Editor’s note: Richard Bennett is a Senior Fellow with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and co-author of ITIF’s 2013 report, “The Whole Picture: Where America’s Broadband Networks Really Stand.” Follow him on Twitter @iPolicy.

We’ve all heard the story: America’s broadband networks are second-rate. We pay exorbitant prices for shoddy service because broadband providers print money and hold innovation in a death grip. While America languishes, our competitors in Europe and Asia are racing ahead to a user-generated content utopia. The only way forward is a government takeover, or, failing that, a massive dose of regulation.

So go a number of recent treatises such as Susan Crawford’s “Captive Audience”; works by like-minded Internet aficionados Tim Wu, Lawrence Lessig, and Yochai Benkler; reports by public interest advocacy groups Free Press, Public Knowledge, and the Open Technology Institute; as well as numerous tech bloggers.

The only problem with this story is that it’s almost completely untrue.

Granted, as recently as the late aughts, the story was plausible: In those dark days, our rankings in terms of both broadband subscription growth and speeds were falling. Increased demand for data capacity and a technology lull combined to push our average Internet connection speed down to 22nd in the world at the end of 2009, according to Akamai’s measurement of “Average Connection Speed.” Since then, the speeds of such shared connections have nearly doubled from 3.9Mbps to 7.2 Mbps, raising the U.S. to eighth place.

Akamai’s Average Connection Speed measures individual TCP streams over IP addresses that are often shared — and doesn’t sum simultaneous streams — so it’s more a measure of usage than of network capacity, however. To see the capacity of the underlying broadband network, it’s best to look at Akamai’s “Average Peak Connection Speed” metric.

The distinction between these two metrics flummoxed Ars Technica’s Cyrus Farivar, who maintains that the shared-connection measurement is the more meaningful indication of “user experience.” Farivar is clearly wrong about that, and Akamai’s “Average Peak Connection Speed” is the better indicator of network improvement.

The Average Peak measurement shows performance in the U.S. tripling over the past five years, up to 31.5Mbps in Q4 2012. We don’t know where the U.S. ranked on this scale before mid-2010, but it’s currently 13th. The tripling of network capacity combined with a doubling of “shared speed” says that networks are getting faster, as the U.S. is simultaneously using them more heavily

America’s broadband speeds are improving for two reasons: first, broadband providers have installed newer technologies, such as Verizon FiOS, DOCSIS 3 cable modems, and AT&T U-verse that are four or more times faster than the technologies they replaced; and second, users have begun to demonstrate a preference for higher-speed broadband by opting into higher-speed upgrades. Some upgrades are costly and others are not; Comcast recently doubled the speeds of most of their Bay Area broadband plans for free.

While our networks are improving, we’re retaining low prices for entry-level broadband plans first noticed by the Berkman Center’s “Next Generation Connectivity” report: the U.S. is currently second in the price of broadband for entry-level users. The nation is also third in network-based competition, second in the fiber-optic installation rate, first in the adoption of next-generation LTE, ahead of Europe in broadband adoption, and doing quite well in Internet-based services.

While U.S. cable TV companies still lead telcos in new broadband subscriptions, fiber-based telco broadband is gaining subscribers at a faster rate than cable. U.S. broadband providers are profitable, but much less so than Europe’s or Korea’s, where applications like YouTube must pay ISPs for access to residential customers. Significantly, we’ve gained ground on competitors despite an enormous disadvantage stemming from America’s very low urban population densities, which make U.S. broadband networks much more expensive to build and maintain than those in most nations.

Amazingly, the European Commission’s top telecom regulator, Vice President Neelie Kroes, tells a story much like the tales of woe we hear from American broadband critics, but with the roles reversed: Kroes laments Europe’s declining standing relative to the U. S., where “high-speed networks now pass more than 80 percent of homes; a figure that quadrupled in three years.” To facilitate private investment in networks, Europe has developed a “Ten Step Plan” for a single, cross-border market for broadband that mimics our interstate, facilities-based broadband market.

But these facts are glossed over by the critics of U.S. broadband policy in large part because they directly contradict their neo-populist narrative of rapacious, profit-hungry broadband monopolists gouging consumers. The long tradition of American populism distrusts private provision of “essential” services and refuses to believe that competition can ever be brought to bear on infrastructure markets. Crawford in particular relies too heavily on a strained analogy with electricity, a genuine natural monopoly that is as different from the competing information networks we have in the broadband space as any network can possibly be: Can you get electric service over the air?

Critics also come up short on research, generally refusing to consult updated primary sources in favor of blog posts and news articles from inside the echo chamber that simply reinforce the traditional narrative. “Confirmation bias” is rampant in broadband criticism.

Broadband advocates would do better to focus their efforts on real problems, such as our dismally low level of interest in the Internet, the primary reason non-subscribers give for refusing to go online. Ideally, these efforts would be combined with initiatives to increase computer ownership among the poor — the second reason so few Americans use the Internet. The world’s high-subscription nations, such as Korea and Singapore, aren’t the price leaders for entry-level Internet services as we are, but they’ve led successful outreach efforts to spread computer ownership, digital literacy, and Internet awareness across their entire populations.

Getting all of America online is a goal that all Americans can support regardless of party creed or ideological doctrine. If we can make as much progress with online participation as we’ve made with speed, Europe will have a second Internet crisis on its hands.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The latest to join the cadre of startups offering tools for more private sharing outside of Facebook’s massive footprint is not, in fact, another startup, but rather another media giant: Disney. Citing its “rich heritage in storytelling,” Disney’s Interactive division, best known for games, sites, and virtual worlds like “Where’s My Water?,” “Temple Run: Brave,” “Club Penguin,” Disney.com, and more, today launched a personal, mobile memory maker simply called “Story.”

The new app, which debuts first on iPhone, takes the photos and videos saved on your device, then automatically organizes them into sharable, but by default, private albums, which can also be personalized with captions, text, and with various themes and layouts. The albums’ content is also saved in iCloud, so it can be backed up and synced to other Apple devices.

Separating a collection of photos into albums isn’t exactly a new trick – practically every photo management application today, including Apple’s own Photos app – allows for some level of organization. What makes Disney’s app a bit more cutting edge is the way it automatically organizes the content for you, based on the time and location of the photos and videos it finds.

Though our saved digital memories have long since included time, date and location information, only more recently have we begun to see a steady stream of newer mobile applications which use that data for grouping photos or creating shared albums with friends. Color was the big example standing out in everyone’s mind of how not to handle location-based photo albums, but others which followed including Flock, Cluster, Tracks, Flayvr, Moment.me, Everpix, and many more, have been experimenting to varying degrees in this space.

But because of Story’s scrapbooking-esque annotation and customization features, it also shares a similarity to mobile photo book makers like Mosaic, SimplePrints and KeepShot, for example. Unfortunately, Story stops short of actually allowing you to order a printed book at the finish of your creation, though Scott Gerlach, Senior Director of Engineering at Disney Interactive, says that’s something that’s “definitely” being considered for the future.

“In our extensive usability testing of Story, we heard clearly from our users that they’d like to purchase high-quality printed materials for themselves and others,” he tells us, adding that the company is “absolutely looking at different options to help users share their stories.” Those options may even include other photo-based gifts, too.

These extra options would likely be added into Story as in-app purchases, alongside other premium features the company has in the works, such as upgraded themes, for example. But for now, the app itself is entirely free, with no ads.

Story itself is simple to use. To further edit any of Story’s automatically created albums, you can tap a button to add more content, including photos, videos or text, or change the theme. You can also tap on any individual item to caption it, remove it, or change the size. You can also drag and drop items around to swap their positions, in a way that’s reminiscent to what the Kleiner Perkins-backed startup Erly once offered years ago on the web, before it sold to Airtime in March 2012.

Once you’ve created your “story,” you can then email it to your family or friends, or choose to share it a bit more broadly by posting to Facebook. Stories can also be embedded on your own website, if you choose.

If there’s any complaint with the app, it’s that it has launched only half-done, despite having the resources of a larger corporation at its disposal. Story would make the most sense on iPad, but support for both that and Android isn’t yet available, nor is the option for printed books or other trendy features like photo filters or stickers.

That being said, from the sounds of it, Story will slowly morph into a micro social network for families and/or other close friends over time, as Gerlach hints at plans for “more social and collaborative” features in time. That speaks to things like commenting, liking, or shared albums, perhaps, and could put Story up against other family-first mobile apps like Famil.io, Familiar, or Tweekaboo, for instance.

But for now, Story sits somewhere in middle of all these competitors, not quite finished on any front. If you’re leaning towards photo book creation or private, family-focused social networking, there are other apps which still lead this space for now.

Story is available here in iTunes.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

My old boss used to say that a story is something you’d tell someone in a bar or at lunch, so I’m going to tell you guys the tale I’ve been telling people at bars and lunches. Yesterday, Aol Ventures head Mike Brown announced through Dan Primack that he’d be leaving Aol to start his own VC firm, Bowery Capital.

The most interesting part of this story is that Bowery Capital was actually hatched at 670 Broadway in New York, which has the distinction of ALSO BEING THE TECHCRUNCH NEW YORK OFFICES. I’m sitting here right now, and it’s pretty hard to miss the presence of the new firm. Seriously, the Bowery Capital swag and logo is everywhere, and there is literally a pamphlet for their CRO conference on my desk (see below).

In fact, the snazzy team headshots on the new Bowery Capital website were actually taken by a TC videographer. As a favor!

Brown told Aol he wanted to do this last April, and started raising his $33 million fund in October. So, it’s been in the works for a year. When asked why they never got curious as to what was going on beneath their noses and report the story — like what usually happens — one TechCrunch New York staffer said, “I don’t know.”

Well I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

UPDATE: We are now in a system-wide ground delay until 4:00pm CT as we work to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.

—
American Airlines (@AmericanAir) April 16, 2013

The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all American Airlines flights until at least 5pm today, citing computer problems that have taken their reservations system down. We will update this story as it unfolds. This cannot be pleasant for those stuck in planes right now.

Updates:

At American Airlines request, FAA put ground stop for flights nationwide and American Eagle flights at certain airports: statement #breaking

—
Reuters US News (@ReutersUS) April 16, 2013

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Federal regulators are investigating Microsoft for allegedly bribing foreign governments for favor in software contracts. “Lawyers from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining kickback allegations made by a former Microsoft representative in China, as well as the company’s relationship with certain resellers and consultants in Romania and Italy,” sources familiar with the allegations, tell The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story earlier today.

An anonymous tipster alleges that Microsoft’s China division instructed him to offer kickbacks in exchange for signing off on software contracts. To further complicate the allegations, the tipster was also involved in a labor dispute with the software giant. The tipsters contact with Microsoft ended in 2008.

“Like every large company with operations around the world we sometimes receive allegations about potential misconduct by employees or business partners,” John Frank, Microsoft’s vice president and deputy general counsel, tells The Journal. “We cooperate fully in any government inquiries,” Frank added.

The probe is also investigating bribery practices in Italy, related to consultants of Microsoft’s customer loyalty program. Consultants were used as “vehicles for used such consultants as vehicles for lavishing gifts and trips on Italian procurement officials in exchange for government business.”

Federal investigators are conducting the probe under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a new whistleblower program at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Filing allegations simultaneously with the company and the government provides whistleblowers some job security. Companies can face private lawsuits for sacking employees in retaliation for submitting allegations to the SEC, even if the tips never lead to an enforcement action,” explains the Journal.

While Microsoft says it is diligent about investigating corruption, it has offices in over 100 countries and roughly 640,000 partners businesses around the globe.

Interestingly enough, ZDnet argues the claims against Microsoft should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, since The Journal itself was recently investigated for bribery, but never pursued by the U.S. government. “It comes only a few days after the Journal itself was investigated by U.S. federal authorities over what appear to be claims of bribery, but were not pursued by the U.S. government. Instead, the Journal, owned by the Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire, blamed China for retaliating against the newspaper’s critical reporting of Beijing in recent weeks,” writes Zack Whittaker.

More on this story as it develops.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google has been on a bit of a roll with its commercials lately, especially for its gadgets. Today, the company unleashed its latest commercial for the Nexus 10, its iPad killer competitor. The video tells the story of a couple who has just found out that they’re having a baby. Google has woven the Nexus 10 Wi-Fi-only device into the story quaintly.

The feature that Google decided to focus the commercial around? Its multi-user Android one. Yes, Google’s competitive advantage is apparently the fact that you can share the device with someone else. Is that enough? Have a look at the commercial:

We’ve talked about Apple needing a “kid-only” and “guest” mode for the iPad, but are these very personal devices something that we want everyone’s grubby little hands on? It sounds good on paper and perhaps in a well-produced commercial. But alas, the answer is yes, people really do want to purchase a device like this and let other members of their family have a play, too.

The great part about having multiple-account capability is that you can pick up the device, log in and then instantly have access to your own home screen and apps. Since Google’s syncing capabilities are pretty robust, you could have a few of these devices sitting around and just log into whichever one is closest to you. Plus, the 10 costs about $399.

Now that Google is settling into its role as a player in the mobile and tablet space, it’s interesting to watch what they pick to focus on. In the video above, you’ll see how they fit Google Play in, watching movies, searches with Google Now, doing Hangouts on Google+ and reading a book. The story is starting to develop for Google’s devices and services.

It’s not all hearts and hugs for Google, as Apple could, and probably will, roll something like this out in the near future. For now it’s an advantage, but Google has to continually roll out features within its OS that are just a bit better than iOS. A complete side-by-side war won’t work; it’s going to have to be incremental upgrades and changes that catch your eye…like sharing your device seamlessly with anyone who wants to use it. This time, you won’t get your iPad back with tabs full of porn on it. Not that it has happened to any of us. Much.

Will we see upgrades at the I/O conference this year for Google’s 10-inch tablet? One can hope. The only problem for me with the Nexus 10 is that outside of my home, it’s pretty useless. Is the 10 perfect? Not even close. Is it better than the iPad? That’s a matter of personal preference. Google just wants to nudge you with some of its own unique features, and that’s smart.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.

On Friday, Dropbox’s acquisition of Mailbox marked the first time the tech community lit up in amazement and awe of a consumer transaction since Facebook acquired Instagram back in April 2012. The attention is well-deserved. For a variety of reasons beyond the high ticket price of the deal, the acquisition of Mailbox contains many interesting sub-stories that captured the tech community’s interest:

One, Mailbox only raised money once in the summer of 2011. When the funding was announced in November 2011, the company was known as “Orchestra.” At the time, raising $5m pre-product and right off the bat for an A round would seem high, and perhaps the quality of the team afforded the company the chance to raise enough money to have more than one shot on goal, which goes against some conventional wisdom that startups should stay lean and not raise too much dough upfront. I don’t know the specifics, but probably safe to assume their $5m cost them about 20% of their company.

Two, Mailbox was an incredibly well-executed pivot. The Orchestra team calculated that its product wasn’t going to breakout and be a mainstream hit. This is a really hard call to make because its often easy and logical to think in terms of sunk costs. In transforming from one product to an entirely different one, the Orchestra team quickly readjusted and started from scratch to build Mailbox, taking their initial learnings but essentially starting a new company from within their core.

Three, Mailbox was iOS-first. Even though Orchestra worked on iOS and web — and worth noting that Orchestra’s design and cross-platform sync technology was also quite remarkable itself — Mailbox was released on Apple’s platform and ginned up significant buzz to get acquired without expanding to other platforms first. Instagram waited a while before building for Android, which was released a little while before they were acquired and drove a huge increase in their overall install base. While Android is picking up steam (or in some eyes, surpassed iOS), value at the application layer still resides with iOS.

Four, Mailbox added extra buzz to their recent reinvention and re-launch by creating a brilliant marketing hack to get around the ornery distribution hurdles posed by the iOS App Store. Mailbox’s infamous “Reservation System” allowed consumers to download the app from the store but wait in line until their number was called up. This gimmick also became the subject of chatter around many pre-launch mobile startups (see: Tempo) trying to concoct their own special velvet-rope tricks.

Five, Dropbox’s move in this transaction also shines a light on the acquirer’s potential strategy. After raising $250M cash in the fall of 2011 at a very high valuation, Dropbox is on a tricky journey to transform from a commodity service into something more. Skeptics, for instance, wonder if Dropbox can make this turn, as the size of their valuation may have taken some exits off the table. I’d recommend two bloggers here: One, TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden penned a smart piece on the direction Dropbox is headed in, and a few months ago, analyzed its earlier purchase of SnapJoy; and two, Spark Capital’s Andrew Parker wrote an insightful post looking back on the history of file systems and where Dropbox could be headed.

Six, while Mailbox received accolades for its user interaction elements of “swiping away” and “snoozing” email, much of the inspiration for those gestures might have been sparked by Clear, the colorful iOS to-do list app. While many may credit Mailbox with inventing these gestures, the phrase “good artists borrow, great artists steal” may be fitting in this case, and the team should get credit for recognizing a great gesture and bringing it to a product category (mobile email) that desperately needed a new client.

And, finally, seven…this all went down so quickly. Just as it seemed Instagram launched, exploded, grew fast, and then sold two days after closing a $50m Series B, the story of Mailbox can be told in months, not years. Orchestra’s founder penned an op-ed in August 2012 analyzing why email is still a problem. In what seemed like a very long Beta test, influential tech users had access to the product and were publicly raving about it, indirectly generating buzz and demand for the app as 2012 ended. It was a great v1 product despite the fact it didn’t allow for search or always have consistent sync or push notifications. In early February 2013, Mailbox launched officially, but consumers had to wait in line, a tactic which became its own story. And, as we all know, on March 15, Mailbox was acquired by Dropbox for what many people believe is quite a healthy sum of cash and stock.

For these seven reasons, this story is captivating. We all may say that the product wasn’t that great, or that startups don’t seem to want to remain independent anymore and go big, or that startups are just meant to be flipped, but what Orchestra and Mailbox accomplished is nothing short of remarkable. Deciding to pivot is a really hard decision. Getting the team to buy into that is really hard. Throwing away all the previous bits of work can be demoralizing. I have seen a small handful startups with real funding and product used by millions try to pivot like this, and each one has failed so far. Actually creating a new brand and product that matters is close to impossible. Devising a product-marketing plan into the launch with a long beta and a reservation system was pure marketing genius. And, while many dreamed of what Mailbox could do for email on different platforms, the team decided to take a generous offer from Dropbox, one that would make all shareholders happy and, considering all the circumstances above, would turn coal into a diamond. That is why the story of Orchestra to Mailbox to Dropbox captures our attention. Building big, durable companies and going public is one pinnacle we see on magazine covers, but for many others, finding that one sweet exit — their own “Inbox Zero” —  is a dream come true.

Photo Credit: Digital Game Museum / Flickr Creative Commons

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A lot of people are talking about management issues at Groupon, but maybe daily deals just aren’t that big of a deal. The Verge yesterday posted a lengthy look at what went wrong at Groupon, the e-commerce business that recently outsted its CEO and founder Andrew Mason after reporting another disappointing quarter. Basing the story on interviews with a “dozen current and former employees, executives, investors, and board members,” the Verge’s conclusion seems to be that one of the biggest problems for the company was its management — or mismanagement, as the case may be. “Greed is Groupon,” the article’s title proclaims.

Yes, there are enough proof points in the story, along with feedback from others close to the company, to paint a picture of intentions gone horribly wrong — and yes, we hear similar descriptions especially on the international front. Yet I think the Verge also missed a bigger point, and did not ask the bigger question: did (does) Groupon actually have the right products to be a winning company?

Groupon’s main business, pre-IPO and today, is daily deals — offering a way for merchants and businesses to better manage their yield by creating discounted offers for things to fill in gaps in service-led businesses, a concept later extended to goods as well. This was, undeniably, a very active business in the years leading up to Groupon’s IPO. It got a lot of investors very interested in the company, and banks created big projections for how that business would grow.

But at the same time, something else started to happen. Consumers and some businesses actually cooled off from the idea. Some of that had to do with poor product experience, but there was also a general sense that this was more a fad than a permanent fixture of the e-commerce game. It even picked up a term: “daily deal fatigue.”

It didn’t help that Groupon’s wild rise spawned hundreds of clones, along with some bigger competitors like LivingSocial, to further flood the market. And therein lies the problem: as much as Groupon may not have handled its own growth well — and perhaps continues to mishandle it in some regards (eg if you think having a single IT platform for all subsidiaries can make or break a business) — the fact that its competitors also have faced a lot of problems speaks a lot more about the state of Groupon today than Groupon’s management foibles do.

Of course, Groupon is still the leader in its market. Daily deals in the last quarter grew by 300% over last year and will be the engine that will take Groupon, as Verge points out, to a projected $6 billion in revenues this year (profit is another story). But as for how the business will grow going forward, management issues and leadership changes may be moot points. The problem is that the products and strategy post-Mason are the same as before.

Yes, Groupon has moved beyond the daily deal – following through on Andrew Mason’s concept, outlined in May 2012, to become “the operating system for local commerce.” That has included moves into mobile payments, point-of-sale solutions, hyperlocal offers on your mobile device, and more direct sales of products to compete against Amazon and other straight e-commerce players.

But as daily deals continue to trundle along, many of these newer services are offered outside of the U.S. (and international makes up more than half of Groupon’s revenues today). And if Groupon does manage to crack markets like mobile commerce, beating out the many incumbents plus companies like Square and PayPal, it will be some time before these services begin to yield big rewards.

And all the greed or generosity in the world won’t change that.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A couple of weeks ago CNET was put into an absurd situation – they could not favorably cover a technology product because the company behind that product was in litigation with CNET’s parent company, CBS.

I wasn’t all that interested in the story at the time. Reporters and bloggers are constantly pressured to write or not write about things by parent companies and even business executives in their own companies. CBS telling CNET what it could and could not write about wasn’t anything I haven’t seen before.

I understand why CBS was trying to control messaging about a company that they were suing, although they certainly weren’t very smart about how they handled it. The Streisand Effect kicked in and not only did the product end up getting tons of extra positive press, but both CBS and CNET looked like idiots.

Still, big companies do stupid things all the time. It’s a big part of why small startups are often so successful at disrupting them.

What I don’t get is why CNET staffers have stuck around. They’re the ones who are supposed to be journalists and all that entails. They’re the ones I blame right now.

I blame them because they’re the only reason CBS is able to get away with this. Every single journalist at CNET should have resigned by now.

More than once at TechCrunch we made AOL extremely uncomfortable with things that we wrote. But they never ordered us to write or not write about something because they understood that not only would we not comply, we’d write a post about how the whole thing.

Our independence from AOL was so important to me that I negotiated an extremely odd provision in our purchase agreement that allowed me to disclose confidential information about AOL. It was their job never to give me that information. It was not my job to protect it in any way.

If AOL had ever ordered me to remove a piece of content from the site for any reason I would have immediately written about it and disclosed the situation to our readers. And if I had ever ordered a writer to remove content I would have expected that writer to have done the same to me.

In fact, one of the things I am most proud about at TechCrunch is the culture of independence in its writers. Many times I have been criticized publicly by my own team. We’ve even had absurd arguments break out, on the site, about the pros and cons of one gadget over another. It can drive readers crazy to see all the conflict, but there was never any question about whether or not people’s unfettered opinions were being expressed.

When Greg Sandoval left CNET (to my knowledge the only person who’s resigned over this mess) I thought he’d be the first of many. His words – “We are supposed to be truth tellers” – rang true.

Why haven’t others followed him? Why are they still grumbling about it but not actually doing anything about it?

CNET reporters need to either be resigning or be reporting this story, or both. On CNET. If someone higher up removes their content then they should republish it on their personal blogs. If they are then fired for that they should sue the company. And either way, other tech sites, including this one, would be more than happy to make them job offers.

I left (or was fired) TechCrunch in 2011 over editorial independence. The Huffington Post tried (and was successful for a time) to take control of TechCrunch. And not only did I leave, a whole string of writers and editors left shortly afterwards. It wasn’t until AOL removed TechCrunch from the control of the Huffington Post that things stabilized. And today TechCrunch is stronger than it ever was, by far.

And, importantly, even when all of this was going on at TechCrunch, AOL and Huffington Post never successfully tried to censor TechCrunch writers from saying exactly what they thought. Things got messy, but they were never hidden.

Earlier today I read John Gruber’s short post about what’s happening at CNET. He wrote that the situation was untenable, and “CBS either needs to give CNet editorial independence or sell them to someone who will. As it stands, they’re grinding CNet’s reputation and brand into worthless powder.”

Those are almost the exact words I yelled shortly before I left TechCrunch – either sell the site back to the original shareholders or give us true editorial independence.

As with AOL and TechCrunch, it’s unlikely that CBS will do either. But at the very least, it might make CBS think twice if CNET’s editorial and reporter teams were to simply say exactly what they think, and then walk out.

In short I expect big companies to be some combination of stupid and evil. But when the people affected do absolutely nothing, they’re just part of the problem, too.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

BlackBerry users on the Vodafone network in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have not been receiving emails today as RIM’s network suffers another outage.

Early this morning Reuters reported that email delivery issues were affecting Vodafone BlackBerry users, and the carrier confirmed the problem in a statement: “We are aware that some BlackBerry customers are experiencing issues. Vodafone is working closely with Research in Motion (RIM) to restore full service as soon as possible. As soon as we have further information we will provide further updates.”

Vodafone has now told TechCrunch service is “being restored”. A spokeswoman for RIM was unable to answer any questions on the issue at present, although she said RIM was due to send a statement shortly. We’ll update this story when we hear more. Update: RIM appears to be laying the blame at Vodafone’s door for the “service issue” — noting in a statement: “All BlackBerry services are operating normally but we are aware that a wider Vodafone service issue is impacting some of our BlackBerry customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa. We are supporting Vodafone’s efforts to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

We’ve asked Vodafone whether it can confirm the issue is a problem with their network and will update this story when they respond. Update: Vodafone has confirmed the problem was caused by a “router error”, and said it is continuing to work to restore service for affected BlackBerry customers. It would not clarify whether the error is solely within its own infrastructure.

The carrier provided the following statement: ”Vodafone can confirm that some BlackBerry customers experienced issues with their data services this morning in Europe, Middle East and Africa. The issue was caused by a router error. Services are in the process of being restored and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused and we will provide updates as necessary.”

Network outages and delivery issues have struck the BlackBerry network before. Most recently an outage struck last fall, affecting EMEA customers’ email and internet access, on — irony of ironies — the day Apple launched its iPhone 5.

Network outages also took BlackBerry users’ services down in September and October 2011 – the latter outage being the largest in the network’s history, with services knocked out for close to a week. That worldwide outage was initially caused by the failure of a core switch at a UK datacenter which in turn triggered a wider “cascade failure” – as then co-CEO Lazaridis put it – with backlogs of data building up in EMEA and overloading RIM’s systems in other regions.

It is unclear what has caused the latest service outage but Following the 2011 network failure RIM said it would be auditing its network to ensure such a major outage could not happen again. However today’s BlackBerry service problems appear to be outside RIM’s control, being caused by a fault with Vodafone’s infrastructure.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch