea into Nathaniel's head."

Sitting beside Nathaniel's father, Vincent, Mrs Pritchard said: "We have lost our son and media reporting of this has made it an incredibly difficult time and more unbearable by intensive media coverage."

Which 'public'? Which 'interest'?

Postscript:

The Daily Mail really has no shame. Covering the press conference the next day there is no mention at all of Sharon Pritchard's comments about the media, nor the Police's.

Show Me The Bunny

I was mentioning today about trying to get my head around the aspect of Social Networking called the Social Graph, known as Facebook's 'secret sauce', and reviewing what's in my Reader I came across this neat summary from Dave McClure on TechCrunch

Here are seven major aspects of Facebook you can use to increase the visibility of your startup, business, product or service:

1. Set Up Your Graph: Profiles & Privacy
2. Make Connections: Networks, Groups & Events
3. The Need for Feed: Your [Shared] Social Activity Stream
4. Share Your Content: Share & People-Tag Your Stories & Media
5. App to the Future: The Facebook Platform, APIs, & Applications
6. Pay to Play: Ad Networks, Sponsored Stories, & Paid Distribution
7. Show Me The Bunny: Gifts, Points, & Virtual Currency

He goes into detail on those aspects. What Dave means when he talks Bunny, though, isn't what you might think — it's something new:

There are 3 major types of virtual goods: decorative, functional, and behavioral. Decorative goods are those primarily geared towards self expression. Functional goods are those that meaningfully alter your user experience. For example, a suit of armor in World of Warcraft that confers a special advantage to you would be a functional virtual good. Behavioral virtual goods are graphical icons that capture some sort of social interaction. This is the type that is most prevalent on Facebook today. Virtual gifts are the best known example of this category of virtual good.

Two of the top 10 Facebook apps, X Me and SuperPoke!, are essentially just interaction tools. In the X Me screenshot above right, each of the icons – whether it be Love, Punch, or Kiss – is an encapsulation of a specific social interaction. Though it may not be purposeful, these types of casual apps are training users to understand how to interact with virtual goods. I can easily see how these apps become platforms that launch broader virtual currency systems. For example, expanding this app to allow users to attach custom graphics to their custom actions would create a new, rare class of virtual objects.

I was just looking at Amnesty's great new web campaign, UnSubscribe (Hat tip: David Wilcox, he has a report of the launch). it's all about attempting to exploit the Social Graph. Really great design and lots of stuff in there. They don't even forget valuable things like email sigs. They have video and sign-up widgets.

Couple of things though:

1. It doesn't actually chart results. What is the impact of web campaigning? What has Amnesty already achieved?

I think the Number Ten web petitions shows some of the limits here, the potential for cynicism, although I'm sure you do have an effect (I know you do from experience) but it would help to show this, to demonstrate the impact somehow.

2. All the widgets are with WidgetBox and they have a very irritating method whereby you can't just get the embed code. You have to select your platform then it does it for you and a post magically appears (which I don't want). YouTube usually gives you the code option.

One very real reason why this is more than annoying is because if you auto-ping that's the post content which will appear in feeds - their headline choice etc. and none of your surrounding context. It reminded me of using MySpace and especially using Bebo, which has loads of walled gardens. This is also more than annoying campaign-wise as well because I then had to look elsewhere for the embed code for this campaign video.



Here's the sign-up widget (not in it's own post!)

Mobile web taking off - slowly

BBC News has an interesting summary of the state of the UK mobile web market. It's healthy, they think;

Figures for February 2007, from the Mobile Data Association show that almost 15 million people use the web via their handsets each month.

New flat rate price plans and much faster speeds are increasing usage but most have download limits and stop Skype or streaming video use.

They have only recently stopped ridiculous restriction to their own portals and content and have seen portal content usage rise and spending within previously walled gardens.

T-Mobile said "Usage is as diverse as the people using it."

"Half of our customers surf the internet on their mobile when they are at home watching TV. They do not need to go to a laptop and fire it up. The mobile is there for them."

"Social networking has rocketed up the charts recently," he said. Sites such as Bebo, MySpace, Facebook and eBay have become very popular destinations for customers."

Said Vodaphone:

"It's different and relevant to the individual. It's the real long tail of relevance."

Why is the UK press ignoring Bebo?

NMA today:

[UK owned] Bebo has overtaken search giant Google as the most viewed web site in the UK, according to new research [ComScore] out today.

The news comes in the same week that Bebo signed a deal with Yahoo! that will see the internet giant sell advertising for the social network, integrate Yahoo! answers within its platform and develop a Bebo-branded browser toolbar.

Here's Bebo Vs MySpace in UK Google Search traffic Vs. UK Press coverage (Google Trends):

The thin blue line at the bottom is Bebo's UK Press coverage.

One can speculate why this is the case but it's so huge that it's rather an indictmentof UK Press coverage of the Web in general.

Usability myths and professionals discussion

More discussion on Alastair Campbell (no, not that one, the other one) of Nomensa's blog about 'Usability myths and professionals'.

Alastair had responded to comments I made about their advice to government web workers (they're at the end of my original long post).

I think Discount Testing is do-able, Alastair has lots of concerns - I think that sums up one disagreement.

We're also disagreeing about the value or otherwise of guidance and 'myths'.

Here's a couple of things I wrote:

[Discount testing]: We are not disagreeing, what I’m saying is that Usability is a movement, a general aim which everyone has to buy-into — that’s the goal. Out of that comes budgets, attitude-changes and far better customer service.

[Usability professionals should prod government]: The UK - for one thing - is doing well in some areas. We do have a lot of good work. But just like Bebo being ignored over MySpace don’t you think our political leaders are rather letting the side down if they aren’t prepared to engage with industry on something as fundamental as the usability of their products? And stop spinning the failures and talk up the real successes?

"MySpace is the biggest youth club"

In America, maybe - it's Bebo in the UK. Who is advising Gordon Brown? Sounds like he's read Tom Steinberg if he's mentioning Mumsnet. No detail of course but his words are in the right place.

Number Ten Website, hat-tip Steven Clift:

*Question:*

You have offered solutions of juries, commissions and conferences, and yet at the same time we are seeing a massive growth in social networking, facebooks and the like that are actually describing a very dramatic different way that individuals engage with each other and with society. My question is really how can we ensure that perhaps voluntary groups that rely on time, passion and the money of these people don't go the same way of the participation in local democracy?

*Prime Minister:*

Well these are all very important questions. Let me start with the last one. We have set up a review into social technology and how it can benefit communities and we want to give prizes every year for those people who are making big advances in social interaction through using the new technologies. I mean it is true to say that in Britain today MySpace is the biggest youth club, and it is true to say that some of the great internet organisations are getting through to far more people, like Mumsnet or some of the organisations that are linking parents together in a way that formal organisations find difficult to do so. So yes we have got to encourage the new technology, we have got to make it possible for organisations to adapt to the new technology, and one of the reasons that we have tried to provide grants for innovative things is so that organisations can do so. And I think if we celebrate where advances are made in the internet that encourage community action, encourage community networks, that would be a very good thing to do.

The Rt. Hon. Minister for YouTube

Absolutely damning take on UK dot.com in The Register by Chris Williams : Where in the world is the UK's silicon valley?

After running through the real successes - last.fm, which is genius and, er, a few more (it misses Bebo) - and after failing to locate UK dot.com's beating heart, it turns it's attention to Gordon Brown, DC, SMC , da Millibands and pals.

The Rt. Hon. Minister for YouTube

What about government support? The newly minted departments for trade and industry might do better (we'll give them the benefit of the doubt) but so far, when it comes to technology, our politicians often prefer not to let facts, or indeed issues, get in the way of a good story. Meaningful discussion gives way to posturing.

Having failed to engage with da yoof via every medium ever, both main parties have claimed to be convinced that YouTube and Facebook are the tools they've been waiting for to involve the Kersal Massive in public discourse. Before his promotion to glory in the Foreign Office, Labour's David Miliband was engaged in a battle royale with the opposition to decide who gets social networking the most.

Cameron might have a blog [which is getting better, though I wouldn't auto-load video and the text's too small ;) ], but Miliband clearly gained the initiative with this recent nonsense by channeling conference magnate Tim O’Reilly:

Instead of citizens acting in isolation, unsure of whether their actions are reciprocated by others, feeling powerless in the face of large organisations and global change, citizens can feel part of a bigger project. They can create a shared willingness to act, their preferences can be aggregated, and can give rise to collective action as well as collective discussion.

Cynics would suggest this is the internet equivalent of Gordon Brown proclaiming himself an Arctic Monkeys fan. Serious lamenters of the lack of government support around new technology might be less charitable. It shows UK tech entrepreneurs they’re on their own, as it ever was, and probably should be.

Milton Keynes betrays Keynes

The Guardian reports today that:

An independent website about life in Milton Keynes has failed in an attempt to win access to data on the same terms as the local council's official site. The decision by the government's watchdog on public sector information illustrates the weaknesses of rules supposed to encourage the re-use of official data.

The Milton Keynes case concerns a four-year battle by a web design company, Zero-Now, for access to information about public services held on a council database called the Community Online Information Network. Zero-Now wanted up-to-date information for use on its website miltonkeynes.com. However the council preferred to make the information available through two official websites, run by a contractor partly owned by the council, milton-keynes.gov.uk and mkweb.co.uk.

The (OPSI) [Describing themselves at "at the heart of information policy, setting standards, delivering access and encouraging re-use of public sector information"] failed to uphold the complaint - on the grounds that the contractor with access to the database was performing part of the council's "public task". So, as no re-use of the data beyond the public task was taking place, Zero-Now had no grounds for complaining about unfair terms. However OPSI decided there was "room for improvement" in the way Milton Keynes handled information, and made five recommendations.

These are:

• OPSI suggests that the PSIH [Milton Keynes Council] should implement its draft re-use policy as soon as possible, and encourage the re-use of its information.
• OPSI suggests that the PSIH considers undergoing the IFTS Online assessment process.
• OPSI suggests that the PSIH publishes a standard licence on its website or considers mandating OPSI to license the PSIH’s material through the PSI Click-Use Licence.
• OPSI suggests that the PSIH should publish details of any exclusive licensing and publishing contracts on its website.
• OPSI suggests that the PSIH should publish a statement of what constitutes its public task.

• Report (PDF - 151 KB)

However ...

PSIH would only be under an obligation to allow re-use in circumstances where re-use had already taken place either by the PSIH itself or by a third party.

So, the Council is entitled to deny access just so long as it refuses access to everybody. Great logic there. Plus it is entitled to 'exclusive contracts'. Somehow this 'encourage the re-use of its information'.

Sounds like OPSI needs to stop handing the job of reconciling these two opposites to someone else.

What's interesting is that there is a huge shade of grey here, because Zero-Now are nothing but a commercial enterprise and the Council dominates MK Web traffic.







The 'Official website for Milton Keynes'?!? Ya gotta love the chutzpah.

One look at MKWeb - #1 in Google for 'Milton Keynes' - tells me that it's taking it's community responsibilities online far more seriously. You'd like to hope it would be because it's council- sub-contracted and presumably Zero-Now's management there is suitably managed.



But despite all that, this still doesn't mean that Zero-Now shouldn't have rights to the Community Online Information Network stuff to use elsewhere, as a 'council person' (or OPSI) might think.

As The Guardian explains at length in the Free Our Data Campaign, this is about boosting the economy, amongst other reasons.

If this company - who do have a strong website of their own, marketing-wise - can do interesting things, imaginative stuff taking ideas from other websites, then surely the Council can reuse that elsewhere? Surely that helps the city? Put that in Zero-Now's contract.

It's worth noting that this also supports women in the economy.

There are many ways, through providing widgetised access to edited content, for example, like many a website does, that the Council can deal with them and everyone else. And can also provide access to - say - the local paper. or the local college or the local history buffs.

Even though the Council sites dominates on 'Milton Keynes' local sites thrive because people use them. Increasingly. Hence target the elderly, youth and radio four listeners (I'm characterising). They can have some screens, maybe one can be a (revised) 'PSI Click-Use Licence' - click - and you get a widget ...

I know there's this and there's that with government rules and scales and balances but this is 2007 and the Web is now several years ahead of government, especially slabs of it like the OPSI.

Where's the leadership to drive the changes which are needed? Who in government is doing that job? Gordon Brown? The Millibands? When did you last see a politician make a joke about their web-ignorance in public and be called on it by a MSM journalist, or themselves laughed at like they're an idiot and they need to get with the program? Huh?

One of the reasons I sound annoyed is because I was on a train the other day surrounded by teenagers talking Myspace this and Bebo that. The disconnect between their new world and the land of the OPSI's and most politicians is vast and agencies like OPSI and the COI are letting them down.

Another point which I doubt the Council is considering is that if Zero-Now really are as good at SEO as they claim then maybe they have something to worry about. However, given that a quick Google search reveals 933 incoming links to MKWeb versus 3 for miltonkeynes.com, and given that this represents the standing start trusted sites have, then they shouldn't worry about too much traffic disappearing into a commercialised front-door.

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones", John Maynard Keynes.

Give them access, manage that access and leverage benefits for yourself. Like other websites do.

EU asking How Safe is ‘Social Networking’?

Press Release 16 August 2007 http://www.enisa.europa.eu

How Safe is ‘Social Networking’?

Myspace, Twitter, Facebook – Social Networking is the web success story of the new century. The statistics are mind-bending – Myspace claimed its 100 Millionth user in August 2006. But a recent ENISA workshop put the question - “how safe are social networks?”

According to the experts, there is a lot to be concerned about; from specialised social networking worms spreading through Myspace profiles to identity theft, extortion, spear-phishing and even recruitment of terrorists – social networking has it all. But the biggest threat is to personal privacy.

“Thousands of young people are revealing the most intimate details of their personal lives for everyone to see,” says Alain Esterle, Head of ENISA’s Technical Department. “Social Networking sites create a sense of being among friends – but often a potential employer might be interested in the fact that you were arrested or which drugs you took yesterday. Added to this, new technologies like online face recognition and Internet archives make it very difficult to hide or remove such information once it is posted online.”

This sense of intimacy has been exploited by advertisers with fake profiles selling goods, by child predators infiltrating networks with false profiles and even terrorist organisations to find recruits from a particular social group. So called cyber-bullying campaigns to intimidate school pupils or even teachers via social networking sites have received a lot of attention. Josie Fraser from the UK’s Childnet explained that many students do not report the bullying which occurs, because they feel their teachers do not understand Social Networking technologies.

But the news is not all bad.

“We do not allow our users to reveal contact information such as zip codes – users who do so will be banned” says Lien Louwagie from Netlog, a Belgian Social Networking site with 25 million users. “Netlog places abuse-reporting buttons on almost every item – we take these issues very seriously”. “Careful use of moderation tools can help a lot” adds Maz Nadjm of Rareface, a London based social networking company. And according to Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University, “Awareness is key”. His study of Facebook found that users were more careful after answering a survey about privacy on Facebook than beforehand. “The very fact of answering questions about their privacy made them more cautious”.

ENISA will be publishing a position paper on Social Networking in October 2007. “The aim is to benefit both users and providers of social media by encouraging a safer environment on Social Networking sites” says Andrea Pirotti, ENISA’s Executive Director.

For further background info see

http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/Workshop/June2007/Report_eID_Workshop%20Paris.pdf
or contact Giles Hogben, ENISA Expert,

or Ulf Bergström, Press and Communications Officer,
ENISA, Mob:

~~~~~~~~~~~

The EU is constantly barracked on supposed luddite attitudes to the Web but this sounds like them doing their job in raising the Risks + contemplating practical ways of dealing them.

Bytes · When managers read - Social networks regionalised - Incentivisation

Thanks to Jeff Kaplan for spotting this.

• According to the new Hitwise Election 2008 Data Center, Ron Paul is demolishing the rest of the Republican field with a 44.2% market share in the week ending August 4, compared to 16.1% for Mitt Romney and 11.8% for Rudy Giuliani. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama has the lead with 40.6% compared to 24.2% for Hillary Clinton and 18.4% for John Edwards. When you stack all the candidate websites against each other, Obama and Clinton jointly eat up 43% of the entire market, with Paul in third at 15%.
  
  
• David Wilcox has posted yesterday's Public Sector Forums story about the dodgy bidding process for a new 'online Innovation Exchange for the Third Sector'.
• Dave Briggs also comments on the innovative bid (which lost, and which Wilcox was involved with) and how they used Facebook.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Top social networks by global region

Worldwide Growth of Selected* Social Networking Sites June 2007 vs. June 2006 Total Worldwide Home/Work Locations Among Internet Users Age 15+ Source: comScore World Metrix
Social Networking Site	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Jun-06	Jun-07	% Change
MySpace	66,401	114,147	72
Facebook	14,083	52,167	270
Hi5	18,098	28,174	56
Friendster	14,917	24,675	65
Orkut	13,588	24,120	78
Bebo	6,694	18,200	172
Tagged	1,506	13,167	774

Worldwide Daily Visitation of Selected Social Networking Sites June 2007 vs. June 2006 Total Worldwide Home/Work Locations Among Internet Users Age 15+ Source: comScore World Metrix
Social Networking Site	Average Daily Visitors (000)
	Jun-06	Jun-07	% Change
MySpace	16,764	28,786	72
Facebook	3,742	14,917	299
Hi5	2,873	4,727	65
Friendster	3,037	5,966	96
Orkut	5,488	9,628	75
Bebo	1,188	4,833	307
Tagged	202	983	386

Visitation to Selected Social Networking Sites by Worldwide Region June 2007 Total Worldwide Home/Work Locations Among Internet Users Age 15+ Source: comScore World Metrix
Social Networking Site	Share (%) of Unique Visitors
	Worldwide	North America	Latin America	Europe	Middle East-Africa	Asia Pacific
MySpace	100.0%	62.1%	3.8%	24.7%	1.3%	8.1%
Facebook	100.0%	68.4%	2.0%	16.8%	5.7%	7.1%
Hi5	100.0%	15.3%	24.1%	31.0%	8.7%	20.8%
Friendster	100.0%	7.7%	0.4%	2.5%	0.8%	88.7%
Orkut	100.0%	2.9%	48.9%	4.6%	0.6%	43.0%
Bebo	100.0%	21.8%	0.5%	62.5%	1.3%	13.9%
Tagged	100.0%	22.7%	14.6%	23.4%	10.0%	29.2%

~~~~~~~~~~~

• ClickZ good stuff> The Site Map: Gateway to Optimization + Is Web Analytics Really That Difficult?
  
  
• eGovernment@large talks incentivisation: he thinks financial incentives for doing government business, like paying tax, online "may have had their moment" but he's basing this on "we might have reached the point of critical mass in e-government" because there are hundreds of "government services online."
  
  Huh? Even 'transactional' can well mean an unusable form, at best, in the current rating mechanisms. That's not really 'services online'. Incentives are about taking this stuff seriously, it's the sort of action a 'normal' website would do, and would have the side-effect of driving usability and driving customer-focus. These sort of baselines always strike me as dodgy. Success/'take-up' is defined against what? Who?
  
  I would love to know where we really stand against Singapore, Latvia, Canada and others — who's measuring that? (+ no I mean eGov, not broadband take-up).
  

> Me: Online transactions: 18% > 25% - how?