The StupidFilter Project is building a filter that will remove stupidity from online content in the same way that spam filters deal with email. Apparently it’s going to use the excellently-named CRM114 Discriminator. Hat tip to Bad Language.
2007: Social media goes mainstream (except for business and politics)
If 2006 was the year of Web 2.0 then 2007 is the year of social media. For individuals anyway. Australian businesses and politicians generally don’t get it
Social media is mainstream. Two million Australians have Facebook pages and 3.5 million read blogs. MSN Messenger has 7 million users here, and even Ja’mie King says “I’ll MSN u 2nite” without explanation.
But few businesses use social media. Why? I suspect there’s two reasons, apart from an endemic inability to adapt and change. One is about the tools, the other is about business culture.
Continue reading “2007: Social media goes mainstream (except for business and politics)”Behind the pace
I’ve just finished writing an article for Crikey on how businesses are well behind the pace in using social media. Then I called a new client asking where to email their invoice. “We don’t really have email,” they said. How can a retail business which has to coordinate four shops (plus who knows how many suppliers) possibly operate competitively with last-century technology?
Liar, Coonan, Liar!
Well surprise surprise! The (former) government’s campaign to promote their dodgy NetAlert filter — it was cracked by a teenager, after all — over-stated the risk to kids on the Internet. And Senator Helen Coonan seems to have fibbed about what was in the government-commissioned report.
One advertisement said a survey had shown that more than half of 11-15-year-olds who chatted online were contacted by strangers…
[Coonan] refused to make the research public, saying it contained personal information. The Age has obtained the research, a survey prepared by the Wallis Consulting Group, under freedom of information laws. It does not contain any personal information…
[The claim] regarding stranger contact does not appear in the government-commissioned research. The question was not posed in this form. Participants were asked: “When chatting online, have you ever been contacted by someone you haven’t met in real life?” More than half answered “yes”.
So, a “stranger” is anyone you chatted with online, even a friend of a friend, who you just haven’t met physically. A “contact” could have been spam. Gee, we all have them, don’t we?
Still time to comment on Microsoft
There’s some great comments on yesterday’s piece about Microsoft. And there’s still time to add your thoughts before my dinner tonight. You know what to do.
So much for Facebook’s contextual advertising…
So, Facebook now has advertising which is tailored to the user. OK, I’m an attached gay man. What ads do I see?
Back to the drawing board I think, chaps. Unless you think my wedding day should be something really special?