Benihana - Dumb and Dumber

Image via WikipediaYou might recall the brouhaha around Benihana Kuwait, the restaurant that sued blogger Mark Makhoul for posting a mildly critical review of the restaurant. Mark, the man behind uber-popular Kuwaiti blog 2:48AM, defended himself in court and won the case.

Benihana Kuwait, a licensee of US based Benihana of Tokyo. (which has maintained an atrocious silence throughout), has appealed the Kuwaiti court's ruling and has won on appeal.

The whole sad incident has already created massive, global negative coverage online for Benihana. The story was picked up by bloggers in the Middle East as well as by a number of top global websites and media. Benihana, both franchisee and franchisor, could hardly have managed the whole sorry incident more cack-handedly. It's even recorded on the company's Wikipedia entry.

Mark's update post about the case is linked here. The court has awarded damages against Mark of KD1,000 - a pretty paltry sum, but an award nonetheless. He's going to take it to appeal because it's about more than KD 1,000, it's about consumers' right to hold and freely express an opinion and I must say in his shoes I'd do exactly the same thing.

What amazes me is how utterly, unbelievably stupid Benihana Kuwait is being in pursuing this tawdry case - and how idiotic Benihana of Tokyo is being by allowing these morons to drag its name through the mud like this.

Cancer Air

Image via WikipediaI went to look at 'New Shelter' with Ahmed Bin Shabib recently. We took his car. The New Shelter looks stunning, they have been true to their word and built a barn within a warehouse. Mad.

(The Shelter is Dubai's uber-funky hangout for designers, architects and other creative types. It's the Mother Ship for GeekFest)

We wandered around, talked about possibilities and took in the surrounding funky art galleries and stuff.

The big car was hot from standing in the Dubai summer sun. Ahmed pulled down all of the electric windows as we got into it, putting the AC onto 'blow' as he pulled away. He caught my surprised look.

'You don't want this,' he said. 'This is Cancer Air.'

He explained, and I have to say after twenty years in the Middle East (and twenty years of clambering sweatily into hot cars) I think he has a point - one that I've missed all this time. I mean, do you really want to be breathing in the fumes from an enclosed space jammed with super-heated plastics every time you get into your car? It's like doing glue from hot vinyl bottles...

I've started popping open those windows, no matter how hot it is outside. I wish I'd thought of it myself - twenty or so years ago.

(My all time record was in the early '90s, a miserable day when the Paj's internal thermometer measured 65C and I turned the starter to be met with a blast of super-heated air through the dashboard. Yummy!)

I'm off to the UK tomorrow, BTW. Enjoyyyy! ;)

PS: Where the hell is Gulf News' picture of a pigeon drinking from a standpipe? It's usually happened by now. Don't tell me we're going to get a Modhesh drinking from a standpipe instead...

PPS: Posts over the next few weeks may be somewhat erratic. :)

Twenty

Image via WikipediaToday is our twentieth wedding anniversary. This day in 1991, Father Patrick Cooney married us at the Cathedral in Ennis. We had Irish traditional music instead of organ music at the wedding, then everyone trooped across the road to the Old Ground Hotel for a reception on the lawn followed by a dinner in the Flag Room. There was an awful lot of Irish music about, mainly because Sarah's family were all involved in music and we had some of the country's finest with us that day playing in the church, on the lawn and then, once the band had done their repertoire of wedding songs, an impromptu seisiún.

We also had the first day of sunshine in Ireland that year.

We spent our first night 'legally', as my best man so helpfully pointed out in his speech, in the Old Ground's De Valera Suite, where the great man himself had once slept. Above the kitchen, it smelled of boiled cabbages. No wonder Dev was grumpy.


There was no Internet, no tweets from the church or even mobile phones to go diddledoodoodiddledoodoodiddledoodoodee in the quiet bits (like just after you've been asked if you 'do'). Our photographer, Liam Hogan, used one of those things with a bellows and took so long to set up each shot we were left with acheing cheeks and a set of pictures in which we look not unlike slightly stunned waxworks. Nowadays he's got a website where he uploads his digital creations!

We don't usually make a fuss of our anniversary. One year, we both managed to forget it entirely. But tonight we'll be having a bottle of pop or so.

Cheeky Nigerians

Image by Toban Black via FlickrDubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA to you, mate) has issued a warning alerting people to the fact that www.difcuae.org (Dubai International Financial Capital) is a naughty website that makes "false, misleading and deceptive statements" and advising people "not to deal with the Firm or persons connected with the website."

The site appears to be a link in an email scam, with The Real Dubai International Capital similarly getting hot under the collar that it has been cited as an authority by the scammers.  DIC publishes an example of one such scam mail, an email purporting to be from a gentleman called David Smoot. Mr. Smoot signs off the email with his hotmail address (always a confidence booster, that), dubai129@hotmail.com, which is strange given that he has access to the much more believable domain of difcuae.org - Mr Smoot is named on the website as CEO of Dubai International Capital.


A quick WHOIS lookup confirms one's suspicions - as The Chemical Brothers tell us, It Began In Afrika:

Domain ID:D162062108-LROR
Domain Name:DIFCUAE.ORG
Created On:18-Apr-2011 14:04:30 UTC
Last Updated On:18-Jun-2011 03:49:53 UTC
Expiration Date:18-Apr-2012 14:04:30 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:PSI-USA, Inc. dba Domain Robot (R68-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:ABM-11191927
Registrant Name:Olatubosun Olajubu
Registrant Organization:Olatubosun Olajubu
Registrant Street1:Isolo
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Lagos
Registrant State/Province:Lagos
Registrant Postal Code:00000
Registrant Country:NG
Registrant Phone:+234.8068929148

The website's got a Du mobile number as a UAE contact number, but you can always cut out the middle man and call Mr Olajubu directly in Lagos to give him your bank account details and a copy of your letterhead and signature.

Are people truly that stupid? Do they actually fall for these scams?

(Update: As you'll see from the comments, Mr Smoot IS the CEO of Dubai International Capital - just not the one in Lagos...)

World's Worst Web?

Back in the late nineties, I travelled to Beirut in the company of Microsoft's Middle East marketing manager to manage the opening of the company's office in Lebanon. The trip was the culmination of a long campaign I had been involved in to have an intellectual property protection law passed that would protect IP holders from the endemic piracy in the country. The campaign was kind of successful in that the law was, indeed, passed. The law was, of course, subsequently ignored by pretty much everybody, but that shouldn't really surprise anyone.

My marketing manager colleague was horrified* to see that there was a ledger on the visa desk, where issued visas were recorded manually. This despite the presence of a distinctly computery thing on the desk. Given MS was touting e-government pretty hard at the time, she seemed to find the presence of a totally manual, analogue thing in the middle of a process that everywhere else in the world had automated somewhat incongruous. That ledger is still there today, folks.

I mention this in the context of a few tasty finds by pal Bilal El Houri, following on from my amused post last year about old skool websites.His challenge was to find worse sites than these little beauties, all examples of quite how far down the e-government road the Lebanese government has travelled since back then. Clue: the answer is not very far, really.

This is the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications website.These are the people responsible for the Internet in Lebanon. Yeah, yeah, I know: it figures.

Here are some other beauties. Remember, these are NOT snapshots from Way Back Machine. This is Lebabon today.

The Ministry of Higher Education

The Ministry of Agriculture

The Directorate General of Emigrants
(Their English version is a howl, BTW)

The Ministry of Industry

Thanks, Bilal. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry...

BTW, all those years back, we visited the Prime Minister, Selim Hoss and the president, Emile Lahoud in the same day, with an MS exec in tow, a 'veep' if I remember right. The BBC correspondent in Beirut at the time, the wonderfully named Chris Hack, had an acid aside for that one: "Where else in the world would the president and the prime minister be rolled out to receive an effing commercial traveller?"...

* You should have seen her reaction to B018, mind...

PS: Dany Awad (@DanyAwad) adds to the charge sheet with this here link to the Electricite du Liban website! Class! And they keep coming in - this link to the brilliant National News Agency website from Amer Tabsh!

.

Did Piers Morgan 'Invent' Phone Hacking?

Image via WikipediaThere are growing mentions in media linking my old pal* Piers Morgan to the phone hacking imbroglio that has so excited the British media and parliament over the past two weeks - and which is now showing every sign of crossing the Atlantic in a tide of Murdoch-toxic sludge and washing up against the shores of the home of the brave and the land of the free.

I'm sort of sorry about that, because I'm quite the Piers fan. I admire the way he picked himself up after riding the crest of a wave as Murdoch's brightest, blue eyedest boy, leaving Murdoch behind him as he became editor of the Daily Mirror and then being dumped massively overnight following the Iraqi abuse story that saw him fall foul of the very authorities that had courted him so assiduously right up to the day of his fall from grace. I've worked with him professionally on a couple of occasions and, once we all accept this is all about Piers, he's quite fun to be around. He's very smart indeed, viscerally and intellectually understands the dynamics of fame and celebrity and is very much the larger than life character that manages to project itself into millions of American homes.

He must be getting his wagons into a circle right now. You see, Piers is on the record as referring to some of the techniques used to do phone hackery. The smoke has already started rising, this post at UK blog Guido Fawkes shedding some light on matters by documenting how the Mirror hacked Ulrika Jonsson's answering machine to scoop the Sven Goran Eriksson affair, while MPs have now started baying for Morgan's blood after references in his most readable memoir, The Insider and in his diaries have clearly put him in the frame. This diary entry, in particular, was called out by one MP:

"Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages."

This, of course, makes things even more interesting - pulling a major American talk show host (which is, love him or hate him, what is keeping Piers in Rice Krispies these days) into the scandal is going to add plenty new fuel to the flames and keep the pressure building nicely on Murdoch - although Morgan's comments don't talk to his time on Murdoch's watch, he does bring a nice splash of star quality to the story and keep it building nicely.

This has turned into the biggest story since the Daily Telegraph exposed MPs expenses - probably bigger, as it now has much greater international appeal. It's a fantastic opportunity for anyone wronged by the media to get stuck in and we can expect to hear lots of calls for restraining and reining in the dangerously unfettered press, particularly from those who have a vested interest in ensuring the media are cowed and sycophantic.

The fascinating question is whether this will bring Murdoch down and I, for one, would be selling any NewsCorp shares granny left me. Quite what impact it has on the rest of the Fourth Estate is yet to be seen, but I'm not optimistic. Parliament reminded me in a queer way of Tahrir Square. Here, again, was a people casting off the yoke of their oppressors...

*The 'my old pal' is ironic. Piers wouldn't know me from a broom handle.

Update: Radio-tastic pal Robert 'Wes' Weston turned me onto this - eight minutes enjoyably spent! Piers gives MP Louise Mensch a jolly good roasting over the hackegations story here: Piers owns MP Video.

When Sorry Doesn't Wash: NewsCorp and BP compared.

What have News Corp and BP got in common?

The UK's newspapers all carried advertisements from media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation headed 'We are sorry' this week. Which is an interesting response to the whole phone hacking furore (phonegate, if you likes your clichés). Murdoch himself has given but one interview on the whole debacle, to the Wall Street Journal, which he happens to own.

He has not responded to any other media. He has not said one word himself, but has relied on this advertisement to do the job for him. This is nice, as it avoids him actually having to say the words. It's different, you know, actually saying you are sorry rather than getting an ad agency to write up some 'sorry' copy.

It's a lesson BP learned (or perhaps didn't) over deep sea oil spill screwupgate. They spent $50 million on a glib 'sorry' ad campaign that backlashed harder than a snapped high-tension cable. Although CEO Tony Hayward actually appears in the video, something that Murdoch has failed to do in addressing the increasingly serious tumult around his company's journalistic ethics, Hayward didn't actually say sorry. Really, truly, sorry. Using advertising tactics to put out reassuring images isn't saying sorry. Talking about how you're making it all better isn't sorry. Saying 'We really, really screwed up and we recognise that' in person - now that's saying sorry.

You can't apologise by proxy and expect to be taken seriously.

And that's the key to the Murdoch ads. How many people think he truly is sorry? And how many think he just bought space rather than get out there and express true, humble, real contrition? And if he's not sorry after all - what's going to change moving forwards?

A Most Respectable Blogger

I actually have this as a t-shirt and I'm very fond of it, too...

I was asked by my co-host on the weekly UnWired radio programme, Rama Chakai, what it was that made me 'a blogger' (I'm introduced on the show as a public relations director, writer and blogger). The answer is, of course, other people. It's not a title I have ever given myself - other people, media in specific, give it me to validate me. You see, journalists do tend to think I'm not much use as a public relations person (unless the story is about public relations, of course), so they have to find something more acceptable to the public. Like bank robber or canary molester.

I have written here before about media using 'experts' with no validation of their expertise. It's an insidious game. And I'm part of it, despite the fact I have never introduced myself as anything other than my day job.

Would I still be 'a blogger' if I had a more acceptable job, such as Middle East Analyst at the SNAFU Institute? No, I don't think I would. So here is proof that it is more generally acceptable to be a blogger than a public relations person.

Yeah, I know the bar's incredibly low there. But it's perhaps interesting how bloggers have acceptability as qualified sources of information for mainstream media.

Hacks Smacked With Phone Hack Cack

Image via Wikipedia



"...were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Thomas Jefferson



I have been watching with a growing sense of awed, horrified amusment, the escalation of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. From the British parliament baying sanctimoniously for blood to the smug opportunism of Ed Milliband (Am I the only person convinced he's the Heat Electric tortoise reincarnated?), the stony stoicism of Rebekah Brooks to the arrogance of Rupert Murdoch, the whole drama has been singularly unmissable.

Anyone who's read Piers Morgan's unforgettable memoir about his time as the darling of Murdoch's British empire would have had an insight into the snuggling up the red top tabloids (and the press in general) do with British politicians. It's a relationship built of loathing, one trying to use the other in a game of political power-broking and influence. Murdoch's ability to reach out to a huge slice of the electorate made him a political power broker, parties anxiously sought his backing - none more so than the Labour party, which has traditionally enjoyed Murdoch's support (but had to work damn hard for it).

Now the contagion has spread to the States, where a senator has started raising questions and will no doubt soon find himself at the head of a braying pack of political power-brokers desperate to minimise the massive power of Murdoch's US media holdings, including The Voice of Reason, Fox News.

This isn't about phone hacking at all; mercy me, no. And it's not about the freedom of the press, although it raises many questions about that most important of freedoms. This is about breaking the power of a man who was too powerful and too influential for his own good - and whose power and influence have waned sufficiently, because of the power of online communications, to embolden politicians to finally stand up to him.

They want to take him down, baby. And if Milliband and Cameron can stop sniping at each other for two seconds, they'll do it, too.

Will this be a blow for freedom of the press? I doubt it. It's more about the freedom of media oligarchs to extort politicians - and the freedom of politicians to do cosy, corrupt deals with media.

We can only look forward to an equivalent scandal breaking out in the Middle East, when journalists are found out to be lifting handsets and using telephones to call and verify facts rather than just hammering out press release and newswire copy.

BTW, This fascinating piece in Foreign Policy does a much better job of discussing the above than I did...

Google+ -- Information Overload?

Parental Guidance Warning. This video is icky.

It's like a helter skelter, this social media business. And there are times when you might just want to get off before your head explodes.

Google+ has finally pitched me into information overload. I'm dealing with too many streams of information and it's becoming uncomfortable. I know I'm an unusually 'connnected' person: quite apart from the Twitter, Facebook, Blogger triangle, I handle reasonably large volumes of email and follow a lot of blogs and sites. I'm rarely truly offline. It's one reason I find it funny when my bank tells me they tried to get in touch with me but couldn't. I mean, there are people who actively try to avoid me and find it hard. It got so bad that when we returned from getting stuck under the Tikkipukkapokka, or whatever it was called, Icelandic ash cloud, I actually gave interviews to media amused that I had been caught offline in a totally analogue rural lighthouse.

Apart from the radio shows, conferences and other presentations and workshops I do, I'm also spending most of my days managing one aspect or another of online communications. Online stuff has come to dominate my working life as we have started to transition from 'traditional' public relations practice to integrate more and more online thinking into our communications work with clients. When you add stuff like GeekFest which, despite my best efforts to be UNinvolved still has created a regional network of Facebook and Twitter feeds with thousands of people behind them, you can start to appreciate how very, well, online things are.

And that's been fine. I've been good with it. I've used a few wee tricks to help things glide along: I'm not a huge fan of Facebook, but the blog updates my Facebook page with every post so at least there's the appearance of engagement. I rely quite heavily on NetVibes, an RSS reader which organises my many streams of information into nice, manageable tabs that let me dip into updates of what's relevant when it suits me. Twitter has become a comfortable background habit, a sort of place you drop into on the way from a completed activity to a new one. (If you find me on Twitter at the weekend, chances are that Sarah's trying on some new clothes in the shop.) And I have been quite selective about what 'social media' sites I use, so although I'm 'on' Quora, FourSquare and the like (you have to understand what makes them tick, at the very least, if you're going to advise clients), I'm not active.

Strangely, most of my writer friends are on Facebook and fewer use Twitter. Another oddity is that people have started commenting on blogposts on Twitter rather than using Blogger's comments feature. It's always fascinating to see the shifting dynamics of different networks and their interactions, a little like the iridescence of oil on water.

But Google+ has presented me with a dilemma. Do I stay or do I go? It's yet another social network, it's becoming more demanding as more people have joined up and started to poke around, exploring what the new room looks like. It extends the powerful sharing capabilities of Twitter, allowing longer posts than 140 characters along with link sharing, but brings the powerful 'circles' feature to bear. Circles are like Facebook's 'Lists', but are more siloed - you share easily with only the circles you want to share with.

It's very similar indeed to Facebook, in fact, but it's a lot faster - perhaps a result of the fact that it's still dominated by 'early adopters' and therefore a geekier, more aggressively 'sharey' crowd.. I was asked what Google+ was like yesterday and I replied "More Facebook than Twitter but more Twitter than Facebook". If that doesn't seem helpful, well, I don't know.

Google+ is disruptive. It's Facebook at near-Twitterspeed. I'm finding I have to consciously decide whether to share information on Twitter or Google+ and frequently wondering why I'm sharing at all and just don't bother. The world, as a consequence, has not ended. Life has gone on. The one decision I have not had to make is whether to share on Facebook, because I never really considered it a sharing platform in the same way as Twitter, for instance. and yet Google+ is just that - it makes it very easy to share links, pictures and thoughts. It combines some of the learnings from Buzz and Wave and makes crowdsourcing and conversation easy. But the wide-ranging topics and speed of updates are slightly scary and very distracting. Even Google has been caught out with the volumes - they had issues with their notification management servers as a result of demand spikes from Google+.

A TweetDeck for Google+ may be the answer, a Circle Manager. It might be that we evolve better techniques to manage circles based on topics and content flows rather than relationships.

But right now, Google+ is a time-suck and I'm having to consciously invest in it as everyone tries to figure it out. I suppose the great difference is I'm still there looking around - with Wave and Buzz, I was out of there within 48 hours. This time it's more sticky.

The jury's still out, but I'm beginning to see how Google+ could well do what Orkut failed to do. But something's got to give somewhere - we're fast approaching the point where I cannot see how people could maintain yet another platform. I reckon two's company, but three's a crowd.

Anyone else out there reached a limit?