Inflated figures

Randall Rothenberg, the new head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), has written an open letter to audience measurement companies, ComScore and Nielsen NetRatings, demanding an audit of their measurement processes according to the FT.

Richard Waters comments that [in the midst of the current Web 2.0 hype] we've gone back to the bad old days where companies are being valued on the number of eyeballs they can attract.

Randall's letter comes after ComScore called for a change in Web measurement tools on the back of their own survey because of the explosion of podcasts and video and people becoming wise to clearing their cookies.

ComScore uses a panel of representative internet surfers over cookies whereas Nielsen argues for measuring website use in terms of the amount of time spent on pages rather than by number of views.

This reminds me of working with Site Intelligence during the dotcom boom when everyone knew people were inflating website figures but John Woods bravely came out and said as much as 80% of companies were fibbing (resulting in half a page in the Observer).

Woods said to gain an accurate picture of website use a combination of measurements is required because of the issue of cookies being cleared etc., rather than a single method for advertisers to determine a site's popularity.

Randall's letter says that the IAB has been calling on ComScore and Neilsen NetRatings to be independently audited since 1999. It's a shame that it has taken until now for the IAB to bear its teeth but better late than never as online advertising overtakes offline. Let's hope not just the cookies get cleaned up.

View from the top

I've just returned from a great snowboarding holiday in Tignes, France which was responsible for the gap in posts. While there I got a message from O2 on my mobile which gave me a flat rate for calls home for 36p per minute which I thought was quite good but still more than double a Skype call back to an O2 mobile in the UK.

Another type of mobile technology was responsible for the delay we had flying back. We were on time until the front wheel on the Thomas Cook aircraft was broken by the tractor pushing the plane out of its dock. A 24 hour delay and extra night in Lyon ensued as an engineer needed to be flown out with two new wheels. You'd have thought something the size of a plane would have room for a spare!

Work smarter, not longer

A report from The Future Labratory claims we are more happy because we are blending our work and home lives using new technology.

Commenting on the survey, The Independent implies that as a result of working-life blending we are happier with "almost half of us (46.8 per cent, to be exact) throwing off the chains that bind us to our desks and taking jobs that involve working away from the office, on our own terms".

Sorry but mobile technology for work just means working longer/harder, no matter how you dress it up. I'm comparing the number of laptops on trains today with how many people you would you see consciously scribbling work notes before mobile computing? The survey points out 77 per cent of people felt new technology had improved productivity.

For me, technology can certainly help us work smarter. Guess it depends what you are doing but does working longer or harder make people happy?

All change

Yesterday the UK's media heavyweights met at The Guardian's Changing Media Summit 2007 and I was lucky enough to attend. I'm going to write up some thoughts but for a taster visit Kevin Anderson's blog here for transcripts of the roundtable debates.

The central theme of the summit was social media and its effect on old media and how the two are/will integrate. The comforting thing I took away from the conference was that everyone's in the same boat. We are all trying to get our heads around how social media will continue to develop, touching our business and home lives, including the Guardian's editor! Just when we begin to understand one new technology along comes another application of it that changes the media landscape again. Anway I'm twittering now. More soon...

The geek shall inherit the earth

A new silicon.com survey has found that leadership skill is the key trait for CIOs who aspire to become CEOs.

43 per cent of those surveyed said leadership was the most important quality for an ambitious CIO, while 15 percent cited commercial awareness.

A greater focus on innovation and creativity has overtaken sales and marketing skills which have fallen again in the annual survey.

Commenting on the results, Phil Young, head of IT, said that often the CIO is viewed as a technologist, which is a perception they need to overcome to be in with a chance for the top job.

For me though the Silicon Valley saying that "the geek shall inherit the earth" rings true here. If you look around, the most successful companies of the moment are technology-driven and have CEOs who have a deep understanding of technology and the competitive advantage it offers now and for the future. What do you think makes a good CEO?

Sweden's corporate seagull

One million people are connected to the Web in Western Europe using Fibre to the home (FTTH) according to a new report from Informa.

Silicon.com reports that although this only accounts for just over one per cent of all broadband connections in Europe, Sweden comes out at number one with 27 per cent of heavy users on FTTH.

This reminds me of Morre, the corporate seagull, who I used to work with and who set up Sweden's first website (the world's tenth). Back during the dotcom boom I pushed Morre out to the media as a consultant for Roxen Internet Software - an open source web content management company.

At the time I got him into the FT as he said then that our broadband infrastructure in the UK won't compete in the future because "the companies control the motorway network, not the government". In Sweden, utilities and local authorities own most of the fibre infrastructure with companies competing to offer services on the 'A road' network on top.

As our broadband access creaks along in the UK due BT passing digital information through over-subscribed, copper wire exchanges, I wonder if Morre was right? Will the UK fall behind the rest of Europe as we require faster download speeds for heavier content or will BT's 21st century network be the answer for our woes?

In case you're wondering what a corporate seagull does, I'll leave you with Computer Weekly's take on the title at the time. The publication asked, is Morre a corporate seagull because he flies over businesses and takes a 'blue sky' view or is it because he craps down on them from a great height? I'll let you decide...

Mobile mad

At the risk of posting too much mobile news, here's a link to a new Global Mobile report from Netsize and Informa, which demonstrates of the 2.2 million GSM mobile standard subscribers worldwide, growth is strongest in African and Asian markets.

Titled, "Convergence: Everything's going mobile" it includes both up-to-date research and articles from head honchos at Nokia, Google, Vodafone and the like.

Unsurprisingly, China and India lead the pack in GSM and the research shows 3G has failed to take off in Europe, with people buying the phones but not the services. Music on mobiles has proved popular during 2006 with strong download sales but TV 'on-the-go' is where companies are focusing their efforts now.

Mobile growth in the UK is predicted to jump from 69,710 million subscribers in 2006 to 74,485 million this year.

Interestingly, there's a section on machine-to-machine(M2M) computing in the report. Using the Web as a network to transmit data from electrical products with embedded digital sensors, homeowners and businesses will be able to control and monitor machines and appliances remotely from mobile devices. Useful if you've left the lights on at peak time and therefore potentially energy-saving.