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Steve Hodson has a guest post at Mashable on the Freemium ad + subscriber value-added model for online media.

It would be far better if he could write coherently. One commenter went so far as to pick apart every single error in the whole post.

How can anyone influence if they can't communicate effectively?

I'm still mostly computer-less until at tomorrow at earliest, but Sean Garrett at 463 pointed me towards his most excellent rant on...well...everything I think is true about the Washington-Silicon Valley idea gap.

Money quote:

But, I can't help but think that one of the biggest trends of the last decade of tech policy is how the rich have gotten wiser and the poor, less informed. That is, the big and/or smart companies have made a land rush to DC to hire the best staff; secure lobbyists and establish control over the existing trade groups. This has had the effect of transferring much of the tech policy conversation and work to DC. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer and the right thing to do (which it perhaps is), but it wasn't so long ago that there were many more public forums in Silicon Valley that revolved around policy issues...

...The net impact of all this is that the CEO of the emerging start-up that may or may not be the next Facebook rarely reads about key policy issues that may impact her business and almost certainly never sees her peers engaged on them. If confronted, the CEO would probably say that she assumed that the Googles, Ciscos and Microsofts of the world were taking care of a particular issue. And, while that may be the correct answer, is it the right answer?

Sean wants to know who is going to take a leading role in reestablishing a vital and necessary link and educating the "little guys." He suggests someone like Michael Arrington, but despite his law chops I don't think he's the right man for the job. What we need is someone who understands Washington and technology from an inside perspective on both. I try and speak to both sides, and certainly have the experience in both camps, but a real pro could make a big difference.

On the other hand, next month I'll be walking around DC with Robert Scoble and showing him (and his Valley audience) what's what and who's who. We should have some good conversations and maybe restart what Sean and I both agree is so desperately needed.

To be continued.

By now I think that everyone knows that Grand Theft Auto IV is officially the most successful video game (in it's first week) in the history of the universe.  Really.

 

Here are some figures, from a CNN.com article by GameTap

It's official. Grand Theft Auto IV is a video game blockbuster, with gamers around the world buying up more than 6 million copies of the gritty, urban action title in its first week of sales.

...

Sales of the game generated more than half a billion dollars, the publisher, Take-Two Interactive, said.

 

That's 2% of the entire country.  Grand Theft Auto, as a series, has been the focal point of every anti-video game organization and nut-ball who wants to get them banned.  People like the lovely Jack Thompson wanted to take legal action to prevent sales of the game to minors.  It's obvious that Jackie boy has too much time on his hands, because there are two major things that make such a suit unneccessary: the voluntary rating system and parental responsibility.

More after the jump...

 

Thank you, Reuters for the info -

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp is considering spinning off or selling its Nextel unit, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, quoting people familiar with the situation.

Well, this would certainly be the easiest way for Sprint to abandon its iDEN network.  It makes sense to sell of the Nextel part of Sprint Nextel as a quick(er) and (relatively) easy way to solve the concerns of trying to merge two incompatible networks.  They could potentially give current iDEN users the option of getting into a CDMA device on the cheap or moving over to the new provider.  Of course, that's if the new owner actually maintains the network for consumers.  If one potential buyer gets his way (which is of course if Sprint decides to sell) the network could become a new haven for public safety organizations.

The report said Cyren Call, a company founded by Nextel founder Morgan O'Brien, is trying to assemble a consortium of investors to acquire Nextel.

Cyren's mission is to provide better communication for the nation's First Responders so that they can better react and communicate.

Bottom line?  My lay opinion is that selling off Nextel would give Sprint much-needed cash as well as the ability to focus solely on improving the CDMA network and building out WiMax without the distraction of trying to figure out how to integrate the iDEN users as well.

Strangely absent from any buyout rumors is SouthernLINC.  SouthernLINC Wireless is a regional iDEN carrier.  In fact, their handsets are identical to Nextel's iDEN handsets.  It would make sense for Sprint to offer them a sweetheart deal to take iDEN off their hands.  Selling to SouthernLINC would be great for customers on both sides:  Nextel customers would notice almost zero change except for the name on their bill and SouthernLINC would leap onto the national stage and become, almost overnight, a major player.  If they could extend their reputation for reliability (they were back up and running only 72 hours post-Katrina) onto the national stage...Verizon's claim to fame would be in serious jeopardy.

Here's the headline from the Wall Street Journal

Deutsche Telekom AG is weighing a bid to acquire Sprint Nextel Corp. that could catapult the German telecommunications giant's wireless arm, T-Mobile USA, to the No. 1 position in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

The downside would be the enormous cluster-fudge of networks.  They'd have GSM, iDEN, CDMA and almost Wi-MAX.

We saw what happened when two companies "merged" (they called it a "merger of equals" but it was more of a buyout) that were running different networks.  We're talking Sprint and Nextel, duh.  There was no real plan for consolidation.  Constant changes of direction haven't helped.  Sprint used to be number 2 in what was the Big 5 (the lineup used to be AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Nextel and T-Mobile) and Sprint's stock was in the low $20 range and generally on the rise.  Since the merger both sides of Sprint/Nextel have seen literally millions of subscribers and billions of dollars evaporate.

What I'm getting at is that DT/T-mobile seems to have its head on straight.  Other than the change from VoiceSteam to T-Mobile (which was done in the relative infancy of their US debut) they've never suffered an identity crisis (Like AT&T Cingular AT&T) and never had to transition from one network to another (like AT&T from TDMA to GSM or Nextel from TDMA to iDEN or Sprint from GSM to CDMA).  Unless they have a very clear roadmap for what they're going to do with their customers in regards to network there are going to be massive problems with a buyout of Sprint.  I would have to imagine that it would be something along the lines of moving their GSM customers to CDMA (most of their GSM handsets have a CDMA almost-twin).  Next would be either rolling out a nationwide Wi-MAX network for Wi-MAX airacrds and CDMA handsets that connect to Wi-MAX for data or potentially work in a dropping of Wi-MAX entirely and rely on EVDO for its data needs.  Because of the incentives usually offered to switch to the "favored" network, it would seem cheaper to abandon GSM.  However, GSM is more globally accepted and is a cheaper overall network.  I hope that if they merge they stick with CDMA because frankly, I've never been impressed with the call quality I've had when talking to someone with T-Mobile and never been anything but impressed with the call quality I've had with Sprint. 
Also, they'd need to work dropping iDEN into that plan too.

Except for the part where Sprint is saying Wi-MAX and VZE is saying LTE for 4th gen data a Verizon buyout of Sprint would make so much more sense, especially because Wi-MAX is still in a test deployment.

I'll admit, as I usually will, that I don't have any kind of degree in anything.  What I do have is experience.  I experienced the Sprint/Nextel merger first-hand and know how poorly it was handled.  It took them 3 years to decide that they should use the near-billion dollar city-sized campus in Kansas as their HQ (which also allows them to pay relocated employees less in accordance with their policy for reducing pay when transferring to an area with a lower cost of living) instead of the campus in Reston, VA (which is still only partially vacated).  They're just now, also three years later, rolling out handsets that will allow iDEN customers to completely move over to CDMA as opposed to the hybrid units that reduce iDEN traffic but don't really address the need to get rid of the entire network.  Any plan that came out didn't seem like it was that well planned and was then changed before it had a chance to take hold.  I have to assume that if I can see the huge potential for ginormous fail that the brains behind Deutsche Telekom must have as well.

If the buy happens (and it's a really, really, really big "if") it needs to be done with more planning, commitment and follow-through than would be needed in the acquisition of a competitor using the same type of network.  With Sprint's stock $30 away from the top 2 (AT&T and VZW) and DT's better, but not amazing in the upper teens, a poorly handled Sprint acquisition could very well put the new company in dire straights very quickly.  Were that to happen we could very easily see the Big 4 very quickly become the Big 2. 

So here's the roundup, Saturday style, once again.
As usual, here are the stock prices of the Big 4 at last trade on Friday, May 2nd.  Change is vs last trade on the previous Friday.

AT&T - $40.13 + $1.55
Verizon - $39.59 + $2.55
Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) - $18.11 + $0.21
Sprint - $7.89 - $0.02

VZW and AT&T are still in a dead heat for first in terms of stock price.  Sprint actually climbed into the low $8 range but news that it's June 26th deadline to vacate a big chunk of spectrum (details below) may cause it to leave up to 20 million iDEN users high and dry took it back into the 7's.

As usual, quotes thanks to Yahoo! Finance.

• On Friday a Federal Appeals court shot down Sprint.  There is a chunk of bandwidth that Sprint is currently using for its iDEN operations that is supposed to be vacated for use by emergency services.  Sprint is no where near being ready to vacate that spectrum and has no where to move the network traffic that will be left in limbo.  In theory, Sprint was going to take over the spectrum that is currently being used by those emergency services organizations.  The thing is, they aren't ready either.  Sprint is the one with the June 26th deadline and they could be left scratching their heads, wondering what the heck they're going to do when potentially millions of their iDEN subscribers have no network.
  According to a Wireless Week article from last November, around 20 million iDEN subscribers could be out of luck.  iDEN is the network technology used in Nextel phones and for the walkie talkie functionality in Sprint Nextel's hybrid phones.
  

Details at Yahoo!, by the Associated Press.

The rest of the roundup after the jump...

Capitol Valley interactive at kyte.tv/capitolvalleyinteractive
Capitol Valley content from Alex and Andrew at kyte.tv/capitolvalleymedia

Don't forget to check out the rest of the media center, with links to the Kyte.tv channels, our flickr pools, the dop.io drop and any other cool stuff we might add later.

CNN.com had an article today that, while in no way dispensing any new information, is something that could be pretty useful for people who a) are brand new to social networking sites or b) have kids who are on or want to be on one.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She'd like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. "It's just common sense."

It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it?

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what's known as an "application," one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.

The rest of the article is here, and if you fall into either of the categories I mentioned, you should totally check it out.

I feel the need, again, to make the point that nothing is free.  Not entirely.  If you want the neat applications and you don't want to pay for them they need to be supported by ads.  The ads are more effective and therefor more profitable if they are targeted based upon assumed interests and patterns of behavior.

So should you be careful?  Sure.  Should you whine and moan because your online activity is being tracked?  No, you should just stay away from sites and applications that do the tracking.

I saw this at mocoNews.net and was blown away.  It's the kind of simple, common sense stuff that gets so easily lost in the bureaucracy and over analyzing of a big corporation.

Guy Talmi is a Senior Marketing Director at Pontis, an Israel-based company that works with wireless and cable operators to help determine the most relevant marketing approaches based on a user's profile, preferences and behavior. Talmi has compiled a list of the top 10 most common marketing mistakes he sees made by the operator.

Here I'll just list the actual top 10, but you can click here to see the explanation of each over at mocoNews.

1.  Operators fail to target the right products to the right customers
2.  Free trial offers fail because of poor follow-up
3.  Introductory offers for new customers alienate existing customers
4.  Non-targeted offers look like spam
5.  Operators address churn too late
6.  Marketing campaigns may fail if not tested before launch
7.  Operators use the wrong medium to market to users
8.  Value the customer
9.  Operators miss marketing opportunities
10.  Success breeds success - if you can recognize it

When you get into the explanations it makes even more sense.
What he says in his summary, praising online retailers like Amazon for marketing based on past searches and purchases, is something that has been a little controversial.

There's growing concern among (mostly older) web surfers and purchasers that companies are keeping too much information about them.  I tend to shoot down these concerns, more vocally when referring to sites that are trying to monetize a free service, because there is a reason behind targeted advertising.  I think that Talmi would agree with me that targeted advertising and marketing, regardless of industry, can help companies save money and hopefully pass those savings onto their customers in the form of more competitively priced goods and services.

First, here's a little bit of the story that ran at CNN.com today

James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.

...

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. "Arrested."

After that one-word message was sent out James' followers started Tweeting and blogging about their friend's precarious situation.  One friend even got on the ball and hired a lawyer on James' behalf.  James was freed.

Less than 24 hours after he was arrested.

This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be given the spotlight, and I'm super excited about seeing it on CNN.com.  It's the sort of thing that can further help to spread awareness of how Twitter can function as more than just a fun tool or even a professional one, both of which are hats it wears quite well.

The only failing I see is that it can only benefit Twitter.  If, as we rant about ad nauseum,  this good press could have benefited the entire social networking/blogging community.  We're always saying that Web 2.0 (And I'm caught playing Buzzword Bingo) companies, and those that are involved in social networking especially, should and need to form an industry organization to keep themselves safe from potential regulation hell.

Let's face it - Like it or not, a negative story will wash over an entire medium like wildfire.  Did Janet Jackson's nipple focus the ire of over-reacting, zero-responsibility, whack-job, non-parents on CBS and the NFL?  I think that we all know what the answer is there. As I've said about on-topic examples and as was discussed in our interview with Dr. Patrick Moore, it's true that forming an industry organization means working with your competitors.  But it's working with your competitors so that you can be allowed to compete and to keep your own set of rules.

I won't go into much more detail, because I'd basically be reposting old info (more than I have already).

I'll close by giving big ups to Twitter, of which Andrew and I are big old fanboys.  This kind of story is what can help to elevate a technology from "fun" to "professional" to that next level where it can be used for very serious situations.  The same way that text messages and mobile phones in general have, the latter over the past decade and the former over the past 4-5 years.

Twitter, great job!  Social Networking/Web 2.0 execs - Celebrate the good but team up and protect yourselves from the bad.