A tasty 3-minute assortment of hand-picked news!
A digital rev-pollution
The volume of data exchanged worldwide on a yearly basis has grown by 35%. And with the iPhone X, this carbon footprint is shooting through the roof. By 2025, the tech industry is expected to pollute as much as the auto industry. The digital ecosystem’s energy consumption (and therefore cost) is enormous. A report from the Shift Project rings the alarm and recommends limiting the growth of digital energy consumption globally to 1.5% (versus the current rate of 9%). What’s causing this? The eruption of data traffic, streaming video with Netflix (which consumes 15% of the whole world’s Internet bandwidth), and the multiplication of smartphones, to name a few reasons. Microsoft has sunk a data centre in Scottish waters to cool its server racks, and a new search engine pledges to plant trees for each search made, but the horizon still doesn’t look 100% green.
All about moi
For several months, WeDoData has carried out a data enquiry for independent French news site Les Jours on French politicians. The latest chapter focuses on politicians’ tweets, and it says a lot… about themselves. WeDoData went over 580,000 tweets from 531 members of parliament with a fine-tooth comb to determine that 93% of published posts had just one purpose: to promote their own media appearances. Not only does this seem self-obsessive, it also demonstrates a limited capacity for using social networks and a poor understanding of how a strategy like this (if we can call that a strategy) can impact constituents.
But in other news at the National Assembly, privacy-minded Qwant will become the official search engine for French government officials, as it will be installed by default on devices issued to government officials. We’re happy to see France adopt a French solution for greater security, more privacy, and fewer ads.
Different strokes
Sociologist Dominique Pasquier has studied digital usage amongst “modest” income families (40% of the population in France). The study describes a different type of Internet usage that’s less contributory, with fewer email exchanges (and where families often share a single email address), and lots of online purchases. The Internet nonetheless represents a new tool for learning, free of hierarchies and penalties, which is more accessible to this portion of the population. The study also highlights the local aspect of Internet usage amongst these groups, who frequently use peer-to-peer classifieds platforms (such as Leboncoin.fr). The study notes that this population widely uses Facebook to remain encircled within their own communities with their family and friends – there is little openness to the rest of the world. What happened to the idea of the Internet as a means for openness, discovery and universality?
Digital champions
Our customers are the top 3 in the 2018 rankings of digital transformation champions from financial newspaper Les Échos. #1 on the leaderboard: Société Générale, followed by Total and Schneider Electric. These rankings take into account the digital maturity of major companies based on technologies used, management models, human capital, digital ecosystems, and security. Congrats to them!
On an end note, here’s “digital transformation” as seen by The Marketoonist:
See you next time on the Internets!
Credits : Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
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