RSS Stalled?

Now this prediction I will find quite shocking, if it materializes: Forrester Research now estimates that use of Real Simple Syndication (RSS) might be nearing a peak of usage, among online marketers. About half of marketers already have put RSS feeds on their Web sites.

Keep in mind that RSS is used by about 11 percent of Web users, up from two percent in 2005, reports Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion.

It might be one thing to forecast that RSS is a technology that is not going mainstream anytime soon. It is quite something else to predict it is nearing saturation.

Forrester says a recent survey of marketers found that of the 89 percent of those who don't use feeds, only 17 percent say they're interested in using them.

"Unless marketers make a move to hook them, and try to convert their apathetic counterparts, RSS will never be more than a niche technology," Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang suggests.

Rubel himself does think RSS use by marketers has peaked. But then, I'm biased. I can't think of any development more important for many content businesses than RSS.

P2P Really Stresses the Upstream

Overall, peer-to-peer file sharing represents 43.5 percent of total North American consumer broadband consumption, while Web browsing represetns 27.3 percent and streaming contributes 14.8 percent of overall demand.

But those statistics conceal something far more fundamental about P2P impact on access networks.

In the upstream direction, P2P absolutely dominates. The three biggest traffic generators in the upstream direction are P2P at 75 percent of total load, tunneling at 9.9 percent and Web browsing at 9.1 percent. Entertainment, not productivity, is driving bandwidth consumption during the peak evening hours.

Web traffic and streaming videos account for 59 per cent of downstream bandwidth consumption as well, says Sandvine. The three biggest traffic generators in the downstream direction are P2P at 35.6 percent, Web browsing at 31.6 percent and streaming content at 17.9 percent.

Over time, the proportion of P2P traffic might decline as a percentage of total, as more streaming services aimed at PCs and TVs take hold. Those services will add more demand primarily in the downstream direction.

80% of Mobile Users Send Text Messages; or Do They?

The amount of time users spend doing things on their mobile phones is increasing. About the only issue is by how much. 

About 54 percent of mobile users surveyed in September 2008 reported their usage had increased by more than 25 percent over the past two years. One-fifth of respondents estimated their usage had increased by 50 percent or more. 

One third of respondents talked on their mobile phone more than 10 hours per week, and 34 percent of respondents ages 17 and under talked for more than 15 hours weekly.

Nearly four out of 10 mobile Internet users said they surfed the mobile Web for two or more hours every week. The key adjective there is "mobile Web" users. Other researchers have found that just about 16 percent of mobile users have the ability to access the Web from their mobiles. 

Some 62 percent of mobile users surveyed said they either already owned a smart phone or would own one within the next 12 months.

Text messaging is nearly universal, with 80 percent of mobile users saying they use that feature and 29 percent of those who did spent more than two hours every week on the activity, says Azuki Systems. 

Researchers at Nielsen Mobile don't think so. They report just 53 percent text messaging usage during the second quarter of 2008. 

Vonage Dodges a Bullet

Vonage has Vonage has signed definitive agreements to refinance its convertible debt, a move that virtually everybody assumed was essential for Vonage to stay in business, and about which there has been doubt in some quarters. 

The financing package consists of a $130.3 million senior secured first lien credit facility, a $72.0 million senior secured second lien credit facility, and the sale of $18.0 million of senior secured third lien convertible notes.

Vonage says it will use the net proceeds of the financing along with its own cash on hand to repurchase up to $253.5 million of the company's existing convertible notes in a tender offer commenced on July 30, 2008. 

Verizon Has Fewest Dropped Calls

Verizon Wireless has the lowest percentage of dropped calls among all major U.S. service providers, according to ChangeWave.

Verizon subscribers report that, on average, just 2.7 percent of their calls were dropped over the past 90 days, nearly a percentage point better than AT&T (3.6 percent), their closest competitor.

Sprint/Nextel (4.4 percent) and T-Mobile (4.5 percent) were third and fourth respectively.

Importantly, one-in-five Verizon users (20 percent) say they didn't experience ANY dropped calls over the past three months, compared to 18 percent for T-Mobile, 17 percent for AT&T, and 10 percent for Sprint/Nextel.

In addition, 43 percent of Verizon's customers in the survey say they're "very satisfied" with Verizon's service.

New Versions of Chrome and Firefox are Faster

New beta versions of Firefox and Google Chrome now are available, and in recent tests, CNet found Firefox the fastest, with Chrome right behind, in executing JavaScript, which powers applications such as Gmail and Google Docs. 

The answer: both browsers made big strides, but Firefox still beats Chrome on one widely-used performance test, says  Stephen Shankland. CNet writer.

When Chrome was released, Shankland ran Google's JavaScript speed test on Firefox 3.0.1, the initial Chrome beta, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 beta 2, and Safari 3.1.2. 

He found Chrome led the speed test with an overall score of 1,851 and Firefox in second place at 205. 

Running the same test on the latest developer version of Chrome, 0.3.154.3, boosted the browser's score to 2,265, a 22 percent increase. And Firefox jumped 15 percent to 235. Firefox 3.1 beta one, he says. 

That test measures Firefox without its new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled, though.

Faster execution matters for a couple of reasons. At some point, the browser will become the client for executing any number of consumer and enterprise applications that are not stored on a local hard drive. Speed will matter. 

Also, users simply like faster-executing Web pages.  Faster execution provides a higher end user experience. 

Telco Business Model Transformation? Been There; Done That

Some people think the global telecom industry is not lead by people capable of fundamental business model transformation. Nobody can say for sure whether that opinion is correct.

What might be useful to reflect on, though, is the fact that the global already has managed several fundamental shifts in its revenue. 

In 1995, for example, U.S. telcos earned about $19.49 a month selling consumers basic dial tone. But telcos earned $42 a month selling enhanced services and long distance. 

In other words, 68 percent of consumer revenue was generated not from the basic dial-tone product but from other services and applications. For an industry generally considered at that time to be an "access lines" business, the appellation already was inaccurate. 

In 1997, nearly half of all local telco revenue came from long distance alone. By 2007, long distance represented just 18 percent of total revenue.  So a business once based on "lines" then became a business based on long distance and enhanced services, only to be replaced by a business where half of all revenue was generated from wireless services.

Also, consider that over the last decade we have seen the broadband access business grow from single digits to "near saturation" levels. 

The point is that business model transformations have happened several times in industry history, sucessfully. The next transformation likely will involve wholesale and business partner services of various types, augmented by content services. 

One can argue telco executives can't make this next change, even if they have transformed themselves before. I would not bet on that. 

Life throws curve balls.

Life throws curve balls.  Patriots don't get the perfect season. Red Sox come from behind to keep their title hopes alive. It happens. 

Enterprise Mobility Demand Still Growing

Roughly half of all  business and consumer communications spending goes to wireless services. But there appear to be relatively-distinct niches within the enterprise mobile user base. The "information worker" segment, including sales, information technology and managers use real-time data, email, calendar and portal accessed applications, say reserachers at Forrester Research. There are lots of devices used and IT staff tends to have limited control over them.

"Task workers" such as supply chain personnel, medical personnel, manufacturers and others using line-of-business applications on a single device such as inventory scanners, data entry tablets. IT tends to have significant control over the limited range of supported devices. 

But there is an emerging demand from "wannabes," including just about any worker not represented in one of the two other segments. Wannabees likely will use a wide range of devices for email, calendar, product information management and basic portal access, for work and personal uses. IT will have to support a wide range of devices and will have limited control over them, Forrester argues.

So far, though 57 percent of smart phone users engage in work--related phone calls, 

48 percent check email and 42 percent acess the Internet or a company Intranet for work related information. Some 35 percent of users say they use their smart phones "only for personal purposes." Keep in mind that nearly seven out of 10 enterprise mobility users pay for their own service. 

At the moment, 69 percent of employees pay for their voice service, while 23 percent have mobile paid for by the employer, Forrester says. About eight percent of workers cost share with their employers. 

About 59 percent of employees pay for their own mobile data services. About 34 percent have their mobile data service paid for by their employers. About seven percent of workers have a cost share agreement with their employer. 

What Does AT&T Do For An Encore?

Executives at AT&T have to be spending time thinking about what to do when the Apple iPhone ceases to be an AT&T-only product. 

In October 2006, before potential customers were aware that AT&T would have exclusive rights to market the iPhone, Verizon Wireless was getting twice as much upside from "churners" as AT&T was. 

About 28 percent of poll respondents surveyed by ChangeWave indicated they would be switching to Verizon for mobile service. About 14 percent indicated they would be switching to AT&T. 

After the deal was announced, the churn gap closed. And AT&T has had a net advantage in customer switching behavior since very-early 2008. Many would say this is an "iPhone effect." Some might argue it also is the result of other activities, including AT&T promotional activity. 

We won't really know until the iPhone exclusivity deal ends. In the meantime, AT&T marketing staffs have to be working on the next game-changer. 

Sylantro in the Amazon Cloud

Sylantro Systems has announced compatibility of its Synergy platform with the Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).  By doing so, Sylantro makes its voice and Web applications available in a cloud computing environment.  

Amazon EC2 from Amazon Web Services is a Web service providing hosted, resizable compute capacity on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is designed to make Web-scale computing easier and cheaper.

So look at it this way: applications developed for Web delivery, using the Amazon infrastructure, now can be configured to work with Sylantro calling and communication features. In principle, this allows more applications or services to provide a range of communication features one normally would expect from a business phone system. 

Service providers can use the capability to test demand for services provided on a hosted basis, especially on a "sample this" basis, or as a way to provide hosted business or consumer communications services with a disaster recovery angle.

Sometimes Demand, Not Supply, is the Issue

SureWest Communications has expanded television, Internet and telephone service to some 3,500 Kansas City area homes and remains on track to reach 10,000 by the end of the year.

In the broadband services area, SureWest customers and prospects have something like an embarassment of riches, though some will argue the prices are too high.

Customers can buy 20-megabits-per-second connections for about $92 when purchased as part of a bundle, and can get 50 Mbps service for about $192 when when bundled with one other service.

Business customers can buy 100 Mbps service. So the issue, at least where SureWest operates, is demand, not supply. 

The argument can, and probably will be made, that prices for the higher bandwidths are too high. Observers should keep in mind that commercial prices for T1 lines offering 1.544 Mbps service cost as much as the 50 Mbps service, if not more. Perhaps that will not be enough to sway some opinion on the pricing front. 

But in this case, at least, broadband supply is not a problem. Demand is the issue.  One can argue that prices should be lower. It is harder to argue that SureWest's ability to remain in business requires that level of prices at its forecast penetration levels. If SureWest does a lot better than it now forecasts, lower prices are possible. But this now is a demand generation exercise. 

"Hyperconnection" Driving Wireless Broadband?

Some 16 percent of Internet users live a “hyperconnected” life, meaning they regularly use more than seven devices and more than nine applications, says Scott Wickware, Nortel general manager.

Some 36 percent are “increasingly connected,” meaning they use four devices and nine applications, he adds. About 20 percent are passive online users and 28 percent are "not very connected," he says.

So although about half of Internet users might not agree they are living in "a hyperconnected world” that requires or benefits from mobile broadband access, Wickware suggests 52 percent are candidates for mobile broadband.

The logic is simple enough: as users got comfortable with email and then wanted to have email available in their pockets and purses, so they increasingly will want access to their social networks, video and audio entertainment in the same way.

As voice once was a service delivered to "places" and now is delivered to "people," so email used to be delivered to "PCs" and now is delivered to mobiles. Roughly the same process will unfold with broadband as well, most argue. Where broadband used to be delivered to a place, it increasingly will be delivered to people; where applications are used on PCs, they in the future will be used by people on a number of mobile devices in their purses and pockets.

2.3% IT Spending Growth in 2009, Says Gartner

Granted, everybody is looking in the rear-view mirror, but Gartner analysts now expect an information technology spending increase of 2.3 percent in 2009, revised down from the original expectation of 5.8 percent, according to  Peter Sondergaard, Gartner SVP. 

“Developed economies, especially the United States and Western Europe, will be the worst affected, but emerging regions will not be immune. Europe will experience negative growth in 2009, the United States and Japan will be flat.”

Give it a quarter, though. October's impact might not yet be so clear. 

How Long Will Your Cash Last? Start-Ups Too Casual

Entrepreneurs are not worried enough about herding their start-ups through a rough patch, Rafe Needleman, CNET News writer says. A recent survey of 491 respondents found that 30 percent reported having two or more years of money in the bank, or are cash-flow positive.

About 21 percent say they have a year's worth of cash set aside.

About 49 percent reported having only three or six months of cash. That suggests as many as 50 percent of firms will be in serious trouble if an economic slowdown lasts more than a year.

Also, only 33 percent of the 524 respondents say they are "worrying about revenue and payroll."

Granted, the slowdown does not to some of us appear to be a "nuclear winter," though one could get a huge argument going on that score. Still, when young companies cannot raise the next round of funding, they die. Hence the importance of cash on hand.