FCC Writes Letter To Google Over Early Mobile Termination Fees
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The Federal Communications Commission recently began an inquiry into exorbitant early termination fees in mobile phone carriers’ contracts. The investigation began when Verizon raised its early termination fee to $350 (from $175) for smartphones. Now the FCC is making the inquiry formal and full-blown—they’re asking the four major mobile carriers and Google about their early termination policies.
Yeah, that’s right. Google. I know they’re selling a mobile phone now, but Google isn’t a service provider. Well, we can all rest assured—a little—the FCC’s letter to Google acknowledges that T-Mobile is the service provider. However, T-Mobile received a letter of its own. So why single out Google of all the hardware providers? (Just wait.)
After all, Apple makes the iPhone, and you can buy directly from its website. Google’s webstore offers you the choice of an unlocked phone without a plan or a (cheaper) phone with a T-Mobile plan (Verizon and Vodaphone are still slated for spring). Apple’s iPhone store doesn’t offer any choice but to buy the phone with an AT&T data plan (that I can see, without giving my info).
But there’s something that Google does that Apple doesn’t. The unlocked Nexus One is $529, but when you buy it with a T-Mobile plan, the price drops to $179. However, if you cancel your contract in the first 120 days of service, the Terms of Sale state that in addition to T-Mobile’s early termination fee, you’ll also be subject to an “equipment recovery fee”—the $350 subsidy on the phone price.
To my knowledge, when you buy a discounted phone from other mobile carriers, they don’t charge that subsidy on top of their ETF. In fact, that was part of Verizon’s initial justification of its high early termination fee to the FCC. (A justification the FCC found “unsatisfying, and in some cases, troubling.”)
The FCC’s look at Google may be prompted by consumer complaints (they aren’t saying), but it still shows an impressive level of sophistication in the modern marketplace. (Let’s face it—after looking at the way federal commissions handle the Internet, it doesn’t take much to impress me.)
Google, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T have until February 23 to respond.
What do you think? Will the FCC knock down early termination fees—and if they do, will phone subsidies from mobile carriers be a thing of the past?
The Pope Urges Priests To Get On The Blogosphere
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Pope Benedict XVI has been the Holy See for almost five years, and during that time, he (and the Catholic church along with him) has become more and more involved in social media. Last year, he launched a YouTube channel, social media outreach initiative, and apps for Facebook and the iPhone. And now he’s urging parish priests to follow his lead into the Internet.
And just to show how with-it he really is, this message is from . . . the future. (No, really—it’s dated 16 May 2010.) For the 44th World Communications Day, the Supreme Pontiff noted the advancements in communications thanks to the Internet, and said (will say?):
Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.
(Vocab lesson: evangelization: preaching the gospel; catechesis: teaching the doctrine.)
Naturally, of course, the 82-year-old pope must have a staff dedicated to maintaining these sites with videos and messages from the Bishop of Rome—and yeah, it was probably their idea. But hey, the Sovereign of the Vatican not only signed off but has continued to participate with his image and messages, and he’s the one urging local priests to become similarly involved.
Many priests and deacons are already active in the Catholic blogosphere, but the official impetus is new. In the end, reaching parishioners where they already congregate (well, outside of church 
) is always a good idea. And it seems pretty forward-thinking for a church that old and that large.
What do you think? Will the Pope’s support of priestly blogging mark a change in the way local officials relate to their communities?
New York Times Releases Details Of Online Payment Model
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After a long debate, the New York Times has officially settled on an online pay model and and implementation timeline. The meter system will be introduced at the beginning of next year.
The model will allow users to access a certain number of articles free each month. After the set viewing threshold, users will be required to pay. Print subscribers will have free access online. Says the Times:
This will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream and preserve its robust advertising business. It will also provide the necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and publisher of the New York Times, said, “Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.” According to Nielsen Online, the Times is the #1 newspaper site in the world, so they may just have enough support to do this.
Romenesko also has posted a memo to the Times staff on the upcoming change (via). In the memo, Sulzberger acknowledges that this move will be lauded by some and criticized by others, just as the management debated it. Ultimately, he says, this move will be judged by its implementation, which is why they’re giving themselves so long to run up to the process. In the meantime, they will also work on improving the site, its users’ experience and its stickiness.
Sulzberger explains their reasoning behind this pay model choice, echoing some of the press release wording:
We also selected the metered model because it offers a number of important virtues from a financial and growth perspective. It allows NYTimes.com to remain a vibrant part of the search-driven Web, which has proven to be an integral reason for why we have become an industry leader in display advertising. This flexibility enables us to create a proper ratio between free and paid content and to aggressively build on our very successful digital advertising business.
He also says the Times will not join a consortium.
I’m glad they’ll keep some of their content free—I’m hoping that such features as their blogs will remain free without counting toward the article limit. The Times is a valuable, venerated resource.
But personally, I won’t be paying for a subscription, or using the site enough to incur use fees the vast majority of the time. Will you?
MySpace Integrates Facebook Connect Into Website
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Rumors of MySpace integrating Facebook Connect have circulated since October. And now it looks like they’re coming true: MySpace’s Fan Video site allows users to login with either MySpace or Facebook accounts.
The Fan Video site itself takes professional music videos and inserts your profile picture prominently. The site also features sharing capabilities to post the videos to MySpace, Facebook or Twitter. Additionally, you can create videos for your friends using their profile pictures, and you can choose these friends from your MySpace or Facebook friend lists (depending on which account you used to sign in).
Not a super-useful application (more fun than sheep throwing, I guess), but is this a harbinger of things to come for MySpace? Are they ready to concede the social networking arena to Facebook?
Side note here: although Facebook has eclipsed MySpace in terms of traffic, MySpace still edges out Facebook in ad revenue. So the race isn’t already lost. May be close, though.
The Marketing Worth Of Twitter and Facebook
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As marketing professionals, we usually have to justify ourselves to our bosses, our clients and everyone in between—especially in the less-tested, sometimes-hit-or-miss arena of social media. But now Ad Age wants accountability, too, as they ask “if you’re getting enough out of all the volunteer work you do for Biz & Ev and Mark,” or, more specifically, “Are we all just toiling mightily to make a bunch of rich nerds (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his employees and investors, Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams and their employees and investors) richer, while we impoverish ourselves?”
That’s both a literal and a figurative question, since using those social networks is exactly what makes their founders and investors money (well, sort of), and, as the argument goes, we’re essentially a volunteer labor force creating content for these sites—an interesting point. Meanwhile, using social networks (at all, as the argument here seems to go) means sacrificing time (true), actual interactions (possibly true but not always)—and our very souls and identities.
They mean this to be a discussion on a personal level, since a central thrust of the argument is that these social networks have sacrificed so much of our privacy that we’re allowing them to steal (don’t we call that “giving” in English?) “the sole ownership of our own thoughts, emotions, personal expressions, etc.” from us (yes, if I post “I’m sad” on a social network, that means that they also own my emotion…. right….).
Of course, if you’re using Twitter and Facebook as a marketer, you’re there looking for business ROI from publicity—being public. Ad Age (you know, “Advertising” Age? About . . . could it be . . . advertising?) does acknowledge that social networks might work for these purposes, if they’re worth the sacrifice:
If you’re a brand marketer, chances are good that you’re extracting real value from investing time and energy in social media (and you’re happy to have consumers volunteering their time to be your “brand ambassadors” or whatever you want to call them); good for you. (And if you’re a consumer who gets off on connecting with big brands — or just wants to interface with customer service in a forum, like Twitter, where certain marketers seem to be hyper-responsive — well, good for you too.) In general, if you’re soft-selling something — like content or an idea — that can benefit from free publicity, Facebook and Twitter are your friends. Even if, well, they’re the two-faced sort who think nothing of riffling through your handbag or backpack when you get up to go the bathroom — you know, glad-handing “friends” (those are air quotes) who are obviously using you for something, only it’s not always entirely clear what.
Um . . . I hate to bring this up, but aren’t we as marketers just using our social networks as those same kind of “friends” (and possibly even the friends and fans we acquire on those social networks)—we’re just using them as the means to an end?
I do agree, of course, that on a personal level, excessive use of social media can rob us of time and valuable interaction with the people we care about most. It’s good to examine our relationship with the Internet and social media on a personal level and decide whether it’s really worth the time and effort we put into it, or if we might put that time to better use. While that’s the brief summary of the argument at the conclusion of the article, the main thrust is that using social networks is such a great sacrifice of ourselves (even without a time investment) that it’s not worth it.
What do you think? Do you demand ROI from personal social network use? Or are you glad that most people don’t ?
Mark Zuckerberg Is Hesitant Going Fully ‘Public’ With His Facebook Profile
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Mark Zuckerberg and I aren’t Facebook friends. That’s cool; I don’t know him. Until recently, all I could see of his profile was his picture, networks and friend list. But this morning, either the Facebook CEO had decided that’s what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, or even he didn’t know what the new privacy settings changed.
I’m going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more private.
On his Page (where you can be his fan, not to be confused with his profile), Zuckerberg defends the change:
For those wondering, I set most of my content on my personal Facebook page to be open so people could see it. I set some of my content to be more private, but I didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear
Oh, really? Because when I try to visit his profile, I get a “Mark only shares some of his profile information with everyone.” message at the top of his profile, and no photos.
Zuckerberg does still share some of his info with everyone: his basic info, personal info (only the about me: “i’m trying to make the world a more open place.”), education and work, and five of the pages he’s a fan of. (These five rotate; screen caps from the privacy changes indicate he has 17 pages.) Also public: his links, friends and events.
There is, of course, another possibility as to why some people like Kashmir Hill can see his photos—they have mutual friends (Hill’s is another Facebook employee). When you update your privacy settings, the new default setting for photos is to make them visible to “Friends of Friends.” (I’ve contacted Ryan Tate to see if he also has at least one mutual friend, but haven’t heard back yet. Mark and I share no friends.)
But really, as Facebook is pushing more people to go public, and if Zuckerberg is really “trying to make the world a more open place,” he could do a lot more opening himself. The CEO of the site might be seen as an example to users—and if he really wants them to go public, should he be willing to do the same?
What do you think? Was this an accident on Zuckerberg’s part, or because Tate and Hill have mutual friends?
Security Options On Facebook Urging People To Go Public
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I think, somewhere in the back of our heads, we all had to know that this was eventually where Facebook would go. Yes, the erstwhile media darling of social networking, so prized because it was so private (unlike that icky old predator-friendly MySpace), has succumbed to the public pull of the Internet—when they prompt you to update your privacy settings now, they’ve already selected a default option to publish your information to “Everyone.”
This change comes as part of the new privacy migration tool, where users get to update their privacy settings as Facebook moves to improved privacy settings. (Or was that improved publicity settings?) It looks like this is the change promised in July to appease the Canadian government’s privacy complaints.
Facebook, it seems, is now jealous of today’s social media sweetheart: Twitter. The theory goes that FB wants people to select the “Everyone” option so that status updates, especially, will be publicly shared, and Facebook will be like Twitter, only better. (Note that, above, the “Everyone” option is only preselected for a few settings, other defaults include “Friends” and “Friends of Friends.”)
At Facebook’s blog post, people are already complaining about the loss of privacy and such features as the ability to hide wall posts, profile pictures and friend lists. (I can’t vouch for these, but several people are complaining about them.)
Users will be prompted to update their settings and are free to return to their old settings or customize the settings however they want. Yeah, it’s not cool that Facebook goes and selects “Everyone” as the default, but if they’re prompting their users to update their settings themselves, and not changing anything until the users approve it, then . . . is this really that big of a deal? What do you think?
New Mobile Payment System Aimed At Small Businesses
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Is it hip to be square again? Maybe according to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. His new startup, called Square, is a mobile payments (credit card processing) system that appeals to small businesses. But is he targeting the right customers?
I think we’ve all heard rumors of a credit card reader for the iPhone—and this is it. A small, white plastic cube plugs into the audio jack of an iPhone or laptop (with software planned for Blackberry and Android). It scans the card, geotags the transaction and emails a receipt to the buyer. And just to be clear, Square is an app for merchants, not a way for individuals to electronically zap their bucks into the nearest Starbucks to pay for their latte.
And that may be the problem, too—because the product isn’t designed for big retailers like Starbucks. Its users will be smaller vendors, “who don’t qualify for accounts with traditional credit card processors because the would be deemed ‘high risk’ by these companies,” as Read Write Web puts it. According to the CEO of competitor Billing Revolution, Andy Kleitsch, that’s not going to be enough of a market, and bigger vendors just aren’t going to be interested in the product.
RWW also notes the potential for fraud:
Square will also have to deal with potential fraud. While we don’t know the exact details about how Square will operate, chances are that the company will have to keep a large reserve in an escrow account with the credit card processing companies that power Square’s back-end. Anybody who sits on a pile of stolen credit cards, Kleitsch pointed out, could use Square to run up charges on these accounts. Once the defrauded credit card owners dispute these charges, Square could be left with a large bill to pay.
However, one would hope they’ve taken precautions against this.
While Square’s website contends that processing card payments is “difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience,” Kleitsch says that a payment terminal is typically free, with $20/month + 2% of all transactions as the monthly fee for the service. (While Square’s service is free, last time I checked, an iPhone runs $200, plus Square’s hardware investment, plus a monthly fee—AT&T’s$60 data fee. Ouch—unless you truly already need the iPhone for your business.)
Although one of their examples is of a local coffeeshop (of which Dorsey is a part owner), Dorsey appears to be targeting vendors even smaller than coffeeshops as well—vendors that may or may not have brick-and-mortar establishments, like artists or flower carts (another of the examples on their site).
What do you think? Does Square have the potential to take off—and if so, with small businesses or just micro ones?
Anonymous Comment Costs School Employee His Job
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Most of us have blogs, right? How do you react to anonymous vulgar comments? Hit SPAM, right? Yeah, me too. And so did the Director of Social Media for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Kurt Greenbaum. The first time. But when the anonymous commenter again posted the single-word vulgarity, Greenbaum tracked his IP address—to a school.
Probably thinking he was reporting a misbehaving student, Greenbaum contacted the school and explained the situation. Six hours later, the school called back: they’d found the commenter—an employee. After they confronted him, the employee resigned.
Most of us probably have an intrinsic notion that the anonymous commenter and Greenbaum both acted inappropriately (although there was no way for Greenbaum to know he was turning in an employee and not a student)—but perhaps the more important question is whether they were acting legally.
Greenbaum, a Post-Dispatch employee, should be bound by the paper’s online privacy policy, which states:
We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information.
However, at the beginning of the policy, they stipulate that “Your IP address does not contain personally identifiable information, nor does it identify you personally.” So is that individual user information? Sounds like it’s not.
And the Post-Dispatch’s ToS is an exercise in CYA (they define “submission” to include comments):
- You automatically waive any claim that any use of such content violates any of your rights, including privacy rights, publicity rights, moral rights or any other right, including the right to approve the way we use such content.
- You are responsible for the content of all Submissions and acknowledge that third parties may hold you responsible for content related claims including libel, invasion of privacy, misappropriation of likeness and disclosure of confidential information.
- You shall indemnify, defend and hold us, our parent company and our affiliated entities (including our officers, directors, owners, agents and employees) harmless from all liability and costs incurred by those indemnified in connection with any claim arising out of any breach by you of the above representations and warranties and for any claims related to the content or your Submissions.
And, naturally, the ToS stipulates that using the site to “upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available content that is harmful to minors in any way, or that is harassing, harmful, threatening, abusive, vulgar, obscene, defamatory, libelous, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable” violates the ToS, too.
And how were Anon’s actions illegal? Well, setting aside possible obscenity charges (while legally problematic, “obscenity” is not protected under the First Amendment), the school probably also has policies—policies that dictate the use of school resources. Most likely, this comment was made on school time, from a school computer, using the school’s Internet connection. Somehow, I can’t imagine there’s a provision in the policy that allows for use of school resources for posting vulgar comments online. By violating these policies, the employee could face discipline or even termination.
What do you think? Would these policies hold up in court?
Consumers State They’re Willing To Pay A Little For Online News
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It seems like every month another news organization toys with the idea of charging for their content. But, we always rejoin, you’ll ultimately sacrifice your audience if you charge for news content. However, the Boston Consulting Group says that may not always be the case—in fact, even Americans are willing to pay for online news.
Well, sort of. The average amount an American was willing to pay for news was $3—and not $3 a day, but $3 a month. Not exactly the profits Rupert Murdoch dreams of, is it?
The survey also found that people were more willing to pay for news that was:
- Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents)
- Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents)
- Conveniently accessible on a device of choice
And good news for newspapers: “consumers are more likely to pay for online news provided by newspapers than by other media, such as television stations, Web sites, or online portals,” especially since these other media have so much free competition. Interestingly, while Americans were more likely to pay for sites that offered access to multiple papers, only national and local—not major metropolitan-based papers—have that level of appeal. (I’m not sure which category The New York Times and Washington Post fall into here.)
Marc Vos, a Milan-based partner and leader of BCG’s media sector in Europe, tells newspapers that they “should be experimenting with paid online content. It will take trial and error to find what works.”
The prospects aren’t so bleak everywhere. In addition to 1000 US respondents, the survey also looked at results in Germany, Australia, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland. While Australians also wanted to pay only $3 (USD?) for their news, other countries saw higher rates. The New York Times said that this may be because Western Europe has more consolidated news offerings, where news in the US is a very fragmented industry.
However, before Western European news sites get all excited, note that the highest amount on the survey, in Italy, was $7 a month.
What do you think? What would you be willing to pay for news?
