The Times: Tech column - War bloggers/picture messaging
By David Rowan
If Operation Desert Storm was CNN's story, then weblogs may prove to be the defining medium in swaying debate on Iraq this time. The internet was a key factor in mobilising protesters to march last weekend - not just mass campaign websites such as www.unitedforpeace.org, but also dozens of influential small-scale weblogs, such as www.nowarblog.org.
The unstoppable rise of cheap-and-easy personal web publishing has made it harder than ever for governments to shape public opinion at a time of conflict - something that has changed for ever the rules of information management. So it is significant that Google, the web's dominant search site, has bought a tiny software company called Pyra, best known for its Blogger personal-publishing software. Blogger allows anyone with an internet connection to keep an online journal: the software and basic web space are free, and you do not need to understand html or web design to share your thoughts with the world. In three years, Blogger has attracted more than a million users, of whom 200,000, the company claims, are publishing weblogs.
You can peruse a selection at www.blogspot.com, including frequently updated war-related opinions from political pundits, peace activists, even an eloquent Iraqi apparently writing from Baghdad. Packed with pithy comments and external links, weblogs have become an influential form of media democracy. To Google, they represent "a global self-publishing phenomenon that connects internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while enabling comment and participation". It is too soon to know how Google will incorporate Pyra's technology into its services, but the result is bound to bring bloggers' views to a wider audience and, in particular, to weigh standard search results in favour of the web pages' most exciting bloggers. That is good news for those who revel in the web as a wide-ranging source of ideas and opinions. It will be less welcomed by governments more used in wartime to managing the information flow via traditional media channels.
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MOBILE phone companies, trying to recoup some of the £22 billion spent on third-generation licences, are getting excited about one particular use of small full-colour screens. Picture messaging has yet to catch on, but mobile porn is almost guaranteed to popularise the technology and to make money. Firms such as Hutchinson's 3 and Virgin Mobile have heads of "adult content" busily working out how to sell video clips to third-generation handsets, and pornographers are testing ways of sending their wares to high-resolution phone screens.
According to one research group, the market for mobile porn could be worth £2.5 billion within three years - and last month the head of the Private Media Group, one of Europe's largest pornography businesses, predicted that four-fifths of 3-G data traffic will initially be of the prurient kind. It is tempting to dismiss such predictions as the desperate hopes of a financially troubled industry, but pornographers do have a track record of turning technological innovations into mainstream consumer successes. From daguerreotypes and silent movies to videotape and photo-litho printing, new technologies have long been boosted by their ability to deliver porn.
When Betamax emerged as a superior technology to VHS, its days were numbered once the porn merchants chose VHS as a cheaper, more convenient distribution format. As for the internet, dozens of innovations - from e-commerce to video - developed from the industry's need to keep subscribers spending. The telecoms companies might not publicise the fact, but the deals they are signing with porn firms are a key part of their business strategies.
(The Times, February 18 2003)
If Operation Desert Storm was CNN's story, then weblogs may prove to be the defining medium in swaying debate on Iraq this time. The internet was a key factor in mobilising protesters to march last weekend - not just mass campaign websites such as www.unitedforpeace.org, but also dozens of influential small-scale weblogs, such as www.nowarblog.org.
The unstoppable rise of cheap-and-easy personal web publishing has made it harder than ever for governments to shape public opinion at a time of conflict - something that has changed for ever the rules of information management. So it is significant that Google, the web's dominant search site, has bought a tiny software company called Pyra, best known for its Blogger personal-publishing software. Blogger allows anyone with an internet connection to keep an online journal: the software and basic web space are free, and you do not need to understand html or web design to share your thoughts with the world. In three years, Blogger has attracted more than a million users, of whom 200,000, the company claims, are publishing weblogs.
You can peruse a selection at www.blogspot.com, including frequently updated war-related opinions from political pundits, peace activists, even an eloquent Iraqi apparently writing from Baghdad. Packed with pithy comments and external links, weblogs have become an influential form of media democracy. To Google, they represent "a global self-publishing phenomenon that connects internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while enabling comment and participation". It is too soon to know how Google will incorporate Pyra's technology into its services, but the result is bound to bring bloggers' views to a wider audience and, in particular, to weigh standard search results in favour of the web pages' most exciting bloggers. That is good news for those who revel in the web as a wide-ranging source of ideas and opinions. It will be less welcomed by governments more used in wartime to managing the information flow via traditional media channels.
++++
MOBILE phone companies, trying to recoup some of the £22 billion spent on third-generation licences, are getting excited about one particular use of small full-colour screens. Picture messaging has yet to catch on, but mobile porn is almost guaranteed to popularise the technology and to make money. Firms such as Hutchinson's 3 and Virgin Mobile have heads of "adult content" busily working out how to sell video clips to third-generation handsets, and pornographers are testing ways of sending their wares to high-resolution phone screens.
According to one research group, the market for mobile porn could be worth £2.5 billion within three years - and last month the head of the Private Media Group, one of Europe's largest pornography businesses, predicted that four-fifths of 3-G data traffic will initially be of the prurient kind. It is tempting to dismiss such predictions as the desperate hopes of a financially troubled industry, but pornographers do have a track record of turning technological innovations into mainstream consumer successes. From daguerreotypes and silent movies to videotape and photo-litho printing, new technologies have long been boosted by their ability to deliver porn.
When Betamax emerged as a superior technology to VHS, its days were numbered once the porn merchants chose VHS as a cheaper, more convenient distribution format. As for the internet, dozens of innovations - from e-commerce to video - developed from the industry's need to keep subscribers spending. The telecoms companies might not publicise the fact, but the deals they are signing with porn firms are a key part of their business strategies.
(The Times, February 18 2003)
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