August 2012

Political Ads: How Much Is Too Much?

Three months from Election Day, some political strategists already are asking if more TV ads really will make a difference.

The question arises because of an increase in spending so far on political ads and the big reservations now being made for prime TV spots in the fall. Political ad placements are running higher than local TV stations in some swing states expected. It is the latest sign that record sums of money will be spent chasing a dwindling receptive audience. Just 8% of registered voters remain undecided, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last month, though some who picked a candidate said they were only leaning toward that choice. Campaigns, political parties and outside groups are expected to spend some $6.5 billion on television and cable ads for federal and state elections this year, up from $4.8 billion in 2008, according to estimates from Borrell Associates Inc., which tracks local TV and online advertising. The numbers have been boosted in large measure by the creation of many new outside groups and super PACs since the last election.

Crossroads blitzing 5 Senate races

Apparently, the GOP independent-spending behemoth American Crossroads will launch a new wave of Senate ads totaling over $7 million in TV time.

The ads start August 8 and will run through Aug. 21, targeting Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Virginia. The price tag is about $7.2 million. Those five states are at the top of the GOP's takeover list for the 2012 cycle, and Republicans will have to win most of them to take control of the Senate.

Report says 15 percent of Mitt Romney Twitter followers are paid fakes

More than 15 percent of Mitt Romney's Twitter followers may be generated by paid services that use fake accounts to artificially inflate the number of people subscribed to the presumptive Republican nominee for US President, according to a new report.

The report comes from researchers at security firm Barracuda Labs, and it cites the addition last month of 116,922 followers to @MittRomney in a span of just 24 hours. The infusion on July 21 represented a 17-percent spike in accounts following Romney. A quarter of those new accounts were less than four days old, and 23 percent of them had never issued a single tweet. Ten percent have since been suspended by Twitter for unspecified reasons. "Based on the above distinguishable features, we believe most of these recent followers of Romney are not from a general Twitter population but most likely from a paid Twitter follower service," Barracuda Labs Research Scientist Jason Ding wrote in the report. Such services allow customers to buy followers for any Twitter account, he stressed, so it's not clear if the fakes were purchased by Romney, his supporters, or his political foes.

The End of Channel Surfing?

Social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have given television viewers a virtual water cooler to chitchat about their favorite shows. Now some companies are trying to extend that digital outlet a step further by reinventing the way people find TV programs. App developers are updating the traditional channel guide to show viewers programs that are uniquely relevant to them based on their social circles. Instead of channel-surfing or scrolling through a long list of shows, viewers can use these mobile apps to display shows that they or their friends like based on their preferences. Some of the apps integrate with Facebook’s social network to identify and recommend TV shows and sports teams liked on the social network.

Internet Pirates Will Always Win

[Commentary] Stopping online piracy is like playing the world’s largest game of Whac-A-Mole. Hit one, countless others appear. Quickly. And the mallet is heavy and slow. Although the recording industries might believe they’re winning the fight, the Pirate Bay and others are continually one step ahead.

Syrian Students Hold Facebook Protest

An organization called the Union of Free Students in Syria is using a new tactic to promote Internet security among Syrian rebels: Facebook protests.

In the face of widespread hacking by supporters of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Syrian exiles are trying a new tactic: Internet literacy protests. Members of the Union of Free Students in Syria, an inter-university resistance organization, held an Internet-based protest in the city of Homs and in Saudi Arabia. Protesters held signs with slogans like “Protecting Your Account = Protecting Your Friends: A Different Password for Each Account,” and “Assad's Supporters Are Sending Dangerous Files With Hacked Accounts. Don't Be Tricked: Check With Your Friends Before Opening An Attachment.” There's one very interesting thing about the signs: Most of them were written in English, not Arabic. The use of English indicates that the Union of Free Students' audience isn't just Syrian students. Instead, the Union is directly speaking to both the Syrian diaspora and to non-Arabic speaking Western sympathizers. By reminding associates to keep their accounts secure and to brush up on their online security, the organization is unintentionally recalling the frequent use of online security training among the Tibetan exile community in response to suspected attacks by Chinese hackers.

With Live Streaming and New Technology, BBC Tries to Be Everywhere at the Olympics

While some American television viewers are grumbling about the retro feel to NBC’s London Olympics coverage, with tape-delayed broadcasts of the opening ceremony and other events, audiences in Britain are getting a more contemporary — even futuristic — TV Games. There, BBC is providing marathon coverage — 2,500 hours of programming during the more than two weeks of the Games. At the touch of a button on their remote controls, viewers can choose among as many as 24 live feeds of various events, whether basketball or fencing.

Bureaucratic red tape slowing rural broadband rollouts in Finland

Finland's broadband push is being hampered by "the bureaucracy surrounding state aid for the installation of the networks," according to telecom operators, cooperatives and other service providers looking to build into the country's remote villages, with at least one carrier reporting delays of up to one year to obtain funding.

Much like U.S.-based carriers that have to deal with the rules, regulations and overall temperament of federal regulatory agencies, Finland's service providers must navigate intricate red tape to get a share of limited resources, the Helsingin Sanomat reports. On a positive note, the Finnish government and European Union have earmarked €91 million ($113 million) to make broadband a reality in the more sparsely populated areas of the country. On a negative note, the newspaper said, "only a fraction of the allocated funds have been spent."

Obama and Romney need to weigh in on network neutrality

[Commentary] Within a few months of Inauguration Day, the next president will need to decide on how to deal with serious risks to the Internet’s innovation machine. If it goes the wrong way, online startups could be threatened and users could be in for less high-quality content on the Web. Clearly, that would be a downer, but it would also have significant financial implications, as the online sector powers economic growth with investment dollars. By 2016, US e-commerce retail sales will reach $362 billion dollars, and that's only a fraction of the value of the Web. This value is threatened if network neutrality protections, which ensure that all users are treated equally by their Internet Service Providers, are allowed to lapse. But with the information provided thus far, voters have an incomplete picture of how the candidates will handle upcoming challenges to such a profitable sector.

Going forward, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney should offer a much clearer road map. The next president will wield enormous power over the future of the Internet through his choices for FCC appointments, his veto power, and his ability to make his case to Congress and the public. With such a huge and important sector of the national economy at stake, Obama and Romney should be forced to state their positions in more detail, giving the American people a clear choice on the future of the Internet.

Rep Clarke Calls For Incentive Auction Hearing

Rep Hansen Clarke (D-MI) says that insuring that broadcasters retain their coverage areas after the Federal Communications Commission reclaims spectrum and repacks stations in incentive auctions is an important emergency communications issue that deserves its own Hill hearing.

Rep. Hansen said that the auctions could impact the "growing number" of people who are broadcast-only viewers. "I believe it is essential that broadcasters retain their service areas during the auction process so they may continue to provide emergency information and news to the local community." He said it would be in the best interests of national security to insure that service loss was minimized, particularly in rural and "underserved" areas, a term usually reserved for broadband buildouts.

Benton

Search