Recent postings on media issues from Benton.org

November 2005

Nov 29: BIG FIGHTS OVER SMALL SCREENS
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] People with TiVos or the generic equivalent actually watch more TV and see plenty of commercials in the process. But now TiVo has announced software that lets subscribers automatically copy recorded shows onto two popular pocket-sized video players, Apple's new video iPod or Sony's PlayStation Portable. The television industry doesn't like it -- it may threaten the fledgling market for TV shows distributed on demand. By making it easy for subscribers to put shows on their iPods or PSPs for
free, TiVo has made it harder for the networks to collect a fee. It's not clear how a court would rule if the TV industry sued TiVo over the new feature. The actual threat to the networks is minimal. TiVo's move could boost interest in watching TV on portable devices, creating more opportunities to sell programs and advertising. Instead of girding for a legal fight, the networks would be better off working with TiVo on the company's latest feature, which lets TiVo subscribers tell advertisers
which commercials they might actually want to see. What a concept -- pitching pickup trucks to people who are thinking about buying one. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-tivo29nov29,1,4078511.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

Nov 21: THE INTERNET AT RISK [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] The job of assigning domain names offers huge opportunities for abuse. Whoever controls this function can decide to keep certain types of individuals or organizations offline (dissidents or opposition political groups, for example). Or it can allow them on in exchange for large fees. The striking feature of U.S. oversight of the Internet is that such abuses have not occurred. Any organization that wants to register a domain name can do so, provided that the name hasn't already been claimed. Opportunistic cyber-squatting has been brought under control. The cost of registering a Web address has fallen. It's possible that a multilateral overseer of the Internet might be just as efficient. But the ponderous International Telecommunication Union, the U.N. body that would be a leading candidate to take over the domain registry, has a record of resisting innovation -- including the advent of the Internet. Moreover, a multilateral domain-registering body would be caught between the different visions of its members: on the one side, autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia and China that want to restrict access to the Internet; on the other side, open societies that want low barriers to entry. These clashes of vision would probably make multilateral regulation inefficiently political. You may say that this is a fair price to pay to uphold the principle of sovereignty. If a country wants to keep certain users from registering domain names (Nazi groups, child pornographers, criminals), then perhaps it has a right to do so. But the clinching argument is that countries can exercise that sovereignty to a reasonable degree without controlling domain names. They can order Internet users in their territory to take offensive material down. They can order their banks or credit card companies to refuse to process payments to unsavory Web sites based abroad. Indeed, governments' ample ability to regulate the Internet has already been demonstrated by some of the countries pushing for reform, such as authoritarian China. The sovereign nations of the world have no need to wrest control of the Internet from the United States, because they already have it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112000858.html (requires registration)

DIGITAL DIVIDE A FOCUS AT CLOSE OF NET SUMMIT [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Andy Sullivan] The United Nations-organized World Summit on the Information Society, which ended on Friday, made progress in narrowing the technology gap between rich and poor countries, participants said, despite rich nations' reluctance to contribute to a development fund pushed by African states. The summit also saw clashes over human rights and control of the Internet's technical functions. At least 200 deals were struck to bring technology to the developing world during the three-day meeting, organizers said, from multi-million dollar commitments by firms like Microsoft to alliances not easily measured in monetary terms. Summit headlines were grabbed by a spat over control of the Internet's addressing system, currently managed by a California-based non-profit group called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that answers to the United States. A last-minute agreement reached hours before the conference kept the current "domain name" system intact, but also set up a forum where dissenting countries like Iran and Brazil will be able to keep "Internet governance" on the front burner. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-18T185631Z_01_HO866799_RTRUKOC_0_US-TUNIS.xml&archived=False * "Digital divide" not so easy to close, Kenyans find http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-18T160233Z_01_RID830559_RTRUKOC_0_US-TUNIS-DIVIDE.xml&archived=False

SEARCH ENGINE USE UP [SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project] Search engines have become an increasingly important part of the online experience of American Internet users. The most recent findings from Pew Internet & American Life tracking surveys and consumer behavior trends from the comScore Media Metrix consumer panel show that about 60 million American adults are using search engines on a typical day. These results from September 2005 represent a sharp increase from mid-2004. Pew Internet Project data from June 2004 show that use of search engines on a typical day has risen from 30% to 41% of the Internet-using population, which itself has grown in the past year. This means that the number of those using search engines on an average day jumped from roughly 38 million in June 2004 to about 59 million in September 2005 _ an increase of about 55%. This means that the use of search engines is edging up on email as a primary Internet activity on any given day. The Pew Internet Project data show that on a typical day, email use is still the top Internet activity. On any given day, about 52% of American Internet users are sending and receiving email, up from 45% in June of 2004. (A day without sending or receiving e-mail -- are you mad, man?) http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/167/report_display.asp

HOW TO TAME AN INFLATED ENTERTAINMENT BUDGET [SOURCE: New York Times 11/19, AUTHOR: Damon Darlin] For all the talk of the Information Age, we are really in the Entertainment Age, where our lives are centered on the pursuit of happiness. The average American spends more on entertainment than on gasoline, household furnishings and clothing and nearly the same amount as spent on dining out, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the affluent, the 20 percent of households with more than $77,000 a year in pretax income, more money is spent on entertainment - $4,516 a year - than on health care, utilities, clothing or food eaten at home. The average income of households in that quintile is a little more than $127,000. Because they account for a disproportionate share of spending in the economy, they are the group that trend watchers and marketers focus on. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/business/19money.html (requires registration)

JOURNALIST, COVER THYSELF [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye] A look at the double-life of Washington Post columnist and CNN host Howard Kurtz. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/business/media/21kurtz.html (requires registration)

TV AD RULES ARE CHALLENGED BY 'POD' BUSTERS [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brian Steinberg brian.steinberg@wsj.com ] Marketers are worried about new technology that allows viewers to zap through commercials. So they are pushing reluctant networks to rethink the age-old format of the ad-break -- known on Madison Avenue as a "pod." Among the options: special "pod-puncher" ads -- blips as short as five seconds -- strategically positioned at the end of a commercial break to get more attention from viewers. At the other extreme, marketers are working on ads lasting several minutes, as well as groups of ads that mirror a program's theme. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113253439898002670.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription)

Nov 17: HOUSE CONSIDERS DIGITAL RIGHTS AND WRONGS [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] A House Subcommittee began a series of hearings Wednesday to try and come up with a scheme for balancing fair use and copyright protection in the digital age. It is one of the key issues for content providers going forward, and one that the industry has been unable to come to agreement on. Central to the hearing was H.R. 1201, a bill that would amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow content protections to be bypassed for fair use copying. Currently it is illegal to do so, which means that a DVD cannot be copied for personal use at, say a beach house, or for downloading to a video iPod. Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) called that fair use "lockout" a perversion of the law. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6284330?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) US RETAINS ITS GRIP ON INTERNET DOMAIN NAMES [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jessica E. Vascellaro jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com] The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will continue to approve all proposals for new domain-name extensions, even international ones like .eu for the European Union. While Icann's board includes more than a dozen international members, the U.S. retains the power to veto the board's final decision. Members of the European Union, as well as countries like China and Brazil, had been hoping to wrest oversight of the process from Icann and place it in the hands of an international body. A host of recently approved extensions are hitting the Web and more will follow soon. In December 2003, Icann invited a second round of domain-name applications and activity on the front has been intense. But like the organization that approved them, these extensions have become a lightening rod for criticism. Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research, a market-research firm in Cambridge Mass., says the domains end up lining the pockets of the organizations chartered to administer them, which release new extensions that companies must buy to protect their brands. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113218665459899569.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal (requires subscription) * US to keep control of domain names http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-16T185534Z_01_FOR566192_RTRUKOC_0_US-TUNIS.xml

HANDS OFF THE NET [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] Just before the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society opened in Tunis, Tunisia, negotiators from around the globe agreed to create a new international forum to discuss such issues as spam, privacy and hacking. The Internet Governance Forum will have no power over the Net, however, and U.S. oversight over some technical issues will continue. Not that the federal government wields much power over the Net. Its influence is essentially confined to the mundane but important issue of how domain names are assigned. Since 1998, however, the department has entrusted all the work on Internet addresses to a contractor, the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN oversees the technical aspects of the system and sets rules for resolving disputes over domain names. As flawed as the current system is, at least it allows technical innovation to flourish online without interference by governments. That's a quality that has to be preserved for the sake of not just U.S. policy but for an increasingly interconnected world. Having kept its hands off the inner workings of the Net, the federal government needs to persuade the rest of the world that it can be trusted to keep doing just that. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-icann17nov17,1,809743.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

HAS HIDDEN ADVERTISING GONE TOO FAR? [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor , AUTHOR: Daniel B. Wood] This week the WGA and the SGA released a report showing revenues from advertising within TV shows and movies exceeded $1 billion in the past year. The report described that product use had increased in films by 44 percent and in television programming by 84 percent in that period. It singled out the NBC primetime hit show, "The Apprentice" for its use of advertising. In the program's third season, Burger King, Dove Body Wash, Sony PlayStation, Verizon Wireless, and Visa paid more than $2 million per episode to have their products incorporated into plotlines. "High-tech tools have pushed out the commercials, and the commercials are pushing back," says Matthew Felling, media director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs based in Washington. He notes that several high-tech devices - DVDs, TiVo, VCRs, and webcasts - now allow viewers to bypass or delete the string of ads on TV. "TV is having to create alternative revenue models. That's the price we pay for paying no price," he says. To better handle how the entertainment industry engages in advertising, WGA and SAG have proposed a code of conduct with four main guidelines. It would require: a full, clear disclosure when viewers see commercial products or hear them mentioned in the program; a strict limit on integrating products into children's programming; a voice for storytellers, actors and directors "arrived at through collective bargaining" about how a product or brand is incorporated into the content; and an adherence to these regulations by cable TV, where "some of the most egregious abuse" of this integration happens, they say. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p03s01-ussc.html * Networks Say TV Ads Still Matter http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-tv17nov17,1,679802.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business * Nets Urge Advertisers to Embrace DVR http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001523611

INTERNET STILL YOUNG, FASTER ACCESS TO SPUR GROWTH [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Duncan Martell] The Internet has given rise to profitable companies such as Yahoo, Google, eBay and others, but the industry is still in the early days and will be further fueled as even faster Internet access proliferates through the United States and other countries, executives said on Wednesday. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-16T222345Z_01_KRA680605_RTRUKOC_0_US-GOOGLE-INTERNET.xml

TRIBUNE TO CUT STAFF AT LOS ANGELES, CHICAGO PAPERS [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joseph T. Hallinan joe.hallinan@wsj.com] Two of Tribune Co.'s largest newspapers -- Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune -- said they would cut roughly 185 jobs as the company struggles with weakness in circulation and advertising that is hurting the entire newspaper industry. In a memo to the editorial staff, Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet said about 85 newsroom jobs, or about 8% of the total, would be cut by the end of the year at that newspaper, the nation's fourth-largest daily. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113218704793299578.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription)

ICANN? WE ALL CAN. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media] [Commentary] The European Union -- of 25 nations and over 450 million potential Internet users -- will speak with one voice in Tunis and set out a position that is clear, coherent and consistent. The EU advocates a free, stable, democratic Internet open to the world. We believe this view is shared by the vast majority of nations around the world, and certainly by our partners in the U.S. We believe governments should not have a say in the day-to-day management of the Internet. To involve them could result in unnecessarily burdensome structures and even endanger its stability. The EU therefore supports an approach to Internet governance that even further removes government control from Icann. For many years, we have understood that this objective was also shared by the U.S. administration. The next step, therefore, should be to complete the privatization process of the day-to-day management of the Internet by phasing out the oversight functions of the U.S. Department of Commerce over Icann. We also believe that on important policy issues concerning the functioning of the Internet -- spam, cybercrime, and ensuring access by all citizens to the freedoms offered by the Web -- we need a new "cooperation model," a light and transparent mechanism for deliberations between governments. To do so, we certainly don't need to establish any new structures nor call in the U.N. Let's build on the existing structures and Icann in particular. If governments are really serious about safeguarding the free, stable and open Internet we have today, convening under the auspices of Icann's Governmental Advisory Committee in order to put this much needed "cooperation model" into practice could be one of a number of concrete steps open to us. Tunis can mark an important step forward on the long evolution of the Internet toward freedom from government control and increased internationalization of its governance structures. We are almost there with two-thirds of the final package already agreed. A political agreement in Tunis is within our grasp. It would be an important and much-needed signal that democratic nations are genuinely committed to overcome the growing digital divide and build a truly open and inclusive global information society. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113210601472798463.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (requires subscription) See links below for blogs covering the WSIS.

BE WARY OF INTERNET 'GOVERNANCE' [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Tony Mauro] [Commentary] When the Supreme Court in 1997 declared in Reno v. ACLU that the Internet deserved the protection of the First Amendment, it compared the medium to the town crier of colonial days. Anyone with a computer and a modem can broadcast a message worldwide, the justices said with admiration. As the summit in Tunis begins, that should be the central image in delegates' minds: fostering the proliferation of digital town criers worldwide, not turning laptops into lapdogs. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20051116/oplede16.art.htm

A FIRST AMENDMENT FOR THE INTERNET [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Eli Noam, Columbia University] [Commentary] the real question is not so much who regulates the overall aspects of the Internet, but to what purpose. One of the fundamental questions is whether and how to regulate television programmes that are delivered over the emerging broadband Internet. What is needed is a strong rule against governmental restrictiveness on the international flows of information over the Internet, such the First Amendment of the US constitution, which protects free speech and press in America. Such a rule must be clear and unambiguous. Anything less will be undermined since it will be easy to find an international majority to support various qualifications. This gives the US a constructive opportunity. Instead of clinging to the status quo in Internet governance it should move forward to pursue positive goals. Thus, any new international system of Internet governance, as contemplated now at the summit in Tunis, should be conditional on a clear declaration of freedom for the global flow of all Internet content. If such a resolution is passed, the US can declare victory for its First Amendment principles of free information flows and their expansion into the international arena, and make way for a broader international body. But if such a declaration is unachievable, it should give supporters of international democracy pause about what it is that they stand to gain from displacing the US from continuing to set the tone for the Internet. They may be helping to establish the global Internet media system of the future as one of state licensing and controls, which is vastly more troubling than temporary American over-representation. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4042e794-560b-11da-b04f-00000e25118c.html (requires subscription)

STUDY: ONLINE NEWSPAPERS FLOURISH [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Dinesh C. Sharma] Nielsen/NetRatings reports that one out of four US Internet users now read an online version of a newspaper which get over 39 million visitors per year. "The growth among newspaper Web sites demonstrates that these entities offer unique incentives to visitors," Gerry Davison, senior media analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, said in a statement. "Most, if not all of the top newspaper sites offer interactivity such as blogs, podcasts and streaming video and audio. These interactive features, combined with Internet users' thirst for up-to-date information, make newspaper Web sites an increasingly appealing choice for news." http://news.com.com/Study+Online+newspapers+flourish/2100-1025_3-5953393.html?tag=nefd.top

TOP WEB SITES BUILD UP AD BACKLOG, RAISE RATES [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin julia.angwin@wsj.com and Kevin J. Delaney kevin.delaney@wsj.com] The front pages of Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN are sold out on big display ads for months in advance, ad buyers say. Web sites offering car-buying tips are booked so far in advance -- up to 18 months in some cases -- that they are selling ads for next year in a process similar to the way network TV spots are sold. The surging demand is allowing big rate increases at the largest portals, the prime beneficiaries of the growth. Still, the rising tide of ad dollars is lifting some smaller boats. The shortage of premium spots is driving advertisers toward smaller targeted Web sites that capture niche audiences and even into what is known as "remnant inventory," or otherwise unwanted spots across a wide array of Web sites. Prices for remnant advertising increased about 3% in the third quarter from the second quarter. Unlike premium sites, remnant advertisers have no shortage of space available. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113211517116198670.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

MIT IS CRAFTING CHEAP -- BUT INVALUABLE -- LAPTOPS [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: David A. Fahrenthold] MIT Media Lab Chairman Nicholas Negroponte will unveil a prototype of a $100 laptop computer today at the WSIS conference in Tunisia. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501546.html (requires registration)

GOOGLE RAISES FLAG OVER BASE [SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Michael Bazeley] Google is expanding its already ambitious efforts to organize all the world's information with the launch of a service today that allows people to upload a wide array of content to a central database so others can find it. The free Google Base service at http://base.google.com will accept just about any type of content from anyone, from recipes and events information to large batches of job listings compiled by classified-ad companies http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/13179904.htm

Nov 15: WHAT DOES MOM LIKE? [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Paige Albiniak] “Television is a shockingly powerful medium for children,” says Brigid Sullivan, VP for children's educational and interactive programming at WGBH Boston, which produces PBS' Arthur and Postcards From Buster and Discovery Kids' Peep and the Big Wide World. “There's almost nothing a 3-year-old would rather do than watch television. It's frightening.” So how do you harness that power? “The quickest way to get [a series on-air] is not to spend years and years researching and getting educational consultants and constantly testing the shows,” says Linda Simensky, senior director of children's programming at PBS. But because that's the drill for educational shows, it often takes an extra year to get the program in shape. All that extra time and expense for a dwindling return on advertising is one reason the broadcast networks have ceded their Saturday-morning kids blocks to cable partners and another reason kids cable networks program pepper their after-school blocks with older-kids fare that seems heavy on fun but light on learning. “Nick's attitude is that kids get education at school. What Nick wants to be for kids is a safe haven where they can find their favorite characters and play great games,” says Brown Johnson, executive creative director for Nick Preschool Television. “They have enough pressure from going to school, and then they have homework. Nick, and I think rightly so, doesn't think it needs to be more school for kids.” http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6283292?display=Special+Report&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

PRIME TIME ANYTIME [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] Two of the nation's most popular TV networks stuck their toes into the 21st century this week. On-demand services represent a revolutionary shift in control from network executives to couch potatoes. The biggest challenge for networks these days may be the increasingly fragmented audience for entertainment. Although American viewers are watching a record number of hours of TV, the audience for the major broadcast networks has shrunk significantly in the face of competition from cable networks, movie rentals, the Internet, video games and other pursuits. The networks need to chase viewers, not just wait for them to show up on Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. Like Disney's deal with Apple, the CBS and NBC moves are small steps in the right direction. As analyst Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research put it, "Today is the beginning of the end of the television schedule." http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-cbs10nov10,1,3700175.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

NUMBER OF SEXUAL SCENES ON TV NEARLY DOUBLE SINCE 1998 [SOURCE: Kaiser Family Foundation] The number of sexual scenes on television has nearly doubled since 1998. And while the inclusion of references to “safer sex” issues -- such as waiting to have sex, using protection, or possible consequences of unprotected sex -- has also increased since 1998, that rate has leveled off in recent years. The study examined a representative sample of more than 1,000 hours of programming including all genres other than daily newscasts, sports events, and children's shows. All sexual content was measured, including talk about sex and sexual behavior. The study found that 70% of all shows include some sexual content, and that these shows average 5.0 sexual scenes per hour, compared to 56% and 3.2 scenes per hour respectively in 1998, and 64% and 4.4 scenes per hour in 2002. But despite these overall increases in sexual content, the number of shows in which sexual intercourse is either depicted or strongly implied is down slightly in recent years (7% in 1998, 14% in 2002, and 11% in 2005). Among shows with any sexual content, 14% include at least one scene with a reference to sexual risks or responsibilities -- up from 9% in 1998, but approximately the same rate as in 2002 (15%). In shows with intercourse-related content, more than one in four (27%) includes a reference to sexual risks or responsibilities. This is nearly double the rate found in 1998 (14%), but approximately the same as in 2002 (26%). http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia110905pkg.cfm * TV Sex Nearly Doubles, Says Kaiser http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6282538?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

HOW CELLULAR NETWORKS ARE THREATENED [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: John Gapper] [Commentary] The Wonder-Phone is not a cellular phone: it uses a technology known as mobile WiMax -- a kind of grown-up version of WiFi. WiMax and WiFi mesh networks extend the broadband connectivity that is common in homes and offices to cities. That is good for consumers. It promises greater convenience - they will no longer have to search for a café with a WiFi hotspot - and the possibility of making voice calls on the move using Internet phone services such as Skype. Conversely, it unsettles companies such as Vodafone and Cingular. Until now, they have faced no external competition for mobile data or voice services. If people walking in cities can call each other free via Skype, why would they pay a cellular tariff? What will protect mobile operators from the same price pressures now facing fixed line companies? Cellular companies are not standing still: many sell 3G broadband services. Verizon Wireless has launched a service across 60 cities that provides a fast Internet connection for $60 per month. But Verizon is clearly wary of cannibalising its cellular revenues. Subscribers are barred from using their 3G data connections to make voice calls via the Internet. Even supporters of WiMax doubt whether it will be a direct competitor to cellular technology in the near future. By the time companies are considering whether to invest money in WiMax masts and equipment to cover many cities, cellular operators will have 3G data services in place and will be offering them cheaply enough to make it tough for new entrants to gain a foothold. But the threat of WiMax is already keeping phone companies honest: they must keep an eye over their shoulders when setting charges for 3G mobile broadband in the lucky places with WiMax or a WiFi network. The same goes for voice calls. Ultimately, it is hard to see the closed networks and licensing deals of the cellular world surviving intact. By the time 4G services arrive -- some time after 2010 -- Internet standards will have come to mobile telephony. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fe13000a-5152-11da-ac3b-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

ALL THE KING'S MEDIA [SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: William Greider, The Nation] [Commentary] As Washington crumbles around George Bush, the old-line media have failed to fulfill their duties. This is where the emergent, democratic media should take the lead. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/27790/

Nov 10: PRIME TIME GETS REDEFINED [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Steven Pearlstein pearlsteins@washpost.com] [Commentary] For years, the entertainment industry tried to fool us -- and itself -- into thinking that it only prospered by giving consumers what they wanted. The real strategy of the entertainment industry has been to force customers to pay inflated prices to watch the movies and television most profitable for the industry to produce, at times that allowed the industry to rake in the most money, and distributed through channels designed to keep out upstart competition. But technology now threatens to put the consumer back in charge. Thanks to TiVo and other Internet-based technologies, people not only can watch what they want when they want to watch it, but they can also do so without having to watch commercials. Suddenly, the whole concept of a prime-time lineup has been tossed out the window, along with an economic model that's been around since Geritol decided to sponsor the Ted Mack amateur hour. While nobody knows exactly how all this will shake out, several things are already clear. Much less of what we think of as television will be paid for by advertisers, and more by viewers. Television networks will need to hammer out new financial arrangements with local affiliates, which will lose the monopoly they have over distribution of network programming in their area. And the big networks will continue to lose market share, not just to niche cable channels, but to interactive gamers and anyone with a good idea, a studio and access to the Internet. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110801780.html (requires registration)

Nov 9: CABLE'S FINAL FRONTIER: PEOPLE WHO WANT LESS [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: David Lieberman] Television companies face a bleak future if they can't persuade millions of customers to buy more or better programming, gear and services. Cable and satellite providers already serve 82% of all homes, and that's not expected to grow much in the foreseeable future. Executives at a new company, U.S. Digital Television, to bet they can make a tidy profit by charging consumers less for a slimmed-down basket of programming. The company will lease digital broadcast capacity from local TV stations and offer 30 channels -- including local stations, ESPN, Fox News and The Disney Channel -- over the air for about $20 a month. USDTV plans to announce before the holidays the cities where it will launch commercially. It got a $25.8 million investment in September from station groups including Fox, Hearst-Argyle and McGraw-Hill and has been testing in Salt Lake City, Albuquerque and Las Vegas. The big players remain convinced, however, that eventually most people will pay more to get more. The cable industry spent $100 billion on upgrades in the past decade to offer services such as digital TV and high-speed Internet. Programmers seeking new revenue -- including Disney, News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom -- are beginning to funnel concerts, sports, news, kids' programming and even some traditional movies and TV shows to the Internet. Those efforts will be for naught, however, unless most of the 67% of all homes now Internet-free or dependent upon slower dial-up connections pay to upgrade to high-speed, video-capable broadband. (There's lots more on the future of pay TV at the URL below.) http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20051108/good_enough.art.htm

THE NEW MEDIA ELITES [SOURCE: USNews.com, AUTHOR: Betsy Streisand and Richard J. Newman] If anyone is in danger from the growing power of the Internet and its transformative effect on communication, entertainment, information, and commerce, it is the old media. Companies such as the New York Times, Walt Disney, News Corp., and NBC/Universal, as well as magazine and book publishers, are increasingly losing ground to a new breed of media elites who grew up in the digital world and are now out to control it by offering content and services to users worldwide. (Long article at the URL below) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/051114/14media.htm

TV's PARALLEL UNIVERSE [SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Tom Lowry] Broadband is opening the floodgates for a new kind of TV show -- only not on TV but online. In just the past few months some of the biggest TV names have announced new broadband channels, from MTV Networks to Comedy Central (VIA ) to ABC News. If you thought the 400 cable channels focusing on everything from golf to anime were already cutting niches thin, broadband TV is going a step further. With improved speeds and video quality online, not to mention broadband's growing reach (estimated conservatively to be in 40 million U.S. homes by year end), TV executives are rushing to connect with younger audiences that are less and less riveted to traditional TV. Getting a foothold on the Internet, especially if it creates buzz, is also a way to recapture ad dollars that have migrated away from the 30-second TV spot. On the Web, ads can be positioned strategically next to programming and measured with greater accuracy. Broadband may also allow executives, bound by the costs and the creative parameters of big-time TV, to take more chances. TV execs will need that kind of freedom as they go up against a slew of upstarts that are creating their own channels. And why not? The barriers to entry are incredibly low vs. TV. Essentially, if you have a $300 video camera and the software to create a site, you're in business. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_46/b3959104.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051107_203886.htm

LEGAL PRESSURE SHUTTERS GROKSTER [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jonathan Krim and Frank Ahrens] Grokster Ltd., whose popular software let consumers trade music online for free, all but shut down yesterday under legal pressure from the entertainment industry, which viewed the song-sharing as theft. In a settlement with the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Music Publishers' Association, Grokster agreed to stop offering downloads of its software and to no longer support the system. "There are legal services for downloading music and movies," according to a statement on the firm's main Web page. "This service is not one of them." The page also directed users to industry-backed Web sites warning that file-sharing of copyrighted songs or videos of without paying for them is stealing. But even though Grokster essentially is ending operations, that will not prevent its customers from using the software if they have already downloaded it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700841.html (requires registration)

SEARCH FIRMS CAST WIDER NET [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi] Internet giants Yahoo and Google yesterday unveiled new products designed to boost their visibility beyond computers by using cell phones and television sets to reach a broader audience. Yahoo and digital-recording company TiVo launched a service allowing consumers to record television programs from the Yahoo Web site. The deal builds on Yahoo's attempts to expand its entertainment business, and by the end of the year, the company will be able to deliver weather and traffic information to television sets through the service. TiVo, meanwhile, will be able to tap Yahoo's millions of users. Google took aim at the mobile phone market by announcing a new local search service that lets users view satellite maps on their phones and get detailed directions to particular locations. The company does not have plans to put ads on the service, but analysts said it could be a good vehicle for advertising because there is a huge market for localized restaurant, movie, traffic and other information. Google already offers a service that allows mobile phone users to search for weather information and directions by sending a text message query. The new service works only on phones with Java-based software, or roughly half of phones from carriers such as T-Mobile USA, Cingular and Sprint. Eventually, Google will tap the global positioning system data in phones to automatically identify the user's location and plot directions, or to find landmarks such as the nearest cafe. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700240.html (requires registration) See also dueling opinions on Google's online library * Needless fight threatens Google's online library http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20051108/edit08.art.htm * Lack of sense and sensibility http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20051108/oppose08.art.htm

NEWSPAPERS IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Clark Gilbert & Scot Anthony] [Commentary] The newspaper industry is now roughly 400 years old, and, generally speaking, it is confronting a "disruptive" change unprecedented in its history. The emerging challengers can't comprehensively measure up to leading newspapers' detailed reporting capability, institutional advantages and deep local reach. All of them, however, feature revenue streams and content delivery models that run counter to those of most newspapers -- and they are breaking paths into new territories. Newspapers have been buying Internet properties -- how can these acquisitions be judged? 1) Do these acquisitions enable companies to reach into new market spaces populated by "nonconsumers," people who can't solve the problems they face because they lack access, knowledge or expertise? 2) Does an acquisition plugs a capability gap, particularly related to employing new business models? 3) Does the acquirer recognize that reaching nonconsumers and leveraging new implied business models requires substantial autonomy from the core print business, even while efforts are made to transfer those capabilities into the newspaper? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113142165259390911.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription)

AS KNIGHT RIDDER GOES, SO MAY NEWS INDUSTRY [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Menn and James Rainey] As big shareholders of Knight Ridder Inc. pressure executives to consider selling the nation's second-largest newspaper company, an increasing number of industry veterans say the fight's outcome could write the future of print journalism. Like other chains, Knight Ridder has responded to readers and advertisers migrating to the Internet by investing in Web versions of the print product, cutting costs and experimenting with free papers. Although newspaper companies still are more profitable than many other industries -- operating margins of more than 20% are common -- revenue is growing slowly and corporate owners are tending to funnel earnings into other areas rather than pay them out as dividends. Knight Ridder's situation illustrates a larger predicament for newspaper executives, who are under pressure to improve their product at the same time that they are being urged to cut expenses to increase profits. http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-knight8nov08,1,6677044.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business (requires registration)

CRITICS PRESS COMPANIES ON INTERNET RIGHTS ISSUES [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tom Zeller, Jr] A group of two dozen fund management firms and investment analysts issued a joint statement yesterday urging businesses to adopt policies addressing freedom of expression. The move comes in the wake of public controversy over the decision by Yahoo's Beijing division to cooperate with Chinese authorities seeking to identify the user of a Yahoo e-mail address in China last year. That incident has put a spotlight on the actions of several Internet and technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and Cisco, which human rights and press freedom groups have long said were acquiescing too readily to the demands of repressive regimes. The group, which organized and helped draft yesterday's announcement, turned to "socially responsible" investment firms in an attempt to reach shareholders. Twenty-six companies and organizations representing about $21 billion in assets signed the joint resolution. The petition affirms a commitment among the investors to monitor and evaluate technology companies' relations with authoritarian regimes, and to introduce and support shareholder resolutions that support freedom of expression. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/technology/08data.html (requires registration)

Nov 5: GOOGLE THIS: AMAZON PLANS TO SELL PORTIONS OF BOOKS ONLINE [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Mylene Mangalindan mylene.mangalindan@wsj.com and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com] On the heels of Google's controversial move to scan copyrighted books and make them searchable, Internet retailer Amazon.com is taking a page out of a different digital book. The Internet retailer said it will introduce two programs next year that allow consumers to buy online access to entire books -- and to individual pages or chapters -- giving publishers and authors another way to generate revenue from their content, much like music labels are selling individual songs through Apple Computer's iTunes. Amazon's programs with publishers aren't exclusive -- publishers can strike their own deals with other online services, booksellers and search Web sites to make book contents available online. But Amazon's setup appears to be getting a head start. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113104522234587595.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription) * Want 'War and Peace' Online? How About 20 Pages at a Time? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/technology/04publish.html?hp&ex=1131166800&en=f32d4a9f2c4339b4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

TIME WARNER SEES NET CONSOLIDATING [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kenneth Li] Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company, sees more consolidation on the Internet, as it mulls moves in the wireless and video games sector. "It's inevitable," Parsons said of the recent Internet buying frenzy of its peers. "The little guys will ultimately be consolidated. Rupert (Murdoch, CEO of News Corp) and Viacom are making the right moves," he told New York media executives at a breakfast sponsored by the Newhouse School and The New Yorker magazine. "We're making the same moves." http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-11-03T205332Z_01_ROB374026_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-TIMEWARNER.xml

THE NEWS HOUNDS [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens] To the list of challenges faced by newspapers -- declining circulation, rising newsprint costs and increased competition from more up-to-the-minute media -- add another: rising pressure from investors to make more money and reverse sliding stock prices. Some within the industry think newspapers are better suited to private rather than public ownership. Private companies attempt to minimize earnings, which are taxable, and maximize cash flow, which can be used to pay down debts. Public companies, however, are pressured to maximize earnings to appease shareholders. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110203201.html (requires registration)

BIG MEDIA A TOUGH SELL TO JITTERY INVESTORS [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Geraldine Fabrikant and Richard Siklos] Investors cannot figure out just how technological changes will affect audience behavior and how the growing competition from online media, including Google and Yahoo, as well as ad-skipping devices like TiVo and other digital video recorders, will affect traditional media companies. Beyond those concerns, they worry that with slower advertising growth, the profitability of media properties like television and radio stations could be affected. And even if the ad market were to become robust again, just how many of those dollars might flow to the Internet and away from traditional media is an open question. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/business/media/03funk.html (requires registration)

GOOGLE OPENS ITS ONLINE LIBRARY [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Kevin J. Delaney kevin.delaney@wsj.com and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com] Google is making available thousands of public-domain works through its search engine today, the first large-scale results of a program to scan books and documents at several university and public libraries. Google said the works it is making available include Civil War regimental histories, government documents, books by Henry James and biographies of wealthy New Yorkers. The company said it won't display advertisements on public domain book pages or any book pages Google scans from a library. See print.google.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113098792137387114.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal (requires subscription)

WEIGHING WEBCASTERS' RIGHTS TO CONTENT [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jonathan Krim] If television broadcasters and webcasters have their way in international treaty talks, they would gain new, 50-year rights to virtually any video they beam out, even if no one owns the rights to the content. So, for example, say ABC or Yahoo offers a broadcast or webcast of a movie no longer under copyright protection, historical footage of a news event or a live feed of a breaking story -- no one could make a copy of that program and rebroadcast it to others. The result, according to digital rights advocates, is that the viral power of the Internet to expose millions (or billions) of people to news or unprotected creative works will be in jeopardy. The seemingly instant, online cycle of people posting information, seeing it, linking to it or retransmitting it -- as happened with the amateur tsunami videos -- could be dragged into a morass of new ownership questions. "This new layer turns every distributor into yet another owner," argues James Love, head of the Consumer Project on Technology, which is fighting the treaty. When it comes to content in the public domain, Love contends, there should be no restrictions on who can use the work. That's a bunch of alarmist hooey, responds Benjamin F.P. Ivins, senior associate general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters. Ivins argues that users could still make copies of such broadcasts for private use; they simply could not turn around and redistribute them commercially. When a broadcaster spends money to prepare and distribute footage of an event or a historical work, it should be assured that somebody else can't benefit from that investment by copying the program and retransmitting it, he says. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110203187.html (requires registration)

TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEW CLASS DIVIDE [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Paul Lamb, Community Technology Foundation of California] [Commentary] Although Americans have quickly adopted computer and Internet technology, the Digital Divide still exists. Children from higher income families (annual income of more than $75,000) are twice as likely to have access to a computer at home as those in very low income families (annual income of $15,000 or less). For Internet access the figures are 93 percent for upper income families versus 29 percent for lower income families, and 51 percent for broadband access versus 7 percent. The truth is that the promise of a digital utopia where all are more or less equal has not yet come to pass. More broadly, income disparities in the United States are greater than they have been in 30 years, and some suggest that income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the 1880s. Recent studies have also suggested that social mobility is stagnating and possibly even reversing. That means very few people are moving out of the class they were born into. Despite all our technology gains, it appears that class gaps are widening. Could it be that technology is actually exacerbating the class divide rather than helping to address it? Lamb sets out some goals: 1) Bringing every community online by 2010. 2) Establishing standards for digital literacy and offering curricula for technology training from public preschool all the way through public college, and in the workplace. 3) Launching a dialogue between communities, business and government to help forge appropriate short- and long-term community technology policies. 4) Establishing digital empowerment zones. DEZs would offer tax and other incentives for the establishment of tech businesses, innovation centers and next-generation broadband access services outside of traditional high-tech sectors and already well-connected communities. http://news.com.com/Technology+and+the+new+class+divide/2010-1028_3-5924758.html?tag=fd_carsl

THE LIVES OF TEENAGERS NOW: OPEN BLOGS, NOT LOCKED DIARIES [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tom Zeller, Jr] According to the Pew survey, 57 percent of all teenagers between 12 and 17 who are active online -- about 12 million -- create digital content, from building Web pages to sharing original artwork, photos and stories to remixing content found elsewhere on the Web. Some 20 percent publish their own Web logs. That reality is now inextricable from the broader social, cultural and sometimes deeply personal experience of being a teenager. And it is one that will undoubtedly have profound implications for the traditional managers of content, from big media companies and libraries to record labels, publishers and Hollywood. From school libraries and living rooms, millions of teenagers are staking out cyberterritory in places like MySpace.com, Xanga.com and Livejournal.com, where they matter-of-factly construct their individual online presence, often to the chagrin of parents and schoolteachers who have belatedly discovered whole nations of teenagers churning out content under their noses. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/business/media/03teens.html (requires registration) * Teen Content Creators and Consumers http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp

THE GOOGLE FUTURE [SOURCE: Forrester Research, AUTHOR: George Colony] [Commentary] Google will revolutionize the software business by making it all advertising-supported. Forrester has predicted that Web pages will get replaced by programs -- we call this executable Internet (X Internet). In the future, when you click on your bank's site, servers will download a program to your computer, not static pages. Once that program is installed, you will be able to "converse" with your bank, run financial models, analyze your net worth - do much more than you could have with old Web pages. Google will be the company that leads this revolution. It is already writing programs like Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search that run on your computer but blur the divide between your desktop and the Internet. And they are very powerful programs. So here's Google's playbook: 1) have the best search; 2) have more of the world to search than anyone else through the digitization of university libraries, earth images, maps, etc.; 3) attract the most advertising and syndication; enabling the company to 4) give all of its software away for free; which enables it to 5) change the rules and economics of the software business and define the future through its pioneering work in X Internet. What does this mean? Find out at the URL below. http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,38143,00.html

Nov 2: COMPUTER AND INTERNET USE IN THE UNITED STATES: 2003 [SOURCE: Census Bureau, AUTHOR: Jennifer Cheeseman Day, Alex Janus, and Jessica Davis] Sure, you might have expected release of this data, oh, maybe two years ago, but this report provides information about the characteristics of households and people who have and have not adopted use of computers and the Internet. Between 1984 and 2003, household computer use climbed from 8% to 62%. Household Internet access has grown from 18% in 1997 to 50% in 2001 to 55% in 2003. For those looking for fresh Digital Divide date, it's here: 35% of households with householders aged 65 and older, about 45% of households with Black or Hispanic householders, and 28% of households with householders who had less than a high school education had a computer. In addition, 41% of one-person households and 46% of nonfamily households owned a computer. Differences among households in Internet access mirror those for computer ownership. High-income households were more likely to have a computer or Internet access. Among family households with incomes of $100,000 or more during the 12 months prior to the survey, 95 percent had at least one computer and 92 percent had Internet access at home. Among family households with incomes below $25,000, 41 percent had a computer and 31 percent had Internet access. the three top reasons for not having Internet access in the home: 1) “don't need it, not interested” (39 percent), 2) “costs are too high,” and 3) “no computer or computer inadequate” (each at 23 percent). http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf

TV IN YOUR POCKET IS THE NEXT SMALL THING [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James] Welcome to the age of fast-food TV: nuggets of news and entertainment that can be consumed on cellphones, video game consoles and digital music players. Whether the programming is downloaded via iTunes software or over a cellular network, the trend is changing where -- and how -- TV watchers are tuning in. "The notion of a particular screen being tied to a particular kind of content is breaking down," said Van Baker, an analyst with Gartner Inc. "It's what kind of screen is available to me right now, and that's what I'll use." For Hollywood, cellphones with color screens and the ability to download video files couldn't come at a better time. Executives are under pressure to find new revenue as the industry's most powerful profit engines -- DVD sales, 30-second commercial spots and syndicated TV reruns -- lose steam. Broadcast networks and cable channels, wary of losing advertising dollars to the Internet, have been experimenting for months to learn what works -- and what doesn't -- on an itty-bitty screen. "What are the three things that you always have with you? Your money, your keys and your cellphone," said Lucy Hood, president of Fox Mobile Entertainment. "If we can deliver a fun entertainment experience on this device, that will make it a very powerful medium." TV stations affiliated with the major networks also are worried about the effect of cellphones and digital video players. Specifically, they fear an erosion of their ability to charge premium rates for commercial time during popular programs. Some executives say fears that shows lose their value when they are distributed on other platforms are overblown. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-mobile1nov01,1,5788192.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage (requires registration)

Nov 1: AN AGE-OLD PROBLEM [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Anne Becker] Do television news operations discriminate against women of a certain age? Statistics would appear to support network executives who say age discrimination is rare in the business. Last year, 17,837 age-discrimination complaints were filed in the U.S. during fiscal year 2004, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Of those, 80 claims were in radio and television broadcasting. That's a decline from the 85 filings, out of a total of 19,124, the year before. And this year seems assured of an even bigger drop: With one month left in fiscal 2005, just 39 age-discrimination suits had been filed in the broadcasting category. But interpretations of those numbers vary. To TV news execs on the local and national level, the stats are proof of the value placed on over-40 employees despite the business' traditional emphasis on youth, particularly for female reporters and anchors who don't have the star power of Barbara Walters or Katie Couric. Others who know the business -- current and former TV journalists interviewed for this article, as well as agents and employment lawyers specializing in media cases -- say that the decline in complaints reflects a more sobering reality. Anchors and correspondents have realized that filing suit can mean being shunned by potential employers. And companies have become adept at using sensitivity training, employee manuals and Human Resources departments to inoculate themselves against age-discrimination lawsuits. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6278784?display=Feature&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

SOARING PROFITS FOUND IN SEARCH ADS [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jefferson Graham] Prices are soaring for search ads - those simple text ads that appear next to Internet search results. Advertisers pay each time someone clicks on an ad. Search ads used to be available for a nickel or dime per click. Now they're costing more than $1, some even $40 or $50. Google and rival Internet giant Yahoo dominate the $8 billion market for search ads, which are sold in an auction setting. So far this year, Google has reported revenue of more than $4 billion, almost all of it from the sale of advertising. “It's a supply and demand marketplace,” says Gregg Stewart, senior vice-president at search-marketing consultancy Fathom Online. “As more advertisers get involved, that drives prices up.” Rates have risen 18% on average from a year ago, says Dave Lavinsky, who runs a site called TopPayingKeywords.com. Advertisers love search ads because unlike mass-audience TV or print ads, they are targeted to people who are actively looking to buy. And advertisers only have to pay for an ad if a customer clicks on it. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20051031/1b_google31.art.htm

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