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Twitter Found
Unhappy people target unhappy people
Service has mostly been restored to micro-blogging site Twitter, blog hosters Blogger and LiveJournal, social network site FaceBook and video site YouTube. Cyber-attacks took down Twitter completely through Thursday (August 6) and into Friday (August 7). Other sites were either periodically out of reach or slow to users.
Several sources identified the attacks as a one-two punch emanating from Russia, Abzazia or both. First, is seems, a botnet attack pushed Twitters ISP servers and others to the brink of collapse with a dedicated denial of service attack (DDoS). That was followed by an outpouring of spam emails with links to pages on Twitter, Facebook and others used by a Georgian blogger. Among techies this version of events is questionable, but they are arguing form not substance. Somebody (or many somebodies) instigated something (or more than one something) that plunged Twitter into nary a squeak.
Eventually, the Georgian blogger was identified (The Guardian, BBC) as a university economics lecturer in Georgia who writes on several platforms. Several commentators identified him as either pro-Georgian or anti-Russian and pointed at Russians unhappy with any note of the anniversary (August 6) of the short, messy war fought between Russia and Georgia. On Saturday (August 8) the Georgian blogger accused the “Russian KGB” as behind the attacks. The KGB, officially, hasn’t existed since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Russian sources, generally derogatory toward the entire incident, suggested that the same group responsible for the 2007 cyber attack on Estonian websites might have been involved. (See that story here)
Obviously, there were hours last week when Twitter users had to find something else to do with their thumbs. (See a first take on Twitter here) Several small companies that make a business from Twitter apps were, for a time, out of business. The event certainly points to the undeniable fact that the internet is a fragile beast. (JMH)
Reading lesson
Grade A
Reading is the mainstay of literacy, the social benefit being an immutable understanding. Newspaper people by the nature of the beasts they nurture have a long-standing tradition of supporting reading and writing. And awarding excellence in that pursuit is also worthy.
WAN-IFRA announced winners for their annual World Young Reader prize competition (August 5). Zero Hora of Brazil and Express & Echo of the UK were singled out for top honors. (See details in WAN-IFRA release here)
There is something about thinking forward. (JMH)
Twitter up, and over
Roger that
The number of Twitter users in Germany doubled between April and June, reported Nielsen Media (August 4). Now 1.8 million Germans have signed up to Tweet.
Other slices of the Nielsen report on German Twitter users largely confirm other recent studies. The first Tweet seems like the last; 71.1% of the German users Tweeted but once in June and 27.2% of June users Tweeted in May. Less than one in eight Tweeted at least three times.
Slightly more than half the German Twitterers are women (54.1%) and, as a rule, far more are between 25 and 34 years of age.
In a separate survey of ten countries by Nielsen Ibope Brazilians lead the world in Tweets; 15% of Brazilian internet users used Twitter in June. Second place went to the United States (10.7%), followed by the UK (9.4%), Australia (5.4%), Germany (4%), Spain (3.5%) and Japan (1.4%). Brazilians spent 36 minutes Tweeting, compared with 11 minutes for Brits.
Meanwhile the war drums are beating for restrictions on social network usage. The United States Marine Corps has renewed its ban on troops using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace while the US Department of Defense is reviewing the use of social networking sites by both military and administrative personnel.
Sports network ESPN issued guidelines to employees (August 4) effectively banning unauthorized Tweeting.
And, then, several teams of the US National Football League (NFL) have banned players from Tweeting during “working” hours. That would be practive periods and, of course, game days.
It’s clear that social networking sites usage hasn’t cooled down, at least for that initial Tweet. Celebrities (and that would include sports figures) are addicted to Tweeting for the fans. Politicians and other public figures are getting into the act.
The learning, so far, for marketers, brand managers and PR people is that more people sort of follow Twitter (et.al.) looking, we suspect, for a new buzz. But, so far, the only new buzz is Twitter itself. (JMH)
Newspaper whinging is old
What’s next?
The moaning and groaning by newspaper people – mostly American – about the hideous intrusion into their divine claim on journalism and democracy by the internet has reached epic proportions. Stock options and private airplanes fade for owners as salaries and holidays fade for journalists. The internet, they say, is killing newspapers or, certainly, the bonuses of newspaper people.
Newspaper people have howled into that woods before, notes Jack Shafer of Slate (August 3). He discovered Gwenyth Jackaway’s scholarly tome Media At War: Radio’s Challenge to the Newspapers – 1929-1934. It’s enough to make you cry “Rupert.”
Jackaway writes, and Shafer quotes:
“Radio journalists, they (newspaper people) warned, posed a threat to the journalistic ideals of objectivity, the social ideals of public service, the capitalist ideals of property rights, and the political ideals of democracy.”
American media history is quite different from the European experience. Broadcasting in the United States was always a commercial venture, competing not just for hearts and minds but, also, money. Broadcasting in Europe was – largely – State controlled (Spain being the exception) well into the 1980’s. European newspapers enjoyed and supported the rather bland offerings of State radio and TV and the population kept buying the more interesting newspapers.
Some State broadcasters morphed into “public service” broadcasters with a token bit of independence. Newspapers publishers generally stayed neutral, playing their formidable political hand to relegate commercial broadcasting to the fringes. This is, after all, only about the money.
That has changed as the more independent (and well funded) public broadcasters turned out to be pretty smart cookies when it came to technologies. And now newspaper publishers have turned on those less than boring public broadcasters for exploiting the internet, which – being buried in money - they didn’t see coming
Radio did not kill newspapers, nor did television nor will the internet. Who will they blame next? (JMH)
Rise in BBC whinging reported
excruciating
Twice in one day (August 3) the British daily newspaper The Guardian posted articles critical of the BBC. One was about expenses; the very name evokes madness after British Members of Parliament were discovered building moats around their castles at taxpayer expense. The other not so subtly suggested some sort of wrong-doing in the firing of a reality TV contestant.
It is correct to be suspicious of articles in newspapers about competing media. Newspaper people haven’t gotten over the invention of television, much less radio, and are apoplectic on the subject of the Web. And – on the subject of the BBC – politicians are always available for suitable comment.
It seems the BBC has been spending a few quid (about £90,000) on accommodations and entertaining at the annual MipTV and Mipcom shows in Cannes. First class stuff, it was. Local newspaper writers and editors seem loath to accept that the BBC isn’t exactly in the same league as other taxpayer funded institutions, which may explain why so many newspapers want to become taxpayer funded institutions. Anyway, other newspaper people – think Mr. Murdoch – spend £90,000 on lunch.
Having been to MipTV a few times you learn that, for example, getting Michael Eisner’s attention is expensive. When the scale of expectation requires that kind of relationship either you play on that field or not. Leaders in any economic sector must, indeed, lead. And sometimes that’s expensive. The Guardian article did obliquely suggest expenses like the MipTV accommodations may have contributed to a financial return more than 100 times bigger.
The BBC is increasingly being forced to explain in excruciating detail every expense – for fiscal responsibility – and every decision – for political correctness. All of that is fair game since it is, in fact, publicly funded. However, the BBC is a rare and unique institution, which does not at all absolve it from constructive criticism. (See example here)
Few nations can boast of as many “national champions” in the media world as Britain. Its newspapers are world class. Commercial broadcaster ITV is world class. The BBC, though, is a class above. Cutting it down to size seems to be a national sport. Perhaps these whingers could be forced to sit through a few hours of lesser television. (JMH)
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