August 2009

Breakfast Can Wait. The Day's First Stop Is Online.

Technology has shaken up plenty of life's routines, but for many people it has completely altered the once predictable rituals at the start of the day. This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities. Weekday mornings have long been frenetic, disjointed affairs. Now families that used to fight over the shower or the newspaper tussle over access to the lone household computer — or about whether they should be using gadgets at all, instead of communicating with one another.

Big Media Companies Navigate Free Content and Apps

Media brands are jumping onto the iPhone. USA Today? There's an app for that. "The Rachel Maddow Show"? "Entertainment Tonight"? Public radio? Yes, yes and yes, there are apps for those. Now, if only there were an app that showed media companies how to make money on the iPhone. For them, the early days of iPhone applications resemble the early days of the Internet. They know they need to have an app for the iPhone, and so they are creating appealing ones that are loaded with features. Yet, as with the Web, it is far from clear how much revenue media apps for the iPhone can produce. Executives at some major media companies say they hope to gain exposure for their brand by developing apps, rather than relying on them to be big revenue producers.

Seattle Paper Is Resurgent as a Solo Act

When The Seattle Times became this city's only surviving daily newspaper in March, even The Times itself could not muster much optimism about its chances. Frank A. Blethen, the publisher, said then that the demise of the rival Post-Intelligencer, known as The P-I, was no guarantee that his money-losing paper would make it. In an article in March on Seattle's becoming "a one-newspaper town," The Times asked, "will it become a no-newspaper town?" But less than five months later, a nearly forgotten word has crept back into Times executives' vocabulary: profit. "On a month-to-month basis, we are starting to operate in the black," Mr. Blethen, who is also chief executive of The Seattle Times Company, said.

News Site Keeps Focus on Town's Recession

Like other media organizations this year, MSNBC.com wanted to show the wrath of the recession at the kitchen table level. So it began what is one of the most unusual experiments in online journalism to date: it ensconced itself in one city in Indiana and documented how that city grappled with the economic downturn. For the Elkhart Project, which is entering its fifth month, MSNBC.com assigns one staff member to Elkhart, Ind., at almost all times to ensure a regular output of blog posts, slide shows, videos and Twitter messages. In Elkhart, readers and viewers see the effects of job losses, foreclosures and stimulus money projects — what MSNBC calls "stories of struggle and recovery in America." The project has won over some residents who were initially upset about the media's portrayal of the manufacturing city of 53,000, which has an unemployment rate twice the national average and is sometimes treated as a national symbol of distressed middle America. The project has also been recognized by other journalists for its storytelling; last week it received the National Press Club's online journalism award.

The Payoff of Ads on Search Engines

Marketers of retail Web sites face a basic choice: is it better to spend lots of money on ads that show up alongside results on search engines like Google? Or should marketing dollars be spent making a site more likely to show up in the true (or "organic") results of the search? A new study by Engine Ready, an Internet marketing company, suggests that visitors who get to retail sites through sponsored links are more likely to buy than those who click on organic results. They also spend more.

With Cable, Laying a Basis for Growth in Africa

The opening of a fiber optic cable providing broadband Internet service to millions of people in Southern and Eastern Africa is part of an ambitious plan to expand Web access and help spur the continent's economy and technology industry. The cable, built by Seacom, a consortium 75 percent controlled by African investors, is the first of about 10 new undersea connections expected to serve Africa before the middle of next year. The expansion will cost about $2.4 billion and will help connect Africa with Europe, Asia and parts of the Middle East at higher speeds and a lower cost. Until now, Africa had only one submarine fiber optic cable: the less efficient SAT-3 in Western Africa, owned primarily by Telkom, the South African telecommunications company, and last updated in 2002. Those with no access to that cable were forced to use expensive and slow satellite links.

Lawsuits Question After-Hours Demands of Email and Cellphones

Two recent lawsuits raise a question that many employees and employers have deliberated: Should hourly workers be paid for time spent responding to work calls or emails while off the clock? The federal suits highlight the legal issues sparked by the proliferation of personal technology as well as the blurring of work and free time. Last month, three current and former employees sued T-Mobile USA Inc., claiming they were required to use company-issued smart phones to respond to work messages after hours without pay. In a March suit, a former CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. maintenance worker seeks pay for time spent after hours receiving and responding to messages on a work-issued cellphone. The two cases come amid other disputes over when employees should be paid. A California appeals court recently reinstated a suit by employees of medical-technology provider Lincare seeking compensation for time spent answering customer questions by phone while on call. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act says employees must be paid for work performed off the clock, even if the work was voluntary. When the law was passed in 1938, "work" was easy to define for hourly employees. As the workplace changed, so did the rules for when workers should be paid.

Lawmakers push to end drug ads targeting consumers

Prescription drug advertising has never had it easy, but lately the $4.3 billion ad sector has come under attack from lawmakers who are trying to get the ads off the airwaves. Some congressmen are targeting complicated ads that promote a drug to address a malady that you may not know you have. As Washington tries to reach agreement on a sweeping overhaul of health care, direct-to-consumer advertising, or DTC, is being targeted as a contributor to the high cost of health care. Nonetheless, lawmakers want to rid the airwaves of them. Rep. James Moran (D-VA) wants them eliminated on the grounds of decency standards. Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants drugmakers to refrain from advertising them for a certain period of time after receiving market approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Others, including Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), want to amend the federal tax code to bar pharmaceutical companies from deducting the cost of the ads as a business expense. Potential legislation comes at a time when the sector has pulled back on spending and faces greater scrutiny from the FDA, which already imposes strong guidelines on what is allowed in the ads. Ad experts say the ads won't disappear because they work, are already regulated and don't add to the cost of health care.

Facebook joins forces with advertisers

More than 80 per cent of the largest US advertisers are using Facebook to promote themselves, suggesting that corporate America has embraced the social networking site as a mainstream promotional platform. This marks a striking shift. Companies were initially hesitant to advertise on social networks because users appeared resistant to advertising and there were fears that corporate logos might appear alongside offensive content. However, Facebook, which has 340 million unique monthly visitors, says 83 of the top 100 advertising spenders in the US, as ranked by the research group AdAge, use its site.

Is Google playing by the book?

[Commentary] The future of the book industry - who will control which books can be viewed online - is being weighed by a federal judge. This October, a judge is expected to make a ruling on a settlement between Google and publishers and authors. Already, the US Justice Department's antitrust division and the European Union have expressed interest in the settlement and raised concerns about issues of copyright and monopoly. If it stands, the agreement must include long-term safeguards that allow public access to the full collection at reasonable cost, maintain the rights of copyright holders, and ensure the necessary privacy of those who use the service.

Benton

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