July 2010

Facebook is ubiquitous, but is it really an antisocial network?

Earlier this week Facebook acquired its 500 millionth user. This means that more people are on Facebook, which got its start a mere six years ago, than live in the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. Fewer people live on Facebook than in China, but Facebook is banned in China. If it weren't, then Facebook would have even more users. How to mark this moment?

The social network has taught us, above all else, the value of the brief and tangential -- the "ambient intimacy" that social scientists use to describe the site, where users become close simply by absorbing the casual status updates on each other's lives. So, updates, then. A series of scattered ways to think about our relationship with this sprawling, looming thing. "What's become ordinary is that you are interacting with hundreds of people in the same space," that the compartments we once created for our interactions are dissolving, says Zeynep Tufekci, a sociology professor at University of Maryland Baltimore County who studies the social impacts of technology. "You're having connections that were never before possible," Tufekci says. "It's profoundly altered our relationships."

Apple, Obama, Octopus

The social media universe put two of the biggest names in politics and technology under the microscope last week, highlighting their perceived failures.

Bloggers seized on the public's falling confidence in President Obama while Twitter users savored an opportunity to take issue with Apple Inc. over the company's newest gadget. For the week of July 12-16, the No. 1 subject on blogs (at 20% of the news links), was a new Washington Post poll showing diminished public confidence in Obama's ability to make the right decisions, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The July 13 story about the poll, which measured confidence of both political parties, by Post staff writers Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, reported that the public's faith in the president hit a new low since his election, with just 43% of voters expressing confidence in him. The news was worse for members of Congress, who inspired even less confidence among Americans.

Gottlieb, Wynn Tapped

President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint Howard L. Gottlieb to be a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and Elaine Wynn to be a member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Howard L. Gottlieb, Appointee for Member, President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
Howard Gottlieb is the General Partner of Glen Eagle Partners, Ltd., a family private investment firm. He was a founding partner of Glenwood Partners and Chairman of Glenwood Financial Group. Mr. Gottlieb is an accomplished violinist. He has played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and performed widely with orchestras and chamber music groups in the United States and Europe. He is a Life Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Merit School of Music, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Ravinia Festival and the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a former trustee of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Mr. Gottlieb is a graduate of the University of Chicago and serves on the University's Visiting Committee.

Elaine Wynn, Appointee for Member, Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Elaine Wynn has served as Director of Wynn Resorts since 2000. Ms. Wynn is a past member of the Executive Board of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and has served since 1997 on the State of Nevada Council to Establish Academic Standards. Most recently, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons appointed Wynn co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Education Reform Task Force, created to ensure a successful state application for the federal Race to the Top competition. In addition, she was appointed in February 2010 to the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board by Senator Harry Reid. She is the Founding Chairperson of Communities in Schools of Nevada and was appointed as Chairman of the National Board of Communities in Schools. Ms. Wynn was named the Nevada Governor's Philanthropist of the Year in 2005, and in 2007, America's Promise Alliance awarded her one of seven National Promise of America Founders Awards for her dedication to education and improving the lives of children. Ms. Wynn received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1986.

How VJs are changing TV news

As television newsrooms expect more of their journalists to work solo, the trend is affecting both the process of newsgathering and the product that goes on the air.

Many news managers believe video journalists (VJs) offer more flexibility at a lower cost with little or no reduction in quality. But new research suggests it's not all good news. Mary Bock of Kutztown University spent two years studying the VJ revolution. Her unpublished dissertation highlights many of the challenges faced by journalists who report, shoot, write and edit. Some may be obvious: It's tough to do this kind of physical work and still look good at 5 p.m., one VJ told her. A bigger concern is what Bock's analysis reveals about how the use of VJs is changing the content of TV news.

"Because they work alone, VJs will be more apt to look for quick and easy access to story elements," Bock writes. "Instead of the smaller cameras and simpler software making it easier to take chances, television VJs see themselves as having less freedom to take chances with their stories."

FCC Extends Comment Period on the Impact to Broadband Communications Networks from Equipment Failures or Severe Overloads

The Federal Communications Commission has extended the deadline for comments on the Effects on Broadband Communications Networks Of Damage to or Failure of Network Equipment Or Severe Overload until September 3, 2010. On April 21, 2010, the FCC released a Notice of Inquiry (Notice) in the proceeding, seeking comment to enhance its understanding of the present state of survivability of broadband communications networks. The FCC's goal to explore potential measures to reduce network vulnerability to failures in network equipment or severe overload conditions, such as would occur in natural disasters, pandemics, and other disasters or events that would restrain our ability to communicate.

Schumer files new version of campaign-finance bill to court centrist votes

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has filed a new version of a campaign-finance bill aimed at winning the support of Maine's key GOP centrist Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

The new version strips out several provisions included in the House-passed bill that conservative groups, as well as Collins, had said provides an unfair advantage to unions over corporations and other groups. Democrats are courting Snowe and Collins and could bring the bill to the floor for a vote as early as next week.

The bill specifically jettisons a provision dealing with requirements that all businesses, unions and groups must disclose transfers to or from or between their affiliates of $10,000 or more, according to a Senate aide familiar with the changes. In order to appease labor unions, the House added language exempting any groups from reporting such transfers if the source of the funds comes from member dues, not large donations from corporations or individuals.

Another change would affect all groups. In the House-passed version, businesses and groups would be forced to disclose transfers of $50,000 or more between organizations and other businesses only if the money could be traced back to an individual large donor. "That's a huge loophole that escaped notice [in the House-passed version]," the Senate aide said. "That loophole was closed to improve the integrity of the bill."

In addition, Sen Schumer got rid of an amendment that would have barred any oil and gas companies that drill in the Outer Continental Shelf from funding political advertisements. It was sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and was added to the House bill when it was considered on the floor.

He modified another provision requiring businesses and groups to state their geographic locations in political advertisement disclaimers. The new bill would only require those locations to be highlighted in TV and not radio ads because television ads could do so visually while radio ads would have to voice the lengthy disclaimer. He also added language from Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI.) that requires senators to file their quarterly Federal Election Commission reports electronically.

Reps Boucher and Terry: The Universal Service Fund is broken

Reps Rick Boucher (D-VA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and Lee Terry (R-NE) introduced the Universal Service Reform Act of 2010.

The measure will improve and modernize the Universal Service Fund (USF) by reining in the size of the fund and promoting broadband deployment. "The Universal Service Fund is broken. Consumers currently pay more than thirteen percent of long distance revenues into the fund and have at times this year contributed over fifteen percent. Our legislation is a comprehensive and forward-looking measure, which will control the spiraling growth of the Universal Service Fund while ensuring that sufficient universal service support is available on a technology-neutral basis to the carriers which rely on it to provide service. The measure will expand who pays into the Fund, control the growth of the Fund and modernize the Fund by allowing its use for the deployment of high-speed broadband service," said Reps Boucher and Terry. The bill would will ensure the continued viability of the Universal Service Fund by limiting universal service support in areas where there is competition among providers of voice and broadband services and directing the FCC to adopt a competitive bidding process to determine which wireless carriers will receive universal service support. The measure also directs the FCC to establish and implement performance goals for each universal service fund program and to determine the appropriate methodology for audits of universal service fund recipients.

The Boucher-Terry measure has been endorsed by the American Public Communications Council, Inc., AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, OPASTCO, Qwest, USTelecom, Verizon, Vonage and the Western Telecommunications Alliance.

New NTCA chief: Universal Service is 'lifeblood' for small telcos

A Q&A with Shirley Bloomfield, the new CEO of the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association.

She spent 21 years with the NTCA between 1986 and 2001, rising to vice president of government affairs and association services. She has rejoined the organization after stints as senior vice president of federal relations for Qwest and vice president of federal relations for Verizon. Bloomfield said her return to the NTCA has "reopened her eyes" to the importance of Universal Service funding for small telcos. Unlike with Verizon, which has many revenue streams, she said Universal Service and access charges are a "lifeblood" to NTCA members.

DISH: Court Won't Delay Noncom HD Mandate

The U.S. District Court for Nevada has denied DISH Network's request for a preliminary injunction against implementation of the noncommercial station HD carriage mandate in the satellite reauthorization law. DISH is expected to appeal the decision. DISH says the mandate violates its First and Fifth Amendment rights and has already put a crimp in business plans it based on the 2008 FCC timetable for phasing in HD carriage of all local TV stations, including noncoms, by 2013.

Clear Channel Donates Two More Stations to Minorities

Clear Channel Radio donated two more radio stations -- KFXN-AM (Minneapolis, MN) and WTOC-AM (Newton, NJ) -- to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, adding to the four it previously donated. As part of the MMTC-Clear Channel Ownership Diversity Initiative, the stations will be re-launched with new minority operators and executives.

Benton

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