Web 3.0: the shopping centre web

If Web 2.0 was the two-way, user generated, cool internet, Web 3.0 will be the era of post-search rationalisation. The shopping centre web. The big brands are taking over.

It may not be cool, but it’s the way it’s going. And it’s the web we made ourselves.

Move to a new town, as I recently did, and the internet is a lifeline. The Yellow Pages makes excellent packing material, but it’s no match for a good web-search when it comes to sourcing local tradespeople, shops and services. But as search engines and web users mature, the realistic options narrow.

Think about it: Google can give you 100 pages of results on a particular query, but how often do you look beyond the first couple of answers?

Take Domino’s Pizza. The US bread-food merchant this week celebrates 10 years of flogging calorific loveliness over the web. It’s the undisputed grandaddy of ubiquitous fast food delivery, with 583 stores within these shores alone. It works because it’s simple – you can order from just about anywhere in the UK, and get a product of known quality delivered in roughly the same time. It may not be the best pizza in the land, and it’s certainly not the cheapest. But it’s the easy option, and you know exactly what you’re going to get.

Domino’s has the marketing clout to ensure it’s the first answer you see, via paid-for search ads and organic results. And, well, sheer size. And it has the infrastructure to add in all manner of payment and ordering technology to make it even easier to be lazy.

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So when I, ravenous after a day shifting furniture in an as-yet strange town, fancied a rabidly unhealthy snack, you know where I shopped. (Clue: it wasn’t a specialist local retailer that required a modicum of web research or – heaven forfend – a phonecall.)

The nature of search technology and even social media means that the winners on the internet get bigger by the day. Talk to any successful website owner, and they can tell you all the clever things they did to make it. Ask them to repeat the trick today, and they’ll struggle. Being good isn’t now enough on its own to get you internet success.

The cost of entry to the market (a website) is miniscule, but to get genuine traffic (top answers on Google, Bing) you need to be the very first, the very best or the very biggest (with the deepest pockets). Even using social media to attract attention is much harder if you’re wee. You need scale. As time goes by this means that the big brands that can afford to pay for marketing will only get bigger.

The virtual land grab is almost over. But it’s not all bad. The frontier days of the web may be largely behind us. What remains is a more stable and secure environment in which to shop and commune. It just looks a bit like the high-street it replaced.

Windows 7: consumer heaven?

Kudos to Microsoft: Windows Vista is iconic. Even outside the confines of the tech ghetto, Vista is now a byword for failure, recently appearing as a punchline in Radio 4’s venerable News Quiz. Vista has arrived.

That level of public recognition is an achievement, and unfair. I mean it. Vista isn’t a bad piece of software. It isn’t.

But it didn’t match expectations – given the hype, how could it? And anyway, even if Vista had arrived fit for purpose, features and peripherals working seamlessly (and it palpably didn’t), there’d have still been disappointment. Because, in line with all other Windows OS releases, Vista’s system overhead is greater than its predecessors.

Think about it: if you bought the hype and purchased a Vista licence at launch, you’d have put it on to a machine used to running XP. The result of your investment – instantly slower PC. Slower, more expensive PC. Boo.

Even if you bought a brand new Vista computer, the chances are it would cost more and run more slowly than a similarly priced XP rig. No single feature in Vista made this a worthwhile proposition. (You’ve got to really love UAC to buy that deal.)

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Windows 7 changes this. In line with the current mania for less is more, Windows 7 is, in fact, easier on your PC than its predecessor was at launch. As processing power gets faster and cheaper year on year, this makes a Windows 7 PC a faster PC.

Consider it: the computer is now a consumer technology purchase. The majority of modern PC buyers are non-techies who require only web browsing, iTunes and productivity apps. They buy on price and looks, and they want their ‘pooter to, well, just work. Such users care little for underlying technology: speed counts. A lot.

Vista’s good name was battered by yer average punter trying it, finding it unfamiliar and slow, and slating it. Imagine then the PR effect of the reverse: a surprisingly fast, familiar OS. Could be that Windows is back.

Bonkers broadband and call centre hell

“If you know your account number, are calling from the moon, and can recite the words to the second verse of the national anthem, backwards, press 1. For all other enquiries, press 2, get a duvet and settle in for the duration.” Call. Centre. Hell.

I’m about to move house. Dutifully, I’ve given my phone, broadband and TV providers four weeks’ notice of this fact, in the hope of enjoying total connectivity from day one at the new country pile. Fat chance.

Although such mammoth lead time is sufficient to get a phoneline and satellite dish installed, broadband extracts a penance from its followers. Dare to disturb the pipe by moving house, and you can jolly well wait to read your email – £6 tax or no.

Why is it that migrating broadband, or even setting up a new account, is such a dark art in the UK? We are, after all, a small country with a large, tech-savvy population.

I’ll tell you why: the bonkers way digital Britain operates. Ironic, given the history.

In the 70s and 80s, global business eschewed this green isle because they tired of the inefficiency of UK infrastructure. Used to telecoms providers bending to their every whim, Japanese and US businesses didn’t see the joke when they rang the PO asking for a new phoneline to be installed, today, and met with only laughter as a response.

Privatisation followed, and the profit motive set to work. But the job was botched so that one private company (BT) owns, runs and maintains the infrastructure that its rivals (ISPs) must use. Like I said: bonkers.

As a consequence, it will take me a week at best to get a phoneline, and a further seven days before I’m online. Fair’s fair: a fortnight without broadband is irritating rather than catastrophic. I do have, after all, a smartphone and a 3G dongle.

But improving digital infrastructure requires not only faster web speeds, but a slimmer business model, more genuine competition, and much better hold music.

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Technology helps us cheat smarter, not harder

Today’s reports that almost two thirds of students copy work from the web fits nicely into the book of: ‘Well, yeah’. It was ever thus – only the means of cheating changes.

Apparently most students copy information from the web in their coursework, without changing it. I never did that. But then, when I was a student in the mid 90s, I very rarely accessed the internet. Even getting on a PC meant queuing up to get into the lab. Dangerously close to the bar.

As a student I once spent a night copying out an important essay from an obscure textbook, only to close the musty old tome and see my tutor’s face staring back at me from the back cover. D’oh.

Having tried to cheat my way around a tough assignment, I then re-wrote my opus, and found it much easier – even at 4am. I ended up with a first (for that particular piece of work).

In trying to cheat the system I’d absorbed all the information I was supposed to (as well as several packets of Pro Plus). Then with a few of my own opinions, I produced a solid piece of work.

Crucially, I also knew that my tutor would spot the plagiarism.

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If the means had existed to crib data directly from the web, I’m convinced I would have done so. But in order to get the right information, you have to know what you’re looking for. Cheating isn’t all that easy. At least, cheating in such a way you don’t get caught, isn’t.

And anyway, the modern workplace doesn’t require people to memorise and regurgitate facts. The ability to absorb information, select the relevant pieces and present a coherent whole is key. Indeed, not being able to crib data from the web would be a critical flaw for today’s school leavers. So the fact that 20 percent of surveyed students spend five hours a day online should be worrying to web laggards – not the digital natives. Trust me, being web savvy isn’t going to get any less useful any time soon.

Plagiarism is never going to be acceptable, but neither is examining students on only their ability to memorise. Ultimately, if students are daft enough to copy and paste someone else’s work without adding their own finishing touch, teachers should be bright enough to catch them out. Search technology can easily finger cheats, after all.

But there’s no point in getting hot and bothered about students copying from the web. It’s gonna happen. Just reward the ones who do it best. And remember: exams were much harder in my day, kids today have it easy and… er… bring back national service. Or something.

God bless ESD: get Windows 8 for just 1p

Picture the scene. October 2012, Moon Station 1: Steve Ballmer invites President Bill Gates on stage to launch Microsoft’s next-gen desktop and mobile OS: Windows 8 – available to loyalty card customers for just 1p.

Far-fetched? Yes. Possible? Certainly. (Apart from the President bit: Gates likes actual power too much.)

Eidos recently did a clever, thing. The games developer offered up the latest iteration of its flagship football management sim – Championship Manager 2010 – for as little as 1p. After paying a data fee for the download, the punter can pick his price (I’m not being sexist: it almost always is a he).

This is exciting if you’re looking to waste time while eating junk food. It’s also indicative of the changing face of the software industry. And the big winners are set to be you and me, dear reader.

First, some history. Championship Manager once was the dominant market leader, loved by millions of aspiring gaffers, detested by their spouses. Then a bunch of developers jumped ship to rival Football Manager, and Eidos spent several years shedding market share, crying all the way home from the bank.

By delivering the game as a download, Eidos incurs none of the costs associated with burning discs, printing artwork and shipping. If you pay only a penny, Eidos adds 1p to its bottom line. Software is, after all, just code, and ESD (electronic software distribution) changes the game. If you’re at all interested in football games, you’ve no excuse not to buy. You’ve certainly got no excuse to download a dodgy licence.

Despite Windows Vista’s lukewarm reception, market share isn’t a problem for Microsoft. Good will is. And the company desperately needs to ween Vista-scarred users off Windows XP and on to Windows 7.

That’s why there are so many ’special offers’ and multiple licence deals for Windows 7. Microsoft may not yet be prepared to drop the top-line price, but like a bottle of wine that’s permanently on offer, it’s happy to take a hit on profits to sell more. (Given that in a better world Win7 would be Vista called SP2, this is only fair.) Shop around for Windows 7.

Right now, Microsoft’s nervous about selling an operating system as a download: an insider told me recently that she didn’t think people would have the patience. The fact that 4 percent of PC Advisor readers are ALREADY using Windows 7 RC – available only as a download – should change its mind. Eventually. Mark my words.

Once you’ve built and sold a single software licence, selling the second one is, in essence, free. Market forces dictate downward pressure on prices. And as the cost of delivery drops, aggressive pricing and ESD help to combat piracy, too.

We may not see a 1p OS as soon as 2012, but the cost of keeping up with the Ballmers is going in only one direction – the right one.

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Does technology make us lonely? Anybody? Hello..?

Full disclosure: I am one of the 300,000 or so members of the PC Advisor forum (we’re bigger than Slough), so I’m an unlikely opponent of online social networks. Even so, I know this: in suggesting that social-networking websites undermine communities, Archbishop Vincent Nichols is talking out of his cassock.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales opined in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend that MySpace and Facebook lead young people to seek ‘transient’ friendships. He suggested that electronic communication makes ‘quantity’ more important than ‘quality’ in friendships. He even suggested that the relative weakness of such relationships was a factor in teenage suicides.

Is he right? (It’s possible: although unlike his boss he isn’t infallible.) Are we so reliant on email, SMS and web communities that we struggle to form and maintain actual friendships?

Clearly there is a modicum of truth in the Archbishop’s claim that social-networks commoditise relationships. I’ll accept any Facebook friend that I can even vaguely recollect from school, and you have to be called @spammer for me to block you from following my Twitter feed. I’m not going to lie: to a certain extent it’s a numbers game.

But I do also have, you know, friends. And family. And a wife. And I retain the ability to connect with them despite spending my working life staring at a computer screen.

And then there are the outer circle. If a casual friend from university gets married, I’ll see the photos on Facebook. Five years ago I wouldn’t have even known to send them a congratulatory message. It’s not deep friendship, but it is nice. And harmless.

If I happen to be in the home town I last lived in more than 10 years ago, there’s a much greater chance of me hooking up with an old face by putting up the bat signal via Twitter or Facebook than ever there was via phone call or letter. (Is this a bloke thing?)

My mum and dad see a lot more of their granddaughter because they have Skype and a webcam, and finding a trusted business contact is a lot easier via the implicit referral of a LinkedIn connection.

The point is that the Archbishop is right, but only half right. Electronic communication can never replace face to face contact. Nor should it. What it does is offer extra possibilities over and above the friendships you maintain with the people physically closest to you.

And occasionally, just occasionally, it offers something more. We have had at least one marriage with its roots in the PC Advisor forum. We’ve witnessed many more occasions were members have been down, alone and at the end of their tether, and have found plenty of people willing to rally round.

Relying solely on electronic communication for community would be plain wrong. But friendship is friendship, regardless of the medium.

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If Vista’s a fail, Windows 7 is a cash cow

I can’t lie, I’ve grown fond of Windows Vista. Like the perfect life partner it’s pretty, practical and mostly stable. Sure, it flakes out on occasion, but we all have our slow days, right? [Editor's note: get on with it.]

Nevertheless, in the final months of Windows Vista’s reign as the top dog at Microsoft, around 64 percent of PC Advisor readers are still running Windows XP on their PCs. Top dog? You lot think Vista is a hound. (Click here for the full PCA Windows stats.)

According to Windows user stats gathered from the 4,000 users of our free, online PC Performance Monitor tool, only around 34 percent of you are running Vista, with the remaining 2 percent already enjoying some variant of the Windows 7 Beta/Release Candidate.

Such stats may explain Microsoft’s keenness to get Windows 7 on to store shelves – nearly three years after Vista was finally completed, two-thirds of a group of passionate, educated and tech-savvy Windows users have remained faithful to XP. Worse, a small percentage prefer to use an operating system (OS) that remains in beta.

If Vista was a rip-roaring commercial success, Microsoft might still be about to release a new OS product – but I’d wager it’d be called ‘Vista SP3′. You don’t have to be a cynic to believe that this is exactly what Windows 7 represents (although it helps).

Windows Vista’s perceived failure is not due to it being an inherently bad piece of code. Vista’s unpopularity stems from the fact that it limped out late, on insufficiently specced PCs, missing promised features.

And once labelled a failure, Vista was condemned to remain thus.

So the Microsoft marketing machine is now offering creaking XP systems and self-loathing Vista users the chance to start again with a brand-new OS.

Here comes the irony bit: if Vista had been a success, there’d be no Windows 7 and no rush to buy it. Botching the Vista launch may have cost Microsoft dearly, but it’s set to reap the rewards now.

See also: Microsoft to KO Google in (Windows) 7

Rumour: Toshiba to launch Blu-ray player?

Massive HD-DVD backer Toshiba, one of the biggest losers in the nascent high-definition disc format wars, will produce and launch a Blu-ray player this year, according to reports in Japan.

After spending a fortune trying (and failing) to prop up HD-DVD as the high-definition disc choice du jour, Toshiba initially said it would concentrate its resources on existing DVD technology.

But this never seemed like a terribly long-term proposition, and now according to the Japanese magazine Yomiuri the tech giant wants a high-def disc player all of its own.

According to reports, the ‘Toshiba BD-18′ will be on sale in Japan in time for Christmas.

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Microsoft to KO Google in (Windows) 7

Microsoft versus Google is a matchup pleasing to pugilists. In the Redmond corner: a grizzled, bruised old champ, with just one fight left in him. And opposite? A confident young upstart, used only to winning big.

Ultimately, the youngster has to dethrone the champ, right? You’d think so, given the way that Google peacocks about the place, announcing products left, right and centre.

But there’s plenty more dog left in the Windows vendor. Indeed, Microsoft was recently unveiled as the UK’s top ‘super brand’, having the satisfaction of unseating Google in the process. That’s a subjective measure, of course, and in announcing Google Chrome OS, the search giant is bound to hurt Windows market share, right?

I’m not sure. Hype aside, Google has done nothing more than announce its intention to reskin Linux. And it hasn’t even done that yet. It’s interesting, but hardly disruptive.

And why should Microsoft care if Google wants the netbook space? It may be the fasted growing segment in the PC universe but netbooks account for only around 11 percent of the market. Google is coming from a standing start, too, so it’ll be a long while before Chrome appears in Microsoft’s rearview mirror.

In the meantime pre-sales of Windows 7 are going through the roof, Bing has overtaken Yahoo as Google’s biggest search rival (‘rival’ may be pushing it), and Microsoft’s upcoming Microsoft Office 2010 productivity suite will soon have a robust online version. Wither now, Google Docs?

Clearly the addition of Google Chrome OS to the less-than-competitive PC operating system market is A GOOD THING. We all benefit from greater choice, and Google has a happy history of making simple tools that work well and cost nothing. But beyond a bit of Apple-style Microsoft tail tweaking, the announcement of Chrome OS changes things very little. Do not believe the hype.

Unloved perhaps, but Microsoft is the champion, and will remain so for a while yet.

Two thirds of PC Advisor readers still use Windows XP

In the final months of Windows Vista’s reign as the top dog at Microsoft, around 64 percent of PC Advisor users are still running Windows XP on their PCs.

According to anonymous user stats gathered via our free online ‘PC Performance Monitor‘ tool, around 34 percent of PC Advisor users are running Windows Vista, with the remaining 2 percent already enjoying some variant of the Windows 7 Beta/RC.

Such stats may explain Microsoft’s keenness to get Windows 7 on to store shelves – nearly three years after Vista was completed, two thirds of PC Advisor’s tech-savvy users have remained with XP, and a small percentage prefer to use an upcoming OS that as yet remains in beta.

PC Performance Monitor enables PC Advisor readers to monitor system, process, and network performance while contributing to a global repository of information that yields an unprecedented, real-time image of Windows-based system performance and behaviour.

Visit www.pcadvisor.co.uk/pc-performance-monitor to find out more and sign up for free today.

Of the minority of PC Advisor users that have ‘upgraded’ to Windows Vista and continue to use the maligned OS, 75 percent have also updated their machine to Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1), while 19 percent have installed SP2. Of the majority Windows XP users, 57 percent have adopted Service Pack 3, while the rest are still on XP SP2.

In terms of hardware, nearly 7 percent of PC Advisor users are running with quad-core CPUs, while more than a quarter (26 percent) have more than 2GB of RAM installed.

Sixteen percent of PC Performance Monitor users have Dell PCs, with 8 percent using HP systems, followed by Packard Bell (7 percent), Acer (5 percent) and Toshiba (4 percent).

Interestingly, fully 52 percent of PC Advisor’s PC Performance Monitor user base is running an off-brand or custom/homebrew system.