Technology Skills In Demand

What do you think is the technology skill in most demand today?

As all companies fight to be seen in the ever expanding digital arena then the demand for the right technology skills increases. It’s a simple case of supply and demand.

Freelancer.co.uk claim that job adverts for top digital jobs grew between the second and third quarters of this year from 189,917 to 230,614, that’s over a 20% hike in demand. Following the redesign of the EBay site demand for developers there rose some 44%.  Facebook advertisers and Internet marketing demand was up 12%, search engine optimisation 12%, HTML some 8%.

An interesting trend was the continued increase in demand for Android app developers, which was up some 16%, compared to Apple iOS’s demand growth of 8%. This clearly demonstrates that Android is now holding its own and Apple is being pegged back by the onslaught of devices from the likes of Samsung. However, the biggest demand growth was associated the ‘paperless office’ and the transition from paper documents to online and cloud based services.

Technology is changing and with it the skills and demand for developers and support to exploit it. Nearly a quarter of a million jobs were reported for skills which did not exist a few years ago and itself again demonstrates the volume of demand in the marketplace.

PayPal Redefines PayPorn - Again

Having initially fervently defended their position the online payment service owned by eBay Inc., has no changed its policy on not processing sales of e-books containing themes of rape, bestiality or incest.PayPal, has actually learned the hard way what many already knew – that no entity today can impose censorship outside the law and if they do they will find potentially mountains of bad press in the social network space.

They have now stated another new policy that will only ban individual titles of e-books that contain potentially illegal images and text only ebooks containing child pornography themes. To many this is still a half baked position and one that could leave PayPal and its owner eBay in danger of further embarrassment and definitions are still open to interpretation and not necessarily supported by the law.

The reversal is in part due to the pressure applied not just to PayPal but to the main credit card companies who had obviously found themselves in a world of double standards and hypocrisy..

Doug Michelman, global head of corporate relations for Visa Inc., has stated that "Visa would take no action regarding lawful material that seeks to explore erotica in a fictional or educational manner." A MasterCard spokesman stated that it "would not take action regarding the use of its cards and systems for the sale of lawful materials that seek to explore erotica content of this nature."

Our original post: PayPal Bans Porn

PayPal Bans PayPorn!

Tomorrow what we can read, watch and the art we observe may not be decided by ourselves or governments and laws but by a new breed of censors. These censors may have no qualification or experience, just the ability to switch off those who they deem unfit. It’s like a McCarthy witch hut without the senate hearings, flag beating and just a darkened room and anonymous censor.

The latest technology censor has deemed erotica and pornography the evil and corrupting element that must not pass their doors. PayPal doesn’t even host any content it merely facilitates online payments. Yes, a financial service operator is now deciding what is appropriate to read and what isn’t. It can achieve this level of moral censorship by having a virtual monopoly over the business of controlling cash transfers made via the internet and also having a dominant market share over the online self-publishing channel.

Last week, without warning, PayPal merely wrote to every major self-publishing website and announced that it would refuse to process payments for clients that sell books which contain what it regards as "obscene" content. Paypal will aggressively prohibit erotic literature which contains scenes of bestiality, rape, incest and under-age sex. Ebook websites that sell such works will have their PayPal accounts deactivated. PayPal claim that they are acting under pressure from credit card companies (the likes of Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc). This alone begs the question of hypocrisy and double standards as these companies are happy to take money from all sorts of services that are far more corrupting than erotic literature. PayPal is also owned by EBay who happily sell erotica and therefore its one rule for them and another for its customers.

It doesn’t matter how many books are effected it is the stupidity of a censorship based on subjective and unqualified self judgement in an area that they are ill qualified to judge. Will their ban apply to physical books, art , movies, music and will they come down heavy handed on all publishers or merely the self publishing market. More ridiculous is the question of how PayPal believes it is going to enforce its moral high ground. Will they ban any site from selling Nabacov, DH Lawrence, Stig Larson, Shakespeare, Suskind, Belle de Jour, Cleland, Harris, Neret, Zola, Joyce, Nin, Miller, Reage, Swinburne, Boccaccio Etc. Many artists and photographers,such as Mapplethgorpe, Newton and many more, would fall foul of these rules. After all it is ridiculous to effective ban one form of expression, literature without impacting other forms such as art, film, photography etc.

So PayPal and others have draw the line on their own definition of obscene adult content that it believes is extreme or potentially illegal. What comes next, political expression?

Advocacy groups are considering taking on the PayPal censorship case and some have already written on the subject; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).

Perhaps someone at PayPal should enter the word 'erotica' on the parent EBay's own site!

Skype On Th Block?

Where would many of us who make lots of international calls be without Skype. Since its launch it has changed the way many communicate. The change could be even greater if more mobile operators were brave enough to follow the lead by 3 and allow VOIP. The iphone app is their but the carrier will to switch it on today isn’t.

Now after 4 years Skype’s owners EBay are claimed to be about to sell Skype to a group of private investors, which include Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

EBay bought Skype for $2.6bn in October 2005 and now appear to be offloading it for $2bn. When they bought it Skype had 53 million users it now has 405 million, but although this growth is significant the service is still understandably dominated by free user to user calls. So the challenge to any new owner is to find the money whilst continuing to expand the service.

Today's Best eBay eBook Buys!

Yesterday we discovered what everyone else probably was fully aware of that there are hundreds if no t thousands of ebooks available from ebay. Everyone we have see appears to be a PDF burnt onto a CDrom and the value statement is obviously buy the collection.

Some may be genuine but many look far from it and there is a clear repetition of offer which would indicate the issue is not small.

How can eBay sell dubious product and do they have any standards?
Today’s Best eBay eBook buys:

1. J.R.R Tolkien Collection Buy Now for £2
A JOURNEY THROUGH MIDDLE EARTH WITH TOLKIEN
Titles from Tolkeins amazing imaginative journey through Middle Earth and beyond are included within this collection. These iconic master-works have been magnificently illustrated throughout and include detailed sketch maps, genealogies, and pronunciation guides.

BOOKS INCLUDED ON THIS DISC:
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarilion
The Children of Hurin

2. COLLECTION OF 92 DEAN KOONTZ E-BOOKS. Buy Now £5.95

3. HUGE Collection of 45 James Patterson EBOOKS, which can be sent to you by CD (CD just £1.00 postage) Buy Now for £3.50

(!!!NOW INCLUDES CROSS COUNTRY!!! James Patterson's latest book!!!)

eBay Offers the Sale of the Century eBooks?

We came upon an ‘ebook’ offer that was so powerful and compelling it would be a no-brainer to many but was so unbelievable we drew back. To say it smelt funny was an understatement let’s look at the offers:

Stephen King Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 88 ebooks £6.99
John Grisham Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 18 ebooks. PDF. £11.99
Kathy Reichs Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 11 Ebooks. £4.29
Anne Rice Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 28 ebooks. £4.29
Charlaine Harris Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 34 ebooks £4.29
Michael Crichton Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 13 ebooks £4.29
Laurell K Hamilton Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 25 ebooks £4.29
Mary Balogh Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 53 ebooks £4-29
Clive barker Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 24 ebooks £4.29
Patricia Cornwell Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 18 ebooks £4.29
Bernard Cornwell Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 10 ebooks £4.29
Jeffery Deaver Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 26 ebooks £4.29
Robert Ludlam Ebook Cd-Rom, Sony eReader 25 ebooks £4.29

The description
for sale a Bernard Cornwell Ebook Cd-Rom.
The Ebooks are in PDF, Suitable for the Sony E-Reader and laptops, Pc's Etc,
Postage and packaging is free (well 0.01p!)
SPECIAL OFFER! Buy 2 collections get 1 free or buy 5 collections and get 3 free! let us know what free collections you want when you purchase.
The books included are as follows:-
Bernard Cornwell - Alfred the Great - Pale Horseman
Bernard Cornwell - Grail Quest 1 - Harlequin
Bernard Cornwell - Grail Quest 3 - Heretic
Bernard Cornwell - Saxon 01 - The Last Kingdom
Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge
Bernard Cornwell - The Grail Quest - 2 - Vagabond
Bernard Cornwell - The Lords Of The North
Bernard Cornwell - Warlord 1 - Winter King
Bernard Cornwell - Warlord 2 - Enemy of God
Bernard Cornwell - Warlord 3 - Excalibur

Payment is with paypal only.

Where was this offer of the century - eBay

We then sent an email to the Publishers Association who say they are getting this stuff taken down regularly with eBay. So we went to eBay.co.uk and typed in ‘ebooks’ then select ‘fiction’ and found there were lots of the same stuff and much more from different vendors.

We had a look at eBay.com which was the same even some of the same offers and even some offered on download not CD!

If these are genuine then they are bargains if however they are not it would seriously question how they are created but more importantly how eBay can allow clearly questionable items to be sold. We saw eBay being found out the other week on BBC Watchdog for allowing illegal knives to be sold its time they were openly confronted over this stuff before it gets out of hand .

Copyright News

On Monday eBay won a US court battle with Tiffany that there were not liable for the sale of counterfeit jewellery on their site. This wasn’t a quick decision as the case had lasted 4years but it could be a significant one re the eBay service and those offered by similar sites.

Judge Richard Sullivan ruling, in Federal court in the Southern district of New York said that under current law Ebay should not be held liable, and it was up to lawmakers to decide if trademark owners were adequately protected. Earlier this year a similar case brought by LVMH against eBay had gone the other way, so the issue remains somewhat open.

Judge Sullivan said, Ebay’s efforts to prevent sales of fakes, including removing listings promptly when warned that the items were counterfeit, showed that it took adequate steps, and it was up to companies like Tiffany to police their own trademarks.

The ruling raises the question of how companies who aren’t as big as Tiffany ensure that their trademarks aren’t being violated. However, when we step back into the physical world that is exactly how it works and the onus is always on the holder to pursue the infringement, there are no parent police as such. The internet merely makes it easier to copy and easier to trace.

The second article reported that Brussels is expected to push ahead with reforms to extend copyright protection for performing artists from 50 to 95 for European singers and musicians. This move would move Europe into line with the US, and be applicable to all from rock stars to session musicians.

The Commission’s antitrust arm is also looking at “collecting societies” who collect and distribute music royalties. It is expected that societies are likely to see their domestic monopolies over broadcast material broken down. One objective would be to enable any collecting society to deal with the rights to use a piece of music across Europe.

Copyright continues, and rightly so, to be a major area of focus for all especially in the media sector. As the digital world expands, so do the opportunities and challenges of maintaining and protecting copyright within it.

Used Books and Stars for All

Used books have always been here but the Internet is simply make them more available. First came ABE and Alibris, then Amazon and now eBay. Gone are the days when private collections only had one channel to and Albris now suggests that `house clearances' will become a rarity. For collectors, it may be difficult to gauge a seller's ability to accurately describe a book, its condition and its faults with the descriptive terminology used being often a different language to many.

ABE have embarked on a scheme that is based on the seller’s rating. Apparently the scheme is based on 5 Stars and aims to help promote those booksellers who reject the least number of orders and receive the least number of returns. Obviously those sellers with a higher rating will benefit from increased buyer trust as well as greater resulting revenues. Buyers will see a dealer’s six month rating in the search results, and can also view a dealer’s 3, 6, 12 and current monthly ratings. The scheme doesn’t appear to deal with sellers who ‘white label stock’ and have it drop shipped by a 3rd party.

ABE are waiting for reactions and comments from their sellers’ before implementing the scheme.

Radio Ad Times

eBay has said it would begin selling radio airtime to advertisers this week through a partnership with Bid4Spots. It will offer advertisers a way to buy unsold radio ad slots from 2,300 radio stations in the top 300 media markets in the United States. Advertisers can buy airtime on the eBay Media Marketplace, which was originally a cable television ad forum which began in March.

The eBay ad exchange has been disappointing so far but it is hoped that widening its remit to radio will reverse this. Bid4Spots works as a so-called reverse auction with advertisers who join designating what they are willing to pay for a spot, then radio stations with the available airtime make offers to win their business.

Google, paid $1.24 billion to acquire dMarc Broadcasting, a rival to Bid4Spots and in April, it did a deal with Clwear Channel to sell ads across the company’s 675 stations through its AdSense platform.

The interesting issue is whether the opportunity to effectively auction and buy radio slots will move advertisers to radio away from other sectors. Radio is potentially a great way to promote books!

eBay Changes

The following is an extract reproduced with permission from an excellent newsletter ‘Shephard’s Confidential’ www.shephardsworld.co.uk and appeared in their latest newsletter.

As booksellers will no doubt be aware eBay have recently announced changes to their fees for listings in the Books, Comics & Magazines category 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. Sounds good, but the reality is that this means huge increases in fees for books selling for more than £10. In fact from 1 March the fees for selling a book for £100 with a starting price of £9.99 will nearly double!

Unhappy, I e-mailed eBay:

"As a seller of collectable books on eBay I was initially delighted to received your e-mail of 29 January 2007 in which you advised eBay sellers in the books, comics & magazines category of the changes in the fee structure 'designed to promote a greater volume of trade'. I naively assumed that this meant reductions in your fees but this is not so. In a typical week in January 2007 I sold 10 collectable books for a total of £349. All of these had been offered for the first time. I started my auctions at sensible prices as, whilst this meant I incurred higher initial fees, it also meant that my downside risk was, to a certain extent, protected. Under the current fee structure the initial fees for these 10 books were £5.90, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £16.54, a total of £23.94. Under the new fee structure the listing fees would have been £1.00, the gallery fees £1.50 and the final value fees £31.41, a total of £33.91. This represents a 41.5% increase. If I had started my auctions at lower prices the percentage increase would have been significantly higher. The 'auction example' on your Fee Changes page only shows reductions in total fees or very small increases. Of course, what you have cleverly done is to stop the auction example at a sale price of £10 as over this amount the small increases rapidly become large increases. I think this is very misleading.

I thought eBay was trying to move away from its 'car boot' image but clearly this is not the case - your new fee structure will encourage yet more low value items that have to be offered a number of times before they sell. I for one am not in this market and I think it highly likely that I will now go elsewhere to sell my books - the auction risk coupled with the high selling charges (I have calculated that for my typical week my selling fees including Paypal fees would be a whopping 13.7% under the new fee structure) are driving me away I'm afraid. I look forward to hearing from you."

And here is their bland, standard, disinterested non-reply:

"Thank you for contacting us regarding the price change. I'm happy to assist you with this.
I realize your concern in this situation. As custodians of the eBay marketplace we are always looking for ways to promote greater volumes of trade and a healthy supply and demand balance. It is our belief that the present changes will benefit the majority of eBay buyers and sellers. Our primary goal is to promote a vibrant and balanced marketplace. We hope that the present changes will do just that. And eBay obviously makes money when our sellers do! I hope this information answers your question.
Thank you for using eBay."

I'm seriously considering setting up an auction site dedicated to collectable books with reasonable charges. I think I'll call it Freebay. Any takers?

Gerald Baker

So why isn't everyone on Skype?

When eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, many thought it a wise move. But how would they make money from free VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) services?

Today we read two pieces of news which start to join the dots. First a new service to link Sykpe to landlines for free in the UK and several other EU countries, including France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Skype Pro offers anyone who signs up discounts on Skype-certified phones and free Skype Voicemail, as well as free calls to landlines. Skype Pro users will also be able to make video calls to other Skype users.

A five month package will cost about £7 and you will receive about £3 free credit from Skype. When the five months is up, customers will be charged around £1.20 a month for the service. With over 170 million registered users, the world is certainly changing. Personally I now have an ‘X Series’ phone from 3, which gives me free skype calls and access on the move 24 x 7. I obviously also have the service on my PC for when iam in the office. With daily confernce calls to India, Australia and the US, my collegues and I in Value Chain use VOIP and Skype all the time.

So who needsa land line?

The second news is from the San Jose headquarters of eBay. The comapny is not only changing how their employees communiicate, but also how they work in this new world. Their latest move, ‘the cubicle swap’, is intended to bring together the engineers and the businesspeople who work on specific projects, while migrating employees off their landline telephones and getting them to use their Internet calling service Skype.Why is it taking so long for business to grasp this opportunity?

One issue with mobiles has always been finding other people on services where there are no directories. Skype enables users to synchromies their contact database with the service and select matches. It is easy to see the day when we pay one service charge and get as much as we can eat for free. This is in turn will change how we use the network and confirm the mobile as the key device to technology convergence.