Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Martin’s presentation available here.

 

James Enck and Martin Geddes recently did a presentation for CityNet in Amsterdam. Aside from the very funny slides in James’ presentation, there were a few really choice tidbits, like the slide above.  Four percent of global broadband users use Skype on a daily basis. That is a truly remarkable number, given that Skype debuted just two years ago, in September 2003. 

Martin’s presentation was also quite thought provoking.  I’ll be speaking with him later this morning, and perhaps he can be convinced to post his also.

It’s Thursday night.  Tonight is the night Janice paints, and when she comes home I’ve got a bottle of wine out.   It didn’t take much encouragement from a friend to dig out a nice bottle.  This is what we’re drinking – Ecole 41 Seven Hills Merlot, Walla Walla Appelation.  This Washington winery is one of my favorites. 

I knew the bottle would be heavily sedimented, so I decanted it first.  Also, experience with this wine has taught me that it needs time to open.  Waiting 15 to 20 minutes before the first taste pays rich rewards.

The nose is glorious.  Wood, berries, plums, maybe a little nutmeg and even a tiny bit of barnyard.  Chocolate, coffee, and rich fruits on the tongue.  Firm tannins, but not overpowering.  A little heat and spice and a glorious long long long finish.

Aswath Rao has a nice write-up of his week at VON.  I think his thoughts on the stupid network, especially as it relates to services, are worth reflecting on. His simple example — ring back tones can be implemented by end points (witness Skype).  So why are these considered network based services?

According to this morning’s Wall Street Journal, the US Federal Do Not Call List is a failure. 

Regulators say the system is working, but a recent random survey (by telephone) by the Customer Care Alliance, a Virginia-based consortium of three customer-relations consultants, found that 51% of registered consumers say they’re still getting calls they think the list is supposed to block. Lois Greisman, the Federal Trade Commission official in charge of the registry, says the agency receives a "steady flow" of between 1,000 and 2,000 complaints about telemarketers every day.

They have a million reported violations, have filed 14 lawsuits, and levied exactly two fines, one of which was against AT&T, the company administering the system. 

The folks in Washington are trying to do the right thing, but their solution is the wrong solution.  An army of investigators, and that’s what it will take, isn’t going to solve the problem.  If each investigator can process one case to completion per day, they need 5,000 investigators to get through the backlog over the next year, plus another 2,000 investigators to handle all of the new volume.  Salaries alone are likely over $400 million annually.

The Federal experience isn’t unique, either.  In 2002, the AARP published a series of research reports on State level Do Not Call Lists, showing similar results.  For instance, in Missouri over 60% of participants in their do not call list continued to receive unwanted telemarketing calls. 

Lynn Willner, a research scientist at George Washington University, says she signs up for do-not-call lists, shreds her bills, opts out of mail solicitations, has added antispyware software to her computer and checks her credit report yearly, but still feels like she’s falling behind. "At this point, I feel like I’m fighting a losing war," she says. "Is there really any positive news out there about the protection of consumer privacy?"

I hate to say it Ms Willner, but the problem will only continue to get worse as IP telephony takes hold in the network.  Do Not Call Lists are a fundamentally broken idea – a Soviet style centrally controlled economy solution layered on top of a wild west marketplace.  What’s needed is a technology solution — the equivalent of a spam filter for your phone.  When technology can understand the relevance of a call to the recipient, then this issue can be addressed.  The irony  is that telemarketers might benefit too, by being able to contact prospects who might actually, for once, have a real interest in the products being sold.