Analysis: Impressive Ribbit Mobile Launch - BT Steps Beyond The Network

By Tom Foremski - November 3, 2009

Ribbit, the SIlicon Valley based subsidiary of BT, the UK telecom giant, this morning launched its Ribbit Mobile service which offers a suite of products ranging from control over phone lines to transcription of voice mail--all managed from a web browser.

Users can make free phone calls over the Ribbit network; they can switch calls to other numbers in mid-call; they can create a "clone" of their phone through a web browser; they can have voicemail messages transcribed, and many other services.

The cost for the premium service is $30 per month. Although Ribbit calls this a "consumer" service it is really designed for the mobile business person, a "road warrior." There is a free, and a $10 a month version with certain limitations.

Ribbit is a platform...

Last week I met with Ribbit CEO Ted Griggs, Don Thorson CMO, and Crick Waters EVP Strategy and Business Development.

It might seem that Ribbit is a developer of telephony applications such as Ribbit Mobile but that's not the case. Ribbit enables applications like Ribbit Mobile.

It has built a technology platform that merges voice and data telecommunications networks over the Internet using a software switch approach. Developers use its APIs to create a wide diversity of telephony services and to integrate them into other applications.

"Ribbit Mobile is a complex service, but yes, a third-party developer could have created it," said Crick Waters, EVP Strategy and Business Development.

A Silicon Valley phone company...

Ribbit likes to call itself "Silicon Valley's first phone company." I have written about the company several times and recognized its potential to disrupt the larger Telco companies.

When it was acquired by BT last year, I was disappointed. I wrote:

It is disheartening if we, as journalists, pick up interesting companies to write about only to see them being acquired by the very companies they are supposed to be disrupting.

Ted Griggs, CEO, said: "The BT acquisition enables us to scale our technology across a large telecoms network. And BT's international business connections become very beneficial in helping us to enter new markets -- it would have taken us much longer if we were to try and do this ourselves."

The acquisition of Ribbit was masterminded by BT's JP Rangaswami, managing director of innovation and strategy.

I met with Mr Rangaswami in July, during a visit to London, and I was impressed with his understanding of how Ribbit's technology could be used to move BT into new markets. I was also impressed by his strategy of moving BT into many types of innovative services, recognizing the business potential in becoming a platform for thousands of third-party developers rather than trying to own the applications.

Google Voice and other competitors...

While there are competing services to Ribbit Mobile such as Google Voice, there isn't any competition in terms of the combined telecoms platform that Ribbit and BT can provide.

This is something that Google will have to address, not just for Google Voice but also for other services. Google will have to partner or acquire a large telecoms platform otherwise it can be blocked in its future ambitions.

Showing developers the money

The key test for Ribbit will come from its ability to attract developers.

Don Thorson, CMO, has come up with an unique way to reward developers. "We will offer the applications for free and then split the revenues with developers based on how much usage they get per month per user."

This is a much better model than for iPhone or Android developers. Apple likes to point to the more than 85,000 iPhone apps but this is not a sustainable business model if just a tiny fraction of developers are making money. The winning platform will be the one on which developers can make money.

Plus, Ribbit developers get access to BT's billing systems and BT's existing relationship with millions of households and businesses.

Clone your phone...

There is another aspect to Ribbit that is very interesting, it allows you to "clone" your phone. A web based version of your phone is available from any computer device. If you were to lose your phone you would still be able to access it from any web browser.

This potentially provides an end-run around all the phone wars and takes BT beyond the phone and beyond the confines of its own network. Android or iPhone, it doesn't matter in Ribbit's world.

Ribbit becomes the point of the spear for BT's new business ambitions while at the same time allowing third-party developers to share in the action.

It's a potent business strategy and one that I don't see at any other telco. It'll be interesting to see how competitors will react. In the meantime, Ribbit and BT have a head start.

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November 3, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Analysis: The Business Opportunities From The Scam And Spam Epidemic

By Tom Foremski - November 3, 2009

There is an excellent article by Mike Arrington from Techcrunch on the subject of the duplicity of social gaming networks and social networks as fronts for advertisers that trick people into signing up for monthly "services." [Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell]

This is an issue that has been going on for some time. And it's not limited to the social gaming companies or the social networks.

I raised the problem earlier this year when I interviewed Brett Brewer, president of Adknowledge, the largest virtual goods/cash company. [Will Virtual Cash Reinvent Online Ads?]

Mr Brewer said that Adknowledge was aware of the problem and was taking steps to weed out the problem advertisers.

Mike Arrington describes how some of these scams operate:

...users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are asked. The answers are irrelevant. When the user gets to the last question they are told their results will be text messaged to them. They are asked to enter in their mobile phone number, and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they've done that, they've just subscribed to a $9.99/month subscription.

There are plenty more variations.

Here is a description of the money that can be made from a self-confessed Facebook spammer: [How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider's Confession]

When the Facebook platform first launched, developers used Google AdSense, which was paying 10-15 cent eCPMs, meaning that developers were earning 10 to 15 cents for every 1,000 ads they shown. But soon, ad networks, such as the one I operated, stepped in to show that by using social data and some clever ad copy, we could raise this to well over $6--that's 60 times better than AdSense.

It's not just gaming and social networks where you can find these types of scams. They are everywhere on the Internet. They are distributed by large ad networks.

And there are plenty of grey areas. For example, Experian, the credit reporting firm that owns freecreditreport.com. The New York Times reports:

[The Federal Trade Commission] has long believed that the company that owns freecreditreport.com is deliberately diverting people from a government-mandated site where consumers can get free credit reports by law, and using the reports as a lure for a $14.95 monthly service that alerts subscribers to important changes in their credit status.

Foremski's Take: This deluge of scam and spam is a serious issue because it threatens the future of Internet commerce. The more people ensnared by these types of scams, the less likely they are to buy much of anything over the Internet.

Media companies, for example, are already struggling to make money from online advertising. This will make matters much worse.

The gaming companies, the social networks, the ad networks all seem to turn a blind eye to what is going on because they reap large rewards from these scams. But it is a short sighted strategy because they are selling out their users, their members.

They should be looking out for them not selling them out.

By turning a blind eye these companies are missing a unique business opportunity to offer a safe place for Internet users, to guarantee that there is no scam advertiser on their network, and to insist that their advertisers clearly spell out billing terms.

But this will take courage and it means saying no to large amounts of money. And it will also raise their costs of business because it will require monitoring of ads, and this can't easily done by machines, it requires people.

Silicon Valley media companies such as Google, Facebook, etc, like to do everything by server and software. This is potentially an Achilles' heel that other media companies could exploit.

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November 3, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

MediaWatch: More About Embargoes...

By Tom Foremski - November 2, 2009

Last Thursday I was on a panel discussing embargoes. (There will eventually be video of the event.) The moderator was Sam Whitmore, and I was sitting next to Dylan Tweeney from Wired, on my right was Damon Darlin from the New York Times, and Mark Glaser from MediaShift on my far right.

Unfortunately Mike Arrington from TechCrunch couldn't make it, which is a shame because plenty of PR people have told me TechCrunch regularly breaks embargoes and it would have been good to have heard his side of the story.

Dave Needle from InternetNews.com wrote a very good reound-up of what was said: This tech news is not embargoed - InternetNews:The Blog - David Needle

Here is an extract:

While Tweney continues to selectively agree to embargoes (as does InternetNews.com), he said he recently "punished" a PR firm by refusing to communicate with them for six weeks after a competitor was allowed to publish an embargoed story ahead of everyone else. He said the PR firm's excuse was that the vendor, a handset manufacturer, had leaked the news to a blog directly without the PR firm knowing.

The New York Times Darlin said embargoes are generally used as a tool by PR firms to co-opt the media. That said, Darlin said the Times often accept embargoes because they ensure reporters don't miss a story and they have more time to do a thorough job.

That thoroughness is limited. Once you've agreed to an embargo, you can't share that news ahead of time with the analysts and competitors you might otherwise call for comment. Vendors will sometimes provide a list of analysts that have been pre-briefed on their news.

While many took shots at the embargo process and the games PR folk sometimes play, Chris Preimesberger, an editor at eWeek, said embargoes help him get his job done.

"They give me the background information and the time to do the piece right," said Preimesberger, during a follow up Q&A session. He estimates 75 to 80 percent of the stories eWeek does are facilitated by the embargo process, the rest are breaking news.

"I have no problem with the process and don't feel like I'm being manipulated," said Preimesberger.

My proposal that holding a press conference, real or virtual, so that everyone gets the news at the same time seemed to have a fair amount of support as an alternative to embargoes. But overall, I didn't think that we made much progress in creating any new rules around embargoes.

However, I was surprised that there is such a lot of interest in this subject. Embargoes have been around since year dot and we all have our way of working with them, selectively of course. They are not going away, that's certain.

But I think it could and should lead to media outlets rethinking their editorial policy. Do we have to be first with with news? If a dozen other publications also have the news what is our value-add?

There is more to be gained from developing an unique editorial stance than there is from pressing the publish button a few minutes earlier than anyone else..

The panel discussion sparked a few blog posts. Mike Yamamoto, the founding editor of CNET's News.com wrote an interesting post. The absurdity of embargoes

What was especially interesting was his stories about the use of embargoes when he worked in the Washington D.C. bureau of the Los Angeles Times. Government agencies routinely placed embargo notices on their news releases. It's a practice that companies and PR firms have attempted to use too.

For some reason, many companies and government agencies seem to think that simply receiving so-called embargoed material automatically means you have agreed to it--even if you never knew the information existed, let alone had consented to any restrictions, before it landed in your inbox or mailroom unsolicited.

It would be the equivalent of my mass-emailing a contract to sell my house for $10 million, then holding its recipients to the provisions of the "agreement." When they rightly tell me to go pound salt, I would cry foul and claim that they broke the rules.

Mr Yamamoto rightly points out:

Because News.com did not agree to embargoes, therefore, their restrictions did not apply to us. It's impossible to "break" a contract you never agreed to.

Lastly, I feel it is up to the PR industry to police this issue. If they are working with a journalist or organization that routinely breaks their word, then they should not disclose embargoed information the next time.

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November 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

MediaWatch: Mashable Is On A Tear - Continues To Widen Its Lead Over TechCrunch And Others

By Tom Foremski - October 30, 2009

Compete.com provides a rough guide to the traffic of various sites, it's usually on the low side because of the way it collects its metrics but it does provide a good indication of trends.

Over the past year Mashable has been doing very well especially compared to the tech news sector leader TechCrunch.

A year ago TechCrunch had 660,000 more monthly visitors than Mashable (1.63m versus 0.96m). The most recent figures for 09/2009 show Mashable has grown 171% and overtook TechCrunch in May.

Mashable now has 43% more monthly visitors (2.62m versus 1.83m). According to Compete, TechCrunch traffic has been declining since June, and is down by about 10%.

TechCrunch is likely making more money than Mashable, at least for now. Mashable is using the Federated Media (FM) ad network. FM takes a large cut from advertising revenues plus it is selling ads based on prior lower Mashable traffic counts.

TechCrunch dropped FM about six months ago and thus can collect a higher ad revenue. (BTW GigaOm also dropped FM and now uses IDG ad network.)

Here is a graph of Techcrunch and Mashable's performance over the past year plus a look at ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, and GigaOm.

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October 30, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Are There New Rules For Embargoes?

By Tom Foremski - October 29, 2009

This evening I'm on a panel moderated by Sam Whitmore and organized by Waggener Edstrom:

The topic is:

"Love them or hate them, embargoes are a familiar and much-discussed element of the rules of engagement with media and influentials. Clearly the old rules are not working. Is 2010 the time to re-write that rulebook?"

I'll be discussing this with Damon Darlin, New York Times, Dylan Tweney, WIRED, and Sam Whitmore from Media Survey. Mike Arrington from TechCrunch was going to join us but dropped out.

Mike Arrington has gotten a reputation for breaking embargoes and I know plenty of PR people that won't work with TechCrunch because it harms their relationships with other journalists who do agree to hold the embargo. So it's a shame that we won't be hearing Mr Arrington's side of the story.

Continues >>

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October 29, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

Forty years ago today, October 29, 1969 marks the birth of the Internet.

The first command typed in was "lo" which crashed the entire Internet - all two machines. Internet Reaches 40th Birthday Milestone

Undergraduate Charley Kline was given the simple job of logging on remotely from UCLA to the SRI machine; his one command was "login".
The first attempt, however, proved too much for the "interface message processor" or IMP for short - the system crashed as young Charley reached the letter "g".

... 12 years on, only 213 computers being linked up to the network.

The Guardian is collecting stories for its "A people's history of the internet."

To mark the 40th anniversary of the first stirrings of the internet we asked you to tell us your experiences of life online. Hundreds of you responded, and here we present an interactive documentary of your stories and videos, alongside our own research and interviews with key figures (About this project)

Foremski's Take: The Internet is the most significant collection of communications technologies ever created. It enables huge numbers of new types of businesses and services, many of them replacing pre-Internet businesses.

Anything, any service, business, that can be digitized is open to disruption because of the Internet. The Internet devalues everything it touches.

I define "devalues" in a monetary sense, dollars and cents because clearly it creates tremendous amounts of value. But that value often cannot be quantified or measured, or recovered, in a financial sense. For example, look at the transition to online journalism -- it creates tremendous amounts of value because huge numbers of people read online journalism but we don't have (yet?) a good way to recover the value of that work in dollars.

Journalism is not the only sector being disrupted in this way because of the Internet.

The challenge for Internet based businesses is to figure out how they can transform the value that they create into dollars and cents and then hang onto it.

The challenge is that competitors can continually undercut each other because the costs of providing Internet based services are relatively low and it is difficult to lock up customers. Switching costs are very small for customers.

It helps if you are government regulated. The Telcos, for example are able to make use of VOIP and other advances in communications technologies to reduce their costs of doing business yet they are still able to raise the price of their services. Being a government regulated industry helps them keep competition away.

But if you are in the music industry, movie industry, journalism, software services, cloud computing, if you are a software engineer, if you are a web designer, if you design logos -- if you do any kind of digital work you are exposed to a huge amount of competition, you are exposed to the lowest cost provider in your sector -- thanks to the Internet.

It's interesting that countries spend billions of dollars to protect their living standards by limiting immigration because they know that low-cost labor hurts the living standards of their citizens. Yet there are no controls on exporting jobs via the Internet.

That will change or at least there will be efforts made to change this and other aspects of Internet use, because of the disruptive effects that it enables.

I believe the Internet will eventually enable a new golden age but getting there will be very messy.

These are interesting times. Happy birthday Internet.

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Please see:

A Saturday Post: The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches, Anything That Can Be Digitized - SiliconValleyWatcher

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Our Local Schools Should Be Showcases Not Basket Cases - GOOG Ups Its Schools Focus

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

The promise of distance learning through the Internet has yet to be realized and I'm puzzled why this is the case since it should be possible to collaborate on creating a great online curriculum. Once it is created it can be easily accessed by anyone.

Why don't we use the social networking and collaborative tools we already have to put together an open-sourced curriculum consisting of text, images, videos, lectures, online volunteers acting as tutors, etc. We have all the technology we need to do all of this today.

I've always been amazed that San Francisco/Silicon Valley region public schools are so bad. We are inventing the future here, yet we can't use our ingenuity, our technologies to improve our local schools? Our public schools should be showcases, not basket cases, we should be ashamed to allow this to happen.

So it's good to see Google becoming more interested in schools because there is a lot it could do to help, especially in terms of projects like its Google Books. Maybe it could help to provide text books. It's incredible how expensive textbooks are.

For the past two days Google has hosted a conference on its campus: Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age. The goal was to "create and act upon a breakthrough strategy for scaling up effective models of teaching and learning for children." It's not clear what breakthrough strategy has emerged but at least it's a start,

Dan Fost writing at Los Angeles Times has a report on the conference:

[Sergey Brin] advocated putting all textbooks on computers, to make for easier access, and for putting high school students to work -- writing Wikipedia articles, and teaching technology to senior citizens and middle school students. In teaching, they will learn.

...he did see a downside.

"When I was growing up, I always knew I'd be in the top of my class in math, and that gave me a lot of self-confidence," he said. But now that students can see beyond their own school or hometown, they see that "there are always going to be a million people better than you at times, or someone will always be far better than you. I feel there's an existential angst among young people. I didn't have that. They see enormous mountains, where I only saw one little hill to climb."

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Preparing For Spotify - Google Partners To Launch Music Service - Denies Competing With iTunes

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

Google launched it's much anticipated music service today, partnering with Lala, Pandora, Rhapsody, imeem and MySpace, to provide music streaming services on Google search pages.

Searchers will be able to hear songs for free for the first play but must pay a fee for subsequent plays. LaLa charges ten cents per song for a lifetime streaming license.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Google itself isn't paying record companies for the rights to play millions of songs on its search page; its partners are. Those include Lala, Pandora,imeem, MySpace Music and Rhapsody, a subscription service from Real Networks. All have licensing agreements with record labels to stream or sample millions of songs online.

..."We're not in the music business per se," said R.J. Pittman, Google's director of product for the music search project. "We don't license the music nor sell the music directly on Google. We are merely a music search feature."

Experian Hitwise, which tracks Internet traffic, says that music is a popular search term. Hitwise analyst Heather Dougherty writes:

- Out of the top 1000 search terms that took place on Google last week, 6% were music-related (includes bands, music services and content).
- Last week, Google sent 1.48% of their total visits to the Music category and of those visits, 95% of the downstream traffic to Music websites were returning visitors (that had visited Google in the past 30 days).
- Google was the top referral website to the Music category accounting for nearly 30% of the total traffic to the category last week, 5x more than 2nd ranked Yahoo! Search and 6.3x more than MySpace.
- Last week, 15% of the clicks from the search term portfolio of Music that includes the names of over 900 band & artist names resulted in a visit to a Google property, especially YouTube.

US music sites are bracing for the US introduction of Spotify, a very popular European based streaming music service. Spotify could launch before Christmas.

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

MediaWatch: An Example Of Data Journalism

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

For several years I've been writing about the need for "media engineers" part software engineer and part journalist. And others have also started to write about teaching journalism to programmers.

MediaShift . Can Programmers, Journalists Get Along in One Newsroom? | PBS

There is a lot of journalism that can be done by mining data in public databases. Some newspapers now have interactive maps, for example, Oakland Tribune has an interactive map of homicides.

A much better example of data journalism is EveryBlock, which provides a news feed for neighborhoods in all large US cities. Type in your zip code and EveryBlock will email a newsfeed that contains police reports, restaurant openings and reviews, building permits, coverage in the media, and other local data culled from public databases and other sources.

EveryBlock is run by Adrian Holovaty, based in Chicago. It was recently acquired by MSNBC.

EveryBlock was started by a grant from the Knight Foundation and part of its condition was that the EveryBlock publishing software be released under an open source license. It's available to anyone, anyone can replicate what EveryBlock has done.

Adrian Holovalty is a true media engineer, he is also one of the driving forces behind the Django project, an open-source framework for quickly developing web applications for newsroom projects.

Data journalism has had its fair share of critics. But I think it has a bright future as long it it is wrapped within the right context. The temptation is to just publish the raw data without much else and allow the readers to make sense of it depending on how the data affects them.

Data journalism combined with a fair amount of human journalism could be a potent mix, providing context to the content. It'll be interesting to see how newsrooms combine the two.

But most newsrooms lack the software engineering skills to use Django and similar technologies. And with newsroom cuts and the pressure on media business models continuing unabated, we may be running out of time to experiment with data journalism.

That would be a shame because today's media technologies make it possible to create many novel types of media formats. There's a tremendous amount of innovation that can be done with media formats. I've got a few ideas myself that I'd love to try out but unfortunately I, too, lack the resources.

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

HP Facing First Ever Strike

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

The Register reports that 150 customer engineers in the UK are voting on taking strike action because of changes in their employment contracts.

They belong to Unite, the largest trade union in the UK.

A statement from Unite:

This is the first time HP employees in the UK have been asked to vote on industrial action and follows an overwhelming vote for industrial action amongst the workers in a consultative ballot carried out earlier this month.

Peter Skyte, Unite national officer, said: "Our members face cuts to their pay and pensions and have no choice other than to begin an industrial action ballot. This is the latest in a series of attacks by the company on our members' pay and conditions, while senior executives and shareholders do very well indeed."

The results of the ballot are expected in mid-November.

Please see:

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

CPJ Announces Funding From Hedge Fund Manager Peter Thiel

By Tom Foremski - October 28, 2009

The Committee for Protection of Journalists last night announced funding from Peter Thiel, head of hedge fund Clarium, for the defense of online freedom of the press.

The amount was not revealed but described as a "substantial check."

Peter Thiel told SVW, "Technology can have positive and negative aspects. I want to help the CPJ defend the rights of online journalists."

The CPJ says that 33 journalists have been killed this year, and 760 killed since 1992, of which 482 were murdered. Increasingly, it is online journalists that are being targeted.

Some details about CPJ:

How did CPJ get started?
A group of U.S. foreign correspondents created CPJ in response to the often brutal treatment of their foreign colleagues by authoritarian governments and other enemies of independent journalism.

CPJ has a full-time staff of 23 at its New York headquarters, including area specialists for each major world region. CPJ has a Washington, D.C. representative, and consultants stationed around the world. A 35-member board of prominent journalists directs CPJ's activities.

CPJ is funded solely by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations. CPJ does not accept government funding.

Without a free press, few other human rights are attainable. A strong press freedom environment encourages the growth of a robust civil society, which leads to stable, sustainable democracies and healthy social, political, and economic development. CPJ works in more than 120 countries, many of which suffer under repressive regimes, debilitating civil war, or other problems that harm press freedom and democracy.

By publicly revealing abuses against the press and by acting on behalf of imprisoned and threatened journalists, CPJ effectively warns journalists and news organizations where attacks on press freedom are occurring. CPJ organizes vigorous public protests and works through diplomatic channels to effect change. CPJ publishes articles and news releases; special reports; and Attacks on the Press, the most comprehensive annual survey of press freedom around the world.

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October 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

Smart Grid Innovation Competition Announced

By Tom Foremski - October 27, 2009

VentureBeat's upcoming GreenBeat 2009 conference (November 18 to 19) is focused on the Smart Grid. It has launched an "Innovation Competition" to discover the best ideas that "wield significant impact on the power grid's ability to become smarter."

The top nominees -- selected by their carbon reduction potential -- will get a chance to pitch " luminaries such as Nobel Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore, as well as Venture Capitalist John Doerr and leading executives from companies such as PG&E, Oracle, IBM, Cisco and General Electric."

Matt Marshall, founder of VentureBeat, said: "There's no higher calling for entrepreneurs, in my view, than the one to tackle what could be the greatest challenge of our lifetime."

But nominees will have to act quickly. The deadline is November 4.

More details are here: GreenBeat 2009 Innovation Competition

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October 27, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

AT&T Technologies Showcase Includes "Telesole" Medicated Shoe Insoles

By Tom Foremski - October 27, 2009

I've been invited to AT&T's emerging technologies showcase next week in San Francisco.

AT&T's chief technology officer John Donovan. Glen Lurie, president emerging devices and AT&T Labs researchers will be demonstrating some key new technologies.

Among the gizmos and gadgets will be: "telesole" shoe insoles" for dispensing medication. That's an interesting product. I'm guessing that the AT&T network would trigger a dose of medicine. I hope they solve some of the network connection issues that many iPhone users have complained about--network reliability will be crucial in medical applications.

We have also been promised demos of:

· Social networking apps that use location-based service to create message boards allowing users to leave videos, photos and songs at various locations. These messages "sit in the air" for friends or others visiting that particular location.

· A selection of pre-release devices from AT&T's Emerging Devices Organization.

· The latest research from the IPTV lab in Atlanta. Highlights include modifications of popular applications like Twitter for use in conjunction with U-verse, as well as unique IPTV applications such as FamilyMap, HD TrafficCam and i-Verse.

· New speech recognition applications, including speech-enabled online Q&A, "push to talk" TV remote controller, and multimodal apps that combine speech recognition with touch screen and other controls.

· New wireless phone capabilities that allow handsets to communicate directly with each other without tapping existing wireless infrastructure - designed to help emergency responders send targeted notifications to victims' wireless phones.

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October 27, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

CultureWatch: Should Cafes Become Cheap Office Spaces Or Places For Community Interaction?

By Tom Foremski - October 27, 2009

Most of the cafes in my San Francisco neighborhood have people staring into their laptops, they are like libraries with piped music. Yet for hundreds of years cafes used to be centers of debate and interaction.

Some of the first newspapers grew out of the newsletters associated with cafes.

Today there is little conversation in cafes and when I do chat with friends or business contacts, I feel self-conscious, I feel I'm disturbing the screen focused concentration of other patrons.

It's largely because many cafes are being used as cheap office space. Our modern workforce is rapidly turning into independent "consultants" and contractors performing digital work. But cafes weren't designed for such uses.

If they are to be used as an office space why not have an area set up as a meeting room that could be rented by the hour? Or small booths for meetings? Why not have a fax and a printer available?

These days cafes seem caught in a limbo, they are neither good office spaces or good at fulfilling their traditional neighborhood roles.

But things could be changing. Some cafe owners are discouraging the laptop crowd by turning off the Wi-Fi and blocking power outlets.

Margaret Rosas pointed me to a Santa Cruz cafe whose owner has done just that and caused a local controversy.

Alan Hawrylyshen posted the owner's (Manthri Srinath) reasons for the change:

Our perspective after doing this a quarter-century, is that we operate coffeehouses with a view to creating a space for community to gather. We have only accidentally become a "WiFi cafe", by virtue of the fact that we haven't done anything to dispel the notion that we are. Now that we are doing so, it is understandable that some of our clients are surprised and upset. For this, I apologize.

Internet use results in a disconnect between the user and ones' physical surroundings, similar to watching television. No moral judgement here. I do it too. In a coffeehouse however, this results in rooms full of solitary people with no connection to the space or the people around them and has the unfortunate effect of crowding out any other sort of activity. Which of course is how we come to the misconception that we are a "WiFi cafe".

... we have also come to the realization that the use of our space, "the Commons" if you will, is something of a zero-sum proposition. We can either have rooms full of laptop users or rooms half-full of folks having a cup of coffee with a friend. Not both.

We have chosen to return to our roots as a coffeehouse where folks can come to converse with friends, read books, hold meetings and religious studies, listen to live music and generally have an experience that transcends Explorer or - if you're a bit more savvy - Firefox. We regretfully realize that this means that people who "must" have Internet access will be unable to use our space, at least for now, unless they bring in wireless cards or tethering capability. Of course, on the flip side, it's been nice to see a new clientele who want something different from a coffeehouse.

... I'm sure there are ways for us to solve everyone's connectivity issues, but this really is not our charter. There are many things we could do to make money. Selling umbrellas and offering/charging for WiFi access are two of them. We're in neither business.

We're old-style coffeehouse operators who came to this pass by accident. We were pioneers in offering WiFi when hardly anyone knew what it was, and we will be pioneers in moving beyond it. We're comfortable in that space. It's largely been why we operate the busiest cafes in town.

You can read the full post and discussion here: Geek Friendly Cafe - Santa Cruz Geeks | Google Groups

It's refreshing to see this type of thing. And its good to see a cafe owner bringing back discussion and debate to cafes, although it's ironic that the subject is his cafe. Maybe this will encourage other cafes to follow or even become more specialized.

Some cafes could focus on offering great wifi and office-like facilities. Others would be more traditional. Others more like restaurants and bars.

I can see myself working in one cafe, strolling over to another one for lunch, maybe a late-afternoon meeting with friends at another, then catching an early evening lecture or performance at another cafe.

Each one would be set up for such activities instead of each cafe trying to become a hybrid space that doesn't fully satisfy either type of customer.

Since there are so many cafes these days, creating differentiation would be a prudent survival strategy.

- - -
Please see:

Wallace Baine: Free Wi-Fi and the 'tragedy of the commons" - Santa Cruz Sentinel

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October 27, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights

By Tom Foremski - October 27, 2009

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb writes about Eric Schmidt's predictions about the future of the Internet, delivered at a Gartner conference.

I'm rarely impressed by Mr Schmidt's predictions or analysis of Internet trends. Even though he is CEO of Google, his position seems to fail to provide him with much insightful to say about the future Internet.

Take a look: Google's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years

• - Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
• - Today's teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years - they jump from app to app to app seamlessly.
• - Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.
• - Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance - and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.
• - ...content will move towards more video.
• - Real Time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results."
• - There are many companies beyond Twitter and Facebook doing real time.
• - "We can index real-time info now - but how do we rank it?"
• - people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.
• - Real Time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results."

Chinese language will dominate the web?

So what? It won't dominate in my world or yours.

Teenagers are the model, they move seamlessly from app to app? I move seamlessly from app to app. So do you. I'm fed up with received wisdom about the digital savviness of teenagers. I've got teenagers, and I know their friends. They are as plugged in as you and I. They are better at some things, they are clueless about other things.

There is less of a generational gap than many people without teenagers think. It is an experiential gap. You have to be exposed to the digital world in order to know it.

Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law. The math doesn't look right. Computing power doubles roughly every two years. But so what? What are we going to be doing with that extra computing power?

Distribution distinctions between the web, radio and TV will go away. OMG. Is this the best he can do? I haven't had cable TV for a couple of years, I watch TV through my laptop connected to the TV, I listen to radio podcasts over DSL. I'm no different from tens of millions of people who have already noticed that distribution distinctions have gone away.

People will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. They always have listened to other people given the chance, now social networks make it easier to share recommendations. Learning how to rank this information is a problem? There's no problem here, people know how to rank their friends and their social network sources. It's a personal ranking that is far more relevant, far more targeted than any algorithm Google could come up with.

Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information. Another valuable insight from a company whose mission has always been to "index all the world's information."

The quality of Mr Schmidt's predictions are stunningly disappointing especially since he is sitting on top of a company that is privy to massive amounts of web usage data from every part of the world. Not to mention the tens of thousands of engineers working on new projects.

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October 27, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

MediaWatch: Putting Journalists And Programmers In The Same Room

By Tom Foremski - October 26, 2009

Megan Taylor over at PBS' MediaShift writes about the challenges of getting programmers and journalists to work together.

MediaShift . Can Programmers, Journalists Get Along in One Newsroom? | PBS

"there's no reason why a programmer can't do journalism," said Rich Gordon, director of digital innovation at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. "They just need an understanding of the mission and culture of journalism and journalists."

Mr Gordon thinks that in terms of personalities, i.e programmers being introverted and anti-social, they can be similar to journalists.

But even with similar personalities, it's not easy to get programmers to think like journalists, or to get used to the chaotic environment of a newsroom.

Aron Pilhofer, editor of interactive newsroom technologies at the New York Times, has assembled a team of mostly programmers to do journalism.
..."It's not a normal corporate-y type of environment," Pilhofer said. "It's very loosey-goosey, collaborative, hectic, disorganized. It takes time to get used to that environment, and not everyone is comfortable in that environment.

Others say problems arise because of miscommunication.

Matthew Waite, news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times, weighed in on how programmers and journalists communicate, and how that communication can be improved. He said ill-will between journalists and programmers arises from miscommunication.
"I've seen a lot of cases where some piece of code did exactly what the requirements document specified, but it didn't do what anyone wanted," Waite said.

Foremski's Take: I've written on this topic many times and I think it is easier to teach journalists to become programmers. They then become "media engineers" rather than software engineers.

Today's development tools are very powerful and they make building complex software applications easier than ever before.

Every journalist should know some html, CSS, JavaScript, etc. They don't need to be proficient but they should know how all these media technologies work. Some journalists can go much further and I think we will see that happening more because there is a real need. If I were a journalism student I'd be loading up on programming courses because I'd greatly improve my chances of getting a job -- every newsroom needs strong media engineering capabilities.

Teaching a programmer journalism skills is challenging primarily because programmers have already chosen their profession. If they had wanted to be journalists they would have become journalists.

But teaching a journalist programming skills would be a lot easier and far more effective because you have to have a strong understanding of media -- that comes first. That's what a media engineer would provide, media first, engineer second.

And a media architect would be similar to a systems architect, they would design the information/publishing architecture of an organization. And by the way, today every company has to be a media company to a degree, every large company needs media engineers and media architects on staff.

- - -

Please see:

Move Over Software Engineers It's The Era Of Media Engineers

Journalism Schools Wake Up To Need For Media Engineers

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October 26, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

MSFT Earnings Report: It Would Take GOOG More Than 3 Years To Catch Up

By Tom Foremski - October 23, 2009

Microsoft is facing many challenges but it is still an incredible cash machine. Revenue for its first fiscal quarter, which included deferred revenues of $1.47 billion was $14.39 billion, a slight decline of 4 per cent compared with the year ago period. Operating income was $4.48 billion.

Many industry pundits like to compare Microsoft with Google. GOOG reported revenues of $5.94 billion and operating income of $2.07 billion in its most recent quarter.

At a rate of revenue growth of seven per cent per quarter, a rather generous growth rate, it would take it more than 3 years to reach Microsoft's current quarterly revenue. There is a lot that can happen over the next few years in terms of Microsoft's competitive position against Google.

Microsoft can patiently build up its search services and other areas where it lags Google. And it will continue to generate large revenues from its business software -- a tiny market for Google.

Can GOOG continue to grow its search business to nearly $13 billion per quarter? What other businesses does it have that could generate comparable rates of growth and revenues? None.

Microsoft has many different business groups that have the potential for growth and it is building up its Internet business groups to better compete with Google. MSFT is a much more diversified business than GOOG.

While it is fashionable to talk about the demise of Microsoft and its poor competitive position against Google, the fact is that it's still going to be around for a long time and it will continue to be a potent, cash-rich competitor for many years.

Foremski's Take: Google will need to make some acquisitions to generate revenues and give it the heft that Microsoft already has. It needs to have a more diverse business base. Google has only one main business - text ads next to a search box or on a 3rd party web site.

What type of acquisition could help it be more competitive against Microsoft? What about a telco acquisition?

How about AT&T [T]? Its third quarter revenues were $30.9 billion. Its market capitalization is about $150 billion compared with GOOG at $175 billion.

AT&T would give Google a powerful position in terms of the net neutrality debate, and also in wireless markets, providing it with a key position with respect to both Android and iPhone phones.

And it would give Google a direct billing relationship with a huge number of US households. There are a ton of services it could introduce and without dealing with the telcos and their walled gardens.

Google's ability to build large server farms would further boost the types of on-demand services that it could market to consumers, and more importantly, to business users.

AT&T would be a big pill to swallow but strategically, it makes a lot of sense, imho.

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October 23, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

WSJ Chief: There Are Two Types: Creators And Aggregators - Creators Carry The Burden Of Costs

By Tom Foremski - October 22, 2009

Hat tip to Danny Sullivan for pointing out the above panel at Web 2.0 Summit, which featured Robert Thomson, Wall Street Journal chief, and Marrissa Mayer head of search products at Google, plus Martin Nisenholtz, The New York Times Company, and Eric Hippeau from the Huffington Post, moderated by John Battelle. Title: "Whither Journalism."

YouTube - Web 2.0 Summit 09: "Discussion: Whither Journalism?"

The reason this discussion is interesting is because Mr Thomson is a close confidant of Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp and one of the leaders in trying to create new business models for online journalism. One of those ways is to create a paywall - to charge for content.

This has been criticized by many online pundits who believe content should be free and that Mr Murdoch, and others that want to charge for content won't succeed.

This is a ridiculous argument because it doesn't address the issue of how content is created and the costs in creating content. An army of citizen journalists won't be able to fill the gap caused by fewer professional journalists. We have to figure out a way to pay for professional journalism.

At the beginning of the discussion Mr Thomson gets to the point right away, when he makes the distinction between content creators and content aggregators and point out that the cost burden is being shouldered by the content creators.

Many people, like Danny Sullivan, like to point out that the Wall Street Journal, and others that complain about Google stealing their content, want the traffic that Google sends their way.

But Mr Thomson challenged Ms Mayer's view that Google is all about sending traffic to other sites. He said if that is true, why isn't the font size larger on the link to the original source? Double figure (font size) would be good, he said to laughter.

Google, and other aggregators, take the headline and first paragraph of a story, the two most important elements of a news story and try to monetize that content.

The value of the traffic Google sends is not that great, believe it or not. As a publisher I get to see my server stats, etc, and so I know first hand the value of traffic from Google, or even Techmeme, is not much.

I can appreciate the frustration that Mr Thomson feels when he sees others trying to profit from the work of his journalists.

Producing original content is very expensive. Trawling web sites and taking the headline and top paragraph of a story is dirt cheap. The difference between costs for content creators and content aggregators is very large indeed.

The Huffington Post gets a ton of content for free. The New York Times has more people moderating its comments than The Huff Post has journalists on its masthead. Yet the Huff Post couldn't exist without the content creators. Clearly there is a large mismatch here.

The tragedy is that on either side of the equation there isn't enough money to pay for the content creation.

Even if Google News and The Huff Post and all the other news aggregators gave every dollar and cent they make from other people's content to the content creators it would be unlikely that it would cover the costs of the news creators.

For example, The New York Times is laying off another 100 newsroom jobs and its most recent financial quarter showed a 29 per cent fall in revenues with print and online ad revenues continuing to plunge.

The tug of war between creators and aggregators is some degree, a red herring. We need to develop a "value recovery mechanism" for online journalism.

This is the most important problem we have related to the Internet, it is much more important than net neutrality. It is the Gordian knot of the Internet - if one person solves it we all benefit.

- - -

I was reading an interview with Bay Area philanthropist Tad Taube. He is asked what other things would he like to fund...

"There is one thing that I've been thinking about a lot, but I'm not quite sure how to do it yet. One of my principal concerns is the preservation of freedom in the United States. Now, in order to have a free country, it's necessary to have a free press. A free press is a press that is ready, willing, and able to present all the different points of view that bear on an issue. If people are not informed in an impartial and unbiased manner, if there is only one point of view that they ever hear, how can they possibly make a decision that was in the best interest of their country or their civilization?

What I would like to explore are ways to distribute and influence the body politic with much more balanced reporting. So how do you create that? I'm not sure yet. It won't be easy. It will take a lot of people--this is another area ripe for philanthropic collaboration, I would say--working together to bring balance back into the media, particularly in its political coverage. I'm sure there is more balance in terms of basic news: political turmoil in the Congo or a fire in downtown Boston, or reporting on a sporting event. But coverage of politics, economics--of ideology, of ideas--is badly unbalanced. And, ultimately, we live off of our ideology. "

Interview with Tad Taube - Interviews - Philanthropy Magazine - Philanthropy Roundtable

Please also see:

Dear WSJ: To Avoid Google Disease, Please Put A Condom On Your Content

"Google Devalues Everything It Touches" - Wall Street Journal Chief

Non-Profit News Funding - We Need A Sustainable Business Model Not Handouts

We need a Google AdSense on steroids: The Grand Challenge of Internet 2.0 - SiliconValleyWatcher

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October 22, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

San Francisco Celebrates Its Sister City Relationship With Krakow

By Tom Foremski - October 22, 2009

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and other dignitaries that included Bay Area philanthropist Tad Taube, last night attended a reception in celebration of San Francisco's sister city relationship with Krakow, Poland.

Mayor Newsom said he hoped that this would not be a "paper" relationship and that there will be an active partnership and exchange of people and ideas between the two cities.

Krakow is one of the oldest University towns in Europe and produces more than 200,000 graduates every year. Companies such as Google have opened R&D centers there, attracted by the high quality of the workforce and the high quality of life.

Tad Taube, a prominent Bay Area philanthropist was a driving force in establishing the sister city relationship. Mr Taube was born in Krakow and managed to leave in 1939, just months before the second world war broke out. He is an Honorary Consul for the Republic of Poland and he also heads the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture.

I will be writing more about Krakow and links with the Bay Area.

Here is more information on Krakow's sister city relationship with San Francisco from the Krakow Post:

Although very different on the surface, the two cities have much in common. For starters, the size of Krakow's population is very similar to that of San Francisco's 764,000 inhabitants. Both cities also hold cultural significance in their respective countries and function as centres of scientific research.

...San Francisco's active Polish community, which supports collaboration with Polish institutions and maintains Polish traditions abroad, was also an important attribute.

Interview with Tad Taube - Interviews - Philanthropy Magazine - Philanthropy Roundtable

Part of the ongoing tragedy of the Holocaust is that 1,000 years of Jewish history and culture in Poland has become essentially obscured. There are historical records and archives that detail how that 1,000-year period of Jewish culture shaped literature, art, history, language, science, philosophy, and religion. Ultimately, that 1,000-year period of Jewish culture served as the underpinnings of Western culture.

Roughly 75 percent of all American Jews are of Polish extraction. (When I describe Poland in this context, I'm talking about Greater Poland, whose boundaries have shifted rather dramatically over the centuries, on both the eastern and western borders.)
Now, people who are Irish- or Italian-Americans, they talk with great pride about their history and genealogy. American Jews are not so quick to talk about Poland. Quite the contrary, in fact. Many American Jews have such a hard time disassociating Poland from the Holocaust that they don't fully appreciate what their heritage contributed to all of Western culture. Unfortunately, many see Poland as nothing but a giant cemetery.

I want to restore a sense of perspective. I want American Jews to recognize and appreciate their Polish heritage. At the same time, I want Poland to recognize and appreciate its Jewish heritage. And I want everyone to understand and appreciate the massive contribution of Polish Jews to Western civilization.

Please see:

Update: San Francisco Sister City Krakow - Emerging R&D Center

Poland: Krakow - Sister City To San Francisco And R&D For GOOG, IBM And Others

Silicon Valley Skills Crisis: Poland Emerging As A Top Source of Engineers

Warsaw University Team Are World Programming Champions, Again

US and Polish Web 2.0 companies swap notes at Stanford

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October 22, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW

NYTimes Quarterly Results Show Plunging Print And Online Revenues

By Tom Foremski - October 22, 2009

Transitioning to an online business model for a newspaper company is made all the harder if your print and online advertising revenues are falling. That's the scenario for the New York Times Company.

Its third quarter financial report showed a $35.6m loss - smaller than expected as cost cutting measures helped slow losses. The company recently said that it will cut 100 newsroom jobs.

Ad revenue at the company's News Media Group, which includes all of its newspapers, fell 29.6 percent compared to the period a year earlier -- essentially unchanged from the 30 percent drop in the first half of the year.

. . . Internet revenue declined 7.2 percent, to $78.9 million. That includes a 7.2 percent increase at the About Group, which includes About.com, and an 18.5 percent decline in digital advertising revenue at the News Media Group.

For the first time, the company's New York Times Media Group (NYTimes and International Herald) revenues from readers exceeded revenues from advertisers: "circulation revenue reached $175.2 million in the third quarter, while ad revenue dropped to $164.5 million."

The company said that there was some sign of an improving economy and that fourth quarter losses should be lower than in the most recent quarter.

Times Co. Reports Loss but Beats Estimates - NYTimes.com

The New York Times Company Reports 2009 Third-Quarter Results

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October 22, 2009 | Permalink | Comments | Subscribe to SVW