America elected Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States yesterday. Obama changed the way campaigns will be run in this country forever. While candidates had used the Internet as part of their campaign strategy in some part before Obama, he was the first to fully leverage its potential to raise enormous sums of money in political contributions and communicate his message to millions of mostly-younger, connected Americans.
In the days to come, the pundits will analyze the results of the election and try to figure out how and why Barack Obama won. I feel, with great certainty, they will find that the turnout among young voters was higher than ever and the Obama campaign's near-perfect execution of an Internet strategy made that happen.
If you're interested in a deep-dive recap, the New York Times site has a good state-by-state map of the results. The map will allow you to drill all the way down to county-by-county results.
AT&T Starts Metered Billing Trial In Reno [Broadband Reports]
Metered billing now looks to be expanding to DSL, as AT&T has announced a trial of broadband caps in Reno, Nevada. New DSL customers in that area will have a cap starting at 20 GB for the lowest speed tier up to 150 GB for the highest speed tier. Each extra gigabyte downloaded over the limit will cost the subscriber $1.
AT&T hasn't yet announced whether or when they will expand the metered billing trial to all subscribers, but is saying they plan to test it in one other market this year. CNET has an additional story on AT&T's announcement. AT&T tests limits on subscribers' Web use [CNET News]
Comcast recently announced plans to cap their broadband customers at 250 GB, higher than AT&T's proposed caps and Time Warner is testing metered billing in Beaumont, TX. I have said repeatedly that individual Internet usage is expanding exponentially and, in the long run, that means an all-you-can-eat model is going to have to be reconsidered. I'm thrilled that we have found so much value in Internet connectivity but we also must ensure we keep up with the changes in the usage patterns. Failing to do so will inhibit aggressive maintanence and upgrading of the infrastructure. That means broadband's enormous potential will be severely limited.
The Roles of TV and the Internet [CableTechTalk]
One of the questions I asked one group of UK students on Monday was whether they would give up television or the Internet, if they were forced to choose one. All of them chose to sacrifice television in place of the Internet. They reasoned that they could still get video content on the Internet, but not the interactivity and wide content of the Internet on television. CableTechTalk continues to explore why people might choose to cut the cord on their television in favor of the Internet's video content.
CableTechTalk surmises that while 90% of broadcast programming is available online, only 20% of cable programming is available there, and that content gap is one reason why cable subscribers aren't cutting the TV cord in favor of their computers.
FCC opens free 'white space' spectrum [CNET News]
The FCC proceeded with yesterday's planned vote on white space rules despite requests from the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association to allow for a public comment period prior to the vote. Commissioners approved the rules by a unanimous vote, though Commissioner Deborah Tate dissented in part.
While there are still questions about white space devices ability to avoid interfering with cable and broadcast television reception, yesterday's vote allows consumer electronics manufacturers to begin development of white space prototypes for testing and approval by the FCC. The devices will likely contain geo-locating abilities to assist them in avoiding interference, and they promise to have the ability to transmit and receive high-speed Internet over wide distances.
CNN’s cool hologram technology also used tonight [VentureBeat]
If you were watching CNN's election coverage last night, you were able to see the unveiling of their cool new hologram technology. Whenever anchor Wolf Blitzer interviewed a correspondent reporting from the field, they magically appeared as a hologram in front of Blitzer. VentureBeat reports that the hologram technology took 44 cameras and 20 computers in each correspondent's location to film the reporter from all angles and assemble the hologram and beam it to CNN's headquarters.
Beam me up Scotty.
Beam me up Scotty.
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