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PERSONAL E-MAIL. A 'no-no' for Bush
The Internet has been one of the greatest boons to communication, writes Deepak Mankar.
The Internet has been one of the greatest boons to communication, I reckon. Think of how e-mail and sms have made letter writing and sending virtually an instantaneous operation. Now web logging or blogging is giving a new direction and pace to journalism.
Last week, in 'TWO-WAY STREET. Make newspaper sites reader-friendly.' http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1335756,00030007.htm, I mentioned Rupert Murdoch's suggestions about the need to "need to encourage readers to think of the Web as the place to go to engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions about the way a particular story was reported or researched or presented". Then, I came across GE's NBC Universal Television Group unit head Jeff Zucker's view expressed in a New York media conference. He'd support Katie Couric and Brian Williams, rated as NBC's top talent, writing blogs for adding "a more interactive component" to the network, he said. He even went so far as to aver that he didn't "think there's enough interactivity right now, particularly on 'Dateline,' 'Nightly News' and 'Today'." Reuters reported this a while back. Zucker's reasoning was that were his people to express opinions in blogs, it just might bolster the appeal of NBC News to younger viewers. "Over the next two years, network news is going to go through a lot more changes. This is one of the biggest issues facing traditional network-news divisions," he added. MSNBC's key people, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann included, have been blogging for a while, though. MSNBC also regularly covers bloggers and Web sites on its program, 'Connected'.
The other side effect blogging has had on journalism was articulated by CNN's Jeff Greenfield recently at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference in Las Vegas. "I can't rely [on the New York Times] and traditional news sources alone," he confessed. To read Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, the Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan in order to keep himself up-to-date, he now gets up one hour earlier than he used to. Blogs have changed the way he works as well as the benchmark he sets himself. "Knowing that people are out there watching, willing to spot any factual error, omission or prejudice ... you know you're being held to a higher standard." There was an NAB workshop with the rather revealing title, 'Are We Becoming Irrelevant?'. It attracted an audience of about 50. Three of these were bloggers and most said they read other peoples' blogs. It seems even
The San Francisco Chronicle - just like The New York Times and the Dallas Morning News which have added bloggers' voices - plans to launch blogs "in the near future," as Robert Rosenthal, the newspaper's managing editor told a reporter from the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times. In the view of Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times: "As long as we can stay within the bounds of accuracy and impartiality, and where it doesn't mean reporters are spending their day blogging instead of reporting, I see a place for it." An interesting feature on how the NAB meet was vlogged (yes, video-blogged) is here: http://www.lostremote.com/archives/004497.html.
MORE ON BLOGOSPHERE. From Business Week.
The latest issue of Business Week has eight pages about Web logs and how they will change business. The cover story, written like a blog, has numerous items in a chronological order. Individual sections describe the phenomenon's parts. "Call it Blogs 101 for businesses," says the magazine. "You cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the
Internet itself." There are an estimated 9 million blogs on the Web right now and 40,000 new ones get added
each day. Even supposing 99.9% are worthless, it still leaves 40 a day "that could be talking about your
business, engaging your employees or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush," the article added. According to Business Week, blogging is no bubble. "Blogs could end up providing the perfect response to mass media's core concern: the splintering of its audience". Venture firms, it seems, financed $60 million in blog startups last year, according to VentureOne - as compared with the $19.9 billion that poured into dot-coms in 1999. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/05_18/B3931magazine.htm
PERSONAL E-MAIL. A 'no-no' for Bush.
Not even to his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, would President George Bush send an e-mail for fear of a 'leak' - a favourite pastime in Washington, DC. In his own words, he fears "my personal stuff" would be made public because "everything is investigated in Washington". "There has got to be a certain sense of privacy," is how he expressed it to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. This was "during a discussion on whether his administration is sufficiently responsive to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act." "I would hope that those who expose documents are wise about the difference between that which truly would jeopardize national security and that which should be read," he said. On the other hand, Sean Moulton, a spokesman at OMB Watch, a group that tracks decisions by the White House Office of Management and Budget and other government agencies, said: "This is a government that is getting worse by the day in terms of permitting the public access to information and documents that they have paid for." He also added that "this administration is being extremely opportunistic with homeland security concerns and using that as an excuse to shut down public access." http://techrepublic.com.com/2100-10588_11-5671409.html?tag=nl.e019.
LEGIT E-MAIL. How much goes through?
When ISPs and hosted e-mail vendors try to shield their users from spam, they also block and filter legitimate commercial e-mail messages. Recently, . A couple of recent studies from Lyris and Return Path, measured deliverability rates for legitimate e-mail among different ISP and hosted e-mail providers. The Q1 2005 Lyris EmailAdvisor data showed the average rate of legitimate commercial e-mail deliverability to user inboxes directly to be 88.5 percent. That climbed a bit to 92.5 percent for average 'gross deliverability' (i.e., the total amount of e-mail delivered to both regular user inboxes and 'bulk' folders) of legitimate commercial e-mail. The Lyris data was derived, by the way, with a methodology that sent almost 22,000 opt-in commercial e-mail messages (explicitly requested by recipient accounts) from 49 different business entities to multiple accounts at 41 different hosted e-mail and ISP domains, both in the E.U. and the U.S.
European delivery rates were 90.3 percent for inboxes and 93.7 percent for gross deliverability. U.S. rates were somewhat lower: 87.9 percent for inboxes and 91.3 percent for gross deliverability. Return Path's 2004 data indicated that on an average 22 percent of legitimate opt-in e-mail wasn't delivered to user inboxes - a 3.3 percentage point increase over the second half of 2003 when Return Path had reported that 18.7 percent of messages weren't delivered. http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/email/article.php/3496361.
RED-LIGHT DISTRICT. On the web, too?
"After spending a few hours cleaning up spyware and other digital crud off of an acquaintance's computer over the weekend, I came away with mountains of damning evidence that much of it was planted on the machine after its owner downloaded a bunch of short videos from some adult Web sites," claims a 25 April post by Brian Krebs on Computer Security at http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/. The post ends on this note of caution against straying into one of the Web's so-called 'red-light districts': "… if you or someone who uses your computer is in the habit of frequenting some of the seamier online neighborhoods - particularly those that pretend to offer something for nothing - you would be well-advised to make sure your computer is heavily secured."
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2005 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles at http://www.asiaondemand.com/.
Website: http://www.addgandhi.com/original/.
You may e-mail him at dmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in.
