BitTorrent rules P2P
The peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol, BitTorrent, extended its dominance as the most popular file-sharing application for unauthorized content according to the report “Online Trends & Insights — 2008” from BayTSP.
“BitTorrent and eDonkey are optimized for large file distribution and, despite the growing popularity of streaming video, are still where the majority of copyright infringement takes place,” said BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. “The US, which topped the list of countries with the most infringements in 2007, dropped to No. 4 behind Spain, Italy and France.”
US Internet service providers Comcast, AT&T and Road Runner each had more than one million content infringements in 2008, while all of the top 10 international ISPs — including top ranked Telefonica De Espana (Spain), Telecom Italia (Italy) and France Telecom — had more than two million identified infringements each.
The average number of infringements found on US university networks has held relatively steady since 2006 and infringements found on international university networks have shown a slight decline from 2007. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Washington and Boston University topped the list of US infringements while University of Botswana, Uppsala University (Sweden) and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) topped the list of international infringements on university networks.
Great books reduced to Tweets
Tim Collins’ new publication, “The Little Book of Twitter” aims to give people all the information needed to get up to speed with the social network Twitter. Included in the book are topics such as the weirdest and wittiest Twitter feeds; the netiquette of Twitter; the best celebrity Tweeters; and, tweeting at work.
The book also highlights the pastime of reducing great literature to 140 characters or less. Consider these:
• Ulysses — jamesjoyce: Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He’s probably overtweeting.
• Pride and Prejudice — janeaustin: Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.
• Hamlet — Danish guy’s mum marries his murdered father’s brother. He sees his dad’s ghost. Everyone dies.
Get more summaries through http://m.twitter.com/TheLittleBookOf.
It could happen to you
Think cybercrime is a loss that happens to someone else? “H Commerce: The business of hacking you,” is a wake-up call for everyone. H Commerce, or Hacker Commerce, is defined as the business of making money through the illegal use of technology to compromise personal and business data. A new online series features victim Janella Spears, who lost more than $440,000 in a complex cyberscam over several months, and reveals the dire emotional and financial effects it had on her family and marriage. From this week, a new episode in the H Commerce series will be posted every two weeks at www.StopHCommerce.com until all six episodes have aired.
Sponsored by McAfee, “H Commerce: The business of hacking you,” exposes the relentless techniques used by international cybercriminals. People are inundated with suspicious e-mails and spam, but typically they view these as annoyances, not serious threats. The Web-based series was produced to make cybercrime real for people, and to help consumers understand why they need to take precautions. It’s an excellent effort.
BPM could do better
A Global 360 survey of 781 business, government and IT managers revealed that just 15 percent of respondents in organizations that have implemented Business Process Management (BPM) systems said that worker productivity increased more than 50 percent. In addition, 84.9 percent of workers who are end-users of BPM systems “often” or “occasionally” designed their own workarounds to their organization’s systems to get their work done. The survey also found that just 24.3 percent of users were “very involved” in process improvement and BPM system design.
According to Colin Teubner, Research Director at Global 360, the survey results highlight how pressure to quickly deploy BPM systems can leave gaps and inefficiencies, especially in end-user interfaces and applications. They also underscore that realizing the full potential of productivity gains from BPM systems requires involving end users more often in system design and spending more effort on end-user tools before systems are deployed.
Looking out for business
Rapid advancements in network surveillance technology are shifting the emphasis away from guns and guards and turning to security solutions for safety. According to new research from IDC, worldwide surveillance/monitoring camera shipments will grow from 9.3 million in 2007 to 26.5 million in 2013.
“Market changes are causing a major shift in the way organizations protect their business assets,” said Chris Chute, research manager, Worldwide Digital Imaging Solutions and Services at IDC. “Moving forward, security administrators will rely less on human observation to address their most critical security demands.”
In addition to protecting sensitive resources and property, companies are beginning to recognize how surveillance data can be used to improve and streamline a growing number of business processes. The retail industry has utilized video analytics to track customer flows through stores and used that information to adjust merchandise placement. The transportation industry can respond to traffic incidents in a more timely fashion, using the surveillance data to make fact-based decisions on future infrastructure initiatives.
Important findings from the Network Surveillance Market survey include:
• Captured and archived network surveillance content are expected to grow by 51.7 percent and 50.1 percent respectively in the next five years.
• Worldwide network surveillance camera shipments are expected to increase by an average of 45 percent yearly from 2009 to 2013.
• The growth of deployed cameras and content will drive the physical security information management software market to over $5.3 billion in 2013.
More analysis needed
In the final month of American Idol, Biz360 got it right, correctly predicting which contestants would be voted off the show. Their predictions were based on aggregates and analysis of social media conversations — including blogs, message boards, forums, micro-blogs, online news media and social networks.
But going into the finale, the American Idol competitors were within less than one percentage point of each other. Kris Allen had generated a slightly lower amount of social media coverage compared to Adam Lambert. He also, by a very narrow margin, generated a lower amount of “positive to neutral” conversation than Lambert. The company claimed that with less than one percent between the two contestants, an accurate statistical prediction was impossible due to the limitations of margin of error. Nonetheless, Biz360 predicted that Allen would be the contestant voted off the show.
“This was a phenomenally close race and a challenge to predict. For the last seven days Adam and Kris were generally tied in our social media monitoring. However, in the last 24 hours or so, Adam has pulled slightly ahead,” said Tamairah Boleyn, director of marketing at Biz360.
And they were wrong. Allen became the 2009 American Idol.
