Happy 40th Birthday, Internet!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/oct/29/arpanet-internet-40

Loopthing launches social media-monitoring app

Social business network Loopthing has today announced the launch of a performance-monitoring application for social media.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14235/

UK SMEs should embrace SaaS...

... to avoid disruption from Royal Mail strike and to reduce reliance on paper-based communications.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14217/

Battle of the Clouds

From the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=14644393

IT jobs in Irish organisations are set to increase by 8,000 over the next four years

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14124/

Rentokil exterminates IT costs – largest Google Apps rollout yet

A good example of a traditional company using the web to drive operational performance, improve business processes and to foster collaboration.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14099/

How Business Models Help Generate Business Plans

This is relevant to the IS6117 module (MBS eBusiness)

http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/2009/08/how-business-models-help-generate.html

See also: Business Model Designer Tool http://bmdesigner.com/

University Rankings

Following on from our discussion about university rankings yesterday, the latest THES rankings have been released today and are available here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/datablog/2009/oct/08/top-100-universities-world

In an interesting twist on crowdsourcing, the Guardian newspaper allows you to download the data as a google spreadsheet doc and enocurages readers (the crowd) to visualise/analyse/mash-up the data and post the results to Flickr. This is a nice way to get the readers to do most of the work.

The Guardian datastore is available here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1115946@N24/

UCC has risen 19 places to 107th overall, while UCD has broken into the top 100 and TCD is in the top 50.

iPhone Apps and the Media

Media organisations turn to mobile phone applications to raise revenue...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/05/mobile-phone-applications

iPhone Apps and mCommerce

Starbucks allows you to buy coffee from your iPhone. You still have to pick the coffee up, though!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=7774

First, let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid!

I was reminded of this quote from 'the Simpsons' when I came across a site called Peoplestring over the weekend (I had to google the quote in fairness - I'm not THAT much of a Simpsons geek). Peoplestring appears to be a social network that pays you for participating.

Sounds too good to be true??? Well, it probably is.

Basically, you can add contacts just like you would on Facebook or Linkedin or Bebo, to your string and you earn peoplepoints for the people you refer. Then, when your friends refer others, you move up a layer. So, this is Multi-Level Marketing (pyramids have multiple levels, right???).

They say that they are sharing their ad revenue with you (which could be possible e.g. Google AdSense) but I'm sceptical to be honest.

They don't charge any money so they are unlike a traditional pyramid in that respect. You can, however, pay to upgrade to a professional account (to make more money). So if you pay to upgrade, and then the people in the level below you pay to upgrade, you can see how cash filters up the tree. What happens if you come in at the bottom (which is generally the problem with pyramid schemes), though?

Perhaps I'm just too cynical, but it all reminds me of the 'liberty' craze in Cork a few years back.

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/03/26/story12921.asp

The Myth of Crowdsourcing

Good article from Forbes that argues that 'the crowd' doesn't really do anything, but it is motivated individuals in the crowd that innovate (see Netflix prize). It uses the term 'broadcast search' which may be a more appropriate description of the phenomenon

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/crowdsourcing-enterprise-innovation-technology-cio-network-jargonspy.html

IBM - Let's build a smarter planet

IBM is using technology to build smarter cities.

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/smartplanet/cities/5questions/20091001/index.shtml

See also: Service Science and Services Computing.

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research.nsf/pages/r.servsci.html

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research.nsf/pages/r.servcomp.html

What shape will the wireless Web take?

McKinsey Quarterly article (you need to register for full access)

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/High_Tech/Strategy_Analysis/What_shape_will_the_wireless_web_take_2425

IBM Study: The end of advertising as we know it

The next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did.
The information for this post is from an IBM global surveys of more than 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts … the report is titled, The end of advertising as we know it.”
Imagine an advertising world where ... spending on interactive, one-to-one advertising formats surpasses traditional, one-to-many advertising vehicles, and a significant share of ad space is sold through auctions and exchanges. Advertisers know who viewed and acted on an ad, and pay based on real impact rather than estimated “impressions.” Consumers self-select which ads they watch and share preferred ads with peers. User-generated advertising is as prevalent (and appealing) as agency-created spots.

http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/127366