Cheaper Cable TV Packages?

Don't hold your breath, but U.S. cable executives might be quietly mulling creation of more-affordable packages that cost something more like $25 a month to 40 a month than $80 a month, Reuters reports.

There would have to be quite a bit of negotiating with the cable programming networks, which typically want the broadest possible carriage they can get. Offering more-affordable tiers of service necessarily would limit carriage of many channels.

Some Wall Street analysts reportedly have warned the cable industry could harm itself by continuing to raise prices well ahead of the rate of inflation. Of course, some will speculate that the floating of "affordable new tiers" might also be a negotiating tactic by cable operators in advance of contract renewal talks.

Both cable operators and programmers are aware that most people watch a dozen or fewer channels, no matter how many are available. The problem is that it is not the same 12, from one person to the next.

Cable companies, networks mull smaller TV bundles | Reuters

Mobile Voice Will Keep Growing, Despite Pressures

Though growth will slow at some point, it does not immediately appear that mobile voice revenue on a global basis, at least, is in any danger of serious erosion, according to the Yankee Group. Average revenue per user is dropping, but the number of users is growing.

By some estimates, the world has added one billion new wireless customers in just 18 months, for example.

Global average revenue per user will fall from U.S.$14.28 in 2009 to U.S.$11.38 in 2014, Yankee Group predicts.

But paid minutes of use will offset most of those ARPU declines.

Yankee Group :: Research Report

How Long Does it Take to Add 1 Billion Mobile Subs?

It has taken just 18 months for one billion new subscribers to get mobile services. There now are five billion global mobile subscribers, according Wireless Intelligence.

The firm predicts that the six billion mark will be achieved in the first half of 2012. Mobile penetration on a global basis now is 74 percent, compared to 60 percent at when there were only four billion subscribers. The highest penetrated region is Western Europe on 130 percent, while the lowest is Africa on 52 percent. Eastern Europe (123 percent) is the only other global region to have passed 100 percent mobile penetration.

Wireless Intelligence — Analysis — Global mobile connections surpass 5 billion milestone

65% of Mobile Users "Text;" 30% Download Apps

About 65 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device in May 2010, up 1.4 percentage points compared to the prior three month period, while browsers were used by 32 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points).

About 30 percent of the mobile audience downloaded apps, an increase of 2.1 percentage points from the previous period. Accessing of social networking sites or blogs also saw significant growth, increasing 2.6 percentage points to 21 percent of mobile subscribers.

comScore Reports May 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc

49 Million U.S. Smartphones in Service

49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May 2010, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period.

Research in Motion was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent.

Google saw significant growth during the period, up four percentage points to 13 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.8 percent.

comScore Reports May 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc

Cable Chills in Advance of Potential Net Neutrality Ruling

Regulation has a huge impact on communications and multi-channel video entertainment companies (telcos and cable), and the reason is quite simple: regulation creates, conditions or damages the business opportunity. Lots of observers would predict that imposition of strong network neutrality rules, by limiting growth options, would have clear negative impact on equity values, ability to raise capital and ultimately revenue, cash flow and profit.

It appears some of the damage is caused simply by raising the specter of such changes. "'The FCC has voted itself a loaded gun, pointed it at the carriers (cable and telco alike) and then promised not to shoot," said Craig Moffett, Bernstein Research analyst.

'What is clear ... is that we are now facing a protracted period -- likely years long -- of enormous uncertainty,' Moffett said.

"The bull case for cable stocks is a simple one," Moffett wrote. "Cable wins the broadband wars. But the prospect for broadband price regulation cuts to the heart of that thesis."

Comcast, Cablevision stocks fall on cloudy outlook The Ratings Game - MarketWatch

100 Million Mobile YouTube Playbacks Every Day

YouTube Mobile now receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day. This is roughly the number of daily playbacks that YouTube.com was streaming when YouTube was acquired by Google in 2006.

YouTube Blog

YouTube Adds HTML5 Site

YouTube is launching a new mobile site optimized for HTML5, m.youtube.com, as well as a new mobile app pointed at the site.

The web app apparently has superior video quality when compared to native applications on the iPhone and will soon feature more content as well. Both iPhone and Android devices will get the new app.

Does Information Really "Want to be Free"?

"On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable,' said writer Stewart Brand in 1984. 'The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

All information is not equal. Some types of information are so valuable (the current price of lots of commodities) that spending huge amounts of money to discover price, and act on it, are justifiable. Other sorts of information do not have these characteristics.

But there is no single rule that adequately describes information economics.

MinnPost - The end of the free Internet?

Sigmoid Curves and Network Effects Drive Scale and, Usually, Profit Margins

Ultimately, businesses live and die on three simple dynamics: distributions, network effects and  sigmoid curves (S curves), says Niel Robertson, Trada CEO.

Distributions tell you how much you can afford to spend selling a product, he says. Accounts worth $1,000 each cannot be sold the same way as accounts worth $1 million each. Mass media advertising or distributors might work for the former, but direct sales is feasible for the latter. 

S curves determine how far you can scale a business, he says. S curves also illustrate product life cycles and the strategy of creating the next new wave of products before the current revenue driver begins to decline. 

Network effects account for the out-sized returns when a business can achieve huge market share.

Almost all problems (and most opportunities) come from understanding how to take advantage of these functions – rather than fight against them, he says.

There's a Difference Between a "Search Query" and a Robo Call

Twitter's search query numbers include 'searches' from Twitter apps such as TweetDeck and Seesmic that are actually just automated calls those apps send out every few minutes to populate columns users have set up to see tweets on certain topics.

So maybe recent Twitter "search volume" figures are a bit inflated?

Reality Check: Twitter's Huge Search Query Numbers Are Falsely Inflated

Differing iPhone Demographics in France, U.K., Germany

Apparently iPhone owners in several European countries have distinct and non-similar age profiles.

The key segment in France is 16-to 24-year-olds, who represent 36 percent of France’s iPhone owners; in the UK, it’s 25- to 34-year-olds, who account for 40 percent of the U.K.’s iPhone owners; and it’s 35- to 44-year-olds in Germany, who make up 33 percent of Germany’s iPhone owners.

In France, which has the highest adoption of iPhones in Europe, only 57 percent of the total iPhone installed base is male; in Germany, it’s 76 percent.

Profiling Your Best Mobile Customers | Forrester Blogs

Where Google Might Go Next

Taking a look at places users go immediately after visiting Google to search for something suggests the next area Google might explore, after its recent move into travel: gaming.

The table shows the top 20 downstream industries visited after a Google visit during the month of June 2010.

Google's presence is obvious in most: Search Engines (Google.com), Entertainment (YouTube), Shopping and Classifieds (Google Shopping, Google Base), Business and Finance (Google Finance). Google's presence is perhaps less obvious in others: Social Networking and Forums (YouTube, Orkut, Google Talk), Education (Knol, Google Book Search, Google Scholar), Lifestyle (Blogger).

After travel, gaming is the next area where Google does not arguably already have a presence.

Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America

Anybody Can Make a Mistake: This Doesn't Exactly Sound Like a Mistake

Late last month, lobbyists for the pro-net neutrality movement began circulating a letter on Capitol Hill demanding the immediate passage of a law that would allow the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband access as a common carrier service. The letter featured over 160 signatories, among them the Dr. Pepper Museum, Planned Parenthood of North Texas, and Operation Catnip, a spay-and-neuter clinic in Gainesville, Florida.

One signatory doesn’t remember signing anything related to net neutrality, and the other signatories contacted by The Daily Caller could not explain their support for Title II reclassification. In fact, they didn’t even attempt to explain their support.

Legislators vote on bills they haven't read. Apparently groups sometimes "support" issues they don't necessarily understand.

Free Press and NTEN con nonprofits into supporting net neutrality | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

The Web is Getting More Social, Google Says

No surprise then that Google, one way or the other, will "get more social" in response.