Information overload is a buzz phrase which has been getting a lot of use recently. It refers to the enormous amount of information which we now consume (largely because of the level of accessibility to content which the Internet gives us), and the challenges that that creates. Another important issue is the Long Tail, as recognised by Chris Anderson, and the way that relates to content. In other words, there is now far more information available which makes discoverability much harder.
Services
Service offered
Attention: A Cure For Information Overload?
Tiscali ‘Movies Now’ Service Launched
ISP Tiscali have launched a Movies Now service, giving their customers access to over 500 films and entertainment programs without a subscription fee.There’s a choice to either rent the content or download to own, with prices starting at 99p for TV content or for older films.
They’re working with Arts Alliance Media, who are providing the content and the technology behind the serving and content protection.
Boo.com Reborn To Travel
You can just imagine the cries of What!!! when we heard that boo.com was relaunching.The first time around boo.com was at the peek of stupid behaviours in the UK Internet scene in the pre-bust days and its excesses are well documented. As we’re sure you all know, they burnt through close to $160m in 18 months, trying to create a portal (as they were called back in the day) to sell clothes through. They went bust in 2000.
Well the FT covers the story (by someone with an infeasibly long name, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson) that someone has bought the domain and has launched a travel site using it – this time with the golden charms of Web 2.0. Does this harken the cry that Web 2.0 is just about to bubble burst?
Ray Nolan, the founder of Web Reservations International, who currently appear to be doing OK with €19m of earnings last year, pointed out to the FT that “It’s catchy, and it works across languages.” True enough – and the tarnish on the name might just have faded far enough to not be negative. Well, it got them in the FT and us writing about it, didn’t it?
Why Skype SMS Offer Doesn’t Include The UK
We put out a NIB (News in Brief) earlier today about Skype offering half price SMS’s.It struck us that dear old Blighty (UK) _wasn’t_ included in the list of countries that people could half price SMS to.
Jeepers, Creepers, what’s going on, went the cry!
We got in touch with those who know (Skype-types) and after a short pause came the confirmation that, yes, the UK wasn’t included.
The reason?
“We’re looking at all markets and have started with those that we think will take advantage of the promotion the fastest. Everything is evolutionary at Skype – we rely on early adopter/usage feedback to make sure we get it right for other countries yet to benefit from the promotion.”
Doesn’t make a great deal of sense given the UK’s global reputation of madly texting at every opportunity.
Clearly Skype had to say something and while this might be the official reason, we wondered if it was something to do with the famously-inflexible UK mobile companies, and their unwillingness to show love (or enough of a discount) to dear Skype?
Skype: SMS Half Price Offer
Those clever-types at Skype are trying to hook you into the habit of using Skype, not just for your spoken comms and IM, but for SMS to mobiles too.The feature’s been there for quite a while in the PC version and for slightly less on the Mac, but we guess they think that not enough people know about it yet.
They’re using that old ‘make it cheaper’ ploy to attract your attention.
Until the 8th May, you (any Skype user, anywhere in the world) will be able to send SMSs via Skype for half their normal price to mobile owners in United States, Australia, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Belgium, Thailand, Ireland, Austria and Italy.
How do you SMS in Skype?
Sending an SMS in Skype is a doddle, simply select a contact that has a mobile number stored in it and select the Send an SMS option.It couldn’t be easier really, could it? … and it gives the advantage of having a full-sized keyboard.
BBC iPlayer On-Demand Service Gets Green Light
The BBC Trust has given the go ahead for the BBC’s iPlayer service (iMP).Expected to launch later this year, the iPlayer service lets punters watch TV shows online seven days after the initial broadcast, with viewers also able to download and store programmes on their PCs for up to 30 days.
(more…)Facebook Searches For Its Identity
The Internet has undergone a revolution in the past few years, and one of the major trends we’ve seen is that of social networking. I suspect that a substantial proportion of those reading this are a member of one or more social networks, and those who are not are surely aware of the phenomenon which MySpace and others represent.Whilst I have used MySpace, Bebo and other social networks in the past, the one which I have found consistently useful (if that is the right choice of word) is Facebook. This site began in the US as a way for students at the same college to communicate with each other and organise their social lives together online, and has since come to universities everywhere and most recently, with the advent of region-based ‘networks’, to everyone. Certainly in my social circle, Facebook is gaining real traction, probably surpassing market leader MySpace as the place to join.
How do FaceBook and MySpace Differ?
In many ways the two services could not be more different. A subtle difference is the emphasis which Facebook places on keeping in touch with those who one already knows. MySpace, on the other hand, is quite keen to help you meet new people. The Facebook approach sits more nicely with the way most people like to interact with others; MySpace demands what you could call a social paradigm shift, if you are to take it seriously. Whilst that is not a criticism of MySpace (I know someone who is ostensibly head over heels at the moment with a person he met entirely over MySpace), it does mean that the barrier to Facebook adoption is considerably lower than that of its larger rival – an important fact given the relatively low overall percentage of the population using social networking sites currently. Future growth in the space will predominantly come from those outside the current 16-25 year olds that make up the majority of their users, who are more happy to be flexible with how their social lives operate. Facebook is more equipped to meet the needs of those who are not so flexible.
Customisation
Another key difference is way in which MySpace users are able to customise their profile pages, whereas Facebook users are allowed no such features. Whilst the claimed potential to achieve self expression by creating an appalling design for one’s profile page is a mystery to me, I do see the appeal of the widgets platform MySpace offers.For the uninitiated, widgets are small boxes containing content from a third-party provider. That could be an embedded YouTube video, the contents of an RSS feed or even a dynamic app, such as livechat2im, which allows a visitor to a profile page to have an instant messaging chat with the owner directly through the page. None of this is possible with Facebook at the moment, although Mashable reported a rumour this week that Facebook is considering implementing widgets. Pete Cashmore argued that widgets is currently the key functionality MySpace has which Facebook does not, and that it would be the best way to ‘steal the social networking crown from MySpace’.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with Pete. I think it is in a better position to grow in the medium term future than MySpace is, but it is continuously under pressure to get quick growth by trying to steal users from MySpace. Building a ‘better MySpace’ probably isn’t the way forward if it is to ultimately overtake MySpace, and rumoured features such as its classified ads service seem to indicate that Facebook is aware of that. Facebook needs to be clearly different from MySpace, and adding widgets would possibly damage that.
Who will win long term?
I will end with a prediction; in five years, if Facebook doesn’t pander to the temptation to be like MySpace, it will be significantly bigger in terms of users and pageviews than the Murdoch-owned rival.Huw Leslie is editor of UK-based Web 2.0 and software blog GizBuzz. He is a co-founder of Oratos Media and Klaxis, and his personal blog is For Crying Out Loud.
MySpace News Now Live: Very Quiet
Following the anticipation of the Beta launch of MySpace News, we thought we’d pop over and have a look at what the service is like and how well it’s doing.It’s obviously early days, but wow is it quiet over there … you can almost hear the tumble-weed running through it.
It may pickup at the weekend when MySpace fans/fanatics spend their whole weekend bashing messages to their ‘friends’, or then again they may be mixing with real people and getting their bodies into the sun.
Maybe we’re on to something that the MySpace crowd just isn’t interested in news.
MySpace News Take On Google News and Digg
It is perfectly logical that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp that owns MySpace would use it to trial new features and services that will be of use across their vast empire of media companies.To this end, MySpace will be launching MySpace News, expected to launch into Beta later today.
They will be scraping news site across the world and presenting them in the same way that Google News does so successfully.
Once the stories are presented to the MySpace users, they’ll be able vote on the quality and content of the stories, in much the same way as Digg users currently do.
So it looks like they’ve taken Google News and Digg and glued the two together.
We’re not sure if Rupe has this one right, as it’s widely known that the younger end of the population doesn’t really care that much about news.
Time will tell if they choose to spend their leisure time (as that’s what MySpace is) reading news stories and voting on them.
Myspace News (still currently private)
Palm Releases Backup Program For Treo Users
Palm has unveiled a new beta app for Palm Treo users letting them back up their data over the air to Palm’s secure servers, without the need to connect to a desktop computer.
The Palm Backup Beta service can be downloaded from here and lets users back up data from the core handset applications; Contacts, Calendar, Memos, Tasks, Blazer (web browser) bookmarks, quick dials and the call log.Once the app is downloaded on to the Treo (a 300k .prc file), users are prompted to open a new account with Palm, and select their resident country (only the US and Canada were listed as being currently available, so – sssscch! – we lied and still managed to set up an account with no problem).
An activation letter is sent to your email account, but you can start the back up on your Treo straight away (but you must activate your Palm account within 7 days otherwise your account will be closed).The first screen asks you how often you want to schedule your Treo back ups (daily/weekly/monthly or manual) and at what time of the day or night.
A back up of your data will then be saved to Palm’s secure server as scheduled – so long as there is wireless data coverage available (if it fails to find a connection, it will try again at the next scheduled time).Palm warns that if your Treo is stuffed full of data, the initial back up might take quite a while – something we discovered with the process taking something like 20 minutes over GPRS – but then we have over nine years worth of contacts, calendar and memo data filling up our much-used Treo 650. Subsequent backs up should be quicker.
Note that with all that data flying about, you’ll need a generous data allowance with your mobile service provider otherwise you might face hefty bandwidth bills.With its obvious benefit to business users, this new backup service reflects Palm’s determination to start clawing back sales from high flying competitors like Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
Palm Backup Beta service currently supports Palm Treo 700p, Treo 680 and Treo 650 and there’s no news yet about release date or pricing.
ISP Tiscali have launched a Movies Now service, giving their customers access to over 500 films and entertainment programs without a subscription fee.
You can just imagine the cries of What!!! when we heard that boo.com was relaunching.
We put out a NIB (News in Brief) earlier today about 
Those clever-types at Skype are trying to hook you into the habit of using Skype, not just for your spoken comms and IM, but for SMS to mobiles too.
The BBC Trust has given the go ahead for the BBC’s iPlayer service (iMP).
The Internet has undergone a revolution in the past few years, and one of the major trends we’ve seen is that of social networking. I suspect that a substantial proportion of those reading this are a member of one or more social networks, and those who are not are surely aware of the phenomenon which MySpace and others represent.
Customisation
Following the anticipation of the Beta launch of MySpace News, we thought we’d pop over and have a look at what the service is like and how well it’s doing.
It is perfectly logical that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp that owns MySpace would use it to trial new features and services that will be of use across their vast empire of media companies.
The Palm Backup Beta service can be downloaded 
An activation letter is sent to your email account, but you can start the back up on your Treo straight away (but you must activate your Palm account within 7 days otherwise your account will be closed).
A back up of your data will then be saved to Palm’s secure server as scheduled – so long as there is wireless data coverage available (if it fails to find a connection, it will try again at the next scheduled time).
Palm Backup Beta service currently supports Palm Treo 700p, Treo 680 and Treo 650 and there’s no news yet about release date or pricing.