The Pope has launched his own Facebook application. Yes, that's right, Pope Bendict XVI can now be referred to as the Digital Pontiff, with the launch of Pope2You. Apart from sounding disconcertingly like a papal pizza delivery service, the new application is the latest in the Vatican's attempts to reach out to loyal Catholics around the world.

You know social networking has really come of age when the Establishment starts to get in on the act. First politicians and big business, and now this. To be fair to His Holiness, the Vatican has already made moves in the Web 2.0 space with the launch of a papal YouTube channel, and says this new app will allow users to receive messages from the Benedict XVI through "the most important social network of the world". Sneak wonders what MySpace will have to say about that judgement.

"You can meet the Pope on Facebook, listen to his words, see his pictures, receive his messages of congratulations through 'virtual postcards'," according to the Vatican. "The postcards can be sent to your 'friends' on Facebook and the application can be shared by anyone."

But that's not all, kids. Sneak has discovered that the Pope also has a nifty iPhone and iPod Touch application out, which will give fans, sorry, followers, accesss to video and audio news on the pontiff's trips and speeches, as well as news on global Catholic events.

And before you all mock this rather incongruous use of Web 2.0 technology, by one of the oldest institutions on the planet, according to reports, the Pope2You portal garnered 45,000 contacts and 500,000 page views on the first day alone.

May 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Twitter actually worth using as an information source? Two unrelated incidents today have pushed Sneak firmly into the "no" camp. While the micro-blogging phenomenon is a wonderful reminder that some people out there really have nothing better to do than let the world know what they had for lunch, its use for matters a little more serious remains dubious.

Take poor Patrick Swayze for instance. The Twittersphere was awash with speculation that the 56-year old Dirty Dancer had finally lost his battle with cancer. Until it emerged that he is actually alive and well and chill-axing at his massive ranch.

Then news emerged that there could be a General Election in a couple of months. According to TechCrunch, a new profile claiming to be that of chief Labour whip Nick Brown appeared this morning, posted the Tweet - "the new speaker will only have a few weeks to settle in before the election is called" - and then promptly deleted the account. Chances are it's a phoney too. There is a lot of noise on Twitter, in fact, it's really what the site is all about. This is what makes it curiously addictive and dangerously unreliable at the same time.

They say that 90 per cent of all information on the internet is factually inaccurate (although Sneak got that particular fact from the internet, so it may not be true). Well, on Twitter, you can probably push that up to 95. Less a fount of all knowledge then and more an unstoppable torrent of misinformation.

May 20, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The beleaguered entertainment industry has received another blow in its battle against the downloaders, as uber-cool music producer Danger Mouse has revealed plans to issue his latest album with a blank CD-R.

Due to a falling out with the suits at his record company, EMI, Danger Mouse (real name Brian Burton) will release his Dark Night of the Soul album with elaborate packaging, but will ask his fans to download the contents via the internet on to the included blank disc - and not by official sources either.

Young Mr Burton, who is half of Gnarls Barkley, has worked with Banksy and Damon Albarn (there is always room for one blip) and first won praise with his internet-only - and non-record company sanctioned - The Grey Album, a mashup of the Beatles and Jay Z. Now, following the EMI dispute, Danger Mouse says he "hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is".

The announcement is surely the sort of thing that sees record company execs remove their faces from mirrored surfaces and move at speed in the direction of high-storey windows. Just consider what the entertainment industry has to put up with already: early releases, forced preview downloads, DRM technology and unnecessary accompanying applications - and that's just the music biz.

Just last week, the UK creative industry stopped searching eBay for limited edition Nike trainers long enough to ask ISPs to step on prolific filesharers, while a study from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) revealed that one in four software installations in the UK was illegal.

Illegal software, the BSA warned, might not live up to your expectations and could leave you open to security issues - leaving Sneak wondering when they were going to start talking about how it differed from the official version in many cases.

While the above examples aren't quite as cool as Hip Hop industry spats, they still show just how concerned the 'biz' remains about pirates. Artists lowering a ladder for the miscreants to jump onboard ship isn't going to help anyone. Unless...

Sneak eagerly awaits the day that Celine Dion follows suit. Because surely a blank Ms Dion CD is the best Ms Dion CD.

May 18, 2009 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3)

In a bid to tempt the ladies to get all techie and buy a laptop, Dell launched a web site earlier this week aimed at women and called 'Della'.

The site is divided into just four areas (that's it, Dell, keep it nice and simple for the ladies): Products, Featured Artist, Tech Tips and Giving. Sneak's favourite area is the Tech Tips page, which until Wednesday this week featured 'Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life' and boasted the promise that once you get beyond their cuteness, you'll realise netbooks can do more than just check your email.

However, in response to feedback (no doubt of the negative kind in response to the previous patronising tone of the advice), Dell has now updated this section and reduced it to only five tips, along with a note explaining the changes: "Some of you have read this article over the last several days and will notice a few modifications. You spoke; we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback."

Luckily Sneak had already saved all the info from the original seven tips, and can safely say that while none of them were that 'unexpected', all fit the normal lazy stereotyping around women and technology. The original list featured ways to use your laptop as a calorie counter, recipe finder or meditation aid. The new tips still include an e-book reader (so you can catch up on the latest Mills & Boon or Jackie Collins blockbuster, no doubt) and a lifestyle organiser. But the reference to a 'Remember the Milk' time management application has now mysteriously disappeared.

The 'Stay in the clouds' section has also been wiped. This covered nothing too technical at first: "'Cloud computing' is a buzzword for what your mini does best: save money and time by using free online apps for everything you need - meaning you don't need to buy, install or update a bunch of space- and memory-hogging applications on your computer itself."

However, it then went on to reference streaming media, Google Docs, transferring data, porting it via removable SD cards or USB flash drives, and plugging in an external drive. Hopefully this section hasn't disappeared as readers complained it was too techie and complicated. Instead there is a much more basic 'Get more' tip, which encourages women to, "Add storage to your netbook with memory cards or memory keys".

Fortunately the Featured Artist area of the site still features Robyn Moreno, author of Practically Posh: The Smart Girls Guide to a Glam Life and producer for Plum TV in the Hamptons, no less. I'm not sure what she has to do with the Della web site or netbooks, but she seems to like eating and drinking wine, judging by the pictures on the site, so a perfect choice for selling netbooks to the ladies.

May 15, 2009 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3)

When Sneak normally attends IT conferences he finds himself usually surrounded by the old, the grey and the unwashed to sit through hour after hour of keynote from Vendor X and Service Provider Y about how great their technology is. It is tough going for your loyal reporter, but ultimately yields a fairly high story quota.

The Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead (or Newcastle, for you non-north-easterners) is a bit different. The opening session has borne witness to several visual treats, including a discussion about whether Christians are pro-cyborg or not, and the truly disturbing post-Partridge vision of a grown man miming along to Beatles songs while playing a large inflatable guitar.

Now back to the cyborg news. The debate, between social media entrepreneur Paul Miller and conference organiser Herb Kim, centred in all seriousness on whether us humans are all capable of taking control of technology, rather than the other way around. Now, 'the other way around', as any film buff knows, is likely to take the form of some kind of doomsday scenario as imagined by the creators of the Terminator franchise.

"There are many things that will happen, but they are not inevitable, and conflict is not inevitable either," argued Miller. Phew, good news. The last thing Sneak needs right now is a battle with our cyborg foes set to destroy mankind. I've got a bad back.

May 14, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to Graham Cluley, security bod and Sophos blogger, it isn't a very good idea to Tweet your porn star name.

Cluley has apparently noticed a trend of people tweeting their porn name - a combination of your pet's name and your mother's maiden name - or in this case - "the name of the first street you lived on" and has become rather concerned.

Porn star names might seem like good fun, but they lose their shine when you realise the security nightmare you are slowly twittering yourself into. Just think about it, how many times have you forgotten a log-in and had to respond to the prompt questions offered by your provider? And what is always the first question? Yup, "What is your pet's name?"

"A hacker could grab details like your pet's name to try and crack into your email account," Cluley warned. "Think that's unlikely? Well, the likes of Sarah Palin, Paris Hilton (Sneak always thought that was her porn star name) and Salma Hayek have all had their private email accounts broken into by hackers after they guessed their so-called 'secret answers'. In addition, just think of how many people use the name of their beloved pet labradoodle as their password for umpteen online accounts anyway!"

Of all the things that Sneak would like to do with a porn star, tweeting was the first one that he has had to Google. However he has heeded Cluley's advice and changed all his passwords. Again.

May 12, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Web users are desperately seeking the latest news on Swine Flu.

While Twitter shows through its Trendy Topics list that Swine Flu continues to dominate discussion on its micro-blogging site, Comscore published statistics that give more indication of the frenzy surrounding the illness.

The data revealed that 501,000 people conducted 929,000 searches relating to the swine flu outbreak during the week ending 26 April, representing a nearly twenty-fold increase since the previous week.

Of course, many savvy search marketers are capitalising on the opportunity to communicate with concerned consumers. For the week ending 26 April, Comscore observed 271 different advertisers with paid search inventory against these terms.

ITunes application developer IntuApps also cottoned on to the money that can be generated from consumer anxiety over the virus and submitted an application called Swine Flu Tracker to Apple, which will keep iPhone users up to date with the latest WHO threat level and breaking Swine Flu news.

Meanwhile analyst firm Gartner advised business users to act, rather than panic.

"Business continuity management and disaster recovery professionals and other stakeholders should use the widespread concern over the swine flu as an opportunity to prevent their businesses from becoming victims of uncertainty, panic, misinformation and a lack of preparedness to increase enterprise awareness of the potential business impact of a widespread outbreak of disease," said Richard De Lotto, Gartner principal research analyst.

Gartner said that businesses must implement business continuity plans because a true pandemic could cause absenteeism rates of 40 per cent, resulting in severe operational disruptions.

May 5, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)