20% of Viewers Might Have Trouble Watching 3D TV

As much as 20 percent of the viewing public might face difficulties watching three-dimensional television.

There's about eight percent to 10 percent of the population that can't see the 3D effect due to a lazy eye muscle; if the person is color blind, says Bob Seidel, CBS Advanced Technology and Engineering VP.

'There is another percentage that can develop motion sickness or other motion-related issues, and then there are some that develop headaches. What percentage still requires further research, but it could be as high as 20 percent," says Seidel.

Unfortunately, I am among the percentage that will never buy a 3D set for precisely that reason.: it causes motion sickness when I watch.

Study: 20% of Viewers Might Have Trouble Watching 3D on Television - The Hollywood Reporter

The Other Location Shoe Drops: Facebook Deals. Will It Discount Rivals?

Facebook is launching "Deals," a combination location-plus-promotion" feature that offers value to end users who use their mobile devices to "check in" at participating retailer locations, and can get discounts or other offers when doing so.

But here's the interesting angle: so far, Facebook is not charging retailers for the privilege of creating offers and sponsoring them on U.S. Facebook pages.

To start, Facebook has announced deals with 22 partners, while 20,000 small and medium sized businesses on Facebook also have access to the "Deal" creation tool.

Gap is giving away 10,000 free pairs of blue jeans. And when they run out of those, they’re giving 40 percent off of any product when someone checks-in to any of their nationwide stores.

A smaller cinema chain, Alamo Draft House, is giving away a free pint glass when you check-in. And they’ll have offers for special events for friends.

Deal is not a full-on "Groupon" app, but it could lead in that direction. And though there is no certainty about whether "Deal" becomes a for-fee service, Facebook could be disruptive if it decides not to charge partners, as a way of getting more traction. As always, it is difficult to compete with a firm that gives away the product you are trying to sell.

The Other Location Shoe Drops: Facebook Deals

Levin Defends Fact-Based Approach to National Broadband

A lot of effort went into assessing facts when the "National Broadband Plan" was developed. And some of those facts are inconvenient, in some quarters.

"What we discovered when we went out there is that 90 percent of people had broadband available to them, but a much smaller percentage actually were subscribing to service," says Blair Levin, former executive director of the National Broadband Plan, and now a fellow at the Aspen Institute.

"Affordability was a factor for some people, but the larger issue has to do with relevance," says Levin.

That's a big deal. If one assumes the "problem" is "product availability," one set of actions is warranted. If one assumes "product demand" is the issue, then different solutions are necessary.

The plan actually found that "ability to buy" was not the big issue. Rather, demand was the issue. "Even though there are a lot of low-income people who may not be able to afford multichannel video (cable TV), there is still a high proportion of people subscribing to the service," Levin says. But the cost of service is not the biggest issue.

"The big difference between TV and broadband is that to watch TV, you don't have to be literate," Levin says. "The same is true of phone service. You don't need to be literate to use a cell phone, so penetration of those services is higher."

The implication is that once citizens and consumers see the value and relevance, they buy. But that's a different problem than "I want to buy, but cannot because there are no facilities."

There are some areas, mostly rural, where sheer access is an issue. But that problem is a "targeted" problem that can be overcome by a relatively targeted approach to new facilities.

"We can solve about 90 percent of the broadband access problem for a relatively small amount of money, like around $10 billion," Levin says. "Of course, if you tried to solve 100 percent of the problem, it would be more difficult and more expensive."

In a capital-intensive undertaking, getting the last couple of percentage points of improvement is hugely expensive, unless one is flexible about the methods used to solve the problem, in other words. In some cases, building landline facilities is not economically rational, since there already exist other ways to deliver service to the last couple of percent of potential users using satellite services, while terrestrial wireless might make sense for five percent of locations.

Neither private industry nor governments anymore have the luxury of solving access problems with one single approach, no matter what the cost.

The man behind the National Broadband Plan

Netbook Demand Seems Weaker: Issue is Why

A ChangeWave survey of 3,108 consumers during October suggests essentially-flat demand for desktop PCs, unchanged levels of demand for laptops and lower demand for netbooks. Most observers will be quick to point to stronger demand for tablet devices as the reason for the lower interest in netbooks.

The percentage of respondents saying they plan on buying a desktop over the next 90 days (six percent of respondents) has ticked up one point since ChangeWave's survey in August, while planned purchases of laptops (eight percent ) remain unchanged.

Consumer interest in netbooks (14 percent of respondents) is down about 10 percentage points since the June 2009 survey.

Changewave survey - tablet pc and apple ipad

North American Operator Non-Voice Revenues to Approach $100 billion by 2015

Service provider revenues from non-voice services will almost double to $96.7 billion by 2015, up from $56.0 billion in 2010, driven by consumer adoption of data-hungry devices, such as, smartphones and tablets, Juniper Research estimates.

Despite the growth, total operator revenues will slow year-over-year, as a result of the decline in voice revenues. Meanwhile, according to report author Daniel Ashdown, "voice revenues are deteriorating as the subscriber market saturates and competition places pressure on voice bundle pricing."

North American Operator Non-Voice Revenues to Approach $100 billion by 2015, says Juniper Research

100 Ways to Get Rid of a Telemarketer

Most people can discourage unwanted telemarketing calls by signing up on the "Do Not Call" list at https://www.donotcall.gov/.

Of course, if you have an existing business relationship with a firm, or have had one in the last six months, the calls are legal. So here's a list of 100 ways, most of them funny, to "get rid" of a telemarketer.

Landline Phone Service: 100 Ways to Get Rid of a Telemarketer

T-Mobile USA Defends Network

Neville Ray, the Chief Technology Officer of T-Mobile USA, says the company is in "no rush" to activate a fourth-generation network right away.

Observers will point out that T-Mobile USA is making the best of a bad situation: it has no 4G spectrum, and continues to work on how to get it. So making a virtue out of necessity is not a bad way to go. Beyond the positioning, there are some practical issues.

T-Mobile USA points out that handset selection initially will be limited, and that it is possible battery life and other issues could complicate end user experience.

Also, to the extent that the immediate advantage for a user is "more speed," so long as T-Mobile USA can keep up in the bandwidth area--actual experience, not marketing headlines--the advantages of broader handset availability and possibly price should prove advantageous.

And, as a practical matter, T-Mobile USA's HSPA+ network should perform credibly compared to the WiMAX and Long Term Evolution networks operated by Sprint, Clearwire, Verizon and AT&T. That should immediately raise questions for mobile marketers. So far, 4G promises "faster speeds." Most would agree that is the case.

The broader issue is whether end users value the "faster access" offers a big enough marketing platform to drive use of devices and applications using the "4G" networks, or whether other factors, including handset desirability, pricing and packaging, unique applications or other elements of service are equally, or more, important.

So far, a reasonable observer might say that 4G, in a network sense, has not changed end user experience all that much. There has been more differentiation in service plans, terms and conditions. Of late, device differentiation has been a bigger factor. But all that is fairly subtle stuff.

Most people would find it hard to give a concise, compelling reason for why a 4G experience is better than a 3G experience, with the exception of "speed." If a 3G network can match 4G speed, lots of people might turn their attention to handsets and packaging as the key drivers of choice.

T-Mobile USA criticizes rivals' high-speed plans | Reuters