Thoughts on the social impacts of communication policy and educational technology.
Justice Dept. defends warrantless cell phone tracking | Politics and Law – CNET News.
The justice department is arguing that they shouldn’t need a warrant to request the locations of cell phone users. Wonder why they don’t want to follow the (greatly streamlined) process.
Study: Bloggers’ reasons for writing change over time (Feb. 10, 2010)
I’m far from a top political blogger, but this story prompted me to again take a look at the subject of an entire category on this site — why blog?
I think I can say that I’ve finally gotten into the blogging habit. I’m posting regularly here as well as in a number of work-related places (more on that later). Originally, my blog was a bit of a journal for myself (to keep track of resources and ideas I didn’t want to loose). Now, I think I’ve turned it more towards sharing ideas. This has been important to some degree all along, but now I’m finally walking the walk.
One thing about a blog that’s different from Twitter or Facebook is that there is a norm to reflect a little when sharing a resource and also a norm of timeliness. When put together, these make it necessary to think quickly and to post ideas that you might later find way off the mark. I am counting on the fact that this idea of “thinking out loud” won’t harm me at any time in the future–the medium almost demands it.
Variable download pricing correlated with slower music sales.
More evidence of the problems with the music industry’s business model. It’s supply and demand…
Google recently announced that they plan to start building an experimental, high-speed fiber network. It’s not clear yet whether they are going to just build the network, or if they will also manage it (as a traditional ISP would), but this decision might be looked at from two sides of the same coin.
First, this might violate traditional conceptions of a vertical monopoly. If Google owns the wires, apps, servers, and content that most people browse on the Internet their business model starts to look a bit too powerful. Despite their promise not to “be evil” and to keep the networks “neutral,” if they were to manage these networks it would undeniably give them the potential to exert a great deal of control.
Yet, at the same time this appears to be a direct response to other ISPs who are sitting on their profits hands when it comes to broadband development. As recently explained in a story on Broadband on NPR,
“They aren’t leading, they aren’t following, and they won’t get out of the way,” says Craig Settles, author of Fighting The Next Good Fight, a book about broadband business strategy. He says the nation’s biggest telecom companies have generally decided not to apply for federal stimulus money.
The traditional ISPs are not developing their networks, fighting efforts of local broadband development as well as neutrality regulation, and are not applying for federal broadband stimulus money.
Perhaps that’s the catch 22: it appears to be corporate interests that are hindering our broadband development, but also Google’s corporate interest that might push this competition forward.