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Facebook is letting "priority" marketers use a new internal tool that shows them which other pages their own fans Like. For example, companies could use the tool to find out which TV shows their fans watch, which brands they buy and which bands they listen to.
The tool was discovered by AdWeek, which wrote about it earlier this week. AdWeek said only priority clients are getting access to the tool for now, which Facebook confirmed to The Times. "To help marketers build better campaigns, Facebook offers aggregated insights to managed clients that help them understand trends about their fan bases," a spokeswoman for the company told The Times in an email statement. "These tools do not provide marketers with any data about their competitors' fan bases." The tool is only available internally, and Facebook is making marketers come to their offices to access it, according to AdWeek.
Facebook giving some marketers a peek at their fans' other Likes
"IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China," CNN’s Candy Crowley said. "One of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper [there]. How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?" Here’s how Apple’s Steve Jobs would have answered.
It is easy to build a factory in China and it is almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs. The US needs to train more American engineers. A s Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs reports: "Apple had 700,000 factory workers employed in China, [Jobs] said, and that was because it needed 30,000 engineers on-site to support those workers. 'You can't find that many in America to hire,' he said. These factory engineers did not have to be PhDs or geniuses; they simply needed to have basic engineering skills for manufacturing. Tech schools, community colleges or trade schools could train them. 'If you could educate these engineers,' he said, 'we could move more manufacturing plants here.' The argument made a strong impression on the president. Two or three times over the next month he told his aides, 'We've got to find ways to train those 30,000 manufacturing engineers that Jobs told us about.'"
How Steve Jobs would have answered the debate question on Apple
Representatives from Google, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft and AT&T will join Obama Administration officials at a December conference in Dubai to negotiate the terms of an international telecommunications treaty. The industry members are part of the 95-person delegation representing the United States as it opposes potential efforts to expand a United Nations agency's authority over the management of the Internet during the upcoming treaty talks.
They will join a group of officials from the State Department, Department of Defense, Federal Communications Commission and other agencies, along with a team of telecommunications attorneys from Wiley Rein and representatives from advocacy groups and trade organizations. Amazon, Intel, Juniper Networks, PayPal, Sony, TMG Telecom, Verizon, Ericsson and Go Daddy also have representatives on the U.S. delegation, while consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge is sending two representatives. Members of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, TechAmerica and National Cable and Telecommunications Association will also be on hand in Dubai. In addition, a representative from dotGAY LLC, a corporation advocating for a "dot gay" domain name on the Web, is part of the U.S. delegation.
US delegation members for international telecom treaty talks revealed
Apparently, a White House-ordered review of security risks posed by suppliers to U.S. telecommunications companies found no clear evidence that Huawei Technologies had spied for China. Instead, those leading the 18-month review concluded early this year that relying on Huawei, the world's second-largest maker of networking gear, was risky for other reasons, such as the presence of vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. These previously unreported findings support parts of a landmark U.S. congressional report last week that warned against allowing Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE Corp to supply critical telecom infrastructure. But it may douse speculation that Huawei has been caught spying for China.
White House review finds no evidence of spying by Huawei
Amazon is rolling out Whispercast, a new service for managing content across a fleet of devices that has particular significance for schools.
Through Whispercast, a teacher or school administrator could purchase and distribute content to students across a class or grade level, as well as restrict additional purchases and web browsing on the device. To start, the service will work across Kindle devices, as well as Kindle apps for iOS and Android, and in the coming months it will expand to the Kindle Fire, Amazon said. The service can also extend to devices students may have owned previously. As schools increasingly bring more technology into the classroom, no doubt Amazon wants to be sure that it captures as much of the market as it can. While Apple’s interactive iPad has made significant headway in schools – in the second quarter of this year alone Apple sold one million iPads to schools – Amazon can now not only offer schools lower-priced devices but an easy way to distribute and control content for students.
Amazon challenges Apple in education with Whispercast Amazon looks to get Kindles to schools, workers (AP)
President Barack Obama bounced back at the presidential debate — and also bore the brunt of nasty commentary online, according to a study.
Impermium, a firm that studies online social content, reports that “comments slurring Obama exceeded those against Romney” fivefold. “What is surprising is that the majority of this commentary is offensive, insulting language distributed by machines spewing spam and a small number of people — notably, 46 percent of comments during the debate were generated by 1 percent of users,” writes Impermium.
Study: More slurs at Barack Obama than Mitt Romney
Ad spending in the presidential campaign has now topped $800 million and is on pace to reach or come close to $1 billion, according to an NBC analysis of data provided by ad-buying firm SMG Delta.
So far, $807 million has been spent on political ads for radio and television -- local and national, cable and broadcast. The Obama campaign is one ad buy away from reaching $300 million by itself. But with outside money factored in, "Team Romney" (the campaign plus outside groups supporting him or attacking the president) is outspending "Team Obama" $455 million to $352 million. The Romney campaign, which has come on since Labor Day, is now the second-biggest spender at $164 million. Following the Romney campaign are the combined Karl-Rove backed Crossroads groups -- American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Combined, the two groups have spent $124 million ($65 million for American Crossroads, $59 million for GPS).
Ad spending tops $800 million; on pace to reach or come close to $1 billion
On October 3, 2012, Deutsche Telekom and MetroPCS announced an agreement under which T-Mobile USA, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, and MetroPCS will be combined. Applications seeking Federal Communications Commission consent to the transfer of control of the licenses and authorizations held by MetroPCS and its wholly-owned and controlled subsidiaries and by T-Mobile and its wholly-owned and controlled subsidiaries are expected. The purpose of this public notice is to announce the opening of a docket, WT Docket No. 12-301, and establish the ex parte status of discussions related to the proposed transaction. When the Applications have been accepted for filing, the FCC will issue a separate public notice announcing that fact and setting forth a pleading schedule.
FCC Opens Docket For Proposed Transfer Of Control Of MetroPCS To Deutsche Telekom
The Federal Communications Commission and CTIA, the wireless industry's trade group, announced on that cellphone service providers are now alerting customers before slapping hefty fees on their monthly bills. The mobile carriers agreed one year ago to adopt the free alert system at the urging of the FCC, which complained that too many consumers suffer from "bill shock," when they discover surprise charges on their monthly phone bills.
Cellphone carriers begin warning about extra fees Statement (FCC Chairman Genachowski) Statement (Commissioner McDowell) Statement (Commissioner Clyburn) Statement (Commissioner Rosenworcel) Statement (Commissioner Pai) FCC: 'Bill Shock' Plan on Track to Reduce Surprise Charges (National Journal) Cell phone “bill shock” nearly eradicated, FCC declares (ars technica)
Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski announced that Neil Grace, who previously served as the Chairman’s Press Secretary, will take on a new role as Senior Communications Advisor to the FCC. In addition, Chairman Genachowski announced that Justin Cole will join the Office of the Chairman as Press Secretary.
Since joining the Commission, Grace has served as Press Secretary to the Chairman. In this role, he served as chief spokesperson for the Chairman, building and driving external media relations across the Chairman’s agenda and serving as resource across the agency. Before joining the FCC, Grace was Director of Issues and Crisis Practice for Burson-Marsteller, managing media relations on behalf of dozens of technology and telecommunications clients for the New York-based consulting firm. He led media campaigns for corporations, associations and government agencies on a number of issues ranging from intellectual property, international trade, automotive and energy and sustainability in the marketplace. Mr. Grace graduated from Georgetown University.
Cole most recently served as the lead Corporate Communications Manager for Tata Communications (America) Inc., where he was responsible for overseeing all corporate and external communications and media relations for the company related to its telecommunications and Enterprise IT business lines. Prior to joining Tata Communications (America) Inc., Mr. Cole served as a Deputy Editor for Fitch Ratings. In this role, he worked with Fitch Ratings’ global analyst staff and oversaw the management and publication of sovereign and institutional commentaries, reports and rating actions. Before joining Fitch Ratings, Mr. Cole was a business and economics correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) in the news agency’s Washington, D.C. bureau. He also worked as a business and energy journalist for Dow Jones & Company. Mr. Cole is a graduate in Comparative American Studies from The University of Warwick, England.
Justin Cole to Serve as FCC Press Spokesperson