Radar Waves

Why the iPhone is like Barack Obama

After careful consideration, I've decided that I feel very similarly about two new products that have been recently introduced to the American market: the iPhone and Barack Obama. I don't have time for a thorough, prosaic explanation, so for now, I'll reduce it to the language of the board room meetings that no doubt produced them both -- bullet points.

PROS
- black (in a field where white has been the norm)
- sexy
- sounds great
- light years ahead of the competitors

CONS
- functionality hindered by necessary but regrettable attachment to a bloated, corrupt legacy organization that controls access to consumers
- first generation product; unproven in a real-world environment

FINAL ANALYSIS
- i want to believe, but i'm still skeptical
- will wait until next generation deployment, when the bugs are ironed out, before i decide to adopt

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not the first one to make this comparison (thanks, Eliot!)

 

 

EMI gets bought -- and NOT by another major

It's official: EMI's finally getting bought, right after announcing another dismal quarter. No big surprise that they finally found a buyer -- after all, they've been on and off the block for years.

What is a bit surprising, however, is who the buyer isn't -- namely, another record label. EMI and Warner have been doing the mating dance for years at this point. This seems like one more tiny bit of evidence that the long rising tide of media consolidation may finally be receding. A decade ago, there were six major labels, then there were five, then there were four. I, for one, am happy that the number won't be falling to three any time soon. Innovation and creativity are hard enough to encourage in an oligopoly, but virtually impossible in a triopoly (witness U.S. network television, or wireless telecom).

Almost as interesting is who the buyer is -- namely, private equity firm Terra Nova. This is the second purchase of a major label by private equity in recent years (the first was Warner). I don't want to read too much into it, but I think this all hints at a larger shift of market risk away from established media firms, toward smaller, savvier capital -- which could be very good for both creators and consumers. Of course, everything that comes apart eventually falls back together -- it's a cycle, after all -- but in the meantime, maybe I can actually start listening to commercial radio again (even broadcasting behemoth Clear Channel's selling out to private equity and selling off stations).

Jeremy Silver, a former EMI exec and current smartypants, has got more to say about the deal here.

Happy Wiretap Day

According to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), today is the deadline by which network operators -- everyone who provides Internet service to businesses and consumers -- have to install "back doors" making it easier for the FBI to spy on American citizens. This is yet another nail in the coffin of American civil liberties, and a very dangerous check on free expression, not to mention the security and commercial viability of the Internet. As Wired succinctly explains:

Making surveillance easier and faster gives law enforcement agencies of all stripes more reason to eschew old-fashioned police work in favor of spying. The telephone CALEA compliance deadline was in 2002, and since then the amount of court-ordered surveillance has nearly doubled from 2,586 applications granted that year, to 4,015 orders in 2006.

Of course, we still have the right to encrypt our communications. We suggest using tools such as the TorPark browsing anonymizer (a small but effective add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser), and GnuPG, a free and easy-to-use encryption tool that works on documents, emails, IMs, or just about anything.

Vidal vs. Buckley

Last night I attended a wonderful lecture at the skirball center with gore vidal, interviewed by david ulin, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. he was his usual brilliant, partician self and I thought in a time of outrageous reality TV squabbles and histrionic political debate that, despite the shrill cackling of pundits and politicians, never actually addresses issues, it would be fun to link to this footage of the famous gore vidal/william f buckley debate at the 1968 political conventions. vidal comes out swinging, and buckley loses his cool. enjoy.

(and just in case the sound is garbled vidal calls buckley a "pro-crypto Nazi" and Buckley responded, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered.")

Net neutrality on the ropes again: Stevens pushes for cloture

Firedoglake is reporting that Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens, who unfortunately chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, is attempting to push a cloture vote on net neutrality before Congress enters recess -- essentially forestalling any further debate on this very important issue:

Stevens is shooting for a cloture vote on Thursday and has plans to keep everyone in a lame duck session to force a vote on net neutrality after Congress is supposed to be in recess.  If you can’t win fair and square, you try the smarmy tactics…please hit the phones.

Apparently, Stevens is approaching Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to arrive at the necessary 60 votes. If you or anyone you know is a constituent of any of these Senators, please let them know that net neutrality is essential to free and open discourse in the networked age. Previous posts on net neutrality here, here and here.

UPDATE: According to C|Net, Stevens denies that cloture was even on the table: "I've seen some of these blogs. They don't know what they're talking about." Whether this is true or simply a polical acknowledgment that Stevens couldn't drum up the 60 votes, we're glad to hear it.

EV-DO. . . NOT!

I've spent the last month on tenterhooks, waiting for my wireless carrier (let's call it  "Quik," recently merged with "SpecialTel") to release its version of the new Palm Treo, dubbed the 700p. This is a cool phone -- EV-DO (providing 400kbps-2mbps downstream), support for MS Office and PDF, integrated Bluetooth, MP3 player software (although no stereo playback, and minimal integrated memory - duh!), 1.3MP camera, and the ability to use the phone as a laptop modem when WiFi isn't available. Almost worth the $400 (post-rebate) plus $15 per month to upgrade from the lower-speed wireless web plan.

The phone finally appeared on the Quik site this week, with a tantalizing $100 "web special" discount in addition to the standard $150 instant savings. But here's the catch: it's not available online for existing customers. Nor is it available in Quik's brick-and-mortar stores; they're not even sure when they'll have the units in stock.

Why would Quik diss its existing customers, focusing entirely on new customer acquisition? Probably because the company knows that, after the telecom M&A blitz of the last few years, we basically have nowhere else to go. Didn't the proponents of industry deregulation and consolidation argue that it would benefit consumers..?

In typical form, I unloaded my ire (mildly) at a poor CSM. Rudy, whatever fluorescent phone bank you inhabit, in whatever third-world country, I apologize.

Quik Agent>Rudy has joined the call.
Rudy>Thank you for choosing Quik web chat. My name is Rudy, how may I assist you with your  Quik.com order today?
Quik Agent>Aram Sinnreich has joined the call.
Subject: Web Chat>This is a Quik Customer, with the subject: Purchase Replacement/Upgrade Phone, in zipcode 9xxxx
Aram Sinnreich>hi
Aram Sinnreich>i am interested in upgrading to a treo 700p
Aram Sinnreich>i am eligible for a $150 rebate
Aram Sinnreich>but the phone isn't available to existing subscribers online, and the stores aren't stocking them yet
Aram Sinnreich>can you help?
Rudy>You will have to call 800-xxx-xxxx to order that phone.
Aram Sinnreich>alright, thanks
Rudy>You will not be able upgrade online.
Aram Sinnreich>that is lame
Aram Sinnreich>quik should make the phone available for upgrade online, to cash in on customer enthusiasm
Aram Sinnreich>i am all ready and willing to plunk down $400 plus an extra $15 per month, you'd think quik would want the money...
Aram Sinnreich>...can you please relay my sentiments to quik?
Rudy>Yes, I will. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Aram Sinnreich>thank you.
Rudy>You're welcome, thank you for using Quik together with SpecialTel web chat. Feel free to contact us during our business hours of 9am-11pm Monday-Friday and 10am-8pm Saturday & Sunday. Have a wonderful day.

Incidentally, the number Rudy gave me was not correct. After finally getting through to another CSM, I was told I had to call a different department. After I was transferred, and navigated through the VM system again, I was put on hold for about half an hour. Then the line picked up, and I could hear voices in the background, but no one spoke to me or answered my voice. After three minutes of talking into the void, I hung up.

No EV-DO for me.

UPDATE: I bought the phone, of course. Called customer service a few more times, found someone who could work it for me. I feel like a kid on Channukah. Will report back with kudos/gripes.

UPDATE 2: According to the customer service rep I spoke to on 5/31, the unit was supposed to be shipped immediately, and would arrive today (6/5). I called today for a tracking number, so I could coordinate my schedule w/ delivery, and was told that although the warehouse "accepted" the order on 6/3 (not sure what the lag was about), it still hasn't shipped. Quik couldn't tell me when it might ship, or offer to notify me when it does, so I'll just have to call back and check in a couple days. Nonetheless, the CSM assured me I should have the Treo in hand "3-5 business days from today." We shall see...

UPDATE 3: After raising a stink, I eventually got the phone. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

The cons: I've never gotten anything like 2Mbps, and all the streaming content costs extra $$ and I haven't yet figured out free workarounds for Pandora/YouTube/Rhapsody, and it costs extra to use it as a mobile modem (the sales rep told me otherwise), and it doesn't synch with Google Calendar, and it has no onboard memory, so I had to buy an SD card, and VersaMail is very buggy, and you have to pay extra for voice dial, which doesn't even work with bluetooth headsets.

The pros: love the Palm OS and its big ole developer community, love the relatively high speed, sound quality is pretty good, hardware is pretty fall-resistant, screen is nice. It replaces my laptop handily in a lot of situations, and I'm Flickring like crazy. And it's new and expensive enough so that people say "oooh" when I whip it out.

Net Neutrality inches closer to law

The House Judiciary Committee approved a Net Neutrality bill today, adding one more potential legal obstacle to the cable-ization of the Internet. This bill, titled H.R. 5417, was sponsored by Rep. Sensenbrenner, of recent anti-immigration fame.

The 14 Democrats on the committee all voted for the bill (including Radar's representative, Adam Schiff and co-sponsors Boucher, Lofgren and Conyers), but it only passed thanks to 6 Republican signatures. According to c|net's analysis, the cross-aisle support for the bill had little to do with net neutrality, and everything to do with House inter-committee politics -- and competition with the COPE bill. 

Ultimately, we don't really care how the sausage is made, as long as it tastes good. Radar's not typically in the business of choosing sides when it comes to politricks, but we believe that net neutrality is a necessity for the healthy growth of the media and entertainment industries, as well as the furtherance of participatory culture and the evolution of the democratic process in the networked age. So we're hoping that one of these bills somehow manages to make it into law.

Net neutrality wars: Is the outcome a foregone conclusion?

The battle over net neutrality finally seems to be piercing the American consciousness (with the stagmires overseas and the economic and civil liberties issues on the homefront, it's got some stiff competition), largely thanks to the folks over at SaveTheInternet.com and like-minded members of the MSM and blogosphere.

What's interesting is that this isn't (necessarily) a partisan issue; with liberals and libertarians joining hands across the aisle to fight for neutrality, it's shaping up to be more of a fight between consumer and media and pro-free-speech interests on the one hand, and telecom and anti-free-speech interests on the other. (If you have any doubt about this, check out the sponsor organizations for SaveTheInternet.com vs. the sponsor organizations for astroturf telecom lobby site HandsOffTheInternet.com.)

Anyway, tomorrow's a red-letter day: a Congressional committee vote on the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, or COPE Act, which, as it is currently written, doesn't give the FCC much power to regulate or police incursions against net neutrality.

Things are not expected to go well, based on the earlier subcommittee vote. Yet, even if net neutrality supporters somehow win this battle, I fear they will lose the war in the long term. I've recently taken part in some closed-door discussions between high-level representatives of telcos, current and former regulators, spectrum-savvy academics, and consumer advocates. Without giving away specific details, I can tell you that I was shocked at the degree to which a "tiered internet" (read: non-neutral network) was considered the foregone conclusion of our deliberations, by virtually all parties.

The rhetoric goes something like this: in the consumers' and publishers' perfect world, the Internet would continue to be neutral (assuming it already is, which is problematic); in the telcos' perfect world, the Internet would be a totally private highway, and both users and publishers would have to pay fees for every bit exchanged. Therefore, the logic goes, the best compromise would be a tiered Internet, with a fee-based "fast lane" and an old fashioned, lower-speed neutral "slow lane."

Don't believe a word of it. As soon as service providers segregate revenue-generating bits from non-revenue-generating bits, the latter tier will rapidly disintegrate to the level of non-functionality. The higher tier will thrive on new standards and technologies, which will be exclusively supported by new software (IE10, for example, would probably only support the "fast lane" traffic), and the whole process would snowball. Before you could say "Tom Paine," the Internet we've come to know and love for the last decade (or more, in some cases) will go bye-bye, to be replaced by the world's largest and most expensive taxpayer-subsidized TV and telephony infrastructure. Goodbye blogosphere, goodbye grassroots politics, goodbye remix culture. The clock strikes midnight, and we all turn back into a bunch of couch pumpkins with remote controls in our hands but no real control to speak of.

UPDATE: The Markey amendment for stronger regulatory oversight died in committee today. Super-bummer. But, as Kos points out, there's still the Senate. Keep your fingers crossed, and keep your Senator on speed-dial.

Monday media: free IPTV, the adventures of Orkut in Brazil, and Google's ostensible metamorphosis into Big Brother

Busy day -- Marissa and I are both in the middle of a bunch of consulting projects. But there are a couple news blips worth pointing out:

1)    ABC announces it's gonna make some of its most popular shows (e.g. Lost Housewives, Desperado in Chief) available for free viewing on the Web. It's an ad-supported model -- the shows will be broadcast-only, embedded in a proprietary viewer and punctuated by interstitial video ads (let's just call them commercials, shall we?) by advertisers including AT&T, Ford and P&G. Inevitable hacks aside, the streams can't be downloaded, so it won't bite too hard into the small but hype-heavy iTunes TV download market. I'm all for it -- Disney owns much of the content as well as distribution, so there aren't a lot of palms to grease or hurdles to jump (local broadcasters are going to be pretty pissed, though -- but that's a much bigger story). It gives them an opportunity to do a little revenue-bearing market research, and to develop alternative marketing models for the TiVo age. Thumbs up.

2)    The NY Times discovers Orkut, alive and kicking in Brazil. While they do play up the kiddie porn angle, they fail to mention the venue's apparent popularity among drug dealers. So many threats to our security, so little time. Of course, it's a truism that as soon as the NYT discovers something, it's by definition on the way out (even my own NYT article about Smalls jazz bar in NY foreshadowed its imminent demise).

3)    Big concerns among net libertarians that the Google/Earthlink WiFi plan in San Francisco doesn't sufficiently address privacy concerns. This concern is somewhat legit -- according to someone we know on the inside, the G/E plan was the least privacy-friendly of any that the city reviewed. On the other hand, I just don't get it -- everyone in the universe is now toting around a mobile phone, taking and sending pics, downloading ringtones, texting and being texted. How does adding a mobile laptop to the mix really expose us to further scrutiny by either commercial or governmental forces? We're already about as transparent as possible. Truth be told, I'd rather have Google mining my GeoWeb metadata than SprintPCSNextel -- at least they know what to do with it, for crying out loud.

Net neutrality nixed

Bad tidings from Washington, where Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), who heads the Commerce Committee, pays rhetorical obeisance to network neutrality in the very act of proclaiming its death knell. If Americans aren't guaranteed affordable access to next-gen broadband (in the 30Mbps range), and preferential bandwidth allocation is sold to the highest bidder, we can kiss goodbye to everything we've loved about the Internets since its inception. Forget about flickr, revver, google video, video chat, MMORPGs, iFilm, YouTube, basically every form of emerging collective cultural production. The Internet becomes a giant HD cable TV infrastructure. Whoop-tee-frickin'-doo.

Industry types like to argue that "market forces" will ensure the best possible outcome for American consumers, pointing to 1996 telecom deregulation and all the benefits it brought us. However, there are two major problems with this argument:

First: The telecom industry is far more consolidated today than it was during the rise of dial-up internet, and even during phase 1 broadband. Ma Bell has almost entirely reconstituted herself, like Ahhnold in T2, only this time there's no government oversight. And no mercy. Mwahahaha. At a certain point, the terms "market prices" and "market processes" simply fail to obtain. we need to consider whether we've reached that point.

Second: Although many consumers benefitted from the largely unregulated market in the last 10 years, many others suffered. Substantial research has shown a widening gap between information "haves" and "have-nots." This gap will only grow in size and in importance if the American people -- who have subsidized infrastructure buildout in myriad ways -- are not guaranteed at least rudimentary access to the information commons.

This should be a much, much, much bigger issue than it is.