Are social networks the internet's last big development? And how much will they change? A star panel in Oxford asks big questionsIn digital media, as in fortune-telling, the future is pretty much treated as part of the present. "What is the next big thing?" is a question everyone who works with the internet asks continually. But after several years of boom, the question of what comes after social platforms is no longer so remote. Luckily, some experts just gave us answers. On Monday evening, the
For a business that depends on user-generated content –3.5bn pieces a day – user comfort on privacy is a life-or-death issueWhat is Facebook's most important asset? Easy. The 3.5 billion pieces of content that its users upload each day. That's what the company is built around. And if those users are going to carry on pumping out content, they'll have to feel comfortable with the platform. That makes trust a big issue. And privacy.In general, individuals are producing an exponentially growing
Google and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage have reached an agreement to digitise up to a million out-of-copyright works at the national libraries in Florence and Rome, including some by Galileo.And it's just two weeks after an Italian court gave three Google executives suspended prison sentences over a video of bullying on YouTube that had been removed once the company was told about it. Google is not only to work closely together with the Italian libraries, but also with the Italian m
CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the search engine will feature 14,000 pictures of the museum's artefactsIt spread across the web like a wildfire: Google chief Eric Schmidt visited Baghdad today. Yes, just like a statesman. He attended a ceremony with the US Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, at Iraq's national museum, where he announced that the search giant would post photographs of the museum's ancient treasures on the net early next year.The museum - which hosts artefacts from Babylonian,
In today's state of information overload, it might be useful to reintroduce restrictions on who people can communicate withEmail overload has become a severe problem. In fact, in the past couple of years the problem has become so immense that the internet itself got overloaded with tips on how to get rid of it. Within easy reach, for example, are at least five ways of dealing with email overload, six tips for reducing email overload, 12 steps to getting control of your email inbox, or the secret
Newspapers have a hard time making money out of Google. Should they consider selling links? Some search engine optimisers think so, and some newspapers are said to be keen to. Usually, this subject is only talked about on the quiet, but last week some SEOs pumped up the volume during an industry event in Brighton. Paul Careless introduced the idea of newspapers selling links, several SEO blogs discussed it and several YouTube films, since taken down and made private, carried on the discussion. H
Almost all young men use the internet every day, and it is the technology they are most attached to, according to new study. Research conducted by Sparkler for Microsoft Advertising across the UK found that 99% of young males go online either every day or nearly every day, and half of them already use their mobile phones to do so. And 80% even go so far as to say that they would be lost without it. The Internet is the technology 57% of men between 18 and 44 are most attached to, closely followed
Web giant Google reported to be launching service that would integrate search and musicTechCrunch stirred up the tech world today when it posted that the launch opf a Google music service was "imminent". The technology website said it had heard from "several sources", that Google had spent several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from major music labels. However, it admitted that it was not clear if the "Google Music" or "Google Audio" service was about streaming or downloadi
Facebookers are incensed that the site has tinkered with its news feed so updates are no longer chronologicalIf you are one of the 53% of Britons now creating and sharing content online, you might, like me, see Facebook as your digital living room. In which case, if someone suddenly walked in and moved your sofa you wouldn't like it. No wonder, then, that angry Facebook users have united in protest. A lot of them. 1,175,000 Facebookers have joined the group "Change Facebook back to normal!!", an
UK government gets a final warning on claims that its laws don't protect Britons from ad targeting companies such as PhormGiven the amount of CCTV there is everywhere, we know the UK tolerates spying on its citizens more than other EU countries. But now Britain might be taken to court by the EU for failing to provide the UK citizens with enough privacy and personal data protection. The EU just launched the second step of legal action to force Britain to bring its data protection framework into
Facebook users appear to be more interested in changes to the news feed than the site's updated privacy policyFacebookhas just updated its privacy policy to cut out legal jargon after it was rebuked by the Canadian privacy regulator. The regulator marked the previous policy as being "confusing and incomplete" - a common problem on the internet. Indeed, while we read every page of a contract we sign in the real world, a lot of us tend to click the "I fully read and accept the terms of services"
