ZeuBlog

The End of SUPERCOMM

By Kevin Walsh
Content from Zeugma's running blog on Xchange Magazine.

The folks at SUPERCOMM have finally owned up to the widely rumored rescheduling of its Chicago trade show to October. This might not have been so bad if it didn’t occur after SUPERCOMM spent months expressing outrage over the false (“nasty!”) rumors spreading throughout the industry (what is otherwise known as lying). And it certainly didn’t help that the reason provided was incredibly lame—“This enables us to provide a comprehensive and timely forum to introduce new and enhanced programming and business opportunities that the stimulus will undoubtedly bring for the broadband community.”

First, let’s admit that the 21-year-old SUPERCOMM franchise never recovered from the dotcom/telecomm meltdown earlier in this decade. From the standpoint of both exhibiting companies and attendees, the numbers dropped more than 50 percent from a 1999 peak and declined from there.

The Google Double Standard

By Trevor Dyck
A few weeks ago, Google announced that its AdSense users will have behavioral targeting enabled by default. That’s right; it’s an opt-out service, not opt-in. They will track the online behavior of up to 30% of US internet traffic. This includes the majority of users who visit any website (not just Google’s own pages) that have AdSense ads on them.

So, why is it that ISPs got into hot water for doing a similar thing (albeit only for a subset of their own subscribers, not for 30% of the entire US)? Is there really any difference here? And why does Google get away with opt-out when ISPs trialed a similar service on a smaller number of subscribers and got slammed by Congress?

The Video Thing

Siegfried Luft, Zeugma’s CTO and Founder, was recently invited to host a running column on TMCnet. Sig’s column, View From the Edge, just published the first installment titled, “The Video Thing.”

“Every day we see indications of a sea change in the way video is consumed. The number of Internet content storefronts is exploding and the array of consumer electronics devices that allow this content to be easily viewed on flat panel HDTVs in the family living room is growing apace.”

Continue reading this article at TMCnet.