April 2010

GSA Hits Social Media Road

The General Services Administration is heading full force into the Web 2.0 space, a move to increase collaboration among federal agencies, officials said at the Web and New Media Conference.

The agency wants to share data and use social media tools to allow the pubic to join the dialogue, but the real challenge is learning to collaborate, said GSA Administrator Martha Johnson, who joined the conference via Skype. The government can "get enamored with its toys but needs to pay attention to what its customers need," she added. To that end, GSA officials highlighted several initiatives to expand the government's presence in the Web 2.0 world. For example, the agency recently launched go.usa.gov, a link shortener similar to bit.ly but available only to individuals with a .gov or .mil email address. The site helps maintain the authenticity of the .gov brand, ensures permanent access for users and allows the government to gather data, said Bev Godwin, head of GSA's Center for New Media and Citizen Engagement.

Android Jumps Past iPhone in U.S. Mobile Web Use

Android is still lagging behind the iPhone in marketshare, with only 9% market penetration in the U.S. (iPhone is around 25%). But according to new numbers from online ad giant AdMob, Android actually passed the iPhone in mobile Web use this month. This is all U.S.-only--internationally, the iPhone is much better established than Android. But here in the States, Android accounted for 46% of online mobile traffic, compared with Apple's 39%. The other players, by the way, don't even enter the picture. RIM's BlackBerry phones are in third place, with 7%, and Palm's struggling WebOS only eked out 3% despite a recent Verizon launch.

Why reporters are down on President Obama

President Barack Obama and the media actually have a surprisingly hostile relationship -- as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade, reporters who cover the White House say. Reporters say the White House is thin-skinned, controlling, eager to go over their heads and stingy with even basic information. All White Houses try to control the message.

But this White House has pledged to be more open than its predecessors, and reporters feel it doesn't live up to that pledge in several key areas:

1) Day-to-day interaction with president Obama is almost nonexistent, and he talks to the press corps far less often than Presidents Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush did. President Clinton took questions nearly every weekday, on average. President Obama barely does it once a week.

2) The ferocity of pushback is intense. A routine press query can draw a string of vitriolic e-mails. A negative story can draw a profane high-decibel phone call or worse. Some reporters feel like they've been frozen out after crossing the White House.

3) Except toward a few reporters, press secretary Robert Gibbs can be distant and difficult to reach — even though his job is to be one of the main conduits from president to press. "It's an odd White House where it's easier to get the White House chief of staff on the phone than the White House press secretary," one top reporter said.

4) And at the very moment many reporters feel shut out, one paper — The New York Times — enjoys a favoritism from President Obama and his staff that makes competitors fume, with gift-wrapped scoops and loads of presidential face time.

Media and Communications 5th largest sector of US economy

Over the past 35 years, U.S. media and communications spending rose at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1%, second only to the services sector, according to private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson. It also outpaced the 6.5% gain for nominal GDP. The expansion means that the business grew from the tenth largest economic sector worth $63.1 billion, accounting for 3.9% of U.S. gross domestic product, in 1975 to the fifth largest in 2009 with $877.9 billion, or 6.3% of GDP. The datapoints are part of a review that Veronis is releasing Tuesday as part of its unveiling of a database of historical industry figures since 1975.

FTC Helps Prepare Kids for a World Where Advertising is Everywhere

With American youth exposed to more advertising than ever before, the Federal Trade Commission is kicking off a new advertising literacy campaign to help older children understand the ads they see and become smarter consumers.

The campaign is targeted to "tweens" aged 8 to 12, and includes a game-based website at Admongo.gov, a curriculum tied to national standards of learning in language arts and social studies that teachers can use to "ad-ucate" students, a library of fictional ads that can be used as teaching tools, and activities for parents and kids to do together. All these materials are free and in the public domain.

The online game at Admongo.gov allows kids to create an avatar and features four levels of play to help them think critically about advertising. In "The Atrium," they identify the ads that are around them. In the "Assemblimator," they learn how to take apart an ad, evaluate its claims, and figure out how ads try to persuade people. In the "Planadtarium," they find out how ads are targeted, and in "The Adgitator," they build and target their own ads. Throughout the game, players learn to ask the three critical questions about ads, no matter where they see them: Who is responsible for the ad? What is it actually saying? What does it want me to do?

Comcast: net neutrality should be less filling, taste great

The star Internet service provider in the drama over the Federal Communications Commission's proposed Open Internet rules filed comments with the agency on that subject this week. Comcast comes to the task after having convinced a Federal court to overturn the FCC's order sanctioning it for P2P throttling. You might think, then, that the cable giant's comments would be full of triumphant swagger. Quite the contrary, they're diplomatic and make recommendations based on what Comcast sees as the consensus among filers in this proceeding.

That broad agreement, the company thinks, boils down to two major points—the agency should come up with Open Internet policies for everybody, and they should be as unobtrusive as possible. "A diverse group of commenters [have] noted that the rules cannot focus too narrowly on Internet service providers as the only potential 'gatekeepers'," Comcast observes, "but should account for the interdependent nature of the Internet ecosystem." And: "the Commission should not adopt an absolute ban on 'discrimination' . . . A more flexible and realistic standard, such as one that focuses on 'unreasonable and anticompetitive' discrimination, would give the Commission sufficient authority to monitor practices that create a meaningful risk to innovation and the openness on the Internet."

Public Knowledge Tells FCC Hearing Rules Needed To Protect Open Internet

Public Knowledge President and Co-Founder Gigi B. Sohn said today that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should enact rules to meet the threats to an open Internet.

Testifying at a Commission hearing in Seattle on "Approaches to Preserving the Open Internet," Sohn said that, "the open, decentralized nature of the Internet is at risk, as the cable, telephone and wireless companies that provide the on-ramps to the Internet seek to insert themselves in the middle - picking winners and losers in the process. The FCC's Open Internet rulemaking proceeding, which would prohibit this kind of discrimination, is a welcome step towards preserving the open Internet."

Preempt State Broadband Reporting Requirements? Under What Authority?

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission members have been pushing the FCC to preempt state data collection of broadband deployment. The matter came up when the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling finding that nothing in federal statutes or previous FCC orders stops states from collecting their own information about broadband deployment. The ruling expresses no opinion about whether state PUCs have existing authority (given that broadband is a Title I "information service") or whether or not it would be a good idea for states to collect their own data. But even this specter that someone somewhere might do something carriers don't like prompted Commissioners McDowell and Baker to push for the FCC to preempt state authority to collect information. After all, as we all know, broadband providers are timid creatures and likely to be scared off by the least thing that could conceivably raise their cost of doing business — as the broadband providers themselves constantly remind us. But Feld just has to ask, "Under what authority, exactly, do McDowell and Baker believe the FCC could preempt state reporting requirements?"

Industry consensus would be the best Network Neutrality solution

[Commentary] Could opposing (commercial) sides of the great Network Neutrality debate find consensus?

"I think it ought to be resolved in a deal basically," said Amazon vice president for global public policy Paul Misener. "And the view would be this: Network operators would accept Net neutrality rules in exchange for the certainty of explicit permission to offer paid managed services, and that kind of a package it seems to me is eminently doable and it benefits all ... stakeholders."

Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications, was not so explicit, but he was also optimistic about the idea of the industry reaching its own solution. "I think in the near term we can reach agreements on the Net neutrality issue which would allow consumers to be protected, the network providers to be able to offer all the services that we are capable of providing, and all of the other players to be certain that they also can thrive in the space," he said. Tauke said Verizon was working hard with Google and other players to try to reach a consensus and then offer that solution to the FCC.

The idea of stakeholders devising their own Net neutrality solution is particularly appealing now that serious questions have arisen about whether the FCC has authority over broadband.

OECD countries agree to tackle global environmental challenges through information and communication technologies

Boosting sustainable economic growth is high on government agendas. The Recommendation of the OECD Council on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Environment supports governments to increase the environmental benefits of ICT applications and improve environmental impacts of ICTs. As governments embark on green growth paths, this recommendation addresses areas where public sector action can help overcome shortcomings identified in OECD reports on ICT and the environment. OECD analysis shows that most "Green ICT" initiatives concentrate on the direct effects of ICTs themselves rather than tackling climate change and environmental degradation through the use of ICTs as an enabling or "smart" technology.

The OECD Recommendation lays out a 10-point check list on how governments can employ ICTs to enhance national environmental performance. It encourages cross-sector co-operation and knowledge exchange on resource-efficient ICTs and "smart" applications, and highlights the importance of governments supporting R&D and innovation. By doing so, governments send positive signals for private sector investments. "Smart" electricity grid technologies for example have been receiving government attention and have attracted venture capital investments during the crisis, despite overall clean technologies seeing a dip.