Broadband – we could not live without it says Communications Consumer Panel research findings

Nearly three-quarters of people with broadband at home say that they couldn’t live without it and soon it will be essential for everyone, new research from the CCP (Communications Consumer Panel) has found.

The not online not included CCP Report report based on a survey of 2,000 adults identifies which services people use the internet for. 9 out of 10 (90%) internet users say that they use it for finding information, more than three-quarters use it for communications, 7 in 10 (71%) use it for transactions such as online banking and more than half (55%) use it for newer entertainment services such as downloading TV content.

In a significant comment Anna Bradley, CCP Panel Chair said:

“Government must make it clear what services and activities people will and will not be able to carry out with a download speed of 2Mb/s – and will need to keep this under review so that it does not become outmoded.”

The report is to be submitted to Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Review.

Source: The Hedon Blog

Other information: Communications Consumer Panel

Related blog post: Digital Britain – who pays?

Digital Britain – Who will pay for it!?

The Digital Britain Summit took place last Friday 17 April 2009 at the British Library. This conference was designed to discuss the emerging ‘digital revolution’ and to ensure that Britain is at the front of technological innovation. A key aim is to secure universal broadband access for all.

As the Digital Britain Forum blog reveals, the one day event could be followed online in a variety of ways i.e. Twitter updates, streaming video and photos on Flickr.

But how many people actually did follow the day’s proceedings? I suspect, for a significant majority of the population, the discussion has gone completely over their heads with ‘Twitter’ and ‘Flickr’ being largely unknown, because – whether you have a broadband connection or not – digital exclusion is currently the norm!

Unfortunately, I was doing much more mundane things on Friday and so missed the news about the event. I will search through the material, however, because I have been a long-time supporter of bringing the benefits of digital technology to ‘ordinary’ Joe and Joesephine public – not just as beneficiaries but as participants in the digital revolution.

However, one question that I feel has remained unanswered in all the geek-world hype, particularly in regard to super-fast broadband access for all: Who will pay for it?

South Korea is often cited by those who extol the virtues of super fast broadband – apparantly they have brought 100mb speeds to most of the population (whether they want it or not – equal opportunity to benefit is guaranteed) – however, that nation benefited from Government intervention to make that happen. Unfortunately there is no sign from Friday’s conference that the ‘credit crunched’ UK Government is going to embark upon such massive national public investment.

So who will lead Britain into the ’super’ digital age? BT (British Telecom)? Virgin Media? More to the point – which of these giants is willing to invest in the infrastructure to make it happen?

As I stated earlier… a key question remains unanswered: Who will pay to bring new fibre-to-the-home super-fast broadband whether on a national level, or here locally?

Perhaps the solution is bigger than the individual different commercial and political interests. We need to come to a community consensus about such things!? And perhaps this is the case locally too!?

Local consensus and partnership to achieve the common good? Hmm… sounds pretty radical to me!!

Surface: Grumpy old technologist signposts us to the future!

Colin Harrison is the ICT Champion for Yorkshire & the Humber. He brings together lots of essential, useful and interesting information via his Blog.

His latest post Am I a grumpy old technologist is no exception. In it he makes some comments about Twitter that readers might find agreeable – but more importantly he brings us information about Microsoft Surface.

Read and be thrilled and excited about Surface as Microsoft tries to out-do Apple!

Skype – Free computer to computer calls

Skype is free software that makes computer-to-computer phone calls possible. It is not the only VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol – for delivery of vocal communication) system out there, but it is the most well known and widely available.

You can use Skype as a chat facility, like you might do with MSN Messenger, but its real power is when it’s used for serious networking. It can enable free calls between members of the same organisation in different locations (including different countries), and also allow free communication between different organisations. Skype can also cater for calls to landlines at a cost.

It’s not just calls either – Skype can enable speedy transfer of large files between Skype users in manner that e-mail just can not achieve.

Skype, perhaps, is one of the solutions that will enable virtual networking to take place for those organisations that are prevented from meeting physically for whatever reason.

Try Skype out. You won’t be canceling your landline services in the short-term, but you just might save some money and network in a way that has not been previously possible.

Scribd – over 2,400 viewings of documents

This is the first in a series of articles about the services that operate behind the scenes on the BCN (Blackpool Community News) websites.  This series will look at Box.Net, Odiogo, Amazon Associates and WordPress services and those of TypePad. But we start by revisiting Scribd:

This website (and the BCN main website) first used Scribd back in July (2008). Since then over 50 BCN documents have been given the Scribd treatment and shared with a wider audience as iPaper documents. This has allowed us to offer a service to readers enabling them to view or download a document. There has been over 2,400 total views of documents shared by BCN on Scribd.  The single most popular document on BCN Scribd with nearly 200 views, is the Blackpool Local Area Agreement reproduced as an embedded document below. The same document can be viewed as a Scribd Document Page or as a Scribd Fullscreen Webpage document.

iPaper is a document format built for the Web. Virtually any document format can be converted to iPaper, which is embeddable into any website or blog (and just very recently into WordPress Blogs as well).

Above is the Control Panel for Scribd documents. The iPaper drop down menu gives you different publishing and viewing options (including viewing as a Book and as Slides). The – and + controls the zoom. You can view the page of your choice and can view single pages or all the pages. You can search the document. The final control allows you to view the document as a web page.

Important note: iPaper is built with Adobe Flash for creating animation and interactivity on websites. So if you can watch videos on YouTube, you won’t have any problems with iPaper. You must also have JavaScript enabled on your browser. If you can see the document below your browser is enabled.

You should see the embedded document here:

View this document on Scribd

Social Media Exchange Event

The Social Media Exchange is a series of masterclasses, discussion and debates to inspire  online collaboration and networking opportunities for 2009.

• Date: Monday 26 January 2009
• Time: 9am Registration. Prompt start 9.45am – 5pm
• Venue: The Resource Centre, Holloway Road, London N7 6PA

Part of the day will be dedicated to masterclasses on a range of topics related to social media. Participants will also get a hands-on opportunity to learn new skills from setting up a blog, creating a podcast, learning how to twitter etc

News from the Corridors of Power – through the power of WordPress

The UK Parliament Labs are developing the services they offer through customising their use of WordPress blogging software. This will make their news services more accessible – and more friendly – to use!

“WordPress is open source software that is free to use and customise. This is the first time Parliament has used the open source option. The main reasons for doing so are the ability to customise the look and functionality of WordPress easily, it’s economical, and inputting and publishing content is simple and fast. And it lets us provide RSS feeds. And unique, fairly friendly, URLs. Basically everything you’d expect from a website today.”

Parliament is not the first influential institution to use WordPress in the UK, indeed the Number 10 website uses it as well, but it will undoubtedly do a lot to promote WordPress and Free and Open Source Software across the UK – and the World!

Twitter – Getting started

It seems strange doing a blog post about Twitter (it ‘being the new blogging’) when Blackpool does not seem to have really got its head around the idea of blogging yet!? However (with thanks to Darren Rowse and TwiTip) – here we go……

Twitter is the ‘new’ blogging – albeit micro-blogging in 140 characters or less! But how do you open an account and get started? The following explains how to get up and running. For a print-ready version of these notes download Twitter – Open an Account from Scribd.

Step 1: Go to http://twitter.com.

When you get to Twitter.com, you’ll see this page:

Step 2: Click the Join the conversation! Green Box

Government seeks views on digital inclusion

The Yorkshire and Humberside Regional ICT Champion has reminded us that the Government is still seeking views on its ‘digital inclusion strategy‘

We have covered this earlier on BCN, but since then the government has adopted a more interactive method for views to be conveyed through online forums. You have to sign-up first.

Incidently the North West ICT Champion has recently been appointed. A warm welcome to Peter Dunn. We can expect to hear more from Peter in the New Year.

Virtual HQ opens – but aiming at real benefits!?

Civil Society IT magazine has reported that Diabetes UK has opened a new state-of-the-art building on ‘Manchester Island’ in virtual 3D world Second Life.

The charity has done this to raise awareness about the risks and seriousness of diabetes and to promote a healthier lifestyle in its new virtual shop that allow users of the virtual world to teleport themselves straight to the Diabetes UK HQ.

Second Life has over 15 million subscribers each of whom creates an Avatar (your own persona) and explores the virtual world created by other virtual residents. You can purchase virtulal land in a virtual economy using virtual money (with a real exchange rate based on the very real $US dollar).

Second Life got into the news recently due to the virtual infidelities of certain avatars leading to real life divorces. However bizarre that sounds, the publicity no doubt increased the interest in this cyber-world!

It will be interesting to chart the Diabetes UK virtual adventures – so if any readers who are members of Second Life would care to visit the charity’s new ‘HQ’ and write us a review – it will be reported faithfully on the website here.