Suzanne Morrow's blog

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.

If the latest figures from Forum One Networks' Online Community & Social Media Compensation Survey are to be believed, it's not good news ladies. 

The company's 2009 survey found that the gender pay gap is widening in social media at least. Male respondents to the survey made just over $86,644 (£52,249) while female respondents, in comparison, averaged just $75,624 (£45,702) a difference of almost $9,000. According to the survey women make 87% of what a man in a similar role brings home every month.

This time last year Forum One's 2008 study found that 55% of community managers were women. In 2009 this figure fell to 52%. Even with a slight dip in the number of women in social media's top jobs they still out number men in the sector; something which makes the pay difference strange.

The benefits of having an intern are numerous. It’s not just cheap labour and someone to make the tea.

Many organisations are reaping the rewards that come with an internship and a skilled graduate.

It was a case of unknown territory when Chinwag took on Gregory, our first tech intern. It took time and effort to get him started, but the investment paid off and the work he did was invaluable.

So, in the sprit of this, we’ve created a series of blog posts, from an employer's perspective, that aim to cover everything you need to know about offering an internship.

I may have found THE perfect geek Christmas present with only...49 shopping days to spare. Well done me.

It's a tiny interactive dino robot, that goes by the name of Pleo.

It's the brainchild of "Mr Furby"  Caleb Chung, who told the story behind the little robodino at this year's Thinking Digital (25% discount for Chinwaggers on the 2010 event) - video below...

The BIMA Awards 2009 have rolled around again, with the presentations taking place on 19th Nov.

The awards celebrate the innovative work of UK digital companies and this year has seen a record number of agencies applying.

The Shortlist has just been announced showcasing some of the UK's brightest digital talent and, the good news, there are still a few precious tickets left.

Categories range from display and interactive advertising, online games, mobile to social media and word of mouth marketing. Those companies lucky enough to be shortlisted are some of the best the UK digital sector has to offer and with the BBC iPlayer in the best website section, T-Mobile's "Life is for Living" in the viral seeding category and the MINI Convertible launch up for an e-mail marketing award they are some of the most memorable campaigns from the last year too.

Xchangeteam are launching their Freelancer of the Year Awards 2009 and they’re looking for entries across the spectrum of Marketing, Media and Communications.

Since their first incarnation back in 2003, the awards have been recognising the work of freelancers in these mediums across the UK.

Nominations can come from peers, colleagues, an appreciative manager or from the freelancer themself so if you know an exceptional freelancer, or indeed if you are one, get in touch. To date the highest number of nominations for the awards are 350 but Xchangeteam are looking to beat that in 2009.

Hello again to those of you who went along to Chinwag Live: Search is Dead, Long Live Search event last Tuesday. If you were otherwise occupied, don't worry. You won't be missing out on the night's eureka moments; our podcast from the evening is now available online.

It may never actually die but there's no doubt that search is certainly changing. Twitter has changed search, mobiles have changed search, our terms and how our findings are communicated to us, the early incarnations of which we're seeing in the iPhone with location-based tools, have changed search too.

You could be an experienced journo looking to update your skills, a poverty stricken graduate or just after a career change, there's a new training scheme going by the name of inFUZE, that will make things a whole lot easier for struggeling hacks and those looking to break into the industry.

InFUZE was developed in conjunction with  the BBC and the University of Central Lancashire's Meld team, will be launching on Wednesday 21st October and is set to improve the fortunes of journalists of all levels.

Included in the course are seminars, technical training and a 12 week placement at various news offices across the north of England. The course will provide 10 journalists in the region with up-to-the-minute skills across the spectrum of online, TV, radio and mobile.

You can never be too thin or too rich, right?

I totally agree with the second half of the statement you can never be too rich, there's no such thing. Too thin? Yip. You can definitely be too thin.

Not so for Ralph Lauren. They recently found themselves in a spot of hot water over some dodgily photoshopped images. They should have known something wasn't right when their model had a head bigger than her pelvis and a neck the size of a tooth pic. It was published anyway.

Figures released from the Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) bi-annual online advertising expenditure study, carried out in partnership with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), makes for enlightening reading.

For the first time in the UK the internet has surpassed TV to become the single biggest advertising medium in the country.

Online adversiting spend overtook TV to become the UK's biggest advertising medium in the first half of 2009. It grew 4.6%, to £1.75 bn in H1, giving it a record market share of 23.5%.

Even as advertising experienced a 16.6% decline overall, online's ability to engage audiences, its measurability and a sturdy ROI is keeping the sector above water, where TV and other mediums have floundered and sunk.

A Twitter investor has hinted at charging for mobile as the future of Twitter.

Joi Ito, an investor in microblogging site Twitter, has hinted that he sees the future of the site's profitability in charging for mobile use.

This has been added to by co-founder Biz Stone's announcement that Twitter will not start using ads this year and that immediate goals were to improve the search function and create a paid-for commercial account.

A Mecca for talent and a lynch pin in the European tech scene, it may be, but the sky-high rents of London put many companies off. All that's about to change with the introduction of an innovative work space for tech start ups.

TechHub (@TechHub onTwitter) is the new project put together by Elizabeth Varley, who has been a feature on the London tech scene for a number of years. She's organised the London Twestival and has been developing the concept of a work space that's aimed at the needs of the tech community, and start ups in particular, for a while.

American magazine Entertainment Weekly is the first print title to have video adverts included inside their pages.

The adverts feature on small screens built into cardboard and the Entertainment Weekly one contains ads for Pepsi Max and US TV network, CBS. There are also in-built speakers and each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video content.

Manufactured my Americhip, the technology is still quite bulky; the chip is mounted on a thick cardboard insert and takes several seconds to load. Quite the wait for an impatient reader.

UPDATED: Hot off the back of the success of their inaugural event in May this year, Media140 are hosting their latest one day conference investigating the effects that Twitter and real-time social media are having on advertisers, marketers and brands.

Win FREE tickets for Media140’s next groundbreaking event, when real-time web meets consumer engagement on 26 October, RIBA London.