In a survey of 13,000 web users, 14 yrs. and older, BURST! Media found that:
Respondents 24 years and younger say the Internet is currently the primary way in which they either listen to music or play games. In fact, two out of five (39.1%) respondents 24 years and younger say the Internet is the primary way they listen to music - and another 9.3% say it will be in the future. One-third (31.2%) of respondents 24 years and younger say the Internet is the primary way they play games - and 11.6% say it will be in the future.
Respondents 24 years and younger are also more likely than all other age segments (53.3% v. 27.6%) to say they use the Internet to watch movies and other video programming.
More than half of all respondents say they use the Internet to listen to music (52.3%), and a similar number (50.2%) say they use it to play games. Teens and those between 18-24 years are much more likely than other age segments to say they use the Internet for these activities. In fact, three-quarters (76.5%) of respondents 24 years or younger say they listen to music over the Internet, and two-thirds (65.4%) say they play Internet games.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 8:44 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Business Week takes a look at Rocketboom, a video blog that “in 10 months has become the most popular site of its kind on the Net.” Rocketboom offers a “three-minute mock news program [that] covers everything from tech trends to pop culture with frank irreverence, sly humor, and a big dollop of unabashed silliness.”
The approach is resonating with viewers. Daily downloads have doubled in the past six weeks, to 50,000. If they stay on that pace, they’ll soon approach the 200,000 viewers of an established cable show, such as CNBC’s Kudlow & Cramer.
These are the early days of video blogging. Most of the postings on the Web are rough and tedious — little more than home movies. But the success of Rocketboom and a few sites like it underscore the potential of video blogs…”TV will be transformed,” says Mitchell Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corp. (IBM ) and now an investor in Participatory Culture, an online video startup. “People will look at it as historically quaint that you had to watch something that others chose for you.”
In the fall, [Rocketboom will] experiment with a subscription fee of around $3.50 a month. The three-minute show will remain free, but paying customers will get extras, including longer shows and outtakes…[I]f subscriptions don’t pan out, they’ll turn to ads to fund their ambitious plan of creating a network of shows and hiring writers and hosts.
While Rocketboom looks like an offbeat news show, it’s like a typical blog in how it fosters a community. The site uses videos sent in by viewers and is building up a network of correspondents. The latter include Zadie Diaz in Los Angeles and Chuck Olsen in Minneapolis, who report on local happenings for $50 a piece.
“Once Andrew [Baron, Rocketboom founder] can figure out a business model that other people can copy, we will have a thousand Rocketbooms,” says Jay Dedman, co-founder of the pioneering Videoblogging.info community group.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 8:19 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yesterday’s big news that top satellite company, Intelsat, plans to buy its rival PanAmSat in a $6.4 bil. deal shook up the relatively sleepy satellite business, but according to this item in The Deal, regulators could derail that ambition plan. Penned by Ron Orol and Lou Whiteman, the article contends that although regulators are unlikely to block the deal outright, they could impose so many divestiture conditions, particularly in the U.S., that both companies might rethink the combination.
Intelsat, which generates revenues primarily in the telephony and data businesses, had earlier announced plans to enter the video transmission business. PanAmSat is already a major player in video transmission in the U.S., and a merger could scuttle Intelsat’s plan to compete in that market, thus lessening competition and inviting greater regulatory scrutiny. The two companies argue that the relevant market isn’t just satellite transmission of video. Their biggest competition: long-haul, land-based fiber delivery systems.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 6:18 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
While SBC is seeking to block municipalities from building and owning broadband networks, and cable operators campaign against the government usurping of what they believe is a private sector activity, Verizon is surprisingly warm to the idea of some municipal broadband.
Speaking at a webinar hosted by USTelecom, the trade association representing the phone industry, Link Hoewing, Asst. VP for Internet Tech and Business Policy at Verizon said “We will not support a ban by states [on municipal broadband].” Parting company with his fellow telcos and cable operators, Hoewing said that there are circumstances where the market doesn’t work and municipal broadband could be warranted.
But the risk is to ensure that muni-broadband doesn’t occur in a way that jeopardizes taxpayers. “Where it [the market] doesn’t work, we think local governments could issue bonds without engaging tax resources,” Hoewing said.
Joey Durel, City-Parish President of Lafayette, LA said he “begged the private sector people” to build a fiber system in Lafayette before setting out to construct a municipal system. The muni-fiber build was put to a vote earlier this year and was approved by the voters 62% to 38%.
Steve Proper, Franchising and Government Affairs executive at Comcast in Utah said that for cable operators, city-backed “operations put us in a precarious position of competing with the same people who are regulating us.”
The only solution to the scattershot approach to muni-broadband is federal oversight, according to Charlie Moses, Executive Director, Ohio Telecom Assoication and Bobby Hillert, Senior Legislative Assistant for Represenative Pete Sessions (R-TX). Sessions introduced a bill in May, H.R. 2726 or the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005, which would allowing the federal government to bar municipal broadband systems in many circumstances.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:53 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reuters reports that “[a]bout 60 percent of the Internet’s total bandwidth consists of P2P traffic, according to [a] CacheLogic study, while Om Malik estimates that “[d]ue to P2P’s symmetrical nature on average 80% of upstream capacity is consumed by P2P.” Om concludes that “P2P is driving consumer broadband demand…and broadband is driving P2P uptake,” but that “[i]n the long term…P2P traffic if not managed properly is going to become a big problem.”
And while Om suggests that “[broadband] service providers have little or no reason to block P2P traffic in the near term, because it drives growth,” the dominance of relatively symmetrical P2P traffic—and the prospect that it will grow dramatically in the future—stands in painful contrast to the asymmetrical nature of today’s residential broadband networks.
For example, a review of download and upload speed-test data at broadbandreports.com indicates that cable operator’s upload speeds are only 10-20% of download speeds, and closer to 10% for most operators, with none faster than 800kbps and most below 400kbps. Though DSL networks are less asymmetrical, this reflects the fact that their download speeds are about half those of cable network, while their upload speeds are roughly comparable.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 3:44 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe blogosphere was rife yesterday with items that the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the international arm of Hollywood, had obtained blanket search warrant power throughout the Delhi, India, giving the film industry automatic authority to search any home in the city in pursuit of unauthorized film copies. Finally Donna Wentworth at Copyfight found a press release issued by the MPA not only acknowledging this new-found police power but touting it as a good thing.
Here’s a quote from the release.
Mike Ellis, Senior Vice President, Asia-Pacific for the Motion Picture Association (MPA), said, “The issuance of general search and seizure warrants greatly empowers police in the battle against illegal copyright theft, and confirms the commitment of the Indian government and judiciary to fighting a crime that badly damages the country’s film industry.”
The order permits police to search any premise, without a search warrant, if the MPA suspects that pirated products are located there. As Donna points out, the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution would prohibit this kind of activity.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:00 AM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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