NOTW - RIP

It is with deep regret that we witness the passing of a once great newspaper. Having set up the News of the World's initial web presences prior to Andy Coulsen's editorship, I felt it right to pass some comment on the events of the past few days.

Founded in 1843, the News of the World has informed the public and exposed those things that others sought to cover up. However, its thirst to maintain its crown of investigative journalism has ultimately been its undoing and it has fallen victim to the type of scandal it often revealed.

Rupert Murdoch has always been a supporter of brand values so many have expressed surprise with the alacrity with which he dispensed with this stalwart of the British press. But News International has a history of acting boldly in a crisis. As usual, the story is one behind the public statements. There is more going on here than a newspaper group trying to save face and protect its other titles.

Such was the depth of public feeling over the phone-tapping storm of members of the public, the storm would have taken weeks, months and possibly years to blow over (if the debacle of The Sun with the people of Liverpool over the Hillsborough disaster is anything to go by). The significant loss in advertising revenue and the obvious downturn in circulation would have made the NOTW a commercial pariah. As it was, the economic climate was forcing News International to embark on another round of cost cuttings and redundancies within its newspaper titles.

Mr Murdoch is not losing a Sunday paper - the NOTW will be replaced by a seventh-day edition of The Sun (something he has wanted to do for years with his broadsheets). He will also achieve the reduction in staff levels that will make the balance sheets look far more favourable. The closure is the clearest course of action financially.

Then there is the issue of the BSkyB acquisition. Facing a backlash from Opposition MPs, Mr Murdoch has come out fighting. By reducing one's media portfolio in such a dramatic fashion, he has made himself more acceptable to the regulator on one count at least. However, there is a more cynical side than just a cranky old Australian with a chequered history with the British establishment.

The speed with which the corporation came to the decision of axing several hundred 'innocent' jobs (most employees not being members of the newspaper staff during the time of the alleged phone hackings) sends a clear warning to politicians and institutions alike - approach with caution, News International (and its larger parent News Corp) are not to be trifled with.

It is sad to see the demise of any newspaper, especially one with a 168-year pedigree. To sacrifice the loyal staff for the sake of a few individuals who have moved on since is even sadder.

Rest In Peace - News of the World

Global Blue horizons

LaunchPlusOne has been pretty busy of late helping Global Blue, a worldwide financial services company, evaluate its publishing platform.

I have also been conducting some interesting analysis of a number of CMS systems and their current capabilities. Some online systems really have come on recently and there has been quite a bit of movement in the industry with strategic acquisitions and partnerships.

If you would like to have a chat about these, drop me a line at contact@launchplusone.com

Third World mobile internet

I was very interested to learn the other day that mobile internet is more of a phenomenon in third world countries, especially Africa, than broadband internet.

I would expect price (i.e. PC/laptop versus handset) and geography (i.e. large distances and sparsely populated areas) to be among the deciding factors for this - but it would seem that broadband infrastructure also plays a part.

Countries that have tried to lay broadband found that their cables were dug up by locals and the copper sold. It's the "lead on church roofs" vandalism all over again...

Limitation of Google analytics

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the free analytics service that Google offers. But for those who want to do more with their numbers, we need to recognise a key limitation.

Because of the reliance placed on cookies, third party images and javascript in its collection process, Google Analytics is increasingly falling foul of browser blockers, even by default.

Plus, add in the anti-spyware plug-ins that you can download for browsers that not only block cookies from Google, but also Omniture, Webtrends, etc, and other tracking codes such as java applets and the numbers could mount up.

But what is the impact? Industry analysts reckon it could be between 10-20 per cent of traffic. If success is judged on users, visits or activity, then that could be an expensive gap in your analytics.

IE6 in terminal decline

Developers rejoice! IE6 has now fallen below the 10 per cent mark and at its current rate of decline could disappear off the radar in the next few months.

Figures released by Statcounter also show that IE8 has achieved a 26.8 per cent share of the worldwide market while IE7 has plummeted to 16.2 per cent.

Mozilla's automatic browser update policy has enabled Firefox 3.6 to shoot up to second place with just over 20 per cent but at the expense of its other versions (3.5 falling sharply to 7 per cent, 3.0 now 3.32 per cent and 2.0 almost defunct).

Of the other browsers, Google Chrome has plateaued to 7.22 per cent of the market along with Safari 4.0 at 3.85 per cent, although US usage is almost double that figure for the latter. Opera barely makes an impression.



I'm not sure Microsoft could or should do the same since the new browsers releases are nomrally so full of

Women say "give us more!"

I just read a very interesting article on brand perception by women internet users (the survey was conducted in the US but I believe is still applicable to the UK).

A staggering 88% said they would like to see more targeted offers from the brands they trust and 59% said they would like these brands to offer them more deals online.

It seems that only a small percentage of women surveyed still feel intimidated by online advertising, although the figures also demonstrate that spurious adverts do cause annoyance to most uers.

I smell opportunity...

Meagre pickings at Internet World

I can understand last year's Internet World exhibition being sparsely populated by the leading players in the digital industry - let's face it, we were knee-deep in the economic downturn. But with a number of green shoots around in 2010, I was expecting much more than I experienced during my visit yesterday.

To say this is becoming an exhbition for the very niche players is not understating the case. Probably in all sectors represented, the leading companies were more conspicuous by their absence than last year and there seemed to be a number of new names I have never heard of, especially from eastern Europe.

The saving grace in 2009 was a good range of industry experts in the free seminars - alas, well-known names were very thin on the ground this year (if you could find the programme on their website).

All a bit of a shame because I felt the show appeared to be busier in terms of visitors, like myself, looking for optimistic signs of recovery...