Some Comcast lobbyists start better ponying up the dough as Kevin Martin from the FCC wants free internet for everyone within the US.  Could this have something to do with the whitespace initiative getting closer to acceptance.

So maybe the tiered internet wont be much of an issue after all. (see post below)

More Here.

Tags: FCC, Kevin Martin, WhiteSpace

“Hmm, I dont see that email you sent, maybe I need to upgrade my internet plan.”

This line of thinking is non existent today but may be coming to the forefront with the little bit of news today that Comcast will be slowing certain web traffic during peak times (Source).  Without getting into the political discussion of Net Neutrality you can see how this could have a negative impact on the web.  So Susie is waiting for an important email and she goes to Yahoo to check but doesn’t see it as Comcast is under high strain and decided that her piece of email will be delayed.  Say this same example happens but Google decides it doesn’t want any of its web traffic delayed so it pays Comcast a fee to allow its customers unfettered access. Now if Susie is using Gmail she now can see the email immediately.  This situation is overly basic and could be seen as a stretch but is possible especially with their decision announced today.

Take a look at this popular web image used to describe a very different internet than we see today:

Tiered Pricing for the Internet

I would assume that if Comcast is successful with this many other internet providers will follow and the internet will look much different than it does today.

Tags: Internet, Net Nuetrality

I just purchased a new Lenovo Thinkpad T61 for work and it has a built in Verizon EVDO card from Sierra Wireless. I currently have a grandfathered Sprint SERO plan and would love to add the data plan to my new lappy.

I have read some reports of Lenovo oferring the unlock code for the card. I am curious if anyone has done this and used the card for Sprint and how the signal/reliablility goes. I can currently use my Mogul to tether but would prefer to have this built in.

If anyone can point my in the right direction I would appeciate it. If I end up trying this out myself I will update the past to reflect my experience.

Update** Found some more info here so it may be possible though I have seen very mixed reports of the Verizon card allowing any unlocking.

Tags: Sierra Wireless, Sprint EVDO, Thinkpad T61, unlock Verizon card

I just received the first shipment from StartupSchwag. They send out promo items from startups to people who are interested in this normally free stuff for a small 14.95 fee. I was excited to get my hands on the package as I have been waiting for it since signing up for the service after reading the post about it on TechCrunch.

While I was aware that this would confirm all my thoughts that I have regressed into total dorkville I was eagerly waiting with much anticipation. I was hoping to find cool new companies, interesting items, and something that really kicked things off.

Boy was I disappointed. The package was sent in a typical USPS priority mail bag and looked like it had been through a long journey. I immediately opened the bag to see a glowing green shirt bearing the TechCrunch logo. I then realized there was no paperwork or any other information in the bag. I almost missed the 3 stickers and foam star that were accompanying the shirt.

I don’t have pics at this time but will add them shortly. While I may have had high expectations I would of though a little thank you note or welcome note would be appropriate. Also why not something that explains the companies on that same sheet, I am sure the companies would gladly provide a quick description of what they offer.

I was tempted to immediately cancel the subscription but I am going to give it one more chance. Hopefully they had some internal issues that have been worked out otherwise I cannot see Startup Schwag gaining much momentum.

Here is a quick and fun little tool that shows you the demographics for a certain keyword or url.

Microsoft Demographics Prediction Tool.

It is always useful to know your audience so tools like this are always welcome. They are not 100% accurate like most tools but they offer an insight and a good ballpark range. Sometimes its fun just to mess around and see what it spits out.

Thanks to Marketing Lane for the tip.

A time has come and gone with Joost. No need to request invites!

They have been using the private beta as a way to get people interested in the site for about 2 years. They have finally pulled the plug on the exclusivity and are allowing anyone who wants to check out their system access. It was an amazing marketing feat that they were able to get so much attention to a closed and invite only platform. I doubt they would have had the same success and amount of users had they done this from the beginning.

This reminds me of the little kids on the playground that only want something that they cant have, once they obtain the object it doesnt provide them with much gratification. This was the case with Joost, a neat concept and a very real possible market mover but as of now it is still on the playground.

SubvertandProfit is known for allowing people to buy “diggs’ on the popular digg.com news site. Today they opened up the marketplace so advertisers can buy positive ‘thumb up’ from StumbleUpon for any url of their choice. The first thing you would think of is that the here comes the spam, while that may be a valid concern to some I do not think this will have much if any effect on Stumbleupon and the users. StumbleUpon would of been riddled with spam long ago if it allowed direct URL votes to count into its system.

Here is the screen shot of the basic field that advertisers will use when filling out a request and below are the guidelines direct from Subvert. Its pretty basic, they fund the account and buy stumbles for 1 dollar.

StumbleUpon Guidelines

User

• It is ok to thumbs up stories that you were not assigned with your account. In fact, we encourage you to do so.
• You may have stories to thumbs up even if we don’t email you.

Advertiser

• Please note that in order to avoid detection by StumbleUpon, we spread out votes on your content over the course of several days.
• Please limit the number of votes you buy for a particular URL to 30 per week.
• If you have a site with multiple pages, try to split up the votes between some of the pages. For example, if you run a blog, you could buy votes for both your homepage and individual posts.
• We reserve the right to reject any advertisement!

Most of us who have been doing actual advertising on Stumble (you can buy placement for 5 cents directly from Stumble) have noticed that a direct thumbs up does not drive traffic in the way that one does if it was sent by the Stumble toolbar. This means that if you go directly to a site and thumbs up it the vote doesnt count as much (or any) as it would if it happened naturally through someone stumbling.
What this means is that this attempt to game StumbleUpon does not work and will have almost no impact on the community. There is some talk that if you send a url to a friend then it shows up in their toolbar and if they then thumbs up the site it counts in full. This has not been confirmed yet.

This might work for Digg but StumbleUpon will probably not be affected by this. This battle may have been over before it began.

This same time yesterday there was a cloud of death hanging over every internet radio broadcater. This cloud otherwise known as the CRB (copyright royalty board) and SoundExchange were going to enforce the first round of new copyright rates they lobbied to pass. As a result nearly every internet broadcaster was going to shut down service as of Sunday at midnight.

This is not going to happen now. The music industry has ‘promised’ Congress that they will not enforce the new rates, for now.

So you need help, you call the company and low and behold you find yourself talking to a machine. You have found your way to the dreaded automated service that generally results in delivering pissed off customers to waiting customer service agents. Along comes Bringo to help all of us.

In the world of telephones not much has changed over the past 50 years though things may be changing. Voip services have nearly become mainstream with Vonage, GrandCentral was recently acquired by Google and promises a one number for all approach and many, many other startups have tried to gain a share of the multi trillion dollar phone industry. Did you know Bill Gates is no longer the worlds richest man, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim whose fortune is now at an estimated $67.8bn (equivalent to 8% of Mexico’s gross domestic product) putting him in the lead by a whopping $8.6bn. There is a lot of money in this industry and people are starting to take notice.
So the problem is that automated phone systems suck, some of us even make cheat sheets to get around them. The web is opening up other ways to avoid this ongoing and growing headache.

Here is how Bringo works. You don’t even need to dial your phone. Just find the company you want to talk to in their directory, type in your phone number, and a couple of minutes later Bringo calls you and connects you to an operator at that company. I cant wait until thee guys release a mobile client that we can use on our cells, this would almost be too good to be true. The days of yelling operator, pushing ### and 000 are hopefully coming to an end.

According to Chu Chaing graphic designer at GrandCentral (now part of Google) they will be offering number porting. There is currently no timetable given other than this will be offered after the beta period.

“We’re planning numbers porting after the beta period.”