The shortest way to describe this is that Google is no longer a verb. It's becoming a noun. Not just the few clicks to find information, but the information itself and the experience surrounding it.

Today, we get to add Google's chapter to "Will One Company Dominate the Cloud" introspective series and take a glimpse of the silent revolution from "index" to "be" that is transforming the company and it's products to the default way to engage the Internet.

As fate has it, Google done us a big favor in preparing for this piece. The company has launched an assault on the enterprise with its movement in the Google App Engine, having a stand-off with China, and negotiating with the EU. And that was just a bit of Google news from this week.

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Whereas it's a bit more clear where Amazon and Cisco win (our recent analysis) as they head towards the cloud, with Google it takes a bit more expansive view. We have to take the focus out a bit, to be able to dial in on the details.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Bray. He has been a key contributor and thought leader in key areas of interoperability and information design, including his leadership in bringing XML to the world. He recently announced that he's joining Google and focusing on Android in a transition from Sun.

Several things struck us about our dialog that we think are key for Google.

First, when Bray described his new job at Google, he talked about what he wanted to do and what he saw that needed to be done. Within three days of being there, he has a sense of ownership of the companies products and mission. In some organizations, you may never get such a luxury.

Second, Bray described his opportunity to "roll up his sleeves" and get back in the groove as a developer on a project he feels passion for. He mentioned his desire to take the open APIs of Android and expose some of the information in a more portable way, for example to transfer a call log from one phone to another. A very interesting project, with tangible results. This type of innovation lives on top of all the work the company has done to make the API exist, and to attract individuals who are willing to rethink how it should really work.

We think that this is the most interesting thing about where Google is right now. It's "open" mantra gives the company the ability to see a whole generation into the future of information channel disruption. And, by bringing in "no holds barred" developers like Bray and a legion of others, the company is patiently solving problems that many of us don't even know exist.

Lastly, Bray said something that caused us some deep thought.

His comment, "when the Drizzle team was moved into Google, they just kept working on the their open source project and things stayed nearly the same."

What caused us to pause was that open source development, whether Linux or XML, gives the developer, as a person, a way to contribute to the world. And it's documented. If the Internet was the Bible, leading a key open source initiative, is like getting your own chapter in the book, where time will be the judge of your actions. Much better than your manager alone.

To know that hard work, intellectual capital, libraries are available to the world after the contract is complete. This really speaks to the artist in us, in a way, the paid open source developer is using Google as a canvas.

If working at Google offers this emotional spark to employees, it will gain entirely new efficiencies in solving the big problems, in the context of individual efforts. Maybe this open source spirit is embedded into Twitter, and is why it works. We like to contribute to our version of the greater good...and want fans to cheer us on.

What we learned; acknowledgment matters, and connections to the whole population of people is an amazing vehicle. Google: become an indie rock star - with the strength of grep.

Google's destiny to become the hub of the worlds information is intertwined with history. And this comes with artifacts of policy and posturing. To start with, not everyone agrees that Google should achieve a dominant cloud position. As we're noticing, stopping it is another matter.

We'd like to suggest that in 2010, the company is not shy about stepping towards its future and will use its power, technology, and cash to stir it up. Here is our list of organizations in the world that Google has, is, or will be, continually bumping into in its quest for cloud information dominance.

• China (counties own the filters for the people)
• ATT (service providers own consumer on the network)
• Penguin (book publishers own the words in the texts)
• Visa (financial institutions own the digits in the transactions)
• Facebook (social networks know the details)
• Amazon (commerce sites own the decision point)
• Twitter (owns "what's happening")
• Microsoft (owns the computer applications and files)

We see both practical and strategic reasons that Google has a deep connection with the open source movement. Strategically, being the new optimized layer, removing all historic barriers to information give the company more leverage. Practically, solutions can be built where information is free.

Reviewing a few examples, such as Google Earth, Android, and even GMail and we see that where there are open protocols and information disruptive products can be built. Once they are built, the Google wields a significant economic advantage in binding the worlds information assets and converting them to eyeballs.

Here, we take a quick look at the information assets that Google is investing the global cloud.

• Results: Google has moved away from Page Rank to "Closest Object" in it's default results. What this means is that many businesses today show up as widget in the results in google with embedded links, maps, and other efficiencies.
• Ads: This is perhaps the best known and most valuable insight and unique asset, who wants to pay for what customer
• Realtime index: Google has worked to keep up with Twitter's realtime firehose
• Semantic index: The company continues to add more and more microsyntax parsers into its index, giving more controlled tools for publishers
• GMail: It had to be done. And it is monetized.
• Documents and files: Google Docs and the Apps Marketplace create a whole new stream of information about an individual. Private, personal, and shared.
• Mobile transactions: This is an interesting sample of where Google's strategy to build the Android OS pays off in the cloud. Not only does Google get to connect mobile to the rest of the offerings, but also to be able to dial in on movements, calls, and other critical tasks in our real-time lives.
• Books: Indexing all of them, first is an interesting piece of the strategy to break apart historic containers of knowledge. Is the book copyrighted? How about the quote?
• Browsers: The browser knows a lot. Google's Chrome moves it from being default search, to being default experience. This was a great example of where access to information "Faster pages" is the simple value proposition for consumers to switch.
• Filters: Protecting companies, trademarks, and interpreting the legality of free speech. Someone has to do it, if we're all one people.
• Health transactions: Google has even taken on one of the most sensitive challenges, private health information. And, it's connections to legacy systems that prefer EDI to JSON.

It's clear that Google is making progress. What we've also learned in this review is that the companies biggest asset - people - may scale to solve problems in lightweight ways that entire teams and companies haven't been able to in the past. Perhaps being open, or transparent, gives the company a unique advantage in being prepared for a cloud future.

Is the cloud where the action is?

What verb would you be if you were hired at Google?

Microsoft just launched a new version of its Bing iPhone app. The iPhone app gives you comprehensive access to Bing's core services, including Bing maps and directions, as well as news and image search. Besides offering better stability and a few interface tweaks, the new version of the Bing app also integrates more tightly with the iPhone by giving you access to your contacts in the mapping feature and making it easier to copy and paste URLs and share interesting results through email.

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Just as it launched this new version of the app, however, Microsoft also pulled the Bing applications from all the non-U.S. versions of the App Store. According to a statement Microsoft sent to Neowin, the company "inadvertently made it available to all countries in which the Apple Marketplace has a presence." Why it took Microsoft three months to pull the app, which was released in December 2009, remains a bit of a mystery.

If you are in the U.S., however, the Bing iPhone app remains to be the best way to access Microsoft's "decision engine" on your phone. The new version now includes a number of interesting new features. One of the most useful features is the app's ability to let you bookmark maps, websites and direction. Sadly, however, this feature isn't integrated with Apple's Safari, so your bookmarks don't carry over to the iPhone's default browser.

Other new features include better parental control settings, private search and the ability to edit your search history and support for first generation iPod touch devices.

The Telx Group, a New York City-based data center operator, has filed for an initial public offering that could see it raise as much as $100 million from the public markets. The last major data center operator to go public was RackSpace, and that was back in 2009. With the demand for data centers and Internet services on an upswing, Telx’s attempt to go public is very timely.

The company is well known for owning 60 Hudson Street, an iconic wired carrier hotel in Manhattan where more than 250 networks converge. Owned by private equity firm GI Partners, its other assets include The Planet and EV1 Servers.

Telx has 15 data centers with about half a million square feet of data center space. The company had revenues of $98.3 million in 2009 and net losses of $9.9 million. Telx, which also provides global interconnection and co-location services, has about $130 million in debt. The IPO is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs & Co. and Deutsche Bank Securities. Telx has applied to trade on the Nasdaq market under the ticker TELX.

The über-private and über-reclusive Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a rare non-keynote public appearance on Friday, joining California governor and action-film hero Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote organ-donation legislation....

What is your recession sales strategy?

The Iranian indie band talk about life as outlaws in their homeland, as documented in their new film No One Knows About Persian Cats

At first glance, Take It Easy Hospital look like any other aspiring indie duo. Dressed in impeccable Shoreditch chic – plaid shirt and skinny jeans for him, cute vintage dress, black tights and brogues for her – their teenage epiphanies came on copied cassettes of Nirvana and Pink Floyd, while these days they're more into Sigur Rós and Foals.

Their ambition for next year, once they find a drummer, is to get on to the bill at Glastonbury or Reading. The difference is that Take It Easy Hospital originally formed in Iran, where rock music is banned. When the local music industry is non-existent, gigs and recording studios are regularly raided by police and even MySpace is monitored, simply finding someone who shares your love of guitars and plaintive vocals is fraught with difficulties.

Ash Koshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi, the twin songwriters of Take It Easy Hospital, are the stars of a new Iranian film by garlanded Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi, called No One Knows About Persian Cats (so named because pet cats, like rock musicians, are outlawed in Iran). The film is a fictionalised account of the duo's attempts to recruit a rhythm section in order to play a local underground gig and ultimately escape to the rock-friendly west. As the two indie innocents are taken under the wing of music-loving wide-boy Nader (Hamed Behdad), the film becomes a Linklater-esque romp through Tehran's clandestine rock underground. All the bands and musicians featured are real, but whether hairy blues rockers, jazz singers, class-war rappers or indie kids, they exhibit a love for making music that overrides the fear of being arrested the moment they switch on their amps. "If you were discovered playing rock music, you'd get arrested, you'd have to pay a fine," reveals Ash, matter-of-factly. "Sometimes you'd go to prison."

The film gleans affectionate humour from the various bands' ingenuity when it comes to hiding their rehearsal spaces from the authorities in diligently-soundproofed underground caverns, shacks constructed on the roofs of tower blocks or, in one case, in a working cattle barn (much to the cows' displeasure).

By coincidence, there is a British film out this month which also documents the struggle of a couple of indie dreamers to form a band – except 1234 is based in London, so the only obstacles are their own musical inadequacy and weedy sexual tension between bandmates. Persian Cats makes 1234 look rather pathetic.

In Iran musicians are forced to behave like fugitives, even though the charges invoked against them are vague (Ahmadinejad imposed a ban on "western and decadent music" soon after becoming president in 2005). "It's a not a written law," complains Negar. "There isn't this red line. You never know when you're crossing it. [The authorities] don't even really know what they're opposing. They don't see that music brings energy and good nature to society."

In 2007, Ash's former band Font staged an open-air gig in a private garden in a suburb of Tehran. Armed police arrived en masse to shut it down, arresting everyone in the audience, and slinging the band in prison for 21 days. "They didn't have any law that said what they should do with us, so they called us satanists. They said we were against the moral law and disgracing the face of society." Ash chuckles wryly at the memory. "It was an odd experience, sleeping next to a serial killer for three weeks. But it made me believe even more in what I was doing."

Font and Take It Easy Hospital are rarities: most Iranian wannabe rockers never even get further then their bedrooms, due to the subtle pressure exerted within families. "Under this regime, you don't have any opportunity to make a living from being a musician, so families prevent their children from learning music in the first place," Ash explains. "Families are a small example of big government. They don't trust the young generation."

When Ash and Negar were kids, the only opportunity they had to hear western rock music was when somebody from their community travelled abroad and brought back CDs. "They'd be copied on to a tape over and over again," says Negar. "We used to write the track names in class when the teacher wasn't looking and take it home with such excitement to listen to it." Even so, whatever they got depended on the tastes of the traveller; often hoping for something similar to Nirvana, they'd end up having to make do with ABBA.

The advent of the internet changed everything for Iranian teenagers, who were suddenly able to participate in global youth culture, employing their technological nous to stay one step ahead of government censors. The fact that the bands in No One Knows About Persian Cats wear Strokes T-shirts and pass around copies of the NME shouldn't seem that strange. But what is the attraction to Ash and Negar of the kind of fey indie music that even within its countries of origin is often considered a bit insular?

"Well, we are indie!" declares Ash. "We had to do it ourselves in bedrooms because if you step out into the streets, you cannot even tell anyone you've just written a song. We would make our own imaginariums in our rooms."

If they'd grown up in England, Take It Easy Hospital's wan, organ-driven indie-pop, topped with earnest observations about the "human jungle", might stand accused of being a little bit twee. But once you learn how hard Ash and Negar have had to fight just to get their songs heard, they take on a whole new complexion. And despite their ugly experiences in Iran, they are determined not to make rebel rock. "Me, I don't care about politics," says Negar. "The value of art is a lot more than politics. Politics is something that passes, but art stays for years."

Ash picks up the thread: "Politics is a tool to solve a situation at one moment. We believe that art is pure and always depending on human nature, so we've always kept ourselves far from politics. Our music is not dangerous, but the current regime in Iran feels that it has to keep people away from honest expression because if they face up to the reality they will soon find out what they are missing."

Ash and Negar agreed to star in Persian Cats not to make a political point, but to try to show the older generation, including their parents, that music is a force for good. But while Ash has received some positive feedback from older Iranians – "I've heard that they walk away after seeing this film to remember what they had before the revolution" – Negar is despondent that most of them haven't been able to overcome their prejudices. "I guess that when people decide to close their eyes to something, you can't force them to see the truth."

In the light of last year's post-election protests, the police crackdown on young people involved in music and the arts has intensified. When Take It Easy Hospital's old drummer went back to Iran several weeks after the election, he was arrested and beaten. Last January, the film's co-writer, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, was arrested in Tehran and handed an eight-year jail sentence on trumped up charges of being a US spy (she was eventually freed following a global outcry).

Reluctantly, Ash and Negar decided it was unsafe to return to Iran and have successfully applied for asylum in the UK, where they've been living since coming over to play at Manchester's In The City festival in 2008. In the film, the duo never make it to London, so in this case, truth is happier than fiction. However, Negar is at pains to point out that they never viewed England as the promised land, despite our rather more relaxed laws regarding the public airing of Farfisa-driven jangle pop.

"Some people say we've run away," says Negar. "But there is no running away. Moving from one country to another doesn't necessarily solve all the problems that are on your mind." Proof that indie introspection truly is an international language.

No One Knows About Persian Cats is out Fri; it previews at Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Tue

• World cinema

Musicians, DJs and authors to reveal their favourite hangouts

Have your say on the Travel blog

HiFi is the best rock'n'roll bar in NYC.The room is covered with empty album sleeves and the juke box is hands-down the best in the city – I believe there are about 3,000 albums on it, so you can't complain about them not having your song. There is a fantastically affordable happy hour and a great local crowd. Like the rest of the East Village, it can get a bit much on weekend nights, but most of the time it's my favourite bar in town.
· 169 Avenue A, +1 212 420 8392.
Craig Finn, lead singer of the Hold Steady

The entrance to the Pegu is an unassuming doorway on the south side of West Houston Street. It's only when you are up the stairs that the glory of this place hits you. It is like going back to the great clubs of the 20s, when the staff were pretty and jazz and cocktails ruled. On a recent visit, two amazing Django Reinhardt-style guitarists were swinging through 30s classics. Cocktails are taken seriously here – the art of proper, classy drinking is almost a motto. At the weekend it can get pretty busy as it is becoming the "in" place.
· 77 West Houston Street, +1 212 473 7348.
James Pearson, artistic director, Ronnie Scott's, London

It was a balmy night in September when I visited Po' Monkey's juke joint. It's a ramshackle hut powered by a single cable in the tiny town of Merigold, deep in the Mississippi delta. A poster on the door warned: "Bring your liquor inside but not your beer." The walls were cluttered with posters and age-old postcards, while toy monkeys swung from the rafters. It was low lit – smoky but inviting, with beer and whiskey flowing freely. Terry "Harmonica" Bean took to the tiny stage, elbow to elbow with the crowd, and delivered a mind-blowing, foot-stamping performance that will stay with me forever. Delicately soulful cries came from his ageing gruff voice, while stupendous bluegrass melodies oozed effortlessly from his antique steel guitar. This was raw blues at its authentic and spine-shivering best.
· +1 662 514 7488, 15km from Cleveland.
Dan Hipgrave, co-founder of Original Music Company (originalmusictravel.com), which launched this month and specialises in music-themed holidays

The Spirit Store in Dundalk, County Louth, is on the edge of town beside a small harbour. There's a small, friendly bar downstairs which opens around 4pm, but it is the live music upstairs that is the main draw. You would be hard-pressed to find anywhere as welcoming to an artist and more genuinely music-driven in its programming of events. That's why I keep going back there to play, and why many other artists who have outgrown the 120- or so capacity venue keep returning. So many venues and promoters are about the money but Derek Turner, who books the music, is driven by something much more.
· +353 42 9352697.
Duke Special, musician. His DVD box set, The Stage, A Book & the Silver Screen is out now

Not exactly a venue, not exactly a bar, entrance to Trishas/The Hideout/that door on Greek St (as it is variously known), is obtained by boldly knocking on what appears to be the entrance to a flat above a shop, striding through a starkly lit corridor and down a flight of stairs, before mumbling an explanation to the owner as to why you don't appear to be in possession of a membership card – having accidentally put it through the washing machine normally does the trick. Inside, you'll find a cupboard-sized, candle-lit cavern which can be hired out for private music showcases. But stumble in unannounced after hours on a weekend and you might also find a doo wop or jazz band sandwiched into the corner between the usual crowd of transvestites, metropolitan hipsters and veteran Italian locals.
57 Greek Street, Soho, London.
Krissi Murison, editor, NME

I first played at this blink-and-you'll-miss-it shed in the tiny village of Brawby back in 1998. It only held 64 people and we scraped our legs on the front row's knees. It has since moved to Hovingham village hall, though it retains its name. The man behind The Shed, Simon Thackray, has presented events from the Fish and Chip Van Tour with a trombonist, to mixed media knitting installations – saxophonist Lol Coxhill playing free jazz in a skip to coach trips for folks in knitted Elvis wigs touring sites of Elvisian interest in Ryedale. My own band, Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys, started a tradition of Christmas gigs at The Shed, where we play morose songs and have a riotously miserable time. The Shed was the inspiration for my village hall tour around Britain, which I am currently writing up as a book. And, after 235 villages, The Shed is still the loony best.
· 01653 668494.
Hank Wangford, writer and musician. His CD, Whistling in the Dark, is out now

For me, the greatest gig of 2009 was at A38, a huge old ship that used to lug coal up and down the Danube. The lower deck is now a state-of-the-art live music venue, but bits of engine room equipment are still there. Even though the boat is held down in dry dock by 100 tonnes of concrete, the bottles still jingle on the shelves of the bar when the parties get wild. The booking policy is great – they've had cutting-edge electronic artists such as Ikonika, Dorian Concept and Foreign Beggars play recently. And nothing compares with the signature dish of the restaurant on the upper deck: rooster stew, complete with the crest and testicles of the bird.
· +36 1 464 39 40.
Mary Anne Hobbs, Radio 1 DJ. Her show is broadcast on Thursdays 2-4am

Wild At Heart is a whisky-soaked, no-nonsense rock'n'roll joint in Berlin's old anarchist district, Kreuzberg: a seven-nights-a-week venue painted blood red, crammed with Elvis memorabilia, Hawaiian gods and a lifetime's supply of hard liquor. For 15 years it has presented bands from all over the world – mostly punk, rockabilly, psychobilly, 60s garage and surf. I spent a memorable evening there talking to TV Smith from the Adverts and another with Wreckless Eric, both of whom started out with punk label Stiff Records in 1977, and I've played there with my band, the Flaming Stars. The music's loud, but the welcome is friendly, and the club also runs the Tiki Heart cafe and clothes shop next door, where you can eat, drink and kit yourself out in a spectacular variety of rock'n'roll clobber.
· Wienerstrasse 20, +49 30 610 747 01.
Max Décharné, singer in the Flaming Stars and author of A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly, to be published by Serpent's Tail in June

Mesa de Frades in Alfama, the oldest district of Lisbon, is the sort of place you dream of hearing fado, the traditional soulful Portuguese music. A tiny converted chapel with tiled walls, it is full of locals and quality performers booked by owner Pedro Castro, a great guitar player. You can come for the music, which starts late – around 11pm – or book a table and come for an excellent dinner beforehand. A couple of years ago I sat here watching Carminho, the amazing young fado singer who is now the talk of Lisbon. When the music starts, the doors are shut to enclose the tiny performing space. It's what fado in Lisbon should be, but so rarely is.
· Rua dos Remedios 139A, +351 91 702 9436, mesadefrades.com. Booking is essential.
Simon Broughton, editor of Songlines magazine (songlines.co.uk/musictravel)

In the heart of Turin, off Piazza Statuto, you'll find the best of all worlds: from Wednesday to Saturday Il Folk Club plays host to Italian and international jazz, folk and world musicians. How this Italian institution – legendary in Turin for over 20 years – has remained generally unknown to travellers and music junkies outside Italy is a mystery. Alongside its regular programme, Il Folk Club is also the launching point for Radio Londra, a monthly mini-festival which fuses British musicians such as Jim Mullen, Kit Downes, Brandon Allen and Quentin Collins Quartet, with local stars such as Mario Pozza, Enzo Zirilli and Dado Moroni. The bar is simple – one central room with space for about 150 people, exposed brick walls, and a stage – so the focus is always on the incredible music.
Via Ettore Perrone 3, Turin.
Sam Sollai, buyer and events coordinator, Ray's Jazz at Foyles

This little neighbourhood bar used to have a green door with panes that rattled when you opened it, but it has now been replaced with something more solid, partly to keep the sound in. It's run by Mar and Nacho, both dyed-in-the-wool culés (Barcelona supporters), and nights there are long and loud. You can hear Sam Lardner, an American resident who plays his own fusion of flamenco and bossa nova, or wonderful classical and flamenco guitarists like Daniel Figueras and Pedro Javier Hermosilla, or the Covers Project, with frontman Philip Stanton. The eating and drinking are delicious too – Galician-style octopus, traditional meatballs, pimientos de padron (small green peppers), and wine for not much more than a euro a glass. A great night out in the Alta Zona.
· C/ Ivorra 24, Sarria, Barcelona, +93 203 4988.
Rupert Thomson, author living in Barcelona. His latest book, This Party's Got to Stop, will be published on 8 April

Salta, in north-west Argentina, is well-known for its folk music heritage. This has given rise to the creation of pena, which roughly translates as a place where musicians and music lovers come together. Seven nights a week you can experience this at La Casona. The venue's five colonial rooms are filled to the brim with musicians, professional and amateur, folk, jazz and others, locals who come down from the Andes bearing pan pipes and drums, and some foreign visitors, all coming together to jam the local tunes. As a musician, I found great comfort in the fact that this kind of place exists in the world. And of course, many people come simply for the music.
· La Casona del Molino, Caseros.
Lizzie Ball, violinist and singer. She will be performing – and launching her album – with Machaca at La Linea Festival in the Purcell Room on London's South Bank on 27 April

The first time I asked a taxi driver to take me to Havana's Salón Rosado de la Tropical back in 1989 he said it was a place for Cubans, not foreign tourists – and certainly not lone women – and I'd better watch out as it could be rough. He'd obviously never been inside this mecca of Cuban dance music, where all the top bands play regularly, testing their latest material in front of the sexiest dancers on the island. In Cuba, most music venues are geared to tourists and too expensive for ordinary Cubans, who are often not allowed in anyway. Not so the Salón Rosado. This is the closest you can get to hanging out with a Cuban clientele. Dedicated to the memory of Beny Moré, Cuba's touchstone band leader of the 1950s, it started out life a Spanish cultural centre at the beginning of the 20th century. These days there's a balcony reserved for tourists overlooking the dance floor where, if you're lucky, you may rub shoulders with the musicians as they gather for the gig. Although today reggaeton and hip-hop dominate street tastes, Salon Rosado continues to offer a window on to the latest music scene and is a dancer's dream.
· Avenida 41 esq. 46, Nicanor del Campo, Marianao, +53 7 203 5322.
Jan Fairley has been travelling to Cuba since 1978 and is writing a book on women and music in Cuba

Leading Japanese venue Liquid Room has been going for about 15 years and hosts weekly bands and DJs from Japan and around the world. The website may say it closes at 12, but the last time I played there, as The Orb, they didn't let us out till 6am. There's a beautiful cafe upstairs and the friendly enthusiasm of Tokyo clubbers has to be experienced to be believed. The last time I played there I took a bag of Space Dust (the sweet!) which made me very popular.
· Higashi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, +81 3 5464 0800, liquidroom.net.
Alex Paterson, co-founder of The Orb and HFB, his new project. HFB's first three EPs are available from 12 April on Malicious Damage Records

Lagos is not your classic tourist destination; it's a prohibitively expensive city of 14 million people and a crime record to frighten even the toughest traveller. But Nigeria's notorious capital does have one musical landmark worth going the extra mile for: the New Africa Shrine. It's named after the legendary club run by the late musical activist Fela Kuti, which was razed by soldiers. Fela's daughter Yeni and her musician brother Femi have built up a nightclub that can hold thousands and has live music throughout the week. It's not for the faint-hearted, but the Shrine is probably the safest place in Lagos: it has its own police force. You'll get a warm welcome, and hear some of the best live music in the region.
· Pepple Street, Ikeja.
Rose Skelton, music and travel journalist specialising in West Africa

• Bars and clubs
• United States
• New York
• Ireland
• World music
• Budapest
• Hungary
• Berlin
• Germany
• Lisbon
• Portugal
• Yorkshire
• Argentina
• Havana
• Cuba

Compensation for staff at Ground Zero who suffered ill-health is not a fair deal, federal judge rules

A judge has rejected a $657m (£437m) deal to compensate workers who suffered ill-health after helping out at New York's Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, ruling the sum is not adequate.

Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein said the proposed payout was not a fair deal for about 10,000 police officers, firefighters and labourers made sick by the dust and debris.

Under the settlement, the amount received by each responder is based on a complicated points system that would give some workers only a few thousand dollars while others might qualify for $1m or more.

The judge said he was concerned too much of the money would be eaten up by legal fees and that the plaintiffs were being pressured into signing up to the agreement before they knew how much they stood to receive.

A third or more of the cash was expected to go to lawyers.

Workers have been given just 90 days to decide whether they agree to the terms, far too short a time for such an important decision, said Hellerstein.

"I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance," he said.

Hellerstein, who rules over all federal court litigation related to the terror attacks, had heard from several tearful responders speaking about their illnesses, and received letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal.

The settlement has taken years to negotiate and was announced last week. Hellerstein said more negotiations were now needed.

The payouts will come from a fund set up after the attacks when New York City was unable to find private insurance to cover claims originating from the clean-up effort.

• New York
• September 11 2001
• US domestic policy
• United States

Big increases in minimum wage and reduction of voting age to 16 being considered for party's 'next phase of national renewal'

Labour will pledge an end to the era of extortionate credit in its election manifesto, and is considering big increases in the minimum wage, the introduction of free school meals for all and a reduction in the voting age to 16, Ed Miliband, the cabinet minister responsible for its drafting, reveals today.

In a Guardian interview trailing Labour's manifesto for an unprecedented fourth term, Miliband reveals that the prospectus will be about showing that Labour can lead the country to "the next phase of national renewal" and that the party "will reform both the market and the state".

The manifesto will also set out proposals for a new model of banking built round a People's Bank, drawing on the post office network, and a possible cap on credit interest rates.

Miliband said one aim would be to show that Labour's rights and responsibilities agenda "needs to go all the way to the top". The manifesto would "not promise the earth", but he said: "One of the profound issues in this election is: in a world of tough decisions, in whose interests do you make those decisions? We are going to be very clear about where money comes from in this manifesto."

The energy and climate change secretary likens the introduction of a People's Bank, in the wake of the banking crisis, to the creation of the Sure Start network of children's centres – an institutional reform that meets new demands in society and brings together poor and middle-class people. Built round the 12,000-strong network of post offices, the bank would provide capital for the hundreds of credit unions in the UK, he disclosed.

He argued: "Institutions are the things that define governments. The 1945 government was defined by its relationship with the NHS. The 1997 government was defined around rebuilding the fabric of communities through institutions like Sure Start. I think the idea of the People's Bank ... is one of those ideas."

Ministers are completing talks with the Post Office on the range of banking services to be provided, and the scale of its initial capitalisation.

Miliband said: "Frankly banks have let down low-income consumers. The People's Bank can be a very serious financial institution and a competitor to the conventional private sector. One of the exciting ideas is for the People's Bank to provide the network of credit unions access to funds, but it can also become a banking alternative for a significantly wider group than just the low-income consumers. It is part of a bigger reform we need in the relationship between individuals and financial institutions."

Some consumer groups have warned that a cap on interest rates might see the suppliers of credit refuse to provide it to poor people altogether. But access to an alternative supplier of credit would reduce that risk, making a cap easier to introduce.

Miliband said: "We are looking more widely at a cap on interest rates. There is a real issue about the way in which low- income groups are being ripped off."

A review into credit card companies this month proposed smaller-scale reforms, but government sources said the option of a cap was likely to be in the manifesto. Despite historically low Bank of England base rates, the average interest charged on a credit card has reached 18.8% – the highest level since 1998. Some consumers are now paying more than 40% on the cash they have borrowed.

Miliband has been working on the manifesto for three years, and says it will offer the country a radical response to the banking and political crises.

"What people do not want after these two events is a return to business as usual. They want a sense we have learned lessons from the past. They want the next stage of national renewal," he said. "The task of the manifesto is to show that when it comes to the national renewal we are the people to deliver it, not the Conservatives."

Miliband said he favoured the introduction of votes at 16 to be included as part of a package of constitutional reforms, including changes to the voting system. "Perhaps the opportunity was not there before, but expenses has so brought into focus a sense that politics needs to change and open up. There is a new appetite for political renewal."

He also indicated the possibility of a strengthening of the minimum wage, currently £5.80 an hour, saying that reforms would go beyond tighter enforcement to examining a radical increase in its level.

He also said that, subject to an affordability test, there was "a strong case for universal free school meals. It makes a big difference in terms of nutrition. It makes a big difference in terms of concentration in classrooms."

The manifesto would also contain proposals for a more open state in which the floodgates of government data are opened to the public, so changing the relationship between citizen and state.

In a speech on Monday, Gordon Brown may suggest making one welfare benefit available exclusively online as a way of encouraging Britain's 10 million digitally excluded towards the internet.

Miliband also trailed a more interventionist European industrial policy, including both infrastructure and green investment banks.

"The old view that the conventional private sector on its own would ensure our infrastructure was built, the right sort of companies were supported and people will get the banking services they need has not worked."

He promised the manifesto would offer fresh guarantees for citizens to seek redress if the health service, police or schools let them down. The government has already announced that it will offer a private sector alternative in the case of NHS failure, a parental ballot in the case of a failing school, and a right to a neighbourhood beat meeting in the case of police.

Miliband said: "We need to be stronger in terms of the redress we offer and you will see that in the manifesto, because people have to have a sense that they are meaningful and will give them power."

• Labour
• Manifestos 2010
• Ed Miliband
• General election 2010

A non-profit organization called Reboot has a mighty challenge for you this Friday night: Power down your cellphone, let your FarmVille crops languish and sign out of Skype for a full 24 hours. What do you think: Can you hack a single day sans technology?

We’re seen efforts of this nature before — remember when John Mayer wanted you to make like a Luddite for the first week of 2010?

But this event, which Reboot is calling The National Day of Unplugging, goes the extra mile with promotions (ironically enough) through Facebook, Twitter and a website called the Sabbath Manifesto (the day itself is part of a larger movement called the Sabbath Manifesto, a movement started by a group of Jewish artists, writers, filmmakers and social media professionals seeking to integrate traditional rituals into their modern lives).

There will also be a series of events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco (according to Reboot, they’re private and space is limited). All guests at these events will be asked to check their phones at the door, where they will sleep the next 24 hours away in a cell phone sleeping bag [pictured above].

Tanya Schevitz, a Reboot rep, told us that the idea is spreading. “We are hearing from people all over the county –- and beyond –- that they will create their own events, gather with friends, family, etc. to embrace the Sabbath Manifesto and the National Day of Unplugging,” she said.

Participants are also encouraged to sign on to the Sabbath Manifesto website and report back on their technological withdrawal experiences.

This venture is certainly interesting in light of recent stats that point to our society’s obsession with technological communication and increasing fascination with social media.

“There’s clearly a social problem when we’re interacting more with digital interfaces than our fellow human beings,” said Dan Rollman, Sabbath Manifesto creator and founder of the Universal World Record Database. “Rich, engaging conversations are harder to come by than they were a few years ago.”

What do you think? Do you think digital communications are eroding our ability to truly connect with others? Or do you think Twitter, Facebook and the like serve as channels to bring people together? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: apple, facebook, iphone, twitter

Five years ago, when most BitTorrent sites had only a handful of visitors, ShareConnector was serving eDonkey links to millions of file-sharers every month. This popularity didn’t go unnoticed by the local authorities, who were tipped off by BREIN and started a criminal investigation into the operator of the site, as well as the people behind the site Releases4U.

What followed was more than 5 years of legal battles in both civil and criminal court cases. In the criminal case the operator of ShareConnector came out as the winner in 2007 and was released from all charges.

The court ruled that the authorities failed to provide any evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that it was criminal in nature. In addition, the judge ruled that the initial arrests were unlawful as the evidence provided by BREIN was insufficient.

After this decision ShareConnector came back online. However, this comeback was short lived as local anti-piracy outfit BREIN initiated a civil lawsuit, trying to prevent the operator from keeping the site up and running. This lawsuit was won by BREIN but the ShareConnector operator decided to appeal the ruling.

This week a court announced the verdict of the appeal and it came out negative once again. Although the court ruled that the operator of ShareConnector wasn’t guilty of copyright infringement, it said the site must remain closed for good. The judge ruled that sites that offer hash links (like .torrent links) are facilitating copyright infringement, an unlawful behavior.

The outcome of the case is disappointing to aDI, the operator of the site, who further said that it didn’t surprise him. He had hoped, however, that the ruling in the appeal would be in line with recent cases in Spain where P2P indexing sites were deemed legal.

“The results are just what I expected, so nothing surprising here considering all the similar recent cases with just about the same conclusion we see here. The trend has been set by those ignorant old judges that fail to see the logic, contradicting the rulings from Spain,” said aDi in a response to the verdict.

“Unfortunately this is not Spain, the Dutch legal system is dysfunctional, lacking logic and professionalism. Why does it take more than five years and so many criminal trials to prove a simple fact? How come all the pathetic private organizations whose main interest is money and not the artists, get away with lies and deceptions spreading their propaganda in the media?,” he added.

What remains for the ShareConnector operator is the appeal of the criminal case that will be heard in April. In 2007 he was released from all charges, but after two years the Department of Justice filed the appeal. The charges in this case are membership of a criminal organization and (assisting in) the distribution of copyrighted material. The additional charges of copyright infringement were dropped last week.

In the upcoming trial Dr. Johan Pouwelse will appear as an expert witness on behalf of the defendant. Since downloading copyrighted films and music is not illegal in The Netherlands, he is expected to testify that there are various ways for eDonkey users to disable the upload feature. Whatever the outcome of the criminal trial, ShareConnector will never return.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Coming soon to Google Chrome: use your extensions in Incognito mode! originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CNN:
Obama rips insurers in final health care push  —  FAIRFAX, Virginia (CNN) - President Barack Obama made a final, urgent public plea for health care reform Friday, slamming private insurers and accusing his plan's opponents of spreading lies and distortions.  —  The president's populist push …

· Mitchell's trip to region back on after concession
· Blair expects resumption of indirect negotiations

The US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is due to fly to the region on Sunday to try to secure a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks amid optimism about a breakthrough.

Mitchell had been due to visit Israel on Tuesday but his trip was cancelled – a victim of US-Israeli tensions. It was reinstated after Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, bowing to US pressure, phoned the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, last night to offer concessions.

Mitchell is scheduled to see Netanyahu in Israel and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah.

Tony Blair, envoy of the Middle East Quartet group, made up of the US, the UN, the EU and Russia, predicted that talks between Israel and the Palestinians could start soon. Blair, who was in Moscow today, told Reuters he expected a resumption of proximity talks, indirect negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, with the US as a broker.

"I hope very much that in the next few days we will have a package that gives people the sense that, yes, despite all the difficulties of the past few days, it is worth having proximity talks and then those leading to direct negotiations," he said.

The Quartet issued a statement reiterating its hope that the talks between Israelis and Palestinians would lead to a settlement within 24 months and condemning the plan to build 1,600 Jewish homes at Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem.

US-Israeli relations deteriorated quickly after Israel's surprise announcement last week about the homes.

Clinton phoned Netanyahu and set out demands including confidence-building measures that could be put in place by Israel. These could include withdrawing roadblocks on the West Bank, releasing Palestinian prisoners and removing soldiers from parts of the West Bank. She also demanded a freeze on new Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory such as that planned for Ramat Shlomo.

Today she told a press conference in Moscow, where she had been attending the Quartet group meeting: "What I heard from the prime minister in response to the requests we made was useful and productive and we are continuing our discussions with him and his government."

Netanyahu's office and the US state department would only say publicly that he had agreed to confidence-building measures, and made no reference to a moratorium on settlements. But diplomats and analysts said that there would also have been private undertakings for such a moratorium, sufficient to allow the Palestinians to agree to resume talks.

Clinton will try to get Netanyahu to commit himself to specific details when the two meet next week in Washington. The White House today declined to confirm whether Barack Obama would meet Netanyahu too.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government peace negotiator and now an analyst based in Washington, said he believed Netanyahu would have promised Clinton not to undermine US peace efforts with any more surprise announcements of settlement building. "I think there will almost certainly have been private undertakings by Bibi [Netanyahu] to adhere more rigorously to the embarrassment test, meaning no settlement announcements or developments, evictions or demolitions in both Jerusalem and the West Bank," Levy said.

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at Washington's American Task Force on Palestine, thought Netanyahu would have given enough ground to allow the Palestinians back into the talks. "The Obama administration has made its point and extracted pretty significant assurances," Ibish said. "I think it will be enough for the Palestinians to go into the proximity talks. Netanyahu tried to defy Obama and did not get away with it."

Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six secretaries of state on Middle East negotiations, said the call between Clinton and Netanyahu was "an effort to walk the cat back from the heat and fire of the last week". He expected a resumption of indirect talks but was pessimistic about the chances of peace in the long term. "It is hard to see a way to an outcome. They could agree on borders but not Jerusalem and refugees ... the gaps are too long for this Israeli government and I suspect too for the Palestinians," he said.

David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute for the Near East Project on the Middle East Peace Process, said the peak of the crisis was "clearly behind us". But he suggested there could be more drama on Monday when Clinton is due to address the Israeli lobby group Aipac in Washington. "When you get a crowd of 7,500 people, it is hard to predict that all 7,500 will behave appropriately. The organisation is trying to make it clear she should be received respectfully. The question is whether they can get 100% compliance," Makovsky said.

• Israel
• Binyamin Netanyahu
• Hillary Clinton
• United States
• Palestinian territories
• United Nations
• Russia
• Tony Blair

· Kauto Star falls four out after a ragged ride
· Denman battles on to take second place

The miracle of this Gold Cup was that two great champions were dethroned and yet it still felt like a day of wonder for National Hunt racing. Ruby Walsh rode the fallen odds-on favourite, Kauto Star, back to the unsaddling enclosure from the scene of their tumble upright in the saddle, like a defiant cavalry officer, and Denman reached into his deepest store of energy to finish runner-up to Imperial Commander, who was cheered by an exultant crowd despite spoiling the romantic two‑horse script.

The Festival rose a level with Imperial Commander's seven-length victory at 7-1. So relentlessly dramatic was this 3¼-mile trial of the spirit that tens of thousands of spectators became part of the contest out on the track. Cheltenham crowds are often giddy and always appreciative but nobody could remember them being so consumed by the action with every jump. They gasped as Denman soared over fences and howled when Kauto Star crashed through the eighth and knocked the light out of himself before coming down four fences out.

In other sports Imperial Commander would have been greeted as an impostor who had ruined the decider between the winners of the last three Gold Cups. Instead there was a realisation that jump racing had erred by turning this occasion into a private duel between the two Paul Nicholls-trained big shots.

In the build-up the rest of the field had assumed the role of bit-part players. Imperial Commander was not the only contender to interject. Third home was last year's Grand National winner, Mon Mome, who rated barely a mention in the preamble. Plenty of shrewd punters were immune to this ballyhoo. As Imperial Commander passed the line under Paddy Brennan, damp copies of the Racing Post were tossed and hats flew like Frisbees. Some had noticed that the winner had been beaten by only a nose by Kauto Star in the Betfair Chase in November and was decent value at 7-1.

There is the theatre out on the track and then there is the betting, in which most punters were wiped out over the four days. If hope could take human form, it would have been driven away from the Cotswolds in an ambulance. The defeats of Master Minded in Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chase and Kauto Star and Denman were the biggest triumphs for bookmakers in a week when gamblers squealed for mercy.

So this was not a two-creature pageant but a test for the best of the National Hunt breed. For seven fences it was a masterclass of steeplechasing. But then Kauto Star exhibited the first signs of mental frailty since the bad old days when he would try to walk straight through fences late in races. Just as Walsh was doubtless starting to sniff his third Gold Cup win on Desert Orchid's successor as the nation's official horse, Kauto Star turned him into a rodeo rider, belting the top of the fence and almost jolting Ireland's champion out of the plate.

L'Extraterrestrial, as he was known in France, ploughed on but his confidence had evaporated. Denman, the darling of traditionalists, took up the stable's cause, jumping audaciously and barrelling into open country. The audience was entranced. Four fences out Kauto Star self-detonated, stepping in to the foot of the obstacle and sending himself over the birch in a somersaulting heap. As Walsh landed like a fly-half diving in for a try, he turned straightaway to check his partner was unharmed. Later, as Imperial Commander took the ovation, Walsh could be seen standing up in the saddle as Kauto Star's white noseband approached through the gloom.

This was how to come home vanquished: upright, proud. Kauto Star cantered back to the exit chute "as fresh as a daisy" in Walsh's plucky phrase. He was hardly that. But National Hunt racing folk do not make a tragedy out of a setback. Kauto Star had passed from invincibility to fallibility inside 10 minutes. His romping wins in last year's Gold Cup and December's King George VI Chase seemed an age ago. Like boxers steeplechasers never warn you the end is nigh. It was not the mistake at the eighth fence that pointed to his mortality so much as his inability to recover from it.

Denman, who could be trained for next year's Grand National, was transcending doubt and showing himself to be a great equine warrior from the old school. To achieve immortality here a horse needs more than one Gold Cup victory (he crushed Kauto Star to win two years ago) yet Denman has twice distinguished himself in defeat. This course jolts him back to life. His acolytes would say it is because he was bred for days like these. The heavy, saturnine mood that seems to afflict him at the Nicholls yard lifts and he attacks the Prestbury fences with joie de vivre. "That Denman, he never goes away, does he?" Brennan said.

Under Tony McCoy he was asked to make the final assault swinging for home but the sprightly, super-fit Imperial Commander was skipping along with him and accelerated up the hill to register a distinctly local triumph. Motor to a Cotswolds village called Guiting Power 12 miles away and you will find a pub called the Hollow Bottom, which feels like an extension of Cheltenham racecourse. It is also a shrine to Nigel Twiston-Davies, Imperial Commander's trainer, who has a share in the business and who said as he approached the winner's enclosure here: "This was a home win. We are where we belong."

Half an hour later Twiston-Davies's 18-year-old son Sam won the Foxhunter Chase on the stable's Baby Run, then their Pigeon Island took the last under Brennan. All leave would have been cancelled at the Hollow Bottom. "Paul Nicholls has done a wonderful job with his two horses but we need new ones coming through and ours is the best now," Twiston-Davies senior said of his champion. "I loved all the Kauto Star-Denman thing but I always thought we could beat them."

From a theoretically anticlimactic day the Racing For Change initiative had the perfect promotional DVD. This beat media training, decimal odds, simpler racecourse announcements and all the other ploys to get people to the track. It was the action speaking for itself. It was the purest sport.

• Cheltenham Gold Cup
• Kauto Star
• Denman
• Cheltenham festival
• Horse racing

· Green Zone security man killed two colleagues
· War horrors played part in behaviour, family claims

The parents of a former British soldier who is facing the death penalty in Iraq for the killing of two colleagues said today that horrific experiences on active service had destabilised his behaviour.

Daniel Fitzsimons, 29, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, shot dead two fellow security guards while working for the private ArmorGroup in Baghdad's Green Zone last August. He maintains there had been a series of drunken fights and provocations.

If found guilty of murdering Paul McGuigan, 37, of Peebles, Scotland, and Darren Hoare, 37, from Australia, the former Royal Fusilier could be executed. The next hearing is on 7 April.

His stepmother Liz and father Eric met officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Foreign Office in London today to press the British government to become more involved in the case. The couple are hoping their lawyers will be able to persuade the families of the dead men to ask the Iraqi court for clemency.

Fitzsimons had seen terrible atrocities in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, said his stepmother. "He was most affected by a young boy who brought them bread in their camp. One day the boy's severed body was found in the water supply," she said. He had been killed by Serbs for collaborating with the British.

"That played a huge part in the mental illness he suffered. He has post-traumatic stress disorder very badly."

While serving with a private security company in Iraq, the vehicle in front of Fitzsimons was hit by an explosion. "The plastic doors of the truck sealed shut in the heat and one of his team was stuck inside," said Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal organisation Repreive, which is helping the family.

"His friend screamed for Danny to get him out but Danny could not break the window as it was bulletproof glass. He was forced to watch his friend burn inside the truck, unable to help."

Fitzsimons has given a detailed account, published in the Guardian today, of the violence in the contractor's residential quarters in the secure Green Zone that led to the killings. He admitted that his recollection was at points "blotchy" because of heavy drinking and claimed that McGuigan and Hoare had been harassing him through the evening.

Tariq Harb, the Iraqi lawyer representing Fitzsimons in Bahghad, said he had asked lawyers for the other families to consider withdrawing their claims.

McGuigan's family disputes Fitzsimons's version of events, insisting that McGuigan's body showed no sign of injuries from earlier fighting.

"The British postmortem clearly states that other than the horrific gunshot wounds, there were no marks on Paul to indicate that there had been any fighting," his family said.

• Iraq
• Law

Who says you can’t attract a substantial number of users on a shoestring budget?

Spain-based social networking platform provider Genoom, which lets family members communicate amongst each other on private online community sites, is about to sign up its millionth user.

This isn’t exactly a huge milestone, but I think it is noteworthy since the startup is operating on a mere $80,000 in seed funding, which it raised from Midatel roughly 3 years ago.

Genoom was launched in July 2007 and will cross the 1 million registered users mark by this weekend. According to company spokesperson Bob Samii, the site is now available in 17 languages and counts more than over 10 million profiles from families all over the world.

On the Genoom website, users can add family trees, personal information, photos, videos, and related documents about ancestors and living relatives alike, limiting access to uploaded information through invitations and custom group privacy settings. This makes the service effectively a marriage between genealogy and social networking.

Genoom offers a handy Facebook application, allowing users to access their family tree and communicate with family, all while logged into their Facebook account.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Google Apps for business has a number of benefits over traditional business IT and desktop software. Using the full suite essentially places all of your data and entire workflow in the cloud, meaning you can access it all anywhere, any time, from any Internet connection.

At $50 per year per user, the fully integrated apps system is certainly cost-effective, and even adding the free versions of Gmail, Calendar, and Google Docs into your workflow can keep your employees coordinated.

For more casual users, or even those who might not be acquainted with Google Apps, here’s a guide to how the software can benefit your small business.

The many advanced features of Gmail really make it a leap forward in the web-based e-mail space, and a lot of these are ideal for business.

If you’re not ready to take the full plunge into the paid Google Apps suite, you can still configure Gmail to function as your business e-mail client through your existing domain name by following the steps outlined in my post, “How to Set Up Gmail as Your Business E-mail Client.”

The first big advantage of Gmail, like all the apps discussed here, is that it functions in the cloud. You don’t have to worry about downloading messages to multiple locations or syncing various devices. Your inbox will look the same from any web or mobile connection. And with 25 gigs of e-mail storage per user (with a paid apps account), it’s unlikely you’ll ever have to clean your inbox or delete old messages.

Gmail works a bit differently than traditional desktop clients and webmail services in that conversations are “threaded.” This means that e-mails with the same or related subject lines are grouped together in a thread so you can see all the messages sent and received on a topic in one place. When a new message is received, the entire thread is bumped to the top of your inbox, making tracking complex and multi-party conversations easy.

Gmail also has a chat feature built right into the interface that lets you send a quick update or discuss a project with an employee if you’re not in the same office. Chats are also stored in Gmail so that you can search and refer to them later.

Google search, the asset that started it all for the company, is of course built right into Gmail, which makes finding information from e-mail conversations (even very old ones) extremely efficient.

Additionally, Gmail Labs offers some extra settings for your inbox that can be extremely valuable for business use:

• Signature Tweaks puts your e-mail signature before the quoted text in a reply the way that Outlook would.
• Default ‘Reply to All’ allows you to reply to group e-mails with one click, instead of from a drop-down menu.
• Forgotten Attachment Detector will notify you if you’ve mentioned an attachment in an e-mail, but forgotten to add one.
• Undo Send gives you a few seconds after sending a message to click “undo” in case you forgot something, or sent it to the wrong party by mistake.
• Title Tweaks is a great feature that puts your unread message count first in the title of the inbox web page. If you have many windows open while you’re working, you’ll still be able to see when new messages arrive.

Google Docs is a web-based suite for word processing, presentation building (similar to PowerPoint), spreadsheets, and web forms. All the work is done in a web browser, and all the data is saved in the cloud.

The software can be a bit quirky at times, which may frustrate users of more stable products like Microsoft Office, but the payoff in online storage, shareability, and collaboration options may be worth the adjustment for many small businesses.

Because the data is online, streamlined document sharing and collaboration are big perks with Google Docs. Any file you’re working on can be shared with individual team members, or the entire group within the apps system. You can also set permissions for specific users to view and edit documents. And, multiple users can simultaneously view and edit documents, which can be useful for real-time collaborative projects or presentations during conference calls. You can also grant permission for those outside your office network to view and edit documents, which can be especially useful for sharing information and presentations with clients or colleagues.

As you create and share documents, your Google Docs dashboard may start to get a little messy. Be sure to create folders to keep your work organized just as you would on your desktop. You can also share entire folders if you need to collaborate on multiple documents related to the same project.

Google Calendar provides an efficient and intuitive way to keep appointments and events synced across your entire business. With calendar sharing and permissions (similar to those in Docs), you can add other employees’ calendars to your own, and vice versa, in order to see and manage the big picture of your team’s time.

For example, if an executive has an assistant, their calendars may be shared so that the assistant could manage his boss’s appointments remotely from his own account. It’s also a smart tool for coordinating meetings, calls, and shift staffing for multiple employees to avoid scheduling conflicts. Sharing multiple calendars with one “master calendar” creates a color-coded scheduling table for the coordinator that updates automatically when users make changes or additions.

The Calendar app can also be used to create events through Gmail. By adding your employees’ e-mail addresses to an event, they will receive an invitation to respond. Responding ‘yes’ automatically adds a shared event to your calendar that each invitee can view and add notes to. It’s a smart way to coordinate meetings and keep everyone in the loop.

Google Sites is a drag-and-drop web development tool that you can use within your business’s apps to create online information hubs for employees. The websites you create exist within your Google Apps domain, can be public or private, and permissions for employees to add, change, and contribute information can be set from the main account.

Beyond simply being a WYSIWYG web editor, Sites makes it easy to integrate data from other Google Apps into dynamic pages that team members can use to collaborate on projects. Integrating spreadsheets or data charts from Docs, a deadline schedule from Calendar, and team-specific messages from Gmail could essentially create a one-stop project dashboard full of dynamically updating information.

Sites here can be purely functional or informational, or with the aid of some built-in templates or a good designer, a full-fledged dynamic public website for your business that team members have easy access to.

Google Groups have long been public forums where users across the web gather to discuss specific interests or get technical support. Groups for business brings that same functionality into your private internal network.

E-mail can sometimes be cumbersome when coordinating a team. When you need a central space to collect ideas and share documents (but you’re not interested in building a web page in Sites), Groups offers a solution.

Employees can create discussion groups on their own and subscribe, either by e-mail or via a Groups dashboard, which lists new posts like a news reader.

Rather than e-mails going out to individual inboxes, a group thread remains visible to all of your subscribed team members, and users can go back to it for reference, to add more information, and even share docs and calendars.

Using Groups for business discussions and project management creates a communal and searchable database of information that employees can go back to whenever needed.

Google’s recently launched Google Apps Marketplace allows developers of other business web apps to integrate their offerings with Google and sell software directly to Google Apps users. The marketplace currently has over 50 partners, including Intuit, Zoho, and Aviary. This additional space for third-party software means that Apps users will have even more options to tailor their suite for specific business purposes.

While each app has worthwhile features, perhaps one of the best advantages is the way that they all integrate with one another. Documents and appointments can be easily shared via e-mail, and your inbox can be used as a portal for productivity via embeddable widgets, chat, and other notifications.

If your small business is ready for a web-based, collaboration-minded IT solution, Google Apps is certainly a cost-effective way to go, and you can investigate the free versions simply by signing up for a Gmail account to determine if the suite is right for your workflow.

- HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
- HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
- HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, CostinT

Tags: business, gmail, Google, google apps, Google Calendar, google docs, google labs, List, Lists, productivity, small business

Bopup Communication Server is a secure messaging suite designed to provide efficient and private communication over networks of any size. The server meets most of the critical business needs, such as centralized management, the Active Directory (LDAP) support, message and file transfer logging. It can be easily deployed over the business infrastructure to unite the entire company's offices and other locations into one internal IM workspace with control over messaging groups, user permissions to view others, send messages and documents, a message and transfer archive with printing support. And the File Distribution feature allows to assign and distribute important documents to users from a central server.

The server supports several modes to authenticate users and allow them to enter to the IM network: Simple (that only matches account name with user's Windows Login ID), Windows Authentication and Private login/password pair.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

A group of researchers have proven something we already expected to be the case: your Twitter follower count is somewhat of a meaningless metric when it comes to determining influence. To reach this conclusion, the researchers examined the Twitter accounts of over 54 million active users, out of some 80 million accounts crawled by their servers. They then went on to measure various statistics about these accounts, including audience size, retweet influence and mention influence. The conclusion? Those with the largest number of followers may be "popular" Twitterers, but that's not necessarily related to their influence. High follower counts don't always mean someone is being retweeted or mentioned in any meaningful ways.

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The findings from this research project have been published in an research paper available here on the project's homepage.

The data the researchers had access to is astounding: 54,981,152 user accounts, 1,963,263,821 social (follow) links and 1,755,925,520 tweets. In order to collect this massive store of data, the researchers contacted Twitter and asked permission to crawl Twitter's service. Twitter granted them access and white-listed the IP address range for the 58 servers that were used in the data collection. In total, the crawler was able to scan 80 million Twitter accounts during the month of August 2009. Only 54+ million of those accounts were actually in-use at the time, which, in and of itself, is an interesting finding about how many people create a Twitter account and then abandon it. Only 8% of the active accounts were set to private, so they were ignored during the data analysis. The researchers also used the Twitter API to gather additional information about a user's social links and tweets.

The study focused on the largest part of the Twitter network - the "single disproportionately large connected component," notes the paper, that contained 94.8% of users and 99% of all links and tweets. Within that large network of "in-use" accounts, the researchers further narrowed down the data to focus on the "active users." These users where those who had more than 10 tweets and had a valid screen name that could be retweeted by others. (Interesting - it's possible to have an account and not a screen name?) That left "only" 6,189,636 active users out of the initial 80 million to examine.

To measure the influence of these 6+ million users, the researchers looked at how the entire set of the 52 million users interacted with these active users.

After examining the data, the researchers found that the most followed individuals spanned a wide variety of public figures and news sources and included accounts like CNN, New York Times, Barack Obama, Shaquille O'Neal, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears and others. However, the most retweeted users tended to be content aggregation services like TwitterTips, TweetMeme, and, interestingly enough, they counted the tech blog Mashable as an aggregation service, too. Other heavily retweeted users included Guy Kawasaki, the humor site The Onion and again, The New York Times. Meanwhile, those users with the most "mentions" - not a direct retweet including the original content of someone else's tweet, but just a casual mention of their name - were celebs.

These three measures of influence - followers, retweets and mentions - has surprisingly little overlap when looking at the top influentials. The top 20 lists from these three categories only had two users in common: Ashton Kutcher and Puff Daddy.

The researchers also examined the ability of Twitter users to influence others. They determined that the most influential users hold significant influence over a variety of topics, as opposed to being experts in just one area.

Out of the 6 million active Twitter users, the researchers picked the top 100 users in each of the three categories. Due to the overlap, there were only 233 distinct users on these lists. These were dubbed the "all-time influentials." Some of these accounts belonged to news organizations or celebs, but others were just regular users. Regarding that last group - it appears that those users who limit their tweets to a single topic are the most likely to increase their influence scores.

In the end, what the researchers found was that follower count alone is not necessarily a worthy measure of determining influence. Other factors come into play as well. Although some heavily-followed accounts are also mentioned and retweeted a lot, just looking at audience size doesn't reveal an account's ability to influence and impact the Twitter universe.

According to the project's homepage, the researchers are hoping to make the data they collected available to the community at large. Before doing so, they will discuss it with Twitter in order to determine that their data sharing plan agrees with the company's policy. They plan to have an update on this situation - possibly the data itself - by May 2010.

Last December I mentioned how the popular Giganews Usenet service had begun offering customers who subscribe to the Giganews‘ “Diamond” package a FREE VPN service called VyprVPN.

Since Giganews initially rolled out the VyprVPN beta, many connection and speed bugs have apparently been fixed. The beauty of it all is that VyprVPN brings the same privacy, security, and speed that you expect from the Giganews Usenet service to the rest of your Internet experience – a $14.99 value free with every Giganews Diamond Account.

That’s the best part – anonymity – especially these days with a number of countries contemplating “three-strikes” legislation.

Users will be able to encrypt their true IP address and protect themselves from the prying eyes of identity thieves, hackers, or especially irate copyright holders.

Many of you, myself included, are subscribers of a Usenet newsgroup service provider of one name or another. However, Giganews is usually the one most choose due to its lengthy data retention period that now clocks in at an amazing 575 days.

• Replacing your IP address with a VyprVPN IP from one of our many worldwide VPN Clusters
• Encrypting all of your Internet traffic (including web, e-mail, instant message, and newsgroup traffic) between your computer and the VyprVPN Cluster

• Private web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, newsgroup reading, and more — totally secure from ISP, wireless or neighborhood eavesdropping
• The ability to choose a US or European online identity
• Protection from data snooping and identity theft on public Wi-Fi hotspots, iPhones, PDAs, and cable Internet
• The same access to all of your favorite applications you enjoy today

It’s really not a bad deal if you’re already a Giganews subscriber or are looking for a reason to jump ship.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

• Supervise the implementation of ACTA
• Consider further "elaboration" or "development" of the agreement
• Address "disputes that may arise regarding the interpretation or application" of ACTA
• Consider any other matter that may affect the operation of this agreement.

• Establish ad hoc or standing committees, working groups, experts groups, or task forces to carry out various activities.
• Seek the advice of non-government persons or groups
• make recommendations regarding the implementation of ACTA,
• provide guidelines for implementing the agreement
• identify and monitor techniques of piracy and counterfeiting
• assist non-parties in assessing the benefits of accession,
• share information on best practices
• support international organizations
• take other such actions as the parties may decide.

The city of Amsterdam has been involved for several years in building Citynet, a partnership between the city and two private investors to wire 40,000 Amsterdam buildings with fiber. And it's not just fiber, it's open access fiber—any ISP can sign up to use the infrastructure and deliver ultra-fast Internet access.

In 2008, the European Union ruled that the city's involvement in the project was in fact legal, and that it was not improperly interfering in the market.

We asked Herman Wagter, CEO of the company that built Citynet fiber project, to talk about how he got the job done, and to explain the challenges of rolling out fiber in a densely crowded European city.

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