Deutsche Telekom, Vivendi Argue for New Business Models

European telecom companies should be free to develop new business models, including charging online content providers for delivering their material to consumers, a new report by the chief executives of Deutshe Telekom, Vivendi and Alcatel-Lucent will suggest, the Financial Times reports.

The position paper comes as the European Commission is looking into broadband investment policies in the EC, with some suggesting investment will lag because of inadequate profit potential from “commodity” Internet access.

The ability to create and sell various flavors of broadband access, not simply plans differentiated by price and usage allowance, is seen by many as a necessary precondition for continued investment in higher-capacity access services.

It also is viewed as a requirement for “quality of service” as more users in the future pay for Web-delivered entertainment video, for example.

The outcome of the EC rule-making could have implications for policy in other regions as well. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has been intent on imposing “network neutrality” rules that prohibit Internet access providers from prioritizing some traffic over others, allowing “best effort only” access by fixed-line providers, with so far indeterminate rules for mobile providers.

A decision by the EC to allow priority features or services would prove a challenge to U.S. rule-makers, as the arguments about investment and revenue to support investment are the same in the EC and the United States.

Rent Movies, Buy Books on Android Market

Google has released a new version of Android Market (Android 2.2 and higher) supporting movie rentals and book purchases. In the U.S. market, consumers will be able to rent thousands of movies, starting at $1.99, right from Android Market on their phones, using the "Video" app.

Users sign into Android Market with their Google account, and can rent movies from anywhere--the web, Android phone or tablet--and start watching instantly. Users also can download movies for offline viewing.

U.S. users also can now purchase books from Android Market on their phones. Like movie rentals, books are linked to your Google account, so they’re instantly available across all of your devices – computer, phone, or tablet – without the need for wires or downloads.

A new Android Market for phones, with books and movies - Official Google Mobile Blog:

More than Half of Users 18 to 29 Own Smart Phones

Smart phone penetration has reached more than half (52 percent) of 18-to-29-year-old U.S. adults, according to a July 2011 study from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project.

The study also reveals that 45 percent of 30-to-49-year-olds own smart phones, and this figure then drops by almost half to 24 percent among 50-to-64-year-olds.

More than Half of 18-29-Yr-Olds Own Smartphones

Google Estimated To Surge Past 10 Million Users

It’s only been two weeks since the launch of Google+ , but already there are “millions” of users, according to chairman Eric Schmidt. Beyond that ballpark figure, Google has not disclosed any user or usage numbers.

But Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen has been publishing his own estimates of the growth of Google+. His latest estimate is that Google will surpass 10 million users on July 12, 2011. That estimate is up from 4.5 million on July 9, 2011 and 1.7 million on July 4, 2011.

Google Estimated To Surge Past 10 Million Users (Chart) | TechCrunch

Collaboration Myths

All those collaboration tools that have been developed over the years may not make your team more effective, Gartner argues. Gartner has said that collaboration initiatives often fail because people hold some basic misconceptions about the collaborative process.

Among the myths are the notion that "the right tools will make us collaborative." It really is not about tools. Tools help people do things they want to do. Some organizations might not really "want" to practice collaboration.

Another myth is that "collaboration is inherently good." That is true sometimes, but not always, Gartner argues. Without quantifiable goals, initiatives easily can fail.

Unmasking the collaboration myth

Disturbing Findings on Start-Up Job Creation

New businesses contribute a disproportionate share of new job creation in the United States. So it is disturbing that new research released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation suggests that the country faces a far more fundamental employment challenge that pre-dates the recession by many years.

Researchers call the problem a slow jobs "leak." Put simply, new businesses are adding workers at a lower rate than historically has been the case.

The report shows that since the middle of the last decade and perhaps longer, new businesses have been generating fewer and fewer new jobs. The cohort of new firms that started in 2009, for example, is on course to contribute one million fewer jobs in the next decade than historical averages would suggest.

Read more here.

"While the recession certainly deepened the jobs deficit, the U.S. economy stopped producing enough new jobs well before the downturn," said Robert Litan, Kauffman Foundation vice president of research and policy and study co-author. "Historically, startups are the key to long-term employment growth, and they have been hiring fewer people for the last several years. We won’t fix our core unemployment problem in the United States until young businesses get back on track."

Citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the study found that the number of new employer businesses has fallen 27 percent since 2006. When including new employer businesses and newly self-employed workers, the level of start-ups has held steady or even edged up since the recession, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

But that encouraging sign is somewhat misleading because firms that support only the self-employed owner do not scale to generate the new jobs needed to support overall economic growth.

Historically, new firms in the United States have generated about three million new jobs every year, but that recent cohorts have performed much worse, creating only 2.3 million jobs in 2009.

At the level of individual businesses, one data series (BLS establishment data) showed that in the 1990s new establishments opened their doors with about 7.5 jobs on average, compared to 4.9 jobs today.

The study also found that as a group, recent cohorts of new businesses have been adding jobs at a slower pace than earlier cohorts even when they do well and grow, but that growth hasn't made up for lower employment levels at inception.

"Not only are these businesses starting out smaller than their predecessors, they are staying smaller," said E.J. Reedy, Kauffman Research Fellow and study co-author. Thus, falling contributions of jobs at new businesses will be felt in the U.S. economy for years."

The researchers said that rather than focusing on discrete events such as the opening of a new manufacturing plant or relocation of a large business to a local community, policymakers must recognize that the long-term jobs outlook will be driven by the collective decisions of young and small businesses whose changing employment patterns are hard to identify or influence.

They also warned against the false hope that growth in the number of self-employed workers can resolve the U.S. employment shortfall.

PayPal Has to be In Retail Payments

PayPal believes that by 2015, digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the United States, from local businesses to large chains. By "digital currency," PayPal means a viable currency alternative to credit cards, debit cards and cash. Already a leader in online payments, PayPal believes the next, and largest opportunity, is retail payments at physical locations.

Supporting Payments In The Physical World Is Critical For PayPal