February 2013

New Way to Deliver a Drama: All 13 Episodes in One Sitting

Binge-viewing, empowered by DVD box sets and Netflix subscriptions, has become such a popular way for Americans to watch TV that it is beginning to influence the ways the stories are told — particularly one-hour dramas — and how they are distributed.

Some people, pressured by their peers to watch “Mad Men” or “Game of Thrones,” catch up on previous seasons to see what all the fuss is about before a new season begins. Others plan weekend marathons of classics like “The West Wing” and “The Wire.” Like other American pastimes, it can get competitive: people have been known to brag about finishing a whole 12-episode season of “Homeland” in one sitting. Netflix will release a drama expressly designed to be consumed in one sitting: “House of Cards,” a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rather than introducing one episode a week, as distributors have done since the days of black-and-white TVs, all 13 episodes will be streamed at the same time. “Our goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day,” the producer Beau Willimon said with a laugh. “House of Cards,” which is the first show made specifically for Netflix, dispenses with some of the traditions that are so common on network TV, like flashbacks. There is less reason to remind viewers what happened in previous episodes, the producers say, because so many viewers will have just seen it. And if they don’t remember, Google is just a click away. The show “assumes you know what’s happening all the time, whereas television has to assume that a big chunk of the audience is always just tuning in,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer.

Patent Producers Clustered in Only a Few Cities

Patents, for all their flaws, are a widely used proxy for innovation. And a new study from the Brookings Institution shows just how clustered patent-related innovation is in America.

That cities are hot beds of creativity of all kinds well known. But the Brookings research details just how concentrated an activity associated with scientific and technological innovation — patent filings — really is. There are more than 370 metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. But the people living in just 20 metro areas — home to 34 percent of the population — generate 63 percent of the nation’s patents. In the five most patent-intensive metro areas, the study found, the average resident is 2.4 times more likely to produce a patented innovation than the average American. Those five metro areas with the most patent filings per million people, from 2007 to 2011, were: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (CA); Burlington-South Burlington (VT); Rochester (MN); Corvallis (OR); and Boulder (CO). It’s easy to see why silicon Valley is on the list, but the others? The common thread among three of the cities, Burlington, Rochester and Boulder, is universities and IBM. Corvallis is also a university town, with a Hewlett-Packard facility.

Reduced newspaper delivery: Smart or death knell?

As newspapers struggle to stay afloat in the digital era, the notion of stopping or sharply reducing publication on days with little advertising is an option to consider.

The advantages are obvious. At most newspapers, advertising is concentrated on several days, often Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. On the days when it's light, the papers lose money. Rather than subsidize those skinny cash drains, why not use the money to bolster the paper's profitability and invest in a digital future? The risk, of course, is driving off the remaining print customers. Media consumption is very much a matter of habit. If there's no paper on Tuesday, or if you have to forage to find one at a newsstand (and it's a thin edition with very little in it), you might begin to question why you're still getting it at all. And while the future may be digital, newspapers are still heavily dependent on print advertising.

EchoStar’s Veiled Slam at Cable Broadband Policy and People

[Commentary] Although you may admire the EchoStar/Hughes’ guerrilla marketing tactic and its frequent references to HughesNet as “North America’s #1 high-speed satellite Internet service,” the truth comes out.

It cites “up to 1000 Kbps” (maybe that sounds faster than 1 Mbps), and then acknowledges that “during peak times the speed can be 650 Kbps to 750 Kbps.” Of course, there’s an option to upgrade to “HughesNet Elite” which ratchets speeds up to 2.0 Mbps (but 1500 Kbps during peak times). Those fine-print details are far less visible than the header on the HughesNet home page: “15x faster than before,” which merely acknowledges the previous slow satellite access performance. It’s a good sales pitch, but barely competitive with wired options. (Yes, I know: urban dwellers have more and better options.) EchoStar’s continuing assault on cable is hardly astounding. This clever infographic is a timely reminder about the ways in which Web marketing makes it possible – easy – to distract and even deceive while appearing to be informative.

Thank Hillary Clinton (and leave your data too)!

A Democratic interest group needs you – yes, you! – to help thank Hillary Clinton for her service as secretary of State.

Over the last week, countless thousands of liberal-leaning voters have received emails from advocacy organizations enlisting them in a triumphant sendoff for the former first lady. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign have all contacted supporters with a simple request: sign a thank-you card for Clinton and show her how much you care. Of course, there’s more than simple gratitude at play here. By urging recipients to sign their names to a list, groups can collect information about their backers and the issues that engage them. Using social media to push out thank-you messages – or petitions, “birthday cards” and other such signature-gathering items – campaigns and outside groups expand their universe of contacts for the future. Ideally, recipients forward the messages to their friends and family, and more email addresses pile up. It’s a testament to Clinton’s unique place in Democratic politics that so many groups would hold her up as a figure for their supporters to rally around: more than any other politician, except maybe President Barack Obama, she commands broad and energetic loyalty across the center-left.

Apple Becomes Largest Mobile Phone Vendor in United States

Mobile phone shipments grew 4 percent annually from 50.2 million units in Q4 2011 to 52.0 million in the United States in Q4 2012. The growth was driven by robust demand among consumers for 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones. However, despite a solid fourth-quarter performance, the US mobile phone market had previously contracted 16 percent for the first three quarters of 2012 due to economic uncertainty and tighter carrier upgrade policies. As a result, US mobile phone shipments fell 11 percent from 186.8 million units in 2011 to 166.9 million in 2012.

We estimate Apple shipped 17.7 million mobile phones for a record 34 percent share of the United States market in the fourth quarter of 2012. This was up sharply from 12.8 million units shipped and 25 percent share in Q4 2011. Apple has become the number one mobile phone vendor by volume in the United States for the first time ever. Apple’s success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of iPhones and App Store, generous carrier subsidies, and extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model. Samsung shipped 16.8 million mobile phones in the United States, for 32 percent share, during Q4 2012. This was a good performance from Samsung, as its market share rose 5 points from 27 percent a year earlier, but it was not enough to hold off a surging Apple. Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, and it will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4.

Proposed EU data protection reform could start a “trade war,” US official says

Digitally-minded officials, activists, lobbyists and members of the European Parliament are focused squarely on what could become a massively important change to the European Union's rules concerning data protection.

What's more, they have the attention of American tech firms as well. Justice commissioner Viviane Reding of the European Commission proposed a “comprehensive reform” to existing data protection law, which would regulate how online service companies are allowed to keep information on their customers. Right now, anyone who cares about European tech issues has their eye on this ongoing legislation as it makes its way through various Brussels bodies. The legislation is not expected to take effect until 2016. And by all accounts, lobbying pressure from American government representatives and their corporate allies is intensifying at an unprecedented level as the draft amendments for data protection reform make their way through various committees pushing to strengthen what the European Commission has proposed. One economic officer in the US Foreign Service even commented that the current reform draft could "instigate a trade war" with the US.

EU faces up to China over ‘mother of all cases’

There is a simmering trade dispute over telecommunications network equipment that analysts fear could boil over into a fully-fledged trade war.

“Brussels is shifting towards a confrontationist approach for lack of other effective means to counter what it sees as activist industry policy in China,” says Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels think-tank. Lee-Makiyama worries that an European Union approach of “fighting fire with fire” could have unpredictable repercussions for both sides. The tense atmosphere can be attributed in part to a weak European economy that has left many manufacturers feeling vulnerable while emboldening protectionist forces within the bloc – particularly along a southern rim stricken by the eurozone debt crisis. Chinese companies have deepened the unease by climbing the value chain to make inroads in more sophisticated products, such as telecoms equipment, far faster than expected.

Just Under Deadline, Google Responds to European Antitrust Concerns

Google hit the European Commission’s deadline of January 31 to provide a substantive response to antitrust concerns. The company submitted a proposal regarding what it is willing to settle, said sources, after negotiations in Brussels went to the wire. The big question is whether the EC extracts more concessions from Google than the U.S. According to a source familiar with this week’s active negotiations, the proposal is quite similar to what Google already agreed to in a parallel case with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, over scraping information to include in search results and sharing information through advertising APIs. However, there are likely to be a few key differences.

A TV that knows who you are

Within months UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB will start TV’s fightback against the internet with its own “tailored” advertising service.

For the first time this will enable TV ads in the UK to be targeted at specific homes based on viewing tastes, household make-up or even postcode. Commercials for people carriers could be shown only to households with children, and ads for top-of-the-range washing powders just to higher-income homes. The move will also allow advertisers to cherry-pick specific geographical areas right down to individual houses on particular streets. Media buyers say this will open up the world of TV advertising to new companies. Think of local takeaway restaurants, for whom TV advertising would have been too expensive, they say. Or even ultra high-end brands, such as Porsche, which have always shunned TV simply because it is too mass-market.

Benton

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