ARTS & FARCES internet

ESRD

Healthcare lobbyists spent a shocking—shocking, I tell you—US $876 million—to ensure the US got the healthcare reform it deserved. “Medical interests alone shelled out more than $876 million in lobbying expenses during the 15 months beginning in January 2009 and ending in March, when Congress passed the sweeping overhaul,” write Bennett Roth and Alex Knott, reporting for Roll Call. “Those stakeholders, including the drug industry, doctors, hospitals and manufacturers of medical products, were responsible for one out of every five dollars doled out on lobbying during that period, according to a CQ MoneyLine analysis of lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress.”

Internet

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) outlined a process to reclassify broadband internet access as a telecommunications service thereby subjecting it to some of the same regulation as telephone service. The regulations would be used specifically to guarantee network neutrality; internet service providers would be prohibited from discriminating against applications, sites, or users. The FCC will not control rates or content. One regulation that is applied to telephone service that will not be applied to broadband service is the open access provisions of the Communications Act. Cable and telecommunications companies will not be required to provide access to their physical lines. Predictably, the cable and telephone companies report the sky falling. Edward Wyatt, writing for the New York Times, reports the National Cable and Telecommunications Association called the decision “fraught with legal uncertainty and practical consequences which pose real risks to our ability to provide the high-quality and innovative services that our customers expect.” Thomas Tauke, Verizon executive vice president, told Wyatt the decision was “‘legally unsupported’ and could only bring ‘confusion and delay to the important work of continuing to build the nation’s broadband future.’” Wyatt should have asked Tauke why Verizon has virtually ceased all fiber installations in the US.

Media

The only radio I listen to is the Minnesota affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR). Stop laughing. I listen to the Current sometimes, but mostly it’s the news. Except for Saturday night; then it’s Dale Connelly’s Radio Heartland. I’m 55 and as it turns out, right smack dab in the middle of NPR’s radio demographic. That’s pretty surprising. NPR’s youngest audience segment are the podcast users with a median age of 33; the iPhone app audience segment is 38. Truth be told I use all of the NPR platforms, in this order: Website, iPhone app, radio, podcast.

What the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gives with one hand with its reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service, it takes away by kowtowing to the entertainment cartel. The FCC has published an order (.pdf; 135KB) which allows the film industry to temporarily disable the outputs on televisions, digital video recorders, set-top boxes, and probably computers preventing the ability to make copies. The technology mandate is called Selectable Output Control. It’s the original “Outer Limits” intro coming through. Michael Weinberg, writing for Public Knowledge, rants this one up pretty good. Cory Doctorow, predictably, has the best analysis I’ve found.

Privacy

I’m a sucker for data visualization and IBM’s Matt McKeon has a tremendous visualization of how Facebook has become more permissive with its users’ personal information.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said in January that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private. Last December, Facebook—which had previously allowed its 350 million users to keep private most personal information—reversed course and made the name, profile picture, gender, location, networks, friends list, and subscribed-to pages public. “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people,” Zuckerberg told Michael Arrington in a public interview. “That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” Not true according to a survey by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. Laura M. Holson, writing for the New York Times, reports the survey found that “88 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds it surveyed last July said there should be a law that requires websites to delete stored information. And 62 percent said they wanted a law that gave people the right to know everything a website knows about them.”

Publishing

Jeffrey Zeldman is one of the most knowledgeable web designers going and almost single-handedly responsible for the standards-based approach to web design. His A List Apart is a weekly must read, featuring the brightest minds on the web, and I continually hear really good things about An Event Apart (at US$895 for a two-day conference, I’ll probably pass). But I think he’s making a big mistake with A Book Apart, his print publishing endeavor. The imprint’s first title has been announced: Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers. The 85-page book is available in print only for US$18 plus shipping. The lack of a digital edition is an enormous disappointment.

User experience

Tiffani Jones has a really good article about content-driven design on Things That Are Brown. Jones articulates well what editors, content managers, and those of us user experience folks that come from an editorial background have been saying since the beginning. Content matters and must be part of the process at the earliest stages. “It’s no longer: discovery, information architecture, design, templates, and development,” writes Jones. “Instead, we’re doing: content strategy, information architecture, web writing, content production, design, templates and development—or some version of this.” My version is user research > content strategy > information architecture > visual design > editorial > usability > maintenance > repeat. Jones hugely misses one point, though. “If the need for content-driven design seems obvious to you, it might be because of the content strategy hoopla. It wasn’t so obvious five years ago,” she writes. Not true. Some of us have been banging this particular drum for more than 15 years.