March 2010

Cable TV Is Doomed

The death of cable television would probably still be inevitable without the Federal Communications Commission's national broadband plan, which aims to expand broadband Internet access to 90% of Americans and dramatically increase access speeds. But the measure, if it passes, will accelerate the demise of cable television as the standard method of consuming television.

Now that Google is leading the way in developing Internet TV, the rise of this technology will come even faster. Cable TV was always a bad model for the consumer because, in a sense, you're paying twice. When you watch The Daily Show, for example, you pay the cable company to bring Comedy Central's programming into your home. But you also contribute to Comedy Central's bottom line by watching its ads. However, the Internet allows you to connect directly to Comedy Central without the cable company go-between. You only pay once -- either with your eyeballs on ComedyCentral.com, or with your wallet on iTunes. (Sure, you have to pay for Internet access, but if you consider it a necessary utility rather than an optional luxury, as the FCC's national broadband plan clearly does, then that cost is incidental. That is, access to streaming TV shows isn't the primary reason you buy Internet access. It's a bonus.)

Freedom of Information Act: Requirements and Implementation Continue to Evolve

In testimony before the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Melvin testified about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which establishes that federal agencies must provide the public with access to government information, enabling them to learn about government operations and decisions.

To help ensure proper implementation, FOIA requires that agencies annually report specific information about their FOIA operations, such as numbers of requests received and processed and other statistics. In work reported from 2001 to 2008, GAO examined the annual reports for major agencies, describing the status of reported implementation and any observable trends. GAO also reported on agency improvement plans developed in response to a 2005 Executive Order aimed at improving FOIA implementation, including reducing backlogs of overdue requests. GAO was asked to testify on its previous work on FOIA implementation, as well as on selected changes in the FOIA landscape resulting from legislation, policy, and guidance. GAO previously noted general increases in requests received and processed, as well as growing numbers of backlogged requests reported. GAO also found that the improvement plans of the agencies reviewed mostly included goals and timetables as required by the Executive Order. In subsequent reporting on backlog reduction efforts, GAO found that selected agencies had shown progress in decreasing their backlogs of overdue requests as of September 2007; however, GAO could not present a complete picture, because of variations such as differences in agencies' metrics and ability to track backlogs of overdue requests.

GAO recommended that the Department of Justice issue guidance to address this issue. Justice agreed with the recommendation and issued further guidance in 2008. In addition, GAO made recommendations to selected agencies regarding the reliability of their FOIA data, with which the agencies generally agreed. GAO-10-537T

[Valerie C. Melvin, director, GAO information management and human capital issues]

Chinese Official's Threat Sets Off a Media Furor

In another era, the brusque response of Li Hongzhong, the governor of Hubei Province, to a reporter's question about a scandal on his home turf might have been the end of it. Infuriated that the reporter would even ask about the case — in which a waitress at a karaoke bar killed a government official in self-defense — he threatened to go to her boss, seized her audio recorder and marched off, according to reports of the encounter.

But instead of fizzling out, the March 7 episode has blossomed into a cause célèbre for free-press advocates in China. In a rare display of unity, journalists, lawyers, academics and activists posted a letter of protest on the Internet demanding the governor's resignation. Two Communist Party elders publicly condemned his behavior. And a storm of discussion erupted online before the authorities could contain it. Chinese media analysts say the reaction was a sign of a slow boil in the media over tighter government restraints. While the authorities have effectively reined in the media in the last year, Chang Ping, a prominent media commentator, said the Internet had vastly complicated their task.

Digitally, Location Is Where It's At

Some companies are just now bolting location awareness onto their existing applications.

Twitter, with 50 million messages a day, introduced a location-awareness function during the conference, while Facebook, with more than 400 million users worldwide, will soon flip the switch for the 100 million or so users who update on smartphones. Yelp, a popular listing of user-generated reviews, has added a check-in feature, and Google just added a widget to its Latitude application that lets you see the location of nearby pals who have enabled the service. Similarly, Apple has applied for patents for iGroup, which will give its iPhone users real-time information on who is nearby. To someone not in their 20s whose location generally isn't that interesting to others the idea of handing over your privacy with both hands to strap on a digital ankle bracelet sounds profoundly unattractive. (I was probably the mayor of taking a disco nap before heading out for another long evening at South by Southwest so I wouldn't keel over.) But to a younger cohort that lives on the grid, the location of people you know and care about is vital information, the coin of the realm. "For many, the benefits of augmented reality outweigh issues of privacy," said Beka Economopoulos of Fission Strategy, a Web development and social media consulting firm for nonprofits. And it often leads to a digitally enabled "lemming effect," she added. Location awareness would only seem to be of use in dense urban areas — in many small towns and suburbs, everyone already knows where everyone else is. But what if location became not just a physical place, but a digital one? The possibilities for old and new media could be significant.

Web Breathes New Life Into Failed Retailers

The retail graveyard is filled with venerable names that were felled by the recession. Now, some risk-taking companies are trying to profit by bringing brands back from the dead.

Systemax Inc., best known as the parent of Internet computer-parts retailer TigerDirect.com, gambled by buying the rights to the names of two deceased store chains, CompUSA for $30 million in 2008 and Circuit City for $14 million in 2009. Now as the economy crawls toward recovery, Systemax is opening CompUSA stores in Houston, Chicago and other major markets after successfully testing the concept in Florida. It already revived Circuit City as an Internet retailer last June, and is contemplating a brick-and-mortar rebirth for that brand as well. Wall Street analysts are starting to pay attention to Systemax, a rare instance of an Internet seller that is using its online know-how to open brick-and-mortar stores, at a time when most retail chains are gravitating to the Web.

Journalism's slide into health-debate weariness

[Commentary] It was the story that refused to die. Sunday's last-gasp passage of President Obama's health care bill will finally liberate the journalists who have been chained to this complicated, arcane, often tedious story for 14 long months.

It's not that media types were rooting for the House to drag the measure across the finish line. It's that many were frustrated by a tangled tale that never seemed to end, and knew that plenty of readers and viewers were sick of the subject as well. The conventional wisdom is that the press failed to educate the public about the bill's sweeping changes, leaving much of America confused about just what it contained. That is largely a bum rap, for the media churned out endless reams of data and analysis that were available to anyone who bothered to look. As time went on, though, journalists became consumed by political process and Beltway politics, to the point that the substance of health care reform was overwhelmed. Here the plea is guilty-with-an-explanation: The battle came down to whether the Senate could adopt changes by majority vote (reconciliation) and, until late Saturday, whether the House could approve the Senate measure without a recorded vote (deem and pass). With the bill's fate hanging by these procedural threads, there was no way to avoid making that the overriding story. (And yes, the Senate reconciliation vote is still to come.)

Silicon Valley loses foreign talent

Silicon Valley may be the cradle for tech start-ups, but some foreign-born executives, engineers and scientists are leaving because of better opportunities back home, strict immigration laws here and the dreary California economy with its high cost of living.

And fewer foreign students are coming to the Valley to earn engineering and science degrees, according to the Silicon Valley Index, which takes the economic pulse of the Valley each year. Foreign-born students earned 16.6% of the total degrees awarded in science and engineering programs from local colleges and universities in 2007, compared with 18.4% in 2003, the study says. "We're in the midst of a massive brain drain," says Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School who has done extensive research on the topic. "For the first time, immigrants have better opportunities outside the U.S." Often, a lack of work visas blocks foreign talent from staying. Only 120,000 to 140,000 temporary work visas are available each year in the US.

NCAA March Madness On Demand sets streaming video record

CBS is reporting that on Thursday, the first day of the Men's NCAA basketball tournament, it served 3.4 million hours of live streaming video to 3 million computer-bound fans with its March Madness On Demand player. It's being called the largest single-day of traffic for a live sports event on the Internet. Last year CBS tallied 4.8 million hours for the entire tournament. You know what that means: Lots of watching at the office. And who can blame viewers, especially if CBS is going to stream all 63 games of the tournament online for free? Well, bosses, for one. The "boss button" atop the player CBS March Madness On-Demand player, which mutes game audio and fills the screen with a generic-looking spreadsheet, was invoked 1.7 million times on Thursday, CBS says. It would seem that CBS understands, where NBC and its delay- and registration-plagued Vancouver Olympics coverage did not: On a hot day for online video, a firehose wins you more friends than a pay-per-use drinking fountain.

Google likely to win EU court battle over ads

Google looks likely to win a European high court battle over how it uses keywords in advertising — but legal experts say the issue is likely to keep rattling the search giant.

Rights owners have long complained about Google's practice of allowing advertisers to promote their products to customers searching for a rival's goods. Software, airline, luxury goods companies and even a law firm have taken Google to court in a bid to stop the practice, arguing that it hijacks their brand name and misleads consumers. The case being decided at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg next week pits Google against a number of French luxury goods firms including LVMH, the firm behind Louis Vuitton handbags. The companies complain that Google broke the law by accepting ads using brand names without permission, and they fear that counterfeiters and unofficial online stores can buy a keyword such as "Louis Vuitton" and use it to advertise bogus bags.

Patrolling Bad Behavior

The government may soon wield a great deal more power over the online advertising business, and that's quickly spreading fear across the entire ecosystem, including publishers, ad networks, agencies and even their clients.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) is set to introduce a consumer privacy bill over the next few weeks that will likely impact the entire $25 billion online ad market. And while that's got many worried, another seemingly unrelated piece of legislation -- the proposed financial reform bill aimed at cleaning up Wall Street -- has industry insiders sweating. Baked into that bill is language that would grant expanded powers to the Federal Trade Commission, which could theoretically go after shady advertisers or data abusers faster, hit them harder and punish any other companies that enabled their illegitimate activities.

Benton

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