August 2012

‘Give Us a Gig’ Helps Narrow Digital Divide in Gigabit City

What happens in the Kansas City neighborhoods that don’t meet Google Fiber’s preregistration targets?

Aaron Deacon, president of the Social Media Club of Kansas City, points out that the soft commitment of the $10 registration is an easy threshold for many residents to meet. But for some in disadvantaged areas, Internet service, and therefore preregistration, isn’t a priority. Enter Give Us a Gig, a community-driven initiative to maximize the impact this fiber build-out could have in and around Kansas City. Stemming from earlier efforts — including a broad community brainstorming session in 2011 — Deacon describes Give Us a Gig as a broad-base effort consisting of education, engagement and advocacy components. Door-to-door outreach, neighborhood organizing and community events are making headway in these disadvantaged neighborhoods, driving up adoption. According to Deacon, many residents are compelled to preregister when they learn that reaching neighborhood registration goals means community facilities will benefit as well. Schools, libraries and government buildings will be hooked up to Google fiber if residential interest is high enough. Google’s television service helps convince the reluctant as well, who despite tight budgets are still shelling out money for monthly cable service.

Cities' digital entryways are getting a makeover

Asked to peek at the websites of a sampling of south-metro cities, Michael Schlotfeldt finds a lot to object to. But it's when he's asked to do something as simple as locating the agenda of one city's next council meeting that the professional Web page designer really grows exasperated. After struggling for two minutes and 12 seconds -- an eternity in Web time -- he finally declares: "I give up. I have no idea." And that, says the president of St. Paul-based Plaudit Design, sends a terrible message. "Because it's so hidden, it feels like government is not welcoming, like they don't want your input. They've designed this to keep you away, is what it feels like -- as though it's a tool for insiders to exchange documents among themselves." Navigability -- the ease with which a newcomer can find important information -- is a big reason there's a growing movement across the metro to overhaul the way cities present themselves to the public.

RNC 2012: 'America's living room'

Mitt Romney accepts the Republican presidential nomination this week on a multimillion-dollar stage tricked out with a mix of newfangled technology and old-fashioned set design meant to resemble the Romney campaign’s vision of having a conversation in “America’s living room.” In an exclusive first look behind the scenes of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, POLITICO walked through the vast control room backstage, which will act as the nerve center for a global TV and Internet audience where programmers will manipulate the images that will fill the 13 LED screens looming over the convention floor.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the Verizon-Cable Pact

[Commentary] The approval of the Verizon-SpectrumCo deal by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission signals dark days ahead for consumers.

At Free Press, we believe vigorous competition is the best way to compel companies to lower prices, invest in higher quality offerings, and pay close attention to customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, the market for high-speed mobile and at-home broadband service looks nothing like that. Where there was once a glimmer of hope for competition between cable and phone companies, we now see Verizon and the cable companies dividing up the market. Where once Verizon's FiOS service was going head-to-head Comcast Xfinity, we now have former rivals signing up their own customers for their competitors. Consumers would be far better off if this union had never been proposed. Congress and the FCC need to confront the looming monopoly environment most consumers now face for broadband service. If they don't reverse course and start dealing with the reality they've created.

Verizon-SpectrumCo: How Do Ya Like Me Now?

[Commentary] Last week, Benton’s Headlines staff was distracted by breaking news from the Department of Justice that it was approving, with some changes, a nearly $4 billion deal between Verizon and some of the country’s largest cable companies. By this week’s end, the deal was approved by the Federal Communications Commission as well. Here’s a quick recap of how the week played out.

Pandora and Spotify Rake in the Money and Then Send It Off in Royalties

If you have read anything about digital music recently, you have probably encountered two names over and over: Spotify and Pandora. Both offer an abundance of free listening on easy-to-use interfaces, and music fans have embraced them. At least 33 million people have tried Spotify, more than 150 million have registered for Pandora. Those are extraordinary numbers for any online service. But even at their level of scale and hype — and despite having very different business models — Spotify and Pandora exemplify the business challenges for digital-music companies. Both are losing money, and for largely the same reason: the cost of music royalties.

Making "Dumb" Phones Smarter and Faster

Not having a smartphone or access to a high-speed mobile network doesn't mean you don't still want your phone to act brainy and speedy. That's the premise behind Australian startup biNu, whose free Java app can be downloaded onto most basic phones and used over 2G wireless networks—which remain common in many developing countries—to update Facebook and Twitter, read news, search the Web, and more. You could use a mobile browser to do the same thing, but biNu cofounder Gour Lentell says biNu's software is much faster and more data-efficient because it shifts most of the data processing away from the phone and onto distant servers.

Three-Quarters of Newspapers’ Presidential Coverage is Written by Men

In the post-primary period of election coverage, most of the newspaper stories were written by men, according to new survey data released today by The Women’s Media Center and compiled by The 4th Estate Project. National and state newspapers were surveyed, including those with the nation’s highest circulation rates, like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. The research covers both the primary and general election periods.

From January 1 to April 15 (during the GOP primary period) 76 percent of articles written by men.
From April 16 to August 25 (during the general election period) 72 percent of articles written by men.

Television is the ruling body of college sports

These days, big-time college football without TV is nearly unthinkable.

If a game is played in State College, or Tuscaloosa or Los Angeles, and only 108,000 people watch it, do the bands make a sound? Had a television ban been imposed by the NCAA, Penn State could have lost $20 million in TV rights revenue, not to mention immeasurable recruiting damage. Television provides the monetary bricks that has built college football into a business. As television contracts have swelled to upward of $5 billion for just one conference, concepts of amateurism and education have loosened, and the sport treads on a prosperous but dangerous path. "It's clearly the most powerful entity," said Ellen Staurowsky, a Drexel University sports management professor and co-author of "College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA Amateur Myth." "The pressure that schools are under to maintain a competitive edge hinges on their ability to have exposure on television."

ESPN Journalistic Standards: The Emperor No Longer Wears Clothes

[Commentary] For quite some time, ESPN has been the know-all, tell-all leader in sports media. But times change and companies rise and fall.

Because of missteps and competition, it looks like the king might have a rebellion on his hands. Disney created a beast in ESPN. It grew to incredible heights very quickly and in the process nearly monopolized sports news and entertainment. Look at its accomplishments: it defined the highlights show with “SportsCenter,” created the ESPYs and found a niche for extreme sports with the “X-Games.” Its reach and business decisions helped it determine the fates of many sports and college conferences. But ESPN isn't what it once was. It's become a bloated bastion of hyperbole. Instead of giving us the highlights and sound bites, the network is shoveling hours of mindless dreck into our TVs. Needless to say the journalistic standards have suffered. The decline in news quality can be directly attributed to conspicuous conflicts of interest. ESPN covers sports leagues journalistically but also pays them billions of dollars in rights fees to broadcast their games. As ESPN has won the rights to more sports, it has started covering athletes as if they were promotional ideas. By playing things both ways it has become a shell of its former self.

Benton

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