Comet Resurrects "Push"

If Web-based applications are to have a true shot at displacing apps run off local hard disk drives, response time issues must be solved. As is typical for Web apps, though, new tools may help solve that problem. Comet (or Reverse AJAX), for example, is a significant departure from the “click-and-wait” interaction we traditionally associate with Web applications.

In fact, as with so many innovations--recall "push" technology or "application service providers"--timing is everything. Some applications that simply were too cumbersome 10 years ago now are possible with the spread of broadband, faster broadband, caching, peer-to-peer and software such as Comet.

Being right often is less "good" than being timely.

Comet is said by its supporters to resurrect push capabilities with better IP communications.

Simply put, push communications like Comet remove the requirement for an end user to explicitly click on a link or button to request information from a server.

Instead, the server is free to send messages to clients anytime a server-side event occurs. Therefore, content no longer needs the tried and true “click” to reach you. Web pages from hereon out will simply update as new data is made available, finally laying to rest the refresh button on your browser.

That has implications for bandwidth usage profiles, bandwidth intensity and usefulness of interactive or social applications.

Comet makes it possible to build any application that requires real-time updates, enabling true desktop-like functionality to be delivered over the Internet. That has implications for the effectiveness of chat applications, social networking, online games; news updates and online collaboration, for example.

User Generated Video: Limited Ad Revenue

User-generated video will continue to account for close to half of total online video streams between 2008 and 2013, but disappointingly will produce no more than four percent of ad-related online video revenue at any time during this period, acccording the Diffusion Group.

According to Mugs Buckley, UGV currently accounts for 42 percent of online video streams, yet generates less than four percent of video ad-related revenue. Conversely, professional online video (including both short-clip and long-form content) accounts for 58 percent of streams and 96 percent of ad-related revenue, a reality unlikely to change over the next five years.

While the business of online video remains immature, Buckley notes that the continued growth in online TV viewing among consumers and the push to get this content directly to the TV will cultivate the larger audience for professional online video content.

No Mobiles on Planes?

H.R. 5788, "The Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act of 2008," was approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Aug. 31, 2008. That does not necessarily mean anything much. It is just a committee vote, and the legislation is not yet scheduled for a floor vote, much less for consideration by the Senate. But some of us agree that people talking on mobiles can be quite an annoyance in the now-cramped confines of aircraft.

The European Union, though, seems to be moving ahead on inflight cellular service.

AT&T Bet on Jobs

Leslie Cauley, USA Today staff writer, says AT&T got a one-year extension of its exclusivity deal for iPhone sales in the U.S. market as part of the new deal with Apple to pay an upfront fee, rather than a share of monthly recurring revenues. The original exclusive deal was set to expire at the end of 2009. So AT&T has another two and a half years to wring more magic out of the iPhone before contending with other carriers.

The iPhone might seem like a no-brainer now, but back then it was little more than a concept, with no name, design plan or software operating system. And it was offered by a computer company that had zip experience in wireless.

And credit AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson for making a key, and somewhat "un-telco-like decision." in staking so much on the Apple deal.

"We're not betting on the handset," Stephenson says. "We're betting on Jobs."

That appears so far to have been the right decision. It isn't just the handset. It was the intuition that Steve Jobs, whose firm never had built mobile phones before, could bring something spectacularly new to handset design, and by extension to the mobile data business.

Imagine any stodgy, old school CEO at a firm that big, betting on a person, rather than a company track record. It's a sign of new thinking, for sure.

UK VoIP: Naked DSL Will Help

Continental Research estimated in April 2006 that Vonage had about six percent share of VoIP usage in the U.K. market, which is heavily skewed towards PC soft clients. But Vonage U.K. seems these days to be focusing on several user segments with higher propensity to use landline replacement services. A key segment is users with frequent needs to call the United States, says Vincent Potier, managing director, Vonage U.K.

But change could be coming. It is possible that customers will be able to buy a "naked DSL" service in the U.K., in the future. That will be important since 75 percent of broadband customers in the U.K. use DSL.

Still, the European VoIP market really was defined by Skype. Users expected to use headsets and make occasional calls on a scheduled basis, especially when calling internationally.

So Vonage has had to position itself as a different sort of experience: a replacement for the landline. Up to this point that has been a bit of a marketing challenge as U.K. users must buy a bundled voice line when buying DSL. So the opportunity for cost savings is not as great as would be the case in a "naked DSL" environment.

Still, more and more European countries are offering naked DSL, including France, Norway and the Netherlands. There being a fairly clear correlation between mass market VoIP and naked DSL availability, Vonage U.K.'s growth prospects will be aided quite a lot if the naked DSL option surfaces

13% Mobile Handset Growth in 2008

In the second quarter of 2008, tier one handset vendors enjoyed year-over-year unit shipment growth of between 15 and 22 percent, says ABI Research. ABI estimates that 301 million units were shipped during the quarter.

The mobile device market will deliver 13 percent growth to take 2008 annual shipments to 1.3 billion units.

“If there is an economic slowdown, no one bothered to tell the mobile device buying public,” says ABI Research vice president Jake Saunders. “In particular, consumers in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America shrugged off inflation fears to sign up as mobile phone users.

These healthy gains in net subscriber additions are stimulating replacement and upgrade sales. In developed markets handset purchases tended to be flat, but those consumers who did purchase dug deeper and paid out more for coveted higher-end handsets and smart-phones.”

In terms of market share, Nokia has passed the 40 percent threshold for the first time (40.3 percent). Samsung secured second place with 15.2 percent, while Motorola barely managed to keep ahead of LG with its 9.3 percent versus LG’s 9.2 percent, and both edged out Sony Ericsson (8.3 percent). There is a distinct possibility that LG might overtake Motorola by the end of 3Q 2008, putting Motorola into fourth place, ABI researchers say.

Social Networking Might be Key to Mobile Advertising

Social networkers also are much heavier consumers of digital content including text messages, mobile email, photos, music, games and mobile TV, say researchers at ABI Research.

“The fact that online social networkers consume more mobile content and media than mobile subscribers who aren’t into online networking may not be really surprising,” says principal analyst Nick Holland. “However, what we have long suspected is now confirmed by the numbers: for most kinds of mobile content, online social networkers consume about twice as much as their non-networked peers.”

What drives online social networkers towards consumption of mobile media? They are on average younger and more tech-savvy for a start. Also, many social networking networks are organized around a specific media-related interest such as photography or music.

“Advertising on social networks isn’t working particularly well, so promotion of mobile content on online social network sites should be a high priority for mobile operators, content distributors, media companies, and advertisers," says Holland.

Send a Text Message, Carriers Say

The earthquake that hit Southern California on Tuesday almost by definition was going to lead to a temporary spike in call volume and temporary blocking of many dial attempts. The perhaps interesting angle was advice by AT&T to "try text messaging on a mobile" as a way of getting messages such as "are you okay?" or "I'm okay" through the congestion. Good advice.

"Always Connected" Downside

Never-ending "to do" lists might be forcing people to manage their time rather than their attention, says consultant Linda Stone. She argues that managing time increasingly is counter-productive. The problem is that to-do lists have a way of expanding, leaving the list-makers feeling burned out.

Managing one's attention might be more important, Stone argues. The issue is what is meant by managing attention. "Each evening or morning before you start your day, make a short list of your intentions (the result and feeling of something you want) for the day and by each, write the related to do's for that day," she says. "Try to keep your list to five intentions."

"Consciously choose what you will do and what you will not do," she notes. "Keep a different list of what you will review for inclusion on other days."

"List only what you really expect to do that day," she says, not a list of all things you want to do for a longer period. "As other things come to mind, write them on a separate list," she says. That keeps you focused on only those things which must be done today, rather than creating anxieties about "all the things that must be done."

One of the more difficult--but perhaps most important pieces of advice is to "give yourself meaningful blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on each intention," she says. "Turn off technology each day during those blocks and focus on your intentions."

Lots of you immediately--and rightly--will note that much of your "to do" list is not under effective control. That especially will be true in staff and line organizations where departmental requests, inbound customer support volume and software or hardware failures are the drivers of immediate "to do" lists. In such cases the original items on a daily "to do" list simply will be pushed over to the "do later" list.

But all of that is reason for creating better methods for screening and filtering communications and messages that really can be avoided.

Verizon Earnings Show Material Shift

Commentators have been noting heavy telephone company loss of voice lines for some years. These days, the commentary has shifted to gains in broadband, video and wireless data services. For good reason. Though it takes a longish while to materially shift revenue and cost structures at entities as large as tier one service providers, that shift is happening.

It is not simply that carriers know they must change their business models. They are changing them. And Denny Strigl, Verizon COO, hints of coming convergence between the FiOS and wireles service, as one would expect. In the future, there will be little end user distinction between wireless and wired network fabrics, in terms of ability to invoke and use services.

Verizon Communications reported second quarter wireless revenues up nearly 12 percent, with mobile data revenues growing more than 45 percent. Broadband and video revenues earned from end user customers (excluding wholesale) grew 52.9 percent year-over-year, and penetration rates for both FiOS Internet and FiOS TV were up. Penetration rates for FiOS Internet averaged 23.5 percent across all markets, up from 18.7 percent from last year, while FiOS TV penetration averaged 19.7 percent, up from 13.3 percent.

In fact, growing revenue from its broadband and video services help boost consumer average revenue per unit in Verizon’s otherwise stagnant wireline markets. APRU climbed to $63.76, up 10.4 percent from the same period last year. FiOS figures were even better, with FiOS customer figures coming in at more than $130 a month.

Verizon Business had revenue of $5.3 billion in the second quarter, up .9 percent from a year ago. Global enterprise revenue was up 1.7 percent to $4 billion. Revenue from IP, managed services, Ethernet and optical ring services grew at an 18.7 percent clip.

If new services revenue are not yet a "flood," they are more than a "trickle." And though analysts sometimes focus on consumer revenues, Verizon operates in enterprise and smaller business segments as well. In that regard, relatively robust enterprise revenues seems to have been matched with somewhat "weak" small business revenue.

Time to Get a Life? Media Consumption Still Climbing?

The adage to "get a life" might apply to some users of media, who report they continue to increase their time spent with a variety of media ranging from Internet and TV to video gaming. According to a recent survey by E-Poll, 31 percent of respondents said they had increased their use of the Internet over the past six months.

About 17 percent reported they had watched more television over the past half year, while another 17 percent reported they had increased viewing of DVDs.

Some 13 percent reported more use of videogames and an equal percentage reported watching more video online while another 13 percent said they had increased viewing of primetime network TV. About 11 percent said they had watched more time-shifted or DVR programming over the last six months

Game play grew nearly equally for both genders according to a March 2008 survey by E-Poll; 14 percent of female respondents ages 18 to 34 said their gaming had increased in the previous six months, compared with 19 percent of 18-to-34-year-old males.

AT&T Wireless Data Revenues up 52%

AT&T wireless data revenues grew 52 percent compared to the same quarter last year, to $2.5 billion. If the U.S. market is anything like the European market, a large portion of that growth now comes from sales of wireless data cards for PCs, though no doubt the iPhone has kicked mobile Internet and mobile email revenues into a higher orbit as well.

Wireless Internet access revenues more than doubled in the latest quarter, compared to the same quarter of 2007. Mobile email and messaging delivered greater than 50 percent revenue growth, while text messaging volumes tripled, compared to the same quarter last year.

Multimedia message volumes increased more than 170 percent.

At the end of the second quarter, 18 percent of AT&T’s postpaid wireless subscribers had smart phones, up from eight percent one year earlier. These subscribers have average revenue per user metrics roughly double the typical level.

In the mobility segment, wireless data revenue growth now is the key, as IPTV and video are on the wired access side of the business.

Web TV for FiOS?

Verizon currently is currently beta testing Web video on their set-top boxes, using content provided by Veoh, Blip.tv, Break.com, and YouTube.

Sites are indexed on a regular basis and when a video is selected from the DVR, the PC software automatically transcodes and streams content on the fly. Media Manager software also makes possible transmission of any video podcast to a user DVR as well.

In principle, Verizon ought to be able to add Real Simple Syndication feeds to its DVR.

These features will be offered as part of Verizon’s top tier DVR package, perhaps later this year or early in 2009. That package also is likely to include PC photo sharing and multi-room DVR playback.

Consumers Don't Might Ads, If Content is Professional

Ipsos MediaCT says most consumers would find it “reasonable” for advertising to be included in the free digital distribution of full-length TV shows and movies, while around two-thirds say the inclusion of advertising would be reasonable with free access to music videos, short news or sports clips.

There are some major exceptions, however. “As might be expected, digital video consumers generally find it more acceptable to have advertising included within longer, professionally produced video offerings such as full-length movies or TV shows, should this content be available for free online," says Adam Wright, Director at Ipsos MediaCT.

"Fewer are ready to accept this ‘price of admission’ for shorter-form content or less-professional polished content," he adds.

Still, for most video content types, the majority of these consumers find the trade-off between free video content with advertising to be a fair value proposition.”

The one content type that may be the exception is amateur video content. Just over half (52 percent) of consumers age 12+ who have downloaded or streamed a video online say they would find it “not reasonable” to have advertising embedded within free amateur or homemade video offerings online.

Gen Y First Native Online Generation

Forrester Research says Gen Xers use technology when it supports a lifestyle need, while technology is so deeply embedded into everything Gen Yers do that they are truly the first native online population.

"Gen Y is the audience that most companies are struggling to understand right now because it's key to their future revenue growth," says Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

Although Gen Y,18- to 28-year-olds, represent only 38 million U.S. adults, it sets the pace for technology adoption. Nine in 10 Gen Yers own a PC, and 82 percent own a mobile phone. But it's technology use that sets this generation apart: Gen Y spends more time online — for leisure or work — than watching TV.

Seventy-two percent of Gen Y mobile phone owners send or receive text messages, and 42 percent of online Gen Yers watch Internet video at least monthly.

In contrast, Gen X, which is comprised of 29- to 42-year-olds — 63 million US adults — uses technology when it intersects with a personal need or fulfills a desire. For example, 32 percent of Gen X households own an HDTV, and 29 percent have a DVR.

In the past three months, 69 percent of online Gen Xers shopped online, and 65 percent banked online, higher percentages than any other generation. Gen X is also ramping up its Internet and mobile activities, including reading blogs (21 percent of online Gen Xers do it at least monthly, up from 15 percent in 2007) and texting (61 percent of Gen X mobile subscribers do it today, up from 49 percent in 2007).