Declining Teen Discretionary Spending

Economic sluggishness now is hitting teenager discretionary spending. Total teen spending on fashion declined nearly 20 percent on a year-to-year basis, indicating a "discretionary recession," says Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Jeff Klinefelter.

The survey results, from mall research and classroom visits across the United States, as well as 4,500 online survey responses, shows that total spending trends were weakest for young men with a 15 percent year-over-year decline versus an 11 percent year-over-year decline for young women.

While the fashion category represents 41 percent of the total teen budget in the survey, the retail research team notes this allocation is low compared with the past several years.

Klinefelter says "the current economic challenges are impacting consumers at all income levels and ages, indicated by the low level of average planned spending in the fashion category this spring."

$99.99 Plans Not Cannibalizing Revenue

Based on the most recent first quarter results from Verizon and AT&T, one would have to conclude that the $99.99 monthly unlimited calling plans introduced in February have not cannibalized revenue.

Verizon reports that 13 percent of its new customers opted for the plan while AT&T had four percent of customers choosing the plan.

Since the number of total users paying $100 or more has been in low single digits, at least as reported by Verizon, it seems clear enough that most customers are trading up the $99.99 plans rather than downgrading from more-expensive plans.

Analysts feared a new price war, but carrier executives seemed to have done their homework on this, and predicted the reaction. Heck, they've probably exceeded their expectations. The bottom line was protecting their base of heavy users.

It now appears the $99.99 plans are adding to the base of higher-average-revenue-per-user customers.

One has to careful making cross-country comparisons, but it appears that Japan's NTT user base is talking less than they used to in 2000, though mobile talking appears still to be growing.

One possible outcome of the $99.99 plans is that more people are going to be tempted to "cut the cord" and abandon their landlines, as one of the obvious problems with wireless substitution is that the added call volume can require a shift to a calling plan containing more minutes.

The $99.99 plans take care of that problem.

Widgets Emerge as Ad Venue

So far, social network ad spending is about as concentrated as search advertising is. MySpace alone gets 53 percent. Add in Facebook and two companies control 72 percent of all social network advertising.

It is interesting that widgets have emerged as the only identifiable category among the "other" sites that get some advertising support.

Social Networking Doesn't Drive That Much Advertising

Social networks aren't yet driving a huge amount of online advertising, and might not, say analysts at eMarketer.

An Advantage for Cloud Computing

Come to think of it, computing in the cloud, as a service, might have some important implications for software distribution and use. Piracy, for example, might be far less a problem.

Although piracy of software on personal computers declined in many countries in 2007, fast growing PC markets in some of the world’s highest piracy nations caused overall numbers to worsen—a trend that is expected to continue. Moreover, dollar losses from piracy rose by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion, according to the Business Software Alliance.

Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38 percent in 2007.

“By the end of 2007, there were more than 1 billion PCs installed around the world, and close to half had pirated, unlicensed software on them,” says John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.

Among the nations studied, Russia led the way with a one-year drop of seven points to 73 percent, and a five-year drop of 14 points. Russia’s piracy rate is still high, but it is decreasing at a fast pace as a result of legalization programs, government engagement and enforcement, user education, and an improved economy.

The three lowest-piracy countries were the United States (20 percent), Luxembourg (21 percent), and New Zealand (22 percent). The three highest-piracy countries were Armenia (93 percent), Bangladesh (92 percent), and Azerbaijan (92 percent).

For some observers, that might suggest a generally non-touted advantage for Web-based and cloud computing. Users cannot steal software that isn't there.

EarthLink Shuts Philadelphia Metro Wi-Fi Net

EarthLink is terminating its Philadelphia Wi-Fi service, after failing to reach agreement with the City of Philadelphia and a non-profit organization to transfer to either the City or to the non-profit the entire $17 million Wi-Fi network, for free, as well as pay cash and donate new Wi-Fi equipment.

EarthLink will continue to provide Wi-Fi service to its customers in Philadelphia during a transition period that will end on June 12, 2008. EarthLink will begin decommissioning the network shortly after the transition period.

That's the story these days: Municipal Wi-Fi is so unattractive a business proposition that assets cannot even be given away.

New Android Apps

Silicon Alley blogger Vasanth Sridharan picks five Google Android applications deemed especially cool or useful.

Android Scan scans barcodes on any book or CD when a user is in a store and will pulls up Amazon reviews. The application also will check local library listings to see if the book is available to check out.

CookingCapsules allows users to look up recipes, find a store nearby to get groceries, and provides step-by-step cooking directions.

Eco2Go calculates the carbon footprint a user leaves every time he or she takes a trip, and buys carbon credits to offset the impact.

Locale is a user preferences tool that automatically adjusts ringing or call forwarding rules when a user is in certain locations. At the office, the phone automatically goes on silent. At home, it automatically re-routes calls to a land line.

TuneWiki is a karaoke application and music player for the Android phone.