M2Z Offers Free Horses, FCC Nixes

Infoworld reports that M2Z Networks, the startup co-founded by John Muleta, the former head of the FCC's Wireless Bureau is prepared to sue after the FCC turned down it's request for 20 MHz of currently fallow spectrum. The spectrum between 2155MHz and 2175MHz was to be used to provide free wireless broadband at speeds of 384Kbps downstream and 128Kbps up. In today's broadband marketplace, these speeds are roughly the equivalent of riding a horse compared to driving a car.

Startup may sue FCC over handling of wireless plan

Muleta appears to have read his FCC history when he offered free universal service for broadband with voluntary censorship of inappropriate content if the FCC would provide the necessary spectrum in exchange for 5% of revenue being deposited in the US treasury. In the past such an offer might have been a slam dunk or at least a bank shot of the backboard. The FCC has long used their mission to protect the "public interest" as a means to get concessions from license holders, without ever having to explicitly dictate terms. Free, Universal Service, "Family Friendly", wireless and broadband is surely a litany of desirable goals for the FCC, so why the foot dragging?

First, as I've mentioned previously, the success of the 700 MHz auction will be Chairman Martin's legacy. Until this auction is in the books, the Chairman has no desire to offer an alternate means of spectrum allocation. Approving the M2Z deal would devalue the spectrum being sold in January.

Second, as Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation points out, 384 Kbps down and 128 Kbps up is not really a broadband service by today's standards. Certainly, folks with a mule would take a horse for free, even if you could only ride the horse certain places, but the car industry might have something to say. When current technologies can provide faster wireless broadband, what is in the public interest about licensing an inefficient service?

The Nobility of Mobility

Arrington posts on TechCrunch regarding some companies and applications making a go of the Mobile Social Networking space.

The Holy Grail For Mobile Social Networks

He correctly identifies what he calls the "chicken and egg problem" with regard mobile applications - a critical mass of users is required for any one user to find any utility. Of course, economists frame this situation in the theory of network effects and Metcalfe's law. A telecommunications network's value is proportional to the square of the number of users.

The goal for any entrant into this space should be to ensure they have enough users so that their usage reaches a tipping point. The best way to acheive a critical user mass for tipping is to ensure that your application is bundled with an existing mobile provider's product. We are also very likely to see vertical integration of mobile social networking apps from Apple and Microsoft and Google as well if they enter the service provider space through the 700 MHz Auction.

On the Stalled M2Z Spectrum Giveaway

Om posts today on the scuffle surrounding the dormant M2Z Networks proposal for the FCC to give it 20 MHz of unused spectrum, with which M2Z will build a nationwide wireless broadband network. The network will be managed as a wholesale entity and in exchange for the commission's largesse, M2Z will give 5% of its gross revenue to the US treasury. It has also promised out of the gate to adhere to strict decency standards - a premise that plays in some respect to the FCC but also against the thus far intact stance on network neutrality.

GigaOM M2Z Networks Sticks It To The Martin Man �

I suspect that the commission's "inactivity" is directly related to the upcoming 700 MHz auction. Having already introduced an amount of innovation to the auction process going against ATT and Verizon, and given that the auction finally monetizes a swath that was largely given away as a boondoggle, I doubt that Chairman Martin is eager to hand over 20 MHz to a former FCC official throwing more mud in the eye of ATT and Verizon all for some unspecified future return. To act on this one way or another is about as nice as picking up a sharp stick and poking oneself repeatedly in the eye.

Google Follows The Golden Rule

I was chatting with my father this morning about the upcoming spectrum auction and how the potential "open-access" rule marks a bit of a departure for the FCC with regard to their treatment of the big telcos thus far. My father, as keen and jaded a political observer as you will find, commented that these sorts of things usually come down to "The Golden Rule" as in "He who has the gold makes the rules." Prescient as always. The fact that Google was willing to open its coffers to ensure that the open access rules were met appeared later in the day. Here is OM's always insightful take on the news:

GigaOM Google will bid for Wireless Spectrum �

Pocket Dialing - Mind Your P's and Q's

I have noticed that my Blackberry 8830 has a proclivity for Pocket Dialing - a phenomenon for which I just learned the name:

Pocket Dialing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The P and Q keys are the most commonly pressed which pulls up contacts beginning with one of those letters. This morning it accidentally dialed a sales contact in my address book and we ended up discussing potential firewall solutions that his firm is offering.

Lesson for sales people - change your name to Pamela or Quentin.

The 700 Club - Members Only

So GigaOm reports that Verizon is opposed to the "Google Block's" recommendations for the 700 Mhz auction rules. Big surprise.

GigaOM Verizon: Play fair in wireless auctions, as long as VZ wins �

I think it is very likely that this upcoming auction will be the defining moment for the current regulatory regime. The opportunity exists to set standards for the next decade. As the date approaches things will only get more interesting. Keep your eyes and ears open...

Tailgate Party

So TechCrunch highlighted this new product today:

Tailgate: Fully Transactional Web 2.0 Banners

One of those lightbulbs went off in my head - "Why didn't I think of this..." Really slick way to embed ads that I can interact with in another page. I hate advertising, of course, but if I was reading about Bob Dylan's latest tour on a news site and an ad appeared allowing me to buy tix to Red Rocks without leaving the page, that would be a useful service, indeed.

Failing Grades for Interoperability from the DHS

The Department of Homeland Security's Tactical Interoperabilty assessment can be found here: http://www.dhs.gov/xprepresp/gc_1167770109789.shtm.


The report found deficiencies in all but 6 of 75 of major urban areas surveyed with the Denver Metro area ranking near the bottom. It seems like there is a huge opportunity for the adoption of SDR and CR systems to plug the gaps.

How Would You Describe a Web Browser to a Martian?

Seeing as how we can all get very excited, very quickly about Web 2.0, AJAX, Mash-ups, Social Applications, etc., it is wise every so often to step back and brew up a couple of rain clouds in order to see what happens to the parade. Try out this little thought experiment, for instance.

Q: How would you describe a Web Browser to a Martian? Assume the Martian can speak English and has a rudimentary knowledge of computing.

A: A web browser is a tool that displays text and image files stored on a computer, typically at a location remote from the viewer, on a "web" page. It uses a descriptive language called HTML to position the images on the page and to format the text in a variety of ways such as size, color and location. It also recognizes a light-weight software language called JavaScript that can be used to manipulate the text and images on the page in ways that a simple descriptive language like HTML can not, for example finding the sum of a list of numbers on the page. A third native language called CSS is used to place the formatting instructions for HTML into a centralized location allowing them to be reused for many different pages stored in the same location on the remote computer. Browsers may be enhanced by fitting them with additional modules that allow them to do more than read HTML, JavaScript and CSS. These modules may be manipulated to create a more interactive experience for the user and the content on the page. One of the most common of these modules is called Flash which is frequently utilized to embed games and movies on the page. Another very common module is called Java. Java is a more heavyweight program as it is an entirely separate operating system running on top of the one your computer has, of which the part that the browser uses is relatively small. Java has been used to create applications that communicate directly with a remote computer in order to allow the text and images on a page to change as the changes happen, without the need to use HTML, JavaScript or CSS to display them.

Now ask yourself if you were building a new internet application that was going to replace a common desktop application, say a spreadsheet, and the Web Browser had not yet been invented, would your final product resemble the tool described above.

Should we be concerned about creating new applications for the Web and the Web Browser when the Web and the Web Browser may not be the best tool for our applications? Will the real Web 2.0 killer app be the replacement for IE, Firefox and the rest?

Netflix - Your Broadband Content Provider

Newsweek wonders if Neflix has what it takes to survive with the coming of the "Broadband Age." The answer, as always, is who knows. Here is their take on the Netflix story:

As a tech company, Netflix was a contrarian play. Even at the height of the dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley buzzed with the promise of "transformative technologies" and "fat pipes" that would allow consumers to quickly download all manner of content, Hastings built Netflix on two disarmingly retro technologies: the DVD and the United States Postal Service. For a monthly subscription fee averaging $17.99, consumers would be treated to an unlimited number of rented DVDs, most delivered within a day of being ordered online. "People were talking about beaming movies to wristwatches," [Reed] Hastings says. "We tried not to get drunk on the future, but actually to predict it accurately."

While they continue on in the article to write about how eventually the current content distributors will be able to control what you receive and they imply that the Long Tail customers will get shut out unless Netflix evolves to meet these challenges, they miss a fundamental point in Netflix's story only hinted at above.

Netflix has already always been about selecting and downloading movies online. You choose a movie online and "download" it to your mailbox. Given even a nice moderately fast 2 Mbps connection and an equivalent upstream connection, an 8 GB DVD would take 10 hours to download - hardly a practical improvement over next day delivery. What if you order three 8 GB movies at 12:00 PM and they arrive at 12:00 PM the next day? You would have received 24 GB in 24 Hours or roughly 2.4 Mbps. This is a typical DSL or Cable Modem speed given today's technology.

The conclusion here is that Netflix is already a Broadband Service Provider. At what point will home broadband speeds, digital compression technologies, upstream bandwidth availability and on-demand streaming technologies evolve to the point where next day delivery can finally be beaten? Again, who knows, but my guess is quite a while and by then Netflix has as good or better a chance as anyone of leveraging these new technolologies to deliver the same service they do today.

More on Sun/Google from Gartner

Gartner presents a quick topical analysis of the Sun/Google partnership along with a few plugs for some other AJAX apps. Interestingly, Gartner sees an 80% probability that IT Departments will begin to adopt these lightweight web-based apps to supplement or replace existing tools by late 2006.

Barbarians at the Gates?

Microsoft is publicly responding to the Google/Sun deal with typical confidence, stating that the Office suite is not threatened by OpenOffice and that they don't envision future web-based Office software (neither does Google, evidently). Microsoft believes that with enhancements to its CRM and Office applications, it can integrate current web-based services such as AOL Instant Messenger with its own products and by adding collaborative features such as Groove to Office, it will be able to keep the focus on the desktop. Perhaps this is still where the smart money lies, however, there are several reasons why this may yet tip in favor of a combination of Open standards and web services.

Microsoft claims that they have always competed with OpenOffice. Sure they have. In the game space of the technorati and the innovators, certainly, but when US State governments get behind the Open document movement what does that tell us?

OpenOffice and StarOffice are maturing applications that are starting to create a buzz outside of innovation circles, compared to MS Office which as a mature application is more lumbering having accumulated many different features stapled on by different design teams over the last two decades.

Those who have worked with OpenOffice and StarOffice, and perhaps businesses in countries and industries that have not been dominated by Microsoft might say these applications are far past the early adopter phase but for most business users MS Office has been the rule of thumb since at least 1995. During this cycle, the late majority has become more technically savvy and some will have less trepidation about joining the early adopters, at least in applications that they completely understand - email, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Standards organizations are beating the drum louder and louder for de jure rather than de facto document standards.

Five years ago, even three years ago, would there have even been a discussion about Microsofts dominance in the business application space?

Much more to come...

AJAX Office

I can't go five minutes without stumbling across a post somewhere about AJAX.

What is it?

Web 2.0 that is. I have to agree with O'Reilly's point that Web 2.0 sounds like a marketing buzzword being used by a lot of companies to describe their wares without really knowing what it means. Since he helped coin the term he has an idea of what it means and he shares it here.

I am working on a paper for an interdisciplinary law and technology class at CU that will focus on Web 2.0, its origins, the core technologies that power it, and its prospects for the future. I hope to be able to offer a scholarly look at the Web 2.0 phenomenon to complement the hype.

Life of O'Reilly

More about Web 2.0 and the "architecture of participation." After reading this piece, maybe you'll think that Tim O'Reilly is a little out there. Maybe you already did. I can't argue too much with someone who has built a high tech empire on paperback books with woodcut animal characters on the front. It is a testament to the "O'Reilly Standard" that a software/networking/database/programming technology might as well not exist until it has an O'Reilly published about it. For what it's worth, I had the phrase "The Internet is the Operating System" bouncing around in my head for a long time before I found someone who attributed it to O'Reilly.

Overview of AJAX Apps

This ZDNET article is a good overview of some AJAX office applications currently availble and coming soon. I haven't had the opportunity to test any of them out yet, but as I do there will be more posts on the way.

SkypeBay

Steven Levy from Newsweek checks in with his take on the eBay purchase of Skype. He claims that the purchase validates the idea that the internet is soon to contain all sorts of embedded voice applications. What he doesn't say is that this purchase might mean something more - an acknowledgement by eBay that an online garage sale isn't the killer app to keep moving this company forward.

Google TV

Check it out.

Google is broadcasting the new Chris Rock UPN show, Everybody Hates Chris via "streamcast" over the next four days. The shots over the bow of old fashined television are increasing rapidly.

37 Signals

Salon's technology writer, Farhad Manjoo, has a very good overview today of Chicago software company, 37 Signals.

In recent weeks, I've been talking to many clever people who are using creative programming techniques to build a better World Wide Web. The online experience they envision is more responsive than the Web we use today, and it's more useful and fun, too. On this better Web, you can drag and drop items to rearrange them, see a search box fill up while you type a query, and prompt an action as soon as you press a button. The model works, in other words, as intuitively as the best software in our lives. You've likely seen bits of it already. These new techniques power Gmail, Google's fine Web e-mail system, allow you to drag maps in Google Maps, annotate pictures in Flickr, and use your mouse to reorder your movie queue in Netflix.

In addition to better software, I discovered something else about the new Web: Creativity is back. The idea that the Web is a giant get-rich-quick vehicle no longer pervades the business. Instead, recalling the mid-1990s, a host of truly talented people are looking at the Web as a canvas for their creativity. And there's one small company that's emblematic of this effort to build better applications, and, indeed, is pioneering an entire business philosophy designed to make the Web great. The firm is called 37 Signals, and if you've never heard of it, don't worry. You're likely to start using its software any day now.