When I spent all of my time at university pestering my mate Paul about how brill Macs were I had absolutely no idea it would drive him to this….
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And so begins the Google backlash…
Ben Hammersley uses a piece in The Guardian to kick off the end of the media's love-in with Google. Have Google done anything wrong? No. On the other hand Yahoo! have certainly turned things around quite dramatically and compared to MSN's continuously dismal efforts they seem to be getting value for money with their investments in search.
There is a sense of inevitability to this Google backlash. Having ridden the hype curve Google had to come down. Yahoo! have been there, done that and now they are quietly delivering… rather well it seems.
What is important to note is that from everything I can see Yahoo! and Google are fundamentally different companies. Ignoring the search, context-sensitive advertising and two Os in their name and what do I see? Google is focussed on providing simple, easy, powerful access to other people's data. Yahoo! is still hell bent on producing and delivering content. As we read all those years ago, Yahoo! really do want to be a media company. Google is a tech company through and through.
So why is Yahoo! piling dollars into better search? Without a decent search it can't keep drawing consumers in front of its content, adverts and dating services. Google, relax – let Yahoo! do their thing we still love you.
UPDATE: Google fights back with Google Gulp!
UPDATE 2: John Naughton doubts Hammersley's logic…
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Suspect UK e-voting survey
I suppose beggars can't be choosers when a survey is reported as Brits voice fraud fears over high-tech voting but still I can't help but be suspicious when the results report that 51% of 'younger people' would vote if there was a dedicated website. What?
UPDATE: More coverage on Silicon.com
In other news the Electoral Commission have published their new code of conduct for candidates, canvassers and campaigners handling postal ballots. It's a long overdue process of stating the obvious but I'm afraid it's inevitably little more than a sticking plaster to the fundamental problems of postal voting.
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Long Tail TV
In exactly the same vein of a column I recently completed for LinuxUser, Wired magazine's editor Chris Anderson has put together an excellent post on why the TV business is in for a big change. Let's face it, the more we get used to downloading music etc the more not being able to watch video content when we want is going to grate. The technology (BitTorrent) is here – gimme gimme gimme!
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The Government Inspector
Just finished watching Channel 4's The Government Inspector which certainly left Gilligan, Campbell and Kelly all looking rather bad. Some answers were hinted at but many still seemed beyond the reach of the film-maker's apparently detailed research.
I couldn't help feeling as the film ended that I hadn't been given enough to explain why a man like Kelly would kill himself, if indeed he did. A number of family problems were alluded to but not detailed – perhaps that is where the missing pieces of the puzzle lie?
If you're not aware of it already, LibDem MP Richard Allan's blog is offering wonderful insights into what it's like to be inside the never ending votes on the government's ill-fated anti-terror bill. Add to your feed-readers today!
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Google News Customisation
Google News now how sports some interesting customisation features built in Dynamic HTML. Not only can you rearrange where blocks of news appear on your page but you can also add your own keyword driven news sections. Very interesting… It's My Yahoo all over again, but not, if you know what I mean!
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Japan revokes e-voting result
Whilst there are pushes for a national e-voting system in Japan, a recent court judgement has voided the result of a July 2003 city council election. This is one of the few times I can recall a result actually being declared void due to e-voting results. I'm glad to see the Japanese legal system going against a 'technology is always right' view.
UPDATE: The municipal authority in Japan have shelved e-voting for the next election
To the Science Museum's Wellcome Wing (quite an intriguing place) for the Local e-democracy National Project's launch event. Sounds grander than it was, though I must compliment their infinite supply of succulent canapes for keeping hunger at bay.
The minister responsible, Phil Hope, was admirably held up in Parliament so we nodded appreciatively before ODPM programme manager Julian Bowrey stepped in to kick start proceedings. We then enjoyed Councillor Mary Reid pragmatic views before Prof Stephen Coleman was wheeled in for a particularly rumbustious performance of generally positive thoughts on e-democracy.
Many of the usual suspects were present from Charbel Aoun and his Accenture e-democracy crew (who helped to build the excellent new edemocracy.gov.uk, a great new resource) to Chris Quigley's Delib team and Tom Steinberg, beaming like a proud new dad over MySociety's rosy babies.
All in all more a social catch-up then a major thought-provoker but pleasant all the same.
UPDATE: More on Coleman's energetic speech…
Just posted over on the VoxPolitics blog…
As previously reported one of the most exciting local e-democracy pilots are local issues forums seeded by Steven Clift based on his experiences in Minnesota.
The Brighton & Hove Issues Forum has only just launched but already there's been a huge array of participants who, by discussing council actions, have homed in on the issue of consultations.
For residents of the city consultations are often the only way they feel they can take part in how things are run. Many feel the council doesn't do a good job of telling people about consultations, a few do. Most agree that the council generally ignores or misconstrues the submissions to consultation exercises, continuing regardless with its plans rendering consultations pointless wastes of taxpayer funds. There's disillusionment in the air.
At all levels of government I think we have huge problems with expectations management and misplaced assumptions. Government assumes that citizens understand that consultations occur several times during the creation and implementation of a policy. For example consultations could occur once during policy formulation, a couple of times during the legislative drafting process and one or more times during the implementation process. By assuming that citizens understand where a specific consultation fits in the policy to legislation life-cycle government fails to see the need to seriously manage expectations.
For citizens, most of whom rarely hear of consultations, any consultation on an issue close to their hearts is seen as the 'last chance saloon' engendering final ditch efforts. Rallying cries are sent out and the legions of supporters are assembled. An overwhelmingly clear response is sent to the government in the citizen activists' minds. Then they are 'betrayed' by government going ahead with the policy as planned or with only 'token' changes. The activists are disgusted and either give up or move onto another issue.
What happens?
Well if a consultation is about implementation stage issues then it's inevitable that the policy will go into force – citizens need to be clearly told this to avoid disappointment. When legislation is being drafted or a local plan is being developed ministers, officers and councillors need to take numerous factors into account: treaty commitments, legal restrictions, resource limitations, diplomatic sensitivities, national security, party political pressures, corporate interests and citizen views. This is a difficult, nay virtually impossible, balancing act which can never satisfy all stakeholders fully. Can outcomes swing too much in one side's favour too often? Of course, and bias should be challenged but there's a reason why most academics model these kinds of decisions as black boxes: They are unknowable human processes where a single citizen's submission to a consultation is unlikely to be the deciding factor. Communicating the scale of the balancing act a politician has to undertake would undoubtedly help create understanding amongst citizens.
If citizen's are told that a consultation is only about a certain stage in a process which must be weighed up against competing factors then their expectations are managed. Consultation participants wouldn't assume that consultations are effectively a referendum on an issue and so disillusionment would hopefully be avoided. This isn't a call for ignoring consultation responses, it's a call for honest and clear communication. Something I think this Internet doo-hickey could possibly help with.
Jason Kitcat 