The Weekly Round-Up: 23.02.07

Sad news dear readers. Today's will be the last ever silicon.com Weekly Round-Up.

That's right, after today's edition you are going to have to find something else to look forward to on a Friday afternoon... possibly checking the end of week accounts, signing the temps' timesheets or watching the sales team roll in drunk from the pub at 5.25pm.

They're all fine pastimes but clearly no substitute for the Round-Up.

You see the issue is this: earlier this week, on the morning of Tuesday 20 February, around 11am, the entire silicon.com editorial team won more than £10m on the Spanish National Lotto and from tomorrow will all be sunning themselves indefinitely on a beach in the South Pacific.

It's rather a lot to get one's head around.

In an incredible twist of fate, despite none of the team remembering entering any such lotto - and a few of the team having never even been to the Spain - an email arrived into each of our inboxes this week telling us of the good news.

What's that you say?

It's a scam... ? Oh nuts!

Looks like you'll have to put up with the Round-Up for many Fridays to come after all. (Even though one very kind reader did email in earlier this week to point out he had 'marked last Friday's edition 11 out of 10 - can't get any better!'... which was very kind, even if means it is technically all downhill from there.)

Fortunately (or should we say 'unfortunately'?) we're not the only ones to be tricked by the many lottery spam emails sent each day - and the numbers are alarming. The silicon.com editorial mailbox - which is to spam what sugary drinks are to wasps - receives hundreds of scam lottery emails each and every week. This week alone we've won everything from the Dutch National Lottery to the El Gordo Email Lotto, via the SuperMegaLotto.

But, as with those stripy critters swarming around the Round-Up's can of Tizer, there is a sting in the tail with all these emails. They're all intended to extort money from hapless recipients who are perhaps too naïve (by which we of course mean 'stupid') to question the fact they haven't entered any foreign or unusual lotteries. Furthermore they still don’t twig when said lottery organiser asks them to stump up a £500 administration fee in order to claim their massive winnings.

And that is proof, if it were needed, that fools and their money are easily parted. In fact, according to the Office of Fair Trading around 500,000 people fall victim to these scams each year in the UK, at a cost of... wait for it... around £320m.

And the problem is now getting so bad - the scams that is, as opposed to people being stupid and greedy, which has no doubt always been a problem - that the OFT has taken unprecedented action.

In fact, the SuperMegaLotto, mentioned above, wasn't sent by scammers at all. It was spammed out by the OFT attempting to lure the kinds of dupes who might fall for such a scam. (You can draw your own conclusions as to why it was only sent to people in the Midlands, South East, North East and Wales.)

Upon clicking on the links in the email, recipients would have been told that unfortunately they hadn't just won the £15,000 prize the email promised but rather they had learned an important lesson about fake lotteries.

Let's just hope none of the recipients headed straight out and started spending without checking the authenticity of the email.

The OFT should also be applauded for its poor use of punctuation in the press release announcing this initiative. The OFT claimed: "The lottery scams awareness campaign is also supported by Camelot which runs the National Lottery and the Serious Organised Crime Agency."

Whichever way the Round-Up reads that it appears Camelot is the body behind the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency. That'll be chief superintendent Dale Winton and chief constable Eamonn Holmes... with 'The Voice of the Balls' reading people their rights, then?

Is there no end to these public private partnerships?

And speaking of bogus emails from alleged liars, Tony Blair this week emailed the 1.7 million people who registered their feelings against proposed road-charging measures in the UK.

The level of record-breaking opposition to the plan has incredibly forced Blair to rethink the idea completely and in a stirringly magnanimous email he admitted that as the head of our elected government he is beholden to the will of the people - and the people have spoken.

No, of course he didn't.

An email that we're supposed to believe Blair typed with his own fair hands thanked everybody for signing the petition opposing the measures, which was posted on the Number 10 website, but added the government will still be continuing with its plans to explore this avenue irrespective of public opinion.

"This is not about imposing 'stealth taxes' or introducing 'Big Brother' surveillance," wrote Blair, showing impressive disregard for the fact many people now assume the truth (an alien concept) is actually the polar opposite of whatever he says.

In fact the whole email could do with a whiz through a universal translator.

Thankfully the Round-Up is at hand.

"This is a complex subject, which cannot be resolved without a thorough investigation of all the options, combined with a full and frank debate about the choices we face at a local and national level," wrote Tony.

But: 'This is far too tricky for you people to understand so while I will make a token gesture towards understanding your position we really are going to do whatever we like, when we like,' is what the Round-Up suspects he really meant.

"That's why I hope this detailed response will address your concerns and set out how we intend to take this issue forward. I see this email as the beginning, not the end of the debate... " Blair added.

Which means: 'To date I've managed to survive on style over substance and a near-meaningless grasp of cliché and spin and I'm really hoping an email full of both will placate you in this instance... '

"One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad," he added.

Which means: 'See, we're all singing from the same hymn sheet really, now stop all this nonsense and let's get on with our own lives... '

Blair's email also contained a veiled threat about what would happen if people continue to oppose the road-charging plans.

"A second option would be to build our way out of congestion. We could add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside," he wrote, apparently stopping short of adding 'burning down villages, destroying wildlife and killing your first-born as we go'.

At this point, the Round-Up readily admits that something has to be done to ensure Britain's roads don't go the same way as Elvis' arteries but suspects this issue may run and run, taking in more twists and turns than a sidewinder on its way home from a heavy night at the pub.

For more on congestion charging, road charging and a guide to the best pubs in Bangalore (no really) tune in to the silicon.com Weekly Round-Up Podcast, which you can listen to right now, right here.

Go on - give it a listen - and all feedback is welcomed at editorial@silicon.com.

Those of you who are down with these things, can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here - or pick up the XML file here (get the Round-Up with its fancy tech talk.).

And while the Round-Up is 'bigging up' silicon.com content, we need your help (and we're not afraid to admit it)…

silicon.com is currently running a 'Fair Wi-fi' campaign highlighting the issue of outrageous prices charged at hotels for wireless internet access (does £50 for a day sound fair to you?).

If you're with us on this issue please lend your support to the campaign and sign our petition. It will take two seconds of your time and you might just change the world (...maybe).

Moving on and startling stats landed in the editorial mailbox this week from the web monitoring people at Hitwise. Apparently this past week saw something of a milestone in the world of the internet.

For the first time ever internet search engines overtook pornography in terms of site visits.

That's right, more people are using search engines than smut.

Heather Hopkins from Hitwise UK said: "This marks an important point in the maturity of the internet with mainstream consumer activities overtaking the early attractions of the internet."

Hopkins says that but the Round-Up can't help wondering what people might be using search engines to find. Naughty stuff, the Round-Up would be prepared to bet.

According to Google's zeitgeist however, search terms are a lot less smutty than the Round-Up would have you believe (either that or they censor out all the juicy stuff). Currently Google tells us Valentine's Day was the month's most popular search term.

The Round-Up can answer all those queries right now. It's 14 February, sadly you missed it for this year but then you probably realised that when you arrived home to find your clothes on the lawn.

The fifth most popular term is 'Dixie Chicks' but apparently even that's not as it might sound - they're a pop group it turns out.

And intriguingly the seventh most popular search term on Google this month was 'Westminster Dog Show'.

The Round-Up seriously hopes that's as wholesome as it sounds.

And finally, did anybody catch Dragons' Den last weekend? (OK, it was the repeat, so it only just squeaks into the Weekly Round-Up but work with it here.)

For anybody unfamiliar with the BBC series Dragons' Den the premise is simple. It's a 'talent show' for would-be entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to a panel of investors who then decide whether they want to buy in.

Or, in the words of one silicon.com reader: "Our licence fees are helping to facilitate the fat cats to cherry pick opportunities to make money from inexperienced entrepreneurs in a pressurised situation."

It's not pretty but it is fairly compelling...

One contestant on this past week's show was an old friend of the Round-Up, Ling Valentine - who runs the UK's most successful (though also the only) Chinese female-owned online car leasing website based in the North East of England, called LingsCars.com.

Ling first became known to the Round-Up 12 months ago when we had the temerity to suggest her website wasn't one of the UK's leading ecommerce sites, sparking an angry response from the woman herself.

Since that brush with the Round-Up, Ling's star has been in the ascendancy - buoyed in part by a publicity stunt in her adopted hometown of Gateshead which saw her parking a Chinese nuclear missile alongside the A1 branded with the name of her website.

Ling was asking the (not real) Dragons for £50,000 in return for a five per cent stake in her online business but very quickly began to look more and more out of her depth as the questions rained in.

A number of the Dragons ended discussions when it appeared Ling didn't really have the first idea about the financials for her business.

"I don't do the book," she told the Dragons.

"Can you imagine me now giving you £50,000?" asked one judge, before embarking on a one-man roll-play. "'Ling what did you spend my £50,000 on?', 'Oh I bought another missile'."

He does have a point, Ling had warned them she wanted the £50,000 to grow the exposure of her brand.

However, despite all the signs looking bad for Ling early on, the tide definitely turned in her favour. Although three of the Dragon's recoiled from Ling's business proposition faster than a sensitive nose escaping a particularly pungent cheese, two of the dragons decided they wanted a piece of Ling's action.

They offered her the £50,000 she was after but demanded a larger share of her business than she was prepared to hand over and Ling thanked them for their time, politely declined and walked out with her head held high... and probably about £50,000 worth of free publicity in the bag.

Good to see that this licence-fee funded VC-fest doesn't always get things its own way.

And finally, finally you may well be expecting a caption competition but instead we're giving you a different chance to win a bottle of bubbly which just requires you to listen.

Check out this week's Round-Up podcast and tell us how many cities in India silicon.com's Steve Ranger visited on his recent fact-finding mission.

Listen to the podcast here and email your answers to editorial@silicon.com. One winner will be picked at random. All entrants must be over 18-years-old and resident in the UK. The judge's decision is final.

And one last bit of business before the Round-Up signs off - you can check out the winner of last week's caption competition here.