In the Wild West dot-com days of the late 1990s, respected technology experts were lining up to get it wrong about the internet.
Take John Naughton. Today, Naughton, author of the 2012 book From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What you Really Need to Know About the Internet, is a professor of "the public understanding of technology" at Britain's Open University.
But in March 1999, he was a columnist with The Observer newspaper in the UK, likening the emerging wave of internet search engines to the houses of ill repute that sprang up around the railways in the 19th century in the hope of coining a profit by proximity to the next big thing.
Naughton took a sarcastic sideswipe at Larry Page and Sergey Brin, “two more Stanford graduates armed with a great idea and a wacky name”.
He conceded that Google, then just a few months into its garage-born existence, worked “a treat”. But, he sniffed, it would probably survive only until “Sergey and Larry … get wiped out by the next pair of kids in the queue”.
On balance, Naughton concluded, it was “safer to invest in railways”.
Fast-forward 15 years and, judging by the assault on Google by a group of Germany’s biggest media organisations, some traditional ink-and-paper news publishers remain 19th-century trainspotters at heart.
They are unable to accept that a business born in a California garage just 15 years ago has turned their balance sheets on their heads.
About half of all German publishers, led by media titan Axel Springer, want the country’s courts to order Google News to pay them 11 per cent of the profits it makes “directly and indirectly from making excerpts from online newspapers and magazines public”.
And Germany isn’t alone. Last month, the Spanish parliament passed a law ordering news aggregators, such as Google, to pay a fee to publishers whose content is linked.
Critics that include US media commentator Jeff Jarvis, the author of What Would Google Do?, say such moves are "absurd, cynical and dangerous" and are an attack on the internet, which lives and dies by its hyperlinks.
And in any case, where are the profits? Anyone who regularly uses Google News will know that Google sells no advertising on the site.
But the absurdity also stems from a misunderstanding of the role and potential of the world’s largest online news aggregator.
Google, as Jarvis pointed out in his BuzzMachine blog last month, was “sending the publishers plenty of value – us: readers, customers, the public these news organisations allegedly want to serve”.
If anything, he concluded, Google should be charging them.
Google often points out that any news organisation that does not want its stories flagged on the site, and all the click-through traffic that it might bring, has a simple solution at hand. It offers a simple piece of code that will prevent its search robots from indexing their sites.
Yet Europe, and Germany in particular, has never been comfortable with Google’s fast-track monopolisation of the virtual world, and has legislated for hurdles.
These include the so-called “right to be forgotten”, upheld by the European Court of Justice and in force since the end of May.
The joke on the court, and the thousands of people who have applied to have links to web pages removed, is that all of the original material still exists, and to unearth it all one has to do is search from Google.com.
What the German and Spanish assaults highlight is that many traditional news producers are still struggling to come up with a workable economic model for the digital age.
"I can sympathise with where they find themselves," says George Brock, former managing editor of The Times and now head of journalism at London's City University.
“We are exiting a situation in which life was nice and simple, in the sense that print had a single big revenue stream – advertising. But I just don’t think what they are doing is a way out of their jam.”
Brock left The Times in the middle of 2009, at the height of the paper's struggle to find a way forward in the digital economy, characterised by owner Rupert Murdoch accusing the likes of Google of being "content kleptomaniacs".
Back then, Brock freely admits: “I had no more idea of what would work than anyone else did. With hindsight, we did not understand how deep the change in the nature of information and its circulation was going to be. Not just news, but information of all kinds.”
But now, “in a world in which huge volumes of information are more easily available, how you reach what you want becomes very important, and to think that you can do without search engines misunderstands the nature and value of intellectual property in the digital age”.
Since then, newspapers around the world have experimented with different models in a bid to stay afloat online.
In 2010, Rupert Murdoch's Times and Sunday Times erected a paywall around their sites, a gambit that limits readers to those who can be persuaded to subscribe. They were fewer than 150,000, according to reports.
Others, including the UK's Daily Mail, have opted for free sites in the hope that large numbers of eyes will attract advertisers.
Peddling celebrity gossip and photographs, Mail Online has become one of the most successful and profitable examples of digital publishing.
The biggest newspaper site in the world, and the sixth most-visited site of all, it attracts an average of more than 6 million visits every weekday, with last year’s revenue up by 35 per cent at £150 million (Dh924m). It is predicted to bypass print by next year.
Other newspapers, such as the Financial Times and The New York Times, have gone down a hybrid route, in which some content is free and some is paid for.
One version of this approach is the “metered” model, where visitors can read so many stories a month before they are asked to pay a subscription.
The message for the media in the Middle East, says Damian Radcliffe, an honorary research fellow at Cardiff University’s school of journalism who is based in the region, is that online newspapers should treat Google as a friend, not as an enemy.
He believes that the key for Arab news media grappling with the digital economy lies in “breaking out of their national silos, so that they can reach out and engage with both diaspora communities and other Arabic-language speakers across the region, if not the globe. “Clearly, good search-engine optimisation will be one way to do that.”
The future for newspapers lies in engaging with young people, who make up most of the region’s population, and with the social media they use, which is “increasingly important, as a source of news and as a trusted source of information”, Radcliffe says.
And, he says, there are significant success stories to be found in the region, where “a number of the established players are performing well in the digital space”.
The best example is Al Youm Al-Sab'ea in Egypt, by far the largest newspaper website in the region.
Between August 2011 and August 2012, it attracted 842.8 million visits and 145.1 million unique visitors.
Data produced by Forbes Middle East in 2012 also showed that some of the region's smaller newspapers were enjoying the highest growth in new audiences.
Among them was The National, which ranked 15th in the table of top online newspapers in the Arab world, but came second where new visits were concerned, with new readers accounting for more than 60 per cent of total traffic.
Like Radcliffe, Brock, who authored Out of Print: Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age, believes it is far better that newspapers concentrate on what they can do, rather than bang their heads against the reality that is Google.
Love it or hate it, with about 30 trillion pages now indexed by its crawlers, it is the library of the internet.
Brock says: “I don’t think Google will necessarily last for ever, or eat the whole of the world. In free and open economies, monoliths don’t usually last long and somebody will come up with something more attractive.”
newsdesk@thenational.ae
Brief scores:
Toss: India, opted to field
Australia 158-4 (17 ov)
Maxwell 46, Lynn 37; Kuldeep 2-24
India 169-7 (17 ov)
Dhawan 76, Karthik 30; Zampa 2-22
Result: Australia won by 4 runs by D/L method
10 tips for entry-level job seekers
- Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
- Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
- Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
- Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
- Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
- Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
- Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
- Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
- Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.
Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz
Company%20profile
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South Africa squad
: Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wkt), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Why your domicile status is important
Your UK residence status is assessed using the statutory residence test. While your residence status – ie where you live - is assessed every year, your domicile status is assessed over your lifetime.
Your domicile of origin generally comes from your parents and if your parents were not married, then it is decided by your father. Your domicile is generally the country your father considered his permanent home when you were born.
UK residents who have their permanent home ("domicile") outside the UK may not have to pay UK tax on foreign income. For example, they do not pay tax on foreign income or gains if they are less than £2,000 in the tax year and do not transfer that gain to a UK bank account.
A UK-domiciled person, however, is liable for UK tax on their worldwide income and gains when they are resident in the UK.
SWEET%20TOOTH
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more from Janine di Giovanni
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
SERIES INFO
Schedule:
All matches at the Harare Sports Club
1st ODI, Wed Apr 10
2nd ODI, Fri Apr 12
3rd ODI, Sun Apr 14
4th ODI, Sun Apr 16
UAE squad
Mohammed Naveed (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Shaiman Anwar, Mohammed Usman, CP Rizwan, Chirag Suri, Mohammed Boota, Ghulam Shabber, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Amir Hayat, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Zimbabwe squad
Peter Moor (captain), Solomon Mire, Brian Chari, Regis Chakabva, Sean Williams, Timycen Maruma, Sikandar Raza, Donald Tiripano, Kyle Jarvis, Tendai Chatara, Chris Mpofu, Craig Ervine, Brandon Mavuta, Ainsley Ndlovu, Tony Munyonga, Elton Chigumbura
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
SOUTH%20KOREA%20SQUAD
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Itcan profile
Founders: Mansour Althani and Abdullah Althani
Based: Business Bay, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India
Sector: Technology, digital marketing and e-commerce
Size: 70 employees
Revenue: On track to make Dh100 million in revenue this year since its 2015 launch
Funding: Self-funded to date
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The%20Color%20Purple
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Abaya trends
The utilitarian robe held dear by Arab women is undergoing a change that reveals it as an elegant and graceful garment available in a range of colours and fabrics, while retaining its traditional appeal.
From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases
A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.
One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.
In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.
The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.
And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The biog
Name: Mohammed Imtiaz
From: Gujranwala, Pakistan
Arrived in the UAE: 1976
Favourite clothes to make: Suit
Cost of a hand-made suit: From Dh550
TCL INFO
Teams:
Punjabi Legends Owners: Inzamam-ul-Haq and Intizar-ul-Haq; Key player: Misbah-ul-Haq
Pakhtoons Owners: Habib Khan and Tajuddin Khan; Key player: Shahid Afridi
Maratha Arabians Owners: Sohail Khan, Ali Tumbi, Parvez Khan; Key player: Virender Sehwag
Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC
Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC
Kerala Kings Owners: Hussain Adam Ali and Shafi Ul Mulk; Key player: Eoin Morgan
Venue Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes
Timeline October 25: Around 120 players to be entered into a draft, to be held in Dubai; December 21: Matches start; December 24: Finals
The specs: 2019 Haval H6
Price, base: Dh69,900
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 197hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 315Nm @ 2,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.0L / 100km