Hollywood big screen in an instant message

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles
Published: June 30 2008 03:00 in FinancialTimes.com

Hollywood studios have turned to a web start-up to generate new revenues from film and television content in a deal that will allow e-mail, instant messaging and social network users to send short film clips to each other.

PopTok, which is backed by Mickey Schulhof, the former chief executive of Sony America, launches in test mode today with a library of clips capable of being used in messaging tools.

The service is similar to the emoticons used in instant messaging applications, such as Skype.

But rather than sending an emoticon of a smiley face, PopTok users will be able to send short clips from television programmes and films such as Austin Powers , Scarface and Basic Instinct .

The company has struck licensing deals with CBS, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, SonyBMG, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and Warner Music.

Scott Kauffman, a former Yahoo! executive who has become PopTok's chief executive, said the company would help content owners increase the value of their library titles.

"This an opportunity to breathe new life into content," he said. "[Mobile phone] ring tones did that for the music industry and we are doing it for video." PopTok, he added, would "change the way we communicate online".

PopTok is being backed by Jerusalem Venture Partners, an Israeli media-focused venture capital firm headed by Erel Margalit and GTI Group, which is run by Mr Schulhof.

Illi Edry, who founded PopTok, said the company hoped to tap into changing trends in online communication.

"People are constantly quoting lines they hear in popular movies, TV shows, and music," he said. "But people have migrated online. We will take these quotes and allow people to use them in their online conversations."

The company aims to generate revenues from advertising and also hopes to tap into the $500m-a-year Hollywood studios and TV networks spend on promoting their content. Clips from trailers promoting new films could also be used on PopTok, Mr Edry said.

The service works with most existing instant messaging and e-mail applications. PopTok plans to expand its capability to include mobile phones and social networks.

"The entertainment community really views this is as an opportunity," Mr Kauffman said. "It's an opportunity to monetise back catalogues and promote new releases."

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Word on instant chat: Real-time messaging a business asset

When John Fairey wants to chat with a colleague, but has no time to wait for an email answer or a face-to-face talk, he clicks on the buddy list on his computer screen and sends an instant message (IM). And he almost always gets an instant answer. “It is significantly more efficient,” says the 28-year-old equity researcher for Atlanta-based Pointer Capital. “It saves time.” Researchers say his company is on the cutting edge of a growing trend by providing software that allows workers to “talk” with each other on a “real time” basis, right from their desks.

[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Akonix Software Says IM Networks in Danger

A local security software maker has issued a warning about malicious code attacks over instant messaging networks.

Akonix Systems Inc. said it tracked 10 new malicious code attacks over IM networks in May, raising the total count of malicious worms to 73 through May 31.

The research was conducted by Akonix and its industry colleagues in IM infrastructure and security schemes: Sophos and Secunia.

Although the number of identified worms is down from last year, the sophistication has increased, said Don Montgomery, vice president of marketing. He said just one rapidly propagating Trojan or worm could take down a business network.

[San Diego Business Journal Associates]

Multi-platform IM makes leap from PC to mobile

British company Palringo brought multi-platform IM to mobile phones for the first time. Palringo users can exchange not only text and picture messages, but also vocal IMs with users of seven other popular PC-based IM services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Microsoft Windows Live Messenger.

Yahoo Messenger trojan false alarm

ZoneAlarm Pro mistakenly pegged an audio conferencing ActiveX control within Yahoo Messenger as the Yspy Trojan. As a result, users of the software were prompted to delete yacscom.dll, a critical component of the IM client. By default, the harmless control is placed in quarantine.

[Channel Register]

Yahoo, Google partner on ads, IM

After stating that it is no longer entertaining overtures from Microsoft, Yahoo revealed that it’s partnering with Google. Google said that it has signed a nonexclusive deal to display its AdSense for Search and AdSense for Content ads on Yahoo’s US and Canadian Web properties. The deal also includes a commitment to make the two companies’ instant messaging (IM) networks interoperable.

[Information Week]

Building a business case for Unified Communications (UC)

The prospect of managing telephones, email, fax and videoconferencing on one platform is appealing. In fact, according to international research firm Gartner, by 2011 almost 95 percent of enterprises will have started or completed the integration of their voice and data systems. With every new technology, come new security risks. Deploying unified communications (UC) requires both the right technology solutions and services to ensure that the workforce can benefit from a highly-connected and collaborative environment without increasing corporate risk. Instant messaging (IM) can also be a driver for corporate deployment of a UC solution. Corporations are now beginning to understand the value of instant communication, but public IM means that communications are untracked, un-archived and unfiltered. Deploying their own solution and tying it to public IM gives them the control and security they need.

Echannel

Microsoft: IM is not dying

Microsoft has insisted that Nielsen figures on the decline of Instant Messaging "no more signal the end of IM than they do the end of email".

Many mainstream papers carried a report from Nielsen Online that pointed to a steep decline in the use of IM in the past year – with the considerable loss of a billion minutes to 2.9 billion per annum.

However, speaking to TechRadar.com a Microsoft spokesperson insisted that the figures are not the death knell for Windows Live Messenger.

“Windows Live Messenger is a hugely popular service across a broad demographic of consumers, which has a long established and loyal user base," said the spokesperson.

Social networks

“The emergence of social networking services has been an incredibly popular phenomenon, which has evolved how people spend time online.

“It is normal people will experiment with new services when they become available and usage patterns across services will change as people introduce new services into their online portfolio and behaviour.

“The figures released by Nielsen today are simply a reflection of the changing online ecology and no more signal the end of IM than they do the end of email.”

*Editor's note: this particular author (Patrick Goss) didn't research the decline in social network traffic as well - most notably Facebooks. *

Bullish

Although Microsoft is typically bullish in the wake of the figures, the company will be troubled by the news, as Live Messenger is the dominant Instant Messaging program in the UK.

With the likes of Facebook and GMail introducing browser-based instant chat, and other social networks adding live chat facilities the impact on standalone IM seems inevitable.

However, the service remains massively popular and the decline is unlikely to be terminal.

By Patrick Goss

[TechRadar.com]

Fake ImageShack site serving malware, links distributed over IM

In a combination of domain typosquatting next to spoofed image files, malware authors managed to successfully impersonate ImageShack, the 5th largest image hosting Web site on the Internet, the result of which is a malware campaign circulating over MSN, enticing users into infecting themselves by clicking on the spammed links to fake image files. This currently active instant message (IM) malware campaign is yet another indication that the ‘don’t click on executable files’ security tip is on the verge of irrelevance.

[ZDnet Blog]

AOL launches AIM Money for Web developers

AOL today announced the availability of AIM Money, a new revenue-sharing program that lets developers make money from open AIM applications. AOL also announced AIM version 6.8, the latest version of their popular IM software, which features new modules for the Buddy List and a new open API for developers to build their own mini applications to upload and share in a library.
[
IT Business Net]

From a security standpoint, not all IM platforms are created equal

People at work communicate like people at home: They use wired and cellular phones, email and in rare instances, the US Postal Service. And they instant message (IM). IM is quite a problem from the security point-of-view because, like many other technologies, it became a corporate tool before it was truly secured. Any corporate security person who thinks the IM security threat is overblown should consider information from FaceTime and Akonix released this spring. Facetime found that one in four employees used IM to transmit sensitive information, such as company plans, finances and password-related credentials. Akonix Systems said that it tracked 10 new IM-based malicious code attacks in May, which brought the total number for the year to 73.

Note this is another take on the CNet article just published

[ITBusinessEdge]

Dexrex message backup launches BlackBerry support

Though RIM may serve as what is arguably the best mobile mail service for millions of users, many of those with BlackBerry handsets are likely also regular SMS conversationalists. And while RIM and any interconnected Webmail services manage mail well, text messages are very much the exclusive domain of the mobile phone. A service called Dexrex has now introduced support for BlackBerry to enable QWERTY bandits to automatically store SMS messages to be accessed at any point in the future with any Internet-enabled device.

[Mashable]

How safe is IM? a security and privacy survey

The number of interested parties eager to listen in on your online conversations, including what you type through IM, has never been higher. The need, in other words, for secure IM communication has never been greater. But not all IM networks offer the same privacy and security. To chart the differences, CNET News.com surveyed companies providing popular IM services and asked them to answer the same 10 questions. Does your service keep server-based logs of the content of communications, meaning what a particular user sent and received? The system administrator has the ability to configure these types of capabilities. This type of information can also be captured by third-party compliance software, such as FaceTime, Akonix and Symantec.

[C-Net]

DJ compliance watch: firms ponder when to weed out archives

When it comes to companies’ vast electronic archives, there is a heated debate on the best time to hit delete.

Securities and Exchange Commission regulations allow broker-dealers to destroy electronic records, including emails and other documents, after three years. A growing number of firms, however, find themselves in a quandary about whether to keep information longer than required.

Liability questions are the main consideration. Firms are finding there is disagreement among their compliance officers and lawyers about the best time to clean house.

Compliance technology vendors say they’re seeing a range of time periods for keeping electronic data. Some firms are holding onto archives for several years, while others are keeping it indefinitely in archives and on backup tapes.

Companies, specifically people in corporate records offices, worry that by deleting the data, they lose documents they might need to defend themselves in future litigation, says Brian Babineau, an email archiving analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. That’s led some firms to lean toward keeping more records beyond the three-year requirement.

“The motives are pretty simple. Fear, mostly led by corporate counsel, that deleting any business records could come back to haunt them in the future, when either trying to defend against litigation or support a claim against them somehow,” Babineau says.

Marie-Charlotte Patterson of records-management company AXS One agrees, saying nobody wants to be responsible for pushing the ‘big red button’ that deletes all data, in case it is needed later. Another concern: By disposing of records, companies might overlook something and leave traces of data in hard-to-find places, Babineau says. This could leave them vulnerable to repercussions should a judge later learn that they didn’t provide records that they had, even if the firms didn’t know they had them.

Ronald Perelman’s much-publicized lawsuit against Morgan Stanley in 2005 illustrates this possibility. The firm initially told a judge that it didn’t have certain email archives, but later it found the records on backup tapes. The
result was an angry judge and a losing verdict.

Patterson says that other people within a firm can’t always agree. Some groups within firms, such as sales, want records of all their emails for client-management purposes and see a business need to keep the data longer. A firm’s lawyers, on the other hand, worry about the liabilities that exist if the data isn’t destroyed.

Patterson says settling on a definitive position on what to keep for how long should be the goal. “An organization needs top management to cut through all the departments and say ‘This is our corporate policy’,” she says.

Attorneys representing firms in litigation or arbitration claims don’t hesitate about drawing the line at the three-year requirement.

“The advice I provide my clients is to retain the document for a period of time consistent with SEC rules and regulations, and at that point in time discard the document,” says Robert Herskovits, an attorney with Gusrae, Kaplan, Bruno & Nusbaum who represents firms in regulatory matters.

But questions do arise when determining what information will be considered pertinent in pending litigation or arbitration cases. It’s not always easy to figure that out, lawyers say.

“Let’s say there’s an arbitration or regulatory investigation dealing with a rep who allegedly did something bad,” says Brian Rubin, a lawyer with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan who works with midsize and large firms. “The regulators or the claimants may ask for emails that in an initial look may have seemed unrelated. So it would be hard to draw a line.”

Confusion often arises because different parts of the firms aren’t working together to create a comprehensive system, says Don Montgomery, vice president of marketing for Akonix, which specializes in monitoring IMs.

“It really is either ignorance of what the requirements are,” he says, “or sort of a helpless feeling of not being able to sort out the regulations.”

[Dow Jones Newswires]

Akonix tracks 10 new IM attacks in May

Akonix Systems Inc, a provider of unified policy management products for instant messaging (IM) and unified communications, announced that its IM Security Center researchers tracked 10 new malicious code attacks over IM networks in May, bringing the 2008 total to 73.

[Global Secure Systems]

Unified communications soon to become business differentiator

Rapid advance in technology and a growing acceptance of unified communications – linking telephony, email, IM – are revolutionizing business communications, according to Frost & Sullivan. The analyst reports that recent trends indicate rapid adoption of fixed / mobile convergence, ‘presence’ management, as well as Internet telephony, underpinned by integrating technologies on a session initiation protocol platform.

[Manufacturing Computer Solutions]

Recent survey shows growing corporate demand for IM

A recent survey suggests that 60% of businesses make use of some form of instant messaging (IM). This type of communication is mostly preferred by telecommuters and multinationals, but there is a noticeable trend for its adoption by smaller, single-office firms. Several factors have made IM a preferred means of business communication. IM offers speed and efficiency. The communication process need not be long letters – a single message sent over the tool is often much more powerful, and far more efficient.

[Newswire]

Going back to basics to fight botnets

Beyond tricking someone to click on a link, botnets take advantage of users’ actions that go against long-established security best practices, such as turning off network-security software to increase performance. Users often will cut corners for performance gains, regardless of the vulnerability they bring to the enterprise. Malware can even spread unintentionally through emails coming from friends and colleagues. Therefore, users should not only know whether to trust the person sending the email, they should also have certain knowledge that the person had a clear intent to include an attachment or link. The same rules apply for the use of links and video on IM, short message service and social-networking sites.

[Top Tech News]

Protect your company from tech-savvy saboteurs

It is crucial to practice good computer security procedures. The value of good security practices should never be underestimated. New technologies, such as PDAs, cell phones, thumb drives, wireless networks and instant messaging (IM), are quickly making their way into today’s workplaces. IM, which is fast replacing email in many workplaces, typically keeps little or no logs or records of the messages sent.

more from [Top Tech News]

Does UC improve productivity?

The whole reason for Unified Communications (UC), it’s believed, is that UC makes your workers and your business processes more efficient and productive. But productivity benefits are almost always tough to quantify and measure reliably, and that’s certainly the case with UC. A new report out from UCStrategies takes a first whack at demonstrating the productivity benefits of UC, and the authors, Blair Pleasant and Nancy Jamison, present some interview quotes and anecdotal evidence supporting the ‘soft’ productivity benefits. The also offer up some harder data on which communications systems people actually use today, how they use those systems and what they expect from UC.

more at Information Week

Instant messaging proves useful in reducing workplace interruption

Employers seeking to decrease interruptions may want to have their workers use instant messaging (IM) software, a new study suggests. A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and University of California, Irvine found that workers who used IM on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not. The study challenges the widespread belief that IM leads to an increase in disruption. Some researchers have speculated that workers would use IM in addition to the phone and email, leading to increased interruption and reduced productivity.

more at Science Daily