Make Netflix Pay for Universal Service?

Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America, thinks Netflix should have to pay into the Universal Service Fund. To the extent that the Federal Communications Commission is looking to shift USF funding to support broadband, rather than voice, that notion, though sure to be resisted by application providers, also is likely to receive support from access providers.

It would not be unusual, for example, to hear executives from rural phone service providers say that application providers driving bandwidth consumption by consumers should also share in the support burdens.

The FCC is trying to migrate USF subsidies to fund broadband rather than phone service this year. The question of who must contribute into the fund now comes into view precisely because of the shift to a broader business ecosystem, where most of the new value and revenue accrue to application providers rather than the access providers.

Debates over USF and other support mechanisms always are highly contentious, but in the past have largely pitted various parts of the access provider community against other members of the community. These days, though those sorts of issues remain, at least for voice services, there is new attention being paid toward spreading a support obligation more broadly.

Consumer group wants to tax Netflix to pay for rural broadband - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

80% of Users Not Getting Top Value from Unified Communications

A non-scientific survey of 126 people registered to attend a unified communications conference in the United Kingdom has found that half of respondents have a unified communications solution in place, but 80 percent do not feel they are getting the most from it, Unified Communications Expo 2011 reports.

The results also show that lack of finances is significantly slowing adoption of unified communications in both business and technology sectors.

"The research suggests that UK businesses are still struggling to get to grips with the approach, and that the wealth of communication channels, especially social media related channels, is hindering rather than helping them," says Mike England, Unified Communications Expo director.

UK Businesses are Struggling to Communicate With one Voice - new Research From Unified Communications Expo 2011

Cloud or Unified Communications or Something Else?

Communications industry personnel are not always noted for creating snappy, easily understood product or service names. "Unified communications" might be a case in point. Granted, it is in some ways a tough, perhaps overly-elastic concept to put across. A recent survey of providers shows more than a little variety, made more complicated by the new "cloud" appellation.

Of course, a continuing problem is that there is not universal agreement on the minimum, or core, or common features a "UC" solution represents.

No Jitter | blog | Cloud Communications Provider Survey

New Chrome Extension Can Hide Unwanted Search Results

Google has launched an experimental Chrome extension that allows people to "block" ("hide," at any rate) sites from their web search results. If installed, the extension also sends "blocked site" information to Google, allowing Google to study the resulting feedback and possibly using that information as a potential ranking signal for search results.

You can download the extension and start blocking sites by downloading the extension here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef.

Official Google Blog: New Chrome extension: block sites from Google’s web search results:

YouTube to Launch Video Service in U.K.

Google's YouTube is reportedly getting ready to launch a movie-based video subscription service, bringing YouTube into more direct competition with Netflix and Amazon, and will launch first in the United Kingdom and other European markets.

Google apparently has earmarked $100 million for buying content, as part of the launch. YouTube reportedly also is in negotiations with both the National Basketball Association and National Hockey Leage to start broadcasting live pro-basketball and ice hockey games, according to a Bloomberg report.

YouTube users tend to spend 15 minutes on the site daily, on average. Google has found, to no surprise, that showing live sports can boost viewing to an average of 40 minutes.

Hit Fast-forward: Goole eyes UK launch of YouTube movie service - NYPOST.com

Honeycomb: The Next Generation for Android

Google Tweaks Search Algorithms

Google says it tweaks its search algorithms virtually all the time. Now Google says it has made some changes that will affect search rankings for perhaps 12 percent of queries.

Google says it has revised the algorithms to reduce rankings for low-quality sites that add little value add for users, especially those that copy content from websites or sites that are just not very useful. Google doesn't say so, but we obviously are talking about "content farms" that are created for the nearly-exclusive purpose of generating traffic to support ad impressions, producing "webspam." See http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html.

Webspam is the "junk" users might see in search results when websites successfully cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines.

At the same time, the new algorithms will provide better rankings for high-quality sites, those with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on, Google says on its blog.

The new changes presently affect only U.S. searches.

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search