Digital-Lifestyles, as media sponsors of eTech, will be heading over to the US on Friday in preparation of the much-hallowed event.If you’re heading over there too, do get in touch and we’ll have a Digital-Lifestyles meetup over there, to chat about all things digital. We’ll be there during the whole event, heading back late on the Thursday, but figure Tuesday/Wednesday would be best.
Business
Changes to business digitisation brings
Sky, Disney HD and VoD Deal Signed
BSkyB, the UK satellite TV behemoth, is getting closer to Disney. They’ve just announced a comprehensive agreement which covers both HD (High Definition) content, which Sky have said will be available in 2006, and the distribution of Disney content will be available on Sky By Broadband, their recently released free content-to-PC’s. service.
It’s the largest distribution deal that Disney has arranged outside the US and also mentions the deal covers video-on-demand (VoD). The VoD section of the deal does cover Sky-By-Broadband, but could also cover their yet-to-be-detailed, EasyNet-delivered VoD service, which interestingly isn’t mentioned in the release.
News release follows …
SKY, DISNEY MEDIA NETWORKS AND THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS TEAM UP FOR MORE FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT, HDTV AND LEGAL BROADBAND MOVIE DOWNLOADS
Two New Channel Brands – Disney Cinemagic and ESPN Classic – To Launch As Part Of New Arrangement
Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney Become Available to Millions More Viewers As Part Of ‘Kids Mix’ Package of Basic Channels
Walt Disney Studio Movies Available From Sky HD and Sky by broadband
Jetix distribution on Sky digital extended
Disney Media Networks, The Walt Disney Studios and British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) today announced plans to bring a wider choice of channels to Sky digital customers and to work together to exploit new opportunities in high definition television and broadband. The wide-ranging series of agreements expands the portfolio of great content from The Walt Disney Company available to Sky digital customers and extends the relationship between the two organisations.
Two new channel brands – Disney Cinemagic and ESPN Classic – will be made available to Sky digital customers for the first time, while Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney will be available to millions more Sky digital viewers as part of the Kids Mix package of basic channels. There will also be more ways to enjoy great films from The Walt Disney Studios as movies distributed by Buena Vista International Television join Sky’s legal broadband download service, Sky by broadband, and its forthcoming high definition television offering, Sky HD.
From 16th March, Disney Cinemagic, a new premium channel brand for families, will be the first place on television to see Disney’s latest animated films such as Pixar’s The Incredibles. Subscribers to Disney Cinemagic will also enjoy regular access to other great Disney favourites such as Lady and the Tramp and Cinderella. Disney Cinemagic will be available to Sky digital customers as a stand-alone premium channel or as a bonus channel for subscribers to Sky Movies 1 and 2.
From the same date, Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney will be available to Sky digital customers as part of the ‘Kids Mix’ of basic channels. Disney Channel will be even more kid-focussed, complementing Cinemagic, and offering live action favourites like That’s So Raven, popular animation series and Disney Channel Original Movies, including High School Musical which is currently taking the States by storm. Playhouse Disney, a channel targeted to preschoolers, will premiere the new CG animated, learning-focussed series, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, in May.
ESPN Classic, launching on 13th March as part of Sky’s ‘News and Events Mix’, will be the only sports channel in the UK devoted entirely to the greatest moments and legends of sport with a mix of all-time classic highlights, matches, movies, interviews, profiles and documentaries. ESPN Classic, part of ESPN Inc., the world’s leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company, will be available 24/7 on channel 442. Launch night alone will include Borg vs. McEnroe – the Great Wimbledon Rivalry, England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup Final victory over Australia and the 1984 European Cup Final between Liverpool and AS Roma.
Through a distribution agreement with Buena Vista International Television, Sky Movies will continue to offer a package of current and library Walt Disney Studio films,,with customers enjoying access to forthcoming Sky Movies premieres such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Sin City and Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. In addition to the extension of existing pay-TV and pay-per-view rights, the new agreement gives Sky the ability to offer these titles in High Definition format and on a video-on-demand basis. These titles will also be available, for a set period, via the Sky by broadband service, which since last month has allowed dual Sky Movies subscribers to download films to their personal computers to enjoy when they want at no extra cost.
Under an amended distribution agreement, Sky digital customers will continue to enjoy access to Jetix and Jetix+1 for up to a further five years from the expiry date of the current deal in 2007. Jetix offers a dynamic programming mix of action, adventure and cheeky humour, both animated and live action, for kids with a core focus on 7-11 year olds, with programming highlights including Power Rangers, Jackie Chan Adventures, Totally Spies and A.T.O.M Alpha Teens on Machines.
In commenting on the announcement, Anne Sweeney, Co Chair of Disney Media Networks and President, Disney-ABC Television Group, stated: “This agreement, which marks our largest distribution deal outside the US, is great news for viewers, who will now be able to access an even broader array of Disney content, either through their TVs or via broadband on personal computers. The strategic utilization of new technologies to meet consumer needs is of paramount importance to the growth of the Disney Media Networks Group, and we look forward to this deal enhancing an already rich association with Sky, and our viewers in the UK and Ireland.”
Richard Freudenstein, Sky’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “These agreements show the range and quality of Disney content. Working with outstanding brands like Disney and ESPN allows us to offer great entertainment for every family member and to break new ground in multi-platform content distribution. With today’s announcement, we are creating another compelling reason for families to join Sky digital and demonstrating again the strengths in content and innovation that position Sky well for sustained growth.”
George Bodenheimer, Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks and President, ESPN, Inc and ABC Sports, said: “ESPN has built up a passionate bond with sports fans and we are very excited to extend this with the launch of ESPN Classic in the UK on the Sky platform. We are confident that ESPN Classic, a dedicated new sports channel designed specifically for the UK market, will capture the attention of the UK sports fan as it has in over 40 countries across Europe.”
BT Media And Broadcast Division Set For Part Sale
We understand from good sources that BT is set to announce the name of the buyer for a major slice of its Media and Broadcast operations.As we revealed in January, BT’s Media and Broadcast (BT M & B) is looking to jettison its unprofitable OU operations. It has let interested parties know that a cash buyer would be welcome for its fleet of Transportable Satellite link vehicles.
We now hear that the sale is going to cover more than just the Occasional Use business.
BT, which since Post Office days has been working with the broadcasting industry, has been persuaded to include its profitable multiplexing business in the sale. This uplinks (ground to satellite) many of the Sky digital TV services and, we understand, it’s possible that part of the ITV network, that it is also responsible for, would also be included.
In the frame for the buyout, which is likely to involve the transfer of over 100 employees, is the Australian-backed Arqiva and a major UK bank.The sale will ensure that existing contracts are honoured. Shedding it is symptomatic of the burden a heavily-unionised BT carries in making units perform profitably and it strikes at M & B’s ambitions to be a powerhouse in the evolving IPTV world.
Insiders have doubts that media and broadcast will continue an operating unit for more than 12 months.
As soon as we have the details on the decision it’ll be here on Digital Lifestyles.
Ofcom VoIP Consultation Announced For UK
Ofcom has just announced another consultation on Voice over IP (VoIP) use in the UK as a follow up to their last, which they called New Voice Services: A consultation and interim guidance, and released on 6 September 2004.We feel this is sufficiently important to instantly flag up, so now only cover the key points. More details will follow.
Ofcom estimate is that there’s around 500,000 VoIP users in the UK, we can only assume that this is both software (Skype, gTalk, etc) and hardware (Vonage, etc). Sounds low to us and at the time of writing, Ofcom hasn’t responded to our request for clarification.
Subjects for discussion/debate –
The obvious of 999 emergency service comes up, but the use of language is pretty interesting. Ofcom say they want to ‘increase the incentive for VoIP services to offer 999 access,’ so potentially no insistence. VoIP providers will love this, as they’ve tripped up in other countries with this.
The scope _does_ appear to cover number portability which is good for the consumer.
As yet unclear, but in our view important. Will there be a move to enforce interoperability between different providers of the service? It would be very pro-consumer, but would put the noses-out-of-joint for quite a few VoIP providers, especially Skype.
Any comments in response have to be with Ofcom by 3.May.06. They’re not going to rush themselves in making their views on the process know in a big rush, they plan to make a statement in August 2006.
Ofcom – Consultation Documents on Regulation of VoIP Services
January A Bumper Month For Spam, Mobile Spam Increases
So, it’s Monday morning, you’ve sat down at your desk, powered up your PC and then slunk lower and lower in your chair as a fresh tide of spam rolls into your inbox.And if you’re thinking that January was a pretty bad month for spam, you’d be right.
Commtouch’s virus and spam statistics for January 2006 show that the year started out with a bang, with four massive virus attacks unleashed during the month including an evil sounding “multi-wave attack of 7 variants.”
The company noted that the most aggressive attacks struck before the average anti-virus vendor could even release a signature
“The number of massive attacks grew in January,” points out Amir Lev, President and CTO. “In large part due to the speed of distribution, they succeeded in reaching many of their targets despite the presence of traditional anti-virus programs.”
Looking through the depressing stats for January reveals 19 new email-born significant virus attacks, of which eight (42%) were categorised as “low intensity”, seven (37%) “Medium Intensity” and four (21%) rated as massive attacks – a rare phenomenon for a single month.
The report also tracks the domains used by spammers, with hotmail.com leading the list with 4.7 million spams, followed by yahoo.com (4.2 million), msn.com (2.1 million), cisco.com (1.9 million) and gmail.com (1.5 million).
As usual, most of the spam revolved around dodgy pharmaceuticals (52%), gifts (14%), ‘enhancers and diets’ (13%), refinancing (7.5%), software (6%), porn and local dating (5%) and fraud (just under 1%).
If musing over updated spam graphs are your thing, check out the Commtouch stats pageSMS Onslaught in Korea
In Korea, unwanted text messages and spam phone calls have got so bad that the Korea Communication Commission (KCC) is to take the unusual step of punishing the country’s telecom companies, along with unlawful marketers.“Up until now, we have checked just spam senders. But we are required to take punitive actions against fixed-line telecom entities, which are partially responsible,” commented KCC secretary general Kim In-soo.
Initially, mobile spam looked to be in decline after the introduction of an opt-in system in March, 2005 which prohibited marketers from placing promotional calls or sending advertising messages to handset users who hadn’t given explicit permission in advance.
Sneaky marketers tried to get around this with a clever bit of human engineering: they fired off hundreds of computer-generated calls to mobile phones that hung up after just one ring.
Any curious recipients calling back to find out whose call they missed found themselves connected to a porn hotline charged at premium rates. Ouch!
BT Movio Partners With Virgin Mobile TV, Endemol: 3GSM
They’ve been busy boys at BT this week, with the UK telecoms giant making two major announcements.On Monday, BT announced a content partnership with Big Brother producer Endemol to provide original shows and interactive content for BT’s new broadband television service.
Endemol now join a growing list of broadband content providers signed up by BT whose roster now includes recently bagged deals with BBC Worldwide, Paramount, Warner Music, National Geographic, HIT Entertainment and Nelvana.
BT/Virgin mobile TV deal
With the ink still drying on the Endemol deal, BT have also announced a new agreement with Virgin Mobile to offer TV services through its broadcast digital TV and radio service, BT Movio.
Virgin Mobile – Britain’s fourth-largest mobile operator – will use BT’s Movio mobile TV product to give their customers access to a wide range of digital TV content and more than 350 DAB digital radio stations.
Using the UK’s existing digital audio broadcasting (DAB) network, the broadcast service will be offered on a limited exclusive basis to virgin Mobile customers later this year. BT Movio will be available in the future to all mobile operators in the UK.The announcement of the deal coincided with the unveiling of HTC’s new handset at the 3GSM World Congress 2006.
HTC Trilogy handset
The Trilogy TV handset, the world’s first DAB-IP enabled Smartphone, was developed jointly by BT, TTP and HTC and sports a 2.2″ screen for viewing video content and multimedia-focused features including a removable storage and an integrated 1.3 mega pixel camera.
Emma Lloyd, managing director, BT Movio said: “Bringing the world’s first DAB-IP enabled Smartphone to market is another huge achievement for BT and the beginning of a step change towards open standards in the area of TV broadcasting over DAB.”
“By working with Microsoft and HTC we have been able to develop a handset that provides an easy to view, high quality experience, wrapped into a hi-spec media driven mobile phone. This will be vital in attracting mobile operators to the BT Movio service,” she added.
Microsoft partnershipBT has developed a strategic relationship with Microsoft for delivering broadcast services on a mobile handset, with their Windows Media technologies enabling BT Movio to deliver high-quality audio and video content over a DAB network using minimal bandwidth.
The BT Movio service also comes with Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology for the secure delivery of premium video and music content.
These are certainly interesting times for BT, with their recent activity seeing the company pushing ahead to create an alternative distribution network and channel for existing content to both broadband and mobile devices.
Although Orange, 3, and the Vodafone Group already offer streamed TV channels over their 3G mobile networks, this solution gobbles up precious bandwidth.
Phones on the BT Movio service, on the other hand, simply pick up broadcasted signals. As Virgin’s sales and marketing director Graeme Hutchinson explains: “It’s not downloaded; it’s not looped; it’s real TV just like you get at home.”
Wikinews Identifies US Congress Wikipedia Cheats
Wikinews, the collaborative online journalism project spawned from Wikipedia, has been digging up more dirt on the Wikipedia edits made by Capitol Hill staffers.Last week, the scandal broke about how staff using computers connected to the US senate’s network had been airbrushing out unflattering facts about their bosses while adding unsavoury titbits about political foes in over 1,000 changes to related Wikipedia articles.
Amongst the spinning and doctoring was the removal of a campaign promise by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., that he would serve only four terms, as was the detailed description of a bill introduced by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., designed to make it more difficult for gay parents to visit their children in hospitals.
Naturally, dirty tricks, slurs and insults loomed large, with the entry for the Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. saying that he had been voted “the most annoying senator by his peers.”
Hot on their trail, the meticulous volunteers at Wikinews collected every Senate IP which had ever been edited on Wikipedia (up to February 3) and examined where the IPs came, what was edited and what the edits comprised of.Someone (presumably Wikinews contributors) then sent emails to specific Senators’ offices and noted down the IP addresses that were included in the headers of the autoresponder emails.
Armed with this information, the Wikinews sleuths were then able to look back at Wikipedia edit histories and figure out which office was responsible for each edit.
The full name’n’shame article detailing who edited what can be seen here: Wikinews
(Unfortunately, edits coming from the US House of Representatives were harder to uniquely trace as they came through a proxy server, with one IP address covering all offices.)
Open, collaborative information projects like Wikipedia and Wikinews have been welcomed by Internet activists keen to make unbiased information freely available, but the very nature of the project makes it wide open to abuse (as one pundit commented, “The information on your screen may be only as good as the most recent users’ motives.”)But in this case, the attempts by Capital Hill staff to fiddle about on the Web and rewrite political history backfired dramatically and only made things worse for them.
And we rather like that.
Wikinews via BoingBoing
BSkyB Moves Execs, To Enter ‘Adjacent Areas Of Business’
Sky has announced three of its top Exec will be altering roles, we suspect, as they prepare to become more than just a satellite TV company.Using its best management speak, the UK Satellite-overlord is “aligning its organisational structure to support sustained growth towards its target of 10 million direct-to-home customers in 2010.”
The favoured three will be stepping it up a gear, and far beyond having the key for the executive toilet, we suspect they’ll be getting a whole suite of bathroom facilities.
- Dawn Airey, who has been Managing Director of Sky Networks since 2003, becomes Managing Director, Channels and Services with overall responsibility for Sky’s multi-platform content strategy. The existing Sky Networks structure will be joined in the Channels and Services group by an enlarged interactive team that brings together all of Sky’s new media content on interactive TV, online and mobile platforms. She’ll assume additional responsibility for Sky’s joint ventures, wholesale distribution arrangements with cable companies and commercial relationships with third-party channels on the satellite platform.
- Mike Darcey, who joined Sky in 1998 and is currently Group Strategy Director, becomes Group Commercial and Strategy Director with extended responsibility for a new group that combines Sky’s Strategy, Future Technology, R&D and Business Development teams. In addition, he’ll take on a further responsibility to manage and develop Sky’s major commercial relationships in support of the company’s strategic goals
- Jon Florsheim, who joined Sky in 1994, becomes Managing Director, Customer Group in addition to his existing title of Chief Marketing Officer. The Customer Group brings together all of Sky’s expertise in sales, marketing and customer operations to create a seamless brand, product and service experience for customers. This team will lead the continued development and implementation of Sky’s multi-product strategy, including the launch of the company’s broadband offering in the second half of calendar 2006.
We think Mike Darcey sounds like he’s going to have the most fun, and certainly the most toys to play with.James Murdoch, Sky’s Chief Executive, touches on where BSkyB is planning on going, as they “exploit content on multiple platforms and expand into adjacent areas of business.”
With the strength of BSkyB’s relationships with their customers, fear will be struck into the heart of many execs in many industries by the words “adjacent areas of business.”
UK Ad Authority Slaps T-Mobile Web’n’Walk Advertising
T-Mobile was told to see the headmaster and returned with a derrier rouge after making exaggerated claims about its “web’n’walk” mobile Internet service.In a wave of PR-driven hyperbole last October, T-Mobile claimed that their Service – which let customers access the web from their mobiles – would “redefine the mobile Internet market” letting people access the net “Internet wherever you are”. (You may also remember that at the time Guy Kewney wondered if Google were behind the service).Arch-rivals Orange clearly didn’t like the look of this new service and lobbed a sizeable spanner in the works, lodging an objection with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the grounds that T-Mobile had overstated the availability of the service.
Orange gleefully pointed out to ASA that with T-Mobile only managing 86 per cent coverage in the UK, the advert was giving a false impression about the availability of the service.
T-Mobile had a valiant stab at a defence, arguing that their advert was all about making the distinction between Ye Olde Crappe WAP and their new, full Internet-access, web’n’walk service, adding that they had included the line, “subject to coverage”.The ASA was having none of it, despatching T-Mobile’s team with a plague of fleas in their ears, firmly pointing out “the unconditional and geographical nature of the phrase, ‘the Internet wherever you are’.”
As heads lowered amongst the T-Mobile team, the ASA statement continued: “We considered the use of such unconditional language to be contradictory to the qualification stated in the coverage disclaimer.”
To the sound of a salvo of slapped wrists, the statement concluded that the ad, “was misleading because readers were likely to interpret the claim to refer to geographical network coverage. We told T-Mobile to avoid making such unconditional claims in future advertising.”(PS. Don’t tell Orange, but T-Mobile’s website is still making the claim, “Stay one step ahead with web’n’walk and access the Internet wherever you are.”)
Elsewhere, big-boy ISP Wanadoo also felt the harsh crack of ASA leather as it was criticised for ads promoting its “up to 8Mb” service which were seen to fall far short of its claims.
BMW Punished By Google For Porn Tricks
After trying to cheat its way to the top of the search engine pile, BMW has been dropped from global search engine, Google.The German car manufacturer was booted off Google after it had employed the same kind of tactics used by porn sites to try and artificially inflate search engine rankings.
BMW’s dodgy practices were detected by Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google who explained how the company had violated Google’s webmaster quality guidelines, specifically the principle of “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
As he explains in his blog, search engine ‘bots’ arriving at the BMW site would see a page full of keyword-loaded text, which had been optimised to ensure a high search engine ranking.But what the search engine saw and what greeted visitors were two quite separate things, as a piece of JavaScript would immediately redirect visitors to a completely different website.
Keyword-optimised ‘fake’ pages created purely to attract search engine robots are known as ‘doorway’ or ‘gateway’ pages and have long been employed by the porn industry to boost the profile of a site.
Google’s ‘delisting’ of BMW means that searches for terms like “BMW” or “BMW Australia” will now only return results for the global site and not regional sites.
Moreover, bmw.com.de’s PageRank – an algorithm used by Google to assign a ‘popularity ranking’ to every page on the web – has been reset to zero.
It’s probable that BMW enlisted the help of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts who use a variety of cunning tricks to boost a client’s search engine ranking.
Although there are many perfectly fair and legal ways of optimising a site’s search engine ranking, it’s not unusual to see less ethical “black hat” tactics being employed, usually by dodgy gambling and pornography sites.
BMW now have the dubious honour of becoming one of the highest profile companies to have a website effectively blacklisted by Google, by having their all-important PageRank reset to Zero (German camera manufacturer ricoh.de are also set to be delisted).Matt Cutts’ blog reports that at least some of the JavaScript-redirecting pages have already been removed from bmw.de, but before they can be ‘reincluded’, Google’s webspam team will need a ‘reinclusion request’ along with details on who created the doorway pages.
Although it’s good to see search engine cheats getting slapped down, in reality it’s not going to make a great deal of difference to BMW in the long term. But we suspect that some P45 forms are being handed out as we speak…
We understand from good sources that BT is set to announce the name of the buyer for a major slice of its Media and Broadcast operations.
In the frame for the buyout, which is likely to involve the transfer of over 100 employees, is the Australian-backed Arqiva and a major UK bank.
Ofcom has just announced another consultation on Voice over IP (VoIP) use in the UK as a follow up to their last, which they called New Voice Services: A consultation and interim guidance, and released on 6 September 2004.
So, it’s Monday morning, you’ve sat down at your desk, powered up your PC and then slunk lower and lower in your chair as a fresh tide of spam rolls into your inbox.
If musing over updated spam graphs are your thing, check out the 
They’ve been busy boys at BT this week, with the UK telecoms giant making two major announcements.
Using the UK’s existing digital audio broadcasting (DAB) network, the broadcast service will be offered on a limited exclusive basis to virgin Mobile customers later this year. BT Movio will be available in the future to all mobile operators in the UK.
Microsoft partnership
Wikinews, the collaborative online journalism project spawned from Wikipedia, has been digging up more dirt on the Wikipedia edits made by Capitol Hill staffers.
Hot on their trail, the meticulous volunteers at Wikinews collected every Senate IP which had ever been edited on Wikipedia (up to February 3) and examined where the IPs came, what was edited and what the edits comprised of.
Open, collaborative information projects like Wikipedia and Wikinews have been welcomed by Internet activists keen to make unbiased information freely available, but the very nature of the project makes it wide open to abuse (as one pundit commented, “The information on your screen may be only as good as the most recent users’ motives.”)
Sky has announced three of its top Exec will be altering roles, we suspect, as they prepare to become more than just a satellite TV company.
We think Mike Darcey sounds like he’s going to have the most fun, and certainly the most toys to play with.
T-Mobile was told to see the headmaster and returned with a derrier rouge after making exaggerated claims about its “web’n’walk” mobile Internet service.In a wave of PR-driven hyperbole 
T-Mobile had a valiant stab at a defence, arguing that their advert was all about making the distinction between Ye Olde Crappe WAP and their new, full Internet-access, web’n’walk service, adding that they had included the line, “subject to coverage”.
To the sound of a salvo of slapped wrists, the statement concluded that the ad, “was misleading because readers were likely to interpret the claim to refer to geographical network coverage. We told T-Mobile to avoid making such unconditional claims in future advertising.”
After trying to cheat its way to the top of the search engine pile, BMW has been dropped from global search engine, Google.
As he explains in his blog, search engine ‘bots’ arriving at the BMW site would see a page full of keyword-loaded text, which had been optimised to ensure a high search engine ranking.
BMW now have the dubious honour of becoming one of the highest profile companies to have a website effectively blacklisted by Google, by having their all-important PageRank reset to Zero (German camera manufacturer ricoh.de are also set to be delisted).