Hey Amazon, print is not dead!
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Business, e-commerce on
Despite Amazon making it known that the ‘most gifted’ product bought from the US online store was the Kindle e-book reader with around half a million sold during the Xmas rush, I’m still not convinced that print is dead. Wounded, and perhaps seriously, but certainly not dead just yet.
Now I’m not mad, and I realise that when the likes of Rupert Murdoch start ponder how to monetise online news then things have reached a certain tipping point as far as publishing goes. But just because Amazon customers apparently bought more e-books than paperbacks and hardbacks on Xmas Day, the first time that the online retailer has reported such a thing, does not mean that no print sales were made.
Print is on the back foot in some markets, and news is almost certainly the main one amongst them for very good reason: the Internet is the obvious place to get your news from. Not only does it have the immediacy that news stories demand, in terms of both production of the story as well as consumption of it (I can access breaking news with equal ease at my desktop or on my iPhone) but it also bestows the kind of interactivity upon that news that even digital TV finds hard to match.
Yet when I buy a book I do not, I have to admit, do so in electronic format despite my owning a number of hardware devices capable of delivering that novel digitally. Why is this? Simply, and it’s the same argument that suggests to me that print will not die any time soon, because I do not feel comfortable reading a novel on my iPhone, netbook or even a Kindle. An eBook can deliver in terms of nerdy satisfaction, knowing that I can carry around a veritable library of titles in my pocket, but it cannot deliver in terms of reading enjoyment.
Reading a book on-screen is, to me, a flat and dull experience. I crave the smell and feel of the paper, I want to turn the page physically back and forth, I need to be able to crease a corner as a bookmark. Silly, I know, but I am most certainly not alone. Sure, as a published author (21 books and counting in my 20 year writing career) I have a vested interest in keeping print alive, not least because the royalties remain better than those offered for electronic product right now, but as a technology evangelist I also have a vested interest in moving with the times. Trouble is, it seems to me that technology has still not yet moved far enough to make eBooks a compelling purchase for the dedicated reader. Unfortunately, not only is the technology incapable of delivering that touch and feel experience that I, and others, crave but it fails to do so at a cost way in excess of buying the printed book.
Even if you remove the hardware cost from the equation, you still have the cost of the book itself. I’ve seen eBook versions of best sellers being sold at more than twice the cost of the hardback version for example, and that is just madness.
So congratulations Amazon, you have a runaway success with your Kindle. And congratulations Amazon, to sell more eBooks than print books is also amazing. But global media, let’s not forget that those sales were only on a single day and to extrapolate from that ‘print is dead’ is stretching credulity just a tad, no? Amazon is claiming no such thing, of course, after all it has loads of printed books to sell…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...
Rage Against The Machine get Xmas No 1
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Twitter, Blog, Internet on
If ever the increasing power of social networks were doubted, here’s the proof that the Internet has found a voice and is making it heard. Rage Against the Machine has beaten all the odds to take the Christmas Number One in the music charts with Killing in the name, despite it being an almost foregone conclusion this time last week that it would be the X-Factor winner getting the glory yet again.
The race to the top of the music charts used to be fun and interesting, and I recall having a flutter at the bookies for my favoured record many a year. Sure, the music might not have been great but Christmas was the one time of the year when the novelty record stood a chance.
The the X-Factor came along and pretty much ruined Xmas for me by taking the chance out of the equation, and making it a dead cert that whichever act one would take their boring and bland poppy cover version of some song or other to the top spot courtesy of millions of TV fans eager to buy into whatever Simon Cowell was selling them.
Pop mogul Simon Cowell undoubtedly understands the music business and knows what sells and how to sell it. However, he seriously misunderstood just how powerful a force social networking can be and how it to knows how to influence real world music sales.
Thanks to Jon Morter, who started the campaign to topple the X Factor on Facebook, the 1992 expletive-laden rock/rap classic from Rage Against the Machine sold more than half a million copies and beat the X-Factor winner into the number 2 spot with a clear 50,000 lead in sales.
So there you have it, we saw it before when a Daily Mail columnist annoyed the Twitterati and we’ve seen it again with Facebook and Twitter users deciding to make a point. With an election coming up, you have to wonder just how seriously politicians will be taking the threat of a social networking influenced electorate finding their online voice.
Rated: 53.33% (3 votes)
Loading ...
Are you a sucker for branded malware?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in phishing, Blog, Spam, Security on
I was surprised to discover that only 85% of folk happily click on anything that appears to have a well known brand behind. In these celebrity obsessed times where brand is everything, I expected a higher figure.
When Symantec sent me the results of its research, carried out by YouGov, it said that this indicated “the sophisticated methods used by cybercriminals to steal sensitive or personal information” but I take issue with that. It indicates to me that the bad guys are not stupid, but they know that the majority of the web using public are heading into that territory and if we are being generous can be classified as naive at best.
Whenever I suggest such a thing, often accompanied by a headline such as ‘link-clicking idiots‘ the hate mail comes thick and fast. Yet how else would you explain, this far into the broadband revolution, the findings of the survey that reveal only 15% of us would not click on images or adverts “without a second thought” exploiting trusted and well known brands as well celebrity worship?
It seems that security education is getting through on some fronts, as 43% of those polled denied ever opening spam email with the same content. OK, maybe not getting through that far as the 43% actually claim not to open those spam emails if they do not come with any images attached. Doh!
The survey looked in depth at how people interacted with adverts, images and unsolicited emails. At the same time as claiming not to open those unsolicited emails, 5% admitted that they would click on images from banks, while 16% said they would do the same for music stores and 21% if a social networking site was thought to be behind it.
“Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for new ways to make money. A current and successful tactic is by exploiting the public’s trust and familiarity in a particular brand or piece of celebrity news and using this trust to gain access to their computer” said Orla Cox, Security Response Manager for Symantec who continued “often criminals will use imagery in spam emails, or in advertisements that look genuine but either automatically load malware simply when a person visits that Web page, or download malware should you click on them”.
Of course, as I have explained before right here at IT Pro, it is possible to turn things around and make decommissioned malware and phishing links work in a positive way as far as security is concerned.
Rated: 90% (2 votes)
Loading ...
First Tweet Bombing, is a Twitter Denial of Service attack next?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Twitter, Blog, Security, Internet on
Ross Noble is, as anyone who has seen his stand up performances, a somewhat surreal comedian. While I am not convinced there is such a thing as a typical Twitter user, it’s unlikely that Noble would fit such a category. So it came as no real surprise when he invited his followers on Twitter, all 30,275 of them, to effectively Twitter Bomb Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy with silly questions.
McCarthy, known by some as the Twitter Tsar courtesy of heading up new media campaigning for the Labour Party, was duly bombarded with totally daft questions. Things got even more surreal when, in a totally unexpected turn of events, rather than ignore the questions or complain about being Twitter bombed, McCarthy started answering as many as she could.
Indeed, across a six hour period she managed to answer more than 100 of them and that was inbetween meetings and casting votes in parliament.
My favourite would probably have to be the response to someone challenging her to start a Mexican wave in the House of Commons: “We do it on the Labour benches when Nick Clegg is speaking”. Although, to be fair, the reply of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” to Ross Noble’s own query as to if Billy Ocean would make a difference to Labours chances on election day was pretty sharp as well. The most surreal answer has to be “I frequently dress up as the Holiday Armadillo” but I’m not going to tell you what the question was, you can go find that yourself by looking at McCarthy’s Twitter stream.
While this was all done in the best possible taste, and Noble himself set ‘rules’ asking people to be polite but daft in their questioning, it does make one wonder how long it will be before Twitter gets used to let off some seriously disruptive bombs. After all, there is an election coming up and politicians are embracing Twitter as a means of engaging the voters. All it takes is for a coordinated campaign of Tweet Bombing by accounts with enough members between them to make it count and we could witness the first TDoS - Twitter Denial of Service attack.
When that does happen, and I suspect it will be when rather than if considering we’ve already seen the political power of the beast, I will be hugely interested to see how Twitter management react. It could prove to be a tough test for the Twitter powers that be, especially if it wants the business world to start taking notice.
Rated: 66.67% (3 votes)
Loading ...
Sorry Darling, shelving NHS IT system is a false economy
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Health, Economy, Blog, Government on
So Alistair Darling, the chancellor with the funny eyebrows who looks a lot like Parker from Thunderbirds, has dropped the strongest of hints that he might cancel the NHS IT system this coming week. Speaking on the BBC One Andrew Marr show, Darling admitted that the Electronic Patient Record Scheme has been “quite expensive” so far. Quite expensive? Look, I know this is the chap who thinks nothing of doling out taxpayer money to bankers like it was going out of fashion, but to call a scheme that has so far cost an estimated £12 billion “quite expensive” is missing the point by a country mile even for the Chancellor.
And talking of missing the point, while I have not exactly been holding back in my own criticisms of the proposed system (mainly on security and privacy fronts) over the years, to scrap it this far down the road and with so much public money already spent would be something of a false economy surely?
Yet many are taking the comments that Darling made on the Andrew Marr show to say just that, and point to Wednesday’s pre-Budget report as the most likely time such an announcement would be made. Comments such as calling it something “I do not think we need to go ahead with just now” do rather suggest they could be right.
Of course, Darling is not alone in reaching this conclusion as both leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have been saying the same for some time, and more loudly with a General Election looming at the tail end of a recession. While I am in no doubt that it has been a terrible money drain, following an all too familiar pattern of public sector IT procurement going wring and wasting money without delivery much to show for it, that does not mean it should be stopped now.
What it means is that it should be done properly, that the procurement and delivery process be revised and revamped and the people who have failed so dismally made to face the music. But just to say ‘oh dear, we screwed that one up didn’t we’ and wave goodbye to £12 billion worth of work is sheer folly.
I’d be interested to hear what those health professionals who read IT Pro think: should it be scrapped or simply done properly and with tighter cost controls? If your answer is scrapped, then what if anything do you propose should take its place?
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
Loading ...
Government security strategy sinking after Navy loss
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Data Protection, Blog, Security on
File under oops. Someone seems to have picked up a USB memory stick which was just laying about in a car park near the docks in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Having eventually been turned into the police it turns out the memory stick was packed full of highly confidential data such as nearly 40 pages of information relating to Royal Navy personnel and whole bunch more with restricted status that detailed naval operations and manoeuvres.
The Guardian reports that detectives from the Royal Navy Police Special Investigation Branch have been looking into the matter. They are thought to be undertaking a forensic examination of the device in order to determine if any data has been copied as well as for clues to the identity of the last person to have used, and presumably misplaced, the thing.
Now one security expert reckons it could force the UK Government into implementing new security practises at long last. Sean Glynn from Credant Technologies says that “it’s clear that the data genie is now well and truly out of the bottle” and warns that it is “time for the Government to move on from its best practice approach for its many Departments and Agencies on IT security, and make encryption of all private data mandatory.”
Glynn points out that it has been some two years now since the UK Government famously, or maybe that should be infamously, lost a couple of data disks which between them contained the personal and banking details of some 25 million UK residents who were claiming child benefit. “…things have still not improved” Glynn insists, adding “…attitudes towards data security must change and the only way to do this is to make data security mandatory in all Government departments and agencies”.
Certainly, given the dismal past recent history of this Government with regards to data security it needs to do something, and soon.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...
Tag cloud
Archives
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Most commented posts
- 80 percent of viruses love Windows 7
165 comments
- Has Microsoft gone mental?
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7?
- Cuil frozen out: market share drops to next to nothing
- Xbox 360 FAIL
- The 24GB RAM Desktop is born
- Use old version of Windows instead of Linux, says teacher
- Microsoft reveals time-based licensing model
- How Marblecake Hacked Time
- Nexus Two - The Next Generation
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Why ecommerce fails (100%)
- Google Chrome stands alone at PWN2OWN (100%)
- Betting on Hubdub technology (100%)
- Has Google gone insane as GMail goes back to beta? (100%)
- Chinese whispers as government implicated in UK hack attacks (100%)
- Crimeware toolkit targets 10,000 trusted sites (100%)
- Black Hat risk to migrating VMs (100%)
- Tough on cyber crime, tough on the causes of cyber crime (100%)
- Firefox 3, Beta 4, Enhancements 900, Tested 5 (100%)
- Has the US Army declared war on Windows 7? (100%)
