December 2012

Why the mobile web vs apps debate is a false dichotomy

[Commentary] The mobile web versus mobile native “grudge match” rages on, with almost 300 comments to Super VC Fred Wilson’s post on whether now is the time to invest in mobile web apps (and services) over mobile native ones. But the arguments presented in favor of the mobile web over mobile native represent a false dichotomy. Simply put, there is no universal truth in the mobile web vs. mobile native debate, and no “one right way,” despite what the pontificators would have you believe.

The argument in favor of mobile web goes like this: The web is open, ubiquitous, requires no special software, is globally searchable and algorithmically discoverable. As such, it is agile, extensible and readily manageable. Plus, there are lots of proven models for development, discovery, distribution and monetization. And, of course, mobile web development offers a higher degree of symmetry to PC browser-based web development than mobile native app development does.

The argument is favor of mobile native goes like this: There are over 400 million iOS devices and over 500 million Android devices, representing almost 1 billion devices worldwide. In the case of iOS, Apple has built a well-managed development, distribution and monetization platform that has yielded tremendous innovation and user engagement in areas ranging from photography to gaming, social networking, entertainment, education, music and other rich media.

On some level, the argument comes down to “good enough” and “universal” vs. the “richest possible experience” on the device type that is subsuming the PC.

Amazon Studios taps the Onion, Daily Show writers, others for comedy pilots

Amazon Studios, Amazon’s film production division, will produce pilots for six original comedy series -- including shows from the Onion, “Doonesbury” writer Garry Trudeau and Daily Show writer David Javerbaum. The pilots will be posted on Amazon Instant Video, where customers can watch them for free, and “viewer feedback will help determine which series Amazon Studios should produce. Completed seasons will be exclusively available to Prime members through Prime Instant Video and Lovefilm in the U.K. for free.”

Give Me Control Of Your Currency, And I Care Not Who Makes The Laws

[Commentary] Control the money, control those who use it. It’s the first thought that came to mind when I learned that Nielsen Holdings is acquiring Arbitron. This was ominously announced on the same day that Nielsen trumpeted its partnership with Twitter, to launch a social-media based measurement tool. Welcome to the Nielsen World Order.

Big Media’s once half-hearted outcries against Nielsen are today even more rarely voiced than they were five years ago. The silence deafens like a Minneapolis snowfall, while Nielsen continues to consolidate media measurement. As somebody who once considered entering the radio ratings industry, I’m chagrined but not surprised by Nielsen’s relentless and seemingly unchallenged pursuit for media currency domination.

The Scariest Thing About the Newspaper Business Isn't Print's Decline, It's Digital's Growth

Emma Gardner of the Economist Group presents a visual look back at digital publishing in 2012. No visual struck me more than a graph showing the extent of devastation to newspaper print ad sales since 2006: $20 billion in annual revenue, down the drain. In that time, digital ad growth has erased only 2% of the losses. How dreadful. Where did the digital money go? It went to new online marketplaces, and apps, and sites. And Google. Yeah, basically the money went to Google. In 2006, Google made $60 billion less than U.S. newspapers and magazines. Now it makes more ad money than all of U.S. print media combined.

Before it drops subsidies, T-Mobile offers big smartphone rebate

Just weeks after T-Mobile announced it would eliminate smartphone subsidies in 2013, the company has a holiday deal to alleviate some of the up-front cost on popular smartphones. From Dec. 21 to 31, the operator is offering a rebate of up to $200 on the initial down payment for some devices. Customers that buy an eligible phone still qualify for the lower-priced Value Plan while paying off the rest of the hardware cost over the next 20 months. In some cases, this is a solid deal.

Let's be honest, your smartphone's price makes no sense

[Commentary] Cellphone models are still being updated and replaced at an unprecedented pace that simply isn't sustainable.

Seven months is not a reasonable life cycle for any durable product. You wouldn't buy a new TV, game console, Blu-ray player, refrigerator, or car every seven months. In fact, if a manufacturer discontinued and replaced your TV after seven months, you'd be pissed. But it's like an addiction: carriers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need the high they get from the fleeting sales bump after the release of an incrementally new model, a bump that quickly flatlines. Hilarious price adjustments ensue; a $199.99 phone falls to $149.99, $99.99, $49.99, and eventually free over the course of a single year. And that leads to a traffic jam of phones and price points.

This industry is eating itself alive, and these nonsensical prices are an early warning sign. Carriers urgently need to incentivize OEMs to slow down, not speed up. While Apple — and to some extent, Samsung — stay even-keeled with a single flagship phone per year, the rest of the industry is still chasing its collective tail, confusing customers, and leaving a mess of the store shelves.

In Social Media and opinion pages, Newtown Sparks Calls for Gun Reforms

The shooting rampage in a Connecticut elementary school last week triggered a conversation different from those that followed other recent U.S. gun tragedies. In addition to an outpouring of emotion, social media and the opinion pages of newspapers were used immediately to tackle the polarizing issue of the nation's gun laws, according to a special report by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

On both blogs and Twitter, the gun policy discussion accounted for almost 30% of the social media conversation examined by PEJ, exceeding even prayers and expressions of sympathy in the three days following the December 14 massacre that left 26 dead at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. And, within that discussion, calls for stricter gun control measures exceeded defenses of current gun laws and policies by more than two to one.

Sen Patrick Leahy declines powerful Appropriations post

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is turning down the powerful chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, a surprise move in a chamber where senior senators are quick to snag the most influential positions on Capitol Hill. Sen Leahy began telling colleagues Dec 19 he would remain chairman of the Judiciary Committee — the panel that oversees the Justice Department, federal courts and hot-button constitutional issues — rather than take over Appropriations, which holds the purse strings of federal discretionary spending. The Appropriations spot opened up following the death of longtime Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who had served in the upper chamber since 1963. The committee will instead be chaired by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), a 25-year veteran of the Senate who will be the first woman to head the panel. With Leahy’s decision to stay at Judiciary, the next most senior member of Appropriations is Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has not yet said whether he will run for a sixth term in 2014. But Sen Harkin appears to have decided to stay put running the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The position-swapping is more than just musical chairs. As committee chairs, senators have the power to schedule whatever legislation they want to consider, launch hearings and drive the national agenda on the issues they oversee.

The Two Freds

[Commentary] I've just begun a Senior Fellowship with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College. For someone in my field, merely having my name in the same sentence as Mister Rogers is a heady, humbling experience. I'm too old to have grown up with him as a "television friend," but young enough that his work was seminal to my career choice.

Meeting Fred left an indelible impression. My first time, I was working at PBS. I'd heard he was visiting the children's programing department, and angled to be there when his meeting ended (funny how many others did the same!). It took only a brief exchange to know there was no "character" or artifice to Fred: he was Mister Rogers. I left with the oddest feeling (that others tell me they've also experienced) that it would have felt perfectly natural to confess my hopes and anxieties to this man I'd just met. Our other memorable encounter brought me to every public speaker's greatest nightmare: in an already high-pressure setting, I followed an iconic -- the iconic -- voice of my field, who had just brought the audience to a reverential hush and left them emotionally spent.

Reading Habits in Different Communities

Reading is foundational to learning and the information acquisition upon which people make decisions. For centuries, the capacity to read has been a benchmark of literacy and involvement in community life. In the 21st Century, across all types of U.S. communities, reading is a common activity that is pursued in myriad ways. As technology and the digital world expand and offer new types of reading opportunities, residents of urban, suburban, and rural communities at times experience reading and e-reading differently. In the most meaningful ways, these differences are associated with the demographic composition of different kinds of communities — the age of the population, their overall level of educational attainment, and the general level of household income. Several surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reveal interesting variations among communities in the way their residents read and use reading-related technology and institutions.

Benton

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