According to Iain Herbert, Scottish Tourism Forum Chief Executive, the absence of next-gen broadband capacity and accessibility is threatening Scottish tourism. His comments come in the wake of a revitalised, open-platform website dedicated to Scotlands tourist trade.</p> <p>Speaking at one of the final events during last weeks Scottish Tourism Week, Mr Herbert said that the countrys inadequate internet and lack of mobile connectivity had been a reoccurring theme.</p> <p>There was a lot of conversation about broadband and the fact that Scotland is lagging behind, he said. Its a real concern that we are slipping down the international league table.</p> <p>Herbert then went on to praise VisitScotland.com a new, revamped open-platform site that will be released over the next 18 months. The site, conceptualised by VisitScotland.coms Head of Digital Media, Robbie Parish, was developed in conjunction with a group of industry experts and aims to bring together Scotlands fragmented tourist agencies. When completed, Scotlands 26,000 tourist-related businesses will have the ability to provide unique and original content as well as gather data making the site far more attractive and accessible to users.</p> <p>It has been a long journey and a learning journey, not just for this organisation, VisitScoland.coms Chief Executive, Malcom Roughead, said. The whole world has been surprised by the exponential growth in [IT and mobile web technology] and you have to change the way you look at the opportunities.</p> <p>Key features of the new site will include making the content accessible for mobile devices, and optimised content that has been designed to make browsers want to become tourists.

In a study by New York University Stern, it has been found that allowing employees to blog for fun alongside blogging for work benefits business.</p> <p>The study was conducted by Anindya Ghose, Associate professor of Information, Operation, and Management Sciences and his colleagues Param Vir Singh and Yan Huang, from Carnegie Mellon. Together, the team looked at bloggers who worked for Fortune 500 companies within the IT consulting and servicing industry. What they discovered was that in those instances where companies placed restrictions on blogging for fun, the sharing of online work-related knowledge decreased.</p> <p>According to the study, this is because creating social media content not only aids in education, but helps to build better workplace relationships. Therefore, bloggers will attract colleagues with their leisure posts and, because work-related posts appear on the same page, those readers will then stay to read the work-related content.</p> <p>Based upon their findings, Professor Ghose concludes:</p> <p>Social media technologies such as corporate blogging have the potential to be of enormous value to firms. In addition to bringing together employees at a lower cost, when used effectively, these technologies can encourage knowledge sharing and can enhance and increase firm productivity over the long-term. Companies should not prohibit non-work related blogging because of its positive effects on long-term employee productivity. </p> <p>However, the research has deeper implications for building connections between related businesses and incentivising employee contributions. Professor Ghose continued by commenting In addition, companies adopting social media technologies for internal use should invest in displaying reputation metrics for content contributors and make them prominent on the enterprise-wide blogging forums to create incentives for employees to contribute content.

Facebook Europe Vice President Joanna Shields reported yesterday that Facebook now boasts 30 million active UK users, which is half of the UK population.</p> <p>Speaking at a conference hosted by Financial Times Digital Media and Broadcasting, Ms Shields said that the number of UK users had increased by 4 million in the past eight months alone. The figures were confirmed on Facebooks UK page shortly after her announcement.</p> <p>Ms Shields also reported that publishers implementing Facebook functionality are seeing a rise in traffic. This includes features like the Facebook Share and Like buttons. The Mail Online, she said, has seen a 10 per cent increase because of the change.</p> <p>Worldwide, Facebook is now nearing the 600 million-user mark. It is steadily heading toward the one billion users that Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, predicted last year at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.</p> <p>If we succeed [in staying relevant and innovative] there is a good chance of bringing this to a billion peopleit will be interesting to see how it plays out," he told listeners.</p> <p>The news of the increase in UK users should spark a higher level of interest in Facebook functionality for businesses targeting the UK consumer. This includes increased awareness of Facebook Deals , a service that was launched in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain on 31 January. Facebook Deals, which has already proven itself highly successful in the USA, offers retailers the chance to connect with users via Facebook and provide them with coupons and discounts to local goods and services.

According to a report by analyst firm Gartner, the reason businesses are failing with social media is the inability to harness the power of collective behaviour.</p> <p>Gartner analysed 200 successful social media projects over the course of 10 months, determining that success lay in the ability to leverage mass collaboration.</p> <p>"Social media is not an end in and of itself - it is an enabler," said Anthony Bradley, Gartner VP. "Social media technologies are tools and, like any technology, it is how people use those tools that deliver enterprise results."</p> <p>As a result of its analysis, Gartner offers several suggestions to businesses who wish to engage in social media successfully. This includes leveraging the workforce collective intelligence by allowing them to collaborate while improving customer service skills and creating group interest which can then be taken online to heighten customer loyalty through proactive engagement. Finally, it recommends a series of quick and short mass message campaigns, which, once the business gains footing, can be expanded. Gartner also warns that, while making for good strategy when successful, mass messaging campaigns also come with a series of risks.</p> <p>"Enterprises that understand the importance of harnessing the power of collective behaviors to drive positive business change will be the ultimate winners with social media," Bradley says. "Those that focus on implementing social media technologies will be the losers."</p> <p>Another report by analyst firm Ovum reveals that the worlds banking institutions are amongst those businesses to have yet taken advantage of social media; and, according to the report, 60% of those institutions have no plans of doing so.

In a social experiment conducted in New York, Daniel Morales, a homeless man, was given a prepaid mobile and asked to record how he lived using social media. So, he created a Twitter account; and it wasnt long before he had over 3,000 followers. After a few weeks of tweeting, he decided to tweet this:</p> <p>Hi thi is to let yo people know that in lookin eoq my daughter her name is sarah m rivera @putodanny</p> <p>He followed the tweet with others providing his mobile number and an uploaded photo of his daughter.</p> <p>That was on a Thursday. The next day, Sarah phoned her dad and this past Friday, the two were reunited in New York; seeing each other for the first time in several years.</p> <p>Morales life has been a difficult one; after Sarah left Puerto Rico to live with her mother, Morales ended up moving to Harlem. In 2010, he lost both his home and his job. These days, he lives in a shelter.</p> <p>The social programme, which Mr Morales was taking part in, is called Unheard in New York. The goal is to provide people with a taste of what it feels like to be homeless.</p> <p>Since reuniting with his daughter, Mr Morales has also had opportunity to meet his two grandchildren Navaeh (4) and Akai (1) for the first time.</p> <p>As a thank you to his followers, @putodanny tweeted, "@to my pdople: God bless u my brother.putoda6y here,to thank you once againg for helping me find my baby.

In an article on boston.com, Mike Pedersen, the owner of Mikes Automotive Services in Somerville, Massachusetts and his son are highlighted as a prime example of how small businesses can benefit from the use of social media.</p> <p>Mike, 59, with the help of his son Mark, 31 use the internet as a way to market their business;</p> <p>We had a web page way back in 94, when it was the cats meow, Mr Pedersen told boston.com. [But with] Twitter, Facebook, Groupon the whole thing has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Its kind of forcing my hand to get involved.</p> <p>While larger businesses and corporations can bring aboard experts to help them navigate the relatively new social media waters, small businesses like Mr Petersens find it more difficult.</p> <p>Many small-business owners over 50 wish that social media had never been invented said Michael Katz, president of Blue Penguin Development. Theres definitely a feeling of being overwhelmed. Its just one more thing to do.</p> <p>However, despite that overwhelming feeling, Mikes Automotive manages an active blog with an RSS feed, a Twitter account, and it has a Facebook page. You can also check in from Mikes on Foursquare; and Mike has even tried his hand with a Groupon promotion.</p> <p>But has all of this delving into social media helped his business? When Mark did a review of the results since beginning the social media campaign, he discovered that the total of new customers was up by 28% and that was excluding the 620 people who walked in with a Groupon in hand.

Wired Magazine, Mashable and others are reporting that a Libyan activist known as Arasmus (@arasmus) has created a mashup using Google Maps and selected Twitter posts to provide almost up-to-the-minute information, regarding the protests and activities happing in Libya.</p> <p>Last week, protestors and police clashed during an attempt to end the rule of Moammar Gadhafi, with Gadhafi responding to the protests with serious violence, including attacking protestors using fighter jets and armed helicopters. Gadhafi has also ordered a media blackout hoping to prevent information from leaking to the world. However, activists are using social media to circumvent his efforts.</p> <p>In an attempt to plug activist leaks, internet access was completely blocked for a few hours on 18th February; but the block did not last more than a few hours. Since then, protesters have wasted no time tweeting reports and uploading video.</p> <p>Protesters in the country are again posting reports and up-to-the-minute information on Twitter. Arasmus is taking many of the most relevant and reliable reports and adding them to a Google Map on the country. The image currently shows where gunshots, killings, general violence and power failures have been described.</p> <p>For safety reasons, @arasmus has stayed clear of an automatically generated map; The danger of an automatic map is that you will reveal too much information too soon and put protesters in danger, he tweeted to his followers.</p> <p>While none of the reports can be verified due to the media blackout, the use of social media by Libyan activists is providing the world with more first-hand reports than in any other Middle East revolution.

Recently, Google announced that it was changing its algorithms to better combat content farms, that is, websites that gather together a large amount of low quality, often plagiarised articles, with the intent of drawing traffic from which they hope to earn revenue through advertisements. Now, it is taking the battle to the field; enlisting Chrome users to identify content farms and spam content through a tool called Personal Blocklist. The results are then sent back to Google who can fine-tune its algorithms accordingly;</p> <p>We've been exploring different algorithms to detect content farms [] One of the signals we are exploring is explicit feedback from users. To that end, today we are launching an early, experimental Chrome extension, so people can block sites from their web search results. If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results.</p> <p>What is interesting to note about this step, is that Google is cutting off at least part of its nose to spite its face. Content farming is big business and many farming sites use AdSense as a way to generate revenue.</p> <p>There is also the issue of what constitutes a content farm; sites like eHow, Associated Content, Huffington Post, and even Googles own Blogspot can be classed as content farms by some.</p> <p>In the end, however, this step is the right one. The lessening of spam content in search results will please most users and the new blocking tool makes Chrome more attractive. Where Google loses on one front, it wins on the other.

In an article published yesterday on the Las Vegas Review Journal, American Nancy Ryan tells a frightening tale in which a burglar after reading her Facebook page broke into her home.</p> <p>Her status update was a simple one: Vacation! it said. What it meant was that she was taking a holiday from her job for a week; not that she was travelling. But the burglar did not realise that; so, both he and she were surprised when he strolled into her bedroom.</p> <p>Of the event, Thomas Ryan, an internet security expert says, Youre giving people easier ways to break into your email, your bank account, and your home. According to him, he can track pretty much anyone using the three most common pieces of information given on Facebook name, email address, and mobile number.</p> <p>Last year, Mr Ryan made the news when he created a fictional femme fatale who then interacted with 100s of government officials via Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We are not talking lower-end officials either; victims included senior executives and a Marine Corps intelligence official.</p> <p>"I was able to find out where they lived, when they were home, and identify photos of their entire family," Ryan said. "So, if I was the bad guy "</p> <p>Ironically enough, if this story is not enough of a cautionary tale, during the Review Journals interview with Mrs Ryan, they also met a woman whose ex-boyfriend turned stalker found her via Facebooks location feature. He wasnt on her friends list, but his sister was.

In a hearing on Wednesday, the US House of Representatives discussed net neutrality; shedding light on what seems to be at the core of the disagreement as to who should be in charge government or industry.</p> <p>In an article on website Politico, the fundamental difference was boiled down to this:</p> <p>Republicans are targeting [these] net neutrality rules as an example of Big Government. For the government to get the keys to the gate [of the Internet] scares me to death, Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers said. Substitute industry for government and you get the exact same fear from Democrats.</p> <p>The hearing was presided over by Republican Greg Walden, who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. Testimony was given by four FCC (Federal Communications Commission) commissioners and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.</p> <p>Part of the concern seems to be how the Open Internet order is written. While it takes a strict stance on wired broadband, it does little to address wireless services like the mobile web.</p> <p>The Federal Communications Commission has selectively applied the [net neutrality] rules to broadband providers, shielding Web companies, says Chairman Walden. Such picking of winners and losers will stifle the investment needed to perpetuate the Internets phenomenal growth.</p> <p>The Politico articles goes on to reveal that most of those involved already have their lines drawn firmly in the sand, with each side presenting strong argument in their favour. So, whether the Open Internet will remain as is, be changed, or be completely discarded remains to be seen.