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AT DAVOS, THE SQUABBLE RESUMES ON HOW TO WIRE THE THIRD WORLD
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
At the World Economic Forum, the annual conclave of world leaders, concerns over a growing digital divide this year have taken a back seat to the challenge of climate change. Being out of the limelight, however, has not dimmed passions over what the best way is to deploy computers in the developing world. The controversy boiled over on Saturday at a breakfast meeting where Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel, squared off with Nicholas P. Negroponte, the former director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, whose nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is trying to develop a low-cost computer for the 1.2 billion children in the developing world. Barrett, speaking about Intel’s efforts to train teachers to use personal computers, said that it is impressive to see what students “are able to accomplish with some help from a teacher,†adding, “You can literally change people’s lives.†But Negroponte suggested that Intel executives had engaged in a campaign to discourage world leaders from committing to purchasing his laptop systems. Negroponte also accused Intel of marketing its strategy to the developing world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/business/worldbusiness/29cheap.html
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At Davos, the Squabble Resumes on How to Wire the Third World
POPULARITY OF WEB BRANDS SIGNALS POWER SHIFT
[SOURCE: Reuters]
A consumer poll on Friday exposed the worst kept secret in the business world: Internet companies are becoming more important to people than firms that operate in the real world. Google retained its title as the world's most influential brand, and video-sharing site YouTube and online encyclopedia Wikipedia were catapulted into the top five at the No. 3 and 4 spots, according to the annual survey by online branding magazine brandchannel.com. "Ask yourself how many more hours you are using the Internet compared with 10 years ago. Now ask yourself how many more minutes you make calls on a mobile phone. There's no comparison," said Bengt Nordstrom, chief strategy officer at business and technology consultants InCode. "Internet brands are the brands people use and which they like. They are much stronger than mobile brands," he added.
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...
INTERNET TO REVOLUTIONIZE TV IN 5 YEARS: GATES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Ben Hirschler]
The Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Saturday. "I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," he told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum. The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set. In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said. "Certain things like elections or the Olympics really point out how TV is terrible. You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about or you miss the event and want to go back and see it," he said. "Internet presentation of these things is vastly superior."
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...
INTERNET BRANDS LEAVE MUSIC SERVICES TO EXPERTS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Antony Bruno]
Veterans of the subscription service field say a successful music subscription business needs at least 1 million subscribers in order to reach critical mass and become self-sustaining, although one can be profitable with lower numbers. To date, the only company to achieve that milestone is RealNetworks' Rhapsody. Assuming it can retain most of the subscribers it acquired from AOL and Virgin, Napster will not be far behind, at around 900,000 subscribers. Meanwhile, household names like Yahoo and MTV are not even close. Neither company has disclosed subscriber figures, but analysts estimate they lag far behind. AOL Music Now had just 350,000 subscribers when it handed the service over to Napster -- 100,000 less than when it acquired Music Now in November 2005. The complex market is defined by technology, device and supply problems far out of their control. The technology governing the transfer of subscription tracks to portable devices still has problems. None of the services work with the popular iPod; the few devices that are compatible are unoriginal clones that have not sold well; and the monthly music licensing fees are a constant drain on already thin resources. And to cap it all off, most consumers are just not ready to accept the concept of music as a service rather than as a product. Convincing consumers otherwise will take an expensive marketing effort that the surviving services from MTV and Yahoo have promised, but not yet delivered.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...
MARKEY AND HIS NET NEUT SHOW
[SOURCE: Internet News, AUTHOR: Roy Mark]
[Commentary] The dynamics of the Network Neutrality issue have changed. For starters, the telcos will have to deal with Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Ed Markey, both of Massachusetts, who will chair the committees considering network neutrality legislation. Both championed bills last year that would have imposed network neutrality provisions on broadband providers. Their bills would have curbed Verizon and AT&T's plans to charge content providers like Google and Yahoo additional fees based on bandwidth consumption. The bills went nowhere under the Republicans. The Senate version never got past the Commerce Committee. Markey's House amendment failed in committee and was rejected again on the House floor. Sen Kerry has already agreed to co-sponsor the Senate network neutrality bill introduced earlier this month by Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Rep Markey is expected to re-introduce his failed network neutrality bill in the next few weeks.
http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/article.php/3656306
Markey And His Net Neut Show
TRACKING WHO'S SAYING WHAT ABOUT WHOM
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Companies ranging from movie studios and television networks to automakers and burger chains hire professional Web surfers to scour the Internet for any mention of their brands. Over the past few years, the "online analysts" have helped the companies track their reputations, found ways to get their products noticed and joined online conversations to help steer them the way clients want them to go. More recently, as the explosion of blogs, social networks and video-sharing sites has driven big companies to recognize the role of Internet image in protecting their bottom lines, traditional media companies and private investors are seeking to buy Web-savvy start-ups that have a toehold in cyberspace.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/28/AR200701...
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Tracking Who's Saying What About Whom
NEW TRIBUNE DEAL IN WORKS
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune 1/27, AUTHOR: Michael Oneal]
Tribune Co.'s top management team is talking with private-equity companies about crafting a new deal to restructure the company and will likely begin discussing its ideas with the company's special board committee Saturday in Chicago, sources said. According to a source familiar with the board's thinking, the committee overseeing Tribune's auction process has concluded that offers for the company tendered by California's Chandler family and Los Angeles billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle don't value Tribune's assets highly enough. That has opened the door for a management-led solution, the source said, noting that top executives led by Chairman and Chief Executive Dennis FitzSimons are weighing options with several private-equity firms. These firms include Chicago's Madison Dearborn Partners, which backed out of the original auction before it closed Jan. 17. Tribune executives also are exploring ways the McCormick Tribune Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization that is controlled by Tribune management, could participate in a deal by converting its 13.1 percent Tribune stake into equity in a newly formed company. McCormick Tribune is the company's second-largest shareholder. The Chandlers, with a 20 percent stake, are Tribune's largest.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0701270024jan27,1,133051.stor...
New Tribune deal in works
THE NEEDLESS DOCTRINE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] The Fairness Doctrine -- requiring broadcasters to air multiple viewpoints on controversial subjects -- sounds fair, but making it a government regulation inhibited discussion of public affairs and led to coverage of only non-controversial issues. Yes, broadcasters use public spectrum, but government content control is not a fair price to pay for the privilege. Nor is inhibiting free speech. Media reformers should know better than to pine for the return of this antique rule, especially at a time when a rather average cable package picks up 100 channels, and the Internet offers tens of thousands of other places to get information.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6410632.html?display=Opinion
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6410632.html?display=Opinion
LIBBY TRIAL OFFERS INSIGHT INTO MEDIA 'MANIPULATION'
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff. For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers. No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public. The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was seen as more susceptible to control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly described. Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun -- a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=…
NEWSPAPERS LOSE GROUND IN WEB-SAVVY SCHOOLS: STUDY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robert MacMillan]
More U.S. teachers are using national and international online news sites in the classroom, leaving behind newspapers that fail to grasp the Internet's importance in trying to reach students, found the Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism Education. Fifty-seven percent of teachers use Internet-based news in the classroom with some frequency, said the study, which was based on a survey of 1,262 teachers in grades 5 through 12 in the fall of 2006. That compares with 31 percent for national television news, and 28 percent for daily papers. Local television news, at 13 percent, was at the bottom of the list, the study found.
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...