Author: Tom Nolle

The weekend brought more disorder to the Middle East, particularly Libya, but while the initial turmoil there had knocked stock prices down a bit, the decline has not been alarming and it was reversed on Friday.  Today futures and the European exchanges both suggest an up market again.  Even cooler-than-expected growth in US consumer spending…

Amazon has further complicated the already-complex world of streaming online video by announcing their own service, which is included in the free-shipping Prime membership.  The service currently includes about 5,000 items (movies and TV).  Obviously this isn’t good news for Netflix or even Apple, but it’s also a new step in the growing challenge faced…

Well, we’ve got the usual regulatory flap as we end this week, with the same players and the same issues.  Republicans in Congress are looking for a way to derail the FCC’s neutrality order, and the strategies range from a disapproval vote (which only buys some time) to pulling funding for the measure (a cop-out…

A couple of talks at MWC may be signs of important future trends in mobile and online.  AT&T CEO Stephenson said that the difficulties in moving content between devices, was hampering mobile content opportunity.  He also commented that AT&T believed that apps should run across devices, not be linked to a single gadget.  While at…

As MWC unfolds, we’re starting to get a clearer picture of the thrust of the event and also some feedback from operators on their specific take-aways.  The picture isn’t simple, but it’s interesting! Microsoft has said more about its Phone 7 plans, no doubt to take some pressure off new partner Nokia.  The new software…

“Half a loaf is better than none” is an old saw, but it sure seems to describe the newest mobile development—the Microsoft/Nokia pact.  The pact is being hailed and panned depending on perspectives, but maybe it deserves it because it’s not the whole solution for either party.  Both probably know that, and are gambling that…

We’re continuing to see parallels between the world overall and the world of technology; between global economic issues and tech issues.  It’s so logical (the parts conform, after all, to the Model of the Whole) that you have to wonder if it’s an accident! Egypt is proving that online social network services can build a…

There are some new indications that the momentum of the web is shifting more decisively toward content, but not in the simplistic “content is king” sense.  What’s happening is a combination of fairly complicated and interrelated shifts, and these are gradually changing the way the online business model works.  How that will impact the online…

News Corp has finally launched it’s iPad-paper, The Daily, but it’s obviously way too soon to know whether the experiment in a newspaper that’s neither printed nor online, but instead is appliance-targeted, will work.  The price is lower than that of print news to be sure, but at $40 a year it’s still more than…

FCC has filed a response to two provider lawsuits on net neutrality (one by Verizon), saying that because the order has not yet been published in the Federal Registry it’s not technically in effect and cannot yet be challenged in court.  That seems a rather lame move, but as I noted last week the current…