As Google begins to index public data, and begins to collect data on how we use it, the potential to use that information looms larger. Will that information be used for less than benevolent purposes? Only time will tell.  Power corrupts, and it’s hard to believe that Google can avoid the inevitable.

Last year, we released a public data search feature that enables people to quickly find useful statistics in search. More recently, we expanded this service to include information from the World Bank, such as population data for every region in the world. More and more public agencies, non-profits and other organizations are looking for ways to open up their data and expand global access to this kind of information. We want to help keep that momentum going, so today we’re sharing a snapshot of some of the most popular public data search topics on Google. We’re also launching the Google Public Data Explorer, an experimental visualization tool in Google Labs. (Googleblog)

Want to sample the gigabytes of free music for yourself? Visit the SXSW music page for MP3’s or the unofficial torrent site for a complete compilation.

Giving a reader free access to something new is often exponentially more effective than expensive media advertising.

If you’ve been to a Sam’s club around meal time, you can;t miss the free samples of food products in almost every aisle. It’s a pretty simple concept. If you get a taste of something you like, you’re very likely to buy more to take home. Books with good library representation always sell more copies than those notilable on loan.

We’ve noted in the past the various stories of individual authors like Paulo Coelho and David Pogue, who showed that free (non-DRM’d) versions of their ebooks helped increase physical book sales. Then, in February, we wrote about some actual research that showed that when unauthorized ebooks get out into the wild, there is a “significant jump in sales” of the physical book. And, now there’s even more evidence to support this. A recent paper by a PhD. candidate noticed that free ebooks tend to increase sales of physical books. In this case, rather than looking at “unauthorized” ebooks, it looks like they focused on authorized free ebook versions. (Techdirt)

Publisher suits have  a hard time dealing with the fact that there are freeloaders in the world.  What these execs don’t seem to understand is that this minority of readers has always existed, and that they will do without rather than pay.  By depriving the avid reader who might pay for something he likes to stop the freeloader, publishers are literally killing their most powerful new marketing tool.

We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. And today we’re excited to announce you can browse the full archive right here on PopSci.com. (Poplar Science)

As any retailer will tell you, the longer you can get people to come in and browse, the more likely it is that they will buy something. I predict that by hanging the come in and browse sign on its site instead of the “keep out” sign of a paywall, that Popular Science will continue to live long and prosper.

A top Microsoft executive on Tuesday suggested a broad Internet tax to help defray the costs associated with computer security breaches and vast Internet attacks, according to reports.

Speaking at a security conference in San Francisco, Microsoft Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney pitched the Web usage fee as one way to subsidize efforts to combat emerging cyber threats — a costly venture, he said, but one that had vast community benefits. (The Hill)

The national broadband plan that the Federal Communications Commission submits to Congress later this month is now expected to cost up to $25 billion. But since the nation’s lawmakers are looking for ways to reduce the national debt, the FCC is seeking ways to offset the cost through spectrum auctions and other measures.

To have any chance of meeting its goal of providing broadband service to 100 million Americans, the FCC will need to find support for an estimated $9 billion commitment to cover underserved parts of the country, industry observers say. Moreover, the commission wants Congress to spend $12.5 billion to $16 billion over the next 10 years to provide police, firefighters and other emergency workers with wireless Internet access.

There’s a problem here. The FCC has never been effective at delivering on its  promises. From the horribly mis-managed USF that was already supposed to delivery service where it did not exist to insuring a competitive access market, the agency spends large and fails miserably. Even if the FCC could change its stripes and actually deliver on its promises, bloated bureaucracy insures that only a small fraction of funds raised will actually provide service. Then there’s the funds. Where will they come from? Answer: you and me. Look for an effort to extend what services will have USF fees added and for new spectrum auctions. Big auctions insure that only the deepest pockets of the telcos will control wireless, keeping prices very high. Adding so much new authority to the FCC isn’t just a bad idea. It could end US broadband leadership forever.

ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network’s ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with “digital” journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.

“We will have as many total journalists as we do now,” he said.

Although the network will keep a minimal staff presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston, it will shut down its bricks-and-mortar bureaus there and ask its remaining employees to work from the local affiliates. The Washington bureau will remain open, but its size will be substantially reduced.  (LA TImes)

Is it over for network news? Probably not. I can see a future for it as pure entertainment. The 5 o’clock reports are already near the bottom of the slippery slope into tabloid journalism.  The shift this represents is profound. Control of information concentrated too much power in the hands of the few. The ability of the mainstream media to form the public agenda and opinion was incredibly powerful. Two recent examples are the perpetuation of the global warming myth and swinging a presidential election. It’s pretty certain that so few people will not have so much power over the rest of America in the years ahead. Look for increased efforts on the part of the old media elite to control the net. Unfortunately for them, it’s too late. People prefer to make up their own minds instead of being told what to think.

An army of approximately 2 million temp census takers are fanning out across the nation to collect data, including internet access information.  With a growing clueless class that thinks their vote is simply a way to get the rest of us to pay for things, I worry about how that data will be collected and used. The problem with the insisting that someone else will always pay assumes that the rest of the population is even more blissfully empty headed than the clueless.

The current federal administration’s stated goal is to connect 100% of Americans. Considering the fact that around 20% of the population does not want service enough to pay for it, it’s an easy guess where we are going. Is it really such a good idea to task the feds with providing access? We are already lagging behind the rest of the developed world and one more drag on broadband capital will not improve things. Is getting the government to force your neighbor to pay for your access really any different than stealing their Wifi?

At the end of 2009, Canby had brought Fiber to the Home-based services to about 1,000 homes-a major milestone given the fact that the ILEC has only 11, 000 access lines and 9,000 customers.

Since it pulled out its higher speed fiber products out of National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA) it has been able to offer a number of speed tiers under its Fiber Optic Zone (FOZ) brand, including on the high end a 60/30 Mbps service in addition to a 40/20 Mbps and 20/10 Mbps service tier. Alternatively, other telephone cooperatives are restricted to offering 3-5 Mbps broadband services.  Keith Galitz, Canby Telcom’s President, said that as it rolls out its GPON-based fiber network, its biggest challenge is keeping apace of bandwidth demand. “It was only a year and a half ago that we introduced 10 Mbps on our fiber network,” Galitz explained. “That’s how fast this thing is moving where the demand is there.” (Fierce Telecom)

I believe the small telco is the model for a better broadband future. With large protected territories, and laws written to squash competition, the large telcos and cable operators have no incentive to offer more bandwidth at a fair price. It’s not from lack of capital. It’s how the capital is used. The smaller independents tend to stay focused on their home markets instead of investing in acquisitions, wireless and pay TV.  They also tend to employ locals and are more responsive to local market needs. I’m not suggesting that we divide cities into a patchwork of small monopolies, but rather open the infrastructure to allow for small providers to enter urban markets as competitors.

Unfortunately, it appears that American politicians aren’t the only ones who have been bought by the telecom and entertainment industries. A new law proposed for the UK would end public Wifi to “protect copyrighted material”.

The U.K. government will not exempt universities, libraries, and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the Internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access. (Cnet)

Anyone who has actually used a shared public Wifi connection knows that the idea of downloading a movie from it is laughable, and and uploading one impossible. I think that this is more about forcing people to pay for access away from home than protecting copyright.

According to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from VeriSign, the total base of registered Top-Level Domain Names (TLDs) grew in 2009.

VeriSign reported that in 2009, the base of TLDs expanded by 15 million domains names to a total of 192 million domain registration across all TLDs. (internet news)

The online marketplace wants to grow. Not even outrageous prices and stagnant bandwidth imposed by a duopoly can impede it. Imagine a free market with gigabit connections at priced lower than the megabit connections we have.

Not only a new business model for textbooks, I believe it is yet another illustration of how creative commons can fuel learing and economic opportunity.

IT Conversations recently posted an interview with Flat World’s Eric Frank and Jon Williams. You can hear them discuss open source textbooks on our handy player below:

My friend David Isenberg, who organizes the wonderful Freedom 2 Connect (F2C) conference, sent me a link to a story this morning. The gist of the news is that ReggeFiber, in partnership with Dutch incumbent KPN, will make 1 Gbps the standard connection speed for all FTTH customers. The company currently has more than 300,000 customers and is on target to grow to a million subscribers. Zeewolde is the first city that will get the service.

How can Reggefiber do this? The company has seen steep declines in the price of equipment — from modems to central office stuff — which has allowed it to offer this service. (Gigaom)

In light of this news, the FCC’s draft broadband plan becomes even more laughable. What’s not laughable about allowing a duopoly to control US broadband is how this will continue to erode economic opportunity.

We started this blog three years ago to help set a standard of what broadband should be in an open market. Since then, we’ve seen less competition and a less open market evolve. While 4G wireless is ramping up, those who control it are not new entrants to the marketplace. With ownership of the wireless spectrum transferred to the fixed line duopoly for a bought and paid for FCC with the blessing of a bought and paid for Congress, wireless will never compete with fixed line. So with all of the spending and talk of better, more open broadband, we have pretty much the same connection speeds and availability hat we had three years ago at pretty much the same prices. The only change the hope and change folks have provided are some very expensive studies and maps. The other political crowd who tout “letting the market work” have done nothing to actually open the market and let it work.

As Google has announced trials of GB class connections I still  think it’s not likely it will enter the market as an ISP.  Google needs to develop stuff that will leverage the class of broadband that will be appearing in the rest of the world of the next few year’s if it intends to keep its leadership position. Since Gigibit broadband doesn’t exist here, the company is building its own lab. This is also a demonstration of what is possible if a company is interested in doing it. Not a dime of tax dollars involved, and this is what needs to be done to put the US back in the lead. Blanket this country with GB broadband and the economy will boom. Dear Mr. Markey: In view of this, please explain how the FCC is serving us with a 200KBPS plan that protects the telcos and keeps the market closed?

Why do we need GB broadband? Simple. It makes your net connection as fast as a local one.  For one thing, that would make online storage work in a whole new way.  You really could keep your stuff in the cloud and use it from the cloud. A whole new industry of data centers would offer storage as a service, cheap. With good data management practices, that could also end lost data as a result of local drive crashes.  Not cheap enough  you say? Consider this: New entrant Cloud Leverage has modeled a profitable business around 5 cents per Gigabyte with no bandwidth charges. Near instant access via GB broadband would make this an explosive industry with much lower prices.

What else would Gigibit broadband enable? The thread is open. Please share your ideas.

A growing category of what are called “social games,” however, appeals to a much different demographic, according to a recent study. The study — sponsored by PopCap, creator of popular social games such as Bejeweled and Insaniquarium — looked at game players in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and found that the average player of these online social games is a 43-year-old woman. More than 24 percent of those who responded to the survey (full results in PDF form here) said they regularly play social games, a category that includes Facebook games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and Happy Aquarium. According to survey company Info Solutions Group, that level of response suggests a total social gaming population of approximately 100 million. Social gamers were defined as those who said they play games on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace at least once a week. (Gigaom)

With the sales of console games going  sideways, one has to wonder how Microsoft, Nintendo and  and Sony will will respond to this trend - if they do at all. If a growing group of female 40 somethings are gaming in their free time, this could mean big trouble for television -specifically soap operas and Oprah.

Rumors are flying that there’s a battle within the NY Times on how to price their app for the iPad. Those on the newspaper side of the house apparently believe that it should be priced at $20 to $30/month to avoid cannibalizing the print product. By the way, if you want a simple tip for how to fail at business, it’s to make a decision to avoid cannibalizing your own business. When you do, you’ve just made it clear that a competitor is going to cannibalize your business for you. The folks on the interactive side of the house think that $10/month makes a lot more sense and believe that pricing it at the $20 to $30 range is suicidal. Of course, if you thought that the management at the NYT’s was really crafty, you might believe that this whole story was floated to reset the anchor price, though I have trouble believing that’s true. (Techdirt)

I’ll grant that if any paper has a chance of finding a paid online subscriber base, the New York Times is easily the most likely. I’ll also grant that the typical Apple customer is accustomed to paying exorbitant prices. My take: If the Times can do something truly remarkable for the iPad, enough of the fanboys are likely to take at $10 / month to make it worth while. Expecting $30 per subscriber is either the work of a clueless crew of elites who think everyone is as well paid as they are are or a crew of regular guys who have had way too much of the hemp.  My vote goes to clueless.

Well HTC comes back with a vengence right along those lines with a new line aimed at the Nexus. Two of these three phones run Android. All have the iPhone like look and feel of course. All three will be above the $100 mark, but give it time. Eventually we will see capabilities like this in that range of pricing.

Its all for the good. More here.

Google has since come to its senses on the deployment issue and is working on resolving certain privacy concerns. Buzz itself clearly shows it underpinnings as a response by Google to its social rival Facebook. But it also shows that Google is not immune to the ‘absurdity at the edges’ that befall many companies. The idea being that taken to extremes good ideas like Search and Gmail can be extended into places that are really not a good fit. Buzz as service in Gmail being a prime example.

Buzz is probably a much better fit if it were part of Google Reader, Scholar and News. I am sure they will figure that out.

Lunch said Verizon Wireless is in the final testing phase, or “Phase 4,” of its LTE technology. Within 60 days he said he expects testing to be completed in Boston and Seattle. After those trials are complete, Verizon will be ready to announce commercial deployments.

Initially, Verizon Wireless will offer USB air cards that access LTE for its laptop customers. Cell phones and other mobile devices with embedded LTE will be introduced later. That said, Lynch and other executives from the European carrier Orange as well as from equipment maker Ericsson, said that LTE handsets will be introduced sooner than anyone had anticipated.

Lynch said getting voice to work over LTE has been particularly challenging. But that challenge is getting resolved as Verizon and other members of the GSMA announced Monday they are supporting a standard that uses IMS technology to deliver voice services over LTE. Still, more work needs to be done. (Cnet)

So, if Verizon can really get equipment that is not yet in production onto towers, and upgrade its back haul capability, then maybe it can deliver service. I can’t imagine that work getting done any time this year at the if deployment comes at the typical telco pace. Then there’s the investment. New POPs and fat pipes don’t come cheap.  The there’s the “can’t make voice work” claim? Maybe big V should look at the VoIP technology it’s been suing competitors for infringing? I think what is really at work here  is not wanting to make new investments, along with a ploy to keep frequencies that are redundant if LTE is really on the fast track.

Kids will be kids. If you pack them into a yellow box, 100 or so at at time, it’s a given that they will get rowdy out of boredom. It’s been that way since the day these transport vehicles began rolling. While they can get unruly, kids are also inquisitive. Give them Wifi on the ride and they may even add a little study time to their online gaming a socializing.

….as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.

Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

“It’s made a big difference,” said J. J. Johnson, the bus’s driver. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.” (New York Times)

With the billions our government has poured down the rat hole for silly ideas to improve education, how about doing something that make sense instead? Something like putting Wifi in buses. At $200 per, it makes sense and will probably even pay its own way in less time spent trying to keep the kids in line.

Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

From now until March 26th, we’re asking interested municipalities to provide us with information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which we’ll use to determine where to build our network.

That’s from the website.

Now notice this is not some high speed to the head end sort of offer. They specifically say FTH. So they intend to go right to the curb. Their testing will test some 50-500k patrons. What is not clear, is that a single site or a mix of smaller sites.

Google goes on to say they will provide —

* Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.

* New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks; to help inform, and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.

* Openness and choice: We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory, and transparent way.

What I find of particular interest is the commitment to an open transport layer. A place where anyone can play? ISP and Google? If true that would be a game changer in the data transport marketplace. Fact if true it would complete a vision that was the reason that this blog was created for — create an open backbone and permit service providers to battle it out in the marketplace of products and services.

We keep our fingers crossed.

Linky.

Sprint lost 148,000 customers after contract-subscriber defections more than offset prepaid gains. Sprint introduced new phones last year, including an exclusive deal to sell the Palm Pre, to keep more customers.

The company said it expects subscriber losses to slow this year. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he will roll out more fourth-generation devices this year, which give customers high-speed wireless Internet access.

Consumerist is even running a poll to figure out why. I’ll save them some trouble. Its the contract. Sprint’s contract has not kept up with the times. Tho they have MTM plans, their post paid contracts are probably the least consumer friendly of any of the major carriers.

I would also suspect that the network is part of the problem as well. Being in the DFW area, its one of Sprints oldest territories. Yet all these years later they still have dead spots around the DFW airport area as well as other areas of the metroplex.

If you are a Sprint customer, follow the link and take their poll.

Linky.

The Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet’s Commonwealth Office of Technology will use about $1.6 million for broadband data collection and mapping activities over a two-year period. It will use $500,00 for broadband planning of improvements and expansion activities over a five-year period, according to a news release.

The state’s assessment will include an examination of broadband speed, location and technology type, the release said.

Information will be collected from public and private broadband providers by Moon Township, Pa.-based infrastructure engineering and consulting firm Michael Baker Corp. (NYSE: BKR).

The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, in cooperation with state universities and community colleges, will verify and field audit the information, the release said. The effort will be led by the University of Louisville and Murray State University. (Business First)

In a speech last year, Michael Calabrese proposed an alternative worthy of consideration.

Michael Calabrese argues that the FCC’s depicted apportioning of the airwave spectrum gives a false impression of scarcity, especially as it fails to consider the real use of each frequency assignment and the full capabilities of digital transmitters and receivers today. The government can do more to assure the wireless future offers pervasive, ubiquitous, and affordable connectivity.

By considering the two general concepts of underlay (increasing use of a particular frequency, such as in a time-sharing condition) and overlay (filling unoccupied frequencies), he means to show how much more can be done with the airwave spectrum, taking into account possibilities for frequency sharing and the adjacencies now possible without interference. He gives an example of “cognitive radio,” which operates at low power and searches out the most appropriate frequency in a given condition. (IT Conversations)

Audio link follows:

NBC Learn is the education arm of NBC News. We are making the global resources of NBC News and the historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities.

• NBC News Archives on Demand (K-12 and Higher Ed) unleashes the power of the NBC News archives and makes thousands of video clips available to teachers, students, schools, colleges and universities.
• What’s Your iCue? is the video trivia challenge that blends learning and gaming.
• Original video content from NBC Learn is engaging, innovative, and makes learning fun! (NBC Learn)

Why do we care?

Well primarily because it might change the landscape for eBooks. But my gut says this will not play out like either party thinks.

Whose right?

Well neither. Remember this is at its core a contract dispute. So you have two parties haggling over price and terms. But one author did have an interest viewpoint –

If Amazon were a smaller retailer, this probably wouldn’t be a big deal. But Amazon pretty much, right now, has a monopoly on online bookselling. They’re huge. As a result, this becomes nearly a form of de facto price fixing.

source.

Which if not in word, at least in deed is probably the case at this point and time.

Is one price for a book wrong?

Well no. But if you think of a free market, single cost pricing may be efficient for the offerer but it forces a self selection from the buyer to only consider catalog items that have an intrinsic value more than the offer price. So ‘Gone with the Wind’ would sell well, but ‘Attack of the NanoAtomic Vampire’ from an unknown author would not.

So what’s the moral here?

Its all theatre. Here is why. There is no determined pricing for ePub books. Its all new. The book publishers want to set an expectation in the ~ $20 range, right below a mid-successful hard cover release. They want to protect their legacy infrastructure when for all purposes it is toast. To me that is as bad as Amazon trying to fix a one price strategy.

The reality is the following — ePub pricing will be determined on authorship, topic and audience. It will no longer have a printing component determining the floor price of the publication. That is what both parties are trying to avoid and they don’t want you to think that it might be possible to buy ‘Linear Algebra II’ from Knopf, Knuth and Rupert for $4.99. But that is entirely possible even with today’s technology.

ePub platforms are crude compared to what they will be like in say 5 years. Authors will be able to set their pricing, eliminate the Macmillan’s of the world, and sell pulp copies if need be through a supplier like Lulu.

That ladies and gentlemen is what the dust up is about. They don’t want you to know that very shortly there could be a door number 3 to choose from for all your reading.

So what’s the problem? First I don’t think the market in used games was as large as people thought. My observation is most people keep their games and typically trade only when they switch console platforms offering the games as an inducement to buy the whole package. The other is presence. GameStop has mind share among the gamers so if you are going to do a trade do it with the store you frequent. Last game trade does not have the velocity of transactions that say a DVD movie does. You might watch a DVD you bought 2-3 times. If significant enough you might keep it. But most likely you will trade it within a month. A game on the other hand may take a month just to get thru all the levels. And those with online linkages will encourage holding onto that game even longer. It could be a good 6 months before someone considers trading it.

Chalk it up to a business paradigm that thought it was X but was not like X at all.

Linky.

South Australia’s thin-skinned candy-ass politicians passed a law prohibiting any anonymous political commentary on blogs (but not “real” news-sources) prior to elections on penalty of a fine of AU$1250. Defending the measure, South Australia’s Attorney General, Michael Atkinson claimed that a poster on AdelaideNow, Aaron Fornarino, was a fictional construct created by his political opponents to smear him. Turns out that Mr Fornarino lives just down the street from Atkinson’s office. Humiliated, Atkinson rescinded the censorship law: “From the feedback we’ve received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively… It may be humiliating for me, but that’s politics in a democracy and I’ll take my lumps.”

The major foopah? Atkinson, the regional AG made the claim that the person posting on an Internet site lambasting him was not a real person but fictitious, made up by the opposition party. Problem? Yeah, the person exists and there are pictures to prove it. Much to Atkinson’s credit, he will move for repeal of the law after the major embarrassment.

Linky.

Let me spell my bias out for you, and I think it’s pretty much the same as the average broadband consumer. IF an LTE based carrier  shows up with a better deal I’m a customer. But, that’s based on if and when. Today, I’m writing about what I can buy now.

I do wish we’d get past discussion of technology. It’s a no brainer that LTE has a commitment from the major cell phone operators. It’s also a fact no one really has a clear idea of what LTE will be beyond the results of preliminary lab stats. The idea behind LTE is to make an easy transition form current cell phone technology for the nickel and dime you to death cellular carriers. Wimax was never designed to do that. So far, Wimax has been deployed as a big open pipe. Try getting that from the cell phone guys. By the time LTE is expected to be available in major markets, next gen Wimax will be available and an upgrade. I see a coming 4G war not only between two technologies, but also between two business models.

Bottom line: I can promise you we’re getting no largess from either the LTE or Wimax camp. We’re based in Texas, so I’ll use a little local analogy. Today Wimax is the only horse in town, and it’s pricier than we would like and slower than we would like. At the same time, as of today, the LTE camp is all hat and no cattle. Contrary to all of the tech media propaganda, both are likely to be with us for some time to come. In fact, I doubt one will be an clear winner over the other. There’s plenty of evidence for how that could work in today’s two competing cell phone standards.

It’s extremely irresponsible to call one a clear winner over the other before both players even take the field, and we’re not going to do that.

UK retail giant Tesco is getting into the business of producing movies itself based on the books of some very famous authors. The movies will be direct-to-DVD and direct-to-the-internet, but the idea is for Tesco to use these movies to generate more traffic to their stores (both online and off). In fact, if you look at the retail business, music and movies have long been used as a loss leader of sorts, to drive traffic to get them to buy other, much higher margin, goods. This is really an extension of that, but all the way to the point of helping to fund the production of the movie itself. Also, while it will have a window of exclusivity at the beginning, it sounds like Tesco is quite open to other stores selling the movie as well. (Techdirt)

This could be great news for independent producers. The cost of making a full length HD feature is racing to Zero outside of salaries. Take way the incredible prices  that a list actors and directors are demanding and you have a business that has impressive profit potential selling cheap and in volume.  The time could be coming when indy producers will more easily find funding and distribution in Bentonville instead of Hollywood.

As of last night, Amazon stopped listing all books from Macmillan Publishers, referring searches to other sellers instead. According to the New York Times, this is because Macmillan is one of the companies that now has an agreement to sell ebooks through Apple’s new iBooks store, and asked Amazon to raise the price of their ebooks from $9.99 to $15. An industry source told the Times that the de-listing is Amazon’s way of “expressing its strong disagreement” with the idea of a price hike. Gizmodo suggests this is the first volley in an Apple-Amazon ebook war. Quoting: “It feels like a repeat of the same s*** Universal Music, and later, NBC Universal pulled with iTunes, trying to counter the leverage Apple had because of iTunes’ insane marketshare. Same situation here, really: Content provider wants more money/control over their content, fights with the overwhelmingly dominant, embedded service that’s selling the content. (Slashdot)

In a truly competitive world, more sellers should drive prices down. With the average author’s royalties amounting to  a tiny fraction of retail, one would expect electronic copies that have a distribution cost near zero would be $3 to $5 rather than $10. Not good enough! The big publishers want $15. It appears that Apple is leveraging a higher price to attract publishers and the publishers will use this as leverage to force price increases from other sellers.  In the end this will harm both authors and consumers. It also illustrates how current copyright laws only benefit the distributors of content who had little or nothing to do with creating it.

Yet now that the FCC has formally issued draft net neutrality regulations, they have a huge copyright loophole in them — a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was “reasonable network management” intended to “prevent the unlawful transfer of content.”

You heard that right — under these conditions, the new proposed net neutrality regulations would allow the same practices that net neutrality was first invoked to prevent, even if these ISP practices end up inflicting collateral damage on perfectly lawful content and activities. (EFF)

And then there’s how this could impact Netflix subscribers:

….include a potentially nasty loophole, Netflix warned—the “managed services” category that the Commission created in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking back in October.

“Netflix is concerned that network operators will use so-called managed services in a way that harms unaffiliated content or service providers that compete directly with services provided by the network operator,” the company told the FCC earlier this month. “In short, if left unchecked, the ‘managed services’ category could engulf the Commission’s open Internet policies altogether” and let ISPs end run any regulations. (Ars Technica)

The loophole being discussed clearly enables your broadband provider the power to discriminate in the realm of content distribution. Of course both cable and telcos are very keen on protecting their own closed content distribution business.

Want a neutral net? I’ve got news for you: There isn’t one. Never has been. Never will be. Networks can not work correctly if they are not managed. The only fix is to open the market to competition. That way if Comcast noodles with your downloads, you’ll have more than one alternative provider. An open local loop could yield dozens of providers vying for your dollar. This is what the FCC should address. So called net neutrality is nothing more than a distraction for the real problem: a broadband duopoly.

The results reflect the growing popularity of Netflix plans that bundle DVD rentals with unlimited video streaming over the Internet for as little as $9 per month. Netflix’s success contrasts sharply with more traditional home video options such as Blockbuster Inc. and Movie Gallery, which are closing hundreds of their stores and struggling to attract traffic to the locations still open.

Netflix added more than 1.1 million customers during the quarter — the most in any three-month period in its history. It took Netflix four years to attract its first 1 million subscribers after launching its rental service in 1999. (Yahoo)

Now I understand why AT&T did not want it, it hurts their voice traffic income. But do both of these partners realize the semi truck load of a mistake they just made? Had Google followed their original plan they would have locked the Google Voice into the app space of the iPhone architecture. Doing so would have meant Google duplicating that for any subsequent smart phone with the attendant hassles and costs of handling multiple variants of software. Now?

Now Google has turned the software and the iPhone into a VoIP TERMINAL. Unleashed from the underlying architecture Google Voice can now live on any device capable of handling HTML5. Any smart phone, MID, Nettop, Netbook, you name it. That single denial has unleashed a monster, at least for a Telco.

Very dumb AT&T.

Linky.

But to view a paywall as a new income stream? Bonkers man. Ain’t gonna fly. NYT found that out two years ago. Now NewsDay has found out the same thing –

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?

The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn’t know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.

Now to be fair one has to consider the context of that number. NewsDay also owns the local cable franchise as well. Plus anybody who subscribes for the pulp get the online subscription free as well. So a large swath of the potentials already have access for free. But what it does show is that a paywall is a barrier unless one is linking it to something larger. There is too much free content out there to justify paying for it. Fact one concept that none of the papers yet fathomed is that they are third person before the reader gets to it. Customers are cutting out the middleman and reading the press releases directly now, removing the filter and hence the need for the paper itself!

We have said this before. If a paper wants to make a go of digital news content they need to follow an old Telco prescription. Offer the handset for ‘free’ and pay for it and your talk time as a bundle. In the papers case, you offer the Kindle II for free bundled with a 2 year subscription to the paper at $9.95 a month. Then you make sure the digital daily is on the machine everyday. Don’t require the reader to futz with a download, it has to be a push.

Its a multimillion dollar idea offered free.

Linky.

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?

The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn’t know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35. (observer.com)

It’s been quite a while since I departed the world of telecom, so I think I can be objective in describing the underlying problem. The industry is so disfunctional that it more closely resembles the federal government than free enterprise. Switched service should have been ended decades ago, but that would require rule changes at the FCC and telco investment. The investment required to equip every switched customer with VoIP service is so small that the cost could easily be recovered in the first few months and that cost is falling. Changing regulations could end the guaranteed return on local fixed line service the telcos currently enjoy and could possible reopen discussion on line sharing with competitors. The last thing Verizon wants is more competition. So, no matter how compelling it would be to retrain a few of its workers and go all digital, there is no will to do so in a business unit that can’t see past the 1970’s. So, switched service continues its irrational slow march in inevitable death. My bet is the number dismissed by Verizon will be much larger in 12 months, and that fixed line service with be with us for at least another decade. What a waste.

Verizon Communications Inc., coping with subscriber losses at its fixed-line phone business, plans to cut about 13,000 jobs at the division this year after posting fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates. (Bloomberg)

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ViVu, Inc. (www.vivu.tv), an emerging leader in creating innovative and easy-to-use solutions for live video participation, today released VuRoom – a ViVu-powered plug-in for Skype, the popular software that enables the world’s conversations. VuRoom is built on the Skype platform to provide customers with instant multi-user video conferencing – an exciting new breakthrough previously unavailable to Skype users. Along with its presentation and desktop sharing functionalities, VuRoom is designed to help remote business users collaborate in real-time, while also saving valuable time and money.

“Having experienced the technology, I believe that ViVu is well positioned to deliver on the video collaboration needs of SMB and enterprise customers. In particular, I see strong potential for ViVu’s new Skype plug-in.”

“Our recent research studies predict a big year for global growth in the web conferencing market,” said Krithi Rao, an analyst in the Information & Communication Technologies Practice at Frost & Sullivan. “Now more than ever, enterprises are looking for cost-effective communication and collaboration solutions to help them succeed.”

Demo here.

Now why the tither Dog? The price. The problem with most of the other services is they run $30-40/month. That can run into some serious coin on a 10 person team every month. This is running $10/seat. A fourth the price. At that price point if using the software for the entire team replaced but one airline ticket a month it paid for itself and then some.

The fact that it is on Skype provides for a very ubiquitous platform. One could add external input sources as needed into the video conversations with little cost or set up charges. The real question is does it last in its current biz plan form. Skype with there latest release now provide P2P video on the three major OS platforms. That is probably 60% of all the Skype usage out there. Couple that with some geek will pull this off as a freebie somewhere as well. Time will tell.

But while it lasts VuRoom lowers the bar on multihead video.

Linky.

A New Zealand high school running entirely on open source software has slashed its server requirements by a factor of almost 50, despite a government deal mandating the use of Microsoft software in all schools.

Albany Senior High School in the northern suburbs of Auckland has been running an entirely open source infrastructure since it opened in 2009. The 230-pupil school was set up to follow open learning principles, offering large “learning commons” areas where multiple classes interact rather than conventional classrooms and setting aside one day each week for pupils to work on self-driven research projects.

Albany SHS’ unorthodox approach is also reflected in its IT infrastructure. Deputy principal Mark Osborne was determined to use open source software throughout the school, even though planning for that process began less than two months before the school opened.

Totally open. Further in the article, it is revealed that a student can bring in other foreign platforms like a Mac and use them on the network as well. A good thing for the school? Sounds like it. Little early to tell. The school only started in 2009. Give it a year or so and lets hope there is a follow up article.

Linky.

We are going to implement open standards in the public sector and will promote the spread of open source solutions among the general public and among businesses. Under these directives, government and public sector documents can be stored only, in open document formats, on systems running open standards applications.

We are going to develop open standard interfaces, in order to encourage municipalities, the tax department, the banking sector and public offices to use open source solutions.

We are going to supply government funded and developed applications for municipalities, nation wide, to eliminate parallel and wasteful developments.

When both proprietary and open source software will be available with the equal functionality to accomplish a particular task, we will make the use of open source solutions, mandatory.

We are going to implement open standards in the school system and will introduce open source computing as a subject in schools, under the discipline of computer sciences.

That ladies and gentlemen is the Jobbik party platform. Sound wild? Well I will just direct you to Sweden where the Pirate Party has a foothold in Parliment after raising petitions and funds on the Pirate Bay file sharing suit. They now have over a dozen affiliated Pirate parties in the world. So it would not be far fetched at all.

Linky.

The music group made this statement based on an IFPI-commissioned
study that was executed by Jupiter research. Although IFPI refused to
share the entire research report with TorrentFreak, we can conclude the
following from the two pages that were published online.

Compared to music buyers, music sharers (pirates) are…

* 31% more likely to buy single tracks online.
* 33% more likely to buy music albums online.
* 100% more likely to pay for music subscription services.
* 60% more likely to pay for music on mobile phone.

These figures (as reported by the music industry) clearly show that
file-sharers buy more digital music than the average music buyer. In
fact, the group that makes up the music buyers category actually
includes the buying file-sharers, so the difference between music
sharers and non-sharing music buyers would be even more pronounced. (Torrent Freak)

I could have explained this without any deep analysis. Audiophiles, who are a minority of the music audience shun  the lower quality of MP3’s, so they rarely buy downloaded music opting instead for CD’s and LP’s. The larger, earbud wearing crowd has little interest in owning discs. Before music could be downloaded they had no choice but to buy physical media, so naturally CD sales here higher. The big labels’ sales are shrinking because they have less  control of the distribution channel and consistently have had fewer good artists in the pipeline. As long as big music remains in denial, it’s sales will continue to slide. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that the label’s market share will keep shrinking. It’s amazing how little big music actually knows about its customers.

In the dead of night, just before the latest draft of the Stevens bill came out, a helpful Telco lobbyist inserted a little provision to stack the deck in the case of judicial review. Section 1004 of the Stevens draft now places exclusive jurisdiction for all decisions by the FCC in the D.C. Circuit. This includes not just network neutrality, but media ownership, CALEA, wireless issues, anything.

Why would anyone do that you ask? Because the D.C. Cir. is, without doubt, the most activist court in the land when it comes to pressing its vision of media and telecom policy. More than any other court, the D.C. Cir. can be credited with destroying hope of telecom competition in the United States by perpetually reversing and remanding the FCC’s efforts at rulemaking and enforcement until the FCC finally gave up and effectively deregulated. The D.C. Cir. is also responsible for vacating (eliminating by judicial fiat) the rule preventing cable companies from owning television stations where they have cable systems, and overturning much of the FCC’s cable and broadcast ownership limits. Finally, through the legal doctrine known as “standing”, the D.C. Crcuit has done its best to make it impossible for regular people to challenge FCC decisions or bring individual cases on antitrust grounds.

Source: WetMachine

Why? Well to make it more costly to litigate telecom policy. So if you are a small coop outside to Duluth and are being destroyed by some arcane rule your choice would be under this suggestion having to hire a high priced heavy weight from Georgetown.

There is something else that bothers me about this that has nothing to do with Telecom. Consistency. In the history of this country we have applied the mindset that one tries a case in the jurisdiction of either the defendant or the place where the infraction occurred. Even at appellate, you remand to the closest circuit district from which the original case issued. And NOW we are going to turn this on its ear? The system as envisioned has worked reasonably well, there is no need to change it at this late date.

This provision needs to be removed. Verizon can afford to get on a damn airplane like anybody else.

There was a rampant fraud during the Internet boom of the 90’s that resulted in the investment  bubble of the same period. In every major case, existing laws were broken and lax oversight allowed the bubble to grow. The blame should be shared by those in government who were supposed to be enforcing those laws. Instead of admitting to their lack of oversight, a new law was passed that would prevent further fraud. Unfortunately, it also killed the good IPO’s along wit the bad ones.

Ever since the passage of a piece of bad legislation called Sarbanes-Oxley, there has been a draught of American startups. The few that have been turning up are being built from the ground up with he intent to sell out to larger concerns. Not only has this killed innovation, the lack of IPO’s to invest in  sent the mountains of dollars that the fed keeps printing into commodities (like energy and food), therefore driving up prices. It also made the derivative a more desirable risk investment since there were no start ups to invest in. So, SOX not only put the brakes on the American tech industry, it also set the stage for the financial collapse we’re currently stuck in.

“I.P.O. has become a bad word in the Valley,” said Richard Barton, a founder and the chief executive of Zillow.com, a real estate site, and a venture partner at Benchmark Capital.

When start-ups grow up, the founders pay back their investors by selling the business to a bigger company or selling shares to the public. Public offerings have long been the more desirable option. They earn the founders and investors more money and the promise of continuing returns, and enable them to keep expanding the company.

Still, in a survey of start-ups by the venture capital firm DCM, only 19 percent said they expected to go public. Three-quarters said a major barrier was stricter regulations for public companies.

“People don’t want to run public companies anymore because they don’t want to get dragged through the mud,” said Rob Coneybeer, a managing director at the investment firm Shasta Ventures. “They’re so focused on paperwork that they can’t focus on building a business.”

In the last two years, only 18 tech start-ups have gone public, compared with 143 in the two years prior. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which tightened corporate governance and accounting rules, has taken a lot of the blame. (New York Times)

Sadly, there’s little being done in Washington to restore American innovation. The current regulation and tax happy crowd running the Congress and the White House can’t be doing much to encourage the best and brightest of us to take risks. Sure, there’s been a ton on “investing of stimulus money” by the feds, but outside  of the military and NASA in the 60’s and 70’s, governments track record at fostering the creation of anything useful is horrible. So what’s happened to those best and brightest innovators who are not working for the feds or on a salary at the corporation? They’re sidelined. In fact many simply have gone John Galt or literally have retired from creating value and jobs. It’s time to change course.

Access is free. So general surfing will be available. According to McD’s web page (here) certain services and particular access needs may still require paying for the privilege. But I am fine with that. It is a step in the right direction.

McD’s being altruistic? Not totally. Their heart is in the right place, but their core reason is profit of course. You see McD’s has been in a battle Royale with StarBucks in the morning fast food segment going on 5 years now. Both players have toyed with the idea of going free on WiFi. Fact in some segments I believe StarBucks has already done so. Why do it? Draw customers in. Once they have you inside you might just buy a cup of coffee at a minimum or pop for a whole meal in the best of cases. Least thats the thinking.

This won’t go unnoticed of course. Figure StarBucks to counter across the board very quickly.

The real question becomes does WiFi stay viable for very long? In a strong parallel, WiFi hotspots are the 21st Century equivalent of the pay phone. Useful sure. But you are ‘parked’ till you finish your communications. Yet the growth of smartphones are anathema to that model as the CPE are tied to metrowide cellular/3g/4g services unrelated to specific locale. So WiFi services that McD’s is providing will fade just like the wall payphone at the local tavern did.

First, the details: Verizon has introduced a new data tier at $9.99 per month with a 25MB cap—this is the cheapest data plan now offered by the company and by most US wireless carriers, and applies to all 3G devices. Why does this equate to “upping” the data charges? Because the company is ditching its $19.99 per month plan with a 75MB cap altogether—you must either go with the $9.99 plan for a third of the data or or the $29.99 smartphone plan that applies to WinMo, Android, or BlackBerry devices.

This in a sense is a variant of the give the lantern away but charge for the oil dearly. Only this is charge minimally for low oil but if you want to use the lamp every night you has to pay!

Why can’t stuff be simple? Just charge .001¢ per kilobyte and be done with it. Equitable, quick and customers can check their bills quickly. But then that would not justify the marketees salary would it?

Linky.

A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.

This startling admission came Thursday from Peter Orszag, who manages the federal bureaucracy for President Barack Obama.

The public is getting a bad return on its tax dollars because government workers are operating with outdated technologies, Orszag said in a statement that kicked off a summit between Obama and dozens of corporate CEOs.

“Twenty years ago, people who came to work in the federal government had better technology at work than at home,” said Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “Now that’s no longer the case.

“The American people deserve better service from their government, and better return for their tax dollars.”

The White House release that included Orszag’s comments said one “specific source” of ineffective and inefficient government is the huge technology gap between the public and private sectors that results in billions of dollars in waste, slow and inadequate customer service and a lack of transparency about how dollars are spent. (The Hill)

Someone from the Obama administration needs to go out into corporate America, visit some small businesses, schools, and even a few of our homes. Most of us are using OLD COMPUTERS, and we are still THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. With the average Fed making north of $68K these days, they should have some nice new computers at home. I’m sure the systems in the office are slower, but even slow computers doing typical productivity apps work faster then the person using them. While the rest of us produce with old stuff trying to work our way out of this economic abyss, we’re told the feds need a new Macbook. Earth to feds. None of us can afford to buy new computers. Since your direct boss is absent from commenting, I’ll give you a directive from those of us who pay the bills: Quit wasting our money and learn how to do your jobs.

Each year, thousands of families suffer the loss of loved ones needlessly at the hands of drivers distracted by their cell phones. Whether texting, using hands-free or handheld phones, these drivers not only put their lives on the line, but they risk killing others on the road.

FocusDriven provides victims of cell phone distracted drivers, and their friends and families, with an outlet for sharing their stories. We also provide those interested in this issue with opportunities to get involved.

FocusDriven can help you petition your state legislation; educate your friends, families and coworkers about the hazards of distracted driving; or share your story with state representatives to help support legislation for safer roadways.

FocusDriven supporters and advocates know, and many have experienced, the very real consequences of drivers distracted by their cell phones. We ask you to make the pledge to not drive distracted, share what you learn on our site with those you know and get involved to help make our nation’s roads safer.

Are the aims admirable? Yes. But it can be like anything else — unless moderation and common sense is applied then the spiral downward is a swift and sure one. Two examples to my point. MADD — mothers against drunk driving. Early on they had a very positive affect on drunk driving. But slowly the mission itself changed from one looking for results (which was the basis for their early success.), to one of success at all costs. Even when the results can be marginal at best and the overall community results unfavorable.

The second I can provide is bradycampaign.org. They too started out with a laudable goal to reduce gun violence. (The violence is the issue, not the gun, its just the instrument. But that’s a different story.) They have slowly morphed not into a gun violence advocate but a gun banning advocate. The lever of that transformation being the funding by various anti gun sub-groups. What I would envision is that Focusdriven.org would become over funded by a Telco PAC and then slowly twisted to a meek shell of its former mission. Don’t let that happen to you.

I wish them God speed. This is an issue that needs a societal response. There are times in life that do not require you to answer the phone. Driving happens to be one of them.

Linky.

Our source tells us that the effort to grow the nationwide WiMax network includes placing place WiMax towers on the top of all Walmart locations.  According to them, they were advised to consider how many stores overlap each other in a 30-50 mile radius.  Essentially, this would be enough to cover a good chunk of the United States. Plus, this would not cost nearly as much as erecting towers and dealing with hassles like zoning permissions. (Andriod Guys)

We have been repeatedly told that bigger pipes and direct fiber connections are impossible in America because of far flung population. Never mind the fact that the cost if installing a fiber or twisted pair loop to a residence are nearly identical. John Timmer of ARS Technica provides a current update contrasting fiber service in Hong Kong vs New York City. Both are extremely dense population centers. Both are outrageously expensive. Both have archaic laws regulating new construction and public utilities with plenty of red tape to slow the process.  I’ll even bet the New York city fathers will insist that Hong Kong’s infrastructure is more primitive and its government more corrupt. So why is it that the average Hong Kong resident has a 100MBPS direct fiber connection available at a price lower than Verizon’s cheapest DSL offering? And how can it be that a great many New Yorkers can’t even get FiOS at any price?

Hong Kong Broadband Network announced the initial results of its “Awesome Speed. For Everyone.” sales, which offer a symmetric 100Mbps fiber connection for the hefty price of US$13 a month. In the two months it has been offering it, customer growth has tripled compared to the earlier months of 2009. Clearly, the company has found it relatively easy to roll out or purchase fiber in Hong Kong’s dense urban environment, and is attempting to recoup its investment in infrastructure by attracting lots of people to its service using low prices.

To get half that download speed (and one-fifth the upload) with Verizon costs $140 a month, assuming you bundle it with local phone service. It also requires a one-year commitment, and Verizon has recently raised the early termination fees so that anyone quitting ahead of that year will now owe the company $360. These would suggest that the company plans on recouping its costs through fewer customers that pay far more. (ARS Technica)

My belief is that the Verizon suits do not see access as a serious business. The entire FiOS business model is based on selling subscribers a “triple play”. More consumers want access without overpriced VoIP service and pay TV. If you only want access, Verizon’s suits think DSL is all you deserve.  If we had real competition over the last mile (equal access to the copper infrastructure), Verizon would have to deploy fiber to have a shot at continuing to charge a premium price.

It’s beginning to appear that some of the major labels’ strategy for dealing with the changing structure of the music business — in which overall money is up, but has shifted away from the record labels’ bank accounts — is to simply bleed the old market dry. How else to explain that as Warner Music continued to shrink and fail to respond to market changes in any reasonable manner, its two top executives took home $14 million last year.  (Techdirt)

I wonder how much money went to the artists?