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A new study from Forrester proves that the majority of Americans are a bunch of lazy re-tweeters. 93% of online consumers in the emerging markets of China, India, Mexico and Brazil use social media tools at least once-a-month. U.S. and European consumers are far more likely to view social media as a spectator sport, joining it and then just watching it fly by.

In the U.S., 68% of social media users are "joiners," which means they maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networks. 73% are "spectators," or users who mostly just read blogs, online forums, customer ratings/reviews and tweets, listen to podcasts and watch videos. This number is strikingly similar in Europe (EU-7 countries, to be specific), with 69% of users classified as spectators and 50% as joiners.

Ambitious but largely defunded open government data platform Data.gov is now working with counterparts at India's National Informatics Centre to offer an open source body of code known as the Open Government Platform or "Data.gov-in-a-Box."

It's the kind of move that, in theory, the political Left can support because of its impact on transparency and government accountability and the political Right can support because it puts government in a role that emphasizes facilitating innovation and economic development. It sounds like a very smart way to deal with the declining financial support for Data.gov itself. It could be a big win for developers everywhere and for the people who love to use the apps they make.

Las Zetas kill another "blogger." A body was hung from the same overpass where two bloggers were murdered last month. According to the Houston Chronicle, a sign hung with his body said, in Spanish, "This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks."

Representatives of the Nuevo Laredo En Vivo forum denied the person was one of their moderators. One of the previous victims was a moderator there.

Can a government build an effective Facebook for education?

The government of Rajasthan, one of the largest states in India, is building out extensive infrastructure for Information and Communication Technology resources and training, with the collaboration of multiple international agencies including the World Economic Forum.

Next month, the state's information technology department plans on launching its own education social network: like Facebook, for learning. According to coverage in The Economic Times of India and elsewhere, the site will include all the standard features of social networking (photos, games) but will be focused primarily on educational collaboration and will include topic experts jumping in to answer questions raised by users.

While cloud computing gains steadily in the U.S., U.K. and Germany (and rather slowly in Canada), it's taking off in emerging markets like Brazil, China and India. According to a study by GfK Custom Research, and covered by FineChannel,
cloud computing enjoys relatively high penetration rate in emerging markets, regardless of company size.

According to GfK, decision makers in Brazil, China and India have a much more positive view of cloud computing and cite cost-effectiveness, flexibility and security as the main benefits. In contrast, decision makers in the U.S. and the U.K. see security as a barrier rather than a strength, and view flexibility as the main advantage.

We've questioned before the value of investing in contact center technology without improving call center conditions, and the ability of outsourced labor (regardless of whether it is also off-shored) to provide good customer service. These are the types of questions that are important for business decision makers to ask. If you want to go a bit further, you can read this story in Mother Jones about the experience of a writer from the U.S. training to work in a center in India. It doesn't provide much detail as to whether you should or shouldn't outsource your customer service functions (or to who), but it doesn't provide an interesting perspective on the conditions of these workplaces.

There is no single "cyber-war" taking place today. Rather, there are hundreds of brushfire wars taking place online. One of the latest is the Pakistan Cyber Army's attacks on at least 116 Indian sites, according to The Hacker News.

There has been a long history of conflict between Pakistan and India, with the most recent being Indian anger at the alleged Pakistani involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that left over 100 dead and over 300 wounded.

India's New Laws Silence Online Speech. An innocuous-sounding set of rules called the "Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules, 2011" [pdf] went quietly into effect last month in India. These rules, possessing the force of law, practically guarantee that no user of electronic communications in one of the world's largest countries will ever be completely safe from persecution again.

Under the new rules, anyone who objects to content online will be able to effect that content's immediate removal. The justifications for removal are so extensive and so vague that virtually anything will qualify for removal.

An innocuous-sounding set of rules called the "Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules, 2011" [pdf] went quietly into effect last month in India. These rules, possessing the force of law, practically guarantees that no user of electronic communications in one of the world's largest countries will ever be completely safe from persecution again.

Under the new rules, anyone who objects to content online will be able to effect that content's immediate removal. The justifications for removal are so extensive and so vague that virtually anything will qualify for removal.

Want a more global perspective of enterprise technology trends? Gartner's 2011 CIO Agenda survey included responses from 2,014 CIOs across 50 countries and 38 industries. In a recent announcement, Gartner detailed the responses of 36 top CIOs in India.

Cloud and mobile technologies beat more traditional concerns like enterprise resource planning and network communications.