Priority Inbox in Google’s gmail

I write about user experience all the time.. and so Google’s gmail deserves applause. The internet experience has just become better with the personalisation offered by Priority Inbox. It sifts through the emails that come in and brings forward the ones which are truly important. It learns with you and you can help it learn.

Check it out…

People always need to know more… is Facebook always going to be enough?

People in general need to know just about enough about anything that surrounds them. Some of this is called is gossip, some known as current affairs and some as networking. It makes knowledgeable people interesting. It makes it easy for this lot of interesting people to have a thousand friends on Facebook – connecting with everybody, sharing photos, making events popular by attending them and YouTube videos a success because they post them on their walls.

Facebook Creator ZUCKERBERG (Photo by Andrew Feinberg - Everystockphoto.com)

A decade ago, the Internet was nicknamed the Information Superhighway. The world talked about building an Information Society. Companies talked about how many Knowledge Workers they employed. In the world we live in, you don’t ask somebody who comes in for an interview if they have Internet at home. You don’t ask if they use email, if they’re familiar with how to write a document on a computer, or if they are on Facebook. People don’t send in typewritten CVs through the mail. They apply online, or send a PDF through email.

At the same rate that people have become more connected to the Internet, computing resources have also become ever so more accessible. Using computing power to extract intelligence has become infintely more possible. We now need not think how much such power we need: we can hook to a grid that gives us much as we need, when we need it. Virtualised computing resources, available on demand, are sometimes referred to as cloud computing. The information superhighway has become a reality not because you can Google up just about anything, but because all this data is now connected. There is also so much computing resource that we can crunch it into the useful information we need, when we need it.

So, begs the question: When will this infinite computing resource be used to connect data and people intelligently? When will this be done so that it matters not where the data is stored, what email account you used to upload it, whether you tagged that person as a friend on Facebook or whether it’s on the Googlemail contacts?

Today: You meet somebody at a party. A month or so later, you need a graphic designer and you remember that the person you met at the party was a freelance designer with her experience at one of the big publishing houses in Milan. You remember just the first name: Inga. So you go to Facebook, look up the friend who organised the party. You look up his friends, and in it you find Inga. Then you add her as a friend. When she accepts the friendship request, you can send her a message asking to meet and discuss the project.

Tomorrow: You meet Inga at the party. A month later you need a graphic designer – quick – and you think she might be interested. So you start composing a new email… “Hi Inga, we met at Mike’s housewarming party…”. Email will match which Mike in all your contacts had an event called “housewarming” to which both you and an ‘Inga’ were invited. Privacy settings permitting, email will immediately connect you with Inga and offer to add her to your contacts. Inga has shared some photos of the party which are intelligently matched with your profile picture: you are prompted to validate them and if you confirm that it’s you in the photo they will also be published to your wall.

In February’s post about Usability I wrote about digital natives who need product usability to evolve and adapt to their expectations. Facebook has stopped being innovative and, at this rate, even if it now prides 500,000-plus users, it will be replaced by any future social engine that will make it possible for information to be truly ubiquitous. The next big thing will be the Facebook that is also a Google of what I call common intelligence.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Juan Pablo for the inspiration.

Mediaset and the freedom of TV in Italy

Starting with Canale 5 in the late 70s, the birth of Mediaset set the path for the liberalisation of the TV in Italy. Not all is clear about the situation of dominance of Mediaset in today’s Italy. The same liberalisation of the media, which was set in motion in the 80s, allows it to be publicly discussed on Italy’s television every day. 

TV in Italy was born in 1954, under a Christian Democrat government which led Italy between the post-WW2 years and the days of Mani Pulite (clean hands). Mani Pulite were the investigations that ran between 1992 and 1996, exposing the super-corruption nicknamed Tangentopoli (bribesville). The investigations exposed politicians from the main parties. The Christian Democrats (DC) ran Italy between 1943 and 1992 with only one major break — that between 1983 -87 when Craxi’s socialists (PSI) took power. Both Craxi and former DC prime minister Andreotti were later investigated.

 

TV has always been used by the party in power. Everybody in Italy understands the propagandist powers that the box in everybody’s living room and kitchen has. In 2005, Ambeyi Ligabo a UN expert on press freedom stated in his report on the freedom of opinion and expression in Italy, that “the public television network Rai has been strongly politicized since its creation in 1954. At the time and until the major political changes of the end of the 1980s, Italian public television was controlled by the political party in power, the Christian Democrats”.

The state-owned company Rai was the only one to hold a license to broadcast TV channels nationally. So much that when, in 1984 Fininvest acquired Rete 4 and Italia 1, Italian courts ruled that the acquisition was in breach of Rai’s right to a monopoly of simulataneous national broadcast. The courts ordered them to close doors. Craxi then rescued the situation with what many considered a rash decree which saved the Fininvest group. But that also ensured that Rai would stop being dominant.

• It was a start of the end of the so-called lottizzazione (distribution) system of power in Rai, where the main political parties had agreed to control what went on the news and who got the top management postitions: the Christian Democrats within Rai 1, the Socialists within Rai 2 and the Communists at Rai 3. Of course, there still is lobbying and influence from government, but that’s Italy!

• The European Audiovisual Observatory’s figures for 2008 show that the Mediaset and Rai channels together commanded over 80% of the market share. La 7, the channel owned by Telecom Italia, had a stable market share of around 3% which can be compared to the 10% of Italia 1, Rete 4, Rai 2 and Rai 3 and the 20+% of Canale 5 and Rai 2.

Berlusconi's Share in Mediaset: 38.62%

Are people wrong when they think that Berlusconi controls the media through his holding company: Fininvest’s share in the Mediaset group? Fininvest does not have a controlling share in Mediaset: the above chart shows it was less than 40% in Dec. 2009. In 2005 Berlusconi sold 20% of Mediaset to Kirch (10%), South African businessman Johann Rupert and the Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talaal. In 1996 he continued to sell shares and relinquished control.  Today Berlusconi is an ordinary shareholder with his children Pier Silvio and Marina occupying the posts of deputy chaiman and director on the Board respectively. 

I am not drawing any conclusions. These are the facts and the rest is opinion which anybody can liberally use the media to share with whoever cares to listen.

Vaseline Facebook App Lightens Skin

Over 17% of the world’s population live in India: no wonder Vaseline’s skin lightening Facebook app hit the news when it was launched through Bolywood actor Shahid Kapoor. Another company’s attempt at social media usage.

The 29-year old Shahid wears the well-groomed look of the superstar of Bolywood and I wonder if that’s Vaseline’s doing. But Vaseline promises Indian men that just 1 minute a day wearing the new Vaseline Men will result in a fairer spotless face. Not only just spotless, but also lighter skinned. And if ma and baba can’t afford that cream for you there’s a Facebook app to help show how you’d look if they did! The app from Vaseline promises to do this to remove the spots and the lighten the skin on your Facebook photos!

The wall of the app has the oldest post dating to 1st April and, if that’s ehn it was launched, it’s hardly a good day to launch a promise like that!

In 2009, Shaadi.com – the online matrimonial service – ran a poll for 12,000 people revealing that skin colour was the most important criteria when choosing husband or wife in 3 of the northern Indian states. You wouldn’t blame Vaseline to think that it was a good idea to help boost the Rahuls, Amits and Farouks hopes of finding a wife to take home to mama. But the Indian men didn’t share Vaseline’s view… not on Facebook’s wall at least. 7/35 reviewers think it’s amazing, but most of the others think it’s  ”racist”. This hasn’t stopped the Facebook app getting close to eight thousand monthly active users.

Ode to Privacy and the Anonymous Internet

The Internet is largely anonymous, and this reality is at the root of its success. When social media first opened a gashing wound in people’s privacy, the world was fast to react and ask Facebook to tighten its privacy settings. And along comes Philipp Lenssen with his doomsday scenario for 2025, and proposes RealIdentity. I would have expected Mark to give Lenssen a bashing when he blogged about Lenssen’s post, but he didn’t, and so I will.

I remain of the opinion that the Internet should remain anonymous for as long as possible. Undoubtedly, people who really understand the Internet, will agree that removing anonymity will put brakes on the growth of the consumption of content on the Internet.

For those who argue in favour of an identity-driven Internet, claiming that the latter has become a dangerous place, I say that the Internet is a reflection of the society we live in. Porn, ill-advice and scams have been around long before the Internet. Anybody in the US who ever wanted a fake ID to buy alcohol before they were of age, didn’t have to work to hard to get hold of one! If you don’t believe me, click here to see how many services for “fake id” come up in a simple Google-search.

So Mr. Lenssen, why bother introducing RealIdentity to access Adult Content? This will not stop anybody from getting fake credentials. In fact, there will be such a market for fake credentials that they will become as much a commodity item as those fake IDs for buying alcohol when under age.

I don’t get asked to show my ID card to buy anything with my credit card at the mall. I don’t get biometric scanned to go to the cinema. Why should I look forward to a future that infringes my privacy by asking me to sign in with my biometric ID to buy a book on Amazon or rent a movie on iTunes?

Authentication, identification and authorisation should indeed be taken seriously and all the efforts to make it possible to do this across political borders is indeed a noble project. But stopping online anonymity is foolish.

Rubber Stamp it if you like it

Your government, public sector entity or your supplier does not allow you to electronically deliberate on what you like or do not like from their online service? I suggest you send them back the paper forms they send you and show them that you have the option to like or dislike it.

Citizen and client engagement is topical on this blog and it’s always tackled the subject from the electronic end. Nation have introduced the Like stamp.

The next time time you recieve a court summons think whether you want to send it back stamped in deep red ink, using the stamp below…

Cities Rating à la Web 2.0

Cities like everything, in the user-centred Web 2.0 life that you as readers of this blogpost have, deserve a rating. Easy to remember ratings, that residents, visitors and businesses that drive the economy can contribute to. Visually meaningful ratings like the page-rank on Google toolbar – just simpler!

Ratings have been around for ages and some people visiting cities check the Michelin guide for restaurants. Michelin says “Stars represent only what is on the plate. They do not take into consideration interior decoration, service quality or table settings.” And that’s exactly what a city rating should do! Forget the monuments, the stretch limos, the celebs that live in it, and anything that doesn’t do anything for you. Rate it on what it offers to make your life better at that instant. Just like thumbs-up for “like” on Facebook.

So here’s the rating key:

• The wanna-be cities will be called WB for short.
• The ones faring less than that will be called WC, not only just because “C” comes after “B” but also because they would share the acronymn with the bowl.
• And then, to complete the rating key, WA cities – to mean waa’ a city!

Start using it… comment below or on TripAdvisor and use the above measure. Just credit me, and if you make some money share it with me.

London, Paris and Rome are WA. Greetings from London!

Socialising with your clients!

Socialising with your clients is not as we know it any more. Instead of bar rooms we use chat rooms, instead of meeting up we use social media. Do you want proof? Flip through your digital equivalent of your address book and see just how many of your contacts you have never met in the flesh.

Mark, the copywriter and usability “scholar” at the office, pointed me to i-Tech’s latest piece about the applicability of social networking to businesses. Gege Gatt is one of the founders of ICON, one of the web solutions companies in Malta, and i-Tech’s interview with the man gives plenty of good advice to anybody who is thinking to put his business online. The article in i-Tech should in fact have spelt this clearer – do not go online just by having a website.

Social Networking is now essential to any business, not just those whose business channel is the Internet - like Ryanair, but also Ford and Coca-Cola. It’s also as valid for the very small companies. And, that’s why it makes sense for Malta-based companies to take the plunge. Plenty of Web-marketeers on the islands and, if you are reading this and you haven’t started looking, then you should. I just thought of telling you to go to yellow pages and type “Internet Marketing” but sadly, there is no such section (what??!!). So try Google.

I must refer you to a relatively old online post which talks about the full cycle of engagement in social networking. And, that is one written by Valeria Maltoni. It is based on the work that Gary Hayes and Laurel Papworth did in 2008 and I find it very useful as it tells you where to start and follows the path all the way to measuring how good you’re fairing. The steps are Involve, Create, Discuss, Promote, Measure and you should read more about them here and here.

Good luck :)

Have you tried Wolframalpha?

Have you tried Wolframalpha? It harnesses data available on the Web, uses the computational engine of Mathematica and gives the most amazing results! Try it :)

Revisiting the Citizen Initiative

Back in November, I blogged about the Citizen Initiative — a concept entrenched in the Lisbon Treaty. I am interested in this because of its direct relevance to the world of open governance. Open governments are transparent, and invite collaboration and participation. I believe that the initiative is about making all of that possible in the EU — by creating a direct link between citizens and the institutions where it is so needed that 1 million such citizens demand it!

Beautiful.. but how will it work? And will it? Simon Busuttil, one of Malta’s MEPs wrote in The Times of Malta today and gave some insight to answer the first question. I still would like to see more people comment on how this initiaitive will exist in a world that always gives more space to the social media. Will the EU lag behind the US? Will we continue to ignore social media?