July 2010

Who says the US is not number 1 on the Internet? A research company has been looking at who around the world writes blogs, and who uses Twitter for social networking. The results may surprise you: Almost a third of bloggers are in the U.S., yet over 50% of Twitterers are American.

Sysomos surveyed over 100 million blog posts to produce their data, looking for age, gender and location information. While its fascinating to learn that slightly over 50% of bloggers are female, and the 21- to 35-year old age band is the most populated (over 53% of bloggers are this age), the location data is the most interesting material in the results. The U.S.A. accounts for most bloggers -- with 29.2% of blogs being produced in the U.S., which is some four times greater than the number two country, the U.K., with 6.75% of blogs being British. Japan occupies the third place with 4.9%, and Brazil has fourth place with 4.2%. While the U.S. dominates many Net technologies, and English is the de facto global Web language (as well as being the most spoken language around the world), the fact that nearly a third of bloggers are American and the second place is taken up by the U.K. isn't surprising.

On the Internet, users supply the raw material that helps generate billions of dollars a year in online advertising revenue. Search requests, individual profiles on social networks, Web browsing habits, posted pictures and many Internet messages are all mined to serve up targeted online ads. All of this personal information turns out to be extremely valuable, collectively. So why should Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other ad businesses get all the rewards?

That is the question that animates Bynamite, a start-up company based in San Francisco. "There should be an economic opportunity on the consumer side," said Ginsu Yoon, a co-founder of the company. "Nearly all the investment and technology is on the advertising side." Bynamite, to be sure, is another entry in the emerging market for online privacy products. The business interest in such products, of course, is being fed by worries about how much personal information marketers collect. Also playing a part are recent outcries after Facebook changed its privacy practices and Google introduced a social networking tool, Buzz, that initially shared information widely without users' permission. Venture capital has been pouring into Web-based monitoring and privacy protection products like ReputationDefender and Abine, as well as services that help parents protect children's privacy online, like SafetyWeb and SocialShield. Bynamite brings a somewhat different perspective to the privacy market. "Our view is that it's not about privacy protection but about giving users control over this valuable resource — their information," Mr. Yoon said.

Reps Steve Israel (D-NY) and Pete King (R-NY) have circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter promoting changes to retransmission consent rules, a contentious set of regulations governing negotiations between broadcasters and paid distributors such as cable and satellite operators.

Outdated rules, the letter says, "are doing harm to consumers." "The real losers under the existing retransmission consent system are television viewers, who either lose access to broadcast programming or must bear the increased costs of such programming in the form of higher cable and satellite rates," the letter said. Cable and satellite operators say broadcasters have too much power in fee negotiations because they can pull their content. The broadcasters argue that paid television depends on broadcast programming and so it is reasonable for TV stations to have the power to negotiate their compensation. The "Dear Colleague" urges members to sign a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking for a rulemaking process to amend the regulations. Increasingly, the letter to the FCC says, "these negotiations are breaking down."

[Commentary] While the various federal agencies and Congress discuss, pontificate and wage war over the future of broadband, here's a little secret. That vision they have of getting 100 Mbps service to 100 million homes by 2020? Several U.S. markets have already gone way beyond it to deliver the future of broadband today.

In many respects, Washington insiders determined to get the U.S to a better place when it comes to broadband are held back by large telcos, forced to fight last century's telecom wars. But while Washington debates, many markets miss out. Those who want better broadband should take their lessons from some of the cities who have successfully deployed their own networks. While the Federal Communications Commission explores a third way on a path made needlessly longer by national corporate interests, local markets are delivering broadband's future faster with a fourth way. Congress and the FCC could do the U.S. a world of good by keying in on this possibly better way, and by changing how we think about the task of bringing true broadband to communities that need and want it. Champions of free market forces may want to consider the merits of this approach to broadband that Communities United for Broadband finds effective in calling small-town and urban America to action.

The principles of the approach are as follows:
1) Our community is a free market.
2) As a market, our businesses, local government, institutions and individuals collectively spend significant dollars on communication services.
3) Despite our spending as a market, we have un-met broadband needs and unfulfilled dreams.
4) Subsequently, we will use our purchasing power and political clout to get the broadband we need and want through private- and/or public-sector solutions.
5) Key to the success of our free market strategy is our ability to encourage, facilitate or create competitors in our market, which we will do.