NEWS: Skype becomes the largest provider of cross-border communications in the world

Skype’s international phone-calling traffic has accelerated at a time when
international telephone traffic has slowed, according to a new report by
TeleGeography.

Skype traffic has been soaring despite the background of slowing growth by
conventional phone companies, according to the report. Where international
calling volumes from telephones was growing at a compounded annual rate of
15% for the past 25 years, over the past two years it has slowed down to
only 8%. Skype however has seen its international cheap calls volume sky
rocket.

In a press statement from TeleGeography, analyst Stephan Beckert commented,
“Demand for international voice has been remarkably robust, but it’s
clearly not recession-proof”.  However the statement went on to highlight
that Skype was managing to very successfully buck the trend, with on-net
international Skype-to-Skype traffic growing by 51% in 2008, and a
projected growth of 63% in 2009, to a massive 54 billion minutes. “The
volume of traffic routed via Skype is tremendous,” said Beckert.

This increase in international calling minutes experienced by Skype has
brought its market share up to 12% in 2009, and made Skype the “largest
provider of cross border communications in the world, by far”, according to
Beckert.

The success experienced by Skype can be further demonstrated by a recent
company journal report which showed that on the 19th January 2010 the
service experienced an all-time record number of concurrent logged on users
with over 22 and a quarter million clients signed in to Skype at the same
time. This record comes only shortly after the previous record of 21.5
million concurrent users was logged the previous Monday.

PRESS RELEASE: MOBILE IQ DEVELOPS iPHONE APPS FOR MAJOR UK BROADCASTER

Barcelona, February 17 2010 – Today Mobile IQ  announced that it is
developing the BBC’s first official iPhone applications – which will be
focused on news and sport.

The first app will be launched in early April and will offer audiences a
breaking news service with the very latest stories. It will provide the
same distinctive content already available on the broadcaster’s website
such as features and analysis, reports from correspondents around the world
and a wide range of live and on-demand audio and video content.

Users will be able to personalise their news experience and more features
will be added throughout the year.

A BBC Sport application will launch on the iPhone in time for the 2010
World Cup with live match experience at the heart of the application.

For the World Cup, football fans will be able to access live match video
whenever it’s being broadcast on TV by the broadcaster and on-demand clips
of every goal scored in the tournament.

Users will also be able to enjoy more of the broadcaster’s other unique
content on mobile, such as 5 Live, authored live text commentaries from the
Corporation’s presenters and blogs. Later in the year, the broadcaster
will create even more value from its sports rights, by adding Formula 1 and
coverage of other sports

Mobile IQ was chosen following a competitive pitch involving 20-plus mobile
application vendors. Selection criteria hinged on the ability to develop a
creative and intuitive iPhone experience.

Mobile IQ has a distinguished pedigree in helping content providers
mobilise their content, having developed mobile apps and mobile websites
for major brands such as Channel 4, Maxim and The Guardian – as well as
niche publications such as the British Medical Journal.

Shaun Barriball, Managing Director of Mobile IQ, said: “BBC content is
revered around the world. Our aim is to help the organisation reach wider
audiences in new and compelling ways. The iPhone platform gives us an ideal
canvas with which to deliver an entirely new consumer experience for news
and sport.”

Erik Huggers Director of Future Media & Technology BBC showed demos of the
new applications during a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress earlier
today.

NEWS: Sunbelt Software Announces Top 10 Malware Threats for January

Sunbelt Software, a provider of Windows security software, today announced the top 10 most prevalent
malware threats for the month of January 2010. The report, compiled from monthly scans performed by Sunbelt’s award-winning anti-malware solution, VIPRE® Antivirus + Antispyware, and its antispyware tool, CounterSpy®, is a service of SunbeltLabs™.

In January, the malware landscape remained remarkably similar to December, according to Sunbelt Software ThreatNet statistics. The top seven detections were the same as December, but in a slightly different order. In
December and January, six of the top 10 detections were Trojan horse programs.

Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT – a generic detection for Trojans that comprised nearly one quarter (23.15 percent) of all the malware found. It remained in the top position for the third month in a row, growing by nearly 20 percent
from 18.69 percent of all detections in December. It is a detection that includes many downloaders associated with scareware or rogue security products.

After holding the top spot on the list for most of 2009, the password-stealing Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen held the second position on the list for the third consecutive month, decreasing from 6.23 to 4.91 percent of all detections.

“I think we can expect to see Trojan horse programs continue to be the top detections for the foreseeable future,” said Michael St. Neitzel, Sunbelt Software vice president of Threat Research. “Trojans used to download and install a wide variety of other malware and those are the real moneymakers for the bad guys.”

Other Trojans in the top 10 were:

– Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0
– Trojan.Win32.Malware
– Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v)
– Trojan.HTML.FakeAlert.a (v)

Meanwhile, three new detections moved onto this month’s top 10 list.
Virtumonde – a general description of an adware program with many
versions of pop up advertising – constituted 1.23 percent of overall
detections. Packed.Win32.TDSS.aa.3 (v) – a sophisticated rootkit and
Trojan that is used primarily to redirect search engine results – made up
1.21 percent. Finally, Trojan.HTML.FakeAlert.a (v) – a detection for an
HTML file which replaces a desktop background and works with other rogue
malware – made up just under one percent of all detections.

The top 10 results represent the number of times a particular malware
infection was detected during VIPRE and CounterSpy scans that report back
to ThreatNet, Sunbelt’s community of opt-in users. These threats are
classified as moderate to severe based on method of installation among
other criteria established by SunbeltLabs. The majority of these threats
propagate through stealth installations or social engineering.

The top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of January are:

1. Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT 23.15%
2. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen 4.91%
3. Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen (v) 4.55%
4. Trojan.Win32.Generic!SB.0 2.40%
5.   Trojan.Win32.Malware 1.93%
6. Trojan.ASF.Wimad (v) 1.92%
7. INF.Autorun (v) 1.46%
8. Virtumonde 1.23%
9. Packed.Win32.TDSS.aa.3 (v) 1.21%
10. Trojan.HTML.FakeAlert.a (v) 0.98%

NEWS: Smartphone Apps are Game Changer for Brands Says Punch

The growing popularity of smartphones and their applications is having a
game changing effect on brand marketing strategies according to technology
PR agency Punch Communications.

Phones such as the iPhone and Nexus One have been just part of the massive
growth in popularity of mobile technology over the course of 2009, with
many consumers taking advantage of mobile internet access to engage with
their preferred online communities and social networks on a far more
regular basis.

With research group Nielsen reporting substantial growth in mobile internet
usage, there is a huge opportunity for brands to engage with their users
through the implementation of brand focused applications for smartphones
such as the iPhone. The ability an interactive application to engage users
and provide a genuine service to them can potentially be a game changer in
help a brand to stand out from the crowd explains Pete Goold, Managing
Director of PR Agency Punch:

“Mobile phone applications that provide a genuine service or solve a
user’s problem can have a significant impact on the way that a brand is
perceived. Whether it is an app that facilitates the creation of user
generated content, such as Nike’s “Nike True City” app, or an app
that provides simple solutions for users like Jamie Oliver’s app, this
engagement can go a long way to influencing consumer perception”.

NEWS: Twitter beats YouTube and Facebook for Online PR

Twitter is the most popular of the leading social community networks (SCNs)
and interactive sites for online PR, according to a new survey of 107 PR
professionals.

It narrowly beats YouTube, in second place, and Facebook, in third, as a
preferred online PR tool.

But the survey, conducted by New Venture Publishing for its new Perfect
Online PR Masterclass, finds that no SCNs or interactive sites are yet
rated as very important for PR use.

On a scale of one (not important) to five (very important) the PR pros
rated top-ranking Twitter at an average of only 2.96.

YouTube scored 2.88 and Facebook 2.73. LinkedIn was on 2.4, Flickr on 2.1,
MySpace on 1.76, Bebo on 1.67 and MSN Messenger on 1.59. Ecademy on 1.53
and Xanga on 1.47 brought up the rear.

Overall, the PR pros rated “making use of social community networks” as
only thirteenth out of fourteen possible online PR priorities for the
future. It came behind front-ranking issues such as “integrating online
with other PR activity” and “developing online PR expertise
in-house”.

NEWS: Mobile phones to begin replacing cash from 2011

14 January 2010

A new mobile phone technology called near field communication (NFC) will
begin to replace traditional wallets and purses from 2011, according to a
new research report published today.

Banks and mobile network operators will both be seeking to make money from
the introduction of the new mobile payments technology, the report
predicts, and are set to go head to head in a bid to gain control of the
market.

“NFC technology will be used to replace everything from credit cards and
loyalty cards to bus and train tickets, library cards, door keys and even
cash,” says Sarah Clark, author of ‘NFC: The Road to Commercial
Deployment’. “What hasn’t yet been decided, however, is who will win the
battle to provide consumers with their new hi-tech mobile wallets.”

The UK, France, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea will be
the first countries to get the new mobile wallets, the report predicts. The
US, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, Norway, the Czech Republic, Romania and
Australia are also expected to be early adopters of NFC.

Businesses ranging from retail and travel to fast food, consumer goods,
tourism and entertainment are all expected to be affected by the arrival of
NFC services. Government and educational service providers will also be
impacted by its arrival.

“Decisions made in 2010 will be critical in determining which mobile
network operators, which banks, which industry suppliers and which service
providers become the leaders in the field,” she adds. “Ultimately, only two
or three companies in each country will succeed in building a major new
business providing NFC services to businesses and consumers. The winners
could be banks or mobile operators, or even a new entrant to the market.”

Consumers with NFC-enabled phones will be able to simply touch their phone
to a ’smart’ poster or product label containing an RFID chip to sign up for
a loyalty programme, collect a money-off coupon, download a trailer for a
new movie, access the latest travel information or go straight to a
product’s website to read customer ratings and reviews and compare prices.

Social networks will also get a major boost. With an NFC phone, you can
friend someone online when you meet them in the real world by simply
touching your phones together. Or touch your phone to a smart poster as you
go into a restaurant to automatically update your Facebook status and get
an offer coupon from the venue as a thank you for telling your friends
you’re there.

Commuters will be able to store their travel pass on their phone and mobile
versions of airline boarding cards, hotel room keys and even passports will
make it quicker and easier to get from place to place. Paying bills will
become much simpler, too. Simply touch two NFC phones together to transfer
money to a friend, buy a drink or pay for a service.

“No more rummaging around for the right change, card, keys or paperwork and
no more texting your location to your friends — with NFC everything can be
handled by your mobile device,” says Clark. “And, of course, NFC is a
highly secure technology. Consumers will be able to instantly lock all the
mobile wallet services on their phone if it is lost or stolen and then get
them automatically transferred onto a new phone as soon as it arrives. They
will also be able to use their phone to make payments even when the battery
is flat.”

PRESS RELEASE: Facebook is bad for your marriage

Facebook is bad for your marriage according to research carried out by an
online divorce service in the United Kingdom.

Divorce-Online scanned their divorce petition database for the use of the
word “Facebook” and found 989 instances of the word in over 5,000 divorce
petitions sampled.

This means that just under 20% of all the petitions filed through the
company had references to Facebook within the text of the divorce
petitions.

Managing Director Mark Keenan said “I had heard from my staff that there
were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners
on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really
surprised to see 20% of all the petitions containing references to
Facebook. The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate
sexual chats with people they were not supposed to”.

NEWS: User survey shows half of documents scanned were originally “born digital”

According to recent research by content management association AIIM, on
average 51% of the paper documents scanned by user organisations are born
digital, having been output directly from a computer application. The
survey also found that 25% of scanned documents are photocopied before
being sent for scanning, and that only 31% are destroyed after scanning,
indicating a reluctance by users and organisations to lose sight of mission
critical documents. On balance, however, the number of users who reported a
decrease in the volume of paper and photocopies as a result of scanning was
the same as the number who reported an increase.

The AIIM report compares strategies for outsourced, centralised and
distributed scanning, and concludes that there is a move back to
centralised scanning operations, along with a greater investment in capture
and recognition software to automate data capture and document indexing
processes. Although outsourcing delivers cost and management benefits,
quality of indexing and difficulty of integration back into electronic
archives are given as the biggest disadvantages.

Doug Miles, Director of Market Intelligence for AIIM, comments, “We have
seen a steady increase in the use of scanning and capture as an input to
business processes, with 42% of documents now being scanned-to-process
rather than scanned-to-archive. Proximity to the process, and the level of
integration with other enterprise systems become more important in these
applications. Users find that distributed processing with departmental
scanners and MFPs improves ownership by the process owners, but office
staff and knowledge workers need training and encouragement to ensure
accurate indexing.”

The AIIM survey also found that 46% of users report payback on their
scanning and capture investments within 12 months, with two-thirds seeing
returns within 18 months. These returns are consistent across many types of
content and process, with invoices, contracts and application forms being
the most popular.
Based on over 850 responses, the AIIM research report is entitled
“Capture: local, central, outsource – what’s working best?”  Part of
the AIIM Industry Watch series, the full report is free to download from
the AIIM website. It is underwritten by Abbyy, Autonomy, EMC Corporation,
Epson, Image Source, and Visioneer.

PRESS RELEASE: NewsNow to pull links to National newspaper content

UK’s largest homegrown news aggregator refuses to sign Newspaper
Licensing Agency agreement, branding it “unacceptable and of questionable
legitimacy”

London, UK: NewsNow.co.uk, the UK’s largest homegrown news aggregator, is
to pull all links to many national newspaper websites from its subscription
service as a result of a failure to reach agreement with The Newspaper
Licensing Agency Limited (the NLA) over the NLA’s proposed “Web Database
Licence” scheme. However, links to NLA member publications will remain
available via NewsNow’s free website.

The NLA had issued an ultimatum to NewsNow to sign its new “Web Database
Licence” by Thursday, December 10th, 2009, or face the prospect of
immediate legal action.  The “Web Database Licence” purported to
license NewsNow’s use of headlines linking to NLA member publications in
NewsNow’s subscription service. However, in NewsNow’s view, the legal
basis for the NLA’s claims that a licence is or was required remain
unsubstantiated. Although NewsNow believes it has a strong case, it did not
feel it could justify the considerable costs of pursuing the matter in
court at this time.

According to Struan Bartlett, Managing Director and Chairman of NewsNow:
“Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach an agreement with the NLA.
In spite of the NLA’s claims to the contrary, we continue to maintain
that what they are demanding of ourselves and our customers is unacceptable
and of questionable legitimacy. Irrespective of the lack of a legal basis,
the NLA’s licence is not fit for purpose. This is not just about the
charges they intend to impose on us, but the charges they would also impose
on our customers for receiving and circulating links within their own
organisations. In addition, it is a perhaps an under-reported fact that the
terms dictated by the NLA scheme would oblige us to hand over customer
details to the NLA, which seems to be developing a potential rival service
itself. It is hard to imagine that this kind of behaviour would be
tolerated in any other sector. The NLA has also offered no reasonable
guarantees of limitations on the increase of costs over time. We strongly
feel that to accept the NLA’s terms would set a dangerous precedent
restricting our customers’ ability to conduct their business freely. We
see this as a ‘slippery slope’ towards any free-to-access website
demanding licence fees from any organisation for circulating or clicking on
links.”

Newspaper titles that NewsNow is to pull from its subscription service
include The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. A full list
of NLA member publications can be obtained at
http://www.nla-web.co.uk/downloads/NLA%20Licensed%20Websites.pdf.

Bartlett added: “We have worked extremely hard to seek clarification from
the NLA and its solicitors on the legal basis for either NewsNow or our
customers requiring a licence. I am sorry to say that the NLA has not
substantiated the legal basis for its licence. Indeed in our view its
arguments do not hold water. We believe that other organisations who
privately agree with our position have reluctantly signed the NLA agreement
under pressure. However, we are not in a position on our own to fund an
extremely costly legal case on behalf of an entire industry.  Regretfully,
we will therefore as a precautionary measure be removing all links to NLA
member publications from our subscription service. We will continue to seek
clarification of the legal basis for the NLA’s web licensing scheme.”

PRESS RELEASE: The Independent goes live with first white-labelled social event planning tool for brands

Independent News & Media has partnered with iome to launch the first,
white-labelled social event planning tool on The Independent newspaper’s
website. The service creates new web and mobile revenues for the publisher,
as part of its 2010 digital media strategy.

The free-to-access service provides the 10 million* monthly visitors to the
Independent’s website with a useful tool that helps them plan their social
lives and make savings via discount vouchers.  In this socially-connected
world, with demands on people’s time and money, consumers want to easily
discover new things to do and places to go, find offers and share that
information with friends; until now, no one service has been able to
provide consumers with an easy way to do so.  The iome white-label service
fills this gap.

The Independent will generate new revenues through the service, on
purchases made through the portal (such as theatre tickets and restaurant
bookings) in addition to advertising and sponsorship.  And, by partnering
with iome, the Independent has been able to go to market with its new
branded service in less than three weeks from inception of the project,
enabling readers to start using the service in time to organise their
Christmas events.

Bill Swanson, managing director (Digital), Independent News and Media (UK)
said: “We are very excited to be the first business to launch this service
in the UK.  It not only enables us to extend our reach to readers, but also
to create new revenues via web and mobile.  We recognise that consumers are
hungry for new ways to organise their social lives through the web – this
service is the first of its kind to enable people to organise themselves,
make savings and interact with friends in a single location.  Plus, the
service has the ability to learn behaviour including likes and dislikes,
giving us the opportunity to deliver highly targeted services and offers.
This is a significant step forward with our digital media strategy for
2010.”

Added Phil Eames, CEO, iome: “People like to share information online and
there are a plethora of sites out there that help with individual elements.
The iome service lets people not only identify what’s going on near them,
but also access discounts, make bookings, create plans and share them with
friends via Facebook and other such sites.  It gives businesses the
opportunity to develop a better understanding of their consumers, allowing
for greater targeted services, content and advertising to be offered in the
future.”