By Josep Valor, IESE professor
The publishing merger between El País and Prisacom is, in part, a response to the drop in advertising revenues suffered by the press overall. Mostly, though, it demonstrates that on-line versions of newspapers are already competing elbow-to-elbow with their printed equivalents.


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Source: Red.es
Date: February 2009
Abstract: A useful tool, concise and clear. And especially timely in that it appears at a key moment in the evolution of the content industry toward the digital realm. A process that brings new opportunities to social projects and renewed business opportunities, though not without its share of major challenges. According to those involved, these include its clear international orientation, the preparing of professionals, and the uncertainty regarding business models. The publication's clarity can be appreciated from the outset: chapter one, which examines videogames among other topics, shows that Spain is Europe's fourth-leading  consumer of videogames and that the number of Spanish developers has gone from under a dozen in 1995 to about 100 at present, although these companies represent just 5% of the sector's total software sales. This section also highlights the particular growth of online gaming and the selection of Madrid as the site of a new headquarters for sector giant Electronic Arts. It includes various figures on the value chain for videogames and development costs, graphics on revenues both worldwide and in Europe, and lists of the top manufacturers and titles.

That same informative approach is used in the other chapters, which examine the topics of music, the audiovisual sector, radio, publications, advertising, movies and society on the Net. Each chapter includes a section on best practices used around the world and major current trends.

Available in both PDF and printed versions, it is an essential read for professionals involved with this activity that are interested in reflecting on their present situation and future prospects. That said, there is no last-minute addition on the foreseeable effects of the current economic crisis, which was already in full flight at the time of publication.

Full Story (spanish)

Study: Mobile 2009
Source: IDATE/Enter
Date: March 2009
Abstract: The fourth annual study by IDATE, presented by Enter during the Mobile World Congress (MWC), examined the situation and current trends of the global telecommunications market. The report coincides with (and in part gave rise to) the primary projections announced by the press on the occasion of the MWC and which our previous newsletter addressed in the section titled "Mobile Telecommunications Slowing Down." Now, those interested can take a closer read-through of this publication, which is available in English in both PDF and printed versions. Topics covered include the reduction of fixed-line networks, the worldwide growth of wired broadband, and some rather discouraging forecasts about the progression of the mobile industry in 2009 and 2010. According to IDATE, mobile devices reduced their ARPU (average revenue per user) while sales fell a whopping 10% in the final quarter of 2008...despite it being Christmas season. In the long term, sales for 2010 should remain low (-6%) but could make a comeback starting in 2011, depending on how the current economic crisis is resolved. As we said, hard times.

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In a mobile operating system market where platform diversity is the norm, the arrival of Mobile Linux further consolidates this plurality. It has been driven in the past few years by the activities of those organizations working on open-source applications for mobile devices. Their efforts are now bearing fruit, some of which was already visible at the recent Mobile World Congress, with others having been announced for the coming months. The broad range of projects includes the operating systems LiMo and Android (as well as the shift toward open source by Symbian, a leader in mobile operating systems, now owned by Nokia). Following the merger of the LiMo Foundation with LiPS, the resulting entity has some 50 manufacturers and organizations behind it. Google's Android, meanwhile, currently has 47 members.

The qualities of Mobile Linux most valued by operators, developers and manufacturers are: cost reduction, availability and the freedom of open licenses for personalized services, as well as the swiftness of application development. In addition to consolidating the competition, the arrival of Linux is a red flag for any proprietary mobile OS that is unable to keep up with the latest developments.

Articles in Cinco Días (spanish), InformationWeek, El Mercurio (spanish) and  Público.es (spanish)  

Mass control of communications, scanners that undress travelers, industrial cyberespionage, surveillance networks, corporate email control, spyware, omnipresent video cameras, data mining applied to Internet users and... Facebook.

For some time now, the organizations defending people's privacy have been warning of possible abuses by all types of governmental and private organizations, social networks and search engines. They have achieved small victories, such as reductions in the period of time that search engines can store their users' data, regulations on the notification of the presence of video cameras, and data protection laws. The larger victory, however, is apparently not in the near horizon, nor is it a guarantee. Nevertheless, concern over this issue took center stage in mid February due to a calculation error by Facebook, which caused an outcry among thousands of its members. Basically, in the process of making unilateral changes to its terms of use, the owners of the world-famous social network removed a clause that prevented Facebook from continuing to use the data of users who had close their accounts.

For now, the company has been forced to retreat and will look for a new solution by means of user feedback. The incident did not help its image, though. "It appears to be going down the same road as Google. Its halo is starting to slip," said Simon Davies of Privacy International in an interview with the BBC. "When users are creating the content, it's hard to ignore their feelings," explains Francis Pisani. On his blog for Le Monde, Pisani cites other cases of successful rebellion, such as another notable Facebook moment in which the company tried to automatically link its users with advertising; and that of the social news sharing and voting site Digg, which peeved its loyal users by removing a controversial entry about how to sidestep DVD protection. "To me, this aspect of the collaborative Web seems to have great democratic potential," adds Pisani.

Articles in La Nación (spanish), BBC, ABC (spanish), Público.es (spanish),
El País (spanish) and Le Monde (french)