Privacy Archives - NevilleHobson.com

FIR 204: Won’t you Join Us in our Clubhouse?

How safe is Clubhouse? asks Wired magazine in the latest critical look at the social audio service that appeared in April 2020 – less than a year ago. It’s attracting huge attention globally. Alongside the hype and hyperbole that have been hallmarks of the perceived attractiveness and exclusivity of the invitation-only iOS app that passed ten million users in February – a five-fold growth since recording two million in January – there’s increasing scrutiny of how the app works and…

The Internet and a brighter future

Most people would agree that what we have experienced over the past 12 months has changed – in a lasting manner – the ways in which we share information and communicate with each other, whether for business or for pleasure. Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated far-reaching change in ways that no one could accurately have predicted in 2019. Communications technology and the Internet are central to all of this and are at the heart of discussion I had in…

FIR ZoomChat 2: Zoom and Privacy

The second weekly FIR Zoom Chat hosted by Shel and Neville includes a robust discussion with a group of FIR listeners of criticism leveled at the increasingly popular videoconferencing tool, Zoom, and the response from the company’s CEO. Links: A Message to Our Users from Zoom founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, April 1. The Zoom Privacy Backlash Is Only Getting Started – Wired, April 1. Everybody seems to be using Zoom. But its security flaws could leave users at risk.…

FIR 184: An Incomprehensible Disaster

The June 2019 edition of “The Hobson and Holtz Report,” aka FIR 184, features Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talking about these stories: Boeing’s Max 737 crisis is a textbook case of ignoring standards of crisis communication Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report has a lot of meat for communicators Privacy policies are an incomprehensible disaster North Face and its ad agency thought it was clever gaming Wikipedia. Now they’re sorry. A privacy issue with precise-location tagging led Twitter to…

SDF Podcast 21: Attention, meaningful content and post-apocalyptic novels

Our latest podcast ended up being a tad longer than planned – clearly a sign of a lively, engaged discussion. In talking about various aspects of the attention economy, we managed to hold each other’s attention for a good 45 minutes. This episode’s show notes were written by Thomas Stoeckle. Many ‘attention economists’ these days quote Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon and his observation that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. It is certainly a quote that has…