More fun reading today: The LA Times’ Tina Daunt has this piece about how Republicans can’t get cool musicians to appear at their fundraisers. While presidential contender Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) can draw the likes of James Blunt and Alicia Keys to her money-making events, Republican Mitt Romney counts on the low wattage of pianist Roger Williams, a staple of late-night 1-800 album commercials.
Chris Dodd (D-CT) held a fundraiser at Paul Simon’s house last week, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently held a concert featuring Tony Bennett, James Taylor, Carole King and surviving members of the Grateful Dead.
Of course, this cool factor has been a part of Democratic politics for years, even when the Democrats were wandering in the desert — Springsteen played for Kerry, remember? Getting the hottest musical stars may not, therefore, equate with success, but it definitely puts the Democrats in the most-enjoyable-fund-raising category.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:26 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The New York Times’ John Markoff has this piece today about the intense jockeying that is already underway for the auction of 700 MHz band licenses. The FCC is slated to release the rules for the new auction as early as next month and the traditional cellular carriers are facing some stiff lobbying opposition from cable operators, satellite companies and new participants in this kind of thing, Internet companies, such as Google and Yahoo!.
The spectrum will be made available from the analog UHF channels that are scheduled to disappear once the conversion to digital TV takes place in February 2009.
One of the more interesting participants in the process is a new group called Frontline Wireless, which counts as one of its key executives former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. Frontline has asked the FCC to use the spectrum in setting up a “4G,” open access national broadband wireless network. Although Frontline’s main priority is setting up a nationwide public safety network, it also foresees the spectrum being made available on a wholesale basis for commercial purposes. The Frontline plan also calls for full interoperability, which means all handsets would work on the system.
The Internet companies interested in the spectrum have formed a group called the Alliance for 4G America, which includes not only Yahoo! and Google, but also Intel, DirecTV and Skype. They all have the incentive to mount competitive networks that bypass traditional cable, phone and wireless companies, given those broadband distribtuors’ ability to serve as bottlenecks for their services.
But, the byzantine world of gaining federally granted licenses is not Silicon Valley’s usual playground, and it’s going to be difficult for these companies to influence the auction.
“Silicon Valley bidders have deep pockets, but it would be very outside-the-box and high-risk for them,” said Kevin M. Roe, a telecommunications analyst at Roe Equity Research in New York. “Not only do you need the money to buy the spectrum, but you have to build a network — and that would be a gargantuan task that would take years with no guarantees they could catch up with the big four national operators.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:56 AM | Print | Comments (1)
Reuters has this delightful piece today about what apparently is a major role that Second Life is playing in French politics. The virtual world is a prime venue for supporters of presidential frontrunners UMP Conservative party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou, and National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen.
Sarkozy’s official campaign site gets an astonishing 15,000 visits a day from Second Life avatars, and “violent” protests have even erupted among the 3-D French political supporters on the site (a fight between far-right and left-wing supporters featured exploding virtual pigs). As was true of the virtual office of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards in the U.S., vandalism has hit the French parties’ virtual locations on Second Life.
Whatever chaos may ensue in the French political virtual world, the avatars are true to their national love of wine. I’m not sure if virtual drinking occurs much in non-French sites, but it certainly does in Second Life France.
“Before, it was worse. They were doing this kind of thing everywhere, trying to create as much chaos as possible,” said a virtual National Front supporter called French Food, who blamed the cyberattack on socialists.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:11 AM | Print | Comments (0)
He surveyed the slight damage, then returned to sip a virtual glass of champagne.
Le Pen’s site — which looks like an exhibition space with French tricolore flags and a poster of him and his daughter Marine — often houses supporters in buoyant mood predicting he will do well as they drink copious amounts of virtual alcohol.
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