February 2011

People Download Lots of Apps, But Many Get Discarded

App makers are quick to talk about downloads. And why not? It’s the most obvious metric for usage and consumer adoption. But according to analytics firm Localytics, 26 percent of apps downloaded last year were only used once.

That means those overall download stats often mask the fact that many apps fail to catch on with users. According to Localytics, which studied the thousands of Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 apps with its analytics service one-time usage is on the rise from quarter to quarter in 2010. While this news may be helpful for Localytics to help push its real-time analytics service, it also drives home the point that developers face increased pressure to nail the design of their apps, or face app abandonment.

Cord Cutters Suffer the 'Paradox of Choice'

What would happen if someone took your TV service provider away for a week and left behind one of the trendy Over The Top (OTT) boxes in its place?

That is what Hill Holliday did recently with five Boston-area families. The company removed their standard cable boxes and gave them an Apple TV, a Roku, Boxee Box, Xbox 360 or Google TV. The results should give the MSOs a smile. Most of the families reacted negatively to the experience, feeling immediately the absence of the constant flow of automated TV choice. The biggest and most obvious shift for consumers was from passivity to lean-in involvement. Virtually all of the OTT boxes required that the user choose each and every TV experience. It turns out that for many people TV viewing is something of an experience that lives somewhere between lean-back passivity and on-demand super-choice. "I don't want to have to think about it," one subject said. In fact, as Hill Holliday synopsized at their site, "As with 'the paradox of choice' phenomenon that describes how broadening the range of options leads to a decrease in overall consumption, we saw how families gave up on watching TV altogether when they couldn't decide what it is that they wanted to watch." None of the OTT solutions seemed to have an answer to the problem of having to decide always what to watch next.

Web Site That Rebroadcasts TV Should Be Allowed To Operate, Groups Tell NY Court

Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Media Access Project and Open Technology Initiative argue that a Federal Court should not shut down ivi, a Web site that rebroadcasts TV channels. The groups filed a brief with the U.S. District Court in New York City in a suit brought by a number of broadcasters against the site.

In the brief, the groups noted that ivi is part of a new trend of Online Video Providers (OVD), which have been championed by both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and by the Justice Department (DoJ) in those agencies’ analysis of the Comcast takeover of NBCU. The groups said: “OVDs must be allowed to operate and innovate in this space if their promise is to be fulfilled. Issuing a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction against ivi would frustrate this potential by effectively shutting down ivi’s business.” In addition, the groups said that ivi fits the definition of a cable system under the Copyright Act and that its actions are permissible under FCC rules. The groups also argued that no broadcasters are being harmed by ivi’s operation: “It seems doubtful that ivi’s continued operation would spur the cancellation of any programming during the pendency of this litigation.”

Apple hit with another suit alleging privacy violations

Apple has been hit with another lawsuit accusing it of privacy violations for the way it shares information collected from iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users with advertisers.

The suit was filed Jan 27 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of an Apple user in California and seeks class-action status. It charges Apple with sharing information about users' browsing history, application use and other personal details without their consent. "Apple's privacy policy is opaque and confusing but one thing is clear: it does not inform mobile device users that by providing application developers with their UDID, Apple enables them to put a name to highly personal and in many cases embarrassing information derived from app downloading activity and usage, and Internet browsing history, that would otherwise be anonymous," the suit reads. Apple gives each of its mobile devices a Unique Device Identifier, or UDID. Application developers have access to that number, which offers information about a user's browsing history every time the user clicks on an ad or an application, according to the suit. Developers sometimes sell the data to tracking companies, the suit alleges.

Arbor: Mobile networks trail fixed line in security

Mobile network operators are trailing their fixed-line counterparts by several years in regards to security, with many experiencing outages and other problems due to the use of outdated security technology, according to a new report released by Arbor Networks.

As demand for mobile Internet access has grown, mobile operators have focused on growing revenue rather than securing their infrastructure, said Paul Scanlon, a solutions architect for Arbor. Mobile operators are eight to 10 years behind their fixed-line counterparts when it comes to security, he said. Arbor surveyed 111 network operators for its Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report, which covers a period from October 2009 to September 2010. Forty-six percent of respondents said security-related outages on their networks had affected customers. Among the causes of the outages were denial-of-service attacks, where an attacker prevents legitimate users from accessing a service, either by crashing it or clogging up network access to it.

Egypt Turns Off the Internet. Now What Happens?

On Thursday January 27, the Egyptian government did something extraordinary -- it "turned off the Internet" within the country's own borders. There's no mystery about how this happened -- the Egyptian government owns the largest service provider in the country and had only to make a few phone calls to bring the remaining ISPs in line. The old fashioned nature of this technological shutdown -- human beings switching off Border Gateway Protocol routers at the point of a gun, more or less -- suggests that Egypt's leadership has yet to consider the consequences of such an act, economic and otherwise. Destruction of your own increasingly-vital communications infrastructure is known as the Dictator's Dilemma. It's a concept explored by economist and later secretary of state George Shultz, and was born in a very different era--the mid-80's ascent to power of Gorbachev, who is reported to have been directly influenced by the notion that an increasingly information-dependent economy could not thrive when information itself was prevented from flowing freely within and outside a country.

Agencies face problems with opening up government: report

Federal agencies face numerous significant hurdles in implementing open government programs that include a lack of resources, organizational roadblocks and legal, contractual, procurement and policy problems, according to a new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

Although agencies are moving toward engagement and transparency, little research is available to guide them, writes Gwanhoo Lee, associate professor of business at American University, and Young Hoon Kwak, associate professor of business at George Washington University, in their report. Along with identifying hurdles to open government, the report makes 13 recommendations, and examines four agencies at various stages of implementation.

Netflix, Egypt, and the Case for Net Neutrality

In the wake of the Federal Communications Commission decision to approve a basic framework of network neutrality rules, the battle rages.

While Internet providers like Verizon file preemptive challenges to regulations that haven't even taken effect yet, Netflix chimes in to defend network neutrality, and the political strife in Egypt provides a poignant illustration of how important it is for the Internet to be free and open. Netflix is doing its part to let the free market speak for itself. By providing data on which Internet providers consistently offer the fastest, and highest quality delivery of streaming video content, Netflix is arming its customers with the information necessary to choose the best ISP and let their purchasing power speak on behalf of net neutrality--at least those customers fortunate enough to have a choice between ISPs.

With a quiet vote this year, Congress could irreparably damage public media

[Commentary] In coming weeks, public media in this country could quietly cease to exist as we know it. It's up to us to make sure our audiences are aware of this threat, and that they have the opportunity to do something about it.

True, CPB has weathered defunding efforts before and come through intact — though the federal appropriations lately haven't kept pace with inflation. But the challenge posed by the seating of the 112th Congress is much more dangerous than anything we have seen before. First, the financial strength of public television in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008–2009 is at an all-time low. Many stations were having a hard time staying viable even before the new Congress took office. Second, the Juan Williams affair at NPR has given opponents of public funding for public broadcasting a rallying point for advancing their cause. As we have seen, some in Congress are not afraid to exploit that single event to its fullest. Finally, an unprecedented federal deficit is forcing legislators to put all spending-reduction options on the table for discussion. Indeed, the chairs of the Obama administration's own bipartisan deficit-reduction commission cite CPB's appropriation as a possible target for elimination. [Kling is CEO of Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media]

Tech program gets short-term fix

Despite President Obama’s recent call to invest in American innovation, Congress has failed to permanently extend funding for a small business program that many tech companies rely on. The Small Business Innovation Research program, along with a sister initiative, funnels roughly $2 billion a year in grants to companies that are “truly at the cutting edge,” according to National Science Foundation spokesman Josh Chamot.

NSF is one of eleven agencies that administer the grants. But the funding could run out this year without congressional action. President Barack Obama on Monday signed into law a stop-gap measure that will continue funding through the end of May. SBIR funding would have expired Jan 31 without the bill, which Congress passed last week. The program has been temporarily reauthorized half a dozen times over the past two years. Despite having bipartisan backing, efforts to ensure long-term funding for the program have stalled as Congress has focused on larger issues.

Benton

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