I’m puzzled. All the mobile service providers and all the internet service providers know that if they put a cap on a service that’s supposed to be unlimited there will be a huge backlash when someone notices.

And these days, someone always notices. Especially if your data plan comes with a device aimed at advanced and demanding users.

And yet, they keep on doing the same mistake; the latest occurence being T-Mobile’s 1GB data cap on G1 data plans.

Of course, now that the cat’s out of the bag they’ve changed their mind, and suddenly, their goal is “to provide affordable, high-speed data service allowing customers to experience the full data capabilities of the device and our 3G network,” but they have to “provide the best network experience for all of our customers,” so they “reserve the right to temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of our customers who have excessive or disproportionate usage that interferes with network performance.” Yeah, we know, why try to hide it, then?

Unfortunately, every other ISP or mobile operator is doing something similar; here’s a good overview of awful iPhone data plans from Gizmodo, and don’t let me get started with Comcast’s data throttling practices. Will they ever learn?

Here’s an idea: why not explain this in nice big bold letters right away, and save users the trouble of agonizing over whether they’ll really be getting what they’ve paid for? I’m quite sure that the tech media will understand and appreciate such straightforwardness. Trying to hide it just makes your company look cheap.

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The industry that is New Media is very much about two-way communication. We all recognize this. Rather than content simply being doled out to the masses, data on the Web travel in all directions. And while this arrangement hugely effective for a myriad of parties, there are the odd apples which, with barriers lowered, can damage a process.

Blogging for one, is filled with interesting discussion, much of it very open and wonderfully so. But it is also wrought with annoyances, some worse than others, and those troublemakers can become a management nightmare if not dealt with. And if you’re keeping tabs on an outlet or forum that requires especial jurisprudence, you’re bound to devote much of your time to being a watchful eye on matters. This is where a middleman by the name of Contrust comes into play.

Now, Contrust is not only aiming at independent Internet publishers and New Media upstarts to give its SaaS (software-as-a-service) monitoring system, presently a semi-exclusive beta, a solid spin. The company is hoping to climb into a chair where it can provide as much for social media actors as old media stalwarts and corporations and so forth. Regardless of this aim, the product it delivers is one that certainly goes above and beyond what common filters of Akismet’s making offer.

Backed by Xenia Venture Capital and headed by co-founders Shai Wolkomir (CEO) and Nir Abraham (CTO), each ranking as software and security specialists, Contrust presents itself as an automatic moderator of sorts. This doesn’t entail the user to simply flip the switch and step aside to allow a magical cleaner to sweep rubbish from view. It’s more about offering the user a good set of parameters, almost entirely customizable, that enable one to specific what may fly and what may not fly in a particular venue. This goes for things text-, video-, and still image-based. (The latter two options are enhanced by UK-based Image Analyzer.)

Flexibility is how they phrase it. Which is naturally necessary if the company is to adapt itself to the full variety of clients it seeks to deliver for. It might seem a bit heavy-handed for some in the media industry compelled to monitor themselves without being quite so strict. The specifications are indeed quite detailed, but if the inflow of undesirables is too much to bear, as annual reports of spam proliferation make all too clear, there’s reason to seek more control. Contrust may not be the appropriate engine for everyone. But for some, it may well be.

To reiterate, Contrust at present is in closed beta. If interested, you can submit your contact information via a simple application form, which the team pledge to review.

Source:Mashable!

Remember when Comcast got tricky with its network meters and squeezed some slow-flowing kinks into broadband users’ connections and got caught for doing it and grabbed the stern attention of the FCC and was told to, in some manner of speaking, to quit the shenanigans?

Well, Comcast is opting to forgo such secretive business from here on. Instead, it has, in the words of Vishesh Kumar of The Wall Street Journal, “formally submitted plans to the Federal Communications Commission…detailing how the company plans to manage its broadband network. …. Rather than than target specific types of bandwidth-intensive applications like peer-to-peer file sharing, the company will instead slow Internet speeds for its heaviest users at peak times when its network is congested.”

Just to lather some background on to this revelation, Comcast was pinned earlier this year for purposely slowing BitTorrent traffic, which opponents of the silent measure said tossed legitimate and legal transfers in with illicit, copyright-breaking behavior. (Ars Technica has an exceptional summary of the history of the company’s practices.) And this issue is only compounded by the ISP’s well-publicized plan to implement a bandwidth cap of 250GB for residential subscribers.

Technically speaking, the enactment of the two will essentially mean for Comcast customers not only that their standard monthly fee will offer only so much data access, but that the way in which they access the data - insofar as large and sustained transfers are concerned - is also observed and manipulated if deemed necessary. All in all, a consciously stifling combination, no doubt.

Some observers of the company’s actions say, on the one hand, that the data cap is quite high. They feel that the average user will not reach 250 GB in a given month, even with regular consumption of media like music and high-quality video. That may be true. Yet, how interesting it is that, on subject of networking throttling, Comcast claims to have received “no customer complaints…about the new method in its trial markets and less than 1% of customers were affected on a typical day.”

Perhaps the percentage is true, given the volume of users Comcast presumably serves. But the stated absence of any customer complaints seems absurd on its face, and raises several questions: Were customers aware? Did they notice? If so, did they fail to register calls to Comcast customer service for the fact that they were using peer-to-peer software and feared repercussions (for any number of reasons)? Were throttling measures so sporadic and fleeting that all was well minutes or hours after subscribers had noticed a drop in network performance?

Of course, many, if not all of these questions will remain in the air indefinitely, as proof is hard to amass among the consumer class. And Comcast cannot be expected to have to address psychological issues among its users. Thus, if the FCC finds Comcast’s plans to manage users’ activity more strictly not an unfair practice, which it may well do, Comcast users will, very simply, have to deal with it. If this is so, the only sensible thing for discontented Comcast subscribers to do is move on to another service provider. Will they, though? Comcast is evidently hedging its bet on customers’ feeling that a departure from the company’s billing charts will be less appealing than the moment at which they had originally signed on. This is thoroughly old style to business conduct, for sure, but it has unfortunately been proven quite effective at times.

(Image credit: Webwombat)

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An interesting statement emerged on NewTeeVee today. Post author Chris Albrecht quotes Roku VP of consumer products “It’s unfortunate that the limitless possibilities are being capped by an ISP [Comcast], but it has no direct business impact on us.” Roku, for those unaware, is in a partnership with Netflix to deliver streaming movies on a $99 buy-in deal fully subsidized through one’s monthly rental subscription cost. Comcast, meanwhile, will be initiating a bandwidth limit of 250GB for residential broadband users per month starting in October.

Let me say that 1) the limits to be enact could have a direct business impact on Roku, and 2) of course the company will say otherwise. The reason being that it is in Roku’s interest to disregard changes at Comcast. If it were to complain in ways that prospective users would notice, it might risk cutting into sales by dissuading shoppers concerned about hitting the data limit. And at this point in time, Roku likely doesn’t need such disruptions to its output.

VP Tim Twerdhal says that consumers’ choice of downstream video bitrates allows Roku to safely stay within the bounds set by Comcast. A valid point. Equally valid is his explanation that visual quality will be sustained while bitrates drop as the technologies involved improve and advance. But such progress is a relative unknown to Comcast’s very real “cut-off.”

Furthermore, it only takes knowledge of existence a limit - not too big or too small - to influence consumer decisions. Give a user warning of what might be if he/she were to seek the full potential (or close to it) of modern conveniences like high-quality media downloads, and that tricky thing known as deliberation creeps into the picture. A user might begin to weight the pros and cons of his/her situation. And that eventually eats into interconnected economies. With the movie/TV download sector being one of the hungriest around today.

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Ever feel like other people exist for the sole purpose of draining every bit of energy from you? You’d love to be successful in business or some other endeavor but you’re frustrated because other people suck the life out of you. “Social” isn’t a word that people use to describe you. Unless it’s preceded by the prefix “anti-”, many people don’t think of an introvert as being a social person.

Is there any hope for someone to succeed in social networking and social media in general if they aren’t a “people person?” It just doesn’t seem likely, does it?.

But there is hope for the introvert, especially in Web-based social media!

Let’s start by defining introversion and its opposite, extroversion. The most basic difference between these personality types lies in the effect other people have on us. Extroverts, the more common side of this personality trait, have a much greater need for the presence of other people than introverts do. Extroverts become energized when they have other people to talk to and to interact with.

Introverts, on the other hand, need quality time… with themselves. Introverts are sometimes considered to be shy wallflower types, but the key thing is that introverts gain their strength through time spent alone to recharge their mental batteries. Jonathan Rauch wrote a celebrated article in The Atlantic, Caring For Your Introvert, where he indicated his need for two hours of “alone” time for every hour spent with other people. Introverts can rock in a crowd or in small groups, but spending too much time around other people makes their inner batteries go dead, just like leaving your laptop unplugged for too long. In fact, the presence of other people has a similar (but less fatal) effect on an introvert as Kryptonite’s effect on Superman.

So how do you make a social being out of a person who finds it hard to spend time around other people?

Simple. Remove the need to connect in person.

If you can put monitors and keyboards between two people you can allow them to communicate in a more controlled fashion. Communication in terms of pure thought exchange via the written word can remove a lot of the emotionally draining parts of interacting with other people. Introverts groove on ideas; online communication can make that work. Laura P. Thomas, part of Dell’s Global Online group and a prominent presence on Second Life as Pyrrha Dell, shared this thought: “social media is very introvert-friendly (because many introverts) are more comfortable writing their thoughts/feelings than they are speaking them.”

Let’s look at the concept of connecting without personal contact. Someone who has done very well in social media while having virtually no physical presence is Maki, author of the acclaimed blog Dosh Dosh. Maki has written extensively about social media marketing, making money online, and related topics. His blog is in the Technorati Top 20, he is a top Digg user, and he has an active presence on Twitter and other social media sites. Has anyone ever met Maki in person or seen a photo of him? Has anyone ever had a phone conversation with him? I’m sure some people have, but most people probably haven’t. By comparison, people like Seth Godin or Tamar Weinberg have much more visible presences – we know what they look like and what they sound like. In that sense, Maki’s a bit of a mystery man. Is Maki an introvert? I honestly don’t know. However, he’s an excellent example of someone with a huge social media presence, and a distinctive avatar, without a real face or a voice to match up to the words.

From a different perspective, a self-confessed introvert with a huge social media presence and a face to put to the name is Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. Between photos, video blog entries, and podcast appearances, we know what Darren looks and sounds like. We know he’s a husband and father, we know where he lives, and a number of people have met him in person (not bad for a bloke based in Australia!). We also know that Darren’s a recognized expert at making money online.

When I asked Darren for his thoughts, he had this to say via (fittingly enough) Twitter: “as an extreme introvert I enjoy social media as it gives me social content but in a measured way.” There’s the key: in a measured way. Social media allow you to pick and choose your interactions. You can make them as long or as short as you like. They can have substance or be superficial. There are so many groups, websites, and blogs about so many interests that you can always find someone to communicate with on virtually any topic.

To close, I’d like to say that introverts can do quite well in social media if they chose to. Social doesn’t always require a physical presence, just a desire to communicate. Given the right conditions, introverts can communicate very effectively. If you struggle with your ability to communicate with other people in person, social media might be a great way to stretch outside of your comfort zone and explore new worlds. It’s worked wonders for me.

Check out Broadcasting Brain, my blog about communication and social media.

(Image credit: Flickr/Jason Rogers)

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Source:Mashable!

Dear Comcast,

I hear you’ll be instituting a bandwidth cap of 250GB per residential subscriber. Well, that’s totally your call. You take that prerogative, bad boy. Nip those crazy downloaders where it hurts most. “No more of that HD nonsense for you bandits, BitTorrent or no BitTorrent, iTunes or no iTunes,” you’ll say to them come October.

And you’ll be happy to have control of your network back again, I’m sure. All that copper you laid down. Come on. Stuff’s expensive, right? How dare your monthlies use those connections as they please. No appreciation for what they’ve been given. They should be glad for their 250GB take! That’s 3,000 in 12 months! Frickin’ plenty, eh? Absolutely.

To be serious for a moment, it’s clear that there are a number of parties that will benefit from your hardhandedness. They’re names you’re quite familiar with, actually. There’s Verizon, AT&T, Cablevision, and Time Warner, just to name a few. I mean, think of all your excessively greedy customers you’ll send their way so they can frolic unbeholden by bandwidth limits like the debauched bloodhounds they are.

Of course, some of those ISPs won’t tolerate very much peer-to-peer stuff, but gosh darn it, they’ll certainly pull down those data-heavy podcasts with aplomb. You won’t have it, but they will, and that’s fine by you as long as your land’s been rid. Heck, streams from Hulu, ABC, and WB, some of them promised in 480p or better detail, is what they’ve been getting nowadays. Ptewey! Hooligans. Your tubes are going to be like raceways after they’re gone. Traffic’s going to drop to a more reasonable pace. You’ll finally be able to relax, lounging on your whitewashed porch, gun at your side, watching your loyalists wave as they walk by. All because you dropped the hammer. “Sheriff ain’t gonna take it no more, y’hear?” No he won’t.

In then end, everyone will have what they want. Mouths hungry for new media counting at gigabytes upon gigabytes a day will find ISPs that share their common interests. You, meanwhile, will be laying down the law as you know it. And those who know what’s good for ‘em will tip their hands to you and say, “He’s right. The Web is no buffet. You don’t pay your standard fee at the door and run the tap at will. This world is flat. You walk past the edge, and you walk no more. You fall!”

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The Comcast move seems more focused on the politics of the FCC decision to rule out Comcast’s filtering of P2P traffic. But BitTorrent and other such traffic is all about downloading, not streaming, and the advent of new look-ahead streaming capabilities in Silverlight suggest that streaming can accommodate DVR-like functionality that makes the value proposition of “owning” the data on a local drive much less important.

Read the rest of this entry at TechCrunchIT.

(Photo by Quinn Dombrowski).

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Source:Mashable!
Looks like Cox Communications is following in the footsteps of Comcast, having been found to be interfering with file-sharing by blocking its customers’ Internet connections. A study based on research by The Associated Press and Krishna Gummadi at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems found that about 54% of Cox users were blocked […]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Cox Blockers: Keeping Torrent Users from Sharing Files”, url: “http://mashable.com/2008/05/15/cox-blocks-interne/” });