Wow January went fast, welcome again to a monthly overview of the key digital media stories that you may have missed.
Why are pirates called pirates? Because they argh
The SOPA bill was opposed in force by major US websites including Wikipedia, Google, CraigsList, Reddit, and Mozilla. US visitors to the Google site on the 18th of Jan were greeted with a blacked out Google logo.
Wikipedia which usually receives 100 million unique visits a day displayed the following message:-“imagine a world without free knowledge”.
So what is SOPA? SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. It’s a proposed bill that aims to crack down on copyright infringement, by restricting access to sites that host pirated content. SOPA’s main targets are rogue overseas sites such as Pirate Bay. The bills goal is to cut off pirate sites U.S traffic by obliging US search engines, ad networks and even hosting networks to withhold their services.
Kim DotCom
Recent US piracy focus has been on Kim Dot Com and Mega Uploads illegal video streaming empire. If you haven’t read up on Kim Dot Com I would recommend this article. If Kim DotCom is convicted of hosting illegal content he could face up to 50 years in prison.
The Social Media Juggernaut+
Google released a master plan for integrating Google+ in Google search. Google has strap lined the search update “Google + Your World”. Starting 10th January, Google+ members were able to search the broader web and integrate their own social graph. To put this simply this will mean that Google+ circles, photos, posts and more will be integrated into search.
However, delivering information that is shared even if it only between a small group of people, could raise privacy issues. To counteract this, Google search across your world only works if you are signed in to Google+ and searching on Google’s secure search.
Facebook IPO
As Facebook prepared for an IPO of its stock which values the business at $100 billion, a number of Facebook staff are in line to be become overnight millionaires. One graffiti artist David Choe took shares in the company instead of cash for painting the interior of the first ever Facebook HQ and he could see his 0.25% share in the business worth $200 million when the company floats. See the full story here
#SuperBowl & social media command centre
The Super Bowl host city Indianapolis, has concocted a new way to deal with the madness that comes with managing the world’s biggest annual event. The solution is the first-ever social media command centre – a team of techies, analysts and strategists will monitor the online social buzz from a 2,800 square foot space. The social media team will also be tasked with answering thousands of queries through Facebook and Twitter
The last few weeks in the office have been filled with the chatter of ‘Pinterest’. So what is Pinterest and why are we excited about it? The best way that I can describe Pinterest is when you are browsing online and see something that you don’t want to forget, you can ‘pin it’. This will save it to your virtual pin board which is a creative board of your interests. Pinterest’s goal is to connect everyone in the world through ‘things’ they find interesting.
Sky to offer BBC iPlayer
Up to five million Sky customers will be able to catch up on BBC programs later this year when iPlayer is made available on the Sky Anytime+ service. However, what Sky didn’t mention is that Sky Anytime+ is only available for customers that have both Sky and a Sky Broadband package.
Finally every month we like to highlight an interesting campaign.
This month we wanted to showcase Cancer Research UK’s SunSmart campaign – “R UV Ugly”. The aim of the campaign was to educate young people about the dangers of using Sunbeds. Users can opt in through Facebook to receive a free voucher for a skin scan worth £25. Anyone that opts in is encouraged to share the campaign with friends. What is interesting about the campaign is that it has received a 50% share rate through mobile.
Until next month……