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Beginning on Wednesday, Comcast, the largest broadband service provider in the U.S., is going to start capping the total amount of data you can transfer using their broadband connection to 250GB per month. With this move, the cable company will become the symbol of a new Internet era, one that is both monitored and metered. It is an era that threatens to limit innovation and to a large extent, the possibilities for new startups. I have been very vocal about the short-sightedness of this decision being made by Comcast (and some other carriers), and along with my colleague Stacey Higginbotham, have been covering the story pretty closely. It is a clear and present danger to the way we use the Internet in this country. In order to give you a better understanding of the issues at hand, I have teamed up with my old friend Muayyad Al-Chalabi, an alumni of Bell Labs and until recently an analyst with The Monitor Group, to release this white paper, Broadband Usage-Based Pricing and Caps Analysis. In this paper, we aim to highlight the possible unintended consequences of such policies, among them the stunting of growth and innovation of web-based applications. And of course, higher costs. Plus: The strategy ignores the high degree of dependency “interactions” between power users and the rest of the network. The power users don t act in isolation and in fact represent the hubs in any scale-free network; sequestering them and overcharging them will result in either low usage or worse, higher costs. Given the growth trend due to consumers changes in content consumption, today’s power users are tomorrow’s average users. By 2012, the bill for data access is projected to be around $215 per month. Strategic pricing involves the recognition that changing prices alone cannot solve the challenges facing carriers. Carriers are taking the easy way out trying to protect the “walled garden” rather than figuring out how to innovate in service delivery and harvesting more value from the overall content and applications opportunity. If you re interested in getting a PDF copy of this white paper, please enter your email address below. Otherwise, I have embedded a copy (using Scribd) for you to read it online. Your email address:

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: “The 2008 SEO Video Playbook” (free download) Accenture: “The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research & Development” (free download) Interop: Register for a free expo pass — New York, Sept. 15 - 19. Server Beach: By geeks, for geeks Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and video Ki Work: Take control of your online business Brain Keeper: Collaboration that works Rackspace Hosting: Experience fanatical support Acquia: Commercially supported Drupal CohesiveFT: Go Big or Go Home. Assemble L and XL AMIs Now Sun Microsystems: Incredible discounts with Sun Startup Essentials GoGrid Systems: Scalable load-balanced Windows and Linux cloud-server hosting

We d like to say thanks to this month s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: The 2008 SEO Video Playbook (free download) Accenture: The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research (free download) Peer 1: ValuePro Managed Hosting Plan, $299 per month Interop: Register for a free expo pass — New York, Sept. 15 - 19. Server Beach: By geeks, for geeks Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and video Ki Work: Take control of your online business Brain Keeper: Collaboration that works Rackspace Hosting: Experience fanatical support Acquia: Commercially supported Drupal Sun Microsystems: Incredible discounts with Sun Startup Essentials GoGrid Systems: Scalable load-balanced Windows and Linux cloud-server hosting The Economist Debate Series: The Global Energy Crisis debate is on now.

While Apple s television ads show off brawny and multilingual applications for the iPhone, the vast majority of those available in the much-ballyhooed app store seem to be glorified four-function calculators. Of course, just as the modern computer emerged from the simple electronic adding machine, many of these apps hold the potential to grow into something impressive. But when? This puts the app buyer in a tough spot who s going to shell out real money for something that doesn t do much now but perhaps, down the line, could evolve into a killer app? On the flip side, what s an app developer to do? Risk losing market share by taking time to create a truly robust application or rush something out the door and fix it on the fly? These thoughts came to me when I was testing out a potentially very cool app today called RunKeeper. The app uses the GPS in your phone to track how far and fast you ve traveled on your run, bike ride or journey to your local Starbucks. The app works fine, collecting GPS data many times a minute and displaying your run time and speed in a bar graph as well as a map. But $9.99 is lot to ask for something I could do with a cheap digital watch and GMap pedometer for free. FitnessKeeper, the startup that makes RunKeeper, says they re adding a number of features their forum members have been suggesting. Founder Jason Jacobs explained their strategy as such: Instead of sitting in a vacuum and developing a laundry list of features we re not sure people would use, we d rather get a product out early and be very nimble and really grow with our community. But with a price tag of ten bucks, it s an expensive app that doesn t offer a huge amount of functionality yet. It been less than two months since the app store went live, and I ve downloaded scores of app updates, but no updates have yet offered serious upgrades. App developers will have to show that they are dedicated to keeping their offerings fresh if they expect users to pay up front. If this story interests you, check out our upcoming conference: Mobilize The Next Generation Mobile Conference

I was talking to an executive at a major label the other day. We were talking about startups and he noted that they either sue these companies out of business or legitimize them out of business. That is not far from the truth. How many legitimate, standalone digital businesses can you name that rely on licenses from the labels for their primary business and are profitable? Let s categorize by business model: E-Commerce/Transaction-based: iTunes immediately comes to mind. It may be profitable on its own, but we all know that Apple s main business is to sell iPods and now iPhones. eMusic is the other one, and I think it has a real business on its hands of course the vast majority of its repertoire is non-major label. Music Subscriptions: This segment is dominated by Rhapsody and Napster. Neither is solely a music subscription service, but that s what both are best known for. At any rate, neither is profitable. RealNetworks music business lost $1.9 M in the second quarter of this year. Napster? Well its stock chart kinda says it all; it s currently trading for a little less than the cash it has on its books. Ad-Supported Music: This includes on-demand audio and video and also Internet radio. The major players here are the radio divisions of companies like Yahoo, AOL, CBS (Last.fm and CBS Radio), MTV, Clear Channel, MySpace, Facebook and then independents like iMeem, Last.fm, Pandora, Live365 (my alma mater) and a number of others. It has been widely reported that the standard license for on-demand consumption is $0.01 per play, which amounts to a $10 cost-per-thousand plays, not including other costs such as publishing, bandwidth/streaming and ad sales and serving costs. In short, I think its very hard for any of the ad-supported players to build a meaningful basis from licensed music. Instead, many of the larger players will use it as part of a larger strategy to attract audiences and offer related products that generate higher-margin revenues. For instance, Clear Channel might have a sponsor for its Stripped series, which will probably not have the same license cost as a regular music video. Or MySpace will sell an ad campaign around an event that it hosts. As for Internet radio, there is a lower royalty rate, but the CPMs are lower, too. Pandora s founder was recently quoted as saying the service may have to throw in the towel if things don t change with the fee structure. iMeem has licenses from several labels but it s been reported that it gave up a significant piece of the company and agreed to onerous terms, so, needless to say, it likely isn t profitable on its licensed music either. This is by no means a comprehensive list of business models nor of the companies within each segment, and there may be companies within each that are profitable. But that s beside the point. The point is that the labels have been lulled into the conviction that their rates are market since some of companies have been willing to pay such rates to license music as a loss leader. The labels have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in cutting deals with seemingly lucrative rates. However, that is not the recipe for a vibrant, competitive ecosystem of licensees large and small, with no one company having too much market share which is exactly what I d want if I were in their shoes. The good news is that I know this has been recognized by people with the major labels, and they re experimenting with new licensing schemes. Hopefully it s not too late. Raghav “Rags” Gupta is VP of International Partnerships at Brightcove, where he has worked since ‘05. His blog can be found at www.ragsgupta.com.

We d like to say thanks to this month s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: The 2008 SEO Video Playbook (free download) Accenture: The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research (free download) Interop: Register for a free expo pass — New York, Sept. 15 - 19. Server Beach: By geeks, for geeks Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and video Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo: Helping businesses harness the power of virtual world Ki Work: Take control of your online business Brain Keeper: Collaboration that works Rackspace Hosting: Experience fanatical support Acquia: Commercially supported Drupal Sun Microsystems: Incredible discounts with Sun Startup Essentials GoGrid Systems: Scalable load-balanced Windows and Linux cloud-server hosting The Economist Debate Series: The Global Energy Crisis debate is on now.

We d like to say thanks to this month s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: The 2008 SEO Video Playbook (free download) Accenture: The Innovation Dilemma: How to Achieve High Performance through Superior Research (free download) Volo Media: Dynamic advertising for downloadable audio and video Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo: Helping businesses harness the power of virtual worlds Ki Work: Take control of your online business Brain Keeper: Collaboration that works Rackspace Hosting: Experience fanatical support Acquia: Commercially supported Drupal Sun Microsystems: Incredible discounts with Sun Startup Essentials GoGrid Systems: Scalable load-balanced Windows and Linux cloud-server hosting

Let s just admit it: Your Love by one-hit wonder The Outfield still holds up, more than 20 years on. Its catchy melody is rivaled only by the inability to sing in the same high-pitch as the lead singer. But will its sing-along-ability be enough to get you to buy QuickBooks? You have to give Intuit an A for effort. There is nothing fun about any of its products, but that isn t stopping the company from trying (reallllllly trying) to add a little levity to bookkeeping. This week it launched the Jingle Generator, a goofy online service that basically lets businesses insert their name into a modified cover version of Your Love. Intuit hired a dead ringer for the vocals (I had to ask a spokesperson if they got the real band not totally implausible because really, what is The Outfield doing nowadays?). Unfortunately, the novelty and the nostalgia wears thin pretty quickly. At the site, famous record producer Tommy Silk walks you through the recording session where you choose your industry and insert the name of your company. Moments later your track is complete, with your corporate information shoehorned (badly) into the song. I chose the blogging song (hear the finished version here) which features such great lyrics as: I wonder what I m gonna blog about today There s so many words to choose from I wanna spread some news straight your way You know I d like to spark a conversation I just wanna blog my thoughts today (Blog Name) I m just gonna blog for you today (Blog Name) After reading won t you post a comment for sure I hope the topics were helpful Give me a Digg and you ll get plenty more Please make sure that you check our site out Intuit might have been better off getting some lyrical help from another 80s icon like Weird Al.

With little to no desire to do any real writing this weekend, I decided to clean my work space. Once the papers were filed and the books were shifted to the right corner, a clear picture emerged, one of too many gadgets and too little desk space. Thankfully, some of those gadgets are review units, soon to be shipped back. But the amount of space they ll leave behind is still limited. I m wondering if it s time to bring home a desktop. Mac Pro is a tad too expensive but would be the perfect machine. I have been trying out Apple s 30-inch display, but I haven t come to terms with the size of the screen yet, though the sharpness and clarity are pretty impressive. Regardless, of all the gadgets sitting on my desk, the Ipevo Skype Desk Phone is the one device I find to be the most useful on a day-to-day basis. If you use Skype to stay in touch with your friends and contacts, I m sure you would agree. And although you can t see it in this picture, the Radiosophy s $50 (after rebates) HD Radio is also a pretty good addition to any work space, especially if you like listening to jazz/blues while writing or surfing the web. Looking at that photo, which I am sharing with you thanks to a most excellent application/service called Skitch, it is clear that as time goes by, the Edge will continue to become richer and richer. I wonder if this will mean opportunities for some software guys who can make sense of this personal data-rich environment. What also became suddenly clear to me from looking at my living room set-up was that the EU-backed Nanodatacenter project isn t as far fetched as one might think. The so-called Nanodatacenters project is based on the idea that you don’t need giant data centers as long as you have increasingly powerful devices in millions of living rooms, capable of doing so much more than suffering through all those Law & Order re-runs.

It is summer and it is time for NewTeeVee Pier Screenings, which return for the second run on July 31st, kicking off the series in San Francisco at the fabulous Pier 38 on Embarcadero at Townsend. (Map) This year we are doing something different - we are taking Screenings on the road. In August we are going to take the Screenings to Los Angeles and September we are heading to New York before coming back to San Francisco in October. You can find more details here on the Pier Screenings Website. The debut screenings are taking a look at Pilots, and the contest is going to be judged by Martin Sargent - Host, Revision3 s Internet Superstar, George Strompolos - Content Partnerships Manager, YouTube and Marie Drennan - Assistant Professor, San Franscisco State University. Sign-up for the event for free, and come enjoy the little screen jewels on the big screen, meet fellow video buffs and content creators. Pier Screenings 2008 are sponsored by on2 Technologies, G-Technology, Volo Media, Move Networks and DF Splash.

There s already a ton of activity taking place in the cloud computing space, so much so that it can be hard to know who to watch. In many cases, it s too early to pick winners. But there are distinct sectors of the IT industry that are particularly well suited to the on-demand, pay-as-you-go economics of cloud computing. Here are eight segments and one company that s a segment all its own that we re tracking closely. Hosting companies that make the jump: When it comes to reliable managed hosting, Rackspace leads the pack. (Its VMware-based Mosso offering may appeal more to enterprises trying the cloud for the first time.) Clouds like XCalibre s Flexiscale and Joyent are already there, but don t have Rackspace s installed base. Stack-specific clouds: While Google and Amazon get the headlines, Engine Yard is heavily involved in the Ruby on Rails development community. Competitor Heroku is also Rails-focused, but relies on Amazon for its hosting platform. Tools to wrangle virtual machines: To manage your EC2 machines, you re going to need help. RightScale makes software for managing machines in the cloud; its tight focus on Amazon has made it an early favorite. Elastra, Enomalism and others have similar solutions. Testing sandboxes: For many enterprises, a testing sandbox is the perfect way to start using on-demand infrastructure. CohesiveFT s Skytap (a sister to Flexiscale) spins up testing machines in a cloud, but incumbent Surgient and recent entrant StackSafe aren t far behind. And once you ve tested a machine and seen that it works, why not leave it in the cloud? Cloud-based development platforms: Companies like Rollbase and Coghead let non-developers build data-driven applications of any sort (as opposed to more specialized platforms like those of Salesforce and Ning.) But Intuit s Quickbase, which now has access to Quickbooks data, has a head start: Millions of small businesses. Is this how SMB gets cloud? Scaling frameworks: Wall Street needed fast, reliable applications that grew easily. Instead of adding more, bigger servers, they used Gigaspaces to bundle whole server clusters into discrete processing units that can be cloned to add capacity. In addition to being faster and scaling better, these units don t care whether they re in a private data center or a cloud. Application delivery networks: What has tens of thousands of servers worldwide, a global network connecting them, and isn t Google? Akamai. What was once a way of getting bits to far-flung corners of the Net is an often-overlooked cloud: Akamai has been able to run code at the edge since 2000. Its 2007 acquisition of Netli made it matter to enterprises even more. Akamai can weather heavy load and may be able to withstand attacks better than centralized clouds. Cloud builders: 3Tera lets companies get into the cloud business. Enterprises can make in-house clouds on existing data centers; or service providerscan build their own cloud offeringsin the way Enki and others have. In 3Tera s model, subscribers drag and drop the firewalls, servers and appliances they need. The company s software then maps these virtual application stacks to servers and network segments. The results are impressive: On seeing 3Tera for the first time, ESM guru John Willis was so impressed he insisted on logging in to the icons on his screen to verify that it wasn t just a demo. The obvious one: Of the three big virtualization firms, only one (Microsoft) also has millions of desktops, two handset platforms, licensing for desktops, servers and applications, synchronization, and a huge online presence. Up until now, the Redmond giant has been treading carefully; it has to convert billions of dollars of shrink-wrap sales to on-demand revenue streams. But Microsoft s going to be a huge player in the cloud. For more insights into cloud computing trends, check out the recent GigaOM/Bitcurrent briefing on cloud computing that was launched at Structure 08.

Sometimes, a man s gotta do what a man s gotta do. In Joss Whedon s case, what he felt he had to do was make an online musical about a super villain who keeps getting foiled by a hero as he pines after the girl from the laundromat. So he did, funding Dr. Horrible s Sing-Along Blog in the low six figures out of his own pocket. Teaser from Dr. Horrible s Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo. Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, knows how to attract passionate fans like no other. So Dr. Horrible is almost guaranteed to be a hit, especially by Internet standards. (And we loved it, too see our review.) But in deciding to release his musical extravaganza online, he got as creative about the business plan as he did about the concept. The first of three installments of the 42-minute musical was released (with some technical difficulty, due to overwhelming demand and unforeseen geographic limitations) on the evening of Tuesday, July 15. The second one will go live on July 17 and the third on July 19. If you want to stream the ad-supported episodes for free, you must do so before July 20, when they will be taken down. If you want to buy them on iTunes ($1.99 per section or $3.99 for the series), you can hold onto them. After that, the plan is to release a DVD version, either independently or with a studio, that includes an all-new musical by the cast and crew that s also 42 minutes long, to be called Commentary! We wanted to make an event out of it, like an old TV event, when you have to be in the same place at the same time, said Whedon, admitting that part of the motivation was revving the hype engines. Though some deep thinkers may argue that limiting access to your intellectual property will only dampen demand for it, many producers feel that introducing scarcity is one of their only bargaining chips left on the web. So they will cut deals to show new episodes for 24 hours on MySpace before posting them to their own sites, for example, as Marshall Herskovitz did with quarterlife. But it s hard to know where fan bases will grow organically online, and as Herskovitz learned (this was before quarterlife s failed debut on television), it s mighty difficult to emerge from the heap even if you are famous for making My So-Called Life without a good bit of promotion. Anyone s free to experiment on the Internet, of course, but now we re seeing a new type of grand-scale (and pretty wacky) experimentation. Seth MacFarlane, for instance, cut a deal with Google AdSense to make a new animated series called Cavalcade that will appear in ad units spread around the web on sites with a young male demographic (and also on YouTube, we ve heard, so you won t have to scour the web looking for every instance of the ads). Regarding the deal, Google bragged to the New York Times, “We feel that we have recreated the mass media.” The upfront budget for the series was undisclosed, but is apparently “by far the largest amount spent on original Internet content to date,” and revenues will be split between MacFarlane, the company selling the ads, Google, and the web sites on which the ads appear. Rewarding your fans obsessions is good business, especially online, where the true fanatics thrive. And Whedon is having a half-baked, creative, unregulated time of it. If he doesn t make a profit based on iTunes downloads and ad-supported streams, revenue from the Commentary! DVD might make up for it. But while DVD sales and rentals rose 1.6 percent in the first half of this year from the same six-month period the year before, DVD sales for the whole of 2007 famously dropped for the first time ever. And to be clear, nobody thinks there s much money in online video, at least not yet. The best estimates put revenue from online video advertising at around $1 billion this year, and paid downloads at somewhat less than that. But iTunes is quickly ramping up sales and the folks at Google are wracking their brains trying to figure out how to make a dime back from YouTube. This is the way people watch content now, for better or worse, so there d better be some money in it! How the business side of things will turn out for Whedon remains to be seen, but the upside will undoubtedly be more advantageous for him and the rest of the team than it would have been if they d funded and released a musical television special or movie. By rejecting traditional financing, ownership and distribution methods, Whedon wasn t constrained by other people s content windows, bottlenecks and antiquated arrangements. And so he s able to meet his fans on his own terms. This post was originally published on BusinessWeek.com.

RuneScape is one of online gaming s biggest success stories, but unless you play it or know someone who does, you ve probably never heard of it. Launched in 2001 by Jagex Software, an independent studio based in the UK, it s a traditional fantasy role-playing game that boasts six million active monthly players, almost all of them in the English-speaking world making RuneScape more popular in the West than World of Warcraft. (Over half of WoW s 10 million players are based in Asia.) Do a Google trend comparison of RuneScape to World of Warcraft and Age of Conan, the latest MMORPG darling, and you ll see that the web traffic of Jagex s indie title outstrips both of them. Despite all this, it s received comparatively little coverage, even by the gaming press. That may change soon, because this week Jagex will make its first appearance at one of gaming s biggest trade shows the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles where it will debut a graphically upgraded version of the game called RuneScape High Detail. Ahead of the launch, I sat down with the Jagex team last week to find out how, with so little attention, the modest-looking RuneScape has attracted so many players. Originally created by Andrew Gower and his brother Paul while Andrew was still an undergrad at Cambridge, RuneScape runs on Java, making it accessible to anyone who can get on the web. It s also free, though 60 percent of the world s content is restricted until you upgrade to a $5 monthly subscription, which some one million RuneScape players currently pay. And while even RuneScape High Detail won t win Jagex any graphics awards, the developers have compensated by creating a game world with depth and variety of play. In terms of gameplay, influential game developer Raph Koster notes, RuneScape is a very worldy world, offering a diverse array of activities that frankly, resembles Ultima Online. (Koster was that classic game s lead designer.) At the same time, the Java code makes it easy to add new features and make quick fixes. As Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison noted to me, The beauty of Java is it s platform independent. The result? Tremendous viral growth, especially from very young gamers on a limited budget. Jagex won t give out specific numbers, but Iddison told me their greatest expense is payroll for 400 employees; he also said their profit margin is well over 50 percent. More details on Jagex/RuneScape: - New content (questions, items, etc.) added to RuneScape every two weeks - 1.2 megabyte Java app - Peak concurrency: 250,000 - Average player time: 12.5 hours/week - RuneScape is a sharded MMORPG (i.e. copies of the world run on separate servers) - 250 RuneScape shards for up to 2,000 players each. Unlike many MMORPGs, player characters are not bound to a single shard. - 200 servers total - Main player demographics: 60 percent are from the U.S., 25 percent from the EU, smaller percentages from Australia/New Zealand and Canada. Player age typically 8-20, approximately 80 percent between 10-16. - RuneScape HD feeds graphic data to computers with 3D cards for dynamic rendering. Displays at 15 frames per second on minimum spec computers, but can optimize up to 50 FPS. Can display in full screen.

A few minutes after she delivered a speech at our Structure 08 conference in San Francisco, I caught up with Microsoft s corporate VP of global foundation services, Debra Chrapaty, for a video chat. I think a more appropriate title for her would be Mr. Softie s Internet Infrastructure Czar. I found her very knowledgeable, engaging and open with her opinions. We have some new innovations up our sleeve that are going to knock the socks of anything anyone is doing, including our friends down south, she told me. She didn t name Google, of course, but we all know who she was talking about. Her candor was one of the reasons I wanted decided to share the video with you guys. The common theme of the conversation: Microsoft is spending liberally to build out its Internet infrastructure, including upgrading its backbone network and scaling out its data center infrastructure by adding new technologies. When I asked her exactly how much Microsoft was spending on it, she dodged the question, saying just that it was a big number. This much we do know: Two years ago, the company was spending close to $2 billion on its infrastructure; it has since undertaken the development of six data centers, with parts of two networks already online. Facts About Microsoft-Owned Data Centers Adding 10,000 servers a month New data centers being planned/under construction are equivalent of over 15 US football fields of data center space. Plans to cut of 30% to 40% in data-center power costs company-wide over the next two years. Current network backbone runs at about 100 gigabits per second, but soon Microsoft plans to bump it to 500 Gigabits. I think this could be big for Level 3, long time partner of Microsoft. Building out its own CDN (Edge) network - 99 nodes on a 100 gigabit per second backbone. For Microsoft, total data grows ten times every three years. The data in near future will soon approach 100s of petabytes. This includes data from all of their online services. Source: Microsoft, GigaOM Location Status Quincy, Washington Opened April 2007, construction continues When complete, it will consume 48 megawatts of energy. Microsoft can tap up to 72 MW of energy coming from hydro power. Microsoft is paying about 1.8 cents per kilowatt, but will rise to between 2.6-to-2.9 cents per kilowatt as more capacity goes online. Two data centers in this location. San Antonio, Texas Under Construction, planned opening September 2008 It will be 447,000 square feet on 44 acres. Microsoft is building two data centers here Dublin, Ireland Under Construction first Windows Live data center outside the U.S. Northlake, Illinois Under Construction, Phase one to go live in October 2008 The first floor of this facility is going to be entirely made of containers and would house Microsoft search. Iowa TBD Source: Microsoft Watch the video to get the full low-down, but if you re in a hurry, here are some highlights, including her quotes from our conversation. We are building data centers but I don t want to say not just data centers. We are already on to our second generation data centers. More utilization, better density and more power efficient. For Chrapaty, power efficiency is not just talk, it s her mission she is the driving force behind Microsoft s server utilization. Infrastructure is a differentiator. I use FedEx as an example. They are world s most predominant distribution company. It wasn t that they had a great brand or they had all these plans. No, what they did was find these strategic landing fields where they could get in and out quickly to key distribution points across the globe. It defined their company. I think the same is true in the infrastructure now. Data centers are already becoming a scarce resource. Google realized this a long time ago; Microsoft is now demonstrating how it can put money to work and build an advantage over others. Like Google, Microsoft is taking the design of servers into its own hands. We are doing some unique things in the mother board designs, server designs, and because we are Microsoft, operating systems. She s a big champion of container data centers, which essentially act like the trailers on long-haul trucks, optimized and packed with all sorts of gear servers, switches, storage systems that s wheeled in and plugged into the power grid and the network. Sounds like Rackable Systems and Verari are major suppliers of these containers to Microsoft; the company is making extensive use of them in their Chicago facility. Her comments indicate that Microsoft has plans to offer managed services to large corporations. She lets us know first that they are building a IOWA data center, which is huge for Iowa. Google has one in Iowa too.

Dropping out of college to launch your own company? Yawn. The real startup action is in the halls of your local high school. Case in point: Daniel Brusilovsky, the 15-year-old founder and CEO (yes, the CEO) of TeensinTech.com. Brusilovsky was easy to spot at our recent Structure 08 conference he was the only one who needed his parents to pick him up from the event. But don t let his age fool you; he s got the executive lingo down pat. He s raising his first round of funding, meeting with lawyers, and name-dropping the likes of Loic Le Meur and Robert Scoble (both of whom are on his board). Oh, and when he s not CEO ing, Brusilovsky is crashing industry events as an evangelist for mobile vidcasting service Qik. So adept at startup-speak was Brusilovsky that my only surprise was that he didn t mention who he s in talks with to acquire his (not-quite existing) company or that he s on the waiting list to buy a new Tesla (once he gets his driver s license, that is). Brusilovsky is similar to another teentrepreneur on the other side of the camera, 14-year-old Lucas Cruikshank, who s high-pitched Fred videos not only dominate YouTube but have pulled in a five-figure sponsor. Teens in Tech will be a community for kids who typically get kicked off other new media outlets for being too young to create and share their work. Brusilovsky was nice enough to chat for a few minutes at Structure about his company. Get to know him now. After all, you could be working for him someday.

Cisco Systems, the San Jose, Calif.-based company that makes a living selling plumbing for the Internet (amongst other things) has come out with a prediction: the traffic on world’s networks will increase 46 percent from 2007 to 2012, nearly doubling every two years. As a result there will be an annual bandwidth demand of approximately 522 exabytes2, or more than half a zettabyte. If these kind of predictions remind your of the wild-and-wooly claims made by MCI My own observation on all these developments is the continuous contribution of new economies – China, Brazil, Russia, India, Eastern Europe and the New Nordic Nations. Growing number of subscribers and their usage of broadband and mobile broadband is slowly pushing the demand for bandwidth, which has lead to a huge spurt in the traffic on regional and international backbones. New fiber construction to support the traffic growth also bolsters Cisco’s claims. China has already passed US as world’s largest broadband and mobile market. India is getting there. Verisign, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that is a major player in domain names business notes India now has about 41 million Internet users, making it the eight largest internet country. Cisco notes that Internet traffic is growing fastest in Latin America, followed by Western Europe and Asia- Pacific, and it is likely to be the case through 2012. It kind of makes sense - after years and years of US domination, the Internet traffic is beginning to act in a truer, global fashion.

Over the past 18 months, there has been quite an explosion of video choices on the web. The number of interesting shows keeps going up by the day, making it harder to keep up with the new, cool stuff that makes Must-See-NewTeeVee. I ve often wondered, what if there was a web service that collated and curated the best of the NewTeeVee shows, finding cool videos before they became a meme, shows that genuinely entertain? In other words, a web app that took the time to scrub out the noise and deliver the best video experience according to select editors. I wanted a place on the web that would do all that but during the lunch hour the new prime time and without cutting into people s daily Facebook fix. It was a wild idea, I admit, but it seems like the guys in our little company were up for the challenge, and in less than three months have brought it to fruition. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you NewTeeVee Station, available now at station.newteevee.com. Some facts about NewTeeVee Station: Features editorial reviews of online videos written by a team lead by Liz Shannon Miller, who comes to us from Variety and the Daily Reel. Has over 100 NTV shows s hot at that moment, right on the front page. Can be subscribed to via the Station RSS feed or be bundled with NewTeeVee Feed. It s still a work in progress, and will be for a time, as we plan to tweak and improve it each day for the foreseeable future. I didn t want to place the beta tag on it because I feel that the web keeps evolving, and web applications keep growing, just like all of us and we never put a beta after our names. Om 2.0, however, is OK if you ve had a heart attack and change your lifestyle and habits. Sorry for that personal digression, but it s an important backdrop to this new site. In my opinion, the most unfair part of the job of CEO/founder is taking credit for the work that everyone else puts into making your dreams and crazy ideas become real. So I wanted to set the record straight: This new effort is a testament to the intelligence and excellence of the GigaOM team. Apart from coming up with a harebrained idea back before my heart attack and some occasional Jobs-ian rants, this is the work of the following people: On the editorial side, Liz Gannes, Liz Miller and Chris Albrecht worked with our tech team of Chancey Matthews and Kyle Johnson. They were all shepherded by Joey Wan, who rose to the challenge and became the project manager for NewTeeVee Station, in addition to helping us out on Structure 08. Mule Design came up with the design to fit with the original NewTeeVee look, and the folks at VodPod worked hard to help us build the viewing widget. Our editors, Carolyn Pritchard and Celeste LeCompte, helped add spit and polish to the editorial content. Liz on NewTeeVee writes: I haven t meant to neglect NewTeeVee lately, I swear. But I have a very good excuse (and a newfound regard for product managers and PR people!) Yes, it has been a great learning process. Thanks everyone, you made us all proud. When we all gather together soon we will pop the bubbly! Now let s watch some NewTeeVee.

What do they say – one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Looks like that was for T-Mobile USA that has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, which had recently switched over from T-Mobile to AT T. AT T offering free WiFi at Starbucks locations is putting the hurt on T-Mobile’s WiFi business, prompted the lawsuit. (Hey Ma Bell, thanks for listening to our suggestion about free Wifi. ) At the time of the original WiFi announcement all three parties – Starbucks, T-Mobile and AT T – made polite noises about getting along and impacting each other’s business. Predict The Outcome Of T-Mobile Vs Starbucks Suit T-Mobile Wins, Gets Compensation Lawsuit Is Dismissed They settle out of court Even though, only two markets (San Antonio, TX Bakersfield, Calif.) have switched to AT T, T-Mobile is chagrined that Starbucks AT T are offering a free WiFi promotion. ( Rest of the Starbucks’ stores still use the T-Mobile network. As a result the free offer breaches most of the agreements put in place between the three parties. Our wifi business is a key component of our strategy as we are looking at it to build our TMobile@Home offering, Peter Daobrow, spokesperson for T-Mobile said in conversation this morning, The company plans to have about ten T-Mobile@Home devices by end of this year. He wouldn t say how much his company is going to lose because of Starbucks actions. After six plus years of our relationship this was quite a disappointment. They didn t involve us even though it does impact us financially. The fact that a coffee seller has become a key pawn for two telecoms is amusing. First, the free WiFi is vital for AT T, which might be facing the worst kind of network usage with the launch of 3G iPhone. They need to offload as much traffic off the 3G network to WiFi networks, whether at home, work or at Starbucks. T-Mobile on the other hand seems to make a considerable amount of money from its WiFi network, which also compensates for its current lack of 3G network. [Full lawsuit embedded below the fold.] T-Mobile Vs Starbucks Lawsuit - Upload a Document to Scribd Read this document on Scribd: T-Mobile Vs Starbucks Lawsuit

Through the 1990s I watched Henry Nicholas turn Broadcom from a tiny start-up that got going making cable modem chips into a fearsome communications chip giant that has caused nightmare to most of its rivals including Intel Corp. The company 48-year-old Nicholas co-founded with Henry Samueli is doing spectacularly, having survived the turn of the century downturn by placing the right bets on market of tomorrow. Unfortunately, Nicholas isn t doing so well and today turned himself in to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for a variety of charges including spiking drinks of other executives with Ecstasy. There is a whole slew of drug-related charges against the man who apparently led a colorful life in Southern California. The biggest one is that he was involved in fraudulently backdating stock options.What a comedown for a man who was the 258 richest American as recently as 2006. He had resigned from Broadcom in 2003 to attend to family matters. His wife filed for divorce in January 2003 I remember reading a profile of Nicholas back in 2000, which made me wonder if there was something seriously wrong with this guy. His assistant had to schedule sleep time for the man, who saw broadband was the single biggest tech trend of our life. This is the single-largest revolution since the invention of the offset printing press, he told Forbes. Rich Karlgaard of Forbes wrote about Nicholas: He likes to call company meetings at 11 p.m., and you d better be monitoring your Blackberry when the call comes. For sport, Nicholas cranks up his Lamborghini to 150mph along the roads near his Orange County, Calif. office. Nick s only weakness is that he could drive himself to burnout. There is a lot of information to digest about his legal problems. I am embedding the complaints against him in the document in case you want to check them out. 39657103 - Free Document Templates 39656932 - Free Document Templates

Update: TR Daily reports that the vote will be delayed because of misunderstanding which loosely translates into lobbyists did their job and got FCC to back up. FCC has taken the vote off the website. I will report more tomorrow as I get the details. (Original story below the fold.) Original Story: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin s political ambitions might spur him into delivering free wireless broadband, if some Beltway insiders are to be believed. His plan, however, is not sitting well with carriers, satellite operators and even some public interest groups. What Martin wants to do is basically have another auction of advanced wireless services (AWS-3) in the 2155-2175 MHz-band and reserve a portion of the wireless network that uses these frequencies for free wireless broadband. The plan was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The FCC is likely to vote on Martin s idea of delivering 768 kbps wireless broadband access for free next week. I ve been told the date is June 12th. Ironically, Martin was not too thrilled about a similar plan proposed by M2Z Networks, a company started by former FCC official John Muleta and @Home founder Milo Medin in 2006. M2Z wanted to build a free wireless network using the same frequencies except it didn t want to pay for the spectrum. The FCC ignored their request, so M2Z turned around and sued. They have to be feeling a tad vindicated by Martin s latest move for free broadband. In the meantime, I ve managed to get my hands on a letter from T-Mobile USA bemoaning Martin s plans and asking the FCC to hold off on making any decision until August. (Below the fold.) Why? Because they want to test it for interference and other issues. Testing, however, is just a euphemism for Let s delay this sucker for as long as possible. T-Mobile was the big bidder in the 2006 AWS auctions, and that spectrum is part of its 3G strategy. Other opponents of the idea include Qualcomm and MetroPCS, according to TR Daily. Among the complaints parties have raised with the item, which would establish service rules for the AWS-3 band and the 10-megahertz H block, which is part of AWS-2, is the potential for interference from AWS-3 and the H block to adjacent AWS-1 and PCS (personal communications service) licensees, as well as mobile satellite service (MSS) operations…One complaint of rural and regional carriers is that the order would break up the 10-MHz AWS-2 J block by moving 5 MHz to the 2155-2175 MHz AWS-3 block, leaving an unpaired 5 MHz, and auction the new 25-MHz AWS-3 block on a nationwide basis. Some of those entities say the FCC should preserve the J block and auction it and the AWS-3 spectrum via smaller cellular market areas (CMAs) [From TR Daily, Subscription Required]. Muleta isn t too thrilled about this, viewing it as yet another move by the carriers to keep competition at bay. Funny thing is, now he s on the same side as Martin. M2Z filed a complaint today about this as well. It s ironic that Martin s plan is running into static, for in my opinion, he and others in Washington, D.C., are the ones responsible for this lack of broadband competition that forces Americans to chose between either cable or phone companies. For the longest time abysmal technologies like broadband over power lines were touted by FCC officials as a competitive option. Martin in particular has gone easy on the phone companies, helping along legislation that has reduced competition for the big operators. At the same time, he has been harsh on cable operators – not that there s anything wrong with that. Overall, under his watch, the FCC has never seemed to be on the side of the folks for whom it s responsible: U.S. citizens. Lately, Martin has changed his tune, mostly because he s eyeing a political career when his term with the FCC comes to an end. As a result, he has taken a more populist stance, playing nice with some of the public interest groups and overall garnering good press. But remember, he was a lobbyist for phone companies back in the day, and what is it they say about a zebra not changing its stripes? This includes getting behind the idea of free wireless broadband using advanced wireless services. T-Mobile, FCC, AWS-3 - Get more Information Technology m2zcomplaint - Free Document Templates

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was one of the attendees at this week s D6 Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., to be interviewed on stage, where he talked about Kindle at length. But right after his chat with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, I caught up with him to discuss Amazon Web Services and his company s efforts in cloud computing. Here is a short excerpt from that conversation, captured on my Sanyo Xacti. In particular, he talks about How and when Amazon began its cloud computing effort. Why Amazon has become an innovator with Amazon Web Services and how it relates to their core business of being an online retailer. Whether or not Wall Street recognizes Amazon s cloud efforts. What s next for Amazon Web Services. Whether or not Amazon has plans for a VC fund or for cloud computing startups. For even more info about Amazon s cloud computing efforts, join us at our upcoming conference, Structure 08, where CTO Werner Vogels will be delivering a keynote address. If this story interests you then you should definitely check out our upcoming conference, Structure 08.

It didn t quite have the sentimental feeling of the Steve Jobs Bill Gates talk from last year, but it was interesting to see the dynamic of Steve Ballmer Bill Gates. I think it was great to see Bill step back and let Steve enjoy the limelight, and not take himself too seriously. I think instead of writing about the whole conversation, I am going to share this tiny bit I captured on video that shows how relaxed Gates is feeling these days, now that he has shifted all responsibilities to Ballmer. Bill was very candid about Vista and its problems. We never ship a product that I am satisfied with 100 percent he said. There is always improvement. Vista gave us lot of opportunities for improvement. Funny anyway What I did find strangely amusing: the Microsoft duo has a tough time using the phrase Google and constantly referred to them as the other guys. I really wish I could ask the duo about why they are so obsessed with Online Advertising? Are they acknowledging that all innovation and growth opportunities in applications and operating systems are done? Why not obsess about being the world s best on-demand software company? Anyway that s for another day. I picked up some great notes for my post about Search and the competitive landscape. Now moving on to Windows 7. The company showed off a nice demo of the multi touch features of Windows 7 and how you could paint with your fingers, or open applications and use maps in the new version of Microsoft s operating system that comes to market sometime in 2009. (More details and videos here.) I think if you have used iPod Touch, iPhone and Coverflow, you are not going to be as wow-ed by multi-touch, but I have to admit, that even in its rudimentary form, it looked pretty darn good. I have a feeling Apple is going to bring this to market much before Microsoft. Stacey joked about the new features pointing out that the smudging caused by multi-touch would surely make money for companies like 3M. Anyway more on the conference tomorrow! Original Post I have just arrived at the D6 Conference organized by Kara Swisher Walt Mossberg. I will have an update in an hour or so. Our good friends at D tell us that Bill Gates is going to show off an early version of Windows 7. Now that is something to look forward to and dig into. I have my trusted Sanyo Xaacti in the tow and I will be doing some video updates from here. Given the noise at the conferences, don t expect stellar quality but hey, it sure beats nothing.

It didn t quite have the sentimental feeling of the Steve Jobs Bill Gates talk from last year, but it was interesting to see the dynamic of Steve Ballmer Bill Gates. I think it was great to see Bill step back and let Steve enjoy the limelight, and not take himself too seriously. I think instead of writing about the whole conversation, I am going to share this tiny bit I captured on video that shows how relaxed Gates is feeling these days, now that he has shifted all responsibilities to Ballmer. Bill was very candid about Vista and its problems. We never ship a product that I am satisfied with 100 percent he said. There is always improvement. Vista gave us lot of opportunities for improvement. Funny anyway What I did find strangely amusing: the Microsoft duo has a tough time using the phrase Google and constantly referred to them as the other guys. I really wish I could ask the duo about why they are so obsessed with Online Advertising? Are they acknowledging that all innovation and growth opportunities in applications and operating systems are done? Why not obsess about being the world s best on-demand software company? Anyway that s for another day. I picked up some great notes for my post about Search and the competitive landscape. Now moving on to Windows 7. The company showed off a nice demo of the multi touch features of Windows 7 and how you could paint with your fingers, or open applications and use maps in the new version of Microsoft s operating system that comes to market sometime in 2009. (More details and videos here.) I think if you have used iPod Touch, iPhone and Coverflow, you are not going to be as wow-ed by multi-touch, but I have to admit, that even in its rudimentary form, it looked pretty darn good. I have a feeling Apple is going to bring this to market much before Microsoft. Stacey joked about the new features pointing out that the smudging caused by multi-touch would surely make money for companies like 3M. Anyway more on the conference tomorrow! Original Post I have just arrived at the D6 Conference organized by Kara Swisher Walt Mossberg. I will have an update in an hour or so. Our good friends at D tell us that Bill Gates is going to show off an early version of Windows 7. Now that is something to look forward to and dig into. I have my trusted Sanyo Xaacti in the tow and I will be doing some video updates from here. Given the noise at the conferences, don t expect stellar quality but hey, it sure beats nothing.

Last week I ran into Troy Lane Williams, founder of PeoplePad, a stealthy Austin-based startup that s creating some kind of front-end portal for the semantic web. I have no idea what the finished product will look like, but Williams previous startup experience has colored PeoplePad s product and its formation. Williams may be familiar to readers who recall his involvement in Questia, the pre-Google Books, subscription-based online library that launched in 2001 with $150 million in backing. Questia is still in business, but Williams left in May 2007. Wisdom from Williams includes: Shut up. I had to push to get Williams to talk to me. After a big launch for Questia and watching other complicated technology companies receive media hype they couldn t live up to, Williams says he s not letting PeoplePad into the public eye until March 2009. He ll do a limited beta this fall, though. When it comes to the web, free is where it s at. The last decade has taught Williams that the mass market isn t going to pay for online informational content, which means advertising is a must, as is getting cheap but also high-quality content. He cites Wikipedia as an example. The Internet isn t for passive reading. Williams dealt with large blocks of text at Questia; he even criticizes Wikipedia for being too text-heavy. We need to structure data around lists and data boxes instead of around snippets, so people can get to the key points, Williams says. Data doesn t have to be text and a site shouldn t restrict itself to spiderering around the web for all of its information. What s good for people is better for machines. If it s easier for people to enter short amounts of data, it s also easier for machines to read that data using properties of the semantic web. Use existing technology if you can. Williams says he s not out to build new semantic databases or semantic programming languages; instead PeoplePad will use services from companies such as Metaweb or Radar Networks. Usability is key to the success of a consumer-oriented site. The semantic web is less powerful if grandmothers, dentists and other not necessarily tech-savvy can t use it. After hearing all this, I suggested to Williams that he was building a sort of Mahalo powered by the semantic web, but he says he s not. Perhaps after Williams wanders down Sand Hill Road this summer looking for his first round of capital, more information will leak out. Readers, any guesses?

Five years ago, Michael McDerment built an invoicing system for his web design business. Today, FreshBooks lets nearly 400,000 users invoice their clients, track time and manage expenses electronically. Not all are paying the service is free for users with up to three clients but it s growing fast. We re seeing double-digit growth for both users and paying customers each month since our May 2004 launch, he said. McDerment, who is also a co-organizer of this week s Canadian Mesh Conference on Internet technology, has grown the company slowly; four years later, it has only 17 employees. And he hasn t taken any VC funding, choosing instead to bootstrap from his web design agency and some individuals close to the company. Another small-is-beautiful powerhouse, Infinity Box, runs a web forms service called Wufoo. The company has 75,000 users, of which 3,200 are paying customers. It launched in July, 2006, and was profitable less than 10 months later. VCs might dismiss small startups as lifestyle companies, since with only small investments needed they re often too small for big VC firms to work with. But for the entrepreneurs themselves, it s a way to keep control and avoid dilution, a sentiment echoed by David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals at Startup School 08 and by Bo Burlingham in his book, Small Giants, which is all about small companies: To excel in all those things, they have to keep ownership and control inside the company and, in many cases, place significant limits on how much and how fast they grow. The wealth they ve created, though substantial, has been a byproduct of success in these other areas. Infinity Box, which was spun out of Y Combinator with $18,000 in seed financing and has taken another $100,00 from undisclosed angels, currently has three employees. One reason not to take money is that it slows you down, said Kevin Hale, co-founder and head of user experience. You start worrying about hiring, office space, facilities, taxes, and suddenly you re spending a third of your time on that stuff instead of building the product. Many of the capital costs that used to force startups to seek money are now available on demand. McDerment cites hosting provider Rackspace.com as one reason FreshBooks has reasonable capital costs, and Hale says Infinity Box relies entirely on BitPusher for their hosting. But traveling down such a markedly independent road meant these small business have had to find ways to stand out from the crowd and build lasting, loyal relationships with their customers. In other words, there may be another reason not to take money, particularly if you re targeting other small-businesses as customers: Personality. Wufoo s site is a study in personality, with Shakespeare quotes peppered across its pages. There were lots of other form builders out there, so our whole target was to be distinctive with the personality of the application, said Hale. FreshBooks site is also whimsical, with service tiers like Time Machine and Private Jet playful language that wouldn t fly with enterprise customers, but soars with smaller clients. We re an experience business and the currency of our business is relationships, said McDerment. Word-of-mouth marketing is our biggest driver. It s what 37Signals calls Opinionated Software. If you ve got big financing, you have big investors with big expectations. It s harder to have attitude and personality when you re targeting large enterprises, so if a startup needs personality, it s important to make sure the investors agree with the philosophy. VC backers will want name-brand customers, and an enterprise CFO probably can t put friendly on a balance sheet. And keep in mind that enterprise customers typically need customization. The chances are, big companies can t take [the software] as is, said McDerment. Hale, however, thinks it s possible to keep your personality even with enterprise customers, pointing out that Wufoo users include several big companies. But you have to be firm, he stressed. Don t take money to do features because you lose sight of your original vision. You have to be conscious of saying, ‘Don t let the money change me.

Last week I got a chance to sit down with John Lilly, the newly appointed CEO of Mozilla Corp. We were slotted to chat a long time ago, but unfortunately life got in the way of reality. He appeared on The GigaOM Show, and was interviewed by Joyce Kim Liz Gannes. Still, the two of us always wanted to chat. And that s what we did, discussing everything from shortcomings of today s browsers, Mozilla s late entry into the world of mobiles, and the Firefox 3.0, which according to him will go final and be ready to download in June 2008. (They just released the RC 1, which our sister site, OStatic reviewed.) On a few things we agreed upon was that browsers need to find a better way of handling media - not just photos but the video clips which are becoming prevalent all over the net. He took a little swipe at iPhone as well, which was kinda cool. Now this isn t a produced video segment, and I captured the chat using Macbook Pro s build in camera using the PhotoBooth. There is a whole bunch of people walking around in the background, and there are moments of questionable audio quality. Nevertheless, it is still fun and edited down to a consumable time length. Check it out.

Well, like you I am finding that Microsoft memos are better at telling the story (or lack there off) than other people s voices. Today, we got our grubby paws on Microsoft VO of Search Satya Nadella s memo sent out to the troops. While I ponder over it, some quick thoughts via someone in the know at Microsoft: It consolidates portions of search back into the portal, MSN, from an organizational standpoint. It also tells us that any new branding to be done will be search only and that these others will retain MSN. Full memo, below the fold. satyamemo - Upload a doc Read this doc on Scribd: satyamemo

There is a big brouhaha today over Cox Communications blocking BitTorrent traffic, leading to outrage over what amounts to interference with the open Internet. The brouhaha is the result of a research study by Max Planck Institute, which found Cox, Comcast and (Singapore s) StarHub to be anti-BitTorrent. There are some issues with this study, however I, for one, (unlike DSL Reports) find it hard to swallow that there are no infringing phone companies. Why is everyone surprised? I m sure not. Cox admitted shaping traffic when we asked them about it back in October 2007, though they didn t single out BitTorrent. The publicity-hungry not-for-profits organizations do, however, bring up the issue of an open Internet, which is worthy of our attention and anger as consumers. But we need to focus our ire on the people who have helped create this mess not ask them to get us out of it, as the Free Press proposes by suggesting that the FCC should intervene. FreePress Policy Director Ben Scott said: Consumers have no reason left to trust their cable company. This independent study confirms that Comcast is still blocking its customers from using popular applications despite the FCC s investigation and widespread public outrage Congress and the FCC must urgently pursue the complaints against network providers. But this whole problem is the FCC s making. The org, under Chairman Kevin Martin and others, has systematically dismantled broadband competition and paved the way for a duopoly (of cable and phone companies.) Martin s predecessor claimed that broadband over power lines was a viable alternative to cable and DSL technologies that would bring in new competitors. Instead, this duopoly has thrived, and is the reason that the incumbents indulge in anti-consumer behavior. If there was thriving competition, and the cable and phone companies had to work for a living, BitTorrent blocking wouldn t be an issue. Bandwidth would be plentiful, as it is in other developed and emerging telecom economies. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to be falling for Martin s nice guy act, failing to realize that it s just a ploy for him to build some political capital before he tries to get elected to Congress to subvert the system even further. The blame lies squarely with Martin and others in the FCC: The politicians have failed their constituency and done nothing to foster real competition in the U.S. when it comes to broadband. We ve never really had true broadband competition, which is in my mind the real problem. What we need is a whole new approach to legislation and a brand-new FCC, one that is not encumbered by personal political ambitions and beholden to lobbyists. An FCC that puts the people first. It s as simple as that.

Love it or hate it, one has to admit that Apple s iPhone has been quite a game changer forcing the wireless industry to get off its duff and start innovating. I think a lot of people forget that iPhone is not just a pretty face and sleek curves. Instead it is a device that is changing our behavior and the expectations we have of mobile devices. Most observations about iPhone have been personal and anecdotal. Today, however, I got a chance to skim through a report put together by San Mateo, Calif.-based mobile advertising startup AdMob, about iPhone user behavior both in the United States and worldwide that provides metrics to match some of the theories around iPhone. Clearly, these numbers are not an absolute reflection of iPhone usage, but they do seem to indicative of broader iPhone trends. (Full report embedded below the fold.) AdMob Mobile Metrics April 2008 - Upload a doc Read this doc on Scribd: AdMob Mobile Metrics April 2008

A few days ago I had pointed out that Microsoft s bid for Yahoo was a checkmate kind of a move: Yahoo couldn t win from this attack. Today, by pulling its bid for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based search company, Microsoft proved that again, and showed why it is still the Prince Machiavelli of Technology. Here is why: Yahoo has no real suitors and its viable options as a standalone company are limited. By choosing to sleep with Google, Yahoo has shown that it has no faith in its own online advertising capabilities and thus has admitted tactical defeat in the market place, as far as advertising is concerned. The price of Yahoo stock is going to decline in reaction to this withdrawn bid. Microsoft is rumored to have made a bid for Yahoo at $41 a share last year, only to have Yang Co say no. They said no to the more recent $31-a-share bid. (Apparently, Microsoft raised it to $33 a share, and Yahoo wanted $37 a share. See AllThingsD) If the stock skids to say $21 a share, the shareholders are going to be might pissed. Remember, there are no permanent friendships on Wall Street. (Paul Kedrosky calls some of them collateral damage.) Expect shareholder lawsuits. In other words, at a time when Yahoo, its management and its board of directors need to be focused on rebooting the company, they are going to be distracted by these nagging problems. Imagine the employee morale. How long before we see an accelerated exodus of talent? In 12-14 months from now, when things are going to seem very bleak, Microsoft will make another bid, about $10 less than what it was offering and Yahoo is going to take it. Steve Ballmer s words are going to haunt Yahoo for a long time. He sounded ominous in the press release: I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table. But clearly a deal is not to be. As they say checkmate! More Reactions: OStatic agrees with me, Microsoft be back! Big Picture: Maybe Fed ought to start a YLF, a Yahoo lending facility that is. Quizzes by Quibblo.com Photo by Alan Light, Courtesy of Wikimedia.