https://www.recordedfuture.com/how-media-analytics-works.html

The value of your digital footprint is in the analysis – not sure if this really does anything new or different but good to make you think.

This is a site to help you "delete your account"  - however this does not delete your data or your digital footprint.....

http://deleteyouraccount.com/

This site provides a guide to resetting some factory defaults on your mobile before you recycle it - again take care, deep techies can still recover some of the data, but mr joe public will not be able to.

http://www.hardresetguide.com/

http://www.rekoop.com/Time/DigitalFootprint

rekoop™ is a company who wants to record everything you do their Digital Footprint tool is the new way to capture time passively or proactively. It monitors activity on the desktop and records the time you spend using your applications. Essentially this is a desktop application for "laywers" or anyone who wants to record their time and activities (remember those time and motion studies)

One of my companies - Dot Net Solutions is a Microsoft Gold certified partner developing solutions to showcase the very latest in technology. Whilst technology is the tool, our staff are the key. At Dot Net Solutions we take our culture and values seriously and have created a rewarding environment in which to work and develop your skills.

We have some opening for:

Senior Software Architect

You will provide the technical lead for the design and development of our projects. You will have the technical ownership of your tasks and will be able to oversee the technical deliverables of the whole project. Significant experience of working on commercial projects in a .NET environment . Expert in software development using our core technologies, C# and .NET. Good understanding of OO principles. Excellent knowledge of ASP.NET or WPF development in .NET. Experience building scalable, performant and maintainable solutions. Good knowledge of one of the following: SharePoint 2007, SQL Server 2005/2008, Silverlight, .NET 4, LINQ or Windows Azure.

Software Architect

You will be working directly with our clients on specific projects and equally for internal company projects within given timescales and budgetary constraints to ensure optimum customer satisfaction and business driven solutions. With particular emphasis on technology and technical expertise. You will have the ability to communicate both a business and technical level, both internally and to our clients. Experience of working on commercial projects in a .NET environment . Expertise in software development using our core technologies, C# and .NET. Understanding of OO principles. Excellent knowledge of ASP.NET, WPF or Silverlight development in .NET.

Please send a CV to Dan Scarfe | Chief Executive

dan@dotnetsolutions (dot) co (dot) uk

Do you want your web browsing (digital footprint at a stretch) with you?  Mozilla’s new Firefox Home app aims to give users all your bookmarks, tabs and browsing history, on your mobile, it is not the web, but it is a move in the right direction. Firefox Sync manages to store a digital footprint of all the things you do on your browser up in the cloud, pinging it down to your iPhone to pick up just where you left off.

Firefox Sync application when fired up on your home computer, and the Firefox Home app will pull all of your personalised browser data and chuck it onto your iPhone. Whilst you’ll still be using the Apple Safari browser to do the surfing, it’s now a lot easier to get all of your settings just so when on your phone.

Firefox Sync http://www.mozilla.com/en-GB/firefox/sync/

FT - Orange weighs dropping 'all-you-can-eat' mobile data plans (Source TelecomPaper)

Orange is thinking about changing its pricing approach for mobile internet services because 'all-you-can eat' plans were 'unsustainable', France Telecom-Orange CEO Stephane Richard told the Financial Times. If it starts charging heavy mobile data users more, the operator would be following AT&T and O2 UK in this direction. Richard explained that Orange thinks, as do its peers, "that the explosion of data traffic on mobile networks cannot be managed with unlimited pricing plans". The operator "must consider different approaches combining limited access and quality of service", he added. The CEO also revealed that France Telecom could spend as much as EUR 7 billion on acquisitions to meet its stated objective of doubling emerging market revenues over five years. While stressing that there were no ongoing talks, he said France Telecom was 'potentially interested' in Orascom Telecom's African assets.

I question if the operator has thought through this strategy - http://blog.mydigitalfootprint.com/could-consumer-ignorance-hurt-mobile-advertis

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/05/greater-choice-and-transparency-for.html

Users can now opt out of being tracked around the web by Google Analytics, the tool I use to track traffic and trends on my websites, just after we discovered SSL secure search. Google Analytics has launched tools that allows users to opt out of having their information (inc IP address), sent to Google.  It is a simple browser plug-in for IE 7 or 8, Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox (no Opera or Safari yet)

Google will always get user information in aggregate, from all those who use the web, which provides them with a satellite view of web activity.  Google tends to know more about a user’s activities across multiple sites than any individual site knows and can use the analysis of the data to improve services aka My Digital Footprint business model.

So is this a preemptive strike before something else, or a tool providing some protection, or have Google run the numbers and predict that the opt outs will be so small (or repetitive to certain sites) that this will not effect the aggregate.

You can also check what Google thinks you are interested in and opt out of targeted advertising. Opting out of those will not stop Google’s display of small text ads on its sites or on other sites, because those ads are displayed, based on the content of the page you are looking at, not on your previous browsing behavior.  The opt-out utility does not block Google’s DoubleClick advertising cookie, which tracks you at sites around the net that use DoubleClick to show ads.  Finally it spears that opting out of Google Analytics will not prevent your IP information or search queries from being logged by the site directly or through other web analytics tools.

Another people search engine that sizes everyone's digital footprint.

The PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. Alas I don’t feature at all, neither does the more famous Tony Fish from Mad Men http://www.peekyou.com/tony_fish  but I am comforted that Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman (lastminute founders) gets a 0 and 1 out of 10 respectively.

The higher someone's score, the "more important" they are on the web. PeekYou calculates PeekScore for every person and updates it often, taking into account the person's known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to their blogging, participation in social networks, number of friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content they create, and their prominence in the news and blogs.

"PeekScore has long been in development and we're excited to unveil the first release to the public," said Michael Hussey, Founder and CEO of PeekYou.

Coffee giant Starbucks will begin offering free wireless Internet service at its 6,700 US stores next month and free digital content through a partnership with Yahoo!  Starbucks said the free Wi-Fi service would be available from July 1 through US telecom giant AT&T. Starbucks currently offers two hours of free Wi-Fi to customers who have a Starbucks card.  The coffee chain said it also plans to offer free digital content to customers, including free access to websites such as that of The Wall Street Journal, which currently charges online readers for full access to WSJ.com.

The "Starbucks Digital Network" will launch this fall and will offer "free unrestricted access to various paid sites and services," Starbucks said in a statement.   It said launch content providers will include Apple's iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! and Zagat.

So what and where is the model?  Each customer will log in with a unique identifier which will create a customer specific digital footprint. Obvious next step is to mine the data for customer specific preferences and analysis to deliver targeted advertising.  

Assuming they are allowed to inspect your data, the question is will Starbucks be able to determine who you drink coffee with and mine your social graph?

7^th June 2010

WORLDLINK LAUNCHES THE UK’S FIRST FREE REAL-TIME FINANCIAL INFORMATION SERVICE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Worldlink, the owner of the UK and US patent for the transmission of profiled real-time data to mobile devices, is making its imobilemarkets financial service product available FREE from today. That means that anyone interested in monitoring their investments will have the same information available to them as a City trader. This will allow them to make informed investment decisions, whether they are on the move or sitting at their desk.

To take advantage of this FREE service, which is automatically uploaded to both a customer’s mobile and desktop, subscribers have to provide their name and create a password. The whole process is concluded in seconds and information such as a person’s address is not required. 

In this time of increasing financial volatility, even retail investors, want to keep up to speed with what is happening in the financial markets and until now, they have had to rely on services which are at least 15 minutes delayed. As we have seen in recent months, minutes, even seconds, can see massive swings in stock markets and relying on a delayed service could mean the difference between making and losing money.

Investors are also becoming more sophisticated trading Spread, Contracts for Difference and Currencies. This demands access to real-time information so that money can be made whether you are travelling on the train or having lunch.

The imobilemarkets service provides the following:

·         Stock Markets – real-time share information so that customers can watch share prices change in real-time across the London Stock Exchange, Turquoise, AIM and Plus markets

·         Foreign Exchange – real-time information on a wide range of currency pairings

·         Commodities – pricing information on the most popular currencies traded

·         Watchlists – where you can track the performance of your own share portfolio

·         News – Stock market, economic and company information can be tracked in real-time so you can find out what news and how the news affects the stock market

·         Charts – customers can track the historic performance of share for example, over a five year period

The imobilemarkets product also allows you to trade via the service. Once a customer subscribes, they can take advantage of the “Broker Button” which is a telephone number linked directly to Worldlink’s share dealing service so shares can be bought and sold wherever a customer happens to be.

Neil Riches, Managing Director and Founder of Worldlink commented: “We are delighted to be able to offer customers free real-time financial information. For too long, those people who want access to real-time information have had to satisfy themselves with delayed information which is not reliable enough when making important investment decisions. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes in the stock market.

“The only other alternative to delayed information is real-time information which in some cases can cost hundreds, if not thousands of pounds for people to use. What Worldlink is doing by offering its service for free is democratising the availability of financial information and putting the most up to date information in the hands of the retail investors so that they can make informed investment decisions. Worldlink is able to do this because we own the patent to transmit profiled real-time information to mobiles and constructing the technology to bring the imobilemarkets product to market has been ten years in the making.”

For those people who want to register for the free service, go to http://worldlink.worldlink-shop.com or simply text ‘APP<space> WOR’ to ‘88833’ from your mobile. <space> means enter a space between  the words.

About Worldlink

Worldlink Group plc is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.  Its technology partner is Interactive Data Managed Solutions and Worldlink obtains actual feeds from the London Stock Exchange, Turquoise and Plus Markets. Its media partners, who operate the Worldlink imobilemarkets service under their own brand name include the Daily Express and ShareCrazy.