Hulu: the hating game

NBCU gave everyone plenty of time to store up the hate for the newly named Hulu. So let the games begin.

From Techcrunch:

"Congratulations are in order to YouTube-competitor Hulu, which took just five months to come up with a name after announcing itself in March. CEO Jason Kilar says the name “captures the spirit of the service we’re building” in an open letter published today.

Just don’t translate that name to certain languages, because the name may capture significantly more of the spirit of the service than NBC and News Corp., the media giants behind Hulu, intended.

Given the litigious nature of online video, that is some serious irony. And you can bet that Hulu, and its parent companies NBC and News Corp., are going to be sending out one heck of a lot of cease and desist letters as soon as this thing launches."

From Silicon Valley Insider:

"For anyone keeping track, that means the venture now has a $100 million investment from Providence Equity, a $1 billion valuation, a CEO and a name. Great! Only a few more hurdles left! Hulu still has to deal with the fact that it:

• hasn't launched
• has 120 employees and a big burn rate (call it $10 million a year)
• has a deeply entrenched, globally dominant competitor
• is two years too late
• has been shunned by the other big dogs in the industry (CBS, Disney, Viacom)
• is a joint venture between two companies that hate each other."

From Terry Heaton:

"This portal has been so hyped as God’s gift to online video that any name they came up with would likely have bombed, especially with the tech community — which includes the people who’ve written the book on online video without the “help” of the networks or studios. Old media just doesn’t get that new media isn’t created in a board room with fancy consultants (oh shit, I’m a consultant!), because the results are usually just varnished horse crap. Hulu?

The problem is that the fuss over the stupid name casts a pall on what is really a smart move by NBC and Fox, namely creating a single portal for video instead of asking people to come to each branded site. Of course, it would be better if all networks were a part of this, and I think announcing the project without a name or a more complete partner list was a huge tactical error."

From Steve Sarfran: (Lost Remote)

"Three stages in newly named web product:

1. Everyone hates it, makes fun of it
2. People slowly adopt it, forget that they hated it
3. People start to use it either as a verb (”Google that”) or in comparison to inferior products (”It’s no flickr.”)"

Clown Co = Hulu

Fall is in the air (not really in Atlanta) and the branding exercise is over, NBCU and News Corp present Hulu.

From Techcrunch:

"This morning news broke about NBC Universal and News Corporation’s joint video venture, hitherto dubbed “Clown Co.”, after a press release was sent out by a Hulu.com representative claiming that “Hulu” was the new name for that venture.

Initially, I was a bit concerned that this could be merely a hoax, as no press releases were sent out by NBC or News Corp. themselves. However, after speaking with the Hulu representative, Christina Lee, and seeing the news spread across the circuit like vine, it does appear as though this announcement is authentic."

From Reuters:

"We just wanted a name that is short and easy to spell," Hulu spokeswoman Christina Lee said. "We like the idea that it rhymes with itself. We wanted a fun name."

From Ad Week:

"When it does launch, the site will allow fans to stream episodes of NBC series such as The Office and Friday Night Lights, along with the soon-to-launch remake of The Bionic Woman.

Meanwhile, Fox is planning to offer on-demand episodes of staples like The Simpsons and Mad TV as well as premiering shows such as the New Orleans-set cop drama K-Ville. In addition to Hulu.com, the sweeping venture will see these series distributed across the biggest sites on the Web, including AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo!.

"Why is Hulu the new venture's name? According to a note posted on the site by newly installed CEO Jason Kilar, it's meant to connote fun and simplicity. "Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce and rhymes with itself," he wrote.

"Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world's premiere content when, where and how you want it."

Eric Schmidt on the Spectrum Auction

The High School sports battle

On the heels of Hearst's announcement of HighSchoolPlaybook.com comes Belo's HSgametime.com and Emmis' IHSAAsports.org. From a naming standpoint I think Hearst is the clear winner.

From Mediaweek:

"Hearst-Argyle’s HighSchoolPlaybook, an online, on-air and mobile brand that combines social networking with high-definition video, stats, music and merchandising, initially launched on seven of its 26 stations; four also launched YouTube pages. The TV group also plans to syndicate the brand next year in markets where it doesn’t own stations.

Belo launched HSgametime.com covering football in six of its markets, with plans to complete the rollout to all 15 of it stations by September.

“High school sports is an untapped area,” said Chris Campbell, director of interactive media for Emmis and managing director of IHSAAsports.org, which is running the Indiana-wide site as a stand-alone brand with its own staff and sales. “We’ve found an overwhelmingly positive reaction from advertisers who are hungry to reach the multiple demographics that high school sports attract.”

“We’re treating high school sports as a community,” said Terry Mackin, executive vp of digital media for Hearst-Argyle. “You can talk to friends, talk to groups, move pictures back and forth, participate in contests about which school is the most spirited.”

From Lost Remote:

"Belo is in the middle of a multi-market rollout of HSGameTime.com, a national high school sports site with local ties to each of its TV and newspaper properties. Beyond the stuff you’d expect, the site features a social network for both parents and teens, as well as the capability for users to host their own blogs and upload video and photos. Much more later, but in the meantime, check out the Dallas version of HSGameTime, one of the first to launch."

From the old favorite Little Lost Robot!

"I’ve been busy lately, helping train up our small army of high school VJ reporters for football season - “sideline reporters”, we’re calling them. Of course, high schoolers are video sponges these days, with all their YouTubin’ and Facebookin’, so it’s actually been rather smooth going.

Anyway, I’m getting kinda excited about my station/company’s new endeavor and I can’t wait to see what the fledgling reporters come up with. The hardest thing about the whole process was learning the video editing software - after spending most of my career becoming an AVID master, it’s kinda frustrating to learn a $79 over-the-counter editing program that’s completely counter-intuitive. But there’s people smiling on the back of the box who look like they’re enjoying it, so I’m gonna give it another shot."

The Happiness Factory

Coke is taking a different approach with its new Happiness Factory promotion.

From AdWeek:

"For the sequel to the Cannes Silver Lion-winning (and Emmy-nominated) "Happiness Factory," Coke engineered a Hollywood-style premiere in Second Life.

There is nothing like a movie to be able to tell the story of the world inside the Coca-Cola vending machine and bring the characters to life," said Judith Snyder, a Coke representative. "Through the short film and other promotional elements—including authentically designed movie posters, movie-style trailers, an interactive digital program, promotions and packaging—we are able to extend the life of this campaign."

"The eco-system of the world feels very complete, from the weather to geography to insects to relationships, to magical elixir to archetypal character," said Al Moseley ecd at Wieden + Kennedy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, of making the spot. "We played to narrative conventions, with the ordinary guy who goes through a right of passage to learn about himself."

"It isn't about disruption anymore, it's about creating a piece of entertainment that people choose to download and own," said Moseley. "That's the difference here: we've created something people will want. It's a commercial, but it's not a spot."

BREAKING: People don't like mobile ads

No way!

From MocoNews:

"Not great news for the legions of mobile ad firms and the many content companies hoping to graft their ad models onto the mobile platform: a new survey from Universal McCann found that display and video advertising on mobile TV, and the mobile Internet in general, are “irritating.”

In a poll of 9,500 mobile users in 21 countries, 61 percent of people rejected ads that ran alongside mobile TV programs and mobile Internet pages. Meanwhile, paid-for branded content, opt-in Bluetooth downloads and promotional giveaways fared much better, with 71 percent of those polled accepting these formats.

Hearst-Argyle's Highschool Playbook

Hearst-Argyle launched High School Playbook in seven markets.

From Broadcast&Cable:

“We’re targeting three demographics,” says Hearst-Argyle Executive VP Terry Mackin, “teens, the parents of teens, and the [local] adult community that’s interested in high school sports.”

Mackin termed the project a “seven-figure investment, minimally,” that took about a year to create."

From Lost Remote: Michael Gay

"Seven Hearst-Argyle markets launched a new social networking site that is focused around local high school sports. HighSchoolPlaybook.com provides an environment where teens can share video and photos about their schools’ sports teams, cheer leading and bands.

Many of the stations have even hired a group of student sideline reporters who are using HD cameras to shoot local sports stories and reports for the site. According to Broadcasting and Cable, Hearst-Argyle plans to license the service to non-Hearst-Argyle stations in the next year. As part of the launch, Hearst-Argyle also launched five new YouTube channels for the stations involved in HighSchoolPlaybook."

TV ads not on TV

Advertising HD TVs in a different way. From the comments: Official Aurea site here.

Go take a look at the site. It takes an amazingly long time to load and then... what? Ok, its a reveal site but come on. The only thing you can do is send them your email address. No mention of anything product related; it could be a toaster, a TV, a new sitcom, who knows?

From Lost Remote:

"Phillips Electronics has a new high-end HDTV flat screen line called Aurea it has launched in Europe. They’re not bothering much with TV ads, however. They’re spending their ad bucks by producing five minute, artsy films and then showing the films on the Aurea at fashion and jewelry stores in Europe."

From the NYT:

"The five-minute film is actually an advertisement for a new television from Philips Electronics, a high-end flat-screen model called Aurea. The film, a spy story shot in Shanghai, will be shown in the Paris boutiques of the fashion label Lanvin and the jeweler Lorenz Bäumer — on Aurea televisions, of course.

The decision to produce a short film with an art-house director like Mr. Wong shows how brands are trying to break away from their reliance on 30-second television spots, which some marketers fear have lost their effectiveness. Now, even televisions are being marketed without recourse to television.

“The idea is to be more exclusive, to be very different from your traditional kind of advertising,” said Sandrine Huijgen, marketing director for consumer electronics at Philips. “We don’t see Dior advertising a lot on television.”

Joost: Hindered by American Stupidity

Not like "you are stupid" stupidity, more like "you didn't pay attention to who you elected or what they did" stupidity. Its not big secret that America, inventor of the internet, is somewhere down the list past Slovenia in terms of broadband speed and cost.

(The US - with broadband penetration at just under 53% - is in 24th place.)

The fact that anyone would consider 3Mps down broadband in 2007 should be an indicator of just how bad the situations is.

Oh wait! I just checked and the official definition is "data transmission speeds exceeding 200 kilobits per second (Kbps), or 200,000 bits per second, in at least one direction: downstream (from the Internet to your computer) or upstream (from your computer to the Internet)."

I guess the rest of the post really kind of writes itself. Joost can't work on a 10 year old, crippled network. Another big win for the USA!

From NewTeeVee:

"The fundamental problem that Joost faces is the fact that the broadband available to North American households simply isn’t fast enough for them to provide image quality comparable to digital cable or satellite, much less high-definition video.

My concern is that with DSL provider AT&T moving into IPTV, and cable Internet providers already delivering video, what little competition there is in America for consumer broadband providers, any incentive to increase speeds (especially the upstream bandwidth) could hit a wall of corporate self-interest. After all, why should companies like Comcast offer the kind of high speed broadband enjoyed in Europe and Asia when it would simply enable companies like Joost to compete with the company’s own digital video offerings?

Even if there is a significant increase in network speed, without any guarantees of network neutrality, Internet providers could simply charge Joost and other independent IPTV upstarts for the bandwidth rights to stream video of comparable quality to their own digital video offerings.

And guess who that cost would get passed on to? That would be you. So while Joost has a lot of potential on other continents, the cards are stacked against the company here in the USA."

Gannett's 100 local mobile sites

Gannett launched 100 local mobile sites in support of its existing newspaper and TV stations.

From the press release:

"Breaking news, sports, weather and other must-have local information now can be accessed easily by mobile phone users in more than 100 local markets, Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) announced today.

The local mobile sites are designed to appear on small screens and include content – updated 24/7 – produced by local Gannett Information Centers. Information Centers power real-time news and information to multiple platforms, including the Web, newspapers, television and now mobile devices, throughout the day and night.

“Local news and information is more in demand than ever by consumers across the country. Making it easily available by mobile device takes Gannett’s local information expertise and puts it in consumers’ hands,” said Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital. “Advertisers who appreciate the value of trusted brands, local content and audiences will be able to reach out to those consumers throughout the day.”

From MocoNews:

"The company release does not mention 4Info, but Matt Jones, Gannett’s director of mobile strategy and operations, tells us that it will be used in the new local site services. Gannett has had a growing relationship with the SMS-based mobile search company—in June announcing a $10 million investment and an intention to use 4Info’s mobile search and interactive advertising services for its national flagship title USA Today.

Jones tells us the local mobile initiative will not be crossing over with the online advertising venture Gannett has been working on with Tribune, which has its own local mobile sites. He says Third Screen Media will be one of the companies serving ads onto the local sites, but he did not confirm whether Google will be involved. Gannett was an early partner of the search giant’s business selling print newspaper inventory to Google advertisers; Google of course has high hopes of taking its advertising services mobile (not to mention getting deeper into local services to help further its advertising reach)."

The Weather Channel's blue box

Weather videos with ads for you!

From Lost Remote:

"The Weather Channel’s weather.com launched a new video player today they’re calling “Blue Box.” (No, I didn’t get the name at first either, until I looked at their logo.) In a press release, the player is described as being powered by Brightcove and DoubleClick. The player itself has 5 “channels” of video: News/Breaking Weather, Local Forecasts, Lifestyle, Severe Weather, and On the Weather Channel. It also allows you to search by zip code, where I found the weather forecast for my own city."

From the comments:

"Well, speaking as someone who has used all sorts of video content systems, there is a reason why Brightcove is on dozens of sites.

It’s easy to navigate, and can be at least lightly personalized to match the web site. It’s easy to separate the videos into all sorts of channels, and you can easily share and embed any of the video clips (as well as syndicate a channel or your entire player)."

Hearst buying Kaboodle (updated)

Aggregation marches on.

From PaidContent:

"Hearst has announced its second online acquisition in two weeks: first it bought UGO for between $100-$150 million, and now it is buying shopping recommendation site Kaboodle, reports WSJ. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. (Updated: Om says the price was around $40 million).

It started as a general sharing service, where people could save their search results from other sites, for other users to review…and then it quickly morphed into a commerce/shopping recommendation site, where users can browse, tag and collect finds from other shopping sites. The site’s 250,000 registered users can also rate and review the products they save...it generates revenue through advertising and affiliate relationships with more than 1,000 retailers.

Hearst wants to include Kaboodle’s service into the websites of its magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, mixing content with commerce. Also, it wants to develop Kaboodle into a larger independent lifestyle site by adding more content and then more advertisers, the story says."

From GigaOM:

"According to our sources went for somewhere around $40 million. Manish Chandra, founder and CEO of the 18-month old start-up based in Santa Clara, Calif., declined to comment on specific terms of the deal.

When I asked him why he decided to sell the company, he candidly replied, that “the stakes are getting higher, and others [competitors] are raising a ton of money.” What do that say, any exit is a good exit.

Chandra said that since a large percentage of Kaboodle users are women, and the site has an e-commerce/shopping component, it fit nicely with the larger goals of Hearst. He also added that the deal doesn’t impact its deals with Conde Nast properties.

There is an interesting pattern in some of the buys by big media corporations. They are not just buying pure-content, but instead seem to be interested in content-enhancing tools that rely on communities than individual content creators. Newroo, Photobucket, Reddit, Last.fm, Clipmarks and now Kaboodle fit that profile."

From WSJ:

"The deal marks Hearst's attempt to tap a new area of e-commerce that combines online social networking with shopping, as it pursues new ways to engage magazine readers online while investing in fast-growing Internet businesses. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Hearst says it is likely to build pages on Kaboodle featuring products from many of its 19 U.S. magazine titles, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, aiming to generate buzz around the magazines by allowing shoppers to sound off about the products they feature online. It wants to develop Kaboodle into a larger independent lifestyle site by linking it with deep-pocketed advertisers and more editorial content."

From Under the radar:

8. What does the future look like for Kaboodle?

Manish Chandra: We believe Kaboodle's social shopping community will fundamentally alter the landscape of online shopping - by connecting people with similar taste and style, and tying together the entire shopping process, from product discovery to purchase.

Most shopping platforms built to date have been optimized, not for lifestyle goods, but for products where decisions are based primarily on features and price, like electronics and computer hardware and software. These same platforms provide a solitary shopping experience, and work well for people who want to quickly and efficiently complete a transaction completion."

Update: From CNET:

"With its impressive technology, tools and audience, Kaboodle is a natural overlap for Hearst Magazines," Cathleen P. Black, president of Hearst Magazines, said in the statement. "We think Kaboodle has terrific potential for many of our brands, especially in the fashion, beauty and consumer technology categories. Our readers will be able to find the products featured in our magazines, shop electronically with their friends and get their feedback. It's another means for making sure our readers stay engaged in today's saturated media landscape."

Smartphone browser shootout

Information Week looks at the Palm, Blackberry, HTC and the iPhone. Go read it all or just read this:

"The good news, as you might expect, is the Apple iPhone. The genius of Apple is its ability, over and over again, to completely reinvent, from the ground up, the user interface for hardware, and to support it with brilliant software. Web browsing on the iPhone is a paradigm shift, a completely different experience -- just as the BlackBerry was, in its time, a paradigm shift.

The elements of the technology that makes the iPhone so different will find their way into other devices, just as the BlackBerry's thumbpad and push e-mail have become more or less standard on smartphones. Touchscreens and direct interaction with the Web page will become standards of their own sort because they've come along just in time as computing, both personal and business, moves to the Web."

Worldwide Biggies raises $9m round

These guys have been out for about a year and have just decided to raise a round.

From NewTeeVee:

"Albie Hecht, the former president of Nickelodeon, has raised $9 million and secured distribution deals for Worldwide Biggies, his young adult- and family-focused digital studio. Worldwide Biggies is not exclusively devoted to online productions, though web distribution is a part of all of its projects.

“We birth things online but make sure they have multi-platform DNA so they can be transported elsewhere,” said Hecht in an interview Monday. That means constraining itself a smaller budget — a.k.a. lots of green screens — and having the agility to quickly incorporate viewer feedback. “We can constantly be version 3 the day after version 2,” he said.

NBC Universal, Hearst Corp., Greycroft, Platform Equity, and PrismVentureWorks invested in the company, which already has a hit under its belt with The Naked Brothers Band TV series (accompanied by webisodes and podcasts) for Nickelodeon.

NBC plans to partner with and potentially invest in additional digital entertainment studios, with Worldwide Biggies being the first and additional deals in the works, said George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer at NBC Universal, in an interview Monday."

Digital Chocolate launches DeChoc Cafe

Trip Hawkins betting big on his mobile game philosophy.

From Moconews:

"Digital Chocolate has officially launched its DChoc Cafe Series, and claims that carrier launches are underway for more than 100 operators. In addition to the previously announced Nokia Ngage launch it claims games in the series are already available on 3, AT&T and T-Mobile. Future operators include Sprint, Alltel, O2, Telefonica, SFR, Telecom New Zealand, Telstra, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile, and handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson is also mentioned.

It’s a pretty wide-ranging launch but Digital Chocolate has been working on this for a long time, and it covers found Trip Hawkins’ mantra that mobile games should be social and casual—in this case casual games have social results. Whether this will work won’t be known until later…"

From the site: (Not a direct link, ie its a flash site)

"What are DChoc Café Games?
DChoc Café games provide you a virtual café on your mobile phone where you can gather with friends to play the most popular games like Solitaire, Sudoku, Mahjong and Hold'em Poker! Customize a character to represent you and invite friends to join your café. Best of all, try any game before you buy it!"

Clown Co, NBCU and Peacock Equity

NBC is out in front today with two stories. The first is a head to head about web video with Sab Kanaujia, vice president for digital product strategy at NBC Universal and Steven Starr, co-founder and chairman of Revver. The second is a somewhat strange interview with NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff.

From the WSJ:

Sab Kanaujia begins: Can independent creators make a living with Web video? I don't think they can in the short term. Current business models online are not attractive enough to make a living or leave your other day job.

Steven Starr responds: Well, it all depends how you define independent creators. Old school independent creators, used to Hollywood economics, should stay home. But successful independent online creators are seeing CPM and [cost-per-click] returns that can exceed $10,000 per month.

From Forbes:

"Will New Site be distributing any content through widgets?

New Site is working through that. It's certainly their right to do that, and there's no reason why they wouldn't want to do that.

NBC Universal and GE Commercial Finance launched a $250 million Peacock Equity Fund in April to invest in media and technology companies that are developing products of relevance to NBC. How does the fund fit with your overall strategy?

This is a way for us to seed digital businesses and to have an equity stake. Most of the time, we take an equity stake, we have an operating relationship as well. So it's a great way for us to play the field. We've announced three investments so far; we've made five. We think we're well on pace to distribute that $250 million over the two- to three-year life span that we expect it to last.

In January, NBC signed up with Qualcomm's MediaFlo platform to provide two channels of programming. Mobile video doesn't seem to drawing much in the way of traffic yet. What has to happen for that to change?

I generally think that underlying that is a larger issue with the way video content is distributed on cellphones in the United States. Today, it's a broken business model. If you look across most of the platforms on which premium content owners distribute their content, on almost every platform, the total gross dollars for the consumption of that content is shared in a way where the content owners, on the aggregate, get more than 50% of the gross dollars.

In this country, if you look at the gross revenue of content distribution on mobile phones, 9% of the gross revenue goes to content owners, 70% stays with the carriers and 21% goes to content aggregators and other middlemen. We think over time that that'll get fixed. I believe the carriers are like us, long-term greedy, not short-term greedy. There are two ways to get that fixed: either we do that in partnership with the carriers or we figure out ways to go around the carriers. We'd much prefer to do it in partnership with the carriers."

Lonelygirl15 finale: 12 in 12

It seems like such a long time ago but I guess it was last summer.

From Mashable:

"the Season One finale of Lonelygirl15 (yes, there may be another series) will be debuted exclusively on MySpaceTV on Friday, August 3rd.

But wait, there’s more: this “12 In 12″ event means 12 LonelyGirl15 segments run at a rate of one per hour for 12 consecutive hours.

Beginning 8am Friday, you can start watching the segments, with another one coming down the drip-feed each hour of the day.

Each segment is only 1 to 4 minutes in length, meaning you’ll need to find something else to do for the other 56 minutes of each hour - no doubt MySpaceTV hopes you’ll stick around and view other clips."

22 megahertz of "open access"

Well we were waiting all day for the news but it came over the wires around 6 last night. The FCC approved "open access" for part of the spectrum. Some say its kind of a win for Google but AT&T is keeping its own spin positive.

From Reuters:

"The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday voted to shake up the wireless market by approving a set of ground-rules for a big airwaves auction that would require the winner to make them accessible to any cell phone, device or application.

The access requirement would apply to 22 megahertz of the 62 MHz of spectrum to be sold. The FCC suggested a $4.6 billion minimum price for the 22 MHz block of airwaves. If that price is not reached, the airwaves would be auctioned again, but without the access requirement, according to the agency."

Kevin Martin's statement (via MocoNews)

Chairman Kevin Martin: I am committed to ensuring that the fruits of wireless innovation swiftly pass into the hand of consumers.

Currently, American consumers are too often asked to throw away their old phones and buy new ones if they want to switch cell phone carriers. And when they buy that new phone, it is the wireless provider, not the consumer, who chooses what applications the consumer will be allowed to use on that new handset…

A network that is more open to devices and applications can help foster innovation on the edges of the network...We will ensure these open platform rules are implemented, through significant enforcement mechanisms that place the burden on the licensee to demonstrate their compliance and that their policies are fair and reasonable.

Interested parties respond (via GigaOM)

Google: “The FCC took real but incomplete progress this afternoon,” said Rick Whitt, Google’s lead policy exec, in a conference call Tuesday afternoon, lauding the openness conditions but lamenting the omission of rules enforcing wholesale access to the spectrum. When asked if Google would still bid on the spectrum, Whitt said Google “didn’t say it wouldn’t,” meaning that Google will make that decision at a later date.

Frontline: “The FCC [vote] did not make it impossible for us, but they did make it clear that they weren’t going to use [the auction rules] to alter the importance of Verizon and AT&T,” Hundt said. Hundt’s take is that since the rules do allow for a bidder to construct a private-public partnership for public-safety buildout, there is still a chance for ideas like Frontline’s to succeed, but only if tech companies who agree with its goals stop “acting like warring Scottish clans” and instead band together more closely in their efforts.

AT&T: Though we have not yet seen the details of today’s decision on the 700 MHz spectrum auction, the FCC appears to have struck a reasonable balance between the competing interests debating the Google Plan. As we’ve previously noted, if Google is serious about introducing a competing business model into the wireless industry, Chairman Martin’s compromise plan allows them to bid in the auction, win the spectrum, and then implement every one of the conditions they seek. We commend the FCC for adopting this approach rather than stacking the deck in Google’s favor.