November 2012

Hurricane Sandy and Twitter

For millions who lost power but could still access the internet on mobile devices, Twitter served as a critical lifeline throughout the disaster that struck on October 29.

At least a few news operations, such as Huffington Post and the aggregator BuzzFeed saw their servers go down and turned to Twitter and other social media to deliver reports. According to Twitter, people sent more than 20 million tweets about the storm from October 27 through November 1. This was more than twice the usage from the two previous days. In New York, usage peaked on October 29 around 9 pm, according to Twitter’s internal data, the same time that a Con Edison substation exploded in Manhattan’s East Village, knocking out power to much of lower Manhattan. What were the main thrusts of the posts? What would an individual searching for posts about Sandy have found in the social network? From the day the storm made landfall on October 29 through Wednesday the 31st, news, information, photos and video made up more than half of all the Twitter conversation.

FCC Grants Noncommercial Waivers for Sandy Fundraising

The Federal Communications Commission says it has granted two waiver requests to allow noncommercial stations to raise funds for Superstorm Sandy relief, and wants to make sure other stations who may want to follow suit know the procedures for applying for those waivers. Requests should include "the proposed duration of the fundraising effort; the organization(s) to which funds will be donated; and whether the fundraiser will be part of the licensee's regularly scheduled pledge drive or fundraising effort."

Dead Phone Battery? Just Burn Something

[Editor’s note: New York Times or The Onion?] After Hurricane Sandy knocked out power in the Northeast, a New York start-up came up with a good publicity stunt: Light a fire so people could charge their dead cellphones. BioLite, a 15-person company based in Brooklyn, sells a $130 camp stove that doubles as a power source. You light a fire inside a metal fuel chamber, where a thermoelectric generator converts the heat into electricity to run a fan. The fan blows air into the fire to oxygenate it and create a clean burn. The generator also powers a USB port for charging phones and other electronics.

Argentina Puts Pressure on Media Firm

President Cristina Kirchner has set the stage for a showdown with Argentina's biggest media conglomerate, Grupo Clarín SA, in a dispute that some critics warn could undermine free speech.

President Kirchner, who contends Clarín is a coup-mongering monopoly, has given the company until Dec. 7 to divest itself of assets such as its cable-television unit or see them auctioned off by the government. The conflict could have implications for businesses, the media and President Kirchner, whose approval ratings have tumbled this year amid rising crime, high inflation and a weak economy. At stake for Clarín is its future as an influential, independent media company that offers popular news and entertainment programs to millions of Argentines via its cable-TV and Internet services. Clarín was the only TV company to provide full coverage of recent nationwide protests against the government. Its breakup could limit the public's access to information, analysts say.

Supreme Court declines to hear case about channel bundling

The U.S. Supreme Court is in no hurry to address the issue of choice -- at least when it comes to cable television. The high court declined to hear a class-action suit against several big media companies including Comcast, News Corp. and Time Warner over how they bundle their cable channels for sale to pay-TV distributors.

The Supreme Court's rejection is the latest defeat for the suit, which was brought by a group of cable and satellite TV subscribers led by Rob Brantley. In March, a panel of judges for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sided with the entertainment industry, saying that bundling does not violate antitrust laws. While a pay-TV distributor can buy individual channels from a programmer, there are usually substantial discounts offered for carrying multiple channels. The plaintiffs counter that programmers abuse their market power and harm competition by requiring distributors to sell channels in prepackaged tiers rather than on an individual, or a la carte, basis.

AT&T to Unveil Upgrade Plan to Improve Outlook of Rural Business

AT&T plans to tell investors November 7 that it will extend high-speed Internet service to far-flung customers in an effort to boost sales in its struggling rural business.

Through a combination of upgrades to the phone lines and the expansion of its long-term evolution, or LTE, wireless network, the company would be able to reach customers in rural areas with faster connections. About 23 percent of AT&T’s 52 million subscriber households can’t get broadband lines, according to John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS AG. As rural consumers switch to mobile phones for voice calls, they’re getting rid of home lines, causing AT&T to lose customers who might otherwise stick around for broadband speeds. Instead of attempting to get rid of what it has called an “underperforming asset,” the company is seeking to revitalize rural lines. The idea is to get the operation’s sales growth closer to the 6 percent rate at the rest of the company.

Apple Says Samsung’s Galaxy Note, Jelly Bean Infringe Patents

Apple told a judge that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 device infringes its patents, and sought to add the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system to an existing lawsuit against Samsung in California.

Apple made the arguments to U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal in federal court in San Jose. Apple’s bid to expand the lawsuit follows Samsung’s Oct. 1 move to add patent- infringement claims against the iPhone 5 in the same case. Apple won a $1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung on Aug. 24 in a separate patent case in the same court. Filings by both companies in their two cases before U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh show no let-up in their battle on four continents to retain dominance in the $219 billion global smartphone market.

Obama's Twitter Bid on Election Eve

Priorities USA Action, a Barack Obama-supporting political action committee, has blanketed Twitter with ad buys, winning the Promoted Tweet bids for search/hashtag terms for Election, Election2012, Obama, Romney, Biden, Ryan, Romney/Ryan and Obama/Biden. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was also bidding on the terms and running pro-Obama ads.

Pandora Media Sues ASCAP Seeking Lower Songwriter Fees

Pandora Media, the biggest Internet radio service, sued the organization representing songwriters and composers to seek lower license fees for playing their songs.

Pandora, which is also lobbying the U.S. Congress for lower royalties on recordings, today asked a federal court in New York to set “reasonable” license fees from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers through 2015. Pandora is seeking a blanket licensing fee that would cover all songs represented by the 435,000-member group. The radio service has said the current fees prevent profitability. ASCAP and Pandora reached an “experimental” fee agreement in 2005 that lasted until 2010. Terms of their current arrangement weren’t disclosed in the filing. “The license rates and other material terms of the 2005 license agreement were presented to Pandora by ASCAP as being effectively non-negotiable,” the company said in court papers. Pandora said the “experimental license agreement” it reached in 2005 for Internet sites and services “was ill-suited and not reasonable.”

Broadway Box Office Takes an Estimated $8.5 Million Hurricane Hit

Every Broadway show took a financial beating thanks to Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, with the musical “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and the play “Grace” suffering most — each down 50 per cent at the box office from the week before. All told, Broadway shows lost roughly $8.5 million in ticket sales due to cancelled performances, a calculation based on comparing box office grosses during Sandy and the equivalent period last year, according to a spokeswoman for the Broadway League, a trade association of theater owners and producers.

For the week ending Nov. 4, Broadway ticket sales were down $6.5 million from the previous week, for a gross of $13.6 million. Ticket sales were also lost on Sunday Oct. 28 due to performance cancellations as Sandy approached. The League spokeswoman noted that Broadway’s losses due to cancellations were greater from Hurricane Irene, which took place during a weekend in a relatively busy summer season in 2011. Sixty-six performances were cancelled as a result of Irene, compared to 48 for Sandy.

Benton

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