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Breaking News
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 26 Jun 2009
News Features
Gone are those innocent days at the turn of the century when the worst accusations being leveled at peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks were that they facilitated the unauthorized swapping of Metallica songs among tech-savvy teenage boys. The interminable hullabaloo over Napster seemed like ancient history in early May when the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection convened a hearing to discuss the Informed P2P User Act (H.R. 1319), which was crafted in the wake of the discovery of documents on P2P networks that raise strong privacy and even national security concerns.
Hartford, Conn., may be well-known for its insurance companies, but on April 24, the Hartford Business Journal brought people from across the business spectrum together at itse-Technology Summit and 2009 Strateg-e Awards to talk about growing their businesses through the use of (surprise, surprise) technology. Gathered together in South Windsor, Conn., attendees spent the day learning about everything from how to set up a corporate blog to the legal concerns that blogs might raise.
Some internet scams are easy to spot—pop-ups boasting miracle weight loss or emails claiming you've won the lottery—but other, more subtle scams aren't as easy to identify. With the rise of Web 2.0 tools, advertisers have a plethora of new opportunities to promote products and, unfortunately, dupe online users. For this reason, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed new regulations regarding misleading online endorsements, which could hinder online advertisers' ability to use social networking sites and blogs to promote products.
Despite bad news piling up for businesses worldwide, only 7% of IT professionals are losing sleep at night, according to a recent survey conducted by U.K. service management company Sunrise Software, Inc. While some smaller projects might be getting the knife in IT departments, companies' calls to increase efficiency have given them the opportunity to lead the way toward working, as the mantra goes, "smarter, not harder," according to the survey.
Over the past few months, from scattered corners of the web, the sentiment "enough already" has slowly emerged. Yes, we're in a recession; friends and family members are losing jobs, retirement savings, and homes; people are scared and frustrated. But enough with apocalyptic forecasting—let's move on to the question of how we're all going to get through this.Sites such as Recessionwire, Economic TurningPoint, and the Reinventing America series of reports on MSNBC.com have launched with the goal of helping readers understand not only what is going on with the economy but what to do now.
Featured Stories
That old stalwart, email, and some Web 2.0 upstarts like wikis and blogs, are supposed to make us more productive and collaborative. However, organizations must consider how to get all digital communication and collaboration tools to conform to business best practices and legal requirements.
The EContent team suggests some sites, projects, and resources that - while outside the scope of the EContent 100 list - are well worth taking a closer look at.
Speedy communication is only one aspect of doing business in real time. Even more important: the ability for execs to find out what's going on under the hood in time to fix problems before they cause something important to blow up.
Dave Shaffer, currently the chief executive officer for Thomson Financial, has worn many hats at The Thomson Corporation. Under Shaffer’s leadership, the company recently announced a deal with Merrill Lynch that sends a clear message to the econtent industry: There’s money to be made with the right content, audience, and delivery formula. We spoke to Shaffer about the electronic content industry and he offers his views on the current state of the industry.
For all its potential good use, the same data has great potential for misuse—either inadvertent or intentional. A new breed of “Hippocratic Databases” is emerging as one way to empower and protect databased content.
Columns
Generation gaps are influenced by many factors: Some are moral, religious, and sociopolitical, while others are little more than quibbles over style. (Though at 18, fashion can take on fairly grandiose connotations.) While some gaps can be measured in hair or skirt lengths, others are almost unquantifiable in scope: shaped by political transformation, war, economic collapse.
To rescue the beleaguered newspaper industry, there has been talk of a return to paid content (not so sure about the soundness of trying to unring a bell), nonprofit endowments, or government bailouts. Yet, as we've seen with the auto industry, throwing money at complex business problems does not suffice. Consider the music business, beset by the increasing legal and illegal distribution of music online. Today, successful musicians are giving music away to make money on concert tickets. Deeply entrenched, seemingly fundamental models have to be rebuilt in light of digital distribution and the expectation of free content, despite the fact that making quality content costs money.
Today in Arizona, pack mules will deliver mail to the Havasupai tribe. Their village, Supai, clings to the side of the Grand Canyon, and—as has been the case for a century—mules still provide the most efficient means of delivering the mail. This isn’t to imply that the Havasupai don’t get email. They are certainly online, as many of the packages delivered to them are products purchased through the web.
While releasing financial results first via the company IR website and RSS feeds and then through a news release sent to one of the press-release distribution services may seem a small and obscure change, it signals that Sun takes direct digital delivery of information very seriously.
After witnessing many econtent companies start up, grow, sometimes die, occasionally go public, and often be acquired over the past (gasp) 24 years, I've finally come to the realization that the best companies follow a defined birth and growth process. Initial sparks of an idea typically come from a founder who identifies a market problem that is solved by technology. The founder-turned-entrepreneur then either self-funds or finds seed funding to build an initial product, which is typically released into the marketplace after months or years of development effort. So far, so good.
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EContent BEST PRACTICES
Technology providers who not only recognize the necessity and difficulty of the local and global content marketplace, but are there to help: From analytics to location awareness, content management to translation management, translation services to language specific search solutions, there are a range of solutions that will enable organizations to adapt to the needs of the new consumer.
Appropriate and effective content management solutions not only enable ease of use, effective interactive communication, and dynamic marketing experiences, they deliver what all organizations seek: measurable return on investment.
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