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- New York Times: “The United States Postal Service is wisely going ahead with a long-debated plan to eliminate Saturday mail delivery, with or without Congress’s blessing. The public, increasingly reliant on Internet communication, has registered 70 percent approval in opinion surveys of the cutback as a no-brainer in modern life that would mean an estimated savings of $2 billion a year.”
- San Jose Mercury News: “Continuing Saturday mail service makes as much sense as keeping the Pony Express after the telegraph was invented.” “It's Congress that has prevented this for the past two years, arguing that people in rural areas, especially the elderly, need delivery of mail-order drugs and other essentials. But they survive Sundays now. Asking people to plan an extra day in advance seems reasonable to save $2 billion a year.”
- San Francisco Chronicle: “The U.S. Postal Service's financial mess, which led to its decision to stop Saturday mail service, is only partly the result of technology and competition from FedEx, UPS and others who can deliver things faster and cheaper. Its biggest problem is Congress, which wants the ostensibly independent Postal Service to be self sustaining - but can't resist the temptation to meddle and micromanage.”
- Washington Post: "The smart thing for Congress to do would be to let USPS’s action stand and take it as a cue to address the Postal Service’s chronic problems. Certainly comprehensive reform legislation would be a better use of everyone’s time between now and August than disputing USPS’s plausible but aggressive interpretation of the law on Saturday delivery." "If you think the Postal Service is a case study in the special-interest gridlock that plagues U.S. government generally, we agree with you. That’s why reforming it, root and branch, is such an important test for Congress. So far, lawmakers have shown that they can’t, or won’t, do the job. We hope that, by precipitating the issue of Saturday delivery, USPS management will finally snap them out of it."
No Snail Mail on Saturday (NYTimes) Saturday mail service should have stopped years ago (SJ Merc) Congress is adding to post office blues (SF Chronicle) Will the threat of five-day mail shock Congress into action on postal reform? (WashPost)
Google has announced that it’s making sweeping changes to simplify the way it sells ads for mobile devices — a move that some say could dramatically help the company’s bottom line.
The company will now allow advertisers to centralize controls for mobile and desktop ad campaigns in one place and offer advertisers more data to demonstrate the true worth of their campaigns. “This is the biggest change in AdWords over the last five years,” said Internet marketing analyst Larry Kim, founder of Wordstream, who worked with Google ahead of the company’s announcement. Mobile searches hold about half the value of desktop hits, Kim said. But they’re also making up a growing part of all search hits. For that reason, analysts have identified mobile advertising as one of Google’s main roadblocks for the future, particularly if it can’t close the gap between the cost of desktop ads and mobile ads. With the changes advertisers will be able to control several branches of a single campaign, with options to control customized mobile and desktop ads for different locations and times from a single place.
Google’s changes to mobile advertising could fix company’s major problem
The city of Los Angeles now has a newly redesigned website and, coming next month, a mobile app.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the new tech tools during his first Google+ Hangout news conference. Speaking from Google's offices in Venice (CA), Mayor Villaraigosa conceded that the moves were overdue. He said that the tech scene in L.A. has grown rapidly in recent years and the city wanted a website and app to match that momentum. "Silicon Beach has raised the game, and the city of L.A. needed to raise ours," he said. Visitors to the new city website can access a 311 directory of city services and request services such as filling potholes, graffiti removal, permit inspections, property violations and streetlight outages. There are also maps, payment options and resources for residents, businesses, visitors and job seekers. With the My L.A. 311 mobile app, which will be available March 18, Mayor Villaraigosa said the city was "putting smart, social and open government in the palm of your hand."
LA mayor Villaraigosa announces redesigned city website and new mobile app
PayNearMe is one of a series of new companies and traditional banks developing products for the unbanked -- a good thing, says Jennifer Tescher, the president of the nonprofit Center for Financial Services Innovation. “We’re seeing a lot of innovation in this market because people are recognizing that there’s an opportunity.”
Over one in four U.S. households are either unbanked or underbanked, according to a recent study by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That means they don’t have access to a traditional bank account or turn to bank alternatives, like check cashers or payday lenders, for some of their financial transactions. There are many reasons why someone might be without a bank account.
Turning cash into online payments for the unbanked
Saying it needed to take drastic steps to stem billions of dollars in losses, the Postal Service announced that it would seek to stop Saturday delivery of letters, a sweeping change in the way the agency operates that immediately drew criticism from postal unions and some businesses.
The financially struggling agency said the change to a five-day mail delivery schedule would occur in August and would save about $2 billion annually. The Postal Service would continue to deliver packages on a six-day schedule, and post offices would continue to be open on Saturdays. “Our financial condition is urgent,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, the postmaster general, at a news conference announcing the change. “This is too big of a cost savings for us to ignore.” Donahoe said the move to end Saturday delivery was part of a five-year plan to return the agency to profitability. Last year, the Postal Service had a net loss of $15.9 billion. Since 2010, the agency has reduced hours at many small, rural post offices and cut staff, and also announced plans to reduce the number of its mail processing plants. But post office officials say the cuts and staff reductions are not enough. The agency has long sought Congressional approval to end mail delivery on Saturdays. But Congress, which continues to work on legislation to overhaul the agency, has resisted. Under a Congressional mandate that has been in place since 1981, the Postal Service is required to deliver mail six days a week. But post office officials argue that since the government is operating under a stopgap budget measure, known as a continuing resolution, that mandate does not apply, giving them the authority to make the changes without Congressional approval.
Postal Service to End Delivery of Letters on Saturdays Postal Service plan to end Saturday delivery likely to affect business (LA Times) Postal Service Saturday Delivery Cuts Set Up Fight With Unions, Democrats (Huffington Post)
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announced the availability of $121.5 million in grants to assist states as they prepare for a nationwide public safety broadband network.
The grants will be available to all 56 states and territories, and will support planning, consultation, education and outreach activities as well as help fund efforts to collect information on infrastructure and equipment that could be used by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) in building a wireless public safety broadband network. The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 created FirstNet and directed it to deploy a nationwide wireless broadband network that will enable first responders to better communicate with each other during emergencies and save lives. The Act directed NTIA to establish the State and Local Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP), making grants available to states, in collaboration with regional, tribal, and local jurisdictions, as FirstNet takes steps to help make this nationwide, interoperable network a reality.
Applications are due to NTIA from the states and territories by March 19, 2013. NTIA anticipates awarding the grants by July 15, 2013.
NTIA Announces Availability of $121.5 Million in State Grants to Assist with FirstNet Planning SLIGP Federal Funding Opportunity (Federal Funding Opportunity announcement) State and Local Implementation Grant Program (Supplemental Application Narrative)
Remember when Google and Yahoo were talking about an ad alliance last year? Maybe they worked something out, after all: Sources say Google is set to begin running some of its AdSense display ads on Yahoo sites, and will become one of several ad networks Yahoo uses to fill some of its pages. That means that the two companies will have a relationship similar to the one that Google has with publishers all over the Web: They give Google access to some of their unsold inventory, and Google inserts small ads it runs on behalf of its advertisers.
Coming Soon to Yahoo: Ads From Google
Facebook wants to ensure that billions of people in emerging markets have access to its mobile apps when they buy their first phones. The social networking giant found an easy solution to that problem: Facebook is working with Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum to embed its software directly into the guts of inexpensive smartphones. Before you get too excited, Spreadtrum isn’t building the elusive Facebook Phone. Instead, it’s guaranteeing that millions of new phones sold into emerging markets will be “Facebook ready.”
Facebook isn’t making its own phone, but it’s pre-loading its software into millions of devices
Satisfaction with federal websites dipped slightly in the fourth quarter of 2012 but has remained relatively steady since 2009, according to a new report released by consultancy Foresee.
The report found that while e-government had a solid run in 2012, in large part thanks to the release of the Digital Government Strategy, Americans’ satisfaction with the e-gov experience has changed little. The year ended with a satisfaction score of 75 on the report’s 100-point scale – the same score as every fourth quarter since 2009. That number is down from slightly from 75.3 in the third quarter and from an all-time high of 75.6 during the second quarter of 2012. In addition, one in three citizens who accessed a federal government website did so using a mobile phone or tablet, and nearly half said that they might or plan to access a government website via their mobile device in the future. The fourth quarter report is the first to look at how citizens interact with government via mobile devices.
Survey Finds Big Opportunities for Government in Mobile Apps
[Commentary] The formula that made Fox such an overwhelming success: Fox = Republican party. The network's rating grew an astounding 570% from 1999 to 2009.
The marriage between the network and the party has been almost entirely beneficial to both entities. Working together – brazenly, even explicitly so – has been a force multiplier for the GOP brand and message. It's not really a surprise that as the linked swimmers have started to go against the current of history, their connection puts them both at risk of drowning. On the surface, the question appears to be: who will let go first? No matter who may be trying to end the marriage first, extricating themselves from the relationship won't be graceful: the habits of mental cohabitation are too difficult to break.
Can Fox News break its fatal embrace with the Republican party?