The Senate Commerce Committee continued with its mark-up of telecom reform legislation today and the most controversial amendment to the bill, one that would bar broadband service providers from discriminating against, blocking or impairing any broadband service, failed to pass by a tie vote of 11 to 11. Ten Democrats joined Republican Maine Senator Olympia Snow in voting for the tougher net neutrality amendment that she introduced along with Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND).
In a statement, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said
Over the course of two days, the Senate Commerce Committee handed control of Internet content to the telephone and cable companies, and control over the design of consumer electronics to the movie and recording industries. In each case, big companies win, and consumers lose.
The tie vote, however, does not bode well for the bill’s ultimate passage in the Senate and is the closest vote yet in either the House or the Senate on the issue of net neutrality. In a statement, the ItsOurNet coalition acknowledged the closeness of this fight.
The intense debate that resulted in today’s tie vote (11-11) on Net Neutrality clearly underscores the Senate Commerce Committee’s discomfort with abandoning rules that until now have ensured an open, innovative, and competitive Internet marketplace.
The Committee did vote out another controversial provision of the bill, the broadcast flag, which severely restricts the amount of broadcast content that can be copied. The flag wasn’t, however, extended to audio, as many had feared. Public Knowledge’s Sohn said
In approving the broadcast flag for video, the Committee extended the control Hollywood will have over consumers’ content that they lawfully receive. Under the flag, Hollywood, acting through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will have a significant role in how consumer electronics are designed and manufactured. Once again, consumers will have their rights short-circuited when it comes to using their devices lawfully.
Earlier in the day, the Committee rejected an amendment introduced by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) that would have mandated the sale of cable programming on a la carte, or per channel, basis. In a statement, Kyle McSlarrow, CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said
We are very pleased with the defeat of the amendment and will continue to oppose unnecessary government regulation of the pricing and packaging of video services, which most studies show will diminish diversity in programming and result in higher prices for fewer channels.
Update: I originally said that the bill doesn’t extend the broadcast flag to digital audio. However, the underlying bill contains sections on digital audio, which directs the FCC to establish an advisory committee known as the Digital Audio Review Board which is assigned the task of developing digital audio copy protections.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:23 PM | Print | Comments (0)
In real estate, its all about “location, location, location.” Perhaps in some sectors of the digital economy, it’s going to be about “location, navigation and transaction.” At least that’s what I started wondering about after reading a New York Times piece by John Markoff and Martin Fackler, and a Wall Street Journal story by Mylene Mangalindan.
The Times piece focuses on a new service launched this year by Japanese cellular carrier KDDI, in partnership with networking company NEC Magnus Communications, and Mapion, a firm that distributes map-based information via the Internet. It uses software developed by GeoVector, “a small American technology firm.” It is currently available on three handsets from Sony Ericsson and provides “detailed descriptive information or advertisements about more than 700,000 locations in Japan.”
One subscriber, Koichi Matsunuma, walked through the crowds in Tokyo’s neon-drenched Shinjuku shopping district on Saturday, eyes locked on his silver cellphone as he weaved down narrow alleys. An arrow on the small screen pointed the way to his destination, a business hotel. “There it is,” said Mr. Matsunuma…”Now, I just wish this screen would let me make reservations as well.”
Mr. Matsunuma showed how it works on a Shinjuku street. He selected “lodgings” on the screen. Then he pointed his phone toward a cluster of tall buildings. A list of hotels in that area popped up, with distances. He chose the closest one, about a quarter-mile away. An arrow appeared to show him the way, and in the upper left corner the number of meters ticked down as he got closer. Another click, and he could see a map showing both his and the hotel’s locations.
Mr. Matsunuma said he used the service frequently in unfamiliar neighborhoods. But it came in most handy one day when he was strolling with his wife in a Tokyo park, and he used it on the spur of the moment to find a Southeast Asian restaurant for lunch.
The WSJ story is about Google, which is active on a number of fronts in the local/mobile search and advertising market and is, of course, the dominant player in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. It notes that Google “is set to introduce a test version of its GBuy online-payment service as early as this week, according to people briefed on the situation.”
Here is how the service will work: Consumers who search for items like “shoes” or “strollers” on Google’s search site will see text ads with a symbol or icon designating advertisers that accept GBuy payments. Shoppers normally would have clicked on an ad and been linked to that merchant’s Web site. Now, while they will still be linked to the merchant’s site, they will go through a different checkout process integrated with Google if they choose GBuy for their transaction.
As I discussed in an earlier post, some believe that a move from “pay per click” to “pay per action (or transaction)” can go a long way toward addressing the click fraud problem and bring even more accountability and efficiency to the advertising market. And, if Google emerges as dominant in this new ad space, the search giant could substantially expand the scope of its influence, entrenchment and revenue capture in the emerging digital economy.
That brings me back to Mr. Matsunuma’s comment that “Now, I just wish this screen would let me make reservations as well.”
How about if KDDI’s service was linked to a PPA (pay per action) system that did allow him to make reservations, and also generated commissions when he did? And, with its GPS capabilities, maybe it would also generate some commission if he walked over to a targeted hotel (which the GPS system would presumably know) but chose not to spend the night there (not quite a transaction, but a potentially valuable action).
And what if we also apply this to the restaurants he checks out and dines at on his way to the hotel, as well as the drugstores, bookstores, department stores, etc. he uses his phone to locate along the way, to pick up the umbrella he forgot to pack, some books or magazines, a gift for his wife, or whatever?
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:59 PM | Print | Comments (0)
I’d recommend this long piece in Wired by Spencer Reiss, on Rupert Murdoch’s plan to “transform a free social network into a colossal marketing machine.”
Without the old network certainties, who or what will perform the essential function of a media company - that is, grab and hold attention on an industrial scale? MySpace offers an answer.
…The site’s greatest value isn’t connecting people to products, people to information, or eyeballs to advertisers. It’s connecting people to people…And that’s where MySpace could strike gold: It lets News Corp. host the cultural conversation…Murdoch won’t have to give the people what they want - they’ll get it themselves…[A]udiences create hits. Make that happen more quickly, cheaply, and reliably, and you have a philosopher’s stone for media: a Net-fueled word-of-mouth machine.
…”You’ll see us morphing from a content company into a marketing company,” [Fox Interactive President Ross] Levinsohn says, “a youth marketing company especially, because that’s where everything starts. No one is going to be able to control the flow of content the way we used to. MySpace gives us the ability to look inside and understand how hits get created” - that is, to spot micro-niches, track early breakouts, and identify hot IM buzzwords as they bubble up.
The piece also underscores that, while Murdoch controls one of the world’s dominant media conglomerates, he appears to still think like an entrepreneur, rather than a corporate exec concerned with next quarter’s financial results. And, in this era of disruptive change, I’d bet that approach will continue to give him a key competitive advantage.
“God knows what we’re going to do with MySpace,” he says…”We’re just discovering what this thing can do.” This is the kind of statement that confounds his more hidebound rivals and sends nervous chills down Wall Street’s spine: What will Rupert do next?Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:09 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The Senate Commerce Committee resumes its mark-up of the telecom reform bill sponsored by committee Chairman Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) amid growing doubts that Congress can even pass a bill before the end of the legislative session. Like a traffic cop at a congested intersection, Stevens has been intensely busy directing the flow of hundreds of amendments, pushing some through, ensuring that others die and negotiating all the way on the make-or-break issue of network neutrality.
Still, all this work may be for naught according to this item by Reuter’s Jerome Pelofsky. Stevens said yesterday that he doesn’t have enough votes to trigger a vote by the full Senate on the bill even when it’s reported out of committee.
Stevens needs the votes of three-fifths of the Senate (or 60 votes) to limit debate on the bill on the Senate floor under a procedure known as cloture. Following cloture, no more than 30 hours of debate on a bill can occur. Without cloture, debates can go on forever in a time-honored bill-killing move known as filibuster.
With so little time left to pass a bill this Congress, all it takes is one opponent to filibuster the bill to death. (The late Senator Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster in the Senate — 24 hours 18 minutes.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:18 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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