When is a Paywall Not a Paywall?

On March 28, 2011, readers who go to the New York Times online site will be able to view 20 stories for no charge, but will be asked to subscribe after that level of usage. But readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles. That appears to mean Google users, who appear to be limited to five articles a day.

So the paywall is going up, but uses can use Facebook posts and Twitter feeds to read stories people think are important, with virtually no limit.

That's a clever way to put up a paywall without risking a huge falloff in readership.

A Letter to Our Readers About Digital Subscriptions - NYTimes.com

Mobile Payments Sometimes Overlaps With Mobile Banking

The retail mobile payments business is conceptually distinct from online payments or mobile remittances (sending money, from one person to another) or mobile banking (people sending money to retailers, or using mobile as a way of getting account status and information from a mobile, including conducting transactions).

But sometimes there are areas of overlay. Zong, for example, has made a business of supporting "buying" activities by online gamers. Zong recently conducted a survey that found about 24 percent of Zong users do not have a bank account or credit card.

On the other hand, 34 percent said they used mobile payments rather than online from a PC because “it’s fast and easy.” Another 22 percent said they used mobile payments, instead of online payments, because “it’s fun.”

The possibly important observation here is that mobile payments are used, even when other alternatives are available, because it is "fun," not just because it might be fast or easy. That might hold some implications for the further development of mobile payment systems. "Saving money" is never unimportant. But "fun" might be enough, even when the costs are able the same as using credit cards, debit cards or other online mechanisms.

the Zong blog - Mobile Payments, and web apps monetization

U.S. Online Video Viewers Decline in February 2011

For whatever reason, it appears that February 2011 saw a bit of a decline in online video viewing by U.S. Internet users. According to comScore, viewing declined about two percent.

Some 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in February 2011 for an average of 13.6 hours per viewer, reports comScore. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than five billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.

In February 2010, 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video.

comScore Releases February 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings - comScore, Inc

LivingSocial Valued at $2 Billion

LivingSocial, the second-largest website devoted to daily coupons, is close to raising as much as $400 million in funding that would value the company at more than $2 billion, Bloomberg reports.

LivingSocial, which is three years old, said in December that it was booking $1 million a day of revenue on average and was on track to generate more than $500 million in revenue in 2011. The company says it now serves 24 million subscribers in 230 markets in 12 countries.

LivingSocial illustrates the increasingly blurred lines between the formerly separate disciplines of "advertising" and "promotions and coupons" and "retailing" and "commerce." Lots of small and local businesses have embraced LivingSocial and Groupon for a simple and practical reason.

Advertising gets bought in advance of any buyer activity. But when using a group shopping service, the "advertiser" pays only when a customer actually buys something. It isn't clear whether such promotional activity has any measurable impact on company branding and image. What is clear is that retailers like the economics of the service.

They pay only when a purchase occurs, can control the amount of money they want to spend on any single promotion, and essentially get free promotion for users who do not decide to redeem a coupon, but "see" the offer.

read more here (subscription required) (subscription required)

LivingSocial Is Said to Seek Funding Valuing Daily-Deal Site at $2 Billion - Bloomberg

Video Collaboration and Mobility Impact Top Health Professional Expectations

It would not surprise you to learn that health professionals view communications tools through the lens of patient care. As you would expect, communications tools add value by improving patient care. About 67 percent of respondents to a survey taken at the HIMSS Conference and Exhibition, and sponsored by Avaya, indicated that the most beneficial value of mobile communications was "improving patient care by improving response time to patients."

Video communications were seen as value in the area of physician consultations and distance telemedicine, as you also would expect. You can read the full survey results here: read the study results here

read more here

Regulators, Providers Disagree on Degree of Competition in Markets

You wouldn't be shocked to learn that industry regulators and industry participants often disagree about the level of competition within a given market. We are probably still a couple of months away from the next report on the mobile industry, and the degree of competition within the industry, for a couple of months. But the 2010 report, many felt, was oddly out of step with the industry's own views.

Mobile service providers actually believe, and many would argue results support, the notion that the market is robustly competitive, despite unequal market share. Application providers, for their part, also mostly see the "pipe" providers to be relatively unimportant, or at best secondary gatekeepers in the application space, where most of the possibility of growth now exists.

Device manufacturers likely would be less inclined to dismiss the role of the mobile service providers, of course. Still, after Apple's successful challenge to operator control, virtually all mobile device manufacturers, and especially the leading smartphone providers, have significantly more leverage.

In fact, the chief concern executives have is that value increasingly is driven by applications and devices within the mobile business, not intrinsic qualities of the networks or the retail packaging policies the networks can devise.

Some parts of the policy community apparently have a different view, namely that there is too little competition on the mobile operator side of the business. Apparently the existence of four major national providers and many regional providers, plus scores to hundreds of resellers, is not evidence of competition. Of course, many will point to the roughly 65 percent market share held by just two providers as evidence that competition is lacking.

But national communications networks are quite capital intensive. So costly, most would agree, that only a limited number of providers can prosper. What the precise number of viable competitors is, is a matter of debate. Many observers would argue that four national providers is not viable, longer term, and that a stable market would feature three big national wireless players.

Entner: How competitiveness in wireless continues to evolve - FierceWireless

What Business is 'Deal a Day' Part of?

Some new mobile-related markets are so new it is hard to describe them. Groupon and LivingSocial might be called "social shopping, group shopping, mobile coupon, location based services, local advertising, deal a day, mobile offers or mobile commerce," for example.

There probably are other ways to describe programs that offer limited-time promotions, typically with a mobile component, at local merchant locations. Some might call them all "geo-social" applications.

BIA/Kelsey refers to the new market as "deal-a-day offers," and estimates growth from $873 million in 2010 to $3.9 billion in 2015, representing a 35.1 percent compound annual growth rate.

But the firm also says the deal a day market could grow to as much as $6.1 billion by 2015 (47.4 percent CAGR), while a very conservative outlook pegs the space at $2.1 billion (19.7 percent CAGR).

What Business is 'Deal a Day' Part of?

Cloud-Based Apps Will Disrupt the Software Business, Open Some Doors for Service Providers

The emergence of mobile apps on smartphones and tablets is the front end of a broader shift of application architecture that someday will, with the growth of cloud computing, affect the way consumers and businesses buy and use software.

For today's communications or video service providers, it is possible the changes will create the opportunity for a new role within the application business, something those providers are keenly anxious to find.

It is possible, for example, that independent software providers (ISVs) will want to work with new partners as the sales model, revenue model and distribution channel change. Perhaps 'they will turn to players like the telcos, which provide billing engines for usage or transaction-based pricing,' says Forrester Research.

Cloud-Based Apps Will Disrupt the Software Business, Open Some Doors for Service Providers

Features and Prices for the Next Wave of Smartphone Buyers

As smartphones become standard devices used by U.S. consumers, designers, retailers and manufacturers might have to rethink their assumptions about the target end user, and what those end users may prefer. Many devices possibly can be designed around the needs of the mainstream user segments that represent the bulk of the additional sales from this point forward.

On the other hand, the behavioral differences might be more a matter of degree than type.

Click on image for a larger view.

Perhaps newer adopters will use many smartphone apps less frequently than today's smartphone owners, but they will use them.

So it is possible that devices aimed at newer adopters will vary principally in price of the device and prices of monthly access plans, both lower than current smartphone users tend to pay. This implies that less-expensive devices will have fewer capabilities than more-expensive models. That might be more true of hardware features than software features. Front and rear-facing cameras might not be as prevalent. There might be less memory.

But the application capabilities should substantially be the same, if not identical to higher-priced devices, if only because most smartphone users will want to use the same apps as many current users do.

Features and Prices for the Next Wave of Smartphone Buyers

HP Mergers & Acquisitions: Who’s Next?

By design or by chance, some might say, HP is angling to become a complete supplier of end-to-end information technology infrastructure and business software.

Here's one take on what firms might be next for acquisition activity, and the discussion thread. I don't have an opinion, one way or the other. Do you?

HP Mergers & Acquisitions: Who’s Next?

Apple Got 29% of Smartphone Sales Revenue in 2010

While Apple trailed Nokia in 2010 smartphone volume, Apple dominated the market in revenue, and took 29 percent share of revenue, according to Strategy Analytics. The top three device suppliers—Apple, Nokia and RIM—generated 64 percent of the revenue in the smartphone market.

Apple had just 16 percent of smartphone market volume in 2010. But Apple claimed 29 percent revenue share. Nokia followed with 20 percent and RIM with 15 percent revenue share. Samsung got nine percent of smartphone market revenue.

Apple Takes Lion's Share of Smartphone Revenue in 2010

FCC Members Say They Unanimously Favor USF, Carrier Compensation Reform

"When we voted unanimously to approve the USF/ICC Transformation NPRM last month, each of us made clear that we are committed to reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF) and the Intercarrier Compensation (ICC) system, and to doing so as soon as possible," all five commissioners say. "We must eliminate waste and inefficiency and modernize USF and ICC to bring the benefits of broadband to all Americans. We can’t afford to delay."

With the caveat that not everybody really wants reform, and that all attempts to reach a major reform have basically failed in recent decades, pressure seems to be mounting for fixing a system most observers would say is badly in need of reform. But that isn't universally supported by all participants in the market, it is quite safe to say.

Blogband-broadband.gov

Google Docs Blurs Line Between Document Collaboration and Email

Smartphones and Tablets Change Wi-Fi Usage Profile

Android, iPhone and iPad accounted for about 16.53 percent of total Wi-Fi connections studies by Meraki, in middle of March 2010. As of March 14, 2011, these three devices now account for about 33 percent of the total connections to network.

Wi-Fi used to be about connecting PCs. It now is shifting to include connecting phones and tablets.

% (3/14/2010)	% (9/14/2010)	% (3/14/2011)
Total Devices	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%
iPhone	15.96%	21.88%	23.53%
Android	0.57%	1.30%	5.19%
iPad	0.00%	2.08%	3.41%

Some Hard Facts About Wi-Fi and Its Future: Tech News and Analysis

San Francisco Wants to Tax Stock Options, and Has Statutory Authority Already

Few people are aware the San Francisco has had a tax provision in its municipal code since 2004 that requires companies to pay a payroll tax on gains from employee stock options, says Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch. No one pays it, she says, and San Francisco hasn’t enforced it to date, but companies are becoming increasingly agitated that the city may change that policy at any time.

San Francisco Wants to Tax Your Stock Options