Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its long-awaited National Broadband Plan. The plan aims to “stimulate economic growth, spur job creation, and boost capabilities in education, healthcare, homeland security and more.” The FCC has taken particular interest in the power of broadband to support and promote online learning. We applaud the FCC for working to make this a priority, especially in exploring how broadband can enable access to and participation in the open educational resources movement, empowering teachers, students, and self-learners.  In the plan, the FCC offers several recommendations in expanding digital educational content. A few of the recommendations are listed below:

Recommendation 11.1: The U.S Department of Education … should establish standards to be adopted by the federal government for locating, sharing and licensing digital educational content by March 2011.

While digital content is available currently, there are significant challenges to finding, buying and integrating it into lessons. Content is not catalogued and indexed in a way that makes it easy for users to search. It is also hard for teachers to find content that is most relevant and suitable for their students. Even if one finds the right content, accessing it in a format that can be used with other digital resources is often difficult or impossible. And if the desired content is for sale, the problem is even harder because online payment and licensing systems often do not permit content to be combined. These three problems—finding, sharing and license compatibility—are the major barriers to a more efficient and effective digital educational content marketplace. These barriers apply to organizations that want to assemble diverse digital content into materials for teachers to use, as well as to teachers who want to assemble digital content on their own. Digital content standards will make it possible for teachers, students and other users to locate the content they need, access it under the appropriate licensing terms and conditions, combine it with other content and publish it.

Recommendation 11.2: The federal government should increase the supply of digital educational content available online that is compatible with standards established by the U.S. Department of Education.

[ ... ] Whenever possible, federal investments in digital education content should be made available under licenses that permit free access and derivative commercial use and should be compatible with the standards defined in recommendation 11.1.

Recommendation 11.4: Congress should consider taking legislative action to encourage copyright holders to grant educational digital rights of use, without prejudicing their other rights.

In part due to a lack of clarity regarding what uses of copyrighted works are permissible, current doctrine may have the effect of limiting beneficial uses of copyrighted material for educational purposes, particularly with respect to digital content and online learning. In addition, it is often difficult to identify rights holders and obtain necessary permissions. As a result, new works and great works alike may be inaccessible to teachers and students … Increasing voluntary digital content contributions to education from all sectors can help advance online learning and provide new, more relevant information to students at virtually no cost to content providers … Congress should consider directing the Register of Copyrights to create additional copyright notices to allow copyright owners to authorize certain educational uses while reserving their other rights.

Many of these recommendations can help to enable the sharing and downstream reuse of Open Educational Resources (OER) via public licenses that grant broad permissions. And as we wrote last week, the Department of Education–through the National Education Technology Plan (PDF)–has already offered suggestions for how open licensing can aid teaching and learning by making content created by the federal government available for use or adaptation.

One recommendation, however, misses the mark – the suggestion that Congress direct the Copyright Office to create a new copyright notice to allow rightsholders to authorize specific education uses of their content while reserving all other rights. While the suggestion for this (e) mark is a good first step in recognizing the need for educational content to be shared widely, its utility will be limited and its implementation confusing. To begin with, it’s difficult to determine what will qualify as “educational” content and use. Creative Commons considered this 7 years ago and has revisited the question since, as an “education license” sounds very appealing. The reality is that allowing educational uses, or worse allowing only certain educational uses, adds to the growing problem of non-interoperable content silos whose contents cannot be intermingled without running afoul of copyright. These qualifiers are counter-productive in that they inhibit rather than incentivize use by teachers, learners, and others of the resources stored and isolated in the silos.  ”Education only” uses would dampen innovation by publishers and other content creators that otherwise would be enabled under an open license granting broad permissions.

Additionally, narrow permissions break the promise of a widely interoperable commons. Public licenses that grant broad permissions for the use and reuse of content provide the most clear path forward in solving the interoperability problem. Creative Commons supplies a standardized framework for such public lienses, and has been adopted by many in the education community. It is important that any future initiative intended to increase sharing of eudcational content–legislated or otherwise–consider interoperability with existing OER as a design requirement.

The FCC has recognized that robust broadband infrastructure is crucial for citizens to participate effectively in the 21st century digital environment. Open licensing is a piece of this critical infrastructure. Creative Commons hopes to continue to work closely with the FCC, the Department of Education, and the OER community in order to implement the infrastructure necessary to support and promote online learning.

Apple's Mac business isn't growing as fast as it did last Christmas, despite weak comps, but it's still performing ahead of expectations.

In a note Monday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he expected Apple to report Mac year-over-year unit sales growth of 26% to 31% for the March quarter, above the Street's expected 22% year-over-year growth.

It'll be interesting to see how the iPad affects the Mac business starting in the June quarter. It may attract more people into Apple Stores, who end up buying MacBooks. But it could also cannibalize low-end MacBook sales. Apple's bet is that it won't, but will instead become a third category of device, competing mostly with PC netbooks and e-book readers.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• CHART OF THE DAY: Look At All The Companies Starting-Up Just To Build iPhone Apps
• CHART OF THE DAY: The Xbox Wins A Small Battle In Console Wars
• CHART OF THE DAY: Research In Motion Has Done A Great Job Defending Its Turf

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies. See how it works here.

PR professionals use social media every single day to get the word out about clients, to communicate with customers and to respond to questions or problems. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social sites have quickly become important tools in a PR professional’s overall toolkit.

As one PR professional, Jeremy Pepper, told us,

“There are so many uses — conversational marketing, reaching influencers — that PR is able to participate in conversations and answer questions, be a support system for clients and companies, as well as empowering customers and power users to be a de facto resource for your company, a champion for your products.”

We’re going to take a look at how PR professionals are using social media to achieve real results when dealing with business-to-business relationships, when representing companies that already have a well-known brand, and in politics. We’ll also look into some of the tools of the trade that PR pros are using to measure the success of their endeavors.

Pepper considers social media an important part of the public relations toolkit. When I asked him what social media has to offer PR professionals, he said, “Social media is a great tool for public relations people, especially if you align it to both PR goals and figure out what the ROI is for the client or the company.”

As we’ve pointed out when discussing measuring social media ROI, having a goal in mind or a main focus can be very important when using social media for any reason.

Pepper offered some insight into how he uses social media with Palisade Systems, a business-to-business data loss prevention company. For Palisade, the main goal is to increase the company’s name recognition. Because data loss prevention deals with sensitive data and often regulatory compliance (for things like HIPPA/HITECH, FERPA and others), having strong name recognition is important, as a known name can often be equated with trust.

Pepper explained how he goes about reaching his client’s core audience, in this case small and medium-sized enterprises.

“At Palisade, we’ve done a three-pronged approach: traditional PR, traditional analyst relations and social media. We have a Palisade Blog where we write and talk about Data Loss Prevention and various issues for corporations, we are on Twitter, shooting out information, retweeting interesting articles in the space, and participating in conversations [@PalisadeDLP], and, we reach out to security bloggers.”

While I expected Twitter to have limited use in a B2B PR strategy, it turns out it can actually be pretty powerful. By following security experts and industry analysts, Palisade can take part in the conversations happening in the space. Pepper can also track keywords on Twitter and then communicate with CIOs and IT people who are asking questions about DLP and he can then send them case studies or reach out to start a new kind of relationship.

As Pepper said, “It lets the people know that there is another solution besides the large corporations, and lets us have conversations with the analysts beyond the calls.”

Blogging, for instance, is one way the company can share stories beyond just what goes into a press release.

“One recent example is that EPISD (El Paso Independent School District) is a legacy customer of Palisade Systems, and recently signed up for the DLP solution. I interviewed the IT staff for the press release, and got great anecdotes that weren’t really appropriate for the press release. But I was able to tell them in the blog post, and expand on why they continue to use Palisade — because of our support, and our product.”

Political figures have really embraced social media — the White House has an official presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, plus its own blog-powered website, for example — and more and more local and national representatives from all over the world are taking to the web to connect with their constituents.

Claire McCaskill, the junior U.S. Senator from Missouri, is one politician that has embraced social media in a big way. On Twitter, @clairecmc has nearly 37,000 followers — making her the second-most popular person in Congress, according to Tweetcongress.org. The Senator also has a YouTube channel and a Tumblr blog that she uses to share information with her constituents and to respond to questions.

Anamarie Rebori, a spokesperson for Senator McCaskill, told us that the senator actively uses social media. “While it definitely has changed the way she gets the word out, McCaskill has said that if anything, she is glad she has the opportunity to bring a more personal touch to her communications and get outside the Washington bubble,” Rebori said.

Especially for politicians, authenticity is an important part of PR. According to Rebori, McCaskill has been able to utilize social media to communicate authentically. “People seem to respond best to an authentic touch over Twitter, and that’s something that Senator McCaskill has been able to convey in her use of social media,” Rebori said. “It’s really her typing each of those tweets, and people can tell.”

Senator McCaskill makes a point of reading every tweet that is addressed her way — and she also makes a point to respond to others on Twitter, either via @replies or direct messages. However, as the Senator explained in her Tumblr blog, she doesn’t follow anyone.

That’s not because of lack of engagement, it’s because it’s the best way the senator can allocate her resources. Furthermore, the senator has developed a hashtag for Missourians to use so that she can connect with as many of them as possible. If you’re a Missouri resident and you use #MO in a tweet, chances are it will get the senator’s attention.

There are huge possibilities from a PR perspective for politicians who use social media, as Senator McCaskill’s success shows.

Pepper also works with computer bag and accessory provider Targus. Because the company is already well-known in its space, the goals for public relations are different than with other brands. “Working with a very well-liked brand, it’s both hard and easy to get conversations going,” Pepper said, who explained that responding to negative feedback is rarely an issue because Targus gets very little.

Instead, the approach for Pepper has been figuring out ways to develop brand loyalty and turn customers into fans. One method that has yielded results for Targus is utilizing its Twitter account for giveaways and promotions and monitoring Twitter conversations to target bag-buying consumers.

In one situation, Pepper followed a conversation between a user who had a bag from a rival company. Pepper tweeted the user a coupon code for 25% off, which ended up being more than what the company that made his old bag had offered him and resulted in the user writing about his experience. That’s the type of thing that can create long-time customers and also get users observing or reading about the situation to consider Targus for their next product.

Using social media has provided Pepper with a simple way to build brand loyalty without having to invest significant time and resources.

Josh Jones-Dilworth, the founder and CEO of the PR and marketing consulting firm Jones-Dilworth, Inc. (and a Mashable guest author) has a lot of expertise in blogging and social media. As such, Jones-Dilworth has developed his own system for measuring the effectiveness of different social media approaches as they relate to PR.

Jones-Dilworth explained that while it’s fairly easy to measure conversations and engagement on an empirical level, putting that analytical data into context so that it can be evaluated as cause and effect is considerably more difficult.

“Right now we are doing a lot of work to mash up social data with business data to get cause and effect. Some products are starting to support this action — but only a few. I think this is the next big wave. You’ve got to be able to tie causes to effects, and that is the big challenge right now, what all our clients want, and what is frankly the hardest to accomplish.”

We absolutely agree that this is both a big challenge when evaluating the successfulness of social media in any context — PR or otherwise — and that it is going to be a large area of growth in the future.

For the future, Jones-Dilworth sees visualizations and modeling as two key components to watch for.

“Visualization [is important] because we really need to be able to make these streams come alive and make them navigable, otherwise you’ve got death by data, pure and simple. More is more is more until it isn’t.

Modeling is all about predicting out futures: Who will be the Farecast of social media? Who will help with intelligent decision support?”

However, just because he doesn’t have all the tools at his disposal now doesn’t mean that Jones-Dilworth is operating in the dark. Here is Jones-Dilworth’s list of the tools that he uses for tracking social media results in his work as a PR pro:

• Viralheat
• Infoharmoni
• Buzzstream
• Twitalyzer
• Omniture
• Eloqua
• Klout
• Yahoo Pipes
• Bime (for visualization)
• Google Analytics
• WolframAlpha [Disclosure: WolframAlpha is a client of Jones-Dilworth's]
• Compete
• Bit.ly

He also points to these tools that he enjoys playing with:

• Lugiron
• Hubspot
• Mixpanel
• ManyEyes (for visualization)
• OneRiot
• Wildfire

Until we reach the stage where drawing contextual correlations between social media actions and results can be more easily measured (or at least, more easily distilled), it is vital to have concrete goals before starting a social media strategy in PR and to also have some sort of baseline.

PR professionals are using social media in a lot of ways to either supplement or add on to existing PR strategies. The most successful PR pros focus on creating active relationships and truly engaging with their customers (or constituents) to have a real conversation.

It isn’t about just putting a PR pitch on Twitter or Facebook, it’s about using the platforms in ways that help clients to connect.

Are you a PR professional? How do you use social media to get real results in your job? Let us know in the comments!

Gist helps you build stronger professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts and their companies giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your email inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them.

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Tags: claire mccaskill, jeremy pepper, josh jones-dilworth, palisade dlp, politics, pr, PUBLIC RELATIONS, real results, targus

Filed under: Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, Remakes and Sequels

Continue reading Sofia Coppola or Gus Van Sant to Direct 'Breaking Dawn'?

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This book came out two months ago, but I waited until I had some other stuff to review so I could do a few days of "reviews a day." I don't mind waiting a while with standalone long-form novels, though, because it's not like the Next Big Event will be spoiled if you don't read this right away! And there's some minor nudity below. You can handle it!

Naomi Nowak's latest book, Graylight, is published by NBM and costs a mere $12.95. I'm extremely torn about this book. I don't love it, but I do think it's a work that can be enjoyable. Allow me to explain!

On the recommendable side, Nowak's art is astonishing (uh-oh, I just gave away what's not recommendable about it). A quoted review on the back calls it "Pre-Raphaelite," which isn't a bad description (it's actually the coloring of the book that's called that, but it does apply to the design of the book as well, or at least what I know of the Pre-Raphaelites seems to apply) - Nowak's art is lush, almost Edenic, with a bold color palette that I hesitate to call "girlie," but I'm sorry - that's the word I thought of. Nowak uses lots of deep greens and blues and purples, and she puts her characters deep into nature, so that flowers and butterflies threaten to overwhelm the pages. She designs the book so that each page (or double-page spread) is a complete drawing, eschewing panels quite often to build a page in which the separate drawings bleed into each other, highlighting the riotousness of nature even more. She does use panels, but lays them out on the page so that they crash into each other at jagged angles, overlap each other, and generally look "sloppy" - it's not sloppy, because Nowak is going for a deliberate effect, but it's not a "traditional" design or even a frenetic design like we often see in "edgy" comics. It's much more of a melding of the panels, as Nowak uses the panels like she does the larger splashes - as ways to create a holistically pleasing scene. Nowak's attention to detail is tremendous, even though it doesn't, surprisingly, extend too much to her characters. With a few exceptions on a few pages, the characters remain inexpressive, which is rather odd. Occasionally we can see that Nowak can do more with faces, so the fact that she doesn't is a bit perplexing. Nowak is Swedish, and this book apparently takes place during a northern summer, meaning the daylight lasts most of the day - we get a sense of dreaminess from the endless light, which is a nice trick. Because we get a sense that these people just aren't getting enough sleep, we get a feel that they are somehow dreaming while they're awake, and it heightens the sense of strangeness that is pervasive in the book. Nowak's art is a true treat.

However ... the writing doesn't keep up. Nowak is going for a very impressionistic kind of comic here, which is fine, but she does have a story to tell, and she doesn't do a great job. She's telling the story of a young lady named Sasha and the unusual love triangle in which she finds herself. But Nowak, in trying to avoid overexplaining, gives us hardly any narrative whatsoever. What we get is a lot of dreamy scenes where people say things that often have no connection with what anyone else is saying. It's a tough go. It begins on the first few pages. We see a woman holding a baby, and then we see the father leaving. She then tells the baby that she'll never let a woman "capable of this devastation" come into the baby's life, and that he'll "never end up" like his father. The father then committed suicide. It's obvious that the father cheated on the mother and she threw him out, which is not a bad way to start the story, but we can already see that Nowak is going more for a mood than anything else. This becomes problematic as we move along.

In the present, we meet a girl named Sasha, who's a thief. In the woods one day, she meets a man she's seen hanging around town named Erik, who is off to interview a reclusive author for his newspaper. He invites Sasha to come along as his "photographer," but the author - the same woman we saw in the beginning - doesn't like this, and Sasha has to leave ... but not before she steals a book from a shelf in the house. The woman's son, Edmund - the same baby we saw in the beginning - then tries to track down the book, with less-than-desirable results. Sasha is romantically involved with Erik, but Edmund desires her as well. His mother, Aurora, who promised to protect him from women like Sasha, takes some extreme measures. And that's all I really want to say of the general plot, because I don't want to spoil it.

Nowak makes us work too much, however. Sasha doesn't seem to be that evil, despite her thievery. She doesn't really "act" upon Edmund too much, and Edmund doesn't seem to fall too far under her spell, such as it is. Sasha's relationship with Erik comes completely out of nowhere - on one page, they seem to have no connection whatsoever, and the next, they're naked together, and a few pages later, they're arguing about whether Sasha should tell her friends she's in a relationship. This makes the "love triangle" that forms with Edmund even more enervating, because not only do Sasha and Edmund not have much of a relationship, neither do Sasha and Erik. So when Aurora decides to take action, we not only don't completely understand her motivation (as much as we can figure it out; and Edmund is still a grown man, so maybe she should let go a bit), but we don't understand why this random girl has raised her ire. There's a vague explanation, but it doesn't help too much. This weakens the climax of the book.

Nowak, as I wrote, is counting on us to do a lot of the lifting. That's fine - more comic writers should do that. She leaves it up to us to make connections, and for the most part we can, but where the writing really fails is with the characterization. If we're going to infer major plot points, we need to have a clearer grasp of the characters. If Nowak wants Aurora to be seen not as an overbearing mother or a martyr for her child's happiness but some of both, she needs to do a better job with Aurora herself. If she wants us to care about Sasha and her odd kleptomania, Sasha needs to be more compelling. The love triangle falls apart because all three characters are ciphers, and therefore we don't feel anything for any of them. It gets back to the Nordic setting - if Nowak is matching the aloofness of the characters with the dreamlike and slightly surreal surroundings, well I guess she succeeded, but it doesn't necessarily make the book worth reading.

As I always feel when I read a comic by someone who is clearly talented and is also working outside the superhero mainstream, I hate that I don't like this more. If you're interested in Nowak's art, I would recommend it highly. If you're looking for that art to work in conjunction with a solid story, you'll probably be disappointed. Nowak has done two other graphic novels, and I'm actually interested in getting at least one to see how her writing is in those. That's how cool her art is. But on the whole, Graylight falls a bit short. It's too bad.

Ezra Klein:
Everything David Brooks says about reconciliation is wrong  —  Jon Chait did a very funny job taking apart David Brooks's column on reconciliation.  I want to do a serious job on it.  The factual statements Brooks uses in his argument are wrong.  Not arguable, or questionable, or suspicious.

Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we take a look at the initial story arc from Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos' Alias...

Enjoy!

With the news that Jessica Jones would be returning to the superhero game in New Avengers, I thought it'd be a fun idea to re-visit the early days of Jessica Jones in the pages of Alias.

When we first meet Jessica, she is accosted by a jerk of a client and she ends up throwing him through her door after he tries to hit her.

Thus we learn her background...

And soon after, we discover that she is in a dark, dark place in her life right now...

At the end of issue #1, after Jessica is hired to find the sister of a woman, she tapes the sister with a man, who turns out to be, well, someone that Jessica did not expect...

Jessica is then thrown into a whole big mess of a conspiracy that goes all the way to the highest level of national politics, and it all revolves around the world of superheroing that Jessica left behind long ago.

The greatest thing about Alias is that Brian Michael Bendis did such a good job creating a multi-faceted character in Jessica that he basically can just throw her into different situations just to see how she will react.

It makes Alias a very interesting book to read, especially because she's a likable enough character that you WANT to see her make the most out of her life.

Michael Gaydos handles the darkness of the tale quite well - he is a strong storyteller and the sequences in the book are top rate.

This first storyline is collected in the first Alias trade, along with the following story arc.

If you enjoyed Bendis' earlier crime comics, then Alias is right up your alley as it has the same character-driven focus that his crime comics had. Very well crafted comics.

It's interesting how quickly countervailing opinions become prevailing opinions these days. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that the Internet is so good at challenging every belief I would care to share (and a few that I should probably keep to myself). It's good to question your beliefs and ideas, and it's good to have voices that tell me not to pin my hopes, dreams and livelihood to a falling star. I'm sure my wife appreciates all the naysayers who've stopped me from chasing daydreams that would lead me away from my fairly secure job with steady paycheck and reliable insurance benefits. But few dreams become reality on accident, and well entrenched cynicism will never stop me from daydreaming.

A lot of ears pricked up when companies started murmuring about streaming high-res games over the internet. Wild, crazy rumors about a world where we wouldn't need to struggle to keep pace in the PC-hardware arms race. A new world where we'd almost automatically keep up with both new system requirements the Joneses. Next thing, I was thinking about jet-pack commutes and sex-worker AIs that downloaded right into your high-tech pants at the blink of an eye.

But I can count on the Internet to challenge those daydreams. Maybe OnLive's game-streaming service wouldn't be quite as shiny without the studio lighting and lens effects. Maybe that jet pack would turn out to be a gas-guzzler, or the AI sexbot would download and start up while I was in the middle of weaving through jet-pack traffic, and even then it'd be all pixelated and awkward. But a jet pack would still be pretty cool, even if it wouldn't get a reasonable price point and the kinks worked out until iJet 3.0. And maybe, like my purchase of the original Kindle, buying iJet 1.0 could be a small vote of confidence in the potential of the technology.

read more

Kraft executive Marc Firestone apologises to MPs angry over Cadbury takeover and says US food group will not cut jobs in British factories for two years

Kraft promised today there would be no job cuts at any of its UK factories for at least two years after it was taken to task by MPs for making misleading statements during the battle to buy the British confectioner Cadbury.

The US food group caused a furore when, days after it took control of Cadbury, it reneged on a promise to save the Somerdale factory in Keynsham, near Bristol.

The pledge to preserve jobs was made by Kraft's executive vice-president, Marc Firestone, after he endured a two-hour grilling by the business select committee. He also issued Kraft's first public apology since the closure of Somerdale was confirmed last month.

"We are sorry to the people who we disappointed," he said. "We fully understand that for over two years colleagues at Somerdale had been under a closure programme and our statement created uncertainty, and when we announced we would not take it forward, hopes were dashed. We are terribly sorry for that."

Jack Dromey, the Unite union's deputy general secretary, who also gave evidence to the committee, said Kraft had "lied" and the assurances given to MPs did not go far enough. He said Kraft had refused to engage with the union during the takeover battle and added: "The committee forced Kraft to take stumbling steps in the right direction but the company needs to go further and give a five-year guarantee."

• Kraft
• Cadbury
• House of Commons
• Job losses
• Trade unions
• Food & drink industry
• Mergers and acquisitions

Might as well get this over with now. The FCC has announced its National Broadband Plan, which describes where the agency would like to see the U.S. in a few years’ time vis-à-vis broadband and connectedness. It’s sorta like the UK’s Digital Britain report, published last year. The big thing is this: it’s in America’s best interest to turn itself into a first-world nation again, and the best way to do that is to develop its Internet infrastructure a wee bit more. That’s the gist of it: better, faster Internet access for many more people.

The FCC’s goal is to have, by 2020, 100 million homes (out of a projected 130 million) wired with 100 mbps broadband. The agency has said that broadband represents the country’s “greatest infrastructure challenge.” It’s not bridges and subway tunnels anymore—though we could sure use those, too—it’s about making sure you’re able to use the Internet easily and effectively. The idea is to make the Internet the country’s primary means of communication.

The executive summary, a quick synopsis of the otherwise gigantic report, says that broadband “is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. It is changing how we educate children, deliver healthcare, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organise and disseminate knowledge.” All true. Think of your typical day: how many times do you use the Internet? (And think of those days when, for whatever reason, your Internet connection is down—freak out!) You wake up and you read the news; you check your bank account to make sure you’re not being charged weird fees for no reason; you look to see if your kid’s school is closed because of the snow; you check the weather; you read your work and personal e-mail; you check your Facebook and wish your brother-in-law a happy birthday (even if you don’t mean it); you tweet to the world that “today feels like a good day, gonna be productive”; you download the new Jimi Hendrix album from iTunes and stick it on your iPhone; and you order a Michio Kaku book from Amazon.

It’s broadband, it’s the Internet! It’s the future!

Now, it’s one thing for the FCC to say, “This is what we’d like to see,” but it’s another thing for that to actually happen. The U.S. doesn’t have the best Internet infrastructure out there—yes, we’re not the best at something, don’t cry—and that could be for a number of reasons. One, the U.S. is pretty big. The best wired countries—the Netherlands, South Korea, Norway, places like that—aren’t very large to begin with, and they’re more urban. That is, the majority of the population lives in cities, unlike here in the U.S. where suburbs and exurbs dominate. There’s a reason why, having lived in and around New York my entire life, I go to other places in the country and think, “Man, this is what the rest of America looks like? This is weird.” Not bad, just different. New York might as well be Jupiter compared to Texas. Anyhow, cities are far easier to wire for broadband than Kansas. It’s often not worth the local Internet Service Provider’s time (and money!) to wire you and your neighbor’s house on Smith Street.

But that’s why we need to think of broadband as infrastructure and not some silly little thing. Did we depend on private companies to construct the Inter-state Highway System? Why should broadband be any different?

Will taxes go up to pay for this? I don’t know. I do know that I’d rather see tax dollars go to an improved broadband infrastructure rather than, say, bridges to nowhere or ridiculous corn subsidies. (I just saw Food, Inc. and I’m all worked up.)

Let the record show that I already have 100 mbps broadband (well, 101 mbps!) and it’s really neat.

I, for one, would like to see the U.S. embrace broadband rather than see it fight tooth and nail against progress—big government this, big government that. That’s such a tired argument.

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Filed under: Internet, Security

60% of virtual servers are less secure than their physical counterparts originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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