July 2012

Why NBC Doesn't Care That You Want to Watch the Olympics Live on TV

The easiest way to understand why NBC wants to force you to watch the Olympics in prime time is to stop thinking about what audiences want and start thinking about advertisers want.

NBC paid about $1.2 billion for the rights to broadcast these games. To make back most of that money, NBC needs to sell extremely expensive commercials. The most valuable commercials aren't sold online to be viewed on browser tabs on 12-inch display screens. They're sold on prime time TV. So NBC has a clear interest in funneling our Olympic attention into the prime-time TV slot. The strategy is working, in its own way. Even with the awkward five-hour delay -- too small to swap day for night a la Beijing, but late enough that England is asleep by the time New England finishes dinner -- these Olympics are smashing all-time viewing records.

64 Nations Can Watch the Olympics Free and Live on YouTube, and the U.S. Isn't One of Them

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is freely broadcasting the Olympics to sixty-four Asian and sub-Saharan African countries on YouTube. Ghanaians, or Indians, or Basotho can tune in, without paying, to watch some 10 different live streams, which run from 9am to 11pm London time.

They can also watch the 24-hour Olympic News channel. There are a few caveats. All the broadcasts are in English. Internet availability throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa remains scarce. Why does an East Timorese get to watch the Olympics online, for free, while Americans don't? Because the US (and Canada, and most South American and European countries) have large media companies which will happily bid for the right to show the Games. In most of the territories that receive free YouTube access, there just isn't a big media company which could air the Olympics and turn anything close to a profit (yet). So the IOC steps in.

Romney says press focusing on overseas stumbles to aid Obama

Mitt Romney accused the media of looking to protect President Barack Obama by focusing on the GOP candidate’s high-profile gaffes during his week-long foreign tour rather than more substantive policy issues he discussed. "I realize that there will be some in the fourth estate or in whichever estate who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geo-politics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran," Romney told Fox News. "They'll instead try to find anything else to divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough years for our country." Romney told Fox News his comments had been mischaracterized.

Romney aide to reporters: 'Shove it!'

A Mitt Romney aide told reporters to “shove it” after the American press corps here shouted questions at the presidential candidate. As Romney was walking away from Pilsudski Square toward his vehicle, reporters asked him about his string of gaffes and whether he had any comment for Palestinians, some of whom took offense at the Republican’s suggestion in Jerusalem that Israel’s economy is superior because of cultural advantages Israelis enjoy. Romney ignored the questions and got in his car. But his traveling press secretary was furious. “Kiss my ass; this is a holy site for the Polish people,” said aide Rick Gorka. “Show some respect.” Gorka then told a reporter to “shove it.” Gorka subsequently called a pair of reporters to apologize, saying he lost his cool. “It was inappropriate,” Gorka said.

Google Asked For Street View Data By French Privacy Agency

Google was asked to provide France’s data-protection authority with information gathered through its Street View service, which it should have deleted after a 2011 fine. The request came four days after the British privacy watchdog announced a similar request. Google, owner of the world’s biggest search engine, informed European privacy agencies on July 27 that it still had some of the data, the French authority, known as CNIL, said

News Corp. Asks To Keep Allegations In Phone-Hacking Case Secret

News Corp.’s British publishing unit asked a judge to keep secret a series of new claims being made by victims of phone hacking at its News of the World tabloid in preparation for a group trial scheduled for February.

The details of the allegations, which could be used to seek punitive damages, should be kept from the public unless they are approved at a Sept. 7 hearing and added to the victims’ so- called generic claims, Judge Geoffrey Vos said in London. The claims outline “generalized activities which we think are unsustainable” if challenged, Michael Silverleaf, the lawyer for the News International unit, said at the hearing. “They may change the approach we are taking” to the case. The amended allegations reveal “a need for a proper debate about the scope of the case,” said Jeremy Reed, a lawyer for at least 50 victims. Reed has said the number of claimants may double before the trial.

Class-action lawsuit settlement forces Netflix privacy changes

Netflix has now changed its privacy policy so that it no longer retains rental history for people who have left the video site.

The move comes as the result of a class-action lawsuit filed against the company, alleging that Netflix unlawfully kept and disclosed such information of former customers. “Netflix has agreed to change its data retention practices so that it separates (known as “decoupling”) Entertainment Content Viewing History (that is, movies and TV shows that someone watched) from identification information for those subscribers who have not been a Netflix subscriber for at least 365 days, with some exceptions,” said the organizers of the class-action suit.

Google Fiber in the real world: Here’s what’s good and what needs work

Although Google Fiber is not yet available to residential customers, select Retail Partners in Kansas City went live on Saturday, July 28th. One of these places was Mud Pie Vegan Bakery. I talked with co-owner Michael Valverde and checked out the system at his space in order to see how fast it was in the “real world.” Ultimately, Google Fiber looks to be an outstanding service for Kansas City. I’m delighted they have bucked the trend against slow speeds and obnoxious bandwidth caps. I realize that in order to control the experience, you’ll have to use their hardware but Google has everything to gain by making their system as configurable as possible. As the service becomes more popular, content systems will be forced to upgrade their networks to keep up, although that means that bandwidth could slow down for some customers in theory.

Answering your questions about Google Fiber

So far, 40 fiberhoods have qualified for service, more than 2,000 people have visited our Fiber Space, we’ve talked to thousands of people via online and phone customer service, and we’ve distributed upwards of 2,000 ice cream sandwiches from our Fiber trucks. Through our many conversations, we’ve noticed that some details about Google Fiber may still be a little unclear. So today we’re going to share and answer some of the top questions we’ve been getting about Google Fiber, so that we can keep everyone up-to-date in Kansas City.

California County Tries to Roll Out Wireless Broadband to Farms

Though connecting all rural areas with broadband is a national priority, why would anyone get fired up about blanketing California’s Fresno County with wireless broadband?

For Fresno CIO Carolyn Hogg, the answer has to do with olive trees as wireless subscribers, tracking tomatoes from vine to dinner plate, self-driving tractors, and agricultural research and education that could boost the state’s economy and help feed the world. Hogg, along with a coalition of federal, state, private-sector and local interests, are working to secure high-speed wireless broadband to take the region’s agriculture to the next level. Although farmers have grown food and fodder for thousands of years without wireless broadband, times have changed. The world’s population is expected to grow from 7 billion today to 9.3 billion in 2050, according to Robert Tse, a community planning and development specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But the Earth has only 12 percent more arable land available for crop production. And, as millions of people in Asia enter the middle class, diet staples like rice are being replaced with fruits, vegetables and meat.

Benton

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