Suzanne Morrow's blog

Google Wave is proving itself to be the perfect platform to discuss climate change. Debatewise  Global Youth Panel (GYP) is using the technoloy to spark discussion  and debate from young people about the state of the planet. During the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Take that Twitter.

More than 1,000 members of the Debatewise Global Youth Panel (GYP), aged between 14 and 25, discussed the pros and cons of the conference using Google's new instant messaging platform, launched earlier in the year. It's hoped the parrallel discussions will give a good measure of how young people around the world feel about climate change and the steps being taken to tackle it.

Too many candidates, chasing too few jobs mean that you have to be just a little bit sleeker than your average to score that prized interview. It's tough out there, I tell you.

If you're churning out the CVs, rapid-fire style, have a read below and see. You could be missing a trick.

Sending a CV online is quick, free and gets your an instant response, even if it's a ping back aknowledgement. Unsuprisingly it's the most common way of applying for a job but at the same time a CV sent by email runs the risk of just festering in an inbox.

Rather than sending your CV as an attachment, paste it into the body of the email. Attachments are often ignored because people are worried about viruses and wasting time downloading documents. With this in mind, stay clear of multi-media CVs. They may make you stand out and prove your technical credentials with their singing, all dancing displays but they're awkward to download, never mind format. 

We all love our iPhone apps. How did we possibly live without them?

There are green ones, dating ones, financial ones and ones that can even teach your kids how to read. Even the free ones can let you do a background check on a blind date and give you a turn at playing God.

So far the number of iPhone apps downloaded is sitting at a mind-blowing 2 billion. We're downloading from the app store at a rate of 6.6 million every day and the market is worth an estimated $2.5 billion US dollars each year. That's quite a hunk of cash.

Google announced the launch of their Nexus One phone on Tuesday, garnering the expected amount of geek love.

But, arguably the real revelation comes from the ecommerce site built to sell the phone, the only place you're going to pick one up in the near future.

Heralded by Business Week as an ecommerce revelation, Google have combined a pared down purchasing process with simple animations which demo the phone using a 3D feel rendered on the 2D computer screen. A nice touch.

Complicated charges, long contracts, complex fees and bundles are being ushered out in favour of simply buying the device, then finding the service. Unusually, the first option available is an unlocked version of the phone, although operator deals are available in the US with t-mobile with more on the way, and a European roll-out schedule (through Vodafone) for Spring 2010.

Move over Black Friday, Cyber Monday is where the action happens. Consumer spending is heading to the virtual high street as Christmas shoppers favour etailers over their bricks and mortar counterparts.

In the US, Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, has been traditionally known as the busiest shopping day of the year. Accounting folklore suggests it's the day each year when retailers make it out of the red.

Official comScore figures reported a spend of $595 billion in online spend on this day, an 11% increase on the same day last year.

Back in March this year AudioBoo proudly claimed their mission to be the YouTube of the spoken word.

And it looks like they're just about there. Previously available in iPhone and Android flavours, the Audioboo team have announced a browser-based version launching today. Get in there people.

Following in the intrepid techno-savvy footsteps of users like Stephen Fry, he's been known to say "night night" to his Twitter followers with it, AudioBoo users will now be able to upload their recordings easily from their computers.

The service is PC and Mac compatible, runs on Safari and Firefox and the pre-launch jitters on IE are being smoothed out as I type. Unfortunately, there's no word about Chrome just yet.

The Difference Engine, a program to increase the growth of start-ups in Europe has been launched in the North East this week and will provide start-up capital of around £20,000, mentor support and a working environment that will allow ten teams of digital entrepeneurs to get their business up and running. 

We got in touch with The Difference Engine's Managing Director, Jon Bradford for the deets.

CHINWAG:  Can entrepreneurs can apply from anywhere in the UK?

Teams can come from elsewhere in the UK and beyond (subject to working visas). They will be required to relocate to the region for the duration of the programme.

The US picture may be bleak but are British women really as worse off as women in the States when it comes to social media salaries?

We got in touch with a UK-based social media recruitment company to find out if we really have anything to worry about.

According to Emma McNamara, Managing Director of recruitment firm Propel London, there are just more men applying for the roles at the outset:

"We have experienced more male applicants for the roles, however have not seen any gender preference from clients or differences in salaries offered. I think it really depends on the community involved and the candidates overall experience."

The Crunchies are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood and January 2010 will be the third incarnation of the start-up and technology sector's annual awards ceremony hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat.

Last year's winners included Google Reader (best service), Cooliris (best design), Shop Savvy (best application) and Facebook (best overall start up).

TechCrunch Europe's grand fromage, Mike Butcher, offers the following advice,

"...it will be of interest to European startups that they have a good chance if they nominate themselves in Best International StartUp

SXSW Interactive festival is the digital conference to attend. Yes, it helps that it's based in sunny Austin, Texas and that the BBQ food is *awesome*, but it's also packed full to bursting with top notch panels from the brightest minds in tech

There are hundreds of networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer - all happening over 5 days!

More great news from companies who've taken part in the Digital Mission series, with an announcement from live phonecasting service ipadio, who recently returned from the Digital Mission to New York.

ipadio have joined forces with Sport England and Facebook  to encourage more young people to get involved with sport with the announcement of the Community Sports Hub.

The initiative will produce a beefed-up fan page on the social network which will integrate with ipadio's phone-to-web technology to encourage participation. Facebook are putting up in-kind advertising valued at £5m/year until 2013.

There are a lot of challenges for any company taking on an intern.

From where to advertise the vacancy to the costs involved in hosting and training can all be a drain on company resources.

It's been challenging at Chinwag, so I bent the ear of Dominic Potter, co-founder of Internocracy, a company that helps employers set up and run their internship programmes.

Here's a brief run-down of his top-tips to consider before taking on an intern:

Social media is the bread and butter of customer relations management and there's no doubt that for companies, employees who communicate well online hold a certain cache.

Any personal blog or website you have could be owned by the boss and the trouble lies where personal and work collide and whether blogging takes place in the office or at home.

If your blog mentions company-related news, who owns the rights to it, will be difficult to ascertain. In theory, working for a prominent organisation and mentioning their developements within your personal site is treading on terra-infirma. Should the site become successful, things get even more complicated. Once revenue is involved who gets a share of the profits?

For the debt-riddled graduates flooding the jobs market, an internship is an essential bridge to full-time work and enthusiastic young, relatively cheap, talent has its own rewards for employers. But stay on the right side of the law.

Employment law can be a tricky business and the fallacy that an internship equals free labour could potentially land a company in hot water.

There are a few basic legal rules worth bearing in mind should you wish to offer an internship.

Danvers Baillieu, technology lawyer at Winston & Strawn LLP and Bootlaw founder addressed this very issue at a Bootlaw meetup evening earlier this year:

"The shades of grey apply particularly in relation to the requirements of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (NMWA 1998)"

Under the National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA 1998), anyone who is a worker, that is a person who is employed by you and no one else, must be paid, the minimum wage and according to the act a worker is defined as:

“an individual who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under)" is an employee and must be paid accordingly.

Exemption from the rule are builders, accountants or other types of contractors. The minimum wage for over 22 year olds is £5.73/hour (£229.20/week based on 40hrs) and £4.77/hour (£190.80/wk) for 18-22 year olds.

A revision of EU privacy law could have a devastating effect on online advertising.

Under the new rules publishers must gain users' consent before placing cookies on their machines. Online ad practises like behavioural targeting, retargeting and audience segmentation will all be effected.

The change will see national governments having to:

"ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information."

The EU are objecting to online advertisers collecting data without the users' knowledge. Common practice is to make users aware of cookie use through privacy policies posted in their small print. With ever-improving behavioural and semantic targeting relying on cookies, the EU's threats to step in if the industry doesn't regulate itself will raise concerns at publishers in an already-difficult advertising market. The gloves, it appears, are most definitely off.