The LA Times’ James Granelli has this in-depth piece today on EarthLink and the struggles the company faces as it tries to transition from its “dial-up” reputation into a new-era Internet player. EarthLink is pushing into Wi-Fi and other wireless services, as well as VoIP and advanced mobile platforms as a way to mitigate its ongoing loss of traditional ISP customers.
What’s interesting is how much founder and board member Sky Dayton still uses EarthLink as an adjunct to his other entrepreneurial efforts. Case-in-point: Helio, a joint venture between EarthLink and Korean wireless operator SK Telecom, which is headed by Dayton (who along the way also founded Boingo Wireless).
Helio is a 3G wireless service that hopes to capture the youth-oriented market with individualized “lifestyle” offerings — the company announced last week a pact with hot social networking site MySpace.
But EarthLink doesn’t feel pressured to experiment with new options to survive. The company is sitting on a pile of cash and has no debt and is quite happy with just a small slice of the markets it serves.
Update: In another step that takes EarthLink away from its traditional business, the company announced today it will be selling DirecTV video services in a bundle with EarthLink Internet options.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:45 AM | Print | Comments (0)USA Today’s Kevin Maney has a scoopish piece on AOL. While much of what Maney reveals — the ailing online giant’s plans to offer video search and VoIP — is not new, what is new is that AOL plans to compete in the social networking realm, taking on giants such as MySpace head on by incorporating social networking features into its 42 mil.-strong AIM platform.
AOL will use that clout, and AOL’s substantial music and video offerings, to compete with the red-hot MySpace, owned by News Corp. It should roll out in about eight weeks, AOL says. So many people have AIM and use its popular Buddy Lists to chat with others that “the barrier to getting people to use it would be very low,” Miller says. Clicking on a name in a Buddy List, for instance, could take you directly to that person’s personal website.
Other tidbits from the piece, which is based on an interview with CEO Jonathan Miller:
—AOL will begin this week integrating video search from Truveo, which the company purchased in December.
—AIM will become a “full voice platform,” aiming to compete with Skype.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:11 AM | Print | Comments (0)The Chicago Tribune’s Jon Van has this item in his Inside Technology column today about cable “overbuilder” RCN’s desire to offer a modified version of a la carte programming. RCN wants to offer not per channel purchases (the company says that is just not technically feasible) but “themed tier a la carte,” which extends to viewers multiple options of service tiers, each one grouped around a particular theme.
To do this, however, RCN has to get out from under network contracts that require putting certain channels on a big basic tier, and RCN wants the feds to help.
But RCN cannot do it alone, Ramlall said, because it has long-term contracts that require it to offer bunches of little-watched channels in its basic programming tier. Both the big cable operators and the broadcasters that supply most TV content prefer bundling channels, and they charge huge premiums to sell them singly, Ramlall said. Pressure from the Federal Communications Commission might free things up enough to do the Boston test, Ramlall said. But to get widespread program unbundling would probably require federal legislation.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:58 AM | Print | Comments (0)
In a very interesting move, the New York Times editorial page today has come out in favor of passing net neutrality legislation. In an op-ed pieced entitled “Tollbooths on the Information Highway,” the paper’s editorial staff warns that the Internet could get co-opted by powerful corporate interests if a two-tiered Internet takes hold.
If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations’ profit-driven choices, rather than users’ choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle promising innovations, like Internet telephony, that compete with their own business interests.
With little equivocation, the Times says that Congress should pass net neutrality laws.
Most Americans have little or no choice of broadband I.S.P.’s, so they would have few options if those providers shifted away from neutrality. Congress should protect access to the Internet in its current form. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, says he intends to introduce an Internet neutrality bill, which would prohibit I.S.P.’s from favoring content providers that paid them fees, or from giving priority to their own content.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:25 AM | Print | Comments (1)
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