To what extent was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Andy Burnham correct when he described the internet as ‘lawless’?

The panel this morning will be discussing who should regulate what and how effective is the regulation currently in place, especially where responsibility for regulation should lie?

The panel includes:

Tim Toulmin, director of Press Complaints Commission

Peter Robbins, chief executive of Internet Watch Foundation

Richard Mollet, director of public policy BPI

Will Gardner, CEO Childnet International

Camille de Stempel, director of Policy, AOL UK

The panel agrees that the characteristics of regulators going forward are numerous and complicated, requiring collaboration from government, industry and those being regulated. The rules will also need to be flexible and able to adapt to the constantly changing technology.

Tim Toulmin said that above all else, the regulatory bodies need to demonstrate a speed of response to encourage self-regulation.

For example, when an online UK publication published photos of a American actress being harassed in the US, the actress’ publicity people were able to get in touch with the CPP within hours of the pictures being put online, which were just as quickly taken down.

A question was raised about the decline in the quality of online journalism, due perhaps to the fact that subeditors at nearly every newspaper in the UK are losing their jobs, and newspapers are failing to provide or replace the quality control.

Toulmin said that there was not data showing that the decline in the number of subeditors at online publications has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints, however, it would be worth looking into and researching more. At least having an open level of communication with editors to see if there is an increase in complaints.

Some newspapers have also taken the steps to change their policy regarding ‘comment’ sections on articles, where the illusion of aynominity often results in harmful libel.

Toulmin says all encompassing regulation is not required, and thorough protection can be achieved through collaboration and speed of response.

The panel agrees somewhat with Burnham’s ‘wild-west’ and ‘lawless’ comments, however most feel that a lot of good things are being done, and the industry is “on top of it” harmful and illegal content.

Richard Mollet, enforced that the internet is not lawless, there are laws on the internet that are exactly the same offline as they are online, such as libel, pornography and copyright.

However, as the technology continues to evolve, more collaboration with be required, lauding the government’s recent Digital Britain report and new legislation allowing ISPs to act.

Will Gardner agrees that a good job is being done so far, but regulators can be become complacent, and must adapt at the same speed as the user-generated content, which is driving all online change.

When it comes to self-regulation, it’s pertinent that the process of reporting is completely transparent to users. There needs to be communication between ISPs and users or parents of what is being done to offer online protection.

De Stempel finds that “harmful” will pose a particular problem to regulators because who and what is decided to be harmful online? No studies have been put in place to measure the amount of harmful content online, possibly because it would be impossible. The global aspect of the internet makes it too difficult to deem what is offensive and what is not, to whom.

One method that AOL uses is through their search tool, for example when someone searches about suicide or anorexia, results for children’s helplines are shown on top of search results.

The overall message seems to be that things are going well and self-regulation seems to be working for the time being. However, that’s the opinion of those in the industry, ask any parent on the street and the message becomes more distorted, they are concerned about what their children are looking at online and they don’t have the tools to stop them from stumbling across harmful content, whether accidentally or deliberately.

Their is a disconnect between those in the industry and the average internet user of the safety of the internet and the entire process of regulation, for the most part, parents, who Burnham was speaking to, find that the internet is lawless, and much like the wild-west.

Jeremy Olivier, head of convergent media at Ofcom is the afternoon’s keynote speaker and will address the regulation of online content, what is deemed harmful and illegal and the difference in regulating the two.

Olivier begins my revealing that Ofcom’s role is relatively limited in the ultimate scope compared to the amount of content on the internet.

Ofcom’s role as a regulator relies largely on ‘editorial judgement’, that is trusting and shifting responsibility to the content providers. The other side of the coin relies on the users, who are able to report harmful content, which can provoke an investigation.

However, illegal content is largely out of Ofcom’s reach as illegal content providers, such as child pornographers, are largely working outside of the remit of the law to begin with.

Then does the responsibility rely fully on the criminal justice system to keep this content off the web? Likely yes, but its not the best method. Olivier says the internet is a two-way street, where users are constantly communicating and exchanging content with eachother, so placing editorial judgement on one half of the online community can be a futile practice.

Therefore regulation is only a small part of the overall solution. Rather the focus should be on parents and users to take responsibility about the content being shown online.

One organisation using this idea is the British Board of Film Classifications, which handles the 18+, 14+ tags to DVDs and cinema films.
Peter Johnson, head of policy and business development at the BBFC said that a new voluntary scheme has been introduced for online content providers to include BBFC ratings in their downloads.

Since the membership opened up in May, several major firms have gotten involved, including Disney, LoveFilm, Paramount Studios, Fox, Warner and Tesco, for a total 3,000 now-classified downloadable products, including films, videos, games, etc.

A recent study showed that 91% of parents want BBFC classifications online.

The discussion quickly moved to intellectual property rights, and the topic was thrown around by Ben Allgrove from global law firm Baker & McKenzie, and Christopher Stokes, chief executive at NetResult, which specialises in internet monitoring and enforcement.

Stokes concluded that fighting piracy and copyright infringers is a difficult battle, citing several examples recent illegal online streaming of major sporting events such as the Australian Open, or websites in China, where copyright restrictions are inherently lax, and a majority of illegal film and television streams are found.

Because of the global nature online piracy with the anomynous nature in which these pirates and with the absolute ease streams can be uploaded, even after they have been taken down, regulation seems like a long way away.

Allgrove says this lack of enforcement is only spurring pirates more, saying that “ineffective enforcement undermines the legitimacy of the rules”.

For example, he cites the present crisis facing the music industry, as over 95% of music is now downloaded illegally, a generation has grown up believing that copyright infringement is not a big deal.

Allgrove said that ISPs need to collaborate better with law firms in order to make a dent in the war against online piracy, by providing data of copyright infringers.

It seems everyone has gone glitter for Twitter these days and the media can’t give the micro-blogging service enough love and attention.
Brand Republic’s editor Gordon Macmillan lists all the media frenzy in a blog
post,
and has been building up in excess of 1,000 followers for the magazine – a
great way to extend readership and interact with people.

I Twitter (@lisadevaney) but have fallen off the wagon with
it, and lately feel a bit strange about sharing mini-updates of the mostly
mundane happenings in my life. Not long ago, however, I took Twitter to the
extreme in a weekend binge of twittering that ended with more than 100 messages
shared.

On my Twitter binge, I told all my followers about every
little thing that was happening – from playing with my cat to watching TV to
removing nail polish – all typical updates I find people writing about with
Twitter. The result was that a friend in New York City got very concerned and
thought there was an emergency happening, as her phone kept beeping at her with
my constant updates.

Twitter gives you about 250 message updates per month, and I
tried to use all of my allocation in one weekend. I didn’t reach my own goal of
excess, and, to the relief of my followers, never went on a Twitter binge
again.

The binge was a blast, and if no one else, it cracked me up
to think in tiny little bursts of information. Following the binge, I wrote a
detailed blog post about the experience that was featured on Vox.com’s
homepage. Read all about my Twitter binge here.

Off the Twitter wagon for now,

-Lisa

I’m tempted to start another dog metaphor here but will resist. By unleashing the beastly I mean that if your site doesn’t have a facility for customer feedback, the motivated customer will go somewhere else to post unfavourable comments and then you lose the opportunity to easily respond. And like magnets, complaints attract ‘me too’ complaints and all of a sudden there’s a rash of negative comment spreading across the internet which you need teams of people to locate.

Hopefully some of the UGC will be positive but customers need encouragement to share positive comments. With any product or service we should be asking the question ‘how was it for you?’ and include the option to rate your service. No lengthy surveys, just a simple rating and optional comment box.

If you bear in mind that someone who has made a repeat purchase is much more likely to buy again and again, their comments will help you understand better those people who could become brand ambassadors – important because personal referral is the number one influencer for purchases online.

People come to together in a time of crisis. The Internet is
enabling the spirit of mutuality but more interestingly the recession
is driving people towards collective buying.  A strategy that
people have little time for when the economy is good but in harsher
times could turn tables on companies who are seen to be too greedy.

Last week’s Economist
describes how the residents of the San Francisco have been signing up
enthusiastically for a new green energy campaign called 1BOG- short for
“One Block off the Grid”. It asks homeowners to switch solar energy one
block at a time by organising them into buying-clubs. The more people
who sign up, at any time the bigger the discounts. Finally the contract
to supply, install and maintain the system is put out to tender the “Carrotmob” outsources the work to the most competitive bidder.

Marketers have long harped on about the shift of power moving from
the company to the consumer, but it’s not actually happened until now
in any great measure (with the exception of a few groups on Facebook). 
The fact remains that the majority of technology companies are still
interested in what interests them rather than what interests their
customers.

So many women tell me that technology is “way to complicated” “designed by men for men” “lacks any intuition” “is frustrating and dull.”

Imagine another world, where women Carrotmob for intuitive and sexy
technology.  Technology that was made with women in mind.  Where
substantial numbers of women gather together and say what they want.
Where ten-thousand women were to draw up a list of their ideal next
phone/TV/PVR/console and pledge to buy it. Where tech brands bid to
build and support this product knowing that they had guaranteed buyers,
and in return women would have to honor their contract.

It’s about time we carrotmobbed for intuitive, human technology that reflects what we are interested in.

What would your ideal phone/TV/PVR/console/piece of kit look
like?  How would it feel using it?  How would it be different from
whats out there now?

Your thoughts please.

Among London’s creative class, this year its members are busy making things and documenting the creative spirit of those around them, including going to far away lands, getting candid with celebrities and paying attention to interesting happenings in their backyards.

At photographer Iain McKell’s Creative Salon this past weekend, artists and photographer’s gathered to show their recent projects among peers. His casual event held at his West London home attracted about 40 guests who got to peek at the work of photographers and view a screening of a short film about East London. The friendly environment offered opportunity for constructive feedback from the audience.

On view was Alice Hawkin’s “American Safari” collection of portraits of eccentric characters from the Las Vegas area, including Alice Cooper draped in snakes. She captured the sequined and feathered set alongside some of their favourite pets, including lizards, parrots, lions, tigers and snakes. The work was featured in a 34-page spread in Grand’s magazine, Pop.

Alice Hawkins:

Daniel Stier made guests wince with his images of scientific experiments being conducted on humans at a research laboratory. Creepy in context, his images of people strapped in odd equipment for observation of behaviour elicited plenty of curiosity and questions from the onlookers.

McKell showed his seven year project of photographing a group of neo-gypsy travellers edgy lifestyle. McKell, a fashion photographer for I-D, the Face and Vogue Italia, has plans to publish a book of his collection, and this spring will be photographing Kate Moss along with the travellers.

McKell has spent much of his career documenting subcultures, including skinheads, the new romantics, Thailand psychedelic-trance jungle parties and more. This keen eye to the underground inspired him to photograph Madonna prior to her reaching international fame. His picture was featured in No. 1 Magazine, and was her first cover shoot for a magazine.

Iain McKell’s Madonna:

Sami Knight amused guests with his showing of self-portraits of him and friend eating messy food and Georgina White-Aldworth shared photos of her university graduation project, demonstrating her talent for set design.

Sami Knight:

Photos by Georgina White-Aldworth:

Many guests showed off their portfolios of work, including Andrew Hobbs who has photographed pop stars from Eminem to Moby to Missy Elliot. Hobbs is also the publisher of Centrefold photography magazine.

Photo of Kylie Minogue by Andrew Hobbs:

Among the guests, I enjoyed meeting a Russian architect and her friend Anna Bonareva, a Russian actress and model living in London.

Looking forward to the next Creative Salon,

-Lisa

Marketers seem to have finally come around to see that mothers use the Web 2.0. The insightful report called Digital Mom was produced by Razorfish and CafeMom.

The first part of the report is based on a survey with 1,500 mothers who are users of Web 2.0. The report produced some interesting findings:

1. 65% of mums use social networking sites, 56% SMS and 52% game online or via a game console. This is for me the most striking finding showing that gaming is no longer a niche activity for adolescent boys but has gone mainstream.

2. There are also age differences. Moms over 35 are more likely to use the web as an information tool while moms under 35 are more likely to use social network sites. Also women with children over 12 tend to game more (57%) than women with children under 12 (51%).

3. The mothers’ interests go beyond parenting. These women retain many interests. In the last three months the surveyed mothers had researched or purchases fashion items or clothing (40%), food and cooking (31%) and baby/parenting (26%), banking (22%), computer and electronics (21%) and medication/medical condition (20%).

Part 2 is based on an in-depth survey of 1,750 women active in CafeMum.

4. Digitalmoms spent 18.5 hours per week online.

5. These mums are active in social networking sites not passive consumers.

6. The report develops five segments of digital mums: the self-expressor, the utility mum, the groupster, the infoseeker and the hyperconnector.

Marketers seems to have discovered that mums online a worthwhile target group. I wonder when we will see the Digital Dad.

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{page:Section1;}Jazz artist Tessa Souter is back in town tonight for a gig
at Pizza Express in London’s Soho. She’s a singer with a velvet voice that will
warm you up on a cold winter’s eve. Check her out here:

www.tessasouter.com

www.myspace.com/tessasouter

tessasouter.blogspot.com

Based in New York City’s Harlem, she gets across the pond
from time-to-time and is a treat not to be missed. Details for her gig are:

WHEN:  Friday, February 6, and Saturday, February 7, 2009,
Two sets: Doors open 7.30pm

WHERE:  Pizza Express, Soho, 10 Dean Street, London W1,
Reservations: 0845 6027 017

WHO:  Tessa Souter (voice), 
Nikki Iles (piano), Stuart Hall (bass and violin), Winston Clifford (drums), Roger (Friday only)
Beaujolais

(vibes)

COVER:  £17

Enjoy,

-Lisa

Okay, this is officially getting out of hand… His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is now on Twitter?

Since joining two, two, days ago, he’s managed to cull 20,000 benevolent followers. Check him out, @ohhdl

Give him time, I’m sure he can topple current Twitter deity Stephen Fry from his throne.
What exactly does the 14^th reincarnation of HH actually tweet about?

Besides odd updates on the HH’s health and location, he actually interacts with a number of his followers.

Posted yesterday, seemingly an explanation for his presence online:

“His Holiness thought it was prudent to make his office open and assessable to a more youth and technologically advancing audience.”

Or, ” Our office is currently overwhelmed by responses from our first day on Twitter. We will make every effort to answer your questions in time.”

Even asking for Twitter advice! “Just darts in the dark we are afraid. Any guidence [sic] or direction is warmly welcomed.”

And my personal favourite: “I’m sure HH will be just as inquisitive about technology as he has been over the past 14 reincarnations.”

Thankfully, not posted by Twitterberry.

Beatific, I guess. I can’t help but feeling a smidgen more enlightened than the vile, wicked philistine I was before lunchtime.

Hey. Pope Benedict XVI, we’re looking at you, get on deck, uh, Tweetdeck that is.

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–This winter’s social gatherings, at least in my life, seem to centre around a creative happening of conversation toward inventing something or making something. 

This winter’s social gatherings, at least in my life, seem to centre around a creative happening of conversation toward inventing something or making something.

Thanks to an invitation from Georgina White-Aldworth, I’ll be headed to photographer Iain McKell’s Creative Salon
at his flat this Friday night to join others for what promises to be “a
gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring
host.”

In the meantime, far away California friend Julie Gengo is
also hosting her own Vision Salon, described as a progressive creative
collective that is “a community collective to share ideas about creativity,
sustainability and innovation.” Her salon also promises to deliver fun
networking and art everywhere.

Back in London, Lucy Wills is hosting her Live to Create
workshops, kicking off sometime this month. And a recent friend’s birthday
celebration included an afternoon of making fabric flower corsages along with
tea and cake.

Is this a creative trend happening? As the recession bites
harder are people looking for more productive and fulfilling ways to spend
their social time? Have we brought back to life the French tradition of salon
gatherings of intellectuals and artists?

I’m curious to see how Creative Salon goes this Friday and
may report back about the happening.

Saloning,

-Lisa