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Analytics firm Beevolve claims to have crunched data from 36 million Twitter profiles. What they found probably corresponds to what you suspected: most Twitter users are young iPhone users from English speaking countries. Fond of gender stereotypes? The study has you covered: women tweet more than men; gals tweet about family and fashion while guys tweet about tech and sports; women like purple backgrounds while men prefer dark ones. The most useful part of the study, however, is that it provides a good view of how ordinary people use Twitter. For instance, it reveals that 25 percent of Twitter users have never tweeted, the average number of followers is 208 and that 81 percent of users have fewer than 50 followers.
The typical Twitter user is a young woman with an iPhone and 208 followers
A new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau reinforces prior research showing that the U.S. Hispanic market has a strong presence online and on mobile devices. The “Digital Hispanic Consumer” report indicates that Latinos have higher-than-average representation in areas like e-commerce and digital media and social media use.
IAB: Hispanic Audience Active Online, Mobile
Speaking at the Futurecom conference in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said that the upcoming World Conference of International Telecommunications (WCIT) will “be a crossroads for the Internet,” determining whether it remains free and open, or becomes increasingly impeded by international regulations.
He urged leaders in the developed world and emerging economies to reject proposals for new international regulation of the Internet. FCC Chairman Genachowski said, “We have a path that led to the extraordinary growth of broadband and the Internet - the path of open markets, competition, and the free flow of information - and we should stay on that path.” Chairman Genachowski called for the continued preservation of an open Internet as part of a vision which embraces competition, market-based policies, and the existing multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance.
The Internet at a Global Crossroads: Preserving Internet Freedom and Openness FCC (read Genachowski’s remarks)
One of the 9/11 Commission’s key recommendations in 2004 was that Congress should provide for the expedited and increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes.
It took eight years to get the job done, but when President Barack Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 into law on Feb. 22, it marked the culmination of years of effort for those who had been fighting for a national public safety network. The legislation combines the D Block of spectrum with the 10 MHz already allocated to public safety to create the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet, as an independent authority within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). FirstNet is charged with establishing a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for first responders and emergency management officials. The new network is not initially intended to replace existing public safety and first responder land mobile radio voice communication systems.
FirstNet: Answers to Key Questions
China could retaliate if the U.S. government excommunicates Chinese technology firm Huawei by reciprocating charges of cyberespionage and denying American tech companies market access, some industry analysts say.
The results of a nearly yearlong congressional probe into the second-largest telecommunications firm in the world suggests Huawei facilitates wiretaps for the Chinese government through the equipment it sells stateside. The House Intelligence Committee, which released the findings Monday, has since alerted U.S. companies doing business with Huawei and ZTE to use another vendor. “I thought of this from the reverse side. What if the Chinese government had accused us of this?” questioned Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst with ZK Research. “Wouldn’t we be in an uproar?”
China’s Defense of Huawei? US Tech Companies Spy Too
Super PACs and other third-party political advertisers have been spending heavily on TV advertising in the run up to the Nov. 6 election and they are paying as much as four times as much as the candidates for comparable ad time, according to a TVNewsCheck spot check of stations' online political ad files in three markets in the swing states of Ohio, Florida and Nevada.
The disparity is not surprising. Federal law mandates that stations sell time to candidates at the lowest unit rate — that is, at the rate stations charged their most favored commercial advertisers. Since super PACs and other groups not directly affiliated with a candidate don't qualify for the federal discount, stations are free to charge them whatever the market will bear and they do. But until political ad rates went online this summer by order of the Federal Communications Commission, it was difficult to find the evidence of the disparity. It required visiting individual stations and rummaging through their public inspection files.
Super PACs Pay Up to 4X More for TV Spots
Analysts will say that along with Hispanics, suburban women – probably ones in Columbus, Orlando and Richmond – will decide who gets sworn in Jan. 20. But, why not try to get young men to stop playing video games long enough to go to the polls to offset any shortfall with soccer moms. Earlier this year, national cable rep firm NCC Media cut an estimated $3 million deal with ESPN giving it more inventory to offer campaigns that chance.
NCC re-sells the space to politicians in college football and other popular programming. “If we had two minutes an hour, maybe now we have three,” said Andrew Capone, an NCC senior vice president. In a single slot, NCC can deliver geo-targeted ads to about 20 swing-state markets. Presidential candidates or super PACs don't have to buy all of them. NCC might fill the rest by selling to senate or gubernatorial candidates in individual states. Outside the 20 markets, ESPN keeps the inventory that it can use for promos. It could offer an advertiser the chance to buy the still-large portion of the country or use it for make goods.
ESPN, Local Cable Finding Political Cash Together
NBC slashes Jay Leno's "Tonight" pay in half, but forks out more than $8 billion to renew its broadcast rights to Sunday Night Football. Rumors swirl about a salary cut for Matt Lauer and Alec Baldwin tweets an offer to cut his salary, even as the network gambles on a $4.4 billion bid for the Olympics. Is this any way to run a network that's been stuck at No. 4 in the prime-time ratings for eight seasons? Yes, according to observers, who say NBC is making the right moves by saving where it can and spending where it should under new owner Comcast.
NBC Regroups Under Comcast with New Cuts, Spending
Savvy Internet users know that all the great stuff they get from the Internet for "free"—the searches, the social networks, the games, even the news—isn't really free. It's an exchange, where companies are able to take user data, sell it to advertisers, and make money that allows them to give themselves a paycheck while keeping you afloat in free digital services. So that data you're giving away online is worth something, but have you ever taken a stab at figuring out how much?
A just-released privacy add-on for Firefox and Chrome, Privacyfix, gives it the old college try. Privacyfix measures your last 60 days of activity on Google, extrapolates that to a year, and uses a value-per-search estimate. Analysts believed Google was making $14.70 per 1,000 searches in 2010, and possibly less in 2011. Of course, if you spend all your time searching for luxury hotels or mesothelioma lawyers—and then clicking through the advertised links—you're much more valuable than the average user. Brock says his estimated annual Facebook value was a mere $1.68. His daughter, perhaps unsurprisingly, is at $12. His Google value checks in at more than $700 per year, though. The add-on also tells you how many of the websites you visit feed data back to Facebook and Google. I was surprised to see that Facebook is tracking me across 87 percent of the Internet, despite the fact that I'm a minimal user of Facebook.
How much do Google and Facebook profit from your data?
The Senate Commerce Committee is opening a probe into the data broker industry and is seeking more information about what data these companies collect and how they do it.
Data brokers collect and sell information about consumers to third parties. The committee wrote nine companies including information provider Reed Elsevier and the three major credit reporting firms Experian, Equifax and Transunion. "Collecting, storing and selling information about Americans raises all types of questions that require careful scrutiny," said Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). "While these practices may offer some benefits to consumers, they deserve to know what's being collected about them and how companies profit from their information." The panel is seeking a long list of information from the companies by Nov. 2, including the methods and mechanisms the companies use to collect data from consumers, the type of information collected, what products or services that data is used for, and who bought or used those services and products.
Senate Commerce Probes Data Brokers Rockefeller Seeks Info From Online Data Brokers (B&C) Rockefeller Seeks Information About Data Brokers' Practices (Senate Commerce Committee) If you deal in data (FTC blog)