BigShinyThing

Internet elder statesman and onetime chief protocol architect David D. Clark thinks it might be. In Technology Review he points to a presentation he wrote back in 1992 where he highlighted the Internet’s lack of built-in security. He also observed that sometimes the worst human disasters are caused not by sudden events but by slow, incremental process … and that humans are good at ignoring problems.

Things get worse slowly. People adjust. The problem is assigning the correct degree of fear to distant elephants.

Clark believes that now the elephants are awfully close. Almost one billion people now use the Internet and institutions like banks and the media increasingly rely on it. At the same time, the Internet’s shortcomings have resulted in dire security protocols and a decreased ability to adapt to new technologies. Clark says:

We are at an inflection point, a revolution point. We might just be at the point where the utility of the Internet stalls – and perhaps turns downward.

He thinks it is time to rethink the Net’s basic architecture and indeed plans are in place. The National Science Foundation is currently working on a five to seven year plan estimated to cost between $200 million to $300 million in research funding to develop such clean slate architecture. According to Guru Parulkar, an NSF program manager involved in the plan:

If we succeed in what we are trying to do, this is bigger than anything we, as a research community, have done in computer science so far. In terms of its mission and vision, it is a very big deal. But now we are just at the beginning. It has the potential to change the game. It could take it to the next level in realizing what the Internet could be that has not been possible because of the challenges and problems.

CNN, amongst others, reports that Time Warner Inc. is in exclusive talks with Google Inc. about broadening a partnership with Time Warner’s AOL online service. Microsoft Corp., once considered the front-runner for a deal with AOL, is believed to be out of the running.

The Google-AOL talks would expand on a relationship which analysts estimate account for 2 percent to 4 percent of Google’s revenue on a net basis. AOL uses Google’s search engine, and Microsoft had been negotiating to get AOL to use its search technology instead.

AOL is seen as a critical swing factor on search technology traffic among Internet media rivals Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Inc., just as it once was with online advertising, a category it practically invented in the early 1990s. According to the Time Warner owned CNN, “AOL made surfing the Internet and chatting online a household phenomenon. But it has been a drag on Time Warner’s stock as it has lost millions of dialup Internet subscribers since the merger of America Online and Time Warner in 2001. Since then, the Dulles, Virginia-based unit has focused on providing free programming and services to boost online advertising revenue.”

TheAOL/Time Warner merger is considered by many to have been one of the more disastrous follies of the dotcom era. AOL founder Steve Case last week backed calls for AOL to be split from Time Warner. He told the Washington Post that “Time Warner has proven to be too big, too complex, too conflicted and too slow-moving – in other words, too much like a classic conglomerate – to seize new opportunities.”

Do not listen to if you are easily offended, either by swearing or righteous grime stars.

Ol’ Golden Balls is currently hawking ‘Instinct’, his men’s fragrance, in the UK glossies (well, ES Magazine). It looks like he’s borrowed both his wife’s plastic surgeon and her air-brusher. And that is so a girl’s jacket. Is this how his marketing people aim to capture his ambisexuality? Eeuw.

Using some tools more usually applied to social network analysis, and with which our resident geeks have been studying the spread of news in networks of blogs, we’ve created a topic map which shows the whole year’s main themes at a glance.

Click on the image to download a much more readable PDF version of our big picture of 2005.

It works like this:

• All major topics/keywords for our stories over the last year are represented by circles.
• Lines join topics which have appeared together in the same story, so you can see how the various threads we’ve been following join up.
• The width of the lines relates to the frequency with which the topics they join have cropped up together in stories.
• Topics which relate closely are closer together in the map.
• The size of the circles representing the topics indicates roughly how ‘key’ those topics are to the year as a whole — the bigger the circle, the more radically different the look of the whole picture would be if that topic hadn’t cropped up.
• Finally, the colours represent, in broad terms, how the various topics cluster into inter-related factions of related ideas.

Whew! That’s a lot of information. Respect to Tufte for inspiration.

Draw your own conclusions — we’re kind of surprised, actually, that ‘Apple’ is closely followed by ‘3G’ as key topics of the year: maybe a sign of things to come! We’re less surprised that ‘blogging’ shows up as important. Likewise ‘advertising’, God bless its tenacious little soul.

1. As iPod sales start to slow down, we’re betting on a fierce brand-extension war between Apple and the other online music brands. Competitors have already started to emerge — see MTV’s tie up with Microsoft, Urge.
2. In the same sector, we tip Napster to learn from Google and Yahoo’s mapping successes, and to offer a programming interface (API) for subscribers, so people can build their own software systems using Napster content — expect customised jukeboxes, recommendation systems and music-based games to flourish online. The benefit to Napster? Kudos to the brand which accrue from others’ innovations, a wider audience, and increased advertising opportunities.
3. We’re waiting for a Friday night TV show which features real-time ’stupid shit’, news and interviews contributed live via 3G mobiles by amateur viewer/reporters out and about around the UK and worldwide — the trash culture flipside of OhMyNews. Expect flash celebrity for a few contributors to follow, and a big spike in phone sales.
4. Still on TV, we expect at least one channel to broadcast experimental blocks of ‘ad-free’ prime time programming to test the waters of post-interruptive-advertising television — probably initially sponsored by a major car brand.
5. Flyposting will be banned in London as Ken sides with the Government on a ‘respect‘ agenda.
6. Sophisticated services offered via Skype will be the surprise eCommerce success story of the year, with third-party developers exploiting the ubiquitous telephony provider’s APIs to provide simple, effective voice access to information, retail and search services in exactly the way that screen-based systems thus far haven’t, for the mobile multitudes.
7. Namecheck BST when territorial disputes over mining rights in polar regions recently exposed by global warning become a major news story, and a source of growing international tension.
8. And a big ‘we told you so’ if Interpol reveals that an unlikely counterfeiting alliance of criminals and ‘just because we could’ hackers has adopted open source development methodologies to make undetectable fakes of a major currency, which subsequently has to be completely withdrawn from circulation, redesigned and reissued.
9. Long odds but not impossible: Sony’s launch of non-Sony-branded hardware or media, in an attempt at a fresh start after the horrors of 2005.
10. We will be saddened but not surprised if a PC virus takes out one of the emergency services for at least a day.
11. 3G. Finally. Yes we’re surprised too.

Weird how it looks even more like an insect this way. The car can currently be seen as part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Via the very lovely architectural blog, Gravestmor.

The ‘Floating Logos’ project says that it ” is inspired by signs perched high atop very tall poles in order for people to view them from a long distance away. Often these poles are so tall that the signs on top of them loom over us, ominously broadcasting their message. The digital elimination of the poles not only illustrates this effect further but also serves to disconnect the signs from the ground and reality. Often the ground is purposefully left out of these images in order to emphasize the disconnect, but hints of terra firma are included in the form of trees, wires, light poles, buildings and other land-based objects.”

Big thanks to Reuben for this.

Conceptual/installation artist Rebecca Murtaugh codes/covers her bedroom with Post-It notes. The various colours represent different materials, such as wood, paint and fabric.

Via the Insurgent Muse blog.

More of Rebecca’s work is viewable on her site.

Unsurprisingly, Standard & Poor’s ratings services’ outlook for the media and entertainment industry in 2006 in the US is rather pessimistic, with online advertising the only bright spot.

Bright yellow canaries for the UK market are as follows:

Broadcast and Cable Networks
S&P expects broadcast-network revenue to grow in line with, or slightly faster than, GDP in 2006. We see the effects of potentially ongoing auto ad spending weakness, competition from alternative media and sponsors’ cold feet over ad fast-forwarding as together balancing the benefits of elections and Olympics in that year …. Cable networks, as much as broadcast networks, will be subject to fears of ad zapping and persistent programming price pressures.

It’s unclear whether new technologies will represent genuine opportunities for either broadcast or cable networks. Advertising revenue streams will still be miniscule from transmission to mobile phones, video on demand (VOD), video iPod, and Internet efforts, and their long-term potential is uncertain. Some opportunity exists for secondary digital channels, such as the digital CBS channel expected in late 2006 or early 2007, and from broadband networks being launched by cable channels.

TV Station Groups
Total spot revenues are forecast to grow between 6% and 8% in 2006, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB). Factors that could influence growth in 2006 include the impact of oil prices on consumer spending, the strength of the automotive and political categories, the pressure from non traditional media, and advertisers’ call for enhanced measurement of effectiveness of their ad spending.

Radio Station Groups
Radio ad demand is under pressure from competing media such as the iPod and satellite radio as well as from excess commercial loads.

Online Advertising
S&P expects that online ad growth in 2006 will exceed 20%, reflecting the continued strength of both search and brand advertising. Marketers appear to be gaining confidence in the Internet’s ability to reach consumers. For example, Yahoo! indicated that its brand-marketing revenue from the top 200 US brand advertisers grew more than 45% in second quarter 2005 and Ford Motor has allocated about 15% of its marketing budget to online initiatives. Furthermore, some marketers have begun to incorporate search advertising as part of their overall branding campaigns, which could spur more online ad spending.

Even assuming that growth decelerates somewhat, Internet advertising is likely to exceed magazine advertising in 2006. Spending on Internet ads could potentially surpass spending on radio in 2008, assuming 1% to 2% growth in radio ad spending and a minimal contribution from satellite radio.

Advertising Agencies
Advertising spending is expected to grow 5% in 2006, slightly faster than the 4.7% that we expect for 2005. This will be mainly driven by the exceptional events of the election and Olympic ad spending.

Marketing services growth in 2006 will likely vary depending on the niche. Customer relationship management and Internet ad services are likely to experience more robust growth than other niches, such as recruitment and direct to consumer health care advertising. Increasing fragmentation of the media landscape should steadily increase the value of and revenue potential in media planning.

Via BusinessWeek.

The FT reports that shares in PepsiCo have risen 14 percent this year, pushing the company’s stock value to a record high of $98.4bn yesterday. Meanwhile Coca-Cola shares have declined 1.2 percent, reducing the company’s worth to $97.9bn.

Clever Pepsi diversified sometime ago (it bought Frito-Lay way back in the 1970s) – it now generates more than half of its total sales through snacks and less than 20 percent from soft drinks. Coke still relies on soft drinks for more than 80 percent of revenue. Oops.

Just lovely. Via Wooster (lots of Woostering this week). More of You Are Beautiful’s stuff is viewable on their site.

The results are perfect cheesecake, with Bettie Page, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe looking dreamy in various states of undress. See them for yourself at the Proud Gallery in London until February 11th. Both the show and a new DVD box set of Lloyd’s film have been produced by his granddaughter, Suzanne. She revealed in a BBC interview this week that Lloyd refused to have his films rerun on television as he believed television advertisements broke up the pace. This decision meant he is less well known than his contemporaries Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. It’s right and proper then that this legend of the silent film era should make his comeback courtesy of on-demand, digital media.

According to a report in Time, Skype - whose software allows users to make cheap phone calls over the Internet – has become extremely popular amongst young Asians – with 45,000 new Chinese users signing on each day. Apparently many of them are using the service to practice their English – by cold calling fellow Skypers in the US. The company, which currently has 66 million registered users in more than 200 countries, includes language preferences in every user’s profile and last year started offering a ‘Skype Me’ mode that encourages calls from strangers (or stalkers, depending on your outlook). Like SMS was for the mobile phone industry, the popularity of this application has somewhat surprised the company. “It’s an area that, frankly, surprised us. People are becoming voice pals instead of pen pals.”

Skype, which is now of course owned by eBay, is looking into providing translation services as a possibly pay feature in 2006. Last week it released a web 2.0 edition that enables users to plug in their webcams and make free video calls. With Skype doing so much to shrink the world. maybe it should change its name to BabelFish.

The Technology Liberation Front have just published an article that says apparently half of all High Definition Television (HDTV) owners don’t actually use the HD capabilities of their set, and nearly a quarter think they are watching high definition video when they actually haven’t set it up correctly. Bless.

Forrester Research have predicted that by the end of the year some 16 million U.S. households will have HDTV sets, but only seven million wll have HDTV reception. The Scientific Atlanta survey found that some 49 percent of households were not taking advantage of their HD equipment. About a quarter found that their HD set itself provided better reception, without taking the additional steps necessary to view HD. Eighteen percent said they didn’t even know needed additional equipment, such as a set-top box or antenna. A quarter admitted they thought they were watching HD video because, after all, the programs said at the beginning that they were broadcast in HDTV.

Story via Slashdot.

The street art community has reacted to the work as a corporate invasion of their space and retaliated in spectacular style – from daubing ‘fony sony’ across the work to our personal favourite: ‘I don’t want this for Christmas’. Street art site Wooster is cataloguing the various attacks on the PSP graffiti, which Sony paid genuine artists to execute. Meanwhile Wired has stirred up the debate online with a scathing article, sample text:

Advertising firms call it genius, but the word on the street is less flattering.

The Sony ads are the subject of much discussion on Flickr where the artwork can be seen ‘clean’ and street art site Wooster have posted a passionate polemic on the subject.

The mainstream media (in this case the International Herald Tribune) have now picked up on the story, reporting “Sony aims at hip crowd, but bid backfires a bit”. Given that the graffiti story is a mere footnote compared to the far more damaging revelation that some of Sony’s music CDs contain illegal spyware, we would say – no kidding.

In the article ‘Ten Golden Rules’, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and Hal Varian, a Berkeley professor and consultant with Google, share how their company gets the best out of its workers. Lots of the rules – like have a staff suggestion box and (hey!) actually acting on it – are things that lots of companies talk about but don’t actually ever do. Others are things that have entered into the Google mythology – like their ‘don’t be evil’ mantra. Here’s just a sample of the list – we’ve highlighted our favourites – read and learn:

Pack them in. Almost every project at Google is a team project, and teams have to communicate. The best way to make communication easy is to put team members within a few feet of each other. The result is that virtually everyone at Google shares an office. This way, when a programmer needs to confer with a colleague, there is immediate access: no telephone tag, no e-mail delay, no waiting for a reply. Of course, there are many conference rooms that people can use for detailed discussion so that they don’t disturb their office mates. Even the CEO shared an office at Google for several months after he arrived. Sitting next to a knowledgeable employee was an incredibly effective educational experience.

Make coordination easy. Because all members of a team are within a few feet of one another, it is relatively easy to coordinate projects. In addition to physical proximity, each Googler e-mails a snippet once a week to his work group describing what he has done in the last week. This gives everyone an easy way to track what everyone else is up to, making it much easier to monitor progress and synchronize work flow.

Encourage creativity. Google engineers can spend up to 20 percent of their time on a project of their choice. There is, of course, an approval process and some oversight, but basically we want to allow creative people to be creative. One of our not-so-secret weapons is our ideas mailing list: a companywide suggestion box where people can post ideas ranging from parking procedures to the next killer app. The software allows for everyone to comment on and rate ideas, permitting the best ideas to percolate to the top.

Communicate effectively. Every Friday we have an all-hands assembly with announcements, introductions and questions and answers. (Oh, yes, and some food and drink.) This allows management to stay in touch with what our knowledge workers are thinking and vice versa. Google has remarkably broad dissemination of information within the organization and remarkably few serious leaks. Contrary to what some might think, we believe it is the first fact that causes the second: a trusted work force is a loyal work force.

The BBC report today that a new species of furry thing has been spotted by the World Wildlife Fund, rather sensibly running away from its motion detection cameras. WWF caught two images of the animal, which is bigger than a domestic cat, dark red, and has a long muscular tail. Local people, the WWF says, had not seen the species before, and researchers say it looks to be new.

The creature, believed to be carnivorous, was spotted in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which lies in Indonesian territory on Borneo. The team which discovered it, led by biologist Stephan Wulffraat, is publishing full details in a new book on Borneo and its wildlife – making the small furry thing excellent PR.

“You don’t find new mammals that often, and to do so must be extraordinary,” said Callum Rankine, head of the species programme at WWF-UK.

“We’ve got camera traps there, which are passive devices relying on infra-red beams across forest paths,” he told the BBC News website.

“Lots of animals come past – it’s much easier than pushing through the forest itself – and when an animal cuts the beam, two cameras catch images from the front and back.”

So far, two images are all that exist. But they were enough to convince Nick Isaac from the Institute of Zoology in London that the animal may indeed be new.

“The photos look most like a lemur,” he told the BBC News website. “But there certainly shouldn’t be lemurs in Borneo.”

These long-tailed primates are confined to the island of Madagascar.

“It’s more likely to be a viverrid – that’s the family which includes the mongoose and civets – which is a very poorly known group,” Dr Isaac said.

“One of the photos clearly shows the length of the tail and how muscley it is; civets use their tails to balance in trees, so this new animal may spend chunks of its time up trees too.”

That could be one reason why it has not been spotted before. Another could be that access to the heart of Borneo is becoming easier as population centres expand and roads are built.

The WWF says this is the heart of the issue. It accuses the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which each own parts of Borneo, of encouraging the loss of native jungle by allowing the development of giant palm oil plantations.

Last week Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak, the larger Malaysian state on Borneo, said that such claims are unfounded and part of a smear campaign.

He told the BBC News website that palm oil plantations are mainly sited on land which had previously been cleared for cultivation or are in “secondary jungle”.

But the WWF says species like the new viverrid – if new viverrid it be – are threatened by such development.

It is concerned that other as yet unknown creatures may go extinct before their existence can be documented.

The group is planning to capture the new species in a live trap so it can be properly studied and described.

The shiny-eyed photograph reminds us of the unintentionally lovely Game Cam which features footage from hunters’ motion sensitive cameras.

One faux Christmas tree, fully decorated and with flashing lights, just twinkling on the pavement. Why is it there? And is it still? Update: no.