Has FCC Given Up on Net Neutrality and Common Carrier Regulation of Broadband?

Washington D.C. is a funny place (in the sense of "odd," not "humorous"); always has been. You learn to expect speeches devoid of content and infer what is important by what is not said. A recent speech by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski might be one of those sorts of occurrences.

There was no mention of "network neutrality" or "Title II regulation" of broadband access services. Rather, right out of the gate, there was a focus on "jobs." It might not be significant in a larger policy sense, but it could signal that the ambitious policy agenda has run into a wall. Agree or disagree with the agenda, the speech does not read to me like an indication of continuity.

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1115/DOC-302802A1.pdf

Reaching Digital Saturation?

Social networking is a "product" like any other: it has a product adoption curve that eventually will flatten.

At some point, nearly every customer or user who wants that product already uses it. At some point, the people who refuse to use a product are "never nevers."

They never have used or liked a particular product, and never want to use it.

Forrester Research analyst Augie Ray says we already are nearing a point where social networking is going to be mature, in terms of user base. In part, he rests his argument on the fact that social networking takes time, and there's just not enough time for most people to spend time with multiple social networking sites when Facebook, for example, has become so dominant.

Some people might say that is an example of "network effect," where any single network becomes more valuable as additional users are added. But the other potential insight is that many "digital" products reach saturation at levels far from "100 percent."

Apparently, only 71 percent of people use search engines and only 33 percent use instant messaging. One might argue that means there is lots of room to stimulate additional usage. One might also argue that there are some digital products that actually reach saturation at lowish to moderate levels.

The argument Ray makes is that social networking is nearing saturation, though only about 60 percent of people say they participate.

Social Changes "Everything"

Mobile Versus Desktop Page Views: Mobile Wins

With the huge caveat that the Japanese market is not the U.S. market, Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker illustrates what can happen when mobile Internet gets really popular.

The data ratify the notion that "content consumption" has become an important new trend.

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research

Quantitative Easing Gone Viral

What's 4G? T-Mobile Playfully Makes its Case

Is U.S. Mobile Service Too Expensive?

Methodology really matters when conducting trans-national studies of issues such as the typical price of mobile services. A recent analysis of international mobile phone prices conducted and released by the

New America Foundation concludes that the United States has among the highest prices for mobile phone

services in the world.

See http://oti.newamerica.net/publications/policy/an_international_comparison_of_cell_phone_plans_and_prices for the argument. 

An analysis of that study's methodology, however, suggests that U.S. consumers would pay far more if they faced the pricing plans from other “low cost” countries, says George S. Ford, Chief Economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy .Studies. See  http://www.phoenix-center.org/perspectives/Perspective10-06Final.pdf or http://www.phoenix-center.org/perspectives/Perspective09-03Final.pdf for more detail. 

PayNearMe Gets $16 Million Investment

PayNearMe, an alternative payments product from the company formerly known as Kwedit, has just raised $16 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures, with new investor August Capital and current investors True Ventures and Maveron also participating in the round. This brings the company’s total funding to $23.3 million. In conjunction with the funding announcement, Mark Britto, CEO of BOKU will join the company’s board of directors.

PayNearMe is capitalizing on the wave of services that are emerging for the unbanked, a group that includes 60 million individuals in the U.S. The “unbanked” refers to consumers who don’t have traditional bank accounts or cannot qualify for credit cards. PayNearMe allows people who don’t have or don’t want to use credit or debit cards to purchase products with cash at more than 6,000 7-Eleven stores in the continental U.S.

The funding round is further evidence of heightened interest in the payments business that also has AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile creating ISIS, a mobile contactless payment system that will be available to 200 million potential users at launch.

PayNearMe Rings Up $16M From Khosla And Others For Cash Payments Product

Android and iPhone Top of Smartphone Wish Lists

More than 56 percent of current smartphone users are seriously considering an Apple iPhone and 44 percent an Android device for their next smartphone, according to IHL Group. Both smartphones could nearly double shipshare in the U.S. in the next 12 months. The study also reveals that only 24 percent of smartphone users surveyed are seriously considering a Blackberry and only 10 percent a Windows smartphone for their new device. Respondents were allowed to choose more than one device.

The survey of 570 consumers and 66 retailers highlights the way that consumers use their devices for social media and commerce.

'The iPhone is quickly replacing the Blackberry in the mindshare of consumers and the executive office for many retailers,' says Greg Buzek, President of IHL Group. 'The growth in the executive office of retailers and store associates is most striking.'

IHL Group

Click Rates Stabilitze

Online advertising "click-through rates" have been falling for a few years. But MediaMind Technologies says the declines have abated. The company’s analysis of data from July 2006 through July 2010 shows that annual average click rates have plateaued, at 0.9 percent.

MediaMind Technologies, the leading independent provider of integrated digital advertising solutions, released today a new Global Benchmark Report, titled “Standard Banners –Non-Standard Results.” The research shows that global Clickthrough Rate (CTR) stopped declining in 2009 and 2010 and remained fixed at around 0.09%. The full study is available here.

An increased volume of display advertising likely is the reason for the decline in click-through behavior.

As more budgets were poured into display, users were exposed to more and more ads. However, the number of ads that a user clicked on did not catch up with the number of ads that a user was exposed to, thus reducing the overall CTR.

Imagine that you are exposed to one thousand ads each year, and that you click on five of them. Your CTR is 0.5%. Imagine now that you are exposed to five thousand ads; you are probably not going to keep clicking at the same vigor, so instead of 25 clicks, you only click on 20 ads.

Therefore your CTR is now only 0.4%. Thus, as users are exposed to more ads, their CTR drops.

Have Click Rates Finally Stopped Declining? - eMarketer

EU Rejects Net Neutrality

The European Union has concluded that "network neutrality" is unnecessary at best, harmful at worst.

The EU now says it sees no problem, and will take a “wait-and-see” approach. In part, that is because the EU does not see evidence that there is market failure. More significantly, the EU seems to agree with many observers that such rules pose a danger to robust, continued investment.

“We have to avoid regulation which might deter investment and an efficient use of the available resources,” EU Telecommunications Commissioner Neelie Kroes says.

EU Punts on Net Neutrality - by Bruce Edward Walker

Apple Gets Rights to Sell Digital Beatles Music

Apple Inc. is preparing to announce that its iTunes Store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Apple Gets Rights to Sell Digital Beatles Music - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Apple Drops Prices for European iAd Launch

Apple is preparing to announce European launch partners for its iAd mobile advertising product this week, but has found it more difficult to woo brands there than it did in the U.S., one report suggest.

According to a Financial Times story, the iAd's European debut has already been delayed twice, and Apple has been forced to drop its $1 million minimum spend policy in order to attract interest from the major brands it's pursuing.

Although Apple secured a solid lineup of advertisers for its U.S. iAd launch - including Nissan, Sears, and Citigroup - the actual rollout of those campaigns also appeared far from smooth. Brands and agencies have expressed frustration with Apple's insistence on handling the production of campaigns itself, leading to delays and reportedly causing some brands to withdraw their campaigns completely.

Apple Drops Prices for European iAd Launch | ClickZ

Tomorrow Apparently is Not "Just Another Day," Apple Teases

Apparently not. If you go to www.apple.com, this is about all you'll see, no matter what tab you click.

Facebook Unveils "Next Generation" Messaging

Facebook's new "Messages" feature is going to strike many observers as a unified communications tool, not an "email tool." Messages allows a Facebook user to decide how they want to talk to your friends, using text messaging, instant messages, chat, email or "Messages."

Recipients receive a message through whatever medium or device is convenient for them, and you can both have a conversation in real time. That's interesting.

"You shouldn't have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use," the Facebook blog says. Simply choose their name and type a message. The program appears to thread all conversations, no matter which channel is used.

"Messages is built for communicating with your friends, so it made sense to organize primarily around people," Facebook says. "All of your messages with someone will be together in one place, whether they are sent over chat, email or SMS." You can see everything you've discussed with each friend as a single conversation.

Facebook also is providing an @facebook.com email address to every person on Facebook who wants one. Now people can share with friends over email, whether they're on Facebook or not.

"Messages is not email," Facebook says. There are no subject lines, no cc, no bcc, and you can send a message by hitting the Enter key. We modeled it more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message. We wanted to make this more like a conversation.

The Facebook Blog | Facebook