October 2012

Lower Trade Barriers Sought for Small Online Sellers

A new report released by eBay found that 97 percent of its sellers export their products to another country. Despite their sellers' success in reaching new global markets, eBay urged policymakers to take steps that would help lower obstacles to international e-commerce.

Using data gathered from the thousands of sellers on the Internet auction and marketplace site, eBay's study found 80 percent of those who said they export products do business in five or more countries. And many of eBay's sellers have one or just a few employees, said eBay Director of Global Fulfillment Mark Mastandrea at a panel discussion on the report. The study found that the Internet has made it easier to reach customers abroad by reducing the costs and difficulty of advertising, communicating with customers, and collecting payments. However, challenges remain in actually moving products across borders, said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of federal government relations. At the event, eBay and other industry officials argued that the current trade regime is not designed to support small sellers like the ones that utilize eBay and other Internet platforms to reach customers. Given this, eBay is pushing policymakers to make several changes that would make international trade easier for "micro" sellers. They include reducing the customs challenges for smaller sellers by increasing the "de minimis" threshold, which is the value of goods that can enter a country duty free, and creating trusted trader programs for smaller sellers between the United States and other countries.

Texting Doctors Turn Off Pagers

A small survey of hospital pediatricians indicated that physicians increasingly are communicating with one another via texts, which is slowly forcing traditional pagers to the wayside.

Researchers at the University of Kansas School of Medicine conducted the survey, which was released Oct. 21 at the American Academy of Pediatrics national conference in New Orleans. Of 106 pediatricians who responded to the survey, 57 percent said they either send or receive work-related text messages, with 12 percent saying they do so more than 10 times per shift. In addition, 49 percent said they receive work-related text messages during their off hours. Most of those messages (59 percent) come from other hospital pediatricians; 34 percent are from hospital fellows or residents; and 25 percent are from consulting physicians or subspecialists. Face-to-face discussions and phone conversations still trump texting as the most frequent methods of communication, according to the study. But if the communication is to be brief, 27 percent said they prefer texts, compared with pagers (23 percent) or face-to-face discussions (21 percent).

Dot-Gov Reform Presses On, Here and Across the Pond

An initiative to drastically reduce the number of federal websites has been making slow but steady progress during the last few months. There were 1,091 non-redirecting federal websites on a list maintained by the General Services Administration when I checked just a few days ago. As of Wednesday, the list is down to 1,084 unique sites. That’s compared to nearly 1,500 dot-govs during an official count in December. This progress is particularly worth noting because the British government, which U.S. technology officials have cited as a model for dot-gov reform, reached a milestone this week, pulling all government Web content into a single master domain.

Local TV Promos Don't Translate To More Viewers

More local news TV promos spots do not mean more viewers for local TV news programs. In looking at the key 25-54 viewers -- the strongest news viewers -- the optimum promo media plan, according to one Seattle TV market, came from seven to nine exposures. That yielded a 22% increase in tune-in from 10% before the campaign started, according to Nielsen.

Former top FCC lawyer Schlick heads to Google

Austin Schlick, the former general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, will join Google's legal team.

Google did not provide information about Schlick's new role at the company other than to say he will be on their legal team. Schlick served as the commission's top legal adviser from July 2009 until June of this year. He defended the FCC's regulations in court, including its data roaming requirements and network neutrality actions. Before serving as general counsel, Schlick was the chief of litigation for the state of Maryland and held various legal roles at the FCC. He has also served as an assistant solicitor general and argued seven cases before the Supreme Court. He was a partner in private practice and served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School.

Strident Anti-Obama Messages Flood Key States

To turn on the television, open the mail or drive down the highway here is to watch conservatives test the boundaries of how far they can go to disqualify President Barack Obama.

Along the Interstate that connects the beach towns of Florida’s east coast, giant billboards show the president, whom some on the far right have falsely accused of being Muslim, bowing to a Saudi king. Another blares “Stop Obama!” and shows a nuclear warhead with “Iran” painted on it aimed at Israel, a particularly potent message with this area’s many Jewish voters. In one commercial that started running this month, a wealthy businessman and Hungarian immigrant named Thomas Peterffy laments how socialism shackled his native country. “And that’s what I see happening here,” he says. “That’s why I’m voting Republican and putting this ad on television.” And a new anti-Obama DVD is dropping into voters’ mailboxes, claiming that the president is the love child of an illicit relationship between his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party loyalist. The back story of the DVD offers the latest example of how secretive forces outside the presidential campaigns can sweep into battleground states days before the election.

Sunlight: $34.5 Million Spent in October on Senate Race Ad Buys

The battle for the Senate has proved a boon to broadcasters as campaign spending in key battleground states has skyrocketed in the waning days of the campaign, including from Super PACs and other outside groups.

According to The Sunlight Foundation's latest figures, at the end of August, those outside groups had spent $32.9 million on Senate races. In September they spent an additional $55.7 million, and already in October more than $100 million. Of that $100 million, about $34.5 million went to TV ad time buys and production costs, according to Sunlight reporting on Federal Election Commission data. While Virginia and Ohio are two of the key swing states in the presidential election, they are also drawing a crowd of outside dollars for Senate contests.

Agency Offers Better Options For Record Political Ad Spend, Includes 'Fun'

Political advertising is a lot like the weather: People like to complain about it, but nobody ever seems to do anything about it. Now someone actually is. Boca Raton, FL-based MDG Advertising has just launched a pretty cool "interactive infographic" enabling American voters -- or anyone for that matter -- to look at how the projected $5.8 billion in 2012 campaign year spending could be put to better use.

Apple: Justice Department Investigating Samsung's Use of Patents

The Department of Justice is investigating whether Samsung has misused some of its mobile-device patents in ways that violate antitrust law, rival Apple said in a filing with the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The department is investigating Samsung's use of patents that are deemed essential to wireless-technology standards adopted by the industry, Apple said. According to a person familiar with the probe, the department has been conducting the investigation for several months. The European Commission also has been investigating Samsung's patent conduct, a probe it announced in late January. The ITC is one of several legal bodies that are refereeing patent-infringement disputes between the two companies.

Here’s AT&T’s plan to grow now that everyone has a mobile phone

AT&T reported middling financial results for the third quarter with revenue of $31.5 billion leading to net income of $3.63 billion. Those sales are essentially flat from the same quarter a year before as is income. But behind those numbers is a shift occurring as AT&T’s big bet on wireless starts paying off.

AT&T’s saw wireless revenues rise by 6.6 percent year over year with data revenues up 18.3 percent. Wireline declined as a percentage of revenue by 3 percent. But given the saturation of the U.S. mobile market, AT&T is not taking its wireless success for granted. Instead it’s figuring out how to get existing customers to spend more. On the call it touted its growing base of smartphones (customers with smartphones spend almost twice as much as those with feature phones) and the take rate of its new shared family plans announced in August.

Benton

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