Recently I have learned that the Jordanian Queen Rania has a YouTube channel.  You are welcome to check it out,  because it is rather interesting and is well done.

Officially the channel is dedicated to “breaking down stereotypes about the Arab and Muslim worlds and to bridging the East-West divide” and I am really curious how well it works from the queen’s point of view.  On the one hand, the comments on the channel page are not really constructive (to say the least).  On the other hand, I think that the content reflects a rather innovative approach to this sensitive topic and it is yet another example of different model for a leader communicating with her followers.  To a degree, it can be another chapter in my post about Obama not being the first leader to embrace the new media (Rania launched her channel about a year and a half ago).  I don’t mean this as a criticism of Obama.  On the contrary, I simply find this whole line of developments rather exciting.

The point of this post, however, is not just providing another example to the “Obama Effect“.  There was another something curious I’ve noticed while exploring Queen Rania’s channel.  It was actually about copyright…

My attention to the channel was brought by the Youtube channel of the Israeli TV Channel 2 (so many “channel” in one sentence :).  They aired a report about Rania winnig YouTube award for this inititiative and used her spoof of Letterman’s Top 10 while accepting the award at YouTube Live.  As I said, it was really well done and caught my attention, so I went on to check out the original.  I watched the same spoof again on the royal channel, but for some reason, not all the jokes worked for me.

Let’s see if you can spot the differences:

Here is the Channel 2 report (it is in Hebrew, but the actual video from Rania’s channel is English, so I think everybody can understand:

And here is the current version of the video on the official channel of Queen Rania:

If I watched it correctly, the scenes from Madonna’s clip and from 24 are now removed from the video.  I think particularly, the Madonna joke does not work without the visual.  My guess is that these scenes were removed due to the copyright rules YouTube are trying to enforce on the website.  I find it really fascinating.  It looks like even roaylties are subject to copyright wars.  I think it is interesting in itself.

I as really horrified to hear about the ongoing attack in Mumbai this evening.  Currently, there is still not much information about what is actually going on.  I truly hope that the situation will become clearer soon and the loos of human lives will stop.

In an attempt to fill the information vacuum about what is going on, I found myself switching between various website.  Veronica first noticed the report on Ynet (HE), then I checked NY Times, CNN, Washington Post, back to Ynet (HE), Haaretz (HE), BBC.  All the media seem to be rehearsing the same update about the estimated casualties, ongoing battles, hostages, and the fire.  Nevertheless, and this may sound crazy, I couldn’t help myself but noticing a number of media related phenomena.

The comment section on Ynet, included not just the expected emotional reactions, but also practical attempts to establish connection with people in India.  You may know that India is a popular destination for young Israelis who spend there extensive periods of time, usually before they embark on an academic journey.  So, among the comments to various reports about the attack, you could see people asking their friends and relatives to call back home and let them know that everything OK.  This is really interesting not only because the comment section is being reinvented for purposes initially not intended, but also because those who posted those comments, assumed that their friends/relatives in India will refer to the Hebrew online newspaper for information in such a critical time.

NY Times reported that a lot of information about the casualties and what is actually going on in Mumbai, is coming from blogs, Twitter, and other social media.  They mentioned (but not linked to) Noah Shachtman of Wired, who reported on the issue in their emergency blog (not sure how long this link will remain active).  Just a hint of where the journalists look for the information they later report in the mainstream outlets.  It also looks like the same pictures from the scene are circulating all over the cyberspace.

Finally, I briefly checked Facebook, and just a few hours after the the events began, there are 5 or 6 groups dedicated to the topic and a couple of them already have a few dozens participants.  Also, just a few hours after the attack search for “Mumbai terror” on Youtube returned almost 500 results and at least the entire first page seemed relevant.

I am not jumping on any conclusion, but I felt it is important to document those developments.  It got me thinking about (1) the grassroots use of MICT and (2) about the changing relationships between the grassroots content creators and the mainstream media in emergency situation like this.  The last thought was also fueled by a recent conversation with Grisha about his followup of the reports about a plane crush in Russia a few months ago.

If you have any thoughts on the topic, please share.  In the meantime, I hope the situation will get resolved with minimal further casualties.

It looks like these digests are not going to be any shorter.  So, I figured I may help you getting the most of them by adding easier navigation.  So, in this issue:

• Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations
• MICT regulation
• MICT business
• MICT and financial crisis
• OLPC
• Israeli election
• US election
• Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

It would be great if you told me if it works better!

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

“World Development Report 2009” (via Information Policy) - Some trends and numbers about global development; this time it focuses on three “dimensions”: density, distance, and division.

“Tomorrow’s Global Giants? Not the Usual Suspects” (via CommunicationsDirect) - An interesting analysis of global economic trends/interaction between the “developed” and the “developing” worlds.  You will need a subscription to access the full article (you can probably access it through your library).

“Market Share of Email Services on the Web” - This is really interesting - Yahoo is leading the market in terms of traffic on its webmail services, with LiveMail/Hotmail in the second place, and Gmail only in the third, significantly lagging behind.

“US Economy: 1920-2008 (Good Magazine)” - This is a visualization and I think its title speaks for itself.

MICT regulation

“Touré’s ITU still pushing for an Internet counter-revolution” - Milton Mueller’s response to to Hamadoun Ture’s speaking about internet governance at a recent ICANN meeting in Cairo - I would recommend reading both as reading just one will give only partial picture.

“Rethink of Universal Service Obligations/Funds” - An opinion piece calling to rethink allocation of public funds and basically the entire approach to support of universal access to telecom infrastructure .  In fact this issue is being opened to public discussion by the FCC these very days - “FCC Seeks Comment on Intercarrier Compensation and Universal Service Fund Reform” - this is your chance to provide input into the issues raised in the previous link.

“Congress to Push for Net Neutrality Legislation” - Something really interesting to watch closely.

“Larry Page and Kevin Martin talk white spaces” - Very interesting conversation.  If you are interested in this issue of white spaces, it can help you learning more about what it is about and what are the issues at stake.  In fact they are touching on some other points, such as net neutrality, as well. What also made it interesting to me is that the “digital divide” issue was implicitly there throughout the entire conversation.  Reserve about 25 minutes if you want to watch the entire video.

Here you can read more about white spaces in the Economist (via LIRNEasia).  On a relate note, I wonder if alternative approaches to connecting rural US, such as this - “IBM to bring broadband over power line to rural America” - will remain relevant.  What do you think?

“Microsoft’s lobbying tab dwarfs Google’s tally” - A Washington Post article about the lobbying efforts of both Google and Microsoft; very interesting and it made wonder if/how this will change with the new administration, which seems to come harder on the lobbyists.

“Structural telco changes are needed in the USA” - Some thoughts about what the US may want to do with its MICT infrastructure if it is to spend a few billions in the next few years on infrastructure projects.

“Argentine judge: Google, Yahoo must censor searches” - I wonder if this is going to be one of the first tests of the “Global Network Initiative“.

“A geriatric assault on Italy’s bloggers” (via A Blog Around The Clock) - The Italian government want bloggers and users of social networks to register with the state; I wonder how long it will take for some of the Israeli lawmakers to pick this idea up.

“In Conversation: Carol Weiss and Evert Lindquist on Policymaking and Research” (via LIRNEasia) - This is not directly related to MICT, but it is about the link between research and policy making.  This is a transcript of conversation with Carol Weiss and Evert Lindquist.  One of the interesting quotes of Carol Weiss from that conversation:

But by and large you don’t see so much direct influence on policy - at least not immediately. What happens more often is that a research project contributes to what I have called “enlightenment.” It punctures old myths, offers new perspectives, and changes the priority of issues.

MICT business

“Live Search Cashback” (via TechBlorge) - Another post about Microsoft paying users for using its search results.  Reading this kind of new now got me thinking…  Recently, Veronica showed me a resaerch article suggesting that people adjust their search patterns to match unsatisfactory research results and then see no difference between the “good” and the “bad” search engines.  Provided that the cash inscentive will be significant enough to overcome Google’s brand, this move can actually work for Microsoft.  What do you think?

“The Reality of Openness” - Google and Nokia are going open with the operating systems of their smart-phones.  Have no idea what it means in the long term, but this is an interesting development to notice.

MICT and financial crisis

“Economic Crisis Likely To Impact High-flying Cellphone Industry” - Another gloomy prospect on the industry, which is unfortunately also supported by new like this - “Nokia Cuts Q4 Outlook, Warns of Falling Industry-Wide Sales in 2009“.

“Google Analyst: ‘Worst Economic Environment In Our Collective Lifetimes’” - If Google is the current flagship of the industry, its stock price indicates that it is entering some stormy waters.  Reading that post though got me thinking that it would be really interesting to study the communication environment of business analysts - it is the second time in my conscious lifetime that they collectively get things wrong.

“The VC model is broken” (thanks to Norman) - Interesting and thought provoking post about some potentially fundamental misconceptions undermining the venture capital industry, which was traditionally an important vehicle of technological innovation.  Again, reading that piece got me thinking about the communication flow within that relatively closed community and how it can be part of the problem.

“Banks show confidence in solar” - Even though the model seems to be broken, it looks like thee is still money for alternative energy enterprises.

OLPC
“G1G1 page on Amazon” - The Give One Get One promotion is back and you can now purchase your own XO laptop and donate another one to a kid in developing country (or just donate one) through amazon.  I now actually own one of those and I have some reservations, compared to my enthusiasm before.   Nevertheless, if you have the extra money, I think this is a worthy cause.

In case you need some sentimental push, here is video from OLPC YouTube channel (via OLPC news):

“XO Laptop Give One Get One 2008 Buying Guide” - An attempt to explain what you can and what you cannot expect from the laptop if you decide to get (and give) one.

“G1G1 2008: From Give to Get in less than a day!” - In case you were concerned with the previously poor execution of G1G1 promotion, it seems that this time it is going smoother.

“Media Companies Help Promote Laptop Project” - Kind of a project status update published in NY Times.

Finally, if you are up for a challenge - “Create a G1G1 commercial and win a national TV spot!”

Israeli election

“Israeli Candidate Borrows a (Web) Page From Obama” (via pustovek) - A NY Times article confirming my previous observation about the similarities between the new Likud online platform and that of Obama campaign.

“Israel got its own Sarah Palin” (RU) - I have mentioned in one of my previous posts that Miri Regev, a former IDF spokeswoman joined the Likud party; a few days ago I heard her speaking and told Veronica that Regev looks like an Israeli version of Sarah Palin; the next day I saw that blog post from Grisha confirming my observation.

US election
(probably should be changed to “US politics” now, don’t you think?)

“Barack Obama drops Twitter but keeps donation emails coming” - People start asking question about the future of internet based, direct communication with the people in the new administration.

“For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All” (via TechBlorge) -A description of information you will have to disclose if you were trying to get a job in the new government.  Reading this I had a mixed feeling.  On the one hand, it seems pretty invasive (you need to disclose basically all your online activities).  On the other, it is really thorough, particularly trying to vet out potential conflicts of interests.  I wonder what would happen to the Israeli public sector if they would apply something like that :)

“First 100 Days” (via FlowingData) - A nice interactive visualization of the first 100 days of various US presidents.

“Obama Headlines” (via FlowingData) - Another cool interactive visualization of newspapers featuring Obama.  Not so much about politics, but an interesting thing to play with.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

“The Internet enters the final frontier” - Sounds futuristic, but interesting.

“Monty Python channel on YouTube” (via VentureBeat) - Looks promising, take a peek…

In the beginning of November, when millions of US citizens were electing their leadership, Israelis were remembering the murder of one of its leaders, Itzhak Rabin, 13 years ago.  In one of the official events commemorating that day, Rabin’s grandson was quoted saying that Israel should “stop compromising on the quality of its leaders”.  I have no idea what else he was saying, as it was not reported in the media, but that was one powerful quote, which I tend to agree with.  Unfortunately, none of the potential Prime Ministers (PMs) in the current race has the star-quality image of a leader (HE).  Yet they all are going to try prove me (and the Israeli voters) wrong, at least rhetorically.

On the right.

In the meantime, the “business is as usual”, as suggested by an old Hebrew saying.  It seems that Likud, is continuing gaining momentum as more an more “stars” are coming back to the party or are joining it for the first time.  In a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, it looks as if they smell that Likud is going to reign and everybody now wants a piece of that power.  Perhaps this movement becomes more obvious as it starts attracting criticism from the media (HE) and also from within the party (HE).

Michael Eitan, one of the current Likud MKs (who has been pretty good about maintaining online presence already for a while and is very much involved in technology related issues) had a very sarcastic post on his blog (HE) complaining about lack of media attention to devoted Likudniks, while the newcomers and returners are getting all the air time (so needed in the primaries). Same sentiment was heard prior to the assembly of the party (HE1, HE2) to approve changes in its constitution to accommodate the newcomers and set the deadline for primaries (HE).  The internally-generated criticism in Likud is particularly interesting, because it helps illustrating how unnatural the migration to the party seems even to its members and to what extend it is all about power grab.  For those who paid attention, this may remind what happened to Kadima when it was established and it was clear that it is heading towards a swiping victory.  Everybody likes being on the winning side.

Yet, the “noise” does not seem to bother Netanyahu, who continues his efforts to assemble “stars” and recently was even spotted trying to recruit people from the traditionally-liberal celebrity scene of Tel-Aviv (HE).  This happens at the same time as he is trying to recruit a former Chief of General Staff, Moshe Ya’alon, who was also offered to head the new right wing party (HE1, HE2).  On the flip side, Uzi Landau, another prominent figure in the Israeli right shifted even more to the right and moved from Likud to Yisrael Beiteinu (HE) thus further blurring the distinction between the two parties.

On the left.

While the carnival of new-old faces in Likud continues, Avoda seems to slowly sink into a chasm (HE1, HE2, HE3).  On the one hand, people who could potentially uplift the public face of the party and signal the so needed change, are leaving.  Ami Ayalon, has recently announced that he is leaving Avoda and is looking for an alternative on the left side of political map (HE1, HE2, HE3).  On the other hand, the party demonstrates that it is true to the “good old” rules of “political kitchen” where deals are being “cooked” and places on the ballot are being saved for the veteran politicians based on really unclear and not transparent criteria.  The latest stunning example was reserving a spot on the ballot for Fouad Ben Eliezer who is a veteran politician, but does not have an outstanding record of parliamentary activity or an electoral appeal, which would somehow justify such a decision (HE).  The only concern though, is for Avoda to receive enough votes that Ben Eliezer would make it to Knesset even with the reserved spot on the ballot. The party is being criticized on any possible grounds starting from loosing its ideological grounds (HE) to the way its internal politics is done (HE).  Avoda may currently be the best example to why it is so difficult to initiate change in Israel through the traditional political system.  The apparatus is so convoluted and is dense, that people with their best intentions at the beginning of their way are getting lost as they fight to climb the party ladder.  It is hard to see the next leader coming from Avoda at this point.

Identifying the vacuum on the left side of the political map (HE), a new left movement has been recently launched (HE).  It is based on a series of famous names in the Israeli cultural spheres (such as Amos Oz) and former politicians, and as of now it backs Meretz, which is trying really hard to reinvent itself (HE).  They lost a lot of their leading role as a social-democratic party in the last decade, and decline of Avoda seems like a good opportunity for their comeback.  Unfortunately, Meretz has a label of being too far to the left to actually lead political processes in Israel.  I remember in the past reading somebody calling them an eternal opposition party, which cannot shad off the opposition mentality, even when they are in the coalition.  Even if currently Meretz is on the rise, it is going to be too busy rebuilding and reinventing itself, to take a leadership role in this election cycle.

Elsewhere

Other parties do not seem to make any outstanding steps either.  Shas has declared about the beginning of their campaign aiming for 18 seats in the Knesset and the Ministry of Education (HE).  With all the tolerance in the world, I don’t think the latter is a good idea for Israel regardless of ones political affiliation or worldview.  Besides, all this happens when in the background more of people affiliated with Shas are going to jail for corruption allegations (HE).

And there is of course Kadima, which still seems to struggle for its identity, which to a degree reflects kind of identity crisis within the Israeli society itself (HE).  For some reason, Olmert, facing with corruption allegations, decided that in his last days he can say things he could not as long as he hoped to continue in politics.  It reminds the last days of Bush before the electio in the US, when he was eager to leave a positive historical mark (such as pushing for whatever results in the talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as long as those could be presented as results).  This definitely hurts Livni, who is being aggressively portrayed by Likud as ultra-leftist.

As if adding to Livni’s “leftist” trouble, one of Kadima MKs announced on leaving the party declaring that Livni is too far to the left (HE).  Frankly, I have not heard about this MK before, neither have people who commented on the news item about his announcement.  Nevertheless, he did manage to further harm the centrist image of Kadima.

And if that was not enough, the gender issue starts coming out more aggressively.  In Jerusalem, Kadima ads with Livni’s portrait were removed in order “not to harm the feelings of the religious community” by showing a female face in public (HE).  I am not sure I have colloquial vocabulary to react to this.  Even if Livni is the only new leadership-face in the Israeli politics in this election, this environment isn’t really welcoming her.

Closing comment on leadership

So what is the bottom line for now?  I think it is rather gloomy.  The current picture is of the Israeli political scene being busy with its own survival (as usual) instead of thinking about the larger national and regional goals.  In this environment, which is on one hand caught in old-fashioned, bureaucratic party regimes and on the other is driven by a celebrity approach to individual politicians, it is really difficult for a new kind of leadership to emerge.  If you want to make it though you have to be both, a celebrity and a party go-getter, which leaves little to no space for vision or sincere conversation between the public and the political apparatus.  There are talks about need of changes in the government system (HE), and there were attempts to do that in the past, but none of the new ideas will be tried in the three months before the election and I am sceptical that this topic will even constitute a debate item for the running parties.

Maybe I am setting the the hopes/expectations too high, but right now it seems that the chances of change in this elections are small.  It looks like the Israeli public is going to compromise on leadership again.

I truly hope I will not fall a victim of phishing because so far I find those attempts amusing.  I wrote in the past about personalized phishing attempts using an identity of local Ithaca Bank.  This time, I would like to share quickly an attempt disguised as my previous university - Ben Gurion University.  Here is the text:

Attention:Ben-Gurion University Email User

WE are upgrading our database storage facility without shutting down the old Server(KolMann017) to a new and better Server(MaryAnn176), hence the reason for the request and notification.

We apologize for any inconvenience this will cause our respected email users.

You are to fill the details below to enable us upgrade and verify from the old server.

It is secure and safe and you can change your information
72 hours after you receive email from us of confirmation.

FILL THE DETAILS BELOW OR ANYWHERE IN THE MAIL

Username        :

Password        :

Address          :

Department     :

Attention!!! Account owner that does not update his or her account within a given period of time after receiving this Notification will make most of our services to you inactive.

Thank you for using Ben-Gurion University Email.

Notification Code:BC1G43TRJ

Sarah Olmert
HelpDesk
Ben-Gurion University

It came from @bgu.ac.il account and looks pretty legit untill you reach the request for your username and password.  However the most amuzing part is the signature.  Mybe it was not intentional, but Sarah, is the name of Netanyahu’s wife and she became kind of a folk figure during his PMship (lots of comedians probably made fortune from mimiking jokes about her).  And Olmert is the family name of the current Israeli PM who is facing corruption alligations.  Those crooks got some sense of humor :)