Media Bits & Bytes - February 17, 2011

* Online Media Companies Thrive on Unpaid Labor (New York
  Times)
* Last Week, Everyone Turned to Aljazeera (Tech Crunch)
* Digital Divide: Segregation Is Alive and Well in Social
  Media (Advertising Age)
* Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the
  U.S. (Nielsen.com Blog)
* Apple Hit with Suit Alleging Privacy Violations (Network
  World)
* California: Police Can Search Your Cellphone Without a
  Warrant (Arts Technica)
* Law Enforcement Rides Roughshod Over Antiquated Privacy
  Law (New York Times)
* Web Running Out of Addresses (Wall Street Journal)
* Venezuela, Cuba Outfox U.S. with Fiber Optic Cable
  (Reuters)

==========

Online Media Companies Thrive on Unpaid Labor
At Media Companies, A Nation of Serfs

by David Carr
New York Times
February 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/business/media/14carr.html

"Some of the fizz, if not a great big bubble, seems to have
returned to media, depending on how you define "media."...
The funny thing about all these frothy millions and billions
piling up? Most of the value was created by people working
free. "

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/business/media/14carr.html

==========

Last Week, Everyone Turned to Aljazeera
Al Jazeera's Social Revolution (In Realtime)

by Erick Schonfeld
TechCrunch
Feb 13, 2011
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/al-jazeeras-social-revolution-in-realtime/

"While you can debate about the exact role of social media,
specifically Twitter and Facebook, in Egypt's revolution,
there is no question about its role as a new global media
channel. Where once people tuned into CNN to watch
governments collapse, this time around they tuned into Al
Jazeera on the Web (at least in English speaking countries
lie the U.S. where Al Jazeera English is not widely carried
on cable systems).

Thanks to Chartbeat, we now have a realtime snapshot of what
activity looked like on Al Jazeera's English website on
Friday when Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak resigned.
Everyone wanted to watch and they flooded to Al Jazeera's
English website."

Read more:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/al-jazeeras-social-revolution-in-realtime/

==========

Digital Divide: Segregation Is Alive and Well in Social
Media

by Pepper Miller
Advertising Age
February 01, 2011
http://adage.com/bigtent/post?article_id=148596

"We still have a pretty segregated set of
experiences...those often writing about Twitter for a
mainstream audience also tend to reflect the networks that
they see." --Baratunde Thurston Director of Digital, The
Onion, to ABC News

Read more: http://adage.com/bigtent/post?article_id=148596

==========

Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the
U.S.

Among Mobile Phone Users, Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely
Smartphone Owners in the U.S.

by Don Kellogg, Senior Manager, Telecom Practice Research
and Insights, The Nielsen Company
NielsenWire
February 01, 2011
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/among-mobile-phone-users-hispanics-asians-are-most-likely-smartphone-owners-in-the-u-s/

"As of December 2010, nearly a third (31%) of all mobile
consumers in the United States owned smartphones, cellphones
with app-based, web-enabled operating systems. But
smartphone penetration is even higher among mobile users who
are part of ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. -
namely Asian/Pacific Islanders (45%), Hispanics (45%) and
African-Americans (33%), populations that also tend to skew
younger

Read more:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/among-mobile-phone-users-hispanics-asians-are-most-likely-smartphone-owners-in-the-u-s/

==========

Apple Hit with Suit Alleging Privacy Violations

By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service
NetworkWorld
January 31, 2011
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/020111-apple-hit-with-another-suit.html

"Apple has been hit with another lawsuit accusing it of
privacy violations for the way it shares information
collected from iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users with
advertisers."

Read more:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/020111-apple-hit-with-another-suit.html

==========

California: Police Can Search Your Cellphone Without a
Warrant
Warrantless cell phone search gets a green light in
California

By Jacqui Cheng
Arts Technica
January 4, 2011
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/warrantless-cell-phone-search-gets-a-green-light-in-california.ars

"The contents of your cell phone can reveal a lot more about
you than the naked eye can: who your friends are, what
you've been saying and when, which websites you've visited,
and more. There has long been debate over user privacy when
it comes to various data found on a cell phone, but
according to the California Supreme Court, police don't need
a warrant to start digging through your phone's contents."

Read more:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/warrantless-cell-phone-search-gets-a-green-light-in-california.ars

==========

Law Enforcement Rides Roughshod Over Antiquated Privacy Law
1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun by the Web

By Miguel Helft and Claire Cain Miller
New York Times
January 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10privacy.html

"Concerned by the wave of requests for customer data from
law enforcement agencies, Google last year set up an online
tool showing the frequency of these requests in various
countries. In the first half of 2010, it counted more than
4,200 in the United States...As Internet services - allowing
people to store e-mails, photographs, spreadsheets and an
untold number of private documents - have surged in
popularity, they have become tempting targets for law
enforcement."

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10privacy.html

==========

Web Running Out of Addresses
Internet Sites, Carriers Are Laying the Groundwork for a New
Routing System

By Ben Worthen and Cari Tuna
Wall Street Journal
February 01, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254304576116401267588510.html

"The Internet is about to run out of new addresses, a
milestone that is spurring Web giants like Facebook Inc. and
Google Inc. to develop new versions of their sites and
prompting carriers like AT&T Inc. and others to upgrade
networks.

This week, the organization that oversees Internet addresses
is expected to dole out its last batch of existing Internet
protocol addresses, a step akin to telephone companies
running out of numbers to give customers."

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254304576116401267588510.html

==========

Venezuela, Cuba Outfox U.S. with Fiber Optic Cable

Reuters.com
January 18, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70H5ZZ20110118

"Venezuela will connect Cuba to a high-speed fiber optic
cable next month undermining U.S. sanctions prohibiting
Cuba's access to nearby underwater lines, the head of the
project said on Tuesday.

A French ship will begin laying the 995-mile submarine cable
on Saturday and it is expected to reach eastern Cuba by
February 8, Wilfredo Morales, president of
Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe, the Venezuelan-Cuban joint
venture that owns the line, said.

"This is a project that we consider of high strategic
importance in the region ... It will be operated by
technicians from our countries and we are not going to be
dependent on any economic or other interest of another state
or the empire," Morales said in an interview with state-run
Radio Rebelde."

Read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70H5ZZ20110118

===========

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