August 2012

Social Media Users' Age, Gender Impact Site Choices

Social's influence on consumers continues to increase, depending on the network. Males seem to flock to tech-oriented sites like Slashdot at 87%, followed by Hacker News at 77% and Stack Overflow at 76%. Females like Pinterest, 79%; Goodreads, 70%; and Blogger, 66%. Facebook and Twitter have the same gender user percentage, with 40% being male and 60% female. Pingdom used DoubleClick Ad Planner to mine demographic data in the United States and create the study across numerous social sites. The findings analyze data across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Hacker News, Slashdot, Github, Stack, Overflow, Orkut, Quora, WordPress, Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, Tagged, Hi5, LiveJournal, Yelp, deviantART, StumbleUpon, Googdreads, and Last.fm. Ironically, Pingdom omitted Google+ information from the study for lack of data accessible in the Google DoubleClick platform.

Donkeys become Wi-Fi hot spots in historic Israeli park

Kfar Kedem is a historic park in northern Israel that promises to take visitors back 1,000 to 2,000 years to biblical times. You can thresh grain there, don old fashioned robes, press oil from fresh olives, ride the rolling hills on donkeys, and as of recently, you'll also get great 4G access. That's because Kfar Kedem recently turned five of the park's 30 donkeys into historically inaccurate, living, walking, Wi-Fi hotspots. The Wi-Fi-equipped donkeys wear a router around their necks in what looks like a little feed pouch to keep the historical vibe going.

Bait and switch: What’s behind AT&T’s stance on FaceTime?

[Commentary] I see two reasons the carrier has picked this fight. The first is to push more consumers over to the Mobile Shared Data plan, and the second is to establish a precedent that will put its Wi-Fi network on the same legal footing as its cellular one, especially when it comes to network neutrality.

Success in the first effort will help AT&T in the near term as it drives people off their grandfathered unlimited plans and tiered plans, while success in the second will give AT&T more wiggle room as it fights the Federal Communications Commission and consumer advocates over network neutrality. If AT&T can set a precedent here that Wi-Fi is just as good as cellular when it comes to offering competing apps, then it could limit apps it doesn’t want on its more constrained cellular network to its Wi-Fi network. That allows it to strongly influence the apps that consumers use on the AT&T cellular network and drives consumer behavior in a more subtle way than huge early-termination fees. AT&T may also use this implication — that Wi-Fi is just as good as cellular — to argue that some of the more stringent rules of wireline network neutrality don’t apply on the AT&T Wi-Fi network.

Emergency Access Advisory Committee

Federal Communications Commission
Friday, September 14, 2012
10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (EST)
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0822/DA-1...

At the September 2012 EAAC meeting, the seven subcommittees of the EAAC will present reports and consider activities for 2012. The seven subcommittees cover:

Text-to-911 Solutions Interim to NG911
Interoperability Testing
PSAP Sign Language and other Communications Assistance
Detailed Report Sections from 2011
Gaps in NENA i3 compared to EAAC Recommendations
TTY Transition/Roadmap
Timeline Alignment For Phasing into NG911 PSAPs

Read more about FCC's Emergency Access Advisory Committee

Enabling FaceTime Over AT&T’s Mobile Broadband Network

AT&T’s plan to make FaceTime available over our mobile broadband network for our AT&T Mobile Share data plan customers does not violate Federal Communications Commission network neutrality rules. Here’s why.

Providers of mobile broadband Internet access service are subject to two net neutrality requirements: (1) a transparency requirement pursuant to which they must disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of their broadband Internet access services; and (2) a no-blocking requirement under which they are prohibited, subject to reasonable network management, from blocking applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services. AT&T’s plans for FaceTime will not violate either requirement. Our policies regarding FaceTime will be fully transparent to all consumers, and no one has argued to the contrary. There is no transparency issue here. Nor is there a blocking issue.

AT&T's Attempt to Justify Blocking FaceTime Falls Short

The [Federal Communications Commission]'s Open Internet rules do not distinguish between pre-loaded and downloaded apps. They prevent carriers from blocking certain kinds of apps -- period. AT&T is blocking FaceTime for all of its iPhone customers who do not subscribe to its premium 'Mobile Shared' plans, and this runs afoul of the rules.

FaceTime only works over cellular connections in iOS 6 and later. We don't know why Apple chose not to enable cellular FaceTime earlier. But now that every other US iPhone carrier besides AT&T will be offering cellular FaceTime on a nondiscriminatory basis, it is reasonable to assume that AT&T's demands were holding it back for everyone. No carrier should be able to dictate to Apple or any other handset manufacturer what features they may include on their phones. AT&T has no say over what features customers may use over Wi-Fi, unlicensed spectrum that is free for the public to use without the permission any carrier. Thus it is disingenuous of AT&T to point to the availability of FaceTime over Wi-Fi as some sort of benefit it provides its customers. That said, perhaps the best way to counter AT&T's anti-consumer behavior with regard to FaceTime is increase the availability of unlicensed spectrum, to further increase the ability of consumers to bypass gatekeepers like AT&T. Many people use apps like FaceTime, Skype, and ooVoo instead of making voice calls. In many respects these apps are more convenient than traditional calling. And by using these apps, consumers can save money on international calling charges, conference call services, and in other ways. There's no doubt that these apps are a competitive threat to AT&T's voice service. But as the FCC made clear in its Open Internet rules, mobile providers must compete with these new services fair and square, and not by engaging in discriminatory behavior.

YouTube Will Now Let Mobile Users Choose Whether to Watch Ads

People often visit Web sites on their mobile phones as much or more than they do on computers. But that leaves Web companies with a challenge: how to make money on phones, where there is less space for advertisements and people have less patience for them? YouTube thinks it has an answer. It introduced a new kind of ad for its mobile site that lets viewers choose whether or not to watch a video ad, and only charges advertisers if the ad is watched. This type of ad, which YouTube calls TrueView, has been available on computers since late 2010. It is well-suited for viewers using mobile devices, Google executives said, when they are often crunched for time and have little patience for unwanted interruptions.

T-Mobile, MetroPCS to launch unlimited 4G data plans

Bucking the trend of shared data plans, T-Mobile is offering its customers something they haven’t seen in a while: truly unlimited data. That’s right, T-Mobile said that it will be offering limitless and throttle-less data plans — and for its HSPA+ 4G network, no less — starting on Sept. 5. The unlimited data plan will cost $20 per month when added to a Value voice and text plan or $30 per month when added to a Classic voice and text plan. Value plans do not include smartphone subsidies, but have lower monthly rates. That means that unlimited plans will start at $69.99 and $89.99, which is cheaper than the monthly cost of Sprint’s unlimited data plan, which runs on a 3G network. MetroPCS is offering a promotional unlimited data plan for $55 on its LTE network. The plan is available for a limited time.

FTC Updates Telemarketer Fees for the Do Not Call Registry

The Federal Trade Commission has announced updated fees starting on October 1, 2012, for telemarketers accessing phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. All telemarketers calling consumers in the United States are required to download the numbers on the Do Not Call Registry to ensure they do not call those who have registered their phone numbers.

The first five area codes are free, and organizations that are exempt from the Do Not Call rules, such as some charitable organizations, may obtain the entire list for free. Telemarketers must subscribe each year for access to the Registry numbers. The access fees for the Registry are being increased as required by the Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007. Under the Act's provisions, in fiscal year 2013 (from October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013), telemarketers will pay $58, an increase of $2, for access to Registry phone numbers in a single area code, up to a maximum charge of $15,962 for all area codes nationwide, an increase from the previous maximum of $15,503. Telemarketers will pay $1 more per area code for numbers they subscribe to receive during the second half of the 12-month subscription period, for a total of $29 per area code.

How Obama, Romney (and Friends) Are Using Social Media

According to the polls, President Barack Obama is in a tight race with challenger Mitt Romney. But he can take a little solace in the fact that he's trouncing his Republican opponent in social media. What might be surprising -- and infuriating to social-media gurus everywhere -- is how little candidates and their teams are using social media for engagement. The social media habits of the Obama and Romney campaigns do reflect reality, however. Domestic and economic issues dominate the conversation.

Benton

Search