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  2. October 2009

October 2009

Google Decides to Find Its Creative Side

Google, a champion of the belief that advertising should be less about art and more about science, is embracing its inner creative side. As it searches for new growth, the company in recent months has focused more on creating custom ad campaigns spanning multiple Google services for big spenders including Hewlett-Packard and Ford. As part of the shift, Google is thinking up and tailoring more ad campaigns in close consultation with ad agencies. The new approach is a turnabout for Google, which for years argued that advertising should be designed and priced based on strict benchmarks such as how many times an ad was viewed, rather than its emotional appeal. Marketers spent handsomely on search ads for specific uses, such as driving sales of a particular product, but when they wanted something more unique they went elsewhere, to Yahoo or other media, such as television.

Radio Bill Teed Up For Senate Action

Legislation that would force AM and FM radio stations to pay fees to performers and record labels whose songs they broadcast has been added to the Senate Judiciary Committee's mark up agenda for Thursday. The controversial bill, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), was the focus of an August hearing. A similar measure passed the House Judiciary Committee in May after key members added carve-outs intended to help small broadcasters cope with the charge. Resolutions have been introduced in the House and Senate opposing the fee.

Letters, Oh We get Letters, We Get (and Send) Letters Every Day

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has released some correspondence he's shared with Members of Congress. The correspondence covers the National Broadband Plan, PEG channels on cable systems, public safety radio licences, and Iridium. On the broadband plan, Rep Joe Baca (D-CA) wrote in July with concerns about the level of minority participation in the development and implementation of a national broadband plan. "A sound and strategic plan is essential to ensuring an effective and accessible broadband service is available for all minority and low-income communities," Rep Baca wrote. In late September, Chairman Genachowski replied saying that the Commission is working to collect public comment on "affordability programs for low-income and minority communities, digital literacy campaigns, multi-layered broadband mapping, and special considerations for minority-owned businesses."

International News Again Drives the Agenda

For the second week in a row, there was a distinctly international flavor to the news. Last week, it came as the Obama administration confronted two major foreign policy challenges and lobbied, unsuccessfully, for the world's athletes to come to Chicago in 2016. Three of the top five stories in last week's news agenda were based overseas and accounted for almost one-quarter of the overall coverage. Two involved major U.S. domestic policy issues and filled about one-fifth of the newshole. The No. 2 story was the situation regarding Iran, which filled 10% of the newshole from September 28-October 4, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The week began with news of new missile tests by Tehran and ended with negotiations—at a very uncertain stage—that may represent the last serious effort at resolving concerns about Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy.

BTOP Toolkit: Philanthropy's Role in Creating a Connected America

Download the Toolkit (PDF)

This toolkit from the Benton Foundation in Collaboration with Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media and the Information and Communications in Philanthropy Task Force of the Council on Foundations encourages our colleagues in philanthropy to consider supporting applications for broadband stimulus funding. Opportunities like this - to fundamentally shape the infrastructure that will connect us for the foreseeable future - come along once every second or third generation, if we're lucky.

In Collaboration with

Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media

Protecting Free Speech in the Digital Age

[Commentary] The United States and the European Union are poised to address an issue that affects the free speech interests of Internet users around the world. In the past ten days, both the Federal Communications Commission and the EU have engaged on the issue of net neutrality, a principle requiring that Internet users themselves -- not their broadband providers -- enjoy the right to control what content and applications they can access. After experimenting for several years with a course of deregulating broadband providers, the FCC is now heading in the direction of requiring broadband providers to serve as neutral conduits for our Internet communications. The EU should do so as well. The future of the Internet as an open, global communications medium requires no less. The FCC and the EU should act now to require that the handful of powerful companies who serve as the gatekeepers for Internet expression fulfill their obligations to the public free of discrimination and censorship to protect our free speech interests in the digital age.

The Fight over Net Neutrality will be a Jungleland out there

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski took the opportunity of addressing the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit to discuss the importance of Network Neutrality. "With a free and open Internet, you don't have to have big-time, star-power leverage over record labels, publishing companies, commercial radio stations, or particular retailers to get your music to the public. In today's broadband world, the artists themselves can be self-empowering -- they are free to connect with audiences, paying customers, and musical social networks in ways previously unimaginable. Most importantly, Net Neutrality permits independent artists and independent labels to compete on an equal technological playing field with the biggest companies in the space. That's the American way -- letting Internet users, the broadest group possible of ordinary people, decide who wins and loses."

Republicans seek study before FCC acts on Network Neutrality

Twenty House Republicans wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski asking the FCC to conduct a market analysis before proposing Network neutrality rules. They want to know if the agency will be examining networks, services, consumer electronics equipment, applications, as well as cable, wireline, wireless, satellite and broadband to determine if a rules to maintain an open Internet are necessary. Chairman Genachowski has tentatively set October 22 as the date the FCC will launch a rulemaking proceeding on policies to preserve the free and open Internet. Gigi Sohn, head of the Public Knowledge advocacy group, called the letter "another attempt at a delaying tactic by those who favor big telecom and cable companies over competition and innovation."

Net Neutrality: A Problem In Search Of A Solution

[Commentary] The problem, as Daily sees it, isn't necessarily that Internet network operators are messing with traffic, but rather that there aren't any clear rules of the road for what traffic management is OK and what isn't. Smaller operators are holding back innovation in their networks to make sure they don't run afoul of these nebulous rules. And these problems will likely only get worse as new ways to manage traffic emerge that will create more uncertainty about what's OK and what's not. This is especially true as the concept of managed services begins to take hold, which opens a whole other can of worms about who should get access to what and what rules need to be in place to protect free and open competition on these next-gen networks. The undeniable truth is that network operators need to know what they can and can't do in terms of managing access to and traffic on their networks, and app developers and content creators need to be able to have an understanding of what to expect as they create experiences that leverage these networks. Without some level of certainty about all of this we're going to force everyone to be hesitant when it comes to investing in expanding their capabilities in all the different directions that digital technologies make possible.

Washington Post Needs to Come Clean on Net Neutrality

[Commentary] In response to a Washington post editorial opposing efforts to write Network neutrality rules, Karr writes that the editorial suffers not only from inaccuracy, but also from lack of disclosure. One of the companies that stands to gain from a world without Net Neutrality is Cable One, an Internet service provider active in 19 states that hopes to pad its already considerable profits by stifling the free flow of online communications. One of the principal owners of Cable One is - you guessed it -- the Washington Post. Given the Post's recent controversy over paid editorial salons, the paper would do well to better mind the firewall that allegedly separates news and editorial operations from business back offices. Readers should demand that the Post's ombudsman and editorial page editor clarify this obvious oversight. Not to be outdone, "unabashedly" open corporate shill Scott Cleland demands that Free Press, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Media Access Project disclose their sponsors.

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