BPN 1598 World's first permanent internet gallery

Life Online, the world's first permanent gallery dedicated to the social, technological and cultural impact of the internet and the web, opened at the National Media Museum in Bradford, UK last Thursday. The opening was embellished with a video interview with one of the “fathers of internet” Vint Cerf, in which he tells that he never believed the internet would be so popular when co-creating it back in 1973. "We predicted that there would be 256 networks, two per country, and then 16 million computers per nation," he said. "We ran out of that IPv4 32-bit address space in February 2011." The Life Online gallery is located in the National Media Museum and has cost £2 million.It will cover two spaces and is being managed by Tom Woolley, curator of new media for the National Media Museum.

This permanent gallery will trace the history of the internet, uncover how it has changed people's lives and track the latest trends. The gallery covers two spaces within the Museum. The first is a permanent exhibition in the foyer with the second being a changing temporary exhibition on Level 7.

The Museum foyer area will contain a permanent exhibition that will track the history of the internet, from the first experimental messages to the rise of modern social networking. A range of inspiring interactives and fun games will explore the story of the internet, whilst a timeline of objects will showcase the evolution of internet and computing technology. The foyer narrative will be divided into four areas:
In the Beginning - The Internet is Born. Starting in the world of private military and academic computer networking the first section of the gallery will highlight the key innovators who helped lay the foundations of the network and track the growth of the technical infrastructure that formed the internet. Find out who invented the internet and watch as it grows around the world.
Into the World - The Internet Goes Public. After the formation of the first computer networks, the second area of the gallery will explore the early days of online communities. From the first email, to the first home-grown virtual societies, the gallery will uncover the first forays into social networking. The section will conclude with the birth and impact of the World Wide Web. Build your own web page, take a trip in the web time machine and try to protect the internet against some of the world’s deadliest viruses.
Into Our Lives - The Internet and You. The birth of the web ushered in a new era of information sharing, online tools and opportunities that have made the internet an integral part of everyday life. Search engines, online business, personal privacy and the online communities that create the rich and dynamic culture of the modern internet will be explored. See if you’ve got what it takes to become a dot com millionaire, secure your online privacy and contribute your opinion to the gallery.
Into the Future - The Internet Evolves. The final part of the foyer gallery will track the latest internet trends and technology. Through partnership with industry and academia, new concepts, experiments and prototype devices will encourage the visitor to think about where the future of the net is heading. Contribute to digital artworks and see the latest experimental ideas from the digital world.

BPN 1597: Media Update Netherlands

Dutch online ad market: more than 1 billion euro
In 2011 the Dutch online advertisement market gained a turn-over of more than one billion euro for the first time. That is a growth of 12 per cent compared to 2010, according to the Interactive Advertisement Bureau Netherlands (IAB Netherlands). For 2012 it expects a growth of 7,7 per cent due to the economic crisis. For the increase of sold advertisement online the rise of automated trading is important. Advertisers automatically acquire space in places where people come with the most wanted profile. However most turn-over is being made on advertisements through search engines. There is hardly advertisement via websites on small screens or apps.

Online spending rose to 9 billion euro in 2011
The sale of products and services via internet rose to 8,89 billion euro in The Netherlands in 2011, a gain of 9 per cent. There were 900.000 users ordering through internet for the first time, raising the total of online buyers in The Netherlands to 10,5 million people (on a population of 16,5 million inhabitants). This announcement was made by the umbrella organisation Thuiswinkel.org in a new edition of the half year market monitor. Also the number of orders considerably rose with 13 per cent to a total of 89 million online orders. The largest segment remains travel (3,7 billion euro), followed by telecom (1,1 billion euro) and clothing (360 million euro).

Dutch surf volume increases substantially
The use of internet continues to grow in The Netherlands with no less than 18 per cent. Only a small part of the increase can be attributed to the increase of the new internet users; the increase is mainly accounted for by the time spent on internet by the existing users. In 2010 this was 8,3 hours a week, in 2011 time online rose to 9,8 hours a week. These figures come from the accessibility research Media Standard Survey by JIC, STIR, SKO, NLO and NOM. The researchers define 87 per cent of the surfers as people older than 13 years of age.

(These bullets have been translated from the Media Update Newsletter with permission of the publisher Media Update)

BPN 1596 De Pers stops

The Dutch freesheet De Pers will stop publication after five years by the end of March. The paper was appreciated as an originalquality paper. The Dutch market will be left with two throwaway freesheets: Metro and Sp!ts.

De Pers was started by the millionaire and only Dutch press baron after the Second World War Marcel Boekhoorn. He gained his fortune, amongst others, by buying the telecom company Telfort and selling it to the Dutch incumbent KPN. He was convinced on the basis of a business plan by the publisher Cornelis van den Berg, that the free newspaper would make other newspapers superfluous and upset the Dutch media landscape. Boekhoorn believed in the dream and pumped millions of euro in his dream.

When De Pers was launched on January 23, 2007 there were three free newspapers in the market: Metro and Sp!ts. Metro was started with the help of the Dutch railway company, while Sp!ts was the answer to Metro by the largest Dutch newspaper company De Telegraaf. Later the three were joined byDag, which was a lukewarm attempt by the ailing Perscombinatie (PCM) and did not see its first anniversary.

De Pers started to build up its circulation carefully, going from an urban distribution to a national distribution and from a six days in the week distribution to a five working days edition.

De Pers had a rough ride. It was praised by the readers as a quality paper, however the advising companies never really believed in it. The economic trend downwards since 2008 up to 2012 did not help. In 2009 the commercial exploitation was outsourced for 13 years to the Wegener company, specialised in regional newspapers, for a 16 million euro fee. For Wegener, De Pers was supposed to function as a magnet to attract national advertisements, which also would have an effect on the regional Wegener newspapers. Also the printing, distribution, IT and editorial staffs would cooperate with each other. But Wegener was in its own economic turmoil and did not make any hay on the advertisement market.

Wegener was unable to earn the 16 million euro fee and the turn over got stuck on only a few million euro. Wegener and Boekhoorn’s company Mountain Media have now agreed to stop De Pers. Wegener will pay 45 million euro to Mountain Media. This money will be used to buy off financial obligations against suppliers and 45 people editorial staff.

It is a pity that De Pers will disappear from the Dutch market due to the turmoil at Wegener. This morning De Pers published a press release, informing the market that De Pers is for sale. This operspective is not very encouraging, but the editorial staff could be an asset to an internet publication.

Recently the newspaper published a pdf with the best articles (in Dutch) of the past five years.

BPN 1596

BPN 1595 Elsevier bows for scientists

Elsevier has retracted its support for the Research Works Act, the US legal proposal which was to impede access to scientific publications. The publishing company does so after protests of almost 8000 scientists. They signed a petition on internet indicating that they would not cooperate with lsevier any longer in providing articles, editing and peer reviewing as long as Elsevier would support the Act and reduce the subscriptions. The massive boycott of the largest publisher of academic journals in the world was launched by a Cambridge, MA mathematician in a blog post and followed by several other blogs like Buziaulane.

Elsevier says in a statement on its site: “Elsevier is withdrawing support for the Research Work Act itself. We hope this will address some of the concerns expressed and help create a less heated and more productive climate for our ongoing discussions with research funders,”

Cameron Neylon analyses the retreat of Elsevier’s support for the RWA and sees this move as an important advantage for the Open Access movement. He concludes:
1. The bill is dead;
2. This is a backdown, not a change of heart;
3. Shifting from a negative campaign against something towards something positive will be hard.