Recent news related

Whether you like or hate online porn, you are probably aware of its existence and attempts to regulate it in one way or another.  One of the aspects of this debate, which has recently come back to the public attention, may have far reaching repercussions to the politics of the internet.  I am talking about the famous debate about .xxx top level domain.  The highlight is that an independent review panel at ICANN decided that this top level domain was denied in an unfair fashion (79 page long PDF; Guardian).  The question now is what will ICANN’s board decide to do about it.  In light of the panel’s decision, ICM, the registry pushing this domain name, claims that the domains will be available this year (more here), but others in the industry disagree.  Rod Beckstorm, CEO and president of ICANN, wrote a blog post praising ICANN’s accountability mechanisms.  Milton Mueller replied with a critical assessment of Beckstrom’s reaction and calling for acknowledging the mistakes of the past and fixing them.  I recommend reading the comments to both posts as well – very interesting (more related comments here).  The Internet Commerce Association, an organization that unites registrars and domainers, published an extensive post arguing against the idea of .xxx, because it views it as an attempt of ICANN to get involved in content regulation.

Another conversation that hit the news-wire recently was a discussion of internet and freedom in the US Senate.  Here are some snippets and reactions.  Google called to include internet freedom as a free trade condition.  Ryan Singel of Wired warns against “Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet” (an opposite opinion, also in Wired ).

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“Measuring the Information Society 2010” – ITU has released a new report that shows some interesting numbers about adoption of information technology and its costs.

“Measuring Typosquatting Perpetrators and Funders” (PDF) – Some alternative titles of this post could be “Typosquatting is the 10th most popular site out there” or “Google makes almost half a billion a year from typosquatting.”

“Broadband adoption in America” – An FCC issued report showing the results of a survey about broadband adoption in USA (the link leads to the PDF); here is a NYT article about the study (thank you, Josh).  At the same time, the Social Science Research Council released another study, entitled “Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities,” which took a qualitative look into the same issues.  Over at the FCC blog, John Horrigan, the author of the first, quantitative study, reflected on the finding of both report.

“Four Ways of Looking at Twitter” – A blogpost and examples of various ways of visualizing information on Twitter.

“Study links violent video games to violent thought, action” – The Washington Post reports about a meta analysis of studies about video games and violence; the original analysis makes the statement in the title, but the article also includes references to some critique of the study; overall it reminds the early days of communication research.

Another interesting and rather broad resource about how young people interact with “new” media is the Good Play project (via Oya).

And if we are on Goolge, they have recently released “Google Public Data Explorer” – a tool that allows you to play with data from a number of sources and share it on the web.  The current list of sources includes: the World Bank, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the California Department of Education, Eurostat, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.  However there seems to be very few datasets available at the moment.

“The Internet of Things” (via @rsqr) – McKinsey report objects gaining connectivity and potential repercussions of this development.

“New gTLDs Will Cost Less than $.10 for Each Trademark Worldwide” (PDF) – A working paper by Minds + Machines, which looks at the cost of introduction of new TLDs; I think it’s an interesting insight for the ongoing debate on the subject.

“Capturing the promise of mobile banking in emerging markets” – McKinsey report about technology and finance for and among the world poorest.

“Internet and e-commerce industry in Lithuania” (via i-policy) – A brief about the state of e-affairs in Lithuania.

“China Global Investment Tracker: 2010” – It is hard to neglect the growing global role of China; the Heritage Foundation released a report with some fancy maps about the global Chinese investment; for example, Africa, is the single largest beneficiary of Chinese investments; you may also want to read the Foreign Policy commentary on the report.

“Ranking Web of World Universities” – An unusual ranking of the higher education institutions, this report attempts to capture the online visibility of various universities across the  globe.  I have not read their methodology in detail and I am not completely sure what is that they are trying to achieve with this metric, but I thought I’d share.

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

“The Digital Dictatorship” – Evgeny Morozov is in his usual role of critique of the revolutionary discourse surrounding social media and Rita King trying to debunk him – “The evolution of revolution.”  What do you think?  Who is making a better point?

“Media Development Needs Unified Research for Digital Age” (via Josh) – A review of a symposium about media based interventions and developmental efforts and how to study those; interesting piece to think about this field.

Stefana Broadbent of the University College of London gave an intriguing TED talk where she argued the media, information, and communication technologies are redefining and reshaping intimacy in our lives.  What do you think?

Also, the Internet got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and there is a debate going on about it.  Some people argue that it is fullish.  Others argue that it deserves the prize.  What do you think?  And who will get the money if the internet wins?

Digital Divide

“First Solar Powered Rural Internet Kiosk installed in the South Coast of Kenya” – ISOC Community Grants in action.

The FCC and the Knight Foundation held America’s (read US) Digital Inclusion Summit.  Here are the highlights as presented by the organizers themselves:

FCC/Knight America's Digital Inclusion Summit from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

MICT regulation

“Broadband carriers speak out against FCC regulation” – A brief nice update from the Washington Post on the state of debate between the FCC and the telcos; I think it is interesting because it is part of the struggle of defining internet as a medium and its outcomes can have long lasting repercussions.

At the same time “FCC Chairman Genachowski confident in authority over broadband, despite critics“.  There is also a video of him talking about the need for a broadband plan for the US, but I did not find that interview particularly informative.

“Court Finds Domain Names are Located Where Registry and Registrar are Located” – An interesting precedent in determining jurisdiction in online disputes.

“Apple pulls sexually explicit apps from iTunes” – The title is slightly misleading as this NYT article actually tackles the debate about content regulation online.

Berkman Center’s response (PDF) to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry on “Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape” (PDF) seems like a good resource on the subject.

MICT business

“Lessons for U.S. Media From European Paid-Content Plays” – Inspired by a recent decision of the NY Times to re-introduce a paywall, this article surveys various European models of paid content.

“New” media

“Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” (PDF) – New report from the PEW Internet and American Life project about how, where, and to what extend people in the US access the news and interact with it online.

“Just press print” – An article from the Economist about the blossoming industry of self publishing.

MICT and politics

“Social Networking and Constituent Communications” – A report of the Congressional Research Service about how the members of the house use Twitter (the link leads to a PDF).

“The cloud cannot ignore geopolitics” – An interesting analysis of the link between political realities and their impact on the cloud paradigm.  On a related note, you may want to check out this interactive data protection heat map from Forrester.

As if an intentional illustration to the article, the Open Net Initiative at Berkman, published the following findings about Bing filtering its search results – “Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the ‘Arabian Countries’” – yes, its not just Google and Yahoo.

“The open society” – The Economist report about governments opening up their databases and letting people play with data.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

“Ex-Africa” (via The Wadi) – An Israeli startup that aims to bring financial transparency to Africa and give Western investors tools to evaluate African bunsinesses; it is really interesting to see how financial and investment instruments of the West are finding their ways to the developing countries.

“Why the internet will fail (from 1995)” – A really fun piece to read in retrospective of15 years; made me wonder about some of my skeptical thinking.

“ViewChange.org” – Is an imitative in the making that seems to aim to do something similar to what Positive News in UK are doing, but in a more Web 2.0-ish way:

This is slightly old, but still cool – playing Guitar Hero using an actual guitar (via Veronica):

Recently I started playing with Twitter, which turned out to be a good source of interesting information.  However, many times there is a gap between the time I open a link posted on Twitter and the time I actually read the item and add it to the digest.  As a result, I think a number of items here are missing attribution.  Not sure how I am going to deal with it, but if you have any ideas, please share.  In the meantime, I just put “via Twitter” by those posts.

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“OECD Communications Outlook 2009” – A new report was recently released by OECD and it is accessible online.

“In the blogosphere, Afghanistan emerges as a hot topic” (via Twitter) – A report from the PEW Excellence in Journalism project looking at the content of the blogosphere; pretty interesting and I wonder if they would keep up with it on a regular basis.

“Government Sites Serve 42% of Online Americans” (via Twitter) – Some stats about how Americans interact with the numerous website the new administration has set up.

“Nigerian scams evolve, but motive still money” (via @evgenymorozov) – A Chicago Tribune article surveying how the original “Nigerian” scam has evolved playing off Western arrogance and highlighting that online tacit knowledge is probably as important as skill (or maybe even more important).

“Where Google Is Really Big: India and Brazil” (via @evgenymorozov) – On average around the globe people spend 9.4% of their online time on one of the Google’s services; in Brazil it is 30% and in India it is 29% (note how they got the URL wrong – China, Brazil… what’s the difference).

Some country specific info:

• Australia – Mobile broadband
• Nigeria – Mobile market.
• Slovenia – Telecom market regulation.
• Solomon islands – Telecom market.
• South Korea – Telecom market.
• Uganda – Telecom market.

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

“As Internet Turns 40, Barriers Threaten Its Growth” – Usually we hear about the opportunities or the threats stemming from the wide adoption of the internet; this article is about the threats and challenges that the medium itself is facing.  Here is another opinion on the same occasion – “Happy Birthday, Internet!”

Digital Divide

“Corruption adds to African IT costs, insiders say” – Something that is rarely mentioned in the debates about the digital divide.

MICT regulation

“Access and the Internet” (via Information Policy) – An editorial in NY Times; is net neutrality becoming another face of the digital divide?

“Govt may block all Internet telephony services” (via Twitter) – This article is about India; when it happened in Russia, the analysts agreed that it was a government move to assist the local telcos and the security argument was just an excuse; no such argument here.

“US Broadband stimulus package” – Good and accessible analysis of the US broadband stimulus package.

“Microsoft pushes for single global patent system” (via @evgenymorozov) – I think the title is descriptive enough and I wonder if this is a beginning of a trend regarding issues that are inherently global, like the internet.

“‘Social control’ better than legislation” – The point is interesting as is the example from Philippines.

“Israeli bloggers trying to wrest control of ’secretive’ Web group” (via @guysoft) – Thanks to Guy for bringing this entire issue to my attention and supplying me with a constant flow of link; this is the first of what I think will be a number of articles on the subject and although this one is not the deepest one, it does present the issue.

ICANN public comment – I think ICANN has launched a new forum platform for public consultations.

MICT business

“Yahoo! makes a big move in the Middle East – buys Maktoob” – Yahoo! follows Goolge and expands into the Arabic language internet; an analysis.

“Electronics Reach Out to the Ends of the Age Spectrum” – I think this is quite a logical step; the next one could be greater emphasis on developing countries.

“300 Million and On” – Mark Zuckerberg’s post about Facebook reaching 300 million users, but most interestingly it now has positive cash flow.

“New” media

“Games lessons” – A short piece from the Economist discussing the use of computer games in education.

“Technorati To Start Competing with Bloggers” – I am not sure I would subscribe to the title, but this item is about the next move of Technorati, which is trying to formulate a business model on the platform it has created.  I am not sure I necessarily see the competition with bloggers component, but it is too soon to tell.  In the meantime you may want to take part in Technorati’s survey of bloggers.

MICT and politics

“Russia: Medvedev launches YouTube channel” – I wrote before about Medvedev adopting some technologies even before the technologically-savvy President Obama; this time he is a latecomer.

“Democracy 2.0 Awaits an Upgrade” (via Twitter) – a nice article from NY Time that presents the two opposing opinions on technology and democracy.

www.presidentassad.net (via @jilliancyork) – Syrian “President of Just & Comprehensive Peace” is trying to follow the footsteps of Obama and Medvedev by setting up a website.  Not sure how new it is, but I wonder if it is another face of the digital divide.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

If you are into building websites, here is a short explanation of the basic principles :)

In fact, it seems like this guy has realy found himself a niche.  Check out this video on social media and this one on paid search… :)

And if you are feeling nostalgic, take a look at – “The FSA and the Dawn of Kodachrome” – for a set of old color photos capturing the US in early 20th century.