Mediaboss Marketing

Blacked out ... a temporary shield was erected last year at a Christmas Island detention centre to prevent media from photographing detainees. Photo: James Brickwood

THE Immigration Department developed its new, highly restrictive policy on media visits to detention centres with reference to US military arrangements governing media access to the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention centre.

Documents released under freedom of information show the ''deed of agreement'' that Immigration insists journalists and media organisations visiting detention centres must sign was ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department also justified extremely tight media control and censorship to the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Access denied ... media have argued it was easier to visit Guantanamo Bay (pictured) than to gain access to an Australian immigration facility. Photo: Reuters

In an email to a reporter who was consulted on the policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, said, ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

The Greens' immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, said yesterday ''the idea that [media access] guidelines have, even in part, been inspired by Guantanamo Bay is absolutely appalling - it really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists.''

The policy requires that journalists visiting detention centres must be escorted at all times by Immigration officers. There is a bar on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor recordings, and the right for Immigration to immediately end any visit.

The chief executives of the largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media's Greg Hywood, News Ltd's Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks last month condemned the agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

View original post here:
Detention centre policy based on Guantanamo

By now you've heard that Yahoo has sued Facebook, alleging patent infringement. But just which pieces of intellectual property is Yahoo claiming Facebook ripped off?

Surely, you'd say, Yahoo doesn't claim that it invented the entire social networking model Facebook is based uponexcept it turns out that is almost exactly what Yahoo is claiming.

"Facebook's entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology," Yahoo claims in the lawsuit, filed yesterday in US District Court in Northern California. "Prior to adopting Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology in 2008, Facebook was considered one of the worst performing Internet sites for advertising. Facebook's use of that social networking model has reportedly dramatically driven up Facebook's advertising click through rates."

Nearly all the technology that makes Facebook successful is based on Yahoo patents, the company further states.

"For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first and was therefore granted patents by the United States Patent Office to protect those innovations. Yahoo!'s patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud, and privacy controls," Yahoo alleged in its court filing. "These innovations dramatically improve user experience, privacy, and security and enhance the ability of advertisers to connect with users."

What does Yahoo want? Money. Lots of money.

"Even if Facebook were to subsequently pay past due royalties, it would still enjoy a market share it has developed during its period of 'free riding' on Yahoo!'s intellectual property. Yahoo! would likewise lose its portion of the market share for this period. Due to the difficulty in predicting whether, if at all, such market share can be recovered, Yahoo!'s harm cannot be compensated by payment of past due royalties alone."

Yahoo doesn't specify a dollar amount. But whatever amount of damages the court sees fit to grant, Yahoo says those damages should be tripled "in view of the willful and deliberate nature of the infringement."

Yahoo is asserting ten patents against Facebook, divided into five categories: social networking, advertising, privacy, customization, and messaging. Facebook, by the way, apparently owns just 21 US patents, while Yahoo has more than 1,000.

Yahoo notified Facebook of the allegedly infringed patents on Feb. 27, and then filed suit after Facebook apparently refused to pay the licensing fees Yahoo demanded. Let's take a look at each of the ten patents being asserted against Facebook, organized by the category divisions used in Yahoo's lawsuit.

More:
Yahoo IP lawsuit: We patented "Facebook's entire social network model"

TAMPA, Fla. & LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Rounder, Inc. (Rounder or the Company) (Pink Sheets: RNDR) today announces a licensing agreement making available the creation of a 3D, user-based, online virtual world that will incorporate social interactions, poker, e-commerce/retail shopping, streaming entertainment, dating, couponing, real world social happenings, and news created on the Invicta Corridor Social Gaming Platform. Invicta is the brainchild of video game legend Jonathan Eubanks.

Rounder is taking the lead in designing the newest and most exciting gaming in virtual worlds (made so popular by Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA - News)) through global platforms, including Facebook, Google+, Apple iOS, and Google Android. Jonathan Eubanks has designed over 60 games working for some of the largest video game publishers in the industry, including Activision, Universal Interactive, Vivendi Universal Games, Warner Brothers Interactive, and Brash Entertainment. With the Invicta Corridor Social Gaming Platform Jonathan is fulfilling his lifelong dream of creating the ultimate virtual world experience a world in which Rounder World will exclusively represent the finest poker and entertainment experience available online.

The Invicta Corridor Social Gaming Platform is the very first 3D virtual world gaming platform to operate seamlessly on PCs, Mac computers and iPads, and has a version being developed for iPhones.

Rounder, Inc. also announces the expansion of its presence on Facebook with its improved fan page and direct link to the RounderLife.com online poker experience. Rounder continues to work with its current partner ZEN Entertainment to finalize development of its Facebook application to allow Rounder to directly interact within the Facebook platform.

Rounder, Inc. is a gaming company with a focus on social networking initiatives while preparing for the limitless opportunities expected upon the legalization of internet poker gambling.

Originally posted here:
Rounder, Inc. (RNDR) Announces Virtual World and Social Networking Strategy

BroadVision's Clearvale enterprise social networking software will now lets companies create networks on an ad hoc manner in which a mix of employees, partners and customers can participate.

Until now, the BroadVision software has allowed for the configuration of enterprise social networks devoted exclusively to employees, or to customers or partners, but the new capability to create "hybrid" networks will make the product more effective in improving business communication and collaboration, the company said on Tuesday.

The new capabilities are possible through features called Guest, Zones and Conduits. The Guest feature lets administrators add users to a network, but giving them more limited access to content and fewer permissions to perform certain actions, when compared with regular members of the network. Meanwhile, the Zones and Conduits features let administrators create collaborative workspaces that are, respectively, public or private.

BroadVision also added analytics features to Clearvale that are designed to not only measure and track usage of enterprise social networks, but also establish incentives for users to encourage their participation.

The Clearvale upgrade also includes an improved Task feature, integration with Microsoft SharePoint and an updated mobile application for iPhones and iPads.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

Excerpt from:
BroadVision Revamps Clearvale Enterprise Social Networking Software

With all the noise about social networking sites in the last several years, it's easy to forget that if you've got more to say than what can be expressed in 140 characters, or want to do more than post brief updates, your best bet is a blog.

There are a wealth of blogging services and software out there -- so which should you use? If you're a business or other professional organization, you probably want to use full-bore website building software that includes a blogging component. However, that type of software requires experience with server setups, HTML code and site management.

If you don't have that expertise, or want to spend your valuable time on creating content rather than wrangling with technical issues, you can opt for a service that hosts your blog for you -- for free. These hosted blogging services take care of all the nitty-gritty backend work, and allow you to focus on what's most important to you: The content of your blog.

They offer pre-built content management systems that make it easy to write, edit and manage blog posts, letting you decide whether to write using WYSIWIG editors or instead insert the code yourself. They also let you switch back and forth between the two when you want.

That's just the basics, though. Using a hosted service doesn't mean giving up power and features. They let you easily create polls and customized forms and integrate with social networking sites, and they offer considerable site management features, including tools for handling comments and automatically killing blog spam. They use sophisticated tools for tracking traffic, and let you dig deeply to find underlying patterns that may help you draw more visitors. And they have plenty of online help and community-based support when you run into problems, or need advice from others who have had the same issues that you have.

(For a review of microblogging sites that offer quick-and-dirty blogging tools with a strong social networking component, see our microblogger shootout.)

In this article, I examine two of the best-known hosted blogging services: Blogger and WordPress.

Blogger was one of the first blogging tools available. Launched back in 1999 by Pyra Labs, it was bought by Google in 2003 and has been considerably redesigned since.

More site-building and blogging tools

For more reviews of applications for building blogs and websites, check out these articles:

Continue reading here:
Blogging service shootout: Blogger vs. WordPress