Was Skype Outage an Attack?

The ultimate cause of the Skype global outage is still unclear (or at least Skype isn’t ready to talk about it yet), but it does not appear Skype completely rules out the possibility of an attack designed to take the network down.

Skype CEO Will Offer Users Credits For Outage; Does Not Rule Out Malicious Attack

Use Android to Program Google TV

FCC chair to approve Comcast-NBC merger with conditions

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission issued a draft order approving Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal on Thursday, putting the deal up for vote.

Approval would come with several conditions related to Internet video distribution of NBC and Comcast content and the sharing of shows to competing cable and satellite firms. The merger would also have to ensure that competing networks get on Comcast's platform.

The Justice Department is conducting a separate review to see if the deal passes antitrust laws.

Post Tech - FCC chair to approve Comcast-NBC merger with conditions

Google Doesn't "Get" Hollywood

If Google managers hope to license premium TV shows and films for Google TV and YouTube, they should do what Netflix did and build relationships through traditional means. That's the recommendation of one studio executive.

After two years wooing the film and TV sectors, Google is still not very tuned in to the industry, said two film sector insiders who spoke to CNET.

These same executives cautioned against naming Netflix the winner of Internet distribution, adding that there's a long way to go in this contest. But both sources acknowledged that Netflix has had more success acquiring content thanks to the company's big head start in the sector as well as adopting a smarter approach to Hollywood.

Why Netflix has content and Google TV doesn't | Media Maverick - CNET News

Broadband Networks: Slim Returns

Wireline networks have the weakest returns on invested capital with a 1.5 percent gain over the last decade, argues Sanford Bernstein financial analyst Craig Moffett.

Wireless networks had a meager return of 0.3 percent. Cable garnered a 2.5 percent return. Satellite networks had the best return on invested capital at 5.5 percent.

At least in part, that's one reason DirecTV shares have trounced other companies in 8-year returns, he argues. Other stocks—AT&T, Comcast, Dish, Sprint and Verizon—have negative returns, says Moffett.

But here’s where the returns get tricky. Once you add up the costs of various telecom deals, the returns look much worse.

Broadband networks: Returns on invested capital stink | ZDNet

Monetizing Mobile Networks

One way of looking at ways mobile operators can create revenue in new ways.

Hard to Top Apple, Really

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, has been named the Financial Times "Man of the Year."

“Steve’s the last of the great builders,” says Roger McNamee, the prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist. “What makes him different is that he’s creating jobs and economic activity out of thin air while just about every other CEO in America is working out ways to cut costs and lay people off."

Put simply, Apple under Jobs has created markets, not "taken market share." That's a big deal.

One can only hope McNamee is wrong about that last assessment.

read more here

Skype Outage Continues

Skype's service outage continues into its second day. Skype says that traffic is running around 30 percent of what typically is expected.

Skype - The Big Blog - Status update on downtime

Android Market Gets AT&T Carrier Billing

Android users who are customers of AT&T now can use AT&T "Direct Carrier Billing" for purchases from the Android Market.

The move shows the role a mobile service provider can play in mobile payments for digital goods, even though carrier billing has been available for decades.

Some firms using carrier billing from a number of carriers say the payment method can be expensive without volume, but Android Marketplace should not have a "volume of transactions" problem.

Android Developers Blog: More Payment Options in Android Market

Google Makes Comparison Shopping Easier

Google has introduced a new feature for product searching in the United Kingdom, called "Nearby Shops."

Nearby Shops shows stores in a user's vicinity that sell what a user is searching for. As you can well imagine, this is going to help steer users to "stuff" they want, but also could lead to an increase comparison shopping behavior, since it will be easy to find other locations that might have the same items, in case a user decides a price or other item elements are not right.

Google Launches Nearby Shops In UK | jatiN mahindrA doT coM

"Getting" Social Media Takes Work and Time

We might generally agree at this point that social media tends to work better for consumer brands than for business-to-business brands, though at some point that is likely to change.

What is harder to contest is the issue of what it takes, not to understand, but to use, social media such as Facebook. A new study by A.T. Kearney illustrates some of the issues. The study found that 89 percent of consumer replies on company’s Facebook pages remained unanswered. To be sure, not every post requires a reply. But A.T. Kearney points out that Gucci didn’t reply to a single thread in the last three months.

That appears to be a common problem that mostly is "budget" related. Though it doesn't necessarily "cost" much to use Facebook, replies imply monitoring, and that takes people and time. And if the volume of replies and comments is large, then the labor to monitor and reply is going to be significant. Few large firms seem prepared to create entirely new staffs to handle this function, and perhaps few small firms can do so.

Even when marketers responded, only 15 percent of their posts “invited further conversation” and 17 percent actually “addressed the consumer by name. That is arguably tougher in a business-to-business setting, because many, if not most posts in such settings are "anonymous," suggesting that a poster needs or wants to keep an identity hidden. That's not so useful.

Firms that were a bit more friendly and responsive on Facebook averaged a consumer-to-company post/response ratio of 3:1. Most, however, had a 1:4 ratio. If you think about it, that's probably reasonable, since not every post does require a substantive reply.

Read the full study here: http://www.atkearney.com/index.php/Publications/socially-awkward-media-volume-xiii-number-2-2010.html

Read an analysis here: Why Some Of The World’s Biggest Brands Still Don’t Get Facebook - Elaine Wong - Media Geek - Forbes

Users Appear to Prefer "Do Not Track" Rules

Most people do not seem to like the idea of advertiser tracking of their online behavior, and with the Federal Trade Commission looking at tracking, it seems likely some new "do not track" program is coming.

The ironic facet of the issue is that refined tracking, conducted with permission, would mean a much-higher chance that most of the ads a user sees over the course of a day might actually be relevant, interesting and valuable.

Some forms of tracking, such as "remember me" functions, also are highly useful, and represent one way of maintaining "permission" status for any tracking programs.

Newspapers Stream More Video than Broadcasters

With the caveat that usage and bandwidth are not direct proxies for "revenue," Brightcove and TubeMogel report that newspapers surpassed broadcasters in total minutes streamed for the first time in the third quarter of 2010.

Brightcove suggests that newspapers are rapidly adopting and producing video content for what was once a print business. Of course, broadcasters probably figure they are "streaming" (broadcasting) all day, so online might not be so important to them.

Online media properties (which includes pure-play Web properties and blogs) also had a strong growth quarter in player loads (127 percent growth) and titles uploaded (23 percent growth), suggesting that video adoption and production activity is on the rise across the growing media category, Brightcover says.

Perhaps significantly, game consoles such as the Wii and PlayStation lead in viewing time with an average
of 2:45 minutes watched per view, compared with online video averaging out to just under 2:27 minutes per view.

read more here

Are People Watching TV?

Because consumers are using their PC for activities that require more attention than watching TV, which is mostly a passive activity, some might say TV viewing statistics are questionable.

Almost a third of consumers are playing games on their computers while watching television, and one-quarter are doing schoolwork, for example.

The Data Digest: What Are People Using Their PC For While Watching TV? | Forrester Blogs

SMBs Still Prefer Premises-Based IP Telephony

The growth potential of the hosted market over the next five to six years is still low when compared to premises-based IP telephony solutions, Frost & Sullivan says. Most smaller businesses still appear to want local control and prefer the one-time cost of a premises-based system, since the monthly charges associated with hosted services.

This is particularly true in the 50-to-100 extensions segment. While hosted telephony services have improved considerably in terms of voice quality and uptime, an on-site system is often less costly to maintain over a longer period of time and can exceed hosted services' uptime rates.

No Jitter | blog | Threats to the SMB Premises-Based IP Telephony Market

Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad Lead Reader Race

The e-Reader market has essentially become a two horse race between the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad, according to ChangeWave’s latest survey of more than 2,800 consumers.

The Amazon Kindle (47%; down 15-pts) is hanging on to a rapidly diminishing lead over the Apple iPad (32%; up 16-pts) among current e-Reader owners. However, the iPad’s share of the overall market has doubled since the last time ChangeWave surveyed e-Reader owners in August.

ChangeWave Survey - Amazon Kindle vs. Apple iPad

Travel Purchases Lead Mobile Commerce

U.S. mobile online shopping, excluding travel, grew from $396.3 million in 2008 to $1.4 billion in 2009. ABI Research believes that in 2010, mobile online shopping excluding travel in the US had more than doubled again, to total more than $3.4 billion by year’s end. Travel-related purchases (airline tickets, hotels, etc.) will add another $1.5 billion.

In 2010, U.S. mobile commerce sales were lead by travel, at 31 percent of value, followed by electronics at 20 percent. That would not be surprising given the relative higher cost of travel expenses compared to most other categories. Among other product types, the volume of expenditure in 2010 is estimated at :

Apparel: 13%
Books/Music/DVDs: 9%
Office Supplies: 7%
Housewares/Home Furnishings: 6%
Entertainment Tickets: 3%
All Other: 12%

Mobile Commerce Sales Explode in United States: Will Top $3.4 Billion in 2010

When Will Mobile Providers Move Big into Location-Based Advertising?

Location-based mobile apps are shaping up to be a major channel for local advertising, for some obvious reasons. Mobile devices are sensors that can alert advertisers to a potential customer's proximity.

That means proximity (maybe a better way of describing the value than "location") creates a new channel for local advertising revenues around which a proximity marketing business can be built.

Local advertising is a $133 billion revenue stream in the United States. You would expect Yellow Page companies, Facebook and Google to pitch mobile "proximity advertising" services.

But, at some point, mobile service providers are going to make a play as well. By definition, mobile providers know where their users are. All 293 million of them, or about 93 percent of the U.S. population. Though there are significant challenges to scale at the level of designing rich media campaigns using specific smartphone features, virtually all 293 million mobiles can receive text messages.

So it would make sense for carriers to create and sell proximity advertising with reach of 293 million potential customers. That sort of thing requires new levels of cooperation between the major carriers, though. Some believe they won't be able to work together. But the carrot of a universal ad platform built on proximity, available to 93 percent of all U.S. residents, has to be appealing. Isis, the mobile payments venture launched by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, is one example.

5 Location And Mobile Tech Predictions For 2011

ROI: Why iPads Make Lousy Christmas Gifts - WSJ.com

In an entertaining commentary providing 10 serious and some not-so-serious reasons to avoid buying an iPad right now, or possibly an iPad at all, Brent Arends makes an interesting point about Apple, as a company.

"This isn't a technology company. It's a luxury brand, like Hermes or Tiffany."

Which, to the extent the observation is correct, makes Apple one of those rare firms that have achieved marketing differentiation in a big way, not selling the physical attributes of the product, but the subjective value of the product.

Not the steak, the sizzle, in other words. Not product features but the image and brand. That makes for nice profit margins.

In a broader sense, he notes that the scarcest resource for most adults is time. At some level, every application or "experience" provider is competing with limited time, not another app providing similar value. At some point, even with multitasking, a busy adult can only do so much.

At some level, the big constraint for Internet-mediated experiences and past-times of all sorts is the shortage of disposable time. Beyond a certain point, disposable income is not a barrier, time is.

Among the reasons for delaying an iPad purchase are the practical reasons. It will be better and cheaper by about April 2011. Alternatives are coming, and prices will drop. If you can live with access to Flash-authored video, use an iPad. If not, you might want to wait for a device that supports both HTML5 and Flash.

He also argues that a 3G-equipped version actually enables many of the best features, and that gets expensive, not to mention allowing people to waste even more time playing games or hanging out on social networks.

ROI: Why iPads Make Lousy Christmas Gifts - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Teen E-Mail Use Drops

In the last year, time spent using e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail has fallen 48 percent among 12- to 17-year-olds, according to comScore, at least time spent with e-mail on computers. That might not come as a surprise. Virtually all studies have shown similar results.

ComScore also found a decline of 10 percent in time spent on Web-based email among 18- to 24-year-olds, about the same as it found for people up to the age of 54.

E-Mail's Big Demographic Split - NYTimes