March 2013

FCC’s Clyburn: Universal Voice and Advanced Services for All is Our Number One Priority

Speaking to the Consumer Federation of America, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn noted that the way in which we communicate is continually changing, but the FCC’s top priority is still to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable communications services.

She stressed how the Universal Service Fund’s Lifeline program has been instrumental in increasing the number of low-income consumers with telephone access. The overall penetration rate for phone service in this nation has increased significantly due to a modest monthly subsidy of less than $10 per month for service. But the Lifeline program has been under attack as of late, and what the critics fail to mention, is what one major provider shared with us. That its average Lifeline customer is a middle-age grandmother, raising her grandchildren on only $12,000 per year.

Sen Pryor Calls on FCC to Reform Costly Lifeline Program

Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reform the Lifeline program, which provides basic telephone service to low-income and rural Americans. According to recent reports, nearly half of the current Lifeline recipients have not been properly certified to participate in the program. In February, the FCC announced that it eliminated $200 million in Lifeline waste, fraud, and abuse. While Sen Pryor commended these efforts, he urged the FCC to take bolder steps to improve effectiveness and efficiency and stop the explosive growth of the program.

FCC Cites Robocallers For Millions of Illegal Calls To Wireless Phones

Two providers of automatically dialed calls using prerecorded or artificial voice messages -- “robocalls” -- were issued citations today for making millions of robocalls to wireless phones without prior authorization from the call recipients.

The Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau’s Telecommunications Consumers Division conducted investigations and issued citations to Dialing Services, LLC and Richard Gilmore (d/b/a Democratic Dialing), respectively. In its investigations, the Bureau uncovered evidence that Dialing Services, LLC and Democratic Dialing each made in excess of one million calls to wireless phones without the recipient’s authorization during certain months in 2011 and/or 2012. The investigations also showed that each company failed to provide certain identification information required under federal law.

Google is getting even tougher on sites that abuse links, says report

Google created a minor shockwave last April when it introduced a new tool that caused millions of websites to tumble in its search listings. The tool, known as the Penguin algorithm, punishes sites that attempt to use dubious linking tactics in order to increase their visibility. Now, a new report suggests that the company is applying the punishments with increasing severity.

According to a study by Portent, an internet marketing firm, Google is steadily decreasing the number of manipulative links it will tolerate before it downgrades a site. When Google first introduced Penguin, the algorithm would permit 80 percent of a site’s incoming links to be spammy before it took action; that number then dropped to 65 percent and then 50 percent by the end of 2012 (which is end range of the study).

Nearly 4 Billion Minutes Of Video Ads Streamed In February

Continuing to break records, U.S. consumers spent 3.8 billion minutes streaming video advertising in February. Consumers viewed 9.9 billion video ads, last month, with Google sites (YouTube) serving an all-time high of 2.2 billion ads, comScore found.

BrightRoll Video Network came in second with 1.6 billion ads served in February, followed by Hulu with 1.4 billion, Adap.tv with 1.4 billion and LiveRail.com with 1 billion ads delivered. BrightRoll is also credited with delivering the highest duration of video ads at 859 million minutes, last month. All told, video ads reached more than 50% of the total U.S. population an average of 63 times during the month. In other words, 178 million Americans watched 33 billion online content videos in February, according to comScore.

Speed Wins: Users Favor Apps Over Mobile

Most mobile users prefer using apps over mobile sites for speed, convenience and ease of use. Specifically, 85% of smartphone and tablet users globally favored apps over mobile sites, according to more than 3,500 smartphone and tablet users globally.

That Compuware finding underscores the enduring consumer embrace of apps, despite long-standing predictions that they will give way to an ascendant mobile Web. People are spending nearly two hours a day with apps -- almost twice the amount of time compared to two years ago, according to app analytics and ad firm Flurry. The mobile Web for most has not transformed into the fast, reliable experience promised by the emergence of technologies from 4G networks to HTML5. “That’s predicated a lot on the spread of HTML5 development, and responsive design elements, and those aren’t evolving perhaps as fast as people expected,” said Stephen Pierzchala, technology strategist at Compuware’s APM Center of Excellence.

Measuring Government Social Media Part II: We The People

According to a White House survey of people who had signed We the People petitions that received Administration responses:

86 percent said they would create or sign another We the People petition
66 percent said the Administration’s response was helpful to hear; and
50 percent said they learned something new as a result of the response

That last statistic is the most interesting because it speaks to something beyond perpetuating the petition site itself and it offers a justification for the site to those who are dubious about the argument that We the People petitions have or can actually change the administration’s thinking or policy. If 50 percent of petitioners say they’re learning something from White House responses, that means something. While We the People is still reaching a niche audience compared with, say, major newspapers or TV news programs, it’s likely got a broader audience than administration White Papers and policy statements and perhaps more than the White House’s most substantive blog posts.

Telework Bans Don’t Address the Problem

Decisions by Yahoo and Best Buy to ban telework have many scratching their heads as to why these leading companies would completely ban telework, particularly when many studies have indicated that telework is a valuable, cost-effective and productive option for companies and government agencies.

Yahoo and Best Buy say their moves to ban telework aim to foster collaboration and innovation by bringing employees physically together. But is that really the case, particularly at a time when technology is making it all the more easier to collaborate? In fact, one expert believes Yahoo, Best Buy and other private sector companies can learn from the best example out there when it comes to telework: the federal government. “Sometimes the federal government gets beaten a lot, but [telework] is one area where I think the private sector could really learn from the federal government’s example,” Cindy Auten, general manager for Mobile Work Exchange, told Wired Workplace this week. “The best thing is the federal government actually defines telework – they put metrics around it, look at everyone’s eligibility and put in management training. Sometimes the private sector doesn’t even define it.”

RNC aide: Stop criticizing our digital strategy in press

A top GOP official urged a hastily organized gathering of about three dozen conservative digital experts to stop causing negative publicity about the party’s technology problems because it could hurt fundraising.

Mike Shields, hired about two weeks ago as chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, held forth in the Reagan conference room at party headquarters with several major figures present, including current digital director Tyler Brown and Zac Moffatt, digital chief of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Sources described the meeting as “tense” and aimed at “pre-damage control.” It opened with Shields giving out his email address and cell phone number and exhorting his audience to come to him — not journalists — with issues.

Sharing Ideas that Work: How Technology can Improve Education

This week, school leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, and leading educational thinkers gathered in New York City to share and cultivate innovative ideas about how technology can improve education. The gathering is being led by the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools—a national center created by Congress and launched at the White House in 2011 to advance technologies to transform teaching and learning. Sara Shapiro, Digital Promise’s Director of the League of Innovative Schools, answers questions about this week’s meeting and next steps for Digital Promise.

Benton

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