BPN 1611: Dutch Book publisher VBK independent again

The Dutch book publisher Veen Bosch & Keunig (VBK) will be split off the holding company NDC/VBK per November 1, 2012. The company will become the largest independent publishing company of general books in the Netherlands. The company has been bought by the management, interested employees, while the ING Bank has taken a minority share. VBK had been put on the market since March of this year.

The move is the logical consequence of the decision made by NDC/VBK to split up the company in three independent activities: daily newspapers, house-to-house newspapers and books.  The decision meant to be the end of a dream. NDC has been a rich publishing company in the North of the Netherlands. In 2001 NDC bought the book publishers VBK. Due to the economic dip first the newspapers experienced acquisition problems with advertisements and the book publishers with the sales of books.

In 2007 the newspaper and book holding NDC/VBK bought the educational publishing company Thieme Meulenhoff from PCM and combined it with its own educational division, Veen Bosch & Keuning-educational. The new combination had 400 employees and an annual turn-over 100 million euro.The move to make VBK independent will most likely have consequences for Thieme Meulenhoff.
 

Per September 1, 2012 VBK has sold eBook.nl to ePagine. This Belgian company will take a majority in the company, while VBK will keep a minority share. VBK had already concluded that the retail activities did not fit with the VBK publishing activities, despite the fact that eBook.nl has a market share of 10 per cent of Dutch language eBook sales. ePagine is already some years active in the eBook segment and cooperated with eBook.nl. ePagine is part of Tite Live, a company with a turn-over of 10 million euro and about 100 employees.

BPN 1610: Social media not history proof

The history of digital media (mind you not digitised media like e-books) has been the subject of many a posting on this blog. There are several posting complaining about the lack of heritage of digital content and installations. Hardware is being saved on a regular basis, but not so with content related artefacts such as e-mail correspondence, databases, sites and these days blogs, Facebook messages and tweets. This week I saw support from an unexpected source.

My dear friend Andy Carvin (see photograph) drew my attention with a Facebook message to a study of Hany SalahEldeen and Michael Nelson at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who checked to see how much of the material of the Arab spring was still alive and quantified the material or what was left of it. And the result was startling. In fact they demonstrated that history is vanishing from the web, especially as recorded by social media such as Twitter. The statement is proven by a study on the Egyptian uprising and other world events. The researchers claim that 30 per cent of the recorded history shared over social media has disappeared. The study was highlighted in a recent post by the Physics arXiv blog.

The uprising in Egypt started on 25 January 2011 that eventually led to the overthrow of the country’s president and the first free elections. In this uprising social media were paramount in organising protests and spreading news.

By now curators have finally started to store the calls for protest and news items. Not surprisingly, a significant proportion of the websites that this social media points to has disappeared. And the same pattern occurs for other culturally significant events, such as the swine flu virus outbreak, Michael Jackson's death and the Syrian uprising. In other words, history, as recorded by social media, is slowly leaking away.

 

SalahEldeen and Nelson looked at six significant world events between June 2009 and March 2012. They checked the tweets about the events and looked for URLs they pointed to, to see whether the content was still available on the web in its original form or in an archived form.

And yes, they found an almost linear relationship between time and the percentage lost.  No less than 11 per cent of the social media content had disappeared within a year and 27 per cent within 2 years. Projecting these results to important daily social events, SalahEldeen and Nelson say the world loses 0.02 per cent of social media material every day. You can wave this percentage away and point at the many irrelevant gs, messages, tweets and retweets, but it also means 0,02 per cent of the relevant social material. These can total up to 30 per cent of the recorded history shared over social media

It’s not clear from the research why the missing information disappeared, but it’s likely that in many cases blogs have simply shut down or moved, or news stories have been archived by providers who charge for access (something that many newspapers and other media outlets do to generate revenue).

 

Although the Virginia researchers didn’t deal with the cause of disappearance as part of their study, a related problem is that much of the content that gets distributed through Twitter—not just websites that are linked to in Twitter posts, but the content of the posts themselves—is difficult and/or expensive to get to. Twitter’s search is notoriously unreliable for anything older than about a week, and access to the complete archive of your tweets is provided only to those who can make a special case for needing it, such as my friend Andy Carvin of National Public Radio (who is writing a book about the way he chronicled the Arab Spring revolutions). Recently an external service called Gnip provides access to the full archive of Twitter content,  which it provides to companies for a fee. And Twitter-based search-and-discovery engine Topsy also has an archive. But neither can be easily linked to for research or historical archiving purposes. The Library of Congress also has an archive of Twitter’s content, but it isn’t easily accessible, and it’s not clear whether new content is being added.

Besides not carefully curating digital content in practice, digital media producers and consumers show any interest in saving digital artefacts. Recently my business partner Hans Sleurink pointed me to an analysis of Neil Postman in his book Technopoly. He is convinced that technology has served human values throughout several historical development stages. But in the 20e century technology has become so dominant that a reversal has taken place. Technology increasingly determines what human values are instead of supporting. In other words: the printing press brought democracy; internet brings ubiquity, but per se not respect, as signs and bracelets bearing the message of respect spring up all over.

BPN 1609: One Dutch freesheet in the future

Last week the Telegraaf Media Group (TMG) announced the acquisition the freesheet Metro. TMG  already owns the freesheet, Sp!ts, since the launch of Metro in The Netherlands on June 21, 1999. TMG claims to keep both freesheets alive.

Why Metro was sold
Metro Holland had a turn-over in 2011 of 23.4mln euro. Its EBIT in 2011 was 451,000 euro (2%), a sharp decline as in 2010 Metro Holland still recorded an EBIT of 3.6mln euro (15%). The present goodwill of the brand is 3.6mln. This decline is due to the dip in the advertisements, which is being felt by all Dutch newspapers, paid or free. Besides the freesheet market has reached its saturation in The Netherlands.
Another reason for selling off the Dutch Metro is the strategy by Metro worldwide to sell off in the European titles and invest in Latin America, where the freesheet market is still growing. Editions have been launched in Guatemala, in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, while an  edition in Argentina is being planned.

Is TMG allowed to buy the Dutch Metro

The Dutch Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) has not yet been asked to look at the acquisition. It looks like the TMG did its homework. If both companies have a turn-over of more than  30 mln euro, the companies should inform the NMa. Both companies should have more than 113.450.000 euro in turn overs, before they are obliged to inform the NMa. The turn-over of the Dutch Metro had only been 23,4mln euro in 2011, so the NMa does not need to be informed so far, unless the turn-over of 2012 is dramatically higher.

Two freesheet titles in one company
There are few newspaper publishing companies in The Netherlands who liked to acquire a freesheet. The Belgian/Dutch Pressgroup already indicated not to be interested in freesheets. They had their try in 2008 with the launch of De Dag. Wegener terminated the freesheet De Pers in March of this year after failing to get sufficient advertisement volume. So why should TMG acquire  the Dutch Metro and keep both titles alive?
TMG immediately stated, that Metro would stay as an independent title. In fact one of the TMG managers stated that the differences between Metro and Sp!ts would increase. The advantages of the acquisition would be in the common printing, distribution and sales of advertisement.  And as TMG is the only one in the freesheet market, it can up the prices of the advertisements, the management stated.

Just a question of time

The arguments by TMG to acquire Metro sound reasonable, but are just cosmetic. If TMG wanted to create a difference between its own freesheet Sp!ts and another freesheet, it should have acquired De Pers; it probably would have been cheaper than Metro. Sp!ts is a throwaway freesheet, while De Pers had content. Now TMG has two throwaway freesheets, of which Sp!ts is the stronger brand. It will just be a question of time that TMG will kill one of the freesheets as both will go for the same advertisements and the editorial content will hardly differ.

IMHO, before 2015, Metro will be killed off and Sp!ts will survive as the only Dutch freesheet as there are not enough advertisements budgets with the ad companies and not enough budget for two editorial staffs of throwaway freesheets.

1608: Buyers shares World Online compensated after 12 years

It took ten years to reach a settlement and one-and-a-half year to pay out, but finally the buyers of shares in World Online (WOL) will be paid out 47 euro per share, this includes the original buying price and rent.

The IPO of WOL is still the example of the Dutch internet hypes of the turn of the century. The Dutch railways which had provided her with an existing network, the broadcast company TROS and the telecom company Telfort invested large sums of money in the company. The company should eventually become the largest internet provider of Europe.   ABN AMRO Bank was the advisor to the company together with Goldman Sachs.

Buyers of World Online shares at the launch on March 17, 2000 get finally 110 per cent back for the shares bought at 43 euro per share at the launch. On March 17, 2000 the shares rose to 50 euro per share, but at the end of the day the shares were worth 43,20 euro per share. And five days later the shares went down to under 30 euro per share.

The downfall was due to the news that the founder and chairperson of WOL Nina Brink had sold her shares for 6 dollar a share (roughly 5 euro at that time).  Despite the knowledge of the launching banks this fact was not clearly mentioned in the portfolio by the banks Goldman Sachs and ABN AMRO. Some 150.000 buyers of shares lost  3 billion euro, according to the Dutch Investors Association.

Half a year after the IPO WOL was acquired by the Italian provider Tiscali for a meagre 5,9 billion euro, while the company was worth 12 billion on the day of the introduction.

(© 2000 Bert Driessen) The settlement and final payment will end a long trail of court cases and negotiations. In 2007 the association already received a favourite ruling, but it was not considered good enough. By November 2009 the banks ABN AMRO (the launching unit is now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Goldman Sachs admitted that they had given a too prosperous picture of the value of WOL and settled.

In 2010 a settlement of 11 million euro was reached for the 12.000 investors who started a class action led by the Dutch Inventors Association. Another 5.000 investors were represented by the Consumer Claim. 

Much to the chagrin of the investors, Nina Brink is no partner in the settlement. The banks were held responsible for the lack of essential information about the shares sold by Nina Brink.

BPN 1607: 25 years ago Apple missed the web with HyperCard

This month it is 25 years ago that Apple presented the Hypercard program at MacWorld Expo in Boston. On August 11, 1987 Danny Goodman wrote: It is not a database, but an informational browsing tool. But the magazine Der Spiegel concluded after 25 years with the present knowledge, that Apple almost had invented the web, but missed it because of two mistakes.

The Hypercard program was the first software program, which linked text, image and sound to each other. At once there were links, searching in full text and interaction. This does not sound exciting in our days, but the browser with the HyperText Make-up Language (HTML) still had to be developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990.

That the Hypercard program was unique was clear from the start. The concepts of Hypertext and Hypermedia were floating around in the academic world and in multimedia production. Ted Nelson formulated those concepts in 1963, having attempted to build a computer network and simple user interface in 1960. Apple, however, considered the Hypercard program as a closed, offline database. The software developers still missed the split between data storage and data representation and consequently the turn to web software. As Apple asked $ 400 for the production software, the program did not get a wide circulation.

However HyperText did get a uniquely creative stimulus. In combination with the recently launched information carrier CD- ROM HyperText was considered to be a new publication medium. A stream of content products started to show with as first product Whole Earth Catalog, a production containing 2500 articles, 4000 photographs, 2000 text fragments and 500 sounds fragments including birds’ sounds. The brothers Rand and Robyn Miller published the adventurous productions of The Manhole en Cosmic Osmo. In the game Myst videos in the Quicktime format were incorporated for the first time.

HyperText appeared to be a unique solution for the German pastor Hanns-Johann Ehlen for the use in the Matthäus Evangelium. Since 1984 this priest was busy to digitise and analyse this text. By 1989 the first Hypercard Bible in the German language was ready. But the Hypercard was soon to be succeeded by the World Wide Web, as became clear when the Library of Congress moved its Hypertext presentation of the collection American Memory to the web.

Pearls of hypertext production beauties were manufactured by the Voyager Company in Los Angeles. In 1989 this production company published de CD Companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This recording of the Wiener Philharmonic got an interactive analysis thanks to Hypertext by the scientists Robert Winter. Users were able to follow bar by bar from the score. Besides users could look up information on the life and works of the composer Beethoven. More than 130.000 copies were sold of the CD-ROM. The quality of the production was so good that Peter Bogdanoff, programmer and designer of this CD-ROM, is still convinced that the immediate, interactive music/audio experience is impossible to achieve on the web.

(© Jak Boumans Collection)

The Beethoven CD-ROM did not just pop up. In 1984 Bob Stein his wife Aleen Stein bought the rights to two classic movies Citizen Kane en King Kong for $ 10.000 en started a multimedia production company. They started publishing the movies under the Criterion Collection label; later on, they focussed with the imprint Voyager Company on the possibilities of HyperCard for education.

But they went further in October 1991, when they started introducing the first Expanded Books, which were priced at $19.95 each: Alice in Wonderland with annotations of Martin Gardner, the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. In the Expanded Books it was easy to navigate, search and annotate. With dog’s ears a page could be marked for revisiting and fragments could be highlighted.

No less than 70 Expanded Book titles were published. Real top hits were A Hard Day’s Night, of which 100.000 copies were sold, Marvin Minsky’s Society of Minds (see photograph) and Who built America? As well as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. However in 1995 the Voyager adventure was over as well as the marriage of the Steins. In 2004 Apple removed the features about HyperText en Hypercard from the website. HyperCard had lost; the web browser had won.

BPN 1606: Thresholds on supply and demand of digital content

This is a summary of a Dutch study, published in June 2012 by SEO, a consultancy for economic research in Amsterdam, which analyses which factors may hinder the supply of and demand for digitally distributed music, audio-visual content, games and books in the Netherlands. The analysis includes economic, legal and technical factors. It takes two to tango: problems may arise on the supply side and on the demand side of the market. Additionally, the transaction itself may be problematic, due to the costs and safety risks associated with e-commerce.

This research was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation. A mix of research methods was used: literature review, in-depth interviews and an online survey of consumers.

The four sectors differ substantially in terms of digital distribution. The music industry has managed to offer a comprehensive supply of digital music, consisting of download and streaming services. The business case for streaming still has to prove successful in the long run. Apart from the major brands that offer a vast collection of music to mainstream consumers, there are also niche players that cater to specific genres. Suppliers of music have to negotiate with numerous parties to clear copyrights. This is a serious obstacle, but some (large) firms have succeeded. In the Netherlands 40% of music transactions is digital, but the digital share in revenues lags behind with 15%. The explanation might be that legal digital music stands out insufficiently compared to illegal sources and the physical product on those factors that matter most for consumers when they choose where to consume music: the convenience of the transaction, the price and the scope of the library of songs. Put differently, consumption of illegal offerings or physically distributed music may be preferred.

The supply of audio-visual content lags behind the music industry and is fragmented and incomplete. This report concludes that the industry’s strategy of windowing and the trouble of clearing rights are important determinants of that result. The market for digital AV is in its infancy, although Video on Demand shows strong growth. As long as the available libraries are relatively incomplete and slow in including new releases, this report expects the market for digital AV to lag behind.

Digital distribution of games does not meet serious obstacles. De digital market is almost as large as the offline market, and some games or add-ons are exclusively sold digitally. Consumers sometimes prefer the bricks-and-mortar store for the base level of a game, due to the large amount of data involved and the low price advantage of online offerings.

The market for e-books is almost a mirror image of the market for digital music: the supply of e-books in the Netherlands is low, while consumers seem to be willing to read electronically and experience a lack of titles. New releases are increasingly also published as e-book, albeit with some delay. The backlist – older titles that are not being marketed anymore – faces serious obstacles in digitization. The availability of titles from the backlist is poor. An important reason is the difficulty to find the relevant party to clear copyrights for older titles. The limited size of the Dutch speaking population is also a relevant obstacle. The digitization of a Dutch novel from the backlist will be less profitable than the digitization of a French or English novel.

Digital markets are dynamic and some of the issues raised in this report may become less important in the future. The music industry has succeeded in tackling issues that some years ago were considered as obstacles. Other industries have also managed to overcome potential problems associated to digital distribution and retailing. This suggests that the industry will also resolve the issues identified in this study.

BPN 1605: Software directories

The Dutch Softwaregids (software guide) exists 12,5 years. In September 1999 the Softwaregids started. From 1999 till 2001 the online guide was as a private initiative part of several websites within the VNU Portfolio. But after the bursting of the internet bubble the Softwaregids went on as an independent website and with success. Since its start in 1999 no less than 5.000 software companies have registered  over their 20.000 software products. Annually about 2 million searches are performed. Since 2010 the Softwaregids is multi lingual and active in Belgium and increasingly more software products are registered from abroad, which are not yet represented in The Netherlands.

The objectives have been unchanged since the start. Suppliers of business software can register their products for free. But they have to be validated regularly to guarantee being up to date. Visitors can also search the database for free  for functionality or for branch specificity. Filters can be applied such as price, OS, etc.

The Softwaregids has a history with VNU in internet, but it has even a longer history with VNU since the eighties. VNU is one of my former employers. In 1980 I worked for VNU database Publishing International B.V. (VNU DPI), based in Amsterdam. It was a greenhouse for electronic publishing within the division VNU Business Press Group (VNU BPG). This division was the owner of the weeklies Intermediair for college and university students and alumni, Computable, Textilia and PW (Human resources). Internationally, outside the Benelux, VNU BPG aimed at dominance in the domain of computing, these days called  ICT. One of their first bases abroad was London. English language computing titles were bought from Haymarket Group and a company set up in the heart of London. But as VNU BPL wanted to grow fast, it bought CUYB Ltd in Bournemouth, the publisher of computer year books with the original title Computer Users Year Book, a publication with hardware and software information. It was a profitable acquisition, but their production method was halfway between  the lead era and the photo typesetting.

At that time in 1981 I was asked to be a consultant to the project. With the experience of automation of production processes in reference works like encyclopaedias, this was a real challenge. So the company was moved to HQ in London, but the changing of the production method in order to produce printed reference works and online databases took more time. I was seconded to the London firm to accompany the change op process. But soon after my arrival I found out that there was a new publisher who brought his own advisor with him. He had knowledge of new software (Mapper) and this software had to do the job – without examples and shadow processing. As I could not accept such a situation, I accepted two other projects: a PC software directory and the bringing online of a daily newsletter, a blog avant la letter. The Computer Users Year Book project with Mapper failed badly (as expected). So VNU lost a year of revenues, except for the PC Software directory. However in the year after a new production method was found and the directories existed till the first decennium of 2000 era.

In the meantime the publishing company Tosco had started up the Dutch Software guide and started to collect, maintain, enrich the profiles and is now leading the market. The company has now the impressive database of profiles of 11.000 software companies, 26.000 contact persons and 30.000 software products.

Lesson of this story: small companies can do a specific job better. Congratulations to the Dutch Softwaregids.

BPN 1604: Dutch cross media on the mend again

In the past week the iMMovator Cross Media Monitor 2012 was presented. It is already the fourth edition of the biannual snap shot of the creative industries and ICT. The monitor is a co-production of iMMovator, Paul Rutten Research and TNO. This is my translation of the press release published by the 

foundation iMMovator Cross Media Network at Hilversum.

The stats

The Dutch cross media sector provided nearly 553 000 jobs in 2010 which is nearly 7 per cent of the Dutch employment. Cross media is the combination of creative industries and ICT segments. Of this 3.5 per cent accounts for the creative industry (over 280 thousand jobs) and 3.4 per cent for the ICT sector (over 272 000 jobs). The turn-over of the cross media sector accounted for  € 90 billion in 2010, of this amount € 32.8 billion is generated by the creative industry (2.9 per cent) and € 57.2 billion by ICT (5 per cent). In ICT more sales were generated with less people than in the creative industries.

Hesitant recovery

The number of jobs in the Dutch cross media industry has again increased slightly (0,5 per cent) between 2009 and 2011. The job reduction of the crisis year of 2009 has been brought to a standstill. Creative industry is growing again by 1.9 per cent, while ICT shows a slight decrease: -0.9 per cent. The sector has some difficult years ahead. The economic downturn will certainly be felt in the cyclical ICT segment. The cuts of the national government will hit the creative industries, particularly arts and cultural heritage as well as  media and entertainment. Arts will be less subsidised in the coming years. Also the public broadcasting system and its suppliers will feel the impact of government measures.

Need for co-operation between small creative businesses  

An important part of the growth in creative industries is attributable to the rise of self-employed entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs increase in number, while large firms are getting smaller. Downsizing is the key word in the creative industry more than in the rest of the industry. The creative industries have low entry barriers and is therefore open to new professionals. This creates the need for new forms of working together. In this way self-employed entrepreneurs and small businesses can compensate the lack of scale of large companies. This leads to inefficiencies within the creative industry. While the number of jobs in the creative industries is increasing, teh revenue declines. ICT sees the reverse effect, the number of jobs decreased while sales increases.

Amsterdam and Utrecht fastest growers in the media cluster

In The Netherlands there are two major cross media areas, called the Northern, ranging from Haarlem, Amsterdam, Almere, Hilversum, Amersfoort to Utrecht and the Southern wing, ranging Delft, The Hague, Rotterdam, Breda, Tilburg, Eindhoven to Den Bosch. The fastest growing concentration is in the Northern Wing. Amsterdam and Utrecht have generated the largest number of cross media jobs in the past years (2009 ttill2011).  Amsterdam had the largest  growth with over 7,500 new jobs in cross media (+5.6 percent)  in 2009 to 2011, while Utrecht had an increase of almost 3 thousand (+5.3 per cent) in the same period. Hilversum is a different story: the town lost nearly a thousand jobs (-3.6 per cent) over the past two years due to the decline in major media and entertainment industry. The media cluster in the Northern Wing of the Randstad is still an important engine of the Dutch economy. A strengthening of the cluster strategy is necessary, partly in view of the internationalization of the sector, which will intensify the competition. The clustering of cross media companies currently mainly provides efficiency, but must increasingly become a source of innovation.

BPN 1604

Non-commercial announcement

Call for Speakers for the 2012 Academic Network Conference:
The Social University – Towards Higher Education with Students as Producers!
22-23 November 2012
Graz, UNESCO City of Design, Austria
Full announcement: http://academics.eadim.org/

For more info: EADiM Secretariat

European Academy for Digital Media / Academic Network Conference
International Center for New Media / ICNM
Moosstrasse 43a, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Ms Lucie Jagu, Project Manager, jagu@icnm.net, T: +43 (0)662 630 408

BPN 1603: Digital antiques: growth brilliants?

On June 15, 2012 Sotheby auctioned off an Apple 1 computer, which had been manufactured by hand by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. It was one of 200 handmade devices and it took 295.000 euro. On November 23, 2010 an Apple 1 was sold for 157.000 euro by the auctioneers Christie’s in London. This device was bought by the Italian business man and collector Marco Boglione.  The device, number 82 out of the 2000 devices,  had been sold before on eBay in November 2009 for 37.500 euro.

The devices  are the first digital ones being brought to be auctioned off. The value is partly due to the brand name Apple. The difference in the prices they took is depended on the configuration. The Boglione computer is a simple mother board with a 6502-micoprocessor, a 4Kb RAM memory, an audiocassette-interface and the Integer basic programming language built into the ROM chip. The original sales price of the computer was $ 666,66 (487,76 euro). A key board and monitor still had to be linked up separately.

Why did the Sotheby’s Apple 1 computer fetch a better price.  Quality factors. History: 36 years since its production. Moment: the auction was held one-and-a-half year later. The configuration: this computer was still working and had a keyboard and monitor linked to the motherboard; besides if was offered with four manuals.

This rise of financial value might indicate the beginning of a new branch in the auction business: digital hardware. The Apple 1 is in 2012 only 36 years old. Antiques usually are 70 years of age. So this Apple is only just a little bit over half the antique deadline. Or is this trend going to follow the law of Moore. Next will be the Apple II.

Looking around in my museum the following devices, still dating back to last century, should be kept ready for auction:

-        Apple IIe (e being the European edition), 1980

-        NEC portable computer, 1982 (see illustration; © Jak Boumans Collectie)

-        Tandy Model 100, 1983

-        Speak & spell, 1983

-        ZX Spectrum, 1984

-        Commodore 64, 1984

-        Olivetti Quattro, 1987

-        Sony Datadiskman, first e-reader with several ebooks on minidisk, 1993

-        The Nokia brick or Nokia Communicator, 1995

-        HP PDA, 1996

-        Franklin Rocket eBook, 1997.

And these are just hardware devices, which will be up for auction some day. Interesting will be to see the first auction of a content product, such as content on floppy disc or CD-ROM. Of course the content products will be country and/or language related. In my museum I have a number of English and Dutch language CD-ROMs, which were produced as text products between 1985 and 1990.

Are the devices and content products value growth brilliants? I guess that the small overview above might become valuable over the years, if they survive. But a better option will be to get these devices and content products exhibited in an experience center for later generations.

BPN 1603

BPN 1602: Mobile in South East Asia

This morning I received a mail from my good friend Madanmohan Rao from India. This man is unbelievable. he thinks faster than the lightning of the light, he speaks faster than three people at the same time and he writes faster than the keyboard can follow. This man has produced again a report, named Mobile Monday Southeast Asia Research Report 2012. The accompanying press release reads:

"Southeast Asia has been a trade hub for thousands of years, and is a digital crossroads for Internet and mobile innovation now as well, according to our new research released today. The full report was presented to the media at the Mobile Monday Developer Lounge during the annual Communicasia conference and tradeshow. Titled “Crossroads of Innovation,” the 52 page document [PDF] showcases a wealth of detailed features including profiles of mobile markets and startups from across the region".

Overview: The focus of this report is on overall innovation ecosystems, which include a range of stakeholders: industry, entrepreneurs, government, academia and civil society. The report also addresses the crucial role of innovator networks and incubators, who truly make SE Asia a regional and global crossroads of innovation. Sustainability of the innovation ecosystem requires the right blend of bottom up entrepreneurial energy and top-down facilitation of investment policies and infrastructure. These roles are played by global+local networks of mobile startups and professionals, such as MobileMonday. MobileMonday has been active in Southeast Asia since 2006, with chapters in the capital cities of the six key mobile markets: Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok and Hanoi. “In sum, across the length and breadth of the mobile ecosystem, innovation will be needed in incremental as well as disruptive modes. Sustainability of the innovation ecosystem requires the right blend of bottom up entrepreneurial energy and top-down facilitation of investment policies and infrastructure,” according to Dr. Madanmohan Rao, research projects director for MobileMonday, and editor of the report. The material in this Mobile Southeast Asia Report is drawn from interviews with over two dozen digital media experts and organisers of the MobileMonday chapters, plus extensive research from books, journals, news, and market reports. This research joins our collection of regional reports, such as the popular Africa series, and we plan to continue these efforts focused on other areas in the future.

BPN 1602

BPN 1601: The Dutch are CHAMPIONS… in Internet access

Although there is a lot of doubt in the Netherlands about the national soccer team reaching the second stage of the European Soccer Championship, there is no doubt about the Dutch households being the champions in internet access with 94 per cent in 2011. That is one of the results published in the report ICT, knowledge and economy by the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics yesterday.

Of the 27 countries of the European Union almost 60 per cent of the Portugese households have access to internet. The average per centage of households linked to internet in the 27 countries in the European Union is 77 per cent.  The Dutch have been in the top of the European internet access for households for a long time. In 2005 it was with 78 per cent.  But while having most likely reached the ceiling of internet access, the use of internet is still growing.

Less than once a month

Minimally 1 a month, but not weekly

Minimally 1 a week, but not daily

Daily or almost everyday

In 2011 no less than 86 per cent of the Dutch internet users went online daily, while this was 68 per cent in 2005. Half of all internet users had in 2011 also access to the web by mobile equipment (laptop, smart phones and tablets); the youngsters between 12 and 25 have a mobile, fit for internet access, while only 13 per cent of seniors from 65 to 75 years of age have such a mobile.  

One of the most important internet activities of the Dutch internet consumers is communication. Almost nine out of ten internet users have searched for products and services. But 60 per cent of the users went to internet to use it for listening to the radio and watching TV. Almost two-thirds of the users were active on social media; not surprisingly 95 per cent of the youngsters were active on social media.

In 2011 the number of persons shopping on internet grew to 9,5 million. In Europe the Netherlands together with Sweden, Danmark and the UK belong to the countries having the most shoppers. The category Travel, Holidays and Accommodations are on top the list. Other products are clothing, event tickets and books. Second hand goods are popular but not as popular as new products. Four out of ten shoppers indicated that they spent 100 to 500 euro in the past three months; a quarter spent in the same period 50 to 100 euro on new products. The majority of the frequent e-shoppers bought goods from Dutch persons or companies in 2011.

BPN 1601

BPN 1600: Cyber poetry

Today the Dutch award for poetry will be handed out to Tonnus Oosterhoff. And this year it is going to be a special one, as it was awarded to moving poetry, according to the jury of the P.C. Hooft award 2012. The term moving poetry can be interpreted in this case as moving over a screen or cyber poetry. A look at his site of the poet makes things clear. It is not just a poet who delivers collections of poetry in print and uses internet as an extension for promotion. But the poet experiments with poetry on the screen.

His cyber poetry is interesting. Tonnus Oosterhoff does not just put up poetic text on the screen as was it a poetic micro blog, but he experiments with all kind of multimedia opportunities. The site only contains six poems and every poem is an experiment, using a voice, fading from black to white, handwriting, video, colours and spacing of text lines and words. Sometimes the multimedia assets have a content link; in one of his poems he talks about the morning and uses the black of the screen to go to very light grey, and in another poem he uses the percussions to the rhythm of the text.

In the Netherlands it has taken a long time for the computer to penetrate literature and certainly poetry. Certainly if you go back to the first introduction of the literature on computer by Michael Hart and his Gutenberg project in 1971. He started to type copyright free books and poetry collections, store them for consultation and reading on a dumb monitor.

A step further was taken by the Dutch-American professor Andries van Dam (Groningen, 1938), who coined the term e-book. His students at Brown University read poetry on a computer; not just a micro computer, but on a mini computer, most likely a PDP by Digital with dumb monitors. Van Dam was involved as an expert in a court case between the publishing company Random House vs Rosetta books on copyrights of printed books and electronic books : It is interesting that Van Dam indicates in the expert testimony that the eBook should have a dedicated storage and retrieval device: “In 1968, he (Alan Kay) articulated a new storage and retrieval device which he called the Dynabook. Kay envisioned that the Dynabook would be the size of a three-ring binder and would have a multipurpose screen that a consumer could use for both reading and writing. His vision of a Dynabook is seen by many as foreshadowing the first portable e-Book reading device and also served as a template for the personal computer.”

In his expert testimony he tells about the coinage of the word ‘e-Book’: “… by the late 1960s, computer manual for these systems, as well as other forms of technical and non-technical documentation, were store and could be retrieved and read on computer screens of various sizes and formats. Additionally,…,students in a section of a 1976 poetry at Brown University read poems and other critical materials on the computer, rather than on paper. It was after this class, in the late 1970s, that I coined the term “electronic book” from which the abbreviation eBook is derived.” This is an interesting statement. Students studied poetry from the screen. They performed actions like retrieving words, counting words and annotating poems.

It will undoubtedly a beautiful day for Tonnus Oosterhoff, receiving the award and 60.000 euro. It is also a nice thought that he follows in the steps of that other Dutchman, Andries van Dam, who let his students read poetry on screen.

BPN 1600

web roi

Non-commercial announcement

On April 28/29 at Bloomsbury in central London: two days of coding, creativity, challenges….and fun. The Spring Hackathon draweth near! (http://hackathoncentral.com/overview).

The focus will be “Apps for the High Street”, in which developers will compete and collaborate to build web and mobile apps for small high street businesses located in the London Borough of Islington. We’ve interviewed dozens of local SMEs and selected six candidates from a broad range of business types. Developers will be presented with six profiles of the SMEs and challenged to create apps tailor-made for the individual businesses. The profiles: http://hackathoncentral.com/overview/

We'e trying a new approach for this hackathon by offering the devs three routes to crafting their apps: Natively, via APIs or templates. Let's see how it works out. Developers may sign up on Lanyrd here: lanyrd.com/cgcrc

1599 Why I like Life Online

I became all exited when I discovered Life Online. I  discovered that it was a permanent gallery of the National New Media Museum, which is part of the National Media Museum in Bradford (UK). I did not know that it existed and did not know that the National Media Museum consists of: 
- the National Photography Collection;
- the National Cinematography Collection;
- the National Television Collection;
- the National New Media Collection.

I like that combination of collections in one museum. In the Netherlands we have two photo museums in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The Cinematography Museum has just openend with a beautiful designed building in Amsterdam. The National Television Museum is located in a beautiful building in Hilversum under the title Institute of Image and Sound; besides an experience center it is also an expertise centre for radio and television archives. And as we spend so much money on separate buildings, no more money is left for a New Media Experience in the Netherlands, certainly not in this economic dip.

In line with the publication of my book on Pre-internet history (Toen digitale media nog nieuw waren - Pre-internet in de polder (1967-1997)) I produced a presentation of a New Media Experience and Expertise Centre and called it Digiworld. Having seen the National New Media Collection, it gave me more inspiration and I will have to update the presentation.

I made some presentations to municipal institutes in Almere, my home town. The city is the latest new town in The Netherlands and belongs to the Northern New MediaWing, ranging from the cities of Haarlem, Amsterdam, Almere, Hilversum, Amersfoort and Utrecht. Almere is in need of a real attraction, according to Almere City Marketing; so why not a New Media Experience Centre and Expertise Centre.

Another venue in The Netherlands could be the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, started by Philips and recently bought for 450 million euro by a group of investors led by Marcel Boekhoorn. In this way a very innovative environment would be put into perspective by a New Media Experience Centre and Expertise Centre.



The story of the internet (1969-1983) in 6 YouTube instalments

Part 1 - The First Time Two Computers Were Ever Connected
Part 2 - Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn Invent Code of Internet (TCP explained)
Part 3 - Three Networks Connect for First Time
Part 4 - Vint Cerf on the Birth of the Internet in 1983
Part 5 - The Rise of the Network
Part 6 - The Impact of the Web for Life Online

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)