Apple crowned world's most valuable company

Yahoo Finance, Thursday 11 August 2011

Culture-changing technology outshined crude oil with iPhone and iPad maker Apple eclipsing ExxonMobil as the most valuable company in the world based on the value of its stock.

Despite an overall dismal day on the stock exchange, Apple ended trading with its stock priced at $363.69 per share for a total "market capitalization" of $337.2 billion.

ExxonMobil's stock price slipped to $68.03 per share to give the international petroleum giant a valuation of $330.8 billion.

Apple dethroned software giant Microsoft in May of last year to become the largest US technology company in terms of market cap -- the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the stock price.

Apple stock has risen steadily over the past few years as chief executive Steve Jobs piloted the release of a string of hit products starting with the iPod in 2001, followed by the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad last year.

Apple's ascension to most valuable company was seen as remarkable given that the California company was floundering and seemingly heading into oblivion before Jobs returned to the helm about 15 years ago.

Tiger on the Loose: The Microblogging Revolution in China

Jakarta Globe, Andreas Landwehr,  August 08, 2011

China is experiencing a micro-blog revolution. In the space of just a few months, Twitter-like micro-blogging sites have turned into a social explosion that seems to have the Communist Party on the back foot. 

(JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

The weibos, as the Chinese versions are generically known, are shattering the state's monopoly on information, with almost one in two of the country's 485 million internet users signed up. At the end of last year, it was just one in 10.

The potential of the platforms was illustrated by the wave of indignation over the government's reaction to the collision of two high-speed trains that caused 40 deaths and 200 injuries in July.

"The first to spread news of the tragedy were the passengers on the train," the editor-in-chief of a communist propaganda organ said requesting anonymity.

The new media "definitely have an enormous influence," and "have triggered large social changes," he said, adding they could even bring about a "new era" in some respects.

How does the party deal with the phenomenon? The editor-in-chief is cautious. "Weibos are new, and we have yet to measure their influence," he said.

He is, however, adamant about his own task and that of his publication: "We must steer public opinion." As Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are blocked in China, web portals such as Sina and Tencent have filled the niche. China's answer to Twitter is censored but has more functions: Posts can be forwarded with one's own comments to allow conversations to develop.

The 140-character limit is not nearly as limiting in Chinese, because a single character can be a whole word. Images and video can be shared as well.

Censorship is circumvented by turning text into a photo or by forwarding screen shots of deleted posts. It's a cat-and-mouse game and the state's watchdogs can barely keep up. Weibos spreads information more effectively and more quickly than it can be censored.

Their rapidly increasing user base has reached a critical mass, reminiscent of the Chinese saying: "He who rides a tiger finds it difficult to dismount." The first news of the train accident was forwarded tens of thousands of times. The responsibility was discussed millions of times.

To the micro-blogging nation, the collision was a culmination of the mismanagement around the country's much--vaunted rail system, currently being upgraded at breakneck speed.

The railway ministry, seen as powerful and arrogant, has long been a target of complaints.

After the last railway minister was dismissed for corruption in February, his successor uncovered a mountain of undeclared debt.

The operation of the high-speed route between Beijing and Shanghai, which is plagued by problems and tardiness, has also been widely criticized.

Since the July incident, the ministry has not been enjoying as much protection in the media. Even the state-controlled outlets appear to have had more room for negative coverage.

And journalists have been publishing their thoughts and information more widely than just in the papers. Weibo reports by media professionals have indicated that local authorities warned lawyers not to accept any civil cases from victims of the accident.

As the social media echoed to rumbles of public anger over the revelations, the authorities said they had been "misunderstood," and never instructed the lawyers as alleged.

The next wave of indignation rolled in as one of the carriages involved in the accident was simply buried. Accusations of a cover-up rang out across the weibosphere, and the carriage was dug up for forensic tests.

Micro-bloggers also poked at premier Wen Jiabao's excuse for not visiting the site of the accident earlier. They dismissed his claim of illness, pointing out that he had still received official guests at that time.

How the party deals with the new threat to its control over public opinion is still an open issue.

Some commentators in the state media have dismissed the new wave of social media as propagating "rumors" and "false information," in a bid to undermine their credibility and limit their impact.

But even the party's own propaganda organ, the People's Daily, has said in an editorial that weibos can serve to "better understand the concerns of the people and solve their problems."

DPA

Companies Learn to Use Internet, Social Media to Stand Out

Jakarta Globe, Andy Vuong, August 01, 2011

In an increasingly digital world, traditional businesses and service professionals
 are finding that old-school sales and marketing strategies no longer cut it. (AFP Photo)  

   

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New York. Just over a year ago, Arvada West Decorating and Flooring in Arvada, Colo., didn't have a website, much less a Facebook fan page.

Now a Google search for "Arvada flooring" returns the 30-year-old store's website as the No. 1 result. The top listing for "Arvada decorating" is the shop's Facebook page.

That's not by accident.

Store owner Matt Vagts, whose family has been in the flooring business since 1954, hired a full-time search-engine and social-media expert three months ago to bolster Arvada West's online presence.

He believes the strategy has helped the shop win roughly four out of five recent bids for contracting jobs.

"I'm getting 80 percent of the work because of my credibility on the Web," Vagts said. "You take a little mom-and-pop- owned shop like mine, and I can now compete with the big shops."

In an increasingly digital world, traditional businesses and service professionals are finding that old-school sales and marketing strategies no longer cut it.

Door-to-door pitches have given way to Facebook and Twitter social media postings. Receptionists and cold calling are out, while do-it-all smartphones and online lead generators are in.

And Yellow Page display ads have been replaced, or at least supplemented, with so-called search engine optimization strategies to bolster rankings in online search results.

"If I was selling a vacuum cleaner 50 years ago, I'd walk door-to-door and shake someone's hand and look them in the eye," said Ryan Estes, Arvada West's tech guru. "We want to do the same thing and do that on social media."

Posts on Arvada West's Twitter and Facebook accounts go beyond sales announcements to messages about the community and other topics to create a dialogue.

That's aimed at improving the store's rankings in search results, Estes said, because Google tweaked its search algorithm in February to find more "high-quality sites" with fresh content. Other search-ranking factors may include the location of the person posting the query and a site's traffic.

"I try and shape all that together to drive Google's search results," Estes said. "If someone is in Arvada and they type in 'tile floor,' we want to be No. 1."

A Google spokeswoman wouldn't disclose whether certain social media activity can affect a site's ranking, stating that results are "automatically determined by computer algorithms using hundreds of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query."

"We can't divulge the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for all users," she said in an e-mail.

Other businesses are using social media to raise their profile with potential clients. Jason Wagner, owner of Denver-based Sonic Conscious Studio, has been mixing music for about 10 years but only recently set up a blog on Tumblr and a Facebook page.

"What I'm working on is the reputation," Wagner said. "There are mix engineers that get $2,000 to $5,000 a song. I'm nowhere near that. That's my goal — to have a reputation, have people come to me and have enough work and demand to raise my prices."

In the past year, Golden, Colo.-based ServiceMagic, which provides leads for thousands of service professionals, doubled the number of employees who develop mobile sites and Facebook pages for businesses in its network.

"Facebook is certainly something they're aware of," said ServiceMagic chief executive Chris Terrill. "They're using it personally, but they're beginning to realize the benefits of it professionally."

Beyond social media and search, businesses are leaning on mobile technology to streamline their operations.

ServiceMagic conducted a survey of professionals in its network in May and found that 63 percent use a smartphone for their business. That's nearly double the 35 percent of American adults who use smartphones, according to a report by the Pew Internet Project. As such, ServiceMagic recently hired 10 workers to focus on mobile application products. The company employs roughly 1,100, with the bulk in the Denver area.

"I pretty much run my day through my iPhone," said Arvada West store owner Vagts.

To manage contracting estimates and appointments, Vagts uses the cloud-based Google Docs, where everything is stored on remote computer servers and can be accessed via the Internet.

"Mobile is taking the desktop into your hands," said Daniel Rogers of Cañon City- based MyAppToGo, which develops mobile apps and websites for businesses. "That's why you have apps. It's simplicity. It's convenience."

NY Times Syndication

Iceland’s citizens help draft new constitution via the Internet

Deutsche Welle, 30 July 2011

Iceland's economy was on the brink
of collapse in 2008

In a possible world-first, Iceland’s citizens have helped draft a new constitution via social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The draft document has been presented to Iceland’s parliamentary speaker.

A council of 25 ordinary, publicly-elected Icelandic citizens presented a draft constitution to Iceland's parliamentary speaker Asta Ragnheidur Johannesdottir on Friday. This may be the first time that citizens have actively contributed suggestions via the Internet and were able to follow progress on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

The constitution of the island nation of 320,000 people was first instituted in 1944. The Icelandic parliament, known as Althingi, agreed in 2010 that the country's citizens should be involved to include their viewpoint, on the core values of the constitution.

The council began work on the draft constitution in April. During this time, its work was posted on the Internet. Icelanders submitted around 1,600 propositions and comments on the council's website.

People pressure

"The reaction from the public was very important," said Salvor Nordal, the head of constitutional council. Most of the suggestions had to do with a revised economic model, following Iceland's economic collapse in 2008. All Iceland's major banks failed at the time, leading the country to the brink of economic collapse. 

There is little public support for Iceland to join the EU.

There is little public support for
Iceland to join the EU.

"This triggered massive social movements, and mounted pressure to revamp the constitution, and for the process to be led by ordinary citizens," said council member Silja Omarsdottir.

Some of the suggestions were extreme or even bizzare. One suggested that Iceland's natural resources were to be designated public property and no private organization or individuals would be permitted to own them or the rights connected to them. Another proposal wanted to "kill all capitalists."

Johannesdottir said the draft would be examined by a parliamentary committee starting on October 1.

Author: Wilhelmina Lyffyt (AFP, dpa)

Editor: Nicole Goebel

Gone fishin’—piloting community supported fisheries at Google

Google Green blog, 7/29/11

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

I've always loved the ocean—I was born in Shanghai, which means "upon the sea.” And as a chef, I'm always drawn to food that claims a spirit of place. After moving to California, near Half Moon Bay, I began visiting the docks to buy seafood, and got to know the fishermen.

Over time, it became evident to me that this part of our food supply is broken: many consumers purchase stale, unsustainably-raised fish from chain grocers. Meanwhile, fishermen often sell their diminishing catch to wholesalers at a very low profit, meaning their livelihoods are no longer sustained by their catch. There’s also the environmental factor to consider: Overfishing and illegal practices cause worldwide decline in ocean wildlife populations and wreak havoc on underwater habitats—not to mention the carbon footprint of transporting seafood far from its origin.

Google’s chefs have long been committed to sourcing food for our cafes as locally, seasonally and organically as possible. And in our Mountain View headquarters, many employees cook with the same ingredients at home thanks to on-site Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs. When I joined the team as an executive chef in Mountain View, I wanted to make a difference in our purchasing program for seafood. For the five years leading up to then, I wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle called “Seafood by the Season,” and I knew it could be done. In early 2010, we began a push to apply the most rigorous standards to our seafood-buying practices, and respond to the in-the-moment fluctuations of the catch from small, independent fishermen.

Things took off from there. My colleague Quentin Topping dreamed of providing the same high-quality seafood we serve in our cafes for Googlers to take home to their families. That idea became the Google Community Supported Fishery (CSF), which we launched in May 2011. In this program, Googlers sign up to purchase a weekly supply of local, sustainable seafood, supplied through a partnership with the Half Moon Bay (HMB) Fisherman’s Association.

The Google Culinary team on a visit with fishermen in Half Moon Bay,
Calif. — Quentin and I are the second and third from the left, in black.

We tend to think on a massive scale at Google—whether it’s how to deliver instant search results around the globe or help thousands of small businesses get online—but when it comes to feeding our employees at work and at home, it really comes down to a local touch. Knowing where our seafood, meat and produce come from, as well as knowing how they’re raised, farmed or harvested, makes all the difference in the on-the-ground work of sustainability. We see many bright spots ahead for our Community Supported Agriculture and Fishery programs, such as expansion to other offices and adding a grass-fed beef and pasture-raised poultry program. It’s exciting to work someplace where we can think big and local.

We know of two CSFs in the Bay Area. The Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Association supplies only Google at the moment, but will soon add public drop-off sites—keep posted by visiting Farmigo.com. The other is CSea out of Bodega Bay. If you live elsewhere, we hope you’ll consider stepping up to create one in your area.

And even if you don’t live near the ocean or have direct access to fresh-caught seafood, the choices you make about what fish to purchase or order in restaurants can make a real difference. You may want to consider following the guidelines that we used for our Google Green Seafood policy: Whenever possible, purchase species caught locally and in-season, by small, independent fisher-families, using environmentally-responsible methods. We think it’s important to be responsive to the fluctuations of catch too, and source from fisheries that enforce catch limits or are guided by ecosystem-based management programs. As for us, we’ll continue to research and source responsibly managed farmed seafood, and always keep transparency and Googler health at the center of our program.

Posted by Liv Wu, Executive Chef

Vodafone under fire for bowing to Egyptian pressure

guardian.co.uk, Juliette Garside, Tuesday 26 July 2011

• Activists seek protocols to curb use for propaganda
• Bahrain, Malaysia and China cited as risky states

Vodafone was ordered to cut the signal in certain areas of
Egypt in January. Photograph Chris Ison/PA Archive/PA
Photos

Vodafone Group is to meet human rights campaigners to discuss how it can prevent its networks being hijacked by repressive regimes after it was forced to send out pro-government messages and shut down its network by the Egyptian government during the uprising at the start of the year.

At Vodafone's annual meeting in London on Tuesday, Brett Solomon, director of lobby group Access, asked: "How prepared are you for the future crises that are sure to happen in the 70-odd countries in which you operate?

"Will you ensure that you are both able to protect your staff and the integrity of the network, but not in the position of having to once again shut down the internet or send pro-regime messages to your customers?"

Access named Bahrain, China and Malaysia as areas where telecoms companies should prioritise drawing up clear protocols. Bahrain has seen civil unrest this year and has a history of shutting down mobile services.

Last year SIM card users were forced to register their details. More than 400,000 of those who did not were cut off. Zain, Vodafone's partner in Bahrain, complied with the restrictions.

Along with two other mobile operators, France Telecom and Etisalat, Vodafone was ordered to cut the signal in certain areas of Egypt in January. It claims to have been the first to restore its service, doing so after 24 hours, but access to the internet remained blocked for five days.

Pro-government messages were sent to Vodafone customers during the early days of February, including the following call: "To every mother-father-sister-brother, to every honest citizen preserve this country as the nation is forever."

Outgoing Vodafone chairman Sir John Bond told the annual meeting that Vodafone only holds licences directly with governments in 26 countries, adding: "We have no discretion to negotiate variations. In every case … network operators are subject to similar legal provisions to those used in Egypt earlier this year. Any process to elaborate a new approach to human rights and communications must involve governments as well as industry and NGOs."

Promising the company would meet Access, Bond added: "Respect for human rights forms part of our assessment of any market into which we move our operations."

Access wants telecoms companies to agree crisis protocols with governments. These should ensure users can make emergency calls at all times, that calls and emails are not hacked, that networks are shut down for minutes or hours rather than days and that carriers cannot be used to disseminate propaganda.

Phone and internet companies are frequently forced to choose between protecting freedom of expression and commercial interests. Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, faces a ban in India for refusing to provide access to customers' emails. Google exited China after its servers were attacked to extract confidential information about activists and Pakistan blocked Facebook and YouTube last year.

Gerard Kleisterlee, the former chief executive of German electronics firm Philips, was elected to succeed Bond as chairman. His arrival marks the first time Vodafone's two most senior leaders have been drawn from outside the UK – chief executive Vittorio Colao is Italian.

Colao continued to tread softly on the issue of Vodafone's 45% stake in the US group Verizon Wireless. Some investors are keen for Vodafone to take over the entire company or sell its stake. Verizon has promised to start paying a dividend from 2012, and the two companies are cooperating on joint purchasing and on servicing multinational clients.

"What I see are the tangible benefits of cooperation, working well together," said Colao.

Bond added: "One of the board's major roles is to unlock the value of the investment but that is going to have to be done very, very carefully."

Verizon chief operating officer Lowell McAdam takes over as chief executive next week, and has been working with Colao for the last 18 months to increase joint working. He told analysts last week there were no immediate merger plans.

"We can leverage each other's scale, but I would not send any kind of messages here that something like that's immediately on the horizon."

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Tech Leaders Predict Indonesia Will Lead the Future of Mobile

Jakarta Globe, July 23, 2011

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The pace of innovation and change in mobile devices is so dizzying it is difficult to predict the winning platforms and products of the next few years.

With that caveat, a panel of technology executives and experts nevertheless took out their crystal balls on Wednesday at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in this Colorado resort to take a glimpse into the mobile future.

Before an audience of movers and shakers from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, they looked at trends among smartphones and the fast--growing market for tablet computers pioneered by Apple's iPad.

"I'd say that whatever we can imagine in this room right now will be possible in five years," said George Colony, founder and chief executive of technology and market research company Forrester.

"Everyone will have smartphones within four years, all over the world, it'll be so cheap," Colony said. "By 2014 we believe that one--third of Americans will own a tablet."

Frank Meehan, founder of handset maker INQ Mobile, repeatedly brought up the futuristic Steven Spielberg film "Minority Report" to describe the possibilities on the horizon for mobile devices.

In the 2002 film, star Tom Cruise notably moves pictures, documents and video around on an interactive screen at lightning speed using just hand motions.

Colony traced the evolution of the user interface for mobile devices to the current touchscreen technology popularized by the iPhone and iPad and pondered what might come next.

"Microsoft could take the Kinect technology and that could be the next big change," he said of the motion--sensing XBox 360 game controller from the US software giant.

"If you look back at over 30 years of tech, all of the big changes have come through changes in user interface," Colony said. "Always look to user interface if you want to understand where the thunderstorm will be."

Stephen Hoover, chief executive of PARC, Xerox's legendary research and development unit, said next--generation mobile capability will involve the seamless "integration of the physical and digital worlds."

Mobile devices will be able to provide "the information that's most relevant to me now, physically where I am, and in the context of what I'm trying to do," Hoover said.

"We're at the cusp of really being able to integrate all of these different sources of data and understand people's intention in context and give them the information that's useful at the time they need it," he said.

Todd Bradley, executive vice president of US computer giant Hewlett--Packard, agreed and said mobile devices will possess an ability to deliver what he called a "ubiquitous experience."

He spoke of "the ubiquity of a device that knows I'm at Starbucks and that I read The New York Times when I'm at Starbucks."

The US coffee chain is already allowing patrons in the United States to pay for their lattes with mobile phones, and the Fortune Brainstorm panelists said they expect huge growth over the coming years in mobile payments.

"I actually wonder if the lead in mobile isn't going to come from Asia," said Meehan. "In China, in India, in Indonesia the mobile operator is your source of cash."

Hoover said the increasingly powerful cameras built into mobile phones and tablets will provide all sorts of other opportunities.

"You look at the quality of the cameras today in the device and the power that they have and there's a lot of things you can do with scene recognition," he said.

"I hold up a camera to the sign of the restaurant and get recommendations," Hoover said. "We have that technology today, it's about putting it together." 

AFP

Google to open representative office in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Fri, 07/22/2011

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that the company intends to open a representative office to expand its internet business in Indonesia.

The statement was made during a meeting with Vice President Boediono on Friday.

According to vice president spokesman Yopie Hidayat, as quoted by kompas.com, in the one-hour meeting Schmidt stated that the representative office in Indonesia would be ready before 2012.

Yopie said that the multinational corporation investing in internet search, cloud computing and advertising technologies wanted to develop programs to connect Indonesian small and medium sized enterprises with foreign buyers.

He added that Google had been involved in serious talks with the Communications and Information Technology Ministry regarding its business plan and would soon prepare a memorandum of understanding with the government.

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Indonesia is Google’s ‘Regional Focus’

Google Search Detects Infected Computers

Jakarta Globe, July 20, 2011

Google began warning some users of its
popular Internet search service that their
 computers may be infected with a virus.
(AFP Photo)

Google on Tuesday began warning some users of its popular Internet search service that their computers may be infected with a virus.

Routine maintenance on one of the technology giant's data centers revealed unusual traffic from computers infected with a form of malicious software, according to Google security engineer Damian Menscher.

The traffic was sent to Google through intermediary computer servers referred to as "proxies," Menscher said.

Google began delivering warning notices along with search results to computers that appear infected with the virus.

"We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their antivirus software and remove the infections," Menscher said in a blog post.

"We hope to use the knowledge we've gathered to assist as many people as possible."

AFP

Indonesia Urges ASEAN to Harness Twitter, Facebook

Jakarta Globe, July 19, 2011

Indonesia is one of the top countries based on the number of Twitter
users. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

ASEAN must maximize the use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media to engage the region's citizens, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Tuesday.

Speaking to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers on the island of Bali, Yudhoyono expressed support for the establishment of an ASEAN blogger community.

"For the first time, and in contrast to just four decades ago, we are facing a reality where the frequency and depth of contacts between our citizens - through cable television, email, Twitter, Facebook - far exceed the formal contacts between government officials," he said.

"Indonesia, being the world's second largest Facebook nation and third largest for Twitter, knows this very well."

ASEAN must "get into the act" and be "creative and open-minded in harnessing the power of technology to promote people-to-people contact," he said.

"The establishment of an ASEAN blogger community is one innovative idea, and more should follow."

ASEAN, with nearly 600 million people, groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The more developed member-states such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have witnessed explosive growth in the use of social networking and microblogging sites even if overall Internet penetration remains low.

Yudhoyono often sends mixed messages about free expression and social media.

The centrist ex-general has warned that the "Internet frenzy" is destroying traditional values, has backed a crackdown on porn websites and has lashed out at people who "use online media to spread lies" about corruption.

Human rights activists criticize Yudhoyono for approving a 2008 law which sets tough penalties for online defamation, saying it has been used to intimidate critics and whistle-blowers.

A Human Rights Watch report released last year cited the example of Prita Mulyasari, a mother-of-two who was jailed for three weeks and spent a year in litigation for writing emails to friends about poor hospital treatment.

A Facebook support group garnered more than 100,000 members, and a court eventually threw out the case against her. But the supreme court recently reinstated her conviction and she is now serving six months of probation.

AFP

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