Communications minister and ex Ofcom boss Stephen Carter really had his work cut out for him compiling the interim Digital Britain report, released at the end of January.

The report, which was intended to address the future of all aspects of Britain’s digital communications, including TV, radio, and of course the internet, was finally released on January 29th, amongst a mass of ‘leaks’ and rumours. It was thought that the report would address such thorny issues as broadcast spectrum reallocation (after the switch to digital frees up some bandwidth), internet content controls, and ways to provide viable broadband access for everyone in Britain.

When the report finally saw the light of day, however, there was a collective sigh of disappointment that could probably be heard from space. Aside from being couched in language so dense that reading it is like wading through treacle, the report seems to spectacularly fail to answer any of the pertinent questions at hand. There’s lots of talk of assessing, appointing, finding out and removing barriers, but no actual decisions on the proposed extension of the universal service obligation, the refarming of the broadcast spectrum, or who will foot the bill for the rollout of the next generation of broadband in the UK.

With other countries forging ahead in terms of digital technology implementation, Britain is in serious danger of getting left behind. Sweden has already completed its switchover to digital TV and has reallocated much of the spectrum, and Scandinavia has one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the world. And in Japan, broadband speeds of 100Mbps are the norm – which makes Lord Carter’s 2Mbps ‘broadband for all’ look pretty lame really, doesn’t it?

With the paint barely dry on Windows Vista, Microsoft has already released the beta version of its brand new operating system, Windows 7. Those of us still playing the “where have they hidden that, now?” game in Vista are probably wondering whether we need yet another upgrade, so what will Windows 7 offer us that we don’t already have?

According to Microsoft, of course, it’s the best thing since sliced bread:

Over the past few years, you’ve asked us to make some changes to Windows. We listened closely. Now it’s time to share an early look at how we’ve used your feedback. Windows 7 is faster, more reliable, and makes it easier to do what you want. Both the everyday things and the killer “is that really possible?” things.”

… which of course makes me wonder whether that means they’re saying that Vista is slow and buggy? But we’re not here to bash Microsoft, especially as the list of the list of features for Windows 7 seems pretty sane and well considered.

The new OS focuses on usability, with features like an improved taskbar, better device management and so on. It also claims to boot up and shut down faster, and to nag you less than Vista does, which has to be an improvement (if you’re not yet sick of Vista’s constant ‘are you sure you’re allowed to do that?’ and ‘have you thought this through’ messages then I’m guessing you’re nine years old and used to that kind of thing.)

And the most exciting thing Windows 7 offers, which will no doubt feature pretty heavily in Microsoft’s marketing for the product, is touch screen capability. Which sounds pretty cool, but as you’d have to have a touch sensitive screen for this to work, it could be a while before we see whether this is actually useful or just a spot of bandwagon jumping.

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Anyone who saw this article Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches in The Times recently might have been living in fear of the environmental impact of using Google, after the article claimed that performing two Google searches “uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle”, and generates the same amount of CO2.

The story was based on the work of a Harvard physicist, one Alex Wissner-Gross, who has spent much of his time since the article was published trying to set the story straight. “Our work has nothing to do with Google. Our focus was exclusively on the Web overall, and we found that it takes on average about 20 milligrams of CO2 per second to visit a Web site.”

It is true that using the web, like everything else we do in life, has an environmental impact – but running hardware like computers themselves is more of a concern than performing searches. Searches only accrue a carbon footprint when you take into account the computers and servers that the searches run on, and even then we’re not quite at the stage where we need to stop searching in order to save polar bears.

The researcher himself attributes The Times focus on Google as “an easy way to sell newspapers”, but it’s unlikely that Google itself will be unduly upset by the claims – if anything the whole affair has given the search giant another opportunity to establish its green credentials.

In a new Government proposal for this year we could be seeing controls imposed on internet content.

In an interview late last year with The Daily Telegraph, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham indicated that he is considering cinema style age ratings on websites, as well as potentially requiring ISPs to offer “child-safe” internet services.



The very suggestion has already prompted a certain amount of outrage, both from individuals who believe that the internet should be a self-regulating community, and from those who resent the government acting as a ‘nanny state’.

From its first inception, the internet was intended as a peer-to-peer area where governments couldn’t reach. And in its infancy, that was fine, as it was a medium used primarily by academics, with limited reach. However with the massive reach and availability that the internet now enjoys, things have changed. Now the internet is populated with criminals and ne’er-do-wells as well as geniuses and innovators, and the government needs to walk the line between allowing freedom of collaboration, speech, and self regulation which is the spirit of the internet, and allowing a media which isn’t subject to the laws of the land.

It would be nice to think that the internet can be fully self- or peer-regulating, but while this works to an extent it is open to abuse by those who aren’t interested in the spirit of co-operation. Content on the internet must be subject to some regulation, even if it is only libel laws – the difficulty comes in drawing the line.

“The fact is that the openness of the Internet, which is such a wonderful thing, does depend on a certain amount of regulation” – Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web.

It’s an issue which is bound to provoke a good deal of debate, as no doubt civil liberties and free speech will be invoked, as will the need to protect the innocent from the not-so-innocent. In the end, though, the arguments all seem to be somewhat theoretical because the biggest question is, even if the government brings in new content legislation, how will anyone ever police it?

There’s been a big buzz for a while now about social media being “the next big thing”, and you’d have had to be hiding in a cave for the last couple of years to be unaware of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, the rise and rise of blogging, newsgroups and forums, wikis and so on and so forth.

While there’s no doubt that individuals get a lot of value out of these media on a personal level, what do they mean on a corporate level?

Well, it’s argued that social media will impact on the way companies go about their marketing, creating both a new marketing channel, and a powerful arena for feedback. This idea of a new ‘virtual marketplace’ where the old structures of communication and interaction can be bypassed is not new – it goes back as far as 1999 when a series of theses (the Cluetrain Manifesto) put forward the idea that the internet would unavoidably alter the way that business is done, because of the freedom of communication. But does wide open communication via the internet really have the power that we keep hearing about?

Well, maybe it does. Take a quick look, for a moment, at ARGs. So called Alternate Reality Games are interactive ‘games’ which use the real world as a springboard, and the internet as a communication medium. Clues and entrypoints are seeded in music videos, flyers, websites etc, and ‘players’ who follow the clues are led into to a story, which – with a degree of suspended disbelief – purports to be reality. Such is the power of these games that tens of thousands of people get involved, communicating and collaborating worldwide in real time.

Imagine, then, the marketing reach. ARGs have been used to promote television programmes (Lost), computer games (Halo2), albums (Year Zero) and films (The Dark Knight), amongst other things. By truly immersing themselves in the medium, inviting collaboration, and creating something of genuine interest, the marketers behind these games have reached a large market, crucially: on its own terms.

So the answer is yes, there are marketing benefits to be had in the social media arena, provided you go about it the right way. But so far, the biggest successes have been experienced by ‘media’ type brands engaging in B2C marketing, which is logically best suited to social media. As for the scope of social media marketing in a corporate B2B setting, the jury is still out. Whilst there is no excuse for companies to simply maintain a corporate website and ignore social media in terms of brand management and perception; so far there seems to be very little data to confirm that social media can get quantifiable results in B2B marketing.