Cable TV Subs Drop in First Quarter 2011, 8% on an Annual Basis

Cable subscribers declined as much as eight percent on an annual basis in the top 15 markets in the first quarter of 2011, balanced by strong growth in telco TV and mixed results in DBS subs, SNL Kagan reports.

Overall, cable subscribers dropped from 24.1 million to 23.2 million in the top 15 markets, year over year, about 900,000 on a national basis.

Cable subscriber losses were the greatest in Dallas and Atlanta, markets where telco video subs increased 7.8 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Year-over-year DBS subs dropped 5.1 percent from the first quarter of 2010 in Atlanta, but grew nearly four percent in Washington, D.C., and Houston.

Telco video subs increased nearly 51 percent in Los Angeles.

SNL: Article

41% of T-Mobile Retail Locations Could Close After Merger

One of the dangers for T-Mobile USA is what happens if the deal is not approved. Not only will T-Mobile USA have lost customers, it might also have lost retail partners and more than a year's worth of marketing effort.

Foursquare Goes National with American Express

Last March, foursquare conducted a test with American Express, allowing users to link their AmEx and foursquare accounts, spend at least $5 at a local merchant in Austin, and get a $5 savings applied directly to your monthly statement.

Now the partnership is going national. Across the whole country, at select merchants, you can now check-in with foursquare, pay with your American Express card, and get big savings on your monthly statement.

There’s no cutting out coupons or showing your phone to the cashier. The savings are automatically credited to your account within a few days. The deal is one way "payments" are being integrated with other activities, ranging from check-ins and offers to advertising and in-store promotion,.

Foursquare Blog | Foursquare Blog

Verizon Open to Featuring Netflix on FiOS TV

Would Verizon feature Netflix on FiOS? Possibly, Verizon says. “The answer is definitely not no,” says Eric Bruno,Verizon FIOS SVP.

“People are going there anyway. If they are going there anyway I would rather have them go to Verizon.” And Bruno says Verizon would be open to doing the same thing with YouTube.

See the video here.

Loopt Aggregates Buyers, Then Finds Sellers

There are several ways to approach the aggregation of "deals" to offer consumers. One can aggregate deals first, then match with consumers who want them. Or you can aggregate demand first, then find retailers to supply the demand. The latter is what Loopt is attempting.

Yes, We are in an Investment Bubble

When the advice smart and experienced people are giving essentially is "raise money now, so you'll be able to make it through the crash and funding draught," we are in an investment bubble.


To anybody who asks my advice I repeat the same line, says investor Mark Suster.  “I don’t know whether this party will last 6 weeks, 6 months or 18 months. But it will end," he says.


And when it does the market will shut off immediately. Those of you who lived through the 2000 bubble will remember that. 


Investors will focus only on protecting existing deals. They will enter the “triage phase” of the market where they figure out which of their existing deals will survive, says Suster. Many good companies will not get funded. New investors hate down rounds. Vultures will start circling looking for deals. "Get funded now, if you can.”


This is a thoughtful post and you really should read all of it:  http://www.businessinsider.com/on-bubbles--and-why-well-be-just-fine-2011-6#ixzz1Q6Hsczhm.

Will Data Caps Change Behavior, Business Arrangements?

Tensions within any ecosystem always exist; they are built into the structure of ecosystems where one role's inputs are another role's outputs, and vice versa. So as data caps start to become the norm for broadband access, there should eventually be some adjustments within the ecosystem. For starters, app developers will have some new incentives to think about how user behavior might change if content such as advertising starts eating into data allotments.

On the other hand, as mobile access providers look for ways to replace revenue they are losing from voice and text messaging plans, for example, there will be new incentives to craft business partnerships. A mobile provider might work with app providers to exempt video advertising or other bandwidth-intensive ads and promotions from the caps, for example. That will involve some form of economic value flowing between the app provider and the access provider, but it is an easy matter to predict it will be looked at, at the very least.

Nickhil Jakatdar, who is co-founder and CEO of mobile startup Vuclip, said he has been debating this issue with other entrepreneurs for a while now. He noted that in emerging markets like India, data plans have always been limited, so in one sense U.S. carriers are just following the lead of other countries.

That could be bad news for any mobile app or service hoping to make money through advertising, and definitely will be an issue for over the top video entertainment providers. "As a consumer, I am not going to be to happy if five percent of my data cap was used by ads," Jakatdar said.

That is doubly true for online or mobile video entertainment offers.

Jakatdar predicted that as tiered data plans expand in the United States, we'll see more mobile companies moving away from a purely ad-supported model, and towards models where they partner with carriers on data or premium services.

Verizon's Wireless Data Caps May Not Mix With Rich Media Advertising on Phones | Adweek