Thriving Even When a Market "Vanishes"

Every trusim must be qualified. Consider the gradual folding of the "long distance" calling business into a "triple play" or "mobile calling" bundle. One might correctly note that long distance increasingly is a feature of some other product that a customer buys.

Some of us have said over the years that long distance has ceased to be a stand-alone business, pointing to the physical disappearance of firms such as at&t and MCI, which were built around long distance calling. But that general statement must be qualified.

It might be true at a high level that long distance has changed, and cannot support a firm such as the old AT&T. But that doesn't mean every stand-alone long distance business disappears. Calling card revenue still seems to be growing, for example.

And one has to point to Skype, Gizmo, Jajah, Rebtel and others as examples of companies making a living on long distance calling.

In the same way, some observers have argued that VoIP increasingly is becoming something sold as part of a triple play bundle, or as the technology underpinning for analog voice. The salient example is Vonage's stand-alone VoIP service contrasted with cable operator digital voice.

Again though, one must say the general rule does not rule out the continued ability of some entities to grow their "stand alone" businesses, even in the face of the existence of the larger trend.

At the same time, voice calling and voice features and services are emerging as an attribute of experiences for which there is some alternative revenue or business model.

Stand alone VoIP will be difficult, in many cases. It will not be impossible or unprofitable. The cost structure of such businesses will have to be optimized. But even the pedestrian calling card has continued to offer some firms an opportunity even as ubiquitous mobile phone usage has become a dominant trend.

Newspapers Not Dead Yet

But the trend line is clear enough. Newspaper advertising has been declining for decades.

But changes of this sort, where some older ways of doing things are replaced by newer ways, can take quite some time to play out, and will inevitably create new opportunities.

"Long distance," for example, has been in a long rate-per-minute decline, but usage has continued to climb. That meant the strategic task for every AT&T executive for years was simply to moderate the decline to the extent possible and prepare for some new business model.

The difference between long distance calling and newspaper advertising revenue is that newspaper ad volume is not rising, as long distance calling continues to do.

But the newspaper ad market is sizable enough that it still offers opportunity for players such as Yahoo, which has a deal with seven newspaper chains representing 176 daily papers across the country.

Yahoo is sharing content, advertising and technology, initially by newspapers posting their classified jobs ads on Yahoo’s classified jobs site, HotJobs, while newspapers use HotJobs technology to run their own online career ads.

Over time, the intention is to optimize newspaper content for search and indexing on Yahoo.

DTV Campaign Starts

The digital TV transition campaign has begun. With a Feb. 18, 2009 deadline for complete transition to digital over-the-air broadcasting, Comcast has begun advertising around the subject, with a "we'll take care of" message.

Also,$40 government coupons will be available starting Jan. 2, 2008, to defray the cost of decoders that convert over-the-air digital signals back to analog television for display on analog-only TVs.

The decoder boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 and will be available at most major electronics retail stores. Starting Jan. 2, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will begin accepting requests for two $40 coupons per household to be used toward the purchase of the boxes.

To request a coupon, consumers can apply online at http://www.dtv2009.gov. The government also has set up a 24-hour phone line to take requests, 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009).

Outshouts Launches Voice Mashup Service

Outshouts has launched the beta version of its Web service allowing users to create introductions of their favorite audio tracks with their own voice before sending the files to anyone with an email address or mobile phone.

Outshouts can be sent to one person, or a group; marked public or private; or posted as a widget on blogs or social sites like Facebook or Myspace. Recipients do not need to be registered to receive Outshouts and the service is free.

Outshouts supports targeted, personalized micro-casting by making it easy to mash together your own commentary (recorded by phone or computer) on top of your favorite MP3s, and send or posted.

Tracks uploaded from a computer are accessible for sending directly from a mobile phone using an Ineractive Voice Response system.

Knol Could Push Google into Content Creation

Up to this point Google has built its business on helping people find information. In the future, Google also will help people create information. It inexorably will move, in other words, from being a search utility into an information utility. The reason is pretty simple.

What Google does is amass user interactions and attention by giving people powerful search tools. But its monetization scheme is classic media: ad revenues. In some sense, Google "packages" and "distributes" information and content, as does a cable TV operator, magazine or radio or TV broadcaster.

Google also creates its own content, as when it supports Blogger users, for example, or when it pays people for creating compelling content for YouTube. In that role Google is akin to a movie studio, newspaper or record label, in paying for the creation of content.

As some might note, Google has had a mixed record of success in launching new services. It owns YouTube because its homegrown video site wasn't getting traction. GTalk hasn't moved the needle in the instant messaging space. So there is nothing inevitable about the commercial success of Google's Knol effort.

Knol is a new Web service being developed by Google meant to serve as a storehouse of knowledge on the Internet. It apparently will be based on content contributed by various experts on different topics.

Knol will allow people to create Web pages on virtually any topic, and where Wikipedia attempts to create unified entries representing the best information the entire base of users can create, Knol might aim to aggregate various expert opinions on subjects, even if conflicting, rather than a unified view of any subject.

Think of the approach as a library of great books rather than a dictionary.

Google says the Knol project is meant to focus attention on authors who have sufficient expertise on particular topics. Something more akin to a research tool than Google's engine might be, in that sense.

Also, keep in mind that Knol has been described as a project. As sometimes happens, Google might simply decide to go another direction or cancel the project.

The overall impression, though, is that Google is slowly adding content creation to its content-finding mission. Another change is that Google also is a large ad placement entity. In that sense it redefines media in other ways.

It acts as an advertising agency for placement of ads and publishes content as well. So Google is not simply providing search or ad placement. It is contributing to a reshaping of the traditional way media and other parts of the value chain have operated.

300 Million Text Messages New Year's Eve: Verizon

This New Year’s Eve, Verizon Wireless expects its customers to send and receive more than 300 million messages in the 16 hours between 12 p.m. today and 4 a.m. ET New Year’s Day. This forecast of SMS use by Frost & Sullivan shows how expectations have grown over the past couple of years as Frost & Sullivan analysts raised their forecasts.

Australian ISPs will Have to Filter Web Content

Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says Australisan Internet Service Providers will be required to provide filtering of pornography and violent Web sites as the default option for schools and consumers. Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.