Take a look at this amusing coupon on the Infectious Greed site.

Wired reports that the UK has banned an iPhone ad on the basis that it exaggerates the speed at which the phone operates.  They also banned an iPhone ad a few months ago on the basis that the claim that all parts of the internet are on the phone was false because it doesn’t support Java or flash.

The Wired post has several links to other articles about complaints and lawsuits against Apple over the iPhone.

Of course that is in spite of its massive sales.  What I find amusing/interesting is that flaws in Apple products seem to be overlooked by most people, yet flaws in Microsoft products seem to be exaggerated. 

That’s the title of my Slaw post from today, and the title of an article from socialcomputingmagazine.com.

My post reads:

That’s the title of an article worth reading at social computing magazine.com. (And speaking of social media, this article came to my attention via a Twitter post by Mathew Ingram.)

The article says:

KM and SM look very similar on the surface, but are actually radically different at multiple levels, both cultural and technical, and are locked in an undeclared cultural war for the soul of Enterprise 2.0.

And the most hilarious part is that most of the combatants don’t even realize they are in a war. They think they are loosely-aligned and working towards the same ends, with some minor differences of emphasis. So let me tell you about this war and how it is shaping up.

The article goes on to explain how boomers, gen-Xr’s and millenials approach this subject from different viewpoints. Its partly based on a top down control perspective vs a lets just create it perspective.

Another quote:

If you are wondering how a significant corporate cultural war can be in progress without making headlines, it is because the three generations involved process the world with different primary cognitive stances. The Boomers attempt to understand the world with words, and the best they can do is talk to themselves. The Gen X’ers try to avoid conflict by seeking solace in data and a relentless focus on reality. The Millenials are blissfully unaware of larger dynamics and just go ahead and create.

The article is interesting from the perspective of generational differences, and of KM vs SM.

So what does this have to do with the practice of law?

We all know that lawyers are hard to govern. We don’t like to do what we are told by the firm. Many lawyers are also traditionalists and are not keen to change. (Perhaps we are too rooted in precedent as an operating manual rather than as context – but that may be the subject of another post.) The top down approach usually doesn’t work. Knowledge management is a logical tool for lawyers to take advantage of to better practice and serve our clients – but its hard to get lawyers to buy in to it.

Perhaps there is hope in that as millenials start to take root in law firms they will just start to use social media tools to bring knowledge management into law firms from the bottom up.

Wiki anyone?

For the London Free Press – November 24, 2008

Read this on Canoe

The new .tel Internet top level domain, or TLD (.com is an example of a TLD) launching soon may revolutionize the way we keep in touch — assuming it becomes widely adopted.

The new .tel domain, sponsored by Telnic Ltd., essentially acts as a contact directory. Individuals or corporations will be able to unify their contact information by storing, updating and publishing all contact information directly on the Internet without having to buy, design or create a website or host. The contact information can include phone numbers, addresses, websites, blogs, social networking and more.

Information about .tel is immediately available through any web browser.

The purpose of the directory is to help manage and exchange contact information about people and companies. When an individual adds a contact’s .tel to their cellphone, BlackBerry or address book, they are getting more than a phone number or e-mail address. They get all the contact information that the individual has included in their .tel listing.

One of the key attributes of the new .tel is that a recipient never has to update contact information. It is a single management and publishing point for Internet communication services. Any updates .tel owners may make to their .tel will be relayed automatically to any recipients of that .tel. For instance, if the individual moves, changes jobs, telephone numbers or e-mail, the new information is automatically available in the digital address book of the recipient.

From a business standpoint, .tel ensures existing or prospective customers, partners and employees can quickly and easily communicate with the right people and departments within the company.

Privacy is addressed by allowing individuals to filter their own content and decide who sees what information. One can, for example, set different security levels for information available to the public, information available to business colleagues, co-workers, friends or family members.

Domain names under .tel are assigned on a first come, first served basis. Trademark owners are being offered a sunrise period running from Dec. 3 to Feb. 2, so they can claim their .tel addresses ahead of the line and not risk losing their names to competitors during later registration periods.

For a premium price, “landrush” registration will be available not only to trademark owners, but also to keen registrants from Feb. 3 to March 24, 2009. Pre-bookings will be available until Feb. 3.

If you want to ensure rights to your .tel domain name, the time to sign up is now.

The concern over .tel is whether it will become popular. An individual or trademark owner may pay a premium to register their .tel domain name only to see the program fizzle. If you wait and it does become popular, it may be too late to get a .tel domain name matching your trademark.

More information on .tel is available on the web, including at domain registrar webnames.ca.

Google recenty announced that they would use search requests to plot flu trends.  They claim they can show flu trends 2 weeks faster than traditional methods.  The trend data is anonymized so no one looking at the trends knows, for example, that I might have been one of the individuals who searched for “flu remedies”.

So where is the privacy issue?  Privacy is often about the details.  Critics say that the anonymization methods used by Google don’t go far enough, and that it is possible to put the details back together and actually identify the individuals. 

Striking the proper balance between usable data and privacy is an ongoing struggle.  Opinions on where the balance should lie vary greatly.   Factors include how long individual data should be kept, the purpose of the data, how sensitive it is, and what should be done to strip away the identity of individuals.  

For more detail about the privacy issues around Google Flu Trends, take a look at the article in this EPIC Alert.

The big news today is the CRTC decision that denied CAIP’s application complaining about Bell’s internet throttling.  The CRTC has however made it clear that it is not through with teh net neutrality issue.

From the CRTC’s press release:

“CAIP’s application asked us to only consider the specific issue of wholesale traffic shaping within a specific context. The broader issue of Internet traffic management raises a number of questions that affect both end-users and service providers,” added Mr. von Finckenstein. “We have decided to hold a separate proceeding to consider both wholesale and retail issues. Its main purpose will be to address the extent to which Internet service providers can manage the traffic on their networks in accordance with the Telecommunications Act.” 

The Commission has launched a proceeding to examine the current and potential traffic management practices of ISPs operating in Canada. This proceeding will include a public hearing starting on July 6, 2009, in Gatineau, Que. The CRTC has invited comments on a number of specific questions. Some of these questions are related to:

• changes in bandwidth consumption that may lead to network congestion
• Internet traffic management practices based on technical solutions or business models that are currently available or may be developed in the future, and
• the impact of such practices on end-users.

For more detail and commentary, take a look at Michael’s viewpoint, articles from the Globe and Mail, and Slaw, the CRTC press release, and the CRTC decision.

Connie Crosby reports on Slaw that people are getting emails and letters that purport to be from the CRA.  They say the CRA owes the people money, but the CRA does not have enough info to pay them.  Of course, the scam is that if people respond with the requested info, they have given away enough info to be the victim of identity theft.

Go to Slaw for more detail and images of the letter.

For the London Free Press – November 17, 2008

Read this on Canoe

No – not in the sense of being polluters, or making toxic products – but in the sense of new ways to design, market and sell products that are disruptive to the whole supply chain.

Robert Scoble has an interesting article on the subject.  It says in part:

Yesterday he showed me a new gadget that will get on blogs like Engadget, Gizmodo, Obsessable, GearLive, Gdgt, CrunchGear. It is mind blowing. The engineering is done all in China. The factories are all in China. The website will be hosted in China, or maybe over on one of the new clouds that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Rackspace are now opening up. The brand name will be done in China, via Twitter and FriendFeed. The PR is done in China via Twitter and FriendFeed, or maybe via a blogger tour in San Francisco and New York because that’s where most of the gadget bloggers live (last night CNN’s Rick Sanchez Twittered me, which demonstrates that Twitter has a powerful reach now into mainstream media).

This is total ownership of everything. Total disruption of everyone who used to make money along the supply chain. Retailers? Disrupted. Traders and middlemen and distributors? Disrupted. Web designers and developers? Disrupted.

Thats the title of my Slaw post for today.

It reads as follows:

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego have published a paper on a study they did on spam.

They actually took over part of an existing spam botnet, and sent their own spam to test the response. We all wonder why anyone would actually fall for the scam, and know that the uptake must be low – but how low?

In their case, 350 million emails sent resulted in 28 “sales” – a response rate of 0.00001%.

Commentary ranges from the thought that the rewards for spammers are decreasing to math showing how lucrative it can be even at this low rate. For more detail, read Techdirt, a BBC news article, the Washington Post.