June 2012

Giving money to politicians is about to get a little easier. The Federal Election Commission unanimously approved a proposal to allow campaigns to accept donations via text message, helping candidates solicit spontaneous donations from supporters.

Many campaigns already allow supporters to donate via smartphones, but those contributions are routed over the Internet and require contact and billing information. The new proposal will allow campaign supporters to quickly text small-dollar donations that would be deducted from their monthly cellphone bills. Under the plan that got the commission's nod on Monday, an aggregating company would process the donations and make sure no phone number sends a campaign more than $50. Federal election rules set a $50 limit on anonymous campaign donations. The aggregator would forward between 50% and 70% of the donation to the campaign within 10 days to comply with federal campaign-finance rules. The rest of the money would be split between the aggregator and wireless carriers as processing fees.

Here’s Facebook’s retort to people who say Facebook ads don’t work: A study that says people who see brand messages on the site spend more money on those brands, right away. The catch: The study focuses on “earned media” — the messages that Facebook users share with each other, not the ones brands pay Facebook to promote.

That’s not entirely good news for Facebook, because it may lead to more moves like the one that General Motors announced before the social network’s IPO. The new data released by the social network company was released Tuesday together with ComScore in a report that also shows how Facebook ads have helped companies including Starbucks and Target. Facebook said its research shows that 70% of ad campaigns will get advertisers a return three times what they put in, and in nearly half of all campaigns, Facebook ads get companies $5 for every $1. ComScore said that users who saw paid ads for an unnamed retail company were 16% more likely than those who didn't to make a purchase from the company's locations and made online purchases 56% more frequently. The report also showed people who "Like" Target were more likely to buy from the company 21% more frequently, and people who saw unpaid marketing messages from Starbucks made purchases from the company every four weeks 38% more often than those who didn't.

Consumers’ reluctance to pay as much for digital media as they do for physical products, such as news, books and music, will drag on the global media and entertainment industry’s growth over the next five years, according to a new industry forecast.

The media and entertainment industry is likely to grow at a 5.7 per cent compound annual rate over the next five years, slower than the 6.6 per cent annual growth rate expected in nominal GDP over the same period, according to PwC’ annual outlook for the sector. Behind the discrepancy is the industry’s transition to lower-cost digital products that are generally cheaper for consumers than traditional physical media offerings, such as news, books, music and video games. PwC said this reflects the “end of the digital beginning” for media and entertainment companies, where digital media and entertainment become more central to business and people’s lives, driven particularly by tablets and smart phone devices.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the Senate would soon move to consider a cybersecurity bill, and challenged Republicans to work with Democrats so something can be passed.

"I put everyone on notice: We are going to move to this bill at the earliest possible date," Sen Reid said on the Senate floor. "For that to happen, more of my Republicans need to start taking this threat seriously. "It's time for them to participate productively in this conversation, instead of just criticizing the current approach," he said. Sen Reid said a bill from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) is an "excellent piece of legislation" that has been endorsed by many national-security experts. The bill would give the Department of Homeland Security the power to set mandatory standards for critical infrastructure systems, which supporters say is needed to help avoid cyberattacks.