Internet News

Free public Wi-Fi could be a thing of the past as a result of the Digital Economy Bill.

The bill will feature harsh penalties for those who fail to comply with its stringent requirements and it is thought that those who will be most at risk will be those offering free Wi-Fi in public places.

While open Wi-Fi will not be outlawed, the provider will be responsible for keeping records on everyone who makes use of a connection. In somewhere like an internet café or a local library, this would be an almost impossible task due to the huge numbers of users and the short durations people for which they are connected. The upshot is that it would be safer for these businesses not to offer Wi-Fi at all.

The professor of internet law at Sheffield University, Lilian Edwards, said:

“This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in.

“Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small café.”

While many reports cite tension between Owen Van Natta and Jonathan Miller, head of News Corp’s digital arm, as being the reason why the former left his role as chief executive of MySpace, others have pointed to interference from News Corp owner, Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch is famously keen to expand his media empire into the online world, but many believe he is ill-equipped to achieve these aims due to his fundamental misunderstanding of the online world.

Michael Wolff, author of a Rupert Murdoch biography, believes that News Corp is essentially in a state of panic about the online world.

“Rupert is saying, ‘What’s going on with MySpace? What’s happening? Why isn’t this working?’ It’s impossible to explain to him that it’s not working because it’s over, because this is the way the technology business goes. Once it’s past, it’s really past. There is almost no way to get that back.”

News Corp spent $580m on MySpace but has since seen the social networking site being far outstripped by Facebook. A search deal with Google was drastically reduced in value after MySpace failed to hit targets for visitor numbers.

Owen Van Natta, once a senior executve at Facebook, has been replaced as MySpace boss after less than a year in the role. In his place will be two co-presidents who will report to Jon Miller, head of digital at News Corp, who own MySpace. They are Mike Jones and Jason Hirschorn.

Miller was previously the chief executive of AOL and was taken on by Rupert Murdoch to oversee the internet side of News Corp. Miller spoke positively of Van Natta in making the announcement that he was to leave:

“Owen took on an incredible challenge in working to refocus and revitalise MySpace, and the business has shown very positive signs recently as a result of his dedicated work.”

Miller went on to say that Van Natta’s personal and professional goals were not in keeping with the role any more and said this was why they had agreed that he would step down.

MySpace was bought by News Corp in 2005 for $580m but has been outstripped by Facebook since then. The site is under great pressure to turn profits, but has struggled to do so, despite a redesign and relaunch.

It has been revealed that the Department of Health spent £2.7m on AdWords last year.

The question regarding the Government’s spending on online advertising was posed by Nick Hurd, Conservative MP for Ruislip Northwood. Health Minister, Phil Hope, responded by saying that they had bid on almost 22,000 search phrases and had spent this sum in doing so.

However, he declined to reveal what those terms were as he said the information was ‘commercially sensitive’, referring to the fact that increased competition would drive up the cost of a click.

In response to this, the organisation Tax Payers Alliance has some harsh words. Speaking on their behalf, Mark Wallace described such an advertising budget as ‘utterly excessive’.

“Whether it’s online, on the TV or on the radio, you can barely move for taxpayer-funded adverts telling people how to live their own lives. This is not what people expect the NHS budget to be used for, particularly when people are being refused urgently-needed drugs.”

The AdWords spending was to encourage traffic towards the nation’s largest health website, NHS Choices.

Recent research carried out in the US indicates that teenagers are turning away from blogging and moving towards the shorter, snappier means of online communication.

Only around 14 per cent blog regularly compare to around double the number in 2006, showing interest is clearly waning. However, social networking sites are filling the gap with status updates on Facebook and similar sites fulfilling a similar function for users.

Conversely, blogging has increased in popularity among the over-30s with 11 per cent blogging compared to 7 per cent in 2006.

Not surprisingly, internet use through mobile phones has also increased. Over half of 18-29 year-olds use the internet through a mobile device, while a quarter of 12-17 year-olds do so.

Considering the increase in mobile phone internet usage and the move towards shorter forms of communication, the surprising revelation is that Twitter is not proving hugely popular among teenagers. While they are using most other social networking sites far more than other age groups, this does not apply to the micro-blogging site.

Despite the decrease in numbers of people blogging, it is thought that it will not die out as it still fills a certain niche.