Millennials are Social, Period

Fully 78 percent of Millennial internet users engage with social media, including blogs, microblogs, social networks, and photo- and video-sharing sites, according to a Harris Poll.

But social media usage has grown in virtually every age demographic.

Millennials Online: Marketing to a Moving Target

The Blogosphere: Colliding with Social and Mainstream Media

Social networks and microblogs have in recent years nudged blogging off the social media pedestal.

For some consumers, Facebook and Twitter have supplanted blogging as life-streaming outlets.

But blogs remain an important part of the landscape. This year, 51 percent of U.S. Internet users, or 113 million people, will read blogs on a monthly basis.

By 2014, the blog audience is expected to rise to 60 percent of internet users, or 150 million people.

The number of bloggers will also grow, though somewhat more modestly. In 2010, 11.9 percent of US internet users keep blogs. By 2014, there will be 33.4 million bloggers in the United States, representing 13.3 percent of internet users.

The Blogosphere: Colliding with Social and Mainstream Media

Will LightSquared’s LTE Network Find a Business Model?

LightSquared’s wholesale LTE network might not succeed as a major platform for 4G mobile providers. For starters, there might not be enough customers.

So some speculate LightSquared might instead be able to build a model based on middle-mile backhaul, basically hauling traffic from telco and other ISP points of presence back to major Internet backbone locations.

backhaul revenue potential from the 800 to 1,200 rural telcos and some number of independent or rural ISPs to make such a strategy feasible. I haven't made any attempt to run the numbers, but it seems intuitively unlikely.

Rural Internet access customers tend to pay less, and connect less, than their urban and suburban counterparts. Many ISPs or telcos in rural areas serve a few hundred total customers for voice, and less than that for Internet services. A market for Ethernet connections in the middle mile does exist. What isn't clear is whether the backhaul revenues are substantial enough to build a full business case for LightSquared.

Of course, LightSquared would not say that is the case, but rather than middle mile backhaul is a portion of the total potential revenue streams. That's probably true.

Will LightSquared’s LTE Network Reduce Middle Mile Costs?

Not So Many Twitter Replies and Retweets

There is a notion that social networking communication patterns "should be" symmetrical, or something sort of symmetrical, or at least highly interactive.

Systomos finds this is not the case. After analyzing 1.2 billion tweets, Systomos found that that 29 percent of all tweets produced a reaction of any sort, either a reply or a retweet.

Of this group of tweets, 19.3 percent were retweets and the rest replies. This means that of the 1.2 billion tweets we examined, six percent, or 72 million were retweets.

Sysomos also discovered that 92.4 percent of all retweets happen within the first hour of the original tweet being published, while an additional 1.63 percent of retweets happen in the second hour, and 0.94 percent take place in the third hour.

That's a classic "Pareto" distribution, often known as the "80/20" rule or a "long tail" distribution. Since so many processes and distributions in the natural world follow a Pareto curve, this should come as no surprise.

Pareto would suggest that a small number of tweets produce most of the replies or retweets. And that is precisely what Sysomos found.

Replies and Retweets on Twitter, a Report by Sysomos

Here's Why Google Needs To Buy Twitter Immediately

Google "Needs" to buy Twitter, for any number of strategic reasons, Henry Blodget argues.

Facebook is emerging as a serious threat to Google's core business, and Twitter is the only social company Google can buy that might have a chance of combating this.

Apple is getting into social networking, and Apple is among Google's most-dangerous competitors, though not the only one.

Google hasn't gotten traction with its internal "social" efforts, and it might be too late to catch up.

Google has the money.

Twitter should ultimately come upon a viable revenue model, and it could be a big one.

Here's Why Google Needs To Buy Twitter Immediately

Gmail Messages Now Can be "Unthreaded"

The way Gmail organizes mail into threaded conversations has been a "love-hate" sort of issue; some people find it very useful, and some us keep finding we are losing the "latest" messages because the messages are appended to an existing conversation thread that is on page two or three of an inbox.

Google now has decided to allow each user to decide to "thread or not thread." It's a big deal for some of us.

To change your settings, go to the main "Settings" page, look for the “Conversation View” section, select the option to turn it off, and save changes. If you change your mind, you can always go back.

Thank you, Google!

Official Gmail Blog

82% of Enterprise Outages Caused by Power, Hardware or Telecom Service Failure

Loss of electrical power, hardware failure or loss of telecom service accounted for about 82 percent of the outages experienced by some 200 medium and large businesses over roughly the last year, CDW has found.

While 82 percent of the 200 businesses completing the survey felt confident that their IT resources could sustain disruptions and support operations effectively, 97 percent admitted network disruptions had detrimental effects on their businesses in the last year.

Also, about 1800 smaller businesses reported network disruption of four hours or more within the last year. CDW estimates that such network outages cost U.S. businesses $1.7 billion in lost profits last year.

"The survey confirms that while many businesses believe they are prepared for an unplanned network disruption, many are not – and yet the three most common causes of IT outages are addressable," said Norm Lillis, CDW vice president, system solutions. Power loss ranked as the top cause of business disruptions over the past year, with one third of businesses reporting it prompted their most recent disruption. Hardware failures caused 29 percent of network outages, followed by a loss of telecom services to facilities (21 percent). "

The survey also revealed that businesses need to take advanced preparation more seriously and support employees more effectively with network accessibility.

While 53 percent of respondents said employees are instructed or given the option to work from home when a foreseeable network disruption approaches (a weather event, for example), only a third of businesses activate standby communications and network systems to support increased remote access when warned of such an event.

In fact, while respondents reported that, on average, 44 percent of the workforce normally has telework options, they said that only 39 percent of employees could telework during their most recent network outage.

link to full study

Lots of Enterprise Experimentation With Social Media

While 95 percent of companies surveyed by Econsultancy have added social media to their marketing mix, 45 percent have either only “experimented” or not done anything in social media. 

Aspen Institute Fellow Recommends Big Changes In USF, Intercarrier Compensation, Use of Satellite Broadband

Blair Levin, Aspen Institute Fellow, says $10 billion, spent over 10 years, is enough to provide a minimum 4 Mbps downstream service for Americans in rural and isolated areas.

He proposes that the money be gotten by revamping the Universal Service Fund, including reducing or freezing funds currently allocated under the Interstate Access Support and Interstate Common Line Support funds, steps that would have immediate impact on many rural telcos and rural mobile providers.

Levin points out that there are about seven million housing units (about five percent of the total) without access to the 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream services the Federal Communications Commission now believes is a minimum.

The FCC has estimated the cost to provide such service with wired broadband at $32.4 billion, with a revenue projection of only $8.9 billion, leaving a $23.5 billion gap.

But Levin maintains that the costs are so high because of costs to build wired infrastructure to just 250,000 homes. Reaching those 250,000 homes would cost about $13.4 billion. Levin does not appear to believe that is a wise investment. So he suggests using satellite to reach the most-isolated, high-cost homes, instead. That would free up enough money to build out facilities to the roughly 6.75 million other rural homes.

In 2010, the federal fund (USF) is projected to make total outlays of $8.7 billion, but not specifically to support broadband access.

Some $4.6 billion is set aside for deployment of networks to high-cost areas, where population density or other factors would cause the price of services to consumers to be at a level that would not reasonably compare to urban areas (this is in addition to the 21 states that have similar high-cost funds that distribute a total of over $1.5 billion).

About $1.2 billion is allocated to provide discounts to make basic telephone service available
and affordable to low-income consumers (in addition, 33 states have similar programs).

Another $2.7 billion is reserved for subsidizing telecommunications services, Internet access and
internal connections to enable schools and libraries to connect to the Internet (in addition, nine states have similar programs).

Making better use of existing funding should be the first priority in any reform effort, Levin says. The universal service contribution factor—an assessment on interstate and international charges that usually appears as a surcharge on consumers’ phone bills—is already at about 15 percent (having risen dramatically in the last decade), he notes.

Further increases would create both political and policy problems, he suggests.

"More ambitious goals in terms of network speeds, at this time, would cause such an increase in the assessment on the current system that it could backfire in terms of driving America’s use of broadband," Levin argues. "For example, the FCC calculates that going from 4 Mbps to 6 Mbps would increase the investment gap by more than 100 percent."

The rational approach would be to avoid building fixed-line networks to serve a quarter million homes, at a cost of $13.4 billion, using satellite broadband. That would free up nearly all of the available funds to build fixed-line networks for 6.75 million rural households.

There are a number of problems with the current Universal Service Fund, Levin suggests. "Among these are that the fund is targeted to support analog voice requirements, rather than data networks; that the fund does not target unserved areas but rather funds particular kinds of companies; that the fund provides incentives for inefficient build outs; that there is no accountability for actually using the funds for their intended purposes; and that the support programs are not coordinated to
leverage the funds to maximize broader policy objectives," says Levin.

Though rural telcos might not like the idea, there are a number of current programs within the Universal Service Fund that need to be changed.

About $4 billion could be redireted to broadband support, over 10 years, by reductions in USF payments to wireless providers.

Interstate Access Support (IAS) payments could be reoriented to broadband, adding approximately $4 billion over 10 years.

Freezing Interstate Common Line Support (ICLS) would limit the growth of the existing high-cost fund and result in savings of about $1.8 billion over 10 years. Those funds also could be redirected to broadband support.

To accomplish this, the FCC would have to require that rate-of-return carriers move to incentive regulation.

Phasing out remaining legacy high-cost support for competitive carriers (wireless, primarily) would yield up to an additional $5.8 billion over the coming decade.

Together these actions would result in between $15 and 16 billion in savings from the existing high-cost program that could be used to support broadband facilities construction.

As logical as the changes might be, there will be resistance from any number of firms that currently rely on the current mechanisms for significant portions of their current revenue, including but not limited to, rural telcos.

Video Streaming Now Drives Global Bandwidth Demand

As you would expect, video streaming now is the fastest-growing source of mobile broadband bandwidth demand, Allot Communications reports.

Voice sessions created using the Internet now represent the second-fastest-growing source of bandwidth demand.

That isn't to say those apps consume much bandwidth, but rather than use of the application is growing fast.

Video Now Single-Largest Bandwidth Driver, Says Allot Communications

Video now constitutes about 35 percent of total global mobile device and network bandwidth, according to Allot Communications.

Web browsing consumes about 29 percent of bandwidth while file downloads represent about 16 percent of demand.

Peer-to-peer apps, which include video and file downloads, represents about 15 percent of mobile bandwidth demand.

VoIP and instant messaging account for about three percent of bandwidth demand.

None of those metrics represent revenue contributions, though.

4G Americas: Sign of the Times

3G Americas, a wireless industry trade association originally created to foster adoption of third-generation mobile networks, is changing its name change to "4G Americas."

Of course, there is a difference. It doesn't really appear there is much of a need to convince mobile operators to adopt 4G. So the organization frankly needs to find some new mission.

So the name change also brings a mission change. Where it once focused on the air interface, it now will attempt to focus more on regulatory issues, devices, applications and vertical market deployments.

Net neutrality compromise?

Congressman Henry Waxman's net neutrality proposal won't please everyone. It is doubtful any proposal can do that. But its a serious effort to achieve a fair and workable compromise.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/waxmans-net-neutrality-compromise-solution-or-last-gasp.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Pinger Makes Your iTouch Work Like an iPhone

Pinger might be the first voice and text provider to make a sustainable business out of ad-supported communications.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/08/09/an-app-that-makes-your-itouch-work-like-an-iphone.aspx

Sony, Warner, Disney Discussing $30 Post-Theatrical Offer with Cable Operators

Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co. are in talks with the largest U.S. cable TV operators to offer films on an on-demand basis for as much as $30 per showing soon after they run in theaters, Bloomberg reports.

The talks with In Demand, a partnership of Cox Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable are the latest example of experimentation with release windows and price points.

Disney also is discussing streaming films on Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox console and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, Bloomberg says.

The new release window presumably would occur before the films go to DVD release, pay per view and other on-demand venues.

Sony, Warner, Disney Planning $30 Home Film-Viewing Option