This Christmas is all about turkey and yes Twitter

It's Christmas time and most information professionals are wrapping up their data projects to spend time with their loved ones.
But professionals may still have their nerves on the market, thanks to the rise and adoption of social web and mobile computing devices and impressive broadband promises in 2009 alone.
Info pros can pat themselves on their back for helping their organisations sail through the tough economic conditions after being entrusted the task of maintaining their organisation's data management capabilities, communication activities and keeping up with technology all on a shoestring budget.
As we look to come out of this deep recession at the start of the next year, their roles will become more exciting yet crucial and challenging. It will be in the next twelve months that info pros can demonstrate how their organisations gained after allowing these professionals to integrate social media in their professional activities; how their digitisation process has helped their companies to be in sync with technological advancements and how investing in right information solutions and subscribing to the right products have given their companies an edge over competition.
But it is also in the next twelve months that businesses would fail to see impact of projects initiated by info pros. If info pros cannot tangibly showcase how much, for instance Twitter has helped their marketing and communications arm in reaching out to the public, their traditional colleagues will get only further cynical. Experts have said that social media can do wonders to businesses, but info pros must be able to quantify the benefits and have the facts and figures ready.
Likewise, if research and academic info pros are not able to justify investing in information technologies, cash-strapped institutions will feel they have "wasted" money. Also if professionals have released exclusive data and products online for free which has backfired, their organisations will feel betrayed.
Amid increased pressure in 2010 when their initiatives will start showing results, info pros need confidence and conviction to justify themselves and assure their slightly-wary organisations that all steps have indeed been in the right direction.
Gathering such information may not be daunting with today's information feeds, measuring technologies and social media.
Happy holidays and of course, happy holiday tweeting!

NLA got aggregator to remove newspaper links but nobody sure of copyright

Newspaper publishers and NLA may have won the battle against content aggregators, but can they really claim victory?
Not until copyright laws define and cover online aggregation service.
NewsNow, the UK content aggregator is set to remove links to most national newspapers after a row with the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA).
The site will pull links out of its subscription service that relates to content from titles of eight major newspaper groups - including Guardian Media Group, News International, Telegraph Media Group, Associated Newspapers and Independent News & Media- who own the NLA.
NewsNow's move comes after a debate with NLA after the agency launched a crackdown aggregators, PR agencies and all organisations that recycle links for commercial purposes. It announced of plans to claim copyright fees against organisations which share press cuttings by emailing links to newspaper articles on an industrial scale starting from January 2010.
NLA also aimed at charging web-based news aggregators who collect news headlines, make their own feeds, tailor-make it and distribute it widely to businesses and then profit from it (the B2B service providers).
This crackdown is to ensure that a typical aggregator such as NewsNow, which links to content from newspapers and provides them to business on subscription, would be expected to pay up to £10,000 as "web database license fees".
It is clear that NLA has attempted to introduce a new revenue stream at a time when newspaper publishers are losing to freely accessible information on the internet.
NLA spokesman Andrew Hughes clarified that it will not charge backdated fees and will not charge users sharing news links for free. "Our new licences only to paid-for web aggregation services, free-to-use services are unaffected. Web aggregators copy and index website content. This requires the consent of the content owner, and charging those who use website content commercially is fair and reasonable. The reason NewsNow and most other aggregators have accepted our proposals is that detailed legal advice supports our position."
NLA said that all of the major paid-for UK web aggregators except Meltwater have agreed licenses. Meltwater's resistance and NewsNow's plans to remove links than agree to pay license-fees demonstrates the reluctance in the aggregation business to pay because, according to them, their service constitutes "content-search2.
In the last few months the debate between aggregators and publishers has been whether aggregation is a search service or content copying because existing copyright law does not cover aggregation.
While NLA thinks aggregators must pay, legal experts point that circulation of hyperlinks cannot be an infringement of copyright, and that the newspapers' own 'Print 'and 'Email a Friend' icons allow any user to access the article directly, without payment.
In a report, Robin Fry of Beachcroft said: "Most businesses have abandoned the circulation of physical press cuttings, leaving it to individuals to access stories direct from the newspaper websites. The broadsheets clearly allow this on their websites but the NLA still seem to be pursuing businesses for licences which are simply not needed.
"Our aim is to demystify the situation, as we have seen an increase in enquiries from clients on this issue, who are understandably baffled by the numerous and complicated rules and fees in this area. It's quite possible for organisations to access all their press cuttings at no cost whilst staying within the law.
"The NLA has a responsibility to explain the correct legal situation to those it seeks copyright fees from - but at the moment, many are entering into licences - and possibly paying backdated 'indemnity' fees - without really understanding if these are needed for their business."
The battle will only get bitter unless a legal framework is put in place soon.

Google's absence at OI '09 was conspicuous

As the three-day Online Information 2009 conference wrapped up in London yesterday [Thursday], most information professionals in public and private sector organisations as well as the information technology professionals left the premises a little wiser on how to deal with the emerging social technologies, knowledge management, information management in recession, digitisation and preservation and even hard engineered semantic web technology.
But some were left scratching their heads too- those reluctant to take the "risky" dive into the social web, those adopting the traditional digitisation and preservation technoques, those operating on tighter budgets and those wanting more technology democracy in their workplaces.
The message came stark and clear to these reluctant professionals - you have to do it now, you have to do it fast and you have to do it right.
The professionals attended the sessions in all their sincerity, aiming to take away something effective and useful to their institutions' boardrooms. We saw it all- experts presenting their information, offering case studies and juggling questions while the information audience absorbing the information and advice, counter-arguing, questioning, agreeing and collaborating.
The closing keynote session may have already set the agenda for next year- a "Google dominated" session where experts provided insights on how Google will shape the information landscape in 2010.
In addition to the final session, many questions and discussions in individual sessions for three days too were focused on Google and that's what I want to say- Google's absense at the event was conspicuous.
While we had panelists praise as well as critisise Google and predict its move next year, at the next Online Information conference, we want to hear from the search giant about its own plans. During the post-session discussions over a few glasses of wine, I could hear some professionals expressing their frustration over predictions and not hard facts about what Google will embark on in the coming year.
And another issue that struck me was the absence of professionals who chalk out the social web policy within their organisations. Some librarians were keen to understand ways to develop a social web strategy only to find themselves full of knowledge but helpless to implement as they were not directly responsible for these strategies.
An information-explosive event, I am already beginning to think about the next OI conference where we must question experts on trends they wrongly predicted, on questions we missed to ask, on failing to spot opportunities and see more experts from internet giants who are shaping the future of online information at a lightening speed.