October 2009 Archives

According to a Los Angeles Times article, U.S. readers continue to turn to digital media, abandoning paper at a rate of 10.6% between April - September this year, compared to the same period 2008.

Four of the nation's five biggest dailies (including NY Times, LA Times, and USA Today) reported declines in circulation, as readers, ironically, flock to the free websites provided by these same publishers; again begging the question, how long it will actually be before "free" is forever yanked in favor of "subscribed."

It is noted in this article, however, the smaller papers fare better, primarily riding a demand for local news that is not as readily available online as are the news covered by the much larger city/national papers.

eBooks vs. Paper

Interestingly, though not very surprisingly, the same trend is apparent in the world of the paper book vs. its digital (and hipper) cousin. A New Your Times article reported that regular book sales are down this year, despite recent releases of prominent authors like Dan Brown.

eBooks provider amazon.com, however, reports that owners of the amazon Kindle purchase eBooks at three times the rate of their previous paper books purchases.

Sony, another provider of eBook titles, brings the further news that their customers, on average, download eight books a month to their Sony Readers, which is more than the 6.7 paper books that the average traditional reader purchased for the entire years of 2008.

And adding more fuel to the digital fire, Barnes & Noble just announced the introduction of Nook, their new eReader, which is already receiving great reviews as more than a match for Kindle.

As an aside, amazon.com recently announced that they will release free Kindle software to allow readers to purchase and read eBooks from their Kindle libarary on their computers instead of a Kindle device. This, in one fell swoop, increases the potential readership of Kindle eBooks from some half a million to near enough one half billion. Not a bad move.

Ah, yes, the digital writing is definitely on the wall.

An amazing book review by SusanG of Viktor Mayer-Schonberger's "Delete" is available on Daily Kos.

The question whether our current more or less unlimited digital storage is a blessing or a curse is a very interesting one, and the author and the reviewer are clearly at odds on this point.

This review is also extensively discussed in the Comments section that I recommend you peruse if you have the time/inclination.

I remember clearly how the first computer I owned (an AT&T 3B2 Unix Machine) came with 32 MB of hard disk. The operating system took five or so MB, any application, such as Uniplex, another 5-10 MB, leaving perhaps 15 MB for storage. And you'd be hard pressed using that up.

Today, that's one large, well-pixeled digital photograph, or fifteen minutes of music.

And on this laptop I'm using (sporting 32 GB Solid State Drive Hard Disk) I lose 100 or MB without even trying -- some operating system update, or new virus download -- or blinking. And I take it in stride. Unconceivable 25 years ago.

But is virtually unlimited digital storage good or bad? Do you want five thousand images of your college follies as permanent records of just that, youthful rational shortcomings? Some say yes, some say no.

Point is, this is a very interesting discussion, and one, which you might want to take a closer look at.

Food for digital thought.

Of the many initiatives that focus on removing or bridging the digital divide, it strikes me that the International Telecommunications Union's mission to bridge the digital divide by 2015 has the most going for it.

According to its website, the ITU's Connect the World program aims to gather and synchronize human, technical, and financial resources to reach the connectivity targets set at the World Summit on the Information Systems (WSIS) and the Regional Initiatives adopted by its Member States at the ITU World Telecom Development Conference in 2006.

At this point ITU is launching four different global initiatives to engage a wider range of partners to bridge the digital divide by 2015, or at least make a significant dent in it.

Connect a School, Connect a Community

This initiative is a new public-private partnership effort to promote broadband school connectivity to serve not only students, but also the communities in which they live; realizing that schools connected to the Internet though broadband can also serve as potential hubs for the surrounding community, which in turn can provide access to people living in isolated, rural, or marginally urban areas.

Through this initiative, the ITU seeks to work with a broad range of partners to identify and gather best practices as to policies, applications, regulations, services, and practical experience to then be shared with interested countries through an online Toolkit.

ITU Wireless Broadband Partnership

This initiative seeks to identify and mobilize stakeholders to not only finance, but to plan, build, operate and maintain wireless broadband infrastructure within targeted countries.

ITU seeks to work with governments and private partners to identify areas to be covered within each such country and determine and muster the resources required for such implementation.

According to the ITU, the challenge of connecting the unconnected remains great. While mobile coverage has improved significantly across all regions over the last several years, the high-speed broadband service required for key business and government applications and services in many less developed countries is either non-existent or too expensive to be practical.

To overcome this, ITU seeks to bring together partners from government, industry, financial institutions and other stakeholders as part of a shared effort to Connect the World.

Connecting Villages

This initiative aims to expand access to basic mobile connectivity - including voice and SMS/text services - in rural and remote areas, focusing on innovative low-cost solutions.

As a guiding principle, the Connecting Villages initiative aims to build practical, affordable and sustainable networks and services for rural and remote communities. To achieve this, ITU hopes to engage all relevant partners, including both network operators and service providers, equipment manufacturers, governments, regulators, and local entrepreneurs, as well as the communities involved.

Over recent years, many developing countries have experienced significant connectivity improvements, due largely to the enormous growth in mobile services. However, while this progress has done much to bridge the digital divide, it has mostly been confined to the 2.5 billion urban consumers worldwide. The ITU's challenge lies in providing affordable, basic connectivity for the rural and remote communities that have yet to see a single cell implemented.

ITU Academy Partnership

In hope to avoid the "digital divide" also becoming a "knowledge divide" between those who can access 21st Century information and learning tools and those who cannot, global leaders at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) agreed that everyone must be given the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to actually benefit from the emerging Information Society. ITU realizes that fulfilling this vision will require ongoing education, increased technology know-how and continued access to information.

To meet this task, ITU's growing partner-network now includes more than 100 training and education institutions globally, including more than 60 Internet Training Centers, established to help developing countries meet their human resource requirements for skilled Internet and "new economy" professionals through Internet and IP-related training programs.

Well Devised Concerted Effort

It is through well-coordinated efforts such as these that the digital divide will eventually be bridged.

Experian Hitwise issues a monthly newsletter with key Internet statistics that cast an interesting light on current traffic trends.

Google vs. the World

When it comes to search engines, Google is still the multi-thousand pound gorilla. 70.24% of all searches for the month of August 2009 were made through Google. Yahoo! Search is a distant second with 16.96%, Microsoft's recently revamped and launched search engine Bing came in third with 9.48%, and Ask.com bringing up the rear with 2.37%.

Well, more precisely, bringing up the rear are the remaining 56 search engines that between them managed an unimpressive 0.95%.

Even if Microsoft and Yahoo! Eventually merge, their combined traffic of 26.44% would still only make up a quarter of all searches, and be about one third of Google's.

I think one of the clearest testaments to Google's supremacy in the field is that here in the U.S. to "google" has now become the verb most commonly used for "search the web."

Television Destinations

Another interesting Internet statistic shows which television related sites rules the visiting roost.

Perhaps surprisingly--or perhaps not--The Weather Channel ranks as the most visited "television" site for the three weeks ending 9/26/09; followed by CNN.com, ESPN, MSNBC, and Fox News in that order.

Sixth in this list is hulu.com, the free television programs video site that recently made news when its owner Comcast (who co-founded hulu.com with News Corp.) gave signs that they might pull the plug on hulu.com in the name of eradicating "free content" which competes with Comcast's paid-for programming.

One step in that direction is Comcast's and Time Warner's recently announced "TV Everywhere" service, which will make cable programming available on the Internet, but only for cable subscribers. Once up and running, this might spell the end for free hulu.

Filling out the top ten most visited television-related sites are Comcast itself, Yahoo! TV, Fox Sports on MSN, and QVC.com.

"Free" Evaporating?

It would stand to reason that the long-term economics of the Internet clearly spell the eventual end of free Internet content. While hulu does make some money by the commercials that run during their "shows," this programming in and of itself does not bring revenue to Comcast or Fox.

Netflix, through their streaming service, does however bring direct revenue to content producers by their monthly fees (many television shows are now available on Netflix), and should Comcast pull the hulu plug, Internet viewers would then have to turn to either TV Everywhere or Netflix.

Do not be surprised if free content continues to evaporate as the corporate machinery finds its way around the Internet and as the news media comes to terms with its need to bring Internet revenue.

It's been a nice free ride while it lasted, but someone's got to pay the bills.