Posts Tagged ‘Time Warner’
Friday, April 13th, 2012
 CNET news is reporting that starting this July all major US Internet service providers will start tracking and monitoring their user’s bittorrent downloads as part of an agreement between the MPAA, RIAA and all the major ISPs.
Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other service providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software.
Quiet about what the measures include
Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about what these measures included.
During a recent panel discussion before a gathering of U.S. publishers in February 2012, Cary Sherman, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said most of the participating ISPs are on track to begin implementing the program by July 1st.
Quoted from RIAA.com, “Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system,” Sherman said.
They need this “for establishing the database so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion.”
At that time, the accused customers will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don’t stop pirating material. If the customer is flagged for illegal downloading again, the ISP can then ratchet up the pressure.
Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls “mitigation measures,” which include throttling down the customer’s connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating.
Tags: Bittorent, Cablevision, Comcast, ISPs tracking downloads, MPAA, RIAA, Time Warner, Verizon
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Legal | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
 Only eight companies earned “very strong” ratings while 26 earned “very weak” ratings in trust, according to a new research report published by Temkin Group, 2011 Temkin Trust Ratings, examines the level of trust that consumers have in 143 large U.S. companies. The research is based on a survey of 6,000 U.S. consumers, who rated their recent customer service interactions with companies across 12 industries.
“Most companies have not earned a great deal of trust with consumers and it’s a pervasive problem in several industries,” states Bruce Temkin, author of the report and Managing Partner of Temkin Group.
The research uses the Temkin Trust Ratings to gauge consumer feedback for airlines, banks, credit card issuers, health plans, hotels, insurance companies, insurance carriers, investment firms, Internet service providers, retailers, TV service providers, and wireless carriers.
USAA, Amazon.com, Costco, Edward Jones, Hyatt, Sam’s Club, TriCare, Kohl’s, Walgreens, and Lowe’s earned the top ten ratings. Three companies show up twice in the bottom of the ratings: Comcast, Charter Communications, and HSBC. The other companies in the bottom 10 of the 2011 Temkin Trust Ratings are CIGNA, Time Warner, U.S. Bank, and Anthem.
The research also examines overall results for the 12 industries. Retailers and investment firms received the top scores, with an average rating of “strong.” The bottom two industries, Internet service providers, and TV service providers, earned an average rating of “very weak.”
According to Temkin: “In some industries like TV service and Internet service, the lack of trust is a pervasive problem. Without trust, those companies will find it nearly impossible to build lasting relationships with customers.”
This report can be accessed from the Temkin Group website at www.temkingroup.com or from the blog, Customer Experience Matters, at http://experiencematters.wordpress.com.
Data from the ratings can be accessed at the Temkin Ratings website. The Temkin Ratings portfolio includes consumer-based ratings for customer experience, loyalty, forgiveness, Web experience, trust, and customer service.
Tags: Amazon, Amazon.com, Bruce Temkin, Charter Communications, CIGNA, companies rated for trust, Costco, Edward Jones, HSBC, Hyatt, Kohl's, Lowe's, omcast, Sam's Club, Temkin Group, Time Warner, TriCare, U.S. Bank, USAA, Walgreens
Posted in Amazon, Internet/New Media, Studies, surveys, reports | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
 New York-based Tremor Video, the largest independent online video technology company, has successfully raised a $37 million round of financing. New York City-based W Capital Partners led the round, which also includes the participation from Keating Capital, Canaan Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, General Catalyst Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, Singapore’s EDBI, Time Warner and SAP Ventures.
Having acquired ScanScout and Transpera in the past year, Tremor Video has extended its market leadership in the interactive video space and reaches more consumers than any other online video advertising company (according to comScore).
“We invest in companies that are leaders in rapidly growing markets, and this is no exception,” said Bob Migliorino, Managing Director of W Capital Partners. “Tremor Video’s performance in the fastest growing segment in online media, combined with Video Hub’s game-changing technology, makes us extremely happy to be working with them.”
Monitor realtime key factors
With the launch of Video Hub in May of this year, Tremor Video has radically changed the network model by enabling brand advertisers and their agencies to monitor in real time the key factors that are driving their campaign performance. VideoHub analyzes numerous video signals and determines which factors are the most important in delivering campaign success, with particular emphasis on the criteria that drive engagement and brand lift.
Based on Tremor Video’s SE2 technology, Video Hub provides marketers with insight into which environments enhance their brands, what provokes viewer engagement, and why a campaign is successful. Tremor Video plans to continue investing in the continued development and market adoption of Video Hub. It will also use these funds to explore additional acquisitions and expand into fast growing markets internationally.
Apsalar nabs $5M for mobile analytics & behaviorial targeting
San Francisco-based Apsalar, a mobile analytics and behavioral targeting platform for iOS and Android apps, today announced it has closed a $5 million round of funding led by Thomvest Ventures. Apsalar plans to use the new funding to grow the development team, expand its product portfolio and ramp up sales and marketing efforts.
The funding includes participation by Thomvest Ventures, Battery Ventures, DN Capital and existing investors. The new round of funding comes on the heels of Apsalar’s $800,000 seed funding in late 2010 from 500 Startups, Mark Goines, Morado Venture Partners, Founder’s Co-op and Seraph Group. Don Butler, managing director at Thomvest Ventures joins Apsalar’s board of directors.
Apsalar’s comprehensive mobile analytics and behavioral targeting platform gives developers and publishers the tools to understand how their apps are used and to identify and deliver personalized content and offers to their most valuable users.
GoSteals offers free daily deals marketplace for businesses
 Launching this week at DEMO Fall 2011, GoSteals is a 100% free platform for every business and consumer worldwide to make daily deals. Built on top of the world’s largest mission-critical web services platform from Mediaspectrum, GoSteals is a self-service business model for the daily deal marketplace.
GoSteals empowers small businesses with a fully automated, self-service portal for managing the entire daily deal lifecycle. Within five minutes, merchants can log-on and structure their deals to advertise. That’s five minutes, to gain free exposure and new customers while keeping all the revenue generated in the process.
Merchants create and schedule their deal, maintaining complete and instant control throughout the entire deal life cycle. GoSteals provides them with real-time information on how many customers have reserved the deal. It even automates customer tracking by providing a unique 2-D bar code on every deal voucher
It’s not just local businesses that benefit. GoSteals is free for consumers as well. They can reserve — or “steal” — any deal they want at no cost. No upfront payment is required. They pay only when they actually cash it in at the participating business. If they don’t use it, they lose nothing. There is no risk involved, only the opportunity for extreme savings.
One of the primary drawbacks of daily deals for businesses is that the daily deal firms take significant cuts of every transaction on top of whatever usually significant discount is offered. Some researchers have questioned the sustainability of the daily deals model.
GoSteals launches this week in 15 core markets globally, with plans for universal reach within 60 days.
Tags: Asalar, Battery Ventures, Bob Migliorino, Canaan Partners, daily deals, DN Capital, Don Butler, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, financings, free daily deals for businesses, General Catalyst Partners, GoSteals, Groupon, Keating Capital, LIvingSocial, Mark Goines, Meritech Capital Partners, mobile analytics, New York, San Francisco, SAP Ventures, ScanScout, Singapore’s EDBI, Thomvest Ventures, Time Warner, Transpera, Tremor Video
Posted in Internet/New Media, Mobile, Potomac, Telecommunications, video, Washington, DC | No Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2011
 HERNDON, VA – ePals, which has developed an online learning network, has raised $47.2 million in new funding, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC filing says the round attracted more than 100 investors.
Principals listed in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission include Phil Bronner of Novak Biddle Partners, Jean Case, Mitchell Kapor, and Miles Gilburne.
The company merged with In2Books in January 2007 to create what is says is the “world’s largest K-12 e-learning network.”
It offers primary and secondary schools, teachers, students and parents worldwide a safe and secure platform for building educational communities, providing quality digital content and facilitating collaboration for effective 21st century learning. ePals is used by more than 600,000 educators and reaches more than 25 million students and parents in 200 counties and territories.
The company’s Web site lists the following investors:
Miles Gilburne and Nina Zolt; Steve and Jean Case; Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus; chair, Mozilla Foundation; chair, Second Life; National Geographic Ventures; Microsoft Corporation; Ted Leonsis; Yossi Vardi, Int’l Technologies Ventures; fomer chairman, ICQ; John Kao, Fellow, Royal Society of Arts; entrepreneur; author, Innovation Nation & Jamming; Nancy Peretsman, EVP, managing director, Allen & Co. Jesselson Capital; Sandy Lange, Partner, Hilan Capital; former chairman & CEO Pictorial William Raduchel, Former CTO, Time Warner; CSO, Sun Microsystems; Steve Arnold. Lucas Foundation.
That’s a formidable list of venture capitalists to have backing your company. Many of these folks, including Steve and Jean Case, Miles Gilburne, and Ted Leonsis, for instance, tend to invest in projects together.
Tags: ePals, financing, Herndon, Hilan Capital, Int’l Technologies Ventures, Jesselson Capital, Lucas Foundation, Miles Gilburne, Mitchell Kapor, National Geographic Ventures, online learning network, Steve and Jean Case, Sun Microsystems, Ted Leonsis; Yossi Vardi, Time Warner, VA
Posted in Education, Internet/New Media, IT, Money, Potomac, Virginia | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
 Bill Gunderson The CEOs on the President’s Job Council “must know what they’re doing, right?” asks Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management Inc. and host of the “Positively Wall Street,” radio show in San Diego. Gunderson says a handful of the CEOs the President chose for the council are not representative of what the country needs right now.
The President met with his Jobs Council in Durham, North Carolina Monday amidst much hoopla. But, Gunderson points out that six of the CEOs have been slashing jobs the last few years.
For instance: General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, chair of the council, has slashed GE’s job rolls by 20 percent since 2000; Intel, led by council member Paul Ottellini, shed 21 percent of its U.S. workforce in the last five years. GE, Gunderson notes, “returned minus 6.6 percent to its investors over the last ten years.”
What’s Citigroup doing in there?
Of other firms on the council, he says, “Southwest may be a good airline, but it lost 4 percent a year for the last ten years. Eastmann Kodak has been diving 20 percent a year for ten years. Citigroup recieved one of the biggest bailouts in history. Not sure what they’re even doing in there.”
Not only that, “The council members who used to be CEOs at AOL and Time Warner made business history by engineering the worst merger in history.”
We should note in former AOL CEO Steve Case’s favor that he has actively invested in and supported numerous startups since leaving AOL.
Still, Gunderson has a point. President Obama has often taken advice from the same Wall Street honchos who played roles in getting us into the economic mess of the last several years. The advice he’s received and the actions he’s taken may have prevented economic meltdown, but they have not given the economy the real boost it needs, nor created nearly enough jobs.
A few firms Gunderson would prefer to see on the council?
How about Autozone (AZO) or Apple (AAPL) or Priceline (PCLN), all rated “A” in his proprietary system, he asks.
Lots of good companies, good people, but not on the council
He tells TechJournalsouth, “I’ve rated Quality Systems Inc. as one of the Best Stocks Now in the country. Over the last ten years, it has returned an average or 38.4% per year to its owners. Including 47.4 in 2008, when the market went down 38 percent. Led by one of America’s best CEO’s, Steven Plochocki, they are decreasing the cost of healthcare by automating records. Over the last five years, they have gone from 661 to 2000 employees.”
He adds, “At Tractor Supply, CEO Jim Wright is hiring 1000 people a year to work in his stores, many selling organic farm supplies to city slickers. His stock is returning 41 percent a year in growth and dividends for the last 10 years. Harold Hamm runs Continental Resources, an oil and gas exploration and production company. Over the last three years, Continental has hired 15,000 people in North Dakota. They are looking for more.”
Gunderson says that of the 2,700 stocks he covers, 10 percent are investment grade.
“That’s a lot of good people from good companies, but none is on the president’s job commission.
See also: Bill Gunderson’s Instablog
Tags: AOL, Apple Inc., Autozone, Bill Gunderson, CEOs on President's Job Commission, Continental Resources, Durham, Eastman Kodak, GE, Gunderson Capital Management, Harold Hamm, Intel, Jeff Immelt, Jim Wright, Jobs Commission needs better CEOs, NC, Paul Ottellini, President's Job Commission CEOs, Priceline, Quality Systems, Southwest Airlines, Steve Case, Steven Plochocki, Time Warner, Tractor Supply
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 20th, 2010
 Christopher Mitchell By Chistopher Mitchell
Opelika, Alabama is the latest community in the Southeast to move toward a community owned broadband network.
Last week citizens approved a fiber-to-the-home network owned by the public power utility to expand telecom competition and invest in smart-grid services.
Though major telecom companies have long argued that broadband has plenty of competition, many communities beg to differ.
General dissatisfaction
This is not an uprising against a single cable or phone company, rather general dissatisfaction with de facto monopolist providers who focus first on shareholder returns rather than community needs.
Throughout the south, nearly every national cable co has had to deal with an upstart community that chose to own its information infrastructure: Comcast (Chattanooga, TN), Cox (Lafayette, LA), Time Warner (Wilson, NC), and Charter (Opelika, AL).
Fastest and least expensive broadband systems are municipal
The trend is fascinating: the single fastest citywide broadband tier available in the US comes from Chattanooga with 150Mbps.
Probably the most economical connection in the nation lies in Lafayette with 10Mbps for a mere $30/month (as with most community fiber networks, Lafayette and Chattanooga only offer symmetrical services – ensuring users can publish content as readily as downloading it).
Bristol, Virginia was first
In fact, the very first city-owned triple-play fiber-to-the-home network in the nation started in Bristol, Virginia, where it has brought hundreds of high paying jobs to people who sorely need them.
Opelika’s 62 percent yes vote was necessary because Alabama law requires a referendum before communities build a network offering cable services – laws pushed by deep-pocketed incumbent providers who understand that communities themselves are the most likely source of broadband competition.
Due to the massive upfront investment, long payback, and difficulty of competing with an entrenched incumbent, the private sector has little appetite for overbuilding.
Why communities build their own networks
Wireless may be competitive against DSL, but Wimax is no match for DOCSIS 3 cable networks, which are more reliable and offer higher capacity in general. Fiber-to-the-home offers much higher reliability, capacity, and headroom for upgrades but wireline companies with little competition see little pressure to upgrade.
This is why communities are building their own FTTH networks – they want to remain technologically competitive with the rest of the world (and superior to perhaps 95 percent of the US) but recognize they have to invest in this infrastructure themselves – just as many of them did when private companies saw little reason to offer electricity to everyone at reasonable rates.
Battle looms again in NC
In North Carolina, Time Warner Cable’s lobbyists have consistently fought to outlaw community networks (even in areas the private sector has no interest in serving).
The effort failed earlier this summer despite making greater inroads than previous attempts. They will undoubtedly be back in Raleigh to try again next session – lobbyists are a tiny expense compared to the cost of a truly competitive landscape for these companies.
Christopher Mitchell is the Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He writes regularly about community networks on MuniNetworks.org and has published a comprehensive report about such networks: Breaking the Broadband Monopoly: How Communities are Building the Networks They Need .
TechJournal South has covered the efforts of states to regulate municipal broadband for some time. North Carolina has thus far turned back two efforts to put restrictions on the efforts of cities to create their own broadband networks, which one has done and several are planning. Both previous articles below contain links to numerous background pieces on the topic.
See: Six months to act
Municipal broadband battle rages on
Tags: AL, Bristol, Charter, Chattanooga, Comcast, Cox, LA, Lafayette, Municipal broadband, NC, Opelika, Time Warner, TN, VA, Wilson
Posted in Alabama, Carolinas, North Carolina, Other SE, Potomac, Telecommunications, Tennessee, Viewpoint, Virginia | No Comments »
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