Media - Internet

For centuries access to the world’s information – and the ability to communicate it – was controlled by the wealthy and the well educated. Today the internet has broken down many of the barriers that exist between people and information: effectively democratising access to human knowledge. By typing just a few key words into a computer it is possible to find out about almost any subject. In a...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than one billion people in the world have access to the Internet, with a quarter of them with broadband, or high-speed connections, according to a survey. The report by the firm eMarketer said the milestone of one billion was reached in late 2005, and that nearly 250 million households had broadband connections. The firm estimates that of these people, 845 million use the...

Employees who have access to the internet at work spend almost a quarter of their time online visiting news, weather and other websites that have nothing to do with their jobs, according to a new study of web surfing habits. The three-part US study, the third section of which will be published on Wednesday, found that 61 per cent of people who use the internet at work admitted to visiting non-work...

Readers want more context and background included in news reporting. They want new ways to receive their news, on next-generation handheld devices, for instance, rather than simply on a Web page. They want fewer ads – especially the kind that animate or show up in popup windows. It turns out that they also want more-telegenic news reporters. These are among the things readers expect from the news...

Beth gets more than 500 hits per day at her blog, Cursed to First, which serves as a very personal homage to the Red Sox and the Patriots, so she knew that spicy entries like ''Chicks dig the long ball" were being read. She didn't realize until recently that they were also being ripped off. Last month, an alert reader informed Beth that her blog was being plagiarized. Dozens of Beth's blog entries...

A New York ad agency has dropped its lawsuit against a midcoast man who had used an Internet blog to criticize Maine's internet tourism marketing campaign. In a one-page document filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Bangor, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC dismissed its lawsuit against Lance Dutson of Searsmont. The agency sued Dutson last month for libel, defamation and copyright...

NEW DELHI: This year clearly marks the second coming of dotcom companies in India judging by how heavily private equity investors and VCs are pumping money. Around $75 million has been invested by eight private equity players in seven Internet companies since the beginning of the year. So whether it is a Kleiner Perkins, Norwest, Westbridge or Reliance Capital, their funds have been directed...

NEW YORK - Former television journalist Kevin Sites is mindful that his online dispatches from the world's war zones won't attract anywhere near the audience he's used to getting on the evening news. But that's just fine, he said. Halfway through a yearlong gig to visit nearly two dozen conflict-ridden countries for Yahoo's news Web site, Sites said he gladly trades the mass audience for the...

The BBC this week revealed a new six-year cross-media editorial strategy that include more personalisation, audio visual material and user-generated content on its website. The 'Creative future' plans have been drawn up after one year of research into changing lifestyles, use of technology and increased audience interaction, and how different the media landscape will look by 2012. Research was...

Can the Internet be politically censored? Or is it essentially uncontrollable, as suggested by the apparently unstoppable downloading of music? From a technical standpoint, the answer seems to be that in a country sufficiently authoritarian, the Net can be controlled. China is an example. The clever may find ways around things like site-blocking, but most won't. In America, child porn gets quietly...