technology archive
My secret Government interview: will it now be published?
A little while back I was interviewed as part of a Gateway review into one of the Government’s IT projects. It was for the CORE electoral register project, the successor to LASER, which was originally due to be delivered in the Autumn of 2001. Nearly a decade, and an awful lot of money, on the [...]
Canadian police told to get twittering
From The Ottawa Citizen: Aiming to do a better job of informing the public and city officials than they did during the Tamil protests that jammed downtown in April, Ottawa’s police are planning to experiment with Twitter and other social media to get word of major incidents out more quickly… Twitter and other social media [...]
What does the Arabic blogosphere look like?
The BBC reports: Bloggers are having a real impact on opinions inside many Arabic nations, finds a broad look at the blogosphere in the Middle East. The study has given web researchers insight into the issues and forces that are shaping online conversation in the Middle East and beyond… “‘Blogger,’” Mr. Ibrahim said, “has become [...]
Daily Mail poll feels the heat of 1,500+ tweets
The Daily Mail website was running an online poll with the very Daily Mail question, “Should the NHS allow gipsies to jump the queue?” In what looks like a striking display of social media’s power, lots of messages sprung up on Twitter urging people to vote in the poll. A quick search I did on [...]
How are the main parties doing on the internet?
Many of the pieces written about British political parties and the internet are rather duff because they are written by people who (a) have never run an election in their life, (b) don’t like politicians and (c) are extremely keen on the internet. As a result, they tend not to be that well informed or [...]
This week's new rule of thumb
Easy way to judge whether or not you are in touch with popular culture: do you recognise the names of all the people of whom your spam folder is offering you nude photos?
Has the Government just laid down a new performance benchmark for online industries?
The Digital Britain report’s plans to ensure that everyone has access to 2mpbs broadband by 2012 has mostly attracted attention for the low speed being aimed for and the ways in which it will be funded. However, two other aspects are notable. First, 2012 is not very far away. Indeed, as targets arising from long-term [...]
Using Facebook Connect for political campaign sites
Interesting news from the New York Times on Mike Bloomberg’s use of Facebook Connect: Supporters can join the mayor’s social network “Mike Bloomberg NYC Community” with their Facebook user name and password and choose to broadcast their activities there back to their friends on the social network. Mr. Bloomberg, who is running for a third [...]
This week's new rule of thumb
If your Wikipedia entry explains what your firm is about better than your own website, it’s time to get to work on the website. (Many of the Wikipedia entries for companies do a very good job at making clear what a company is about largely because, I suspect, Wikipedia is generally free of business jargon. [...]
