Broadband Stimulus "Ts and Cs" Might be Decisive

There's lots of speculation about whether large telcos will apply for American Recovery and Reinvestment projects to be sponsored by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration portion of the act. Much depends on the definitions and strings.

Though the precise meaning of "underserved," "unserved" and "broadband" are important, other apparently smaller matters, such as wholesale obligations, could be decisive. Carriers large or small are unlikely to apply if it means any new infrastructure, or an entire network, would be subject to mandatory wholesale rules, beyond those already in force.

At the moment, nobody can be sure what those terms and conditions might be.

http://www.dailytech.com/Broadband+Firms+Waiting+to+Apply+for+Stimulus+Funds/article14840.htm

Broadband Stimulus: Internal Contradictions

Not that it really will matter, but among the more-obvious internal tensions built into the "broadband stimulus" provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is the difference between "create jobs" and "create broadband." ARRA is supposed to be about jobs, broadband is secondary.

The other obvious intellectual inconsistency is the preference for non-profit applicants for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration program, with the concomitant preference for projects that can be self-sustaining after program funds are exhausted.

The logical way to create self-sustaining capabilities is to allow for-profit entities to create a business case, and then fill a need by building new broadband infrastructure, or by creating other enabling mechanisms to encourage greater use or greater speeds and capabilities.

But that would be business logic, not political logic. There is a logic to political rationality. It just isn't the same thing as business rationality.

UC: Video as Lead App

Of late, unified communications has been as much about conferencing as anything else, despite all the effort that continues to be made to position unified communications as a "super category" that includes elements of phone systems, messaging, desktop and mobile communications.

UC integrator U4EA Technologies, for example, now has a partnership with Vidtel. By combining U4EA’s Fusion series Multi-service Business Gateways (MSBG) with Vidtel’s new video calling and conferencing services, the two companies hope to ensure video call quality and the fully utilization of WAN bandwidth.

U4EA says it is the only QoS technology specifically designed to support unified communications, including video applications.

Mobile and Proximity Marketing Won't Avoid Typical Mistakes

Every new medium inevitably begins life as a new way of doing something that already exists. Mobile marketing, proximity marketing and other location-based media will not escape this pattern, either. Still, practitioners seem more widely attuned to the idea that conversations are the perhaps-uniquely new aspect of mobile marketing. In fact, facilitating conversations might be the most significant new development for practitioners whose traditional mission has been to position and sell things.

http://ow.ly/2Guv

In Stadium Proximity Communications Now Available

One of the chief advantages mobile devices possess, compared to more location-based devices such as PCs, is locational: mobiles are with users virtually all the time. That means proximity communications and marketing, though developing, hold so much promise. Consider sporting venues, where all sorts of undesirable behavior can, and does, occur.

So In Stadium Solutions provides messaging capabilities in sports and other entertainment venues allowing attendees to send messages directly to stadium medical or security personnel.

http://www.instadiumsolutions.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=53

iPhone, BlackBerry Downloads: Different Pattern?

Games lead iPhone app downloads, comScore reports. Nearly half of the the 25 most popular mobile apps are games. Among non-gaming applications, social networking applications: Facebook and MySpace Mobile also can be found. So far, at least, the iPhone, though used by business end users, does not seem to have broken out of its "consumer" appeal base.

Research in Motion's BlackBerry App World has not been in operation long enough to determine whether BlackBerry users behave differently, but at least initially, one suspects that social networking apps are among the top 10, whether that is Facebook or instant messaging clients. One perhaps notable difference is downloads of the Opera Mini browser, for perhaps-obvious reasons. BlackBerry users tend not to rave about the default BlackBerry browser.

http://ir.comscore.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=375787

New Rules for Marketing

Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them, says Advertising Age. "The consumer is not a moron, she's the person defining your brand."

You can't hide the corporation behind the brand anymore, or even fully separate the two. Radical transparency now means bad corporate behavior will damage subsidiary brands, while good behavior also can help subsidiary brands.

Public relations now is a primary concern for every chief marketing officer and brand manager. If "marketing" and "PR" are not the same department, tear down the wall. Spend time deciding whether PR is underleveraged in your organization, says Advertising Age.

Cause marketing isn't about philanthropy, it's about "enlightened self-interest."

Social media is not a strategy in and of itself. Nothing will substitutute for good products.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135943