Spending less, yet spending more

Ofcom has released its 2008 Communications Market Review.

Haven’t had the chance to plough through it yet, but the main headline seems to be that Brits are spending more time communicating, yet spending less money to do so.

These reports are fantastic data sources, so it’s worth spending some time and bandwidth downloading it.

Interestingly Ofcom are running a trial of an ‘experimental, interactive version’ of the report’s key points. In essence, it’s a ‘social text’ allowing users to place comments against each point in the document (like the one that DIUS are running).

I think it’s a good idea but they seem a little too cautious about the whole thing.

Have a look at comment.ofcom.org.uk/cmr08.

World e-Parliament Report 2008 Published

They say:

“The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Inter-Parliamentary Union launched today the World e-Parliament Report 2008. The Report was prepared as part of the work of the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament.

The  World e-Parliament Report 2008 represents the first effort to establish a baseline of how parliaments are using, or planning to use ICT to help them carry out their representative, lawmaking and oversight responsibilities and to connect to their constituencies. It is also intended to advance a shared knowledge base among the parliaments of the world and to promote international debate on these matters.

The Report is based on the responses and comments provided by 105 assemblies from around the world to a survey on the use of ICT in parliament conducted between July and November 2007. It also draws on experiences exchanged during the World e-Parliament Conference 2007 and relevant publicly available information”.

I say:

“An excellent and very important piece of research. Significant, because it covers all conceivable applications of ICT by parliaments across the world. Well done to Gherardo, Jeffrey and Jane for putting it together”.

The Report is available at www.ictparliament.org.

Source of wonder or consternation?

Information Architects Japan have produced a Beta map of the 300 most influential and successful websites and pinned them down to the greater Tokyo-area train map.

You can download the 2008 Web Trend Map at http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-2008-beta/#more-490.

Print it off, put it up on your bedroom wall. Laminate it and use it as a place mat. Last minute Valentines gift?

2008 – Getting the skinny

2007 was the year of the online petition.

Downing Street invited the great British public to create and sign petitions on its website. Millions duly did and what an ‘insight’ it was. The media lost interest after a couple of months, but in eDemocracy conferences it was impossible to escape ‘the great petition debate’.

The BBC had a go. They mobilised an e-petition as part of the ‘Free Alan Johnston’ campaign. They got about 200,000 signatures from all over the world.

And even burger punters, McDonalds, had a stab. ChangeTheDefinition.com invited us to help MaccyDees to pressure the UK’s dictionary houses into dropping or rewriting the definition of ‘McJob’, which is apparently not a word with positive connotations. They even had a ad up on the big flashy boards at Piccadilly Circus. Cheeky.

2007 was the year of the online petition. Gawd.