Wallets don't Crash, Phones Do

Single points of failure always are troublesome, and especially troublesome when any application, device, tool or appliance is used in a "shared" mode. So digital wallets, keys and apps will, when widely used, start to cause new problems when the devices fail for any reason. Keyless door locks are great, unless your key fob has become inoperative. Then you revert to a good, old fashioned key.

We'll eventually discover issues of that sort if any when mobile phones start to assume additional roles in our lives, from payment mechanisms to remote controls of various types. Operating systems and applications crash. Just assume that will happen to any functions provided by the mobile as well. And have backup and redundancy: keys, your wallet and old-fashioned credit cards.

Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Wallets don't crash

Back to Thin Clients, Again

"X as a Service" models may reduce the workstation to a dumb terminal more and more, we are hearing, again. Call them "thin clients," or "zero clients" or something else, the emergence of cloud computing and web-delivered software is pushing computing to a new architecture that is not a "back to the future" mainframe model, but some new form of highly-distributed, loosely-coupled model that often involves more "assembly" of applications and experiences than simple "invoke and use" models.

One example is each users' experience of "Facebook." My own assembled experience is different from that of every other user, even though we all use the core Facebook app.

For enterprises and business users, the new paradigm means much more concern about data security, availability and "vendor lock-in, though also providing greater ease of management and lower cost.

For communications service providers it means a potentially enhanced role in the ecosystem. For app providers it means faster development, lower selling and distribution costs. Every new business ecosystem requires genuine value for every participant in the ecosystem, and cloud computing is shaping up to be that sort of thing.

The network becomes the computer; Borg versus Enterprise?

4G Could Enable Different Mobile Packaging and Pricing, Verizon Says

When Clearwire launched its services, it suggested it would be able to offer different types of mobile pricing and packaging, including offers that did not rely on monthly subscriptions. Clearwire has done so, with some a la carte plans. But most observers might agree that Clearwire has not disrupted pricing or packaging quite so much as some might have hoped.

Now Verizon executives say they are taking a look at what they might do once the new Long Term Evolution network launches, and among the possible options being looked at are packages that resemble fixed-line broadband plans in some ways, such as charging different prices for plans that feature different typical speeds, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Another potential option: plans that blend speed and transferred megabytes in some way, possibly lower access speeds and bigger buckets of usage, or faster speed and a smaller bucket, for example.

Some of us would like to see the equivalent of broadband "family plans" where a number of devices could share a single broadband bucket, across devices, either "wireless only" or "wireless and fixed line." In a sense, that is how some people use personal 3G or 4G hotspots, for example. But those only work for one user or several users in close proximity. Families will need to use wireless and fixed-line services over a wider area.

 read more here (subscription required)

So Long as Consumers Are Informed, Bit Prioriization is Not a Problem

Consumers should be free to buy, and content providers and Internet access providers should be free to offer, services with varying levels of assured quality, says Ed Vaizey, U.K. Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.

"The important thing is that ISPs and networks remain free to innovate," Veizy argues. "In doing so they may make mistakes and consumers should have the ability to make them pay for those mistakes."

In other words, the ban on any priorities applied to bits, which network neutrality advocates want, is not a good idea for the United Kingdom and its consumers and providers.

The Open Internet

Video Subs Decline in Third Quarter

Beyond the impact of market share gains and losses among the contestants, it still appears that total subscriptions to multichannel video services fell for the second straight quarter, according to SNL Kagan.

Nobody can say for sure whether the trend is directly related to a sour economy and disruption of housing markets, of the sign of more-consequential change.

SNL Kagan estimates that U.S. cable operators shed about 741,000 basic video customers in the third quarter, the largest single quarterly dip for cable since 1980. Kagan estimated that cable operator market share dropped to 60.3 percent, compared to 62.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

Telephone companies added 476,000 customers in the third quarter. 6.4%, Telco market share is steadily rising, up from 4.7 percent in third-quarter 2009 to 6.4 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

The satellite video companies added a net 145,000 subscribers in the third quarter, growing share to 33.2 percent.

SNL Kagan: Video Subs Decline in Q3 - 2010-11-17 16:42:33 | Multichannel News

FCC Chairman Genachowski Says He Still Will Push for Net Neutrality Rules

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski says he still intends to push for network neutrality rules, despite some reading of a speech he made recently to state regulators. That speech was notable for the complete absence of the phrases "network neutrality" and "Title II reclassification."

"That'll happen," Genachowski said of creating net-neutrality rules.

FCC Chairman Genachowski knocks Google, Verizon for slowing net-neutrality efforts - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

Lync Gets Microsoft into Enterprise UC

Microsoft's "Lync" makes Microsoft" a real competitor in the enterprise voice space," says Forrester Research analyst Henry Dewing.

Microsoft Lync early adaptors include Dow Corning, CDW, Nikon and A.T. Kearney, among others.

http://lync.microsoft.com/en-us/launch/Pages/customer-testimonials.aspx

Lync Launches A New Era For Microsoft | Forrester Blogs

Social Network Access a Problem for Smaller Firms

Half of 1,000 businesses surveyed by Webroot in the United States and the United Kingdom report blocking employee access to any social networks. The firms, with 499 employees or fewer, indicate they do so because of the danger of spyware.

But there are other reasons as well. About 42 percent of responding firms say they have implemented an Internet use policy as a result of an employee's inappropriate use of social networking site.

Fully 39 percent of respondents say their firms have an Internet use policy that prohibits employees from visiting Facebook, 30 percent block access to Twitter and 27 percent from video-sharing sites like YouTube.

Some 21 percent allow such access, but only during specific times such as lunch breaks or after work hours.
About 16 percent grant certain departments (marketing, for example) permission to visit specific social networking sites.

More than half of those polled (53 percent) say they are very or extremely concerned about malware infections via social networks.

Two out of five (42 percent) are very or extremely concerned about data leakage through social networking sites.

About 30 percent of respondents say Web-based threats caused the biggest security headache for them in 2010, while12 percent say sensitive company information has been released via their employee's use of social networking sites.

Fully 50 percent of respondents say their firms were victims of a virus or worm; while four in 10 say they experienced a phishing attack this year.

read more here

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)