Cox Crow

Statistics: What broadband users want

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report on "The Broadband Difference: How online Americans’ behavior changes with high-speed Internet connections at home". If you have a broadband connection already, the results will not be surprising.

"It's not a broadcast medium...It allows people to be their own producers and creators,"
— Lee Rainie, as quoted in "People choose Net over malls, TV," Reuters

5:09:15 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Media

Enhancing the Value Proposition

Cory Doctorow points out a story on broadband in The Guardian:

Does broadband need "content?". In order to stimulate lagging broadband growth in the UK, ISPs are signing up "content providers." Jeez:

"For us, the interesting thing is that everything in broadband has been focusing on speed," says Russell Craig, One.Tel spokesman, "but what we're trying to focus on is content as well. After you have gotten your emails faster, speed is sort of 'So what?', but if you can provide things like big music names, then that's going to drive broadband. MTV is the biggest name in music broadcasting so we really think this is a new stage of broadband."

What a load of tripe.
— The Guardian via [Boing Boing Blog]

One.Tel is using content to differentiate itself from its competition, to make their service more appealing than other offerings. It's just a sales trick. What will make this a problem is if they think that it is not a sales trick. Don't forget what it is that people are really buying: connectivity.

2:23:53 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Media

Blue skies, smiling at me

That prescription drugs are advertised on television bothers me. You see shiny, happy people while the mumbled fine print suggests that some side effects include death.

It’s gotten so bad that it’s impossible to tell if one of these advertisements is for a sedative or allergy medication. Especially disturbing is a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation study finding that 30% of us ask our doctors for specific drugs we’ve seen advertised and 44 % of us are receiving prescriptions for them. [ARTS & FARCES internet]

Jerry Pournelle offers this option:

I would argue for rigidly and brutally enforced TRUTH IN ADVERTISING and in labeling, including warnings like "FDA physicians think you would have to be out of your mind to take this stuff" and "The FDA believes that this is expensive ditch water that can't possibly do you any good," and "The Surgeon General has determined that this stuff will probably kill you." Beyond that, let the citizens be responsible, and let the buyer beware....

Not unlike the advertisements for other pharmaceuticals.

12:21:28 PM # Google It!
categories: Media