Stimulus didn't save the nation from depression

Economists now say the Great Recession ended in June of 2009, when the economy began growing again. And now people are arguing the the trillion dollar American Reinvestment and Recovery Act "saved" us from a worse outcome. Really?

The ARRA was passed in February 2009. The recession ended in June 2009. By the end of September 2009 (after the recession had ended), just $36.2 billion had actually been received, either by agencies that would disburse funds, or directly by individuals.

Do you really believe less than $36 billion in ARRA spending had any meaningful impact?

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/Pages/QuarterlySum.aspx?qtr=2009Q3

Stimulus didn't save the nation from depression | detnews.com | The Detroit News

A Scary Chart

There is something about this chart that should worry you. Note the length of the 1929 recession, about 44 months.

If you know your U.S. history, you know that the United States was in a "Great Depression" throughout the 1930s, getting out only sometime during World War II.

So the "official" recession last less than four years, though the Great Depression lasts up to a decade and a half.

Part of the reason is that there were two separate "recessions" during the Great Depression, if we can say something that sounds nonsensical.

Also, despite the moniker "roaring twenties," and the undeniable growth of that period, there were recessions in 1920, 1923, 1926 and 1929. Every three years, a reversal from growth to decline.

Given current worry about a double dip recession, and recent comments by the Federal Reserve suggesting it is worried about that happening, despite other "happy talk" about the low possibility of such an event, the 1920s and even 1950s record suggests one can say it is possible, perhaps even likely, there could be a growth reversal every three years, even in an otherwise robust economic climate.

If the last recession "ended" in June 2009, that might suggest another recession starting in June 2012 or so. Maybe its not strictly a "double dip," but two separate recessions. Americans won't care.

Nor does it provide any comfort to note there were "just" two recessions in the era we call the Great Depression. In other words, the formal definitions are one thing; the human experience quite another thing.

What If Verizon Never Gets the iPhone?

It could be a blessing in disguise.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100924/tc_pcworld/whatifverizonnevergetstheiphone_1

Adding voice to text

Some firms see an opportunity.

http://www.trendcentral.com/WebApps/App/SnapShots/Article.aspx?ArticleId=7963

Microsoft mobile market share will triple within 2 years?

That would-be quite a feat.

http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Microsoft-market-share-will-triple-within-2-years-according-to-analyst-article-a_13504.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+phonearena%2FySoL+%28Phone+Arena+-+Latest+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Cloud Startup Values Are Getting Insane

Sure signs of yet another bubble forming, most likely.

http://cloud.gigaom.com/2010/09/24/cloud-startup-values-are-getting-insane/

Clearwire Open to T-Mobile Investment

Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow says Clearwire now is in talks with T-Mobile USA about a potential investment in Clearwire, a move with repercussions now only for Clearwire and T-Mobile USA, but also for Harbinger Capital, which is attempting to fund its "LightSquared" 4G mobile network, and has been hoping it could attract T-Mobile USA as an anchor customer, one might argue.

Morrow says Clearwire could raise money by selling off unneeded spectrum. However, Morrow said that the company's preference is to get an equity investment from a service provider that would rent space on its network at a preferred rate, similar to the deal Sprint Nextel has with Clearwire. Sprint holds a 54 percent stake in Clearwire.

Clearwire open to funding from T-Mobile USA

Windstream's Gardner: Enhance focus on business, wireless backhaul and broadband services - FierceTelecom

Windstream Communications is no longer content to just be the local telephone company offering just plain old voice service, says Jeff Gardner, Windstream CEO and president.

That should surprise nobody. There now is universal agreement that the revenue model, which is different from the value model, will over time shift from voice to broadband, wireless and other types of services and revenue sources.

"We're transforming from a residential voice model to one that's much more focused on broadband and business, and the idea there is to get to a point where we can generate some top line revenue," says Gardner.

The perhaps new wrinkle is the new focus on business customers. That might originally have seemed a rather large task, given Windstream's largely rural and smaller market footprint. By definition, business customers are a smaller percentage of total customers in any smaller market than in a bigger "metro" market.

The new wrinkle is not so much that Windstream expects to have more success with business customers in its historic footprint, but that it now is acquiring out of territory assets that are focused on business customers.

At a larger level, an argument can be made that even tier one providers increasingly find they are doing better with business customers than consumers, in large part because cable and satellite companies are taking more market share in the consumer space.

Windstream's Gardner: Enhance focus on business, wireless backhaul and broadband services

Bing is Still Google's Biggest Problem

object id="wsj_fp" width="512" height="363">

Productivity Apps Generate 59% of App Store Revenue

News аnԁ entertainment smartphone apps аrе downloaded thе mοѕt, bυt productivity smartphone applications generate thе mοѕt revenue, analysts at In-Stat say.

Productivity applications such аѕ mapping, business аnԁ enterprise applications аnԁ phone tools аnԁ utilities generate 59 percent οf аƖƖ smartphone application revenue, according to In-Stat.

Entertainment Apps Dominate Download Volume, But Productivity Apps Is Where the Money Is At

DirecTV Would Bundle with Cable

DirecTV chairman and CEO Michael White says DirecTV is "looking hard" at offering bundled video and data service, and would even team up with a cable operator if the opportunity presented itself.

DirecTV already offers video, voice and data bundles with phone companies CenturyLink, AT&T and Verizon, but it isn't clear whether cable companies would want to help out a dangerous competitor, even if it meant some incremental sales of voice or broadband subscriptions.

DirecTV Looks At Bundle Opportunities

Video Cord Cutting is Real, Verizon Argues

Though the data remains quite inconslusive, there are reasons different participants in the video ecosystem say different things about the danger of video cord cutting, where consumers terminate their multichannel video subscriptions and substitute other forms of entertainment video instead.

It's to the advantage of attackers to say the threat is imminent. It's to the advantage of cable and satellite execs to deny the extent of the threat, with telco executives a bit less inclined to downplay the issue, in part because other competitors have more to lose.

The cable business  is going to go the way of the wireline telephone business, says Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

Seidenberg says he doesn't believe demand for multichannel video entertainment is going away immediately. But it will, he said.

“We take the over the top issue with video very seriously,” he said. “I think cable has some life left in its model…but that it is going to get disintermediated over the next several years.”

Verizon might lose some of its video subs as well, but the issue is a matter of business model impact. As telcos have been hit very hard by voice compeititon and abandonment, while cablers have gained at telco expense, something like that will happen to cable, the dominant video provider.

Decline of demand for multichannel TV might affect Verizon, but nothing like it will cable, which relies on video revenue in the same way that telcos have relied on voice revenue.

It might take a few more quarters to see whether there is a new trend in multichannel video, but there is at least a possibility that a peak has been reached in the multichannel video entertainment business, and that henceforth the total number of subscribers will start falling, as landline voice subs have for nearly 10 years.

link

Verizon Wireless Readies Tiered Data Pricing

"Verizon Communications expects to introduce its own form of tiered mobile data pricing, possibly over the next four to six months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Verizon has not said percisely what form the tiers will take, other than to note that Verizon Wireless's offering wouldn't simply copy rival carrier AT&T's approach.

1/2 of Internet Users Read Blogs

More than half of internet users will read blogs at least monthly, according to eMarketer. By 2014, readership will rise to more than 150 million Americans, or 60 percent of the internet population in the United States.

One reason for the rise in readership is that blogs have become an accepted part of the online media landscape.

The Continued Rise of Blogging

Users Frustration with Un-Optimized Mobile Video

A survey of U.K. mobile users finds 96 percent are frustrated with their mobile video experience. In part, that likely reflects latency and bandwidth limitations that affect the quality of video content.

About 67 percent are discouraged by non-continuous video playback and the length of time it takes a video to begin playing, as well.

Of the 16 to 24 year olds surveyed, 69 per cent of users prefer video to be optimized, rather than wait significantly longer for higher-quality streaming, the study suggests.

That might be seen by some as an argument in favor of prioritizing some bits, such as video or voice, under conditions of congestion. The other suggestion will be that mobile operators need to provide more bandwidth. The problem there is the same as we face in major metro areas when new freeways are built. Traffic always builds to clog even the new capacity. That will especially be true as mobile video consumption grows.

Mobixell Survey Reveals Users Frustration with Un-optimised Mobile Video