2007 August | Paul Jacobson

August 31st 2007

Freedom of contract and the Bill of Rights

I am doing some research in a restraint of trade matter and I came across an interesting link between the principle of freedom of contract and the Bill of Rights. In the case of Reddy versus Siemens Telecommunications (Proprietary) Limited the Supreme Court of Appeal held the following:

Contractual autonomy is part of freedom informing the constitutional value of dignity, and it is by entering into contracts that an individual takes part in economic life. In this sense freedom to contract is an integral part of the fundamental right referred to in s 22. Section 22 of the Constitution guarantees [e]very citizen the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely reflecting the closeness of the relationship between the freedom to choose a vocation and the nature of a society based on human dignity as contemplated by the Constitution. It is also an incident of the right to property to the extent that s 25 protects the acquisition, use, enjoyment and exploitation of property, and of the fundamental rights in respect of freedom of association (s 18), labour relations (s 23) and cultural, religious and linguistic communities (s 31).

Restraints of trade bring into play a balancing of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the opposing parties. I just found this interesting and thought I would share it with you.

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bill of rights, restraint of trade, freedom of contract, contractual autonomy, contract, restraint, dignity

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August 31st 2007

links for 2007-08-31

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August 30th 2007

Social Media is dead

Here is my column published in The Times this week. It has been up for a day and has already stirred up a mini-controversy. What do you think?

Social Media is dead. What are we going to talk about next? What is the next cool thing going to be now that Social Media is old news? You are probably a little confused because of all the hype you see and hear around you about Social Media and all the wonderful new tools we have to share our lives on the Web. You may even be a little confused because for the last few months you have read my columns about the wonders and benefits of these tools. That is ok, this idea will take a little getting used to. To paraphrase my friend Jonathan, it isn’t all bad just yet. It is just the demise of Social Media.

Although Social Media is only just picking up steam here in South Africa, if you read the feeds on blogs and news sites in the United States and Europe it is fairly obvious that the whole thing is running out of steam. We saw a flurry of Social Media sites like Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and lots more in the early months and years of the Web 2.0 era. It seems industry pundits were right and there has been a Bubble 2.0 which has reached its limits and there is a noticeable hissing sound as the air escapes and the whole thing collapses.

The fact is there is nothing new of any real substance. All the new launches are reinventions of Social Media companies that have been around for years now or are simply new applications of existing tools. There is no real innovation in this space. Social Media has climaxed. It is all downhill from here.

Sure, all those Web 2.0 sites and services are still running and have millions of users but the fanfare is over and Social Media isn’t the Next Big Thing anymore. The tide has gone out, the train has left the station and there is a note on the wall that reads “Will the last person to leave please turn the light off?”. Social Media is dead. It was fun while it lasted.

Technorati Tags:
social media, web 2.0, Social Media, trends, Next Big Thing

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August 30th 2007

Microblog upgrades

Jaiku users will be pleased to see that there are a couple handy additions to their Jaiku service. Many of these features have been requested many times and it is great to see them incorporated. For starters, the Jaiku IM service has been released to the masses. It runs on a Jabber platform so you can send and receive Jaikus using Google Talk or your preferred Jabber compatible IM client. This is one feature which Twitter has enjoyed for some time (even though it doesn’t always work) and which Jaiku users have been virtually begging for.

Other additions to the Jaiku service are focussed on the Jaiku site and include person and channel search (I have been asking for this for a while now and I am really glad it is finally here), a more streamlined Explore page which only shows new Jaikus. I really love the Google search results when you run searches for people or channels. The search results seem to be drawn from Google searches on the Jaiku site itself. Just the same, they add some balance to the results.

The Explore page also includes a side panel with the most active conversations on Jaiku at the time. Some of these conversations have quite a following and this is a fantastic way to generate and sustain buzz about a particular topic.

Of course Jaiku isn’t the only microblogging service to have revealed some upgrades. Twitter recently announced some handy new features. Twitter users now have a search function so they can find all their friends on Twitter and add them. This is aided by the ability to search through your Gmail contacts for Twitter users based on their email addresses. I tried this out and found a number of my contacts active on Twitter and I was able to add them all by clicking on a single link.

These additions have certainly enhanced my experience of both services, particularly Jaiku. The IM option is a great help because I can now spend less time on the Jaiku site posting updates (or running 3rd party software to do that) and I can use the tools I am already using to keep up to date and to keep my updates flowing.

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jaiku, twitter, upgrade, features, jabber

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August 29th 2007