jasonishibashi’s posterous

The Federal Trade Commission is trying to save journalism and it posted it's finding as the New FTC Staff Discussion.

Perhaps the most interesting and distressing part of the entire 47 page document is the ommission of any new innovation with news (see CUNY New News Ecosystem).  In fact, Jeff Jarvis notes that the word "blog" is only used once and only parenthetically.

Like any good government document, there is 47 pages of not very much.  There are lots of suggestions, some extremely alarming, but the document does not end up endorsing them.

Despite the lack of endorsement, it's the perspective of the document that should worry everyone - technologists and journalists alike. The document focuses on newspaper, asking for forgiveness for ignoring broadcast, and simply ignores all else.

The FTC presents, "Additional intellectual property rights to support claims against news aggregators," going so far as calling aggregators "parasitic".  The document rails against search engines but does not touch the new link economy.  Neither Digg, Twitter, nor Facebook appear within the document.

The FTC further looks at extending copyright and limiting fair use, "difficult line-drawing being proprietary facts and those in the public domain."  Please explain to me what exactly a proprietary fact is!  Are we going to be able to own facts now?

Going directly against their own Competition Mission, the FTC proposes allowing news organizations to set prices to consumers and aggregators and other antitrust exemptions.

For better or for worse, the FTC also discusses government subsidies, creating a journalism AmeriCorps, funding local news, tax credits for employing journalists, citizen news vouchers, grants to universities for reporting, postal subsidy, adding a tax on ISPs to be redistrubted to "selected news purveyors", a tax on cell phones, a tax on the broadcast spectrum, a tax on advertising, creating a new tax status and hybrid "flexible purpose" corporations, and getting government to make information open and available.

Obviously it's not all bad, but there's still much to be concerned about in the document for technologists, journalists, and bloggers.  Are we so sure the legacy institutions are the best solution going forward?  Do we really need to be so proactive to protect them?  Is there no better solution that works for everyone involved?

Question:
What happens if I exceed my smartphone data plan’s monthly allowance? Answer:
If you have DataPlus and use more than 200 MB, you’ll receive an additional 200 MB for $15. If you’re on the DataPro plan and need more than 2GB, you’ll receive an additional 2 GB for $10. Overage is replenished as often as necessary during your billing period.

The Answer Center has conflicting information from their press release which says, “Should a customer exceed 2 GB during a billing cycle, they will receive an additional 1 GB of data for $10 for use in the cycle.”

This would make pricing identical to the Verizon or Sprint MiFi which allows 5GB for $60.  AT&T tethering plus an extra 2GB is $25+$20+$10 = $55 for 4 GB or $65 for 6 GB.

For new iPad customers, the $25 per month 2 GB plan will replace the existing $29.99 unlimited plan.

For all of you hoping to take your new iPads to MLB games to take advantage of the excellent augmented reality experience, or any other potentially excellent bandwidth intensive features, the time has come to buy your iPad or else you’ll have to live with 2 GB for $25 or 3 GB for $35.

See my article to learn more about the New AT&T Internet Plans.

Earlier today AT&T announced new Mobile Internet plans beginning June 7.

• DataPlus provides 200 MB of data for $15.  If you exceed 200 MB you will automatically receive 200 MB more for an additional $15.  AT&T says 65 precent of customers use less than 200 MB of data per month on average.
• DataPro provides 2 GB of data for $25.  If you exceed 2 GB you will automatically receive 1 GB more for an additional $10.  AT&T says 98 percent of customers use less than 2 GB of data per month on average.
• Tethering can be added to a DataPro account for an additional $20 per month.  iPhones will get tethering when Apple releases iPhone OS 4 this summer.

I would like to see a chart that shows how many people exceed 2 GB {1, 2, 3, 4, …, 11, 12} months per year.  Something tells me there are a good statistical number of people who bounce back and forth between this point (since it would make good business sense to make that your tipping point).

Regarding tethering, we can all say FINALLY!  But why do we have to wait for iPhone OS 4 exactly?  Apple built tethering into OS 3 already.  AT&T, are you trying to make it look like it was Apple who was slow to get tethering to work on the iPhone?