Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

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Link: Activists Dominate Content Complaints.

The main point of this article, Activists Dominate Content Complaints,
is that 99.8% of all the complaints received by the FCC were generated
by one advocacy group.  My favorite part, however, is that the FCC
commissioners claim that the number of complaints received has no
impact on their decision making.  Really it’s a matter of law. 

Right.

That’s why Michael Powell highlights the dramatic year-to-year
increase in number of complaints, from 14,000 in 2002 to 240,000 in
2003 when testifying before the Senate.  (There were fewer than 350 in
2001 or 2000).  But really the number of complaints is irrelevant.

How can it have an impact when they only use the complaints to
decide what to investigate. After all if the FCC monitored the airwaves
for violations on their own then they might be accused of censorship.
But, really, it’s not the volume it’s the quality of the complaint that matters.

BTW, this article is a follow up that MediaWeek did after Jeff Jarvis revealed this little beauty.

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New Legal Ruling on Email

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I was reading my favorite tech resource, Langa List, when I came across these paragraphs in a response to a question about email security:

Email almost never goes directly from sender to recipient. Instead, it’s usually stored, albeit briefly, on at least two mail servers along the way, and maybe more; and will also pass through a large number (10-30 is common) of other computers, routers, and similar hardware along the way. US courts have recently ruled that email stored on a mail server (and that includes email passing through one mail server on its way to
another, "stored" on the intermediate server for only a fraction of a second) is not protected by wiretap laws originally designed with telephone conversations in mind. This is a brand-new ruling (about a month ago), so the ripple effects are still being sorted out, but in essence, it looks as though an email communication may be legally about the same as a conversation you have on a busy street corner: You can have
no reasonable expectation of privacy, so anyone who overhears the conversation— or reads the email— isn’t breaking any law.

The original intent of this legal change was for law enforcement: Along with the provisions of the Patriot Act, the idea was to make it easier for police and government bureaucrats to look freely in places that used to require a warrant.

Regardless of how you feel about that, the unintended consequence of this may be enormous. One example: If your email no longer has any legal privacy protection, what’s to prevent an ISP from, say, selling his mail server’s backup tapes to a spammer, who could then mine the addresses *and content* for likely spam targets and topics? If your email is now no more legally protected than a conversation on a public sidewalk, I don’t know what recourse you’d have at all."

Realistically I’m less worried about the "expectation of privacy" and much more worried about "selling mail server’s backup tapes to a spammer."  Someone with a mail server looking to make some quick cash selling lists to a spammer seems much more likely, and just one more straw ready to break the back of one of the great communication tools of the modern communication tools.

Battle Weary Congress Takes on Baseball Wimps

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John McCain was at the Army-Navy game and during the course of an interview said that if Major League Baseball doesn’t institute mandatory drug testing, then Congress will legislate it.

Good grief. 

How about this:  Congress get’s rid of the idiotic antitrust exemption from normal regulation (i.e. monopoly status) that MLB has enjoyed for several generations and begins to concentrate on a few "small" issues:
Medicare Reform
Social Security Reform
Iraq
Figuring out the real impact of the Patriot Act
And I can go on…

Link: My Way News.

Podcasting

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What is podcasting? From ipodder.org:

"Think
how a desktop aggregator works. You subscribe to a set of feeds, and
then can easily view the new stuff from all of the feeds together, or
each feed separately.

Podcasting works the same way, with one exception. Instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device."

The site is also contains a directory of podcasts.

Implications for business publishers:

  1. Opens up a possible new content stream, much like web conferencing did a few years back.
     
  2. This is more directly relevant because of RSS distribution, i.e. it is passive for the listener but active for the publisher.
  3. Reinforces
    the importance of having an effective advertising program set up. Why?
    Because ad buyers will jump at the chance to reach a niche audience,
    and by offering multiple media formats addressing one "deep" niche
    business publishers will offer advertisers the most efficient means for
    those buyers to reach the market.
  4. New talent needed…most reporters/editors won’t do too well in front of the microphone.

Voting in Winston Salem, NC

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In July I moved to Winston-Salem, NC from Northern Virginia, where I
had lived most of my life. The election experience here has been very
different from any election in the past.

Part
of this is due to the huge turnout this year, which would have made the
election different back in NoVa too. But there are little things that
I’ve noticed too:

1. I voted in a church today!  I’ve never heard of that before, and I don’t know if it would fly in NoVa.

2.
We had punch cards here, and our "booth" was a little tabletop thing
set up on a 6′ long folding table. In NoVa we had real booths, with a
curtain and levers to pull. Two observations here: I finally understand
hanging chads, and if I really wanted to I could have peeked at the
folks next to me when they were voting.

3. I had to stand in two
lines today, one to sign in and receive my ballot and the second to
actually vote. 45 minutes in the first and 45 minutes in the second.
Longest line I’ve ever been in to vote before was about four people
long.

All in all though, I like it better here in Winston-Salem. Because the
town is smaller I think the votes feel like they really count.

Winston-Salem and Northern Virginia Economies

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Growing up in Northern Virginia in the 70s and 80s, entering the professional workforce in 1989, it was interesting to watch the growth and change of the economy.

As a kid all of my friends’ parents worked for the government, the military or for a foreign embassy. No one was actually from Northern Virginia; they had all moved from somewhere else to work for a government agency, hometown politician or the military.

Then in the 80s things began to change. More people worked in the private sector, although that was still government related (defense contractors & non-profits). When the 90s dawned the telecom and internet companies took off like a rocket, and the economy became much more dynamic and diversified.

That diversity came in handy during the recession of the new millennium. When the internet and telecom companies crashed, the government contractors grew exponentially thanks to our rapidly increasing US military expenditures, homeland security, etc.

There were some residual effects: from the mid-90s on the Northern Virginia real estate market exploded. New development grew faster than most residents would have believed just five years earlier (my first property, a townhouse, depreciated from ’92 to ’97, then made back the losses and appreciated 60% from ’98 to ’00).

New development and drastically increased property value led to modest wage earners’ needing to move farther out into the suburbs to find affordable housing. That worsened Northern Virginia’s already horrendous traffic to almost unbearable levels.

Earlier this year my wife and I decided enough was enough. We needed to get out of Northern Virginia and find a better lifestyle for our family. We chose Winston-Salem, NC for a variety of reasons and now that we’ve lived here for about four months I’m beginning to realize that W-S is transitioning much like Norther Virginia did 20+ years ago.

For decades this area has been a tobacco, manufacturing, textile and furniture economy. Sure there were other industries represented, but those made up a small minority of the economy. Now W-S is a healthcare, finance and increasingly tech-based service economy.

Local leaders seem to be embracing and encouraging this change. Groups like Winston Salem Business Inc.,  Piedmont Entrepreneurs Network, Small Business and Technology Development Center, Wake Forest University’s Babcock Angell Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Piedmont Triad Research Park have all sprung up to promote the growth of the tech and biotech sectors in W-S.

It will be interesting to see how the city and surrounding areas adapt and change. Northern Virginia was largely rural just 40 years ago, now it is suburban with a heavy emphasis on the “urban.” W-S reminds me of Northern Virginia 35 years ago, with an urban center, a small ring of suburbs and a 10 minute drive to get into the “country.” How long will this remain true?

It’s pretty obvious that W-S will not grow anywhere near the size of Northern Virginia, and probably not even as large as North Carolina’s two major metro areas, Charlotte and Raleigh (Research Triangle Park). But it will grow, it’s populous will probably skew more to the college educated/white collar side (currently 30% of W-S area residents have a BA/BS), and property values will begin to rise after a long recessionary period.

Like Northern Virginia many long-time residents will have to move farther out to find affordable housing, and residents with only a high school degree and no white collar skills will struggle to find a good, well paying job, or job training that will help them make the transition to the new economy.

Should be interesting…I just hope I can still get across town in 15 minutes ten years from now.