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November 19, 2004
TipTop Tac Toe?
SBC is planning to file a new tariff for a service called "TipTop," which for the first time would cause unaffiliate ISPs and VOIP providers to pay per-minute access charges on their traffic. Jeff Pulver and Om Malik have good blog posts speculating on the implications and SBC's overall strategy. Is SBC playing a grand game to dominate all communications? My instinct is, not any more than they ordinarily are (which is not the same as "no.")
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
More on the Tivo fast-foward non-story
This message board post from someone in Tivo product marketing clarifies what Tivo is and isn't doing. It reinforces what I said earlier -- Tivo showing banner ads when you fast-forward isn't the end of the world.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 17, 2004
The Tivo Fast-Forward Non-Story
According to Matt Haughey's PVRblog, Tivo is updating its software to display advertisements while you fast-forward through programs. That's right, you'll see ads even while you fast-forward to skip the ads. People seem to think this is an abomination.
What's the big deal? Television has ads. There's nothing evil in that; it's just a business model. If you don't like ads, you can sit and watch your home movies on your TV. You have no God-given right to see Desperate Housewives minus the commercials. Nor do you have a God-given right to see a sped-up program while you're fast-forwarding. With Tivo, you can see the programs you want, when you want, and pause/rewind/fast-forward them whenever you want. None of that is changing.
Yes, content owners are going off the deep end in trying to enforce expansive intellectual property proections. Yes, I'm worried about copy protection technologies overwhelming the public domain. Yes, things like DVDs that prevent you from fast-forwarding past previews and media company executives talking about skipping commercials as "stealing" annoy me. Yes, I would rather have a Tivo that gave me fewer commercials rather than more. None of those are what's happening here.
Tivo is doing the same thing all those building in Manhattan have been doing by adding billboards on what used to be blank walls -- finding new spaces to advertise as the old ones become less effective. I don't love the advertising saturation in our society today, but that's a very different problem from the way some companies want to limit my freedom to create and innovate.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 16, 2004
All Your Computers Are Belong to Us
Susan Crawford's provocative blog post about the broadcast flag brief recently filed by the FCC and Justice Department just got
Slashdotted.
The issue is whether the FCC has legal authority to mandate that manufacturers of digital television receivers incorporate "broadcast flag" technology to limit copying of digital content. As Susan points out, the government's position in court is quite expansive. The FCC is essentially claiming the authority to regulate any device that incorporates certain communications capabiliites, which includes a huge segment of the computer industry.
I'm actally working on a paper looking at the FCC's regulation of computers. It turns out that, contrary to popular belief, the FCC has been regulating computers for decades. The rhetoric about "keeping the government's hands off the Internet" is overblown. But the broadcast flag represents a dangerous exansion of government involvement in computer hardware markets. The important question isn't whether the FCC is involved in the computer industry, but why and how.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Meaning of Innovation
I'm at a "Global Innovation Outlook" event organized by IBM in New York. Lots of great folks here, and -- halleluja! -- open WiFi in the auditorium at Rockefeller University. It's too early to pass judgment on the program, but IBM is asking the right questions in exploring the nature of innovation in today's world.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 15, 2004
Indecent
Jeff Jarvis reports that the FCC imposed a $1.2 million fine on Fox for the show "Married by America" after receiving complaints from just 23 individuals. And all but three of the complaints were automated "me too" copies.
Jeff points out that this isn't just a problem with the FCC:
Note, too, that this is the most radical product of our culture of complaint, our society of offense, in which a few who don't like something think they can -- well, can -- affect everyone else. The PC left does it; when was the last time you said "girl"? The religious right does it; they want to stop us from watching our TV shows and listening to our radio shows. Well, it's time we fight back.
I agree that the FCC is going off the deep end when it comes to indecency enforcement these days, although I have some sympathy for the political "catch 22" the Commission finds itself in. If they weren't being so aggressive, they would be taking even more heat from members of Congress.
The real problem here is that we maintain the quaint fiction that broadcasters serve the "public interest," when what they are doing is running businesses, nothing more, nothing less. The only reason that fiction continues is that the broadcasters received their "scarce" spectrum licenses for free, along with other exceptionally valuable rights like mandatory retransmission on cable. Now that we know spectrum isn't scarce, isn't it time to end the charade?
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 12, 2004
Nirvana
So here I am, sitting on a train, checking email, surfing the web, listening to a couple hundred songs, and blogging... all through my phone.
I've had a Treo for more than a year, but this experience still gives me chills. Ten years ago there was, for all intents and purposes, no public Net. Five years from now, two billion people will be carrying it in their pockets. Crazy.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:41 PM | TrackBack
November 3rd Theses
My brother Adam and some collaborators have put together 19 theses on the future of the Democratic Party. They plan to launch them in a provocative way on Monday.
For those of you know don't know, Adam is the former president of the Sierra Club and a grassroots activist who runs a group called Common Assets. The these are well worth reading for those of us looking to find a new direction for Democatic politics in light of this year's Presidential election.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2004
FCC Declares VOIP Interstate
Ending one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, the FCC today declared most voice over IP services as inherently interstate, precluding states from regulating them like traditional telephone companies.
This will remove some of the roadblocks and uncertainty for VOIP providers, especially newer players like Vonage. But it's important to understand that the FCC hasn't actually resolved most of the hard regulatory issues VOIP raises. It has just decided that it, and not the state regulators, will be the one to make those decisions.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:02 AM | TrackBack
November 9, 2004
Skype Stats
An update on Skype's P2P voice over IP service, courtesy of Jeff Clavier:
* 13M+ users registered
* 1M+ simultaneous users reached for the first time a couple of weeks ago
* 2,384,686,217 minutes served, as I type this - i.e almost 2.4 billion minutes. Just to put things in perspective: Vonage has 170,000 customers and passed the billion minutes mark sometime in 2004
* 295,000 users have signed for SkypeOut (Skype has a goal of 5% conversion from the free service to SkypeOut)
If you haven't tried Skype, you should. The sound quality is surprisingly good, even though it uses peer-to-peer connections over the public Internet. They just announced availability of the Skype API, which will let developers build new applications and functionality on top of the platform.
I was originally dismissive of Skype, because it was free, private, and software-only. But I now thing it's a bigger deal than people realize. It's an example of how VOIP is changing the game in telecom, not just allowing in new competitors.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cool Tool
Konfabulator, a great MacOS utility for putting functional "widgets" on your desktop, is now available for Windows. Woohhoo!
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:13 AM | TrackBack
November 8, 2004
Fun with cartography
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:08 PM | TrackBack
November 5, 2004
Bush's Bait and Switch... and Why I Like It
George Bush got re-elected on the strength of two issues: the "War on Terrorism" and "Moral Values." That's what motivated a decisive share of the electorate to come out and vote. So, isn't it a bit surprising that the two pillars of his agenda for the next term are tax reform and social security reform? If I were a Bush supporter (which I'm not), I would be scratching my head about now. Of course, Bush has discussed both initiatves before. It should be no surprise that he favors overhauling the tax system and putting a portion of social security tax revenues into private accounts. But these were hardly focal points of his campaign. Even though Bush pushed through massive tax cuts in his first term, these were targeted changes like lowering brackets and eliminating the estate tax. What he's talking about now is more profound -- an overhaul of the income tax system itself. I'm thrilled. Bush is going to spend his political capital somewhere, and I'd much rather see it on these economic issues than on something like judicial nominations or environmental policy. Yes, I'm worried about what could happen on both tax reform and social security. In both cases, the changes Bush will propose are very likely to increase inequality in America, place some Americans in a deparate economic position, and give a massive windfall to the wealthy. On the other hand, Bush is right that both systems need reform. The complexity of the current tax system benefits those able to take advantage of loopholes and shelters. (People like the young George W. Bush, whose failed oil drilling company was basically a tax shelter for its investors). A flatter tax isn't inherently bad for the poor and middle class -- it all depends on the level of the tax and at what income level it kicks in. Furthermore, most Americans are already paying a big chunk of their taxes in the form of a regressive flat tax -- it's called payroll taxes. Social security and medicare contributions are much less progressive than income taxes, and they make up a large portion of the tax burden for everyone except the wealth. So, although things could get much worse, they aren't exactly great right now. On social security, the current system is doomed. Bush's deficits have made the problem worse, but at bottom it's simple demographics. My generation just isn't big enough to pay off all the baby boomer retirees, let alone have anything left for itself in 30 years. Heck, a survey ten years ago found that more young people believe in UFOs than expect social security to be around when they retire. Better to face reality and fight over what to do, than to pretend everything is hunky-dory. I'm worried that for Bush, these are just the start of his plans for the next four years. He may think he has political capital to tackle both issues and still push hard for activist right-wing judges, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and who knows what mischief in Iraq. If he's wrong, though, we might see the second Bush term do much less damage than I feared.Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 4, 2004
Policies vs. Politics
Virginia Postrel hits on something interesting in a New York Times article based on a paper by a group of Harvard economists. The paper is about religion in politics, but she draws two broader conclusions:
Yet abortion rates show no significant change with the party in office, while tax rates rise significantly under Democrats - the opposite of what the political rhetoric promises. This result suggests that politicians move away from the social center mostly to get votes ("strategic extremism") and diverge from the economic center because they actually prefer those policies ("nonstrategic extremism").Since the success of extreme messages depends on keeping your supporters better informed than your opponents, the model suggests that changing news media could be as important as changing social groupings.
Sounds right to me. The second point is intriguing because it suggests that getting the "liberal media" out of its elite, coastal shell might actually hurt the cultural conservatives who complain about it.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Next Billion Users
Two billion mobile phone users worldwide by 2006, with numbers continuing to grow, according to Nokia.
Not surprising, but still mind-boggling when you stop to consider it. Two billion human beings walking around every waking moment with a networked communications device.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:28 AM | TrackBack
Moral Values
OK, Bush won. I don't like it, but it's a fact. He won with all the legitimacy his election lacked in 2000. But the way he won re-election scares me, even more than last time.
I can tolerate four more years of smirky George W. Bush in the White House. I can tolerate a foreign policy I consider dangerous, but which is rooted in a geopolitical vision that I can respect. And I can tolerate economic policies I consider ill-conceived and selfish, but which will benefit people like me in the short run.
What I can't tolerate, as a religious person, is the notion that God took sides in this election.
The United States is still deeply divided, along exactly the same lines it was in 2000. But something has shifted. Bush won because of evangelicals and others who ranked "moral values" as their top concern. In an election this close, any number of small things could have affected the outcome. Yet targeting moral conservatives was the heart of Bush's re-election strategy from Day 1, and it worked.
There is a sense of moral outrage in the South and Midwest, which Bush tapped into. Karl Rove didn't manufacture it. His brilliance was in finding two complementary constituencies: traditional economic Republicans and cultural conservatives. For the first group, the "war on terror" and fears about basic physical security trumped doubts about the cultural direction of party. For the second group, "moral values" issues like gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research trumped concerns about job losses and bad news from Iraq.
Now, all the talk is about how Bush will try to "widen the base" of the Republican party. Don't bet on it. Pat Buchanan was right in proclaiming a culture war; he was just a decade too early and too careless in promoting his agenda publicly. The Bush administration knows how to use the hidden networks of churches and talk radio to narrowcast to a receptive audience, without spooking the majority of Americans. And that audience which put Bush in the White House will settle for nothing less than an agressive commitment to its agenda. There is simply no way Bush can nominate a Supreme Court justice who isn't resolutely pro-life.
But enough about tactics and political battles to come. There are things Democrats can do better, and we should start working on them immediately. What's harder to accept, and more frightening, is the reality that Bush and Rove unearthed. A great many Americans, enough to elect a President, feel passionately about a set of "moral values" that I find, frankly, immoral.
What is moral about consigning millions of people with debilitating diseases and injuries to death and misery, because an abstract belief about a few cells in a petri dish trumps our commitment to science?What is moral about a legal memo authorizing torture of prisoners, and allowing unspeakable abuses to occur in a prison that we operate?
What is moral about barring two consenting adults who love one another and want to spend their lives together from formalizing their marriage?
What is moral about telling women they cannot make their own decision about whether to bring a child in to the world, and throwing doctors in jail for performing medical procedures?
What is moral about allowing the destruction of God's great creation, our planet, through pollution and global warming?
What is moral about telling our children and our children's children that they must bear the burden of our economic profligacy?
Sprituality is at the core of how I live and evaluate my life. So I can see why others who, like me, believe deeply in God, feel threatened by creeping moral relativism and a "cultural elite" dismissive of their faith. And yet I find the views many Americans express in the name of morality deeply alien. The God I pray to doesn't have a party affiliation. What kind of country are we becoming?
In the last election, Catholic and other religious leaders were actively working to prevent the election of a practicing Catholic, John Kerry. Religious leaders were turning houses of worship into campaign headquarters. Yes, there are equivalent figures on the other side, like the despicable Al Sharpton, but they don't exercise moral authority on anywhere near the same scale.
Now, let me be clear. I don't see George W. Bush, or the Republican party, or evangelical Christians, as inherently immoral. The passion out there is honest and heartfelt. Religious people have as much right as any other American to participate in a political campaign. The problem is those who see Bush's re-election as fundamentally a religious crusade.
The realm of morality is not the realm of politics. The separation of Church and State that the founders of America put into place is as good an idea today as it was 200 years ago. There are places in this world, places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, where religion is political, and we see the results. America isn't close to becoming a theocracy, but I worry that an important barrier was breached in this election.
I'm firmly convinced that a majority of Americans prefer my moral viewpoint to the one which propelled Bush -- just look at the California stem-cell initiative, national polls about abortion, and the fact that even Bush himself accepts civil unions for gays and lesbians. It all depends on how you frame the issues, but that's the point -- the majority is somewhere in the grey middle rather than the sharply-defined fringes. And yet it is this passionate minority which seems to be determining the future of the country.
I can see why someone might feel threatened by gay marriage, and I can see why someone who believes life begins at conception would see abortion as murder. I disagree with those views, and I would try to convince a person who held them that they were wrong. Yet I would never begrudge them their faith. All I ask is that they not begrudge me my country.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 3, 2004
The New, New Werblog
Well, I finally got around to reinstalling Movable Type. The blog seems to be working again. Next step is to import all the old posts. Shouldn't take too long. Bear with me.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:29 AM | Comments (1)