51% Mobile Video Growth Since 2009

Nielsen's latest "Three Screen Report" shows 51 percent growth of video watching on mobile phones, with a perhaps-surprising skew of demographics.

About 55 percent of the mobile video audience is aged 25 to 49. Also, the number of people with multi-tasking behavior, where users "watch" TV while using their PCs, was down in March 2010, though the length of time spent was up about 10 percent for people who did multi-task.

More than half of U.S. TV households now have a high-definition television and receive high-definition signals, while HDTV penetration grew 189 percent between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010.

More than a third of homes have a digital video recorder, up 51percent over the last two years.

About 64 percent of U.S. homes now use broadband Internet access while nearly a quarter of households (up 38%
year-over-year) have smartphones. The former trend means more uses can stream or download Internet video, while the latter trend means more place-shifting behavior, as well as some amount of incremental video consumption.

The amount of time spent watching television is still increasing. U.S. viewers watched two more hours of
TV per month in the first quarter of 2010 than in the first quarter of  2009.

The average time spent simultaneously using TV and Internet in the home also grew 9.8 percent, to 3 hours and 41 minutes per month, though the number of people doing so declined.

The number of people who are timeshifting has grown 18 percent since last year to 94 million, with the
average user now timeshifting 9 hours and 36 minutes per month.

The mobile video audience grew 51.2 percnet  year over year, surpassing 20 million users for the first time.

Beyond the TV, technology is helping drive video use on the “second” and “third” screens. The proliferation of broadband access is bolstering online video, creating an alternative mass outlet for distributing television content and “timeshifting” long-form TV.

Similarly, the increased popularity of smartphones has created yet another opportunity for incremental viewing, and Nielsen logically expects smartphone video viewing to keep growing. On top of that are new devices such as tablet PCs that also are expected to increase the amount of mobile video viewing.

Walled Gardens on the Web?

Though it might have seemed a ridiculous notion just a few years ago, the web now is fragmenting into various walled and curated gardens as devices, service provider business deals and even operating system environments begin to favor and curate web services.

Of course, for some users curated environments might be a good idea. Children's use of the Internet, for example, seems an area where parents might welcome more control and curation.

"Now fraught with pornography, scams, spam, fraud, malware, adware, and viruses, the Web has become a dangerous place to raise children or conduct any other form of educational endeavor," says Chris Poley, a financial markets participant and trader.

It is not entirely clear whether most users will prefer curated experiences, and if so, when and where. What seems incontestable is that there are use cases (iPads and smartphones, for example) where curation increasingly is the case and might even be welcomed.

It is a stunning reversal of the trend to openness, though.

Internet Evolution - Chris Poley - An Argument for Walled Gardens on the Web:

O2 Scraps Unlimited Mobile Plans

U.K.-based O2 is ending its unlimited data access plans and is switching to buckets of usage.

Beginning June 24 a variety of plans ranging from 500 MBytes to 1 GByte.

O2 to step back from unlimited mobile data deals • reghardware

E-Reader Maker IRex Files For Bankruptcy

E-Reader maker IRex Technologies has filed for bankruptcy, citing disappointing sales of its consumer device in the United States.

The firm's DR800SG e-reader was notable because it used an “open” model that gave publishers lots of control over how their content was distributed. Unlike the Kindle, for instance, publishers could set their own pricing. But most observers expected there would be a shake out in the market, and that now has happened.

E-Reader Maker IRex Files For Bankruptcy | paidContent

Apple Faces Another Antitrust Probe

U.S. antitrust regulators--it is not clear whether it is the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice, are reported by the Financial Times to be weighing another investigation of Apple for restraint of trade, this time because of its plans to block rivals from access to its mobile app advertising network.

The ironic point is that regulators continue to bustle about, trying to regulate an access industry fighting simply to replace revenues it is losing, while the arguably-more-important gatekeeper decisions are being made by device and application providers, whose businesses everyone conversely expect will power the businesses of tomorrow.

The latest concern comes less than a month after concluded an  investigation of Google's purchase of AdMob. So powerful is Apple seen to be that the mere presence of Apple in the market with its own iAd network and a suite of "must have" devices was seen by regulators to be enough of a counterweight to Google that there was no risk of anti-competitive behavior.

According to the Financial Times, it is not yet clear whether it will be left to the Federal Trade Commission, which carried out the recent Google investigation, or the Department of Justice to take an investigation forward.

Apple’s latest rules about analytics for bar access to such information by competing ad platforms, third-party analytics firms or companies that compete with Apple in hardware.

Google is saying, and most observers agree, that the rules effectively bar Apple apps from using Google's ad network.

So consider the possible other implications. Perhaps in retaliation for its exclusion from the Apple application ecosystem, Google makes YouTube inaccessible from iPhones, iPads or iPod Touch devices. Or search, or other apps. You get the point: serious gatekeeping happens all over the Internet and broadband ecosystems these days.

Phone.com Mobile Office for Android Devices

Is There a Need for Economic Regulation of the Internet

Two necessary preconditions must be satisfied to justify market intervention in the form of economic regulation on the part of the government, says Dennis Weisman, Professor of Economics at Kansas State University and an editor of the Review of Network Economics and a member of the Free State Foundation's Board of Academic Advisors.

The first one inquires as to whether there is a problem and the second one inquires as to whether there is a solution? Only if both questions can be answered in the affirmative can such intervention be justified.

He says the case for economic regulation of broadband markets is weak at best. The Federal Communications Commission can point to, at most, two cases where things went awry — Madison River and Comcast.

Madison River was resolved with dispatch; and in the case of Comcast, the supposed cover-up was arguably worse than the alleged crime, Weisman says. "There is no offense in reasonable network management practices designed to prevent congestion and maintain service quality," he adds.

Nor is there evidence that the major incumbent telecommunications carriers or the cable companies were earning supra-normal returns that might be suggestive of market power," which might imply there is a problem waiting to be solved. http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=1525568

The structure of broadband prices is a problem in the economics of two-sided markets, though. The issue is that it is difficult to determine how the price structure should be changed to enhance economic welfare. "In other words, there can be no reasonable assurance that regulatory intervention to alter the price structure would not do more harm than good," says Weisman.