VoIP is the demonstration of telecommunication or voice as just another application that has emerged from our networking activity.  Quality of “voice over IP” or VoIP continues to improve with options to connect using mobile devices either using a 3G data connection or a Wi-Fi access point. Note no need for complex hardware or QoS systems from large infrstracture companies that drive costs up on the operator voice connections.

The following video from Telecom.tv is an excellent overview of the players offering telecommunication applications on IP connections and even proves the quality of  VoIP calls regardless of the air interface used.

The two applications offering highest variety of options are Truphone and a new entrant in the market, Vopium.  Both work over the 3G data network and Wi-Fi connections.  Truphone was the 1st VoIP application to offer an iPhone and Touch client.  Both Vopium and Truphone offer Android clients which allow voice or IM with Skype contacts in addition to contacts on their own service.

Of the ones I’ve tried the quality and options nod definitely goes to these two companies.

We started with my outline of what I thought were salient points.  ”How many times will we, the people, pay to build this network that is refereneced in the National Broadband Plan?” I asked. We built it 100 years ago, the military built a piece in the 1970s, various educationals initiatives built pieces in 1980s & 90s, the National Science Foundation unified and operated the military and higher-ed backbones, and then in 1991 the National Information Infrastructure offered tax breaks and incentives to Telcos to deliver fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) for 86% of American homes by 2010 at a cost of $200 billion to the taxpayer.  It sounded to me like a good start.

But Frankston quickly turned my attention, when he started talking about the transition from steam engines to diesel engines in the railroad industry.  He pointed out,

…not one of the steam engines companies survived the transition to diesel engines. It wasn’t because the engineers couldn’t build diesel engines, but because steam engines were one off designs with each engine requiring a different number of wheels and the ability to negotiate a grade or severe curves or longer distances, the DNA of marketing and customer relationship for steam engines was just different than diesel engines. Had the railroads realized that they were in the transporation business, they would have built airplanes.

He continued,

…they wouldn’t have built roads as there was no business model in roads.

Why is the railroad a good model for the telecommunications business as described by the National Broadband Plan?

First, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) was modeled on the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) who regulated railroads and sold rights for a price.

This is similar to the FCC’s revenue generating activity in auctioning spectrum to wireless carriers. Just as rights for railroads were treated as private property, so is spectrum.  In fact, spectrum allocations are specified in acre units.  It is counterintuitive to think of signal frequencies in the sky as acres of land, but that is the current process of transferring our national airwaves into property sold to carriers.

The steam engine versus diesel engine analogy is directly relatable to the battles between so called Bell heads (those specialized in circuit-switched networks that comprised the telephone network and long time employees of telcos) versus Net heads (those specialized in packet-switched networks that comprise the Internet and the newer engineers on the block in carrier staffs).  For cable companies, the conflict is between Broadcast heads versus Net heads.  The evidence for cable company dysfunction is Time Warner Cable’s inability to realize the opportunity of delivering TV as an application across AOL infrastructure resulting in lower costs and greater audience reach.

Back to railroads.

Modern railroads in the US have these companies reinvesting their profits into infrastructure.  European railroads separate the rails business and the by-rail-transportation business. They are two different businesses.  And yet, the Internet is more like driving, and you can’t just bend the railroad business and make it a road. With the Internet we create our own solutions.

Bob’s discussion on unneeded and even incompetent complexity in the effort to assure scarcity is best presented in his own article titled, Assuring Scarcity.

The analogy of telcos as railroads and the Internet as roads started to rattle around in my head.  Today’s service providers, telecommunications and cable companies, are trying to sell Internet service through artificial billing events. Sending messages is a good example. Why do we pay - at worst - 20 cents per text, but 75 cents per picture message.  Both are composed of bits. Once you have the ability to transfer bits, you can transfer more bits.

What would our use of roads be like if today’s telco and cable cos (ISPs) were in charge of roads?

Roads are built by city, county, state and the federal governments. Let’s say that those are the service providers in this case. If these road provdiers were like ISPs and potential broadband providers they might be telcos, cable cos and fiber cos.  Each of these companies strings a wire to my house. So,  to ensure my “access” to roads the city, county, and state would have to extend their roads to every house to provide access to their brand of transportation service.  That’s at least three roads running out to every house.

Each time I drove up on the road, I’d need a way to show that I’ve paid for access to the road.  For simplicity sake let’s say that I have an “E-ZPass” to present my crendentials to a reader that would allow me access. And to get the E-ZPass I pay a monthly subscription to either the city and would therefore be restricted to driving only on city roadways.  Or if I paid a monthly subscription to both the city and the county, I could drive on both city and county roads, but not on state roads.

This description isn’t different from paying for DSL and Cable TV. Or paying for Cable TV, phone and Internet Access commonly known as a triple play.

Now in this analogy, I’d need the right vehicle to drive on asphalt which wouldn’t work on conceret roads.  Concrete roads would require a different set of specs for the vehicle. A choice would require that one decide to drive on the more plentiful asphalt roads or the less plentiful but more stable concrete roads.

Roads have special features. Each time a bridge is crossed, or a tunnel driven through would be an event for a new charge.  In addition, if I wanted to take advantage of higher speed limits on the roads I’d be charged each time I increased my speed to a higher level. On city and county roads it might be one charge for 25 to 35 mph and then a fee increase for 45 to 55 mph.

And of course my monthly road subscription would limit the total number of miles I could travel on the road. Any additional mileage would result in a higher monthly subscription or a per mile charge 10x to 40x greater than the montly allotment.

To replicate the cable model, I’d be limited to mass transit. My road experience would need to be shared with a group.  The more subscribers on the bus or train, the more stops and therefore the slower my transportation.

If I wanted to use roads during rush hour, an addition charge would then allow me to use roads during those peak periods.  I would not be allowed to roam onto roadways even for short periods built by a provider with which I didn’t have a monthly contract.

Using road side attractions would each require it’s own fee.  Public restrooms, emergency lanes, emergency call boxes, and rest areas would each read my E-ZPass and transfer the appropriate charge to my bill.

Each trip on roads would require an assessment of which providers I needed to pay to complete my transportation goal.  That’s right. Transportation is the service I want, but instead I’m paying for arbitrary road events that are artifically and inconsistently assigned some price.

Telecommunications is an application. This abstraction has been successfully demonstrated by Truphone, Skype and Vonage.  TV is an application successfully demonstrated by Hulu and Ustream.tv.  They are not magically integrated into a physical cable.

We should be asking many more questions as we consider the FCC’s new national strategy.  Bob Frankston having thought about these issues since his work at Microsoft and creating “Home Networking” which freed consumers from the carriers owning the network in their house.  Sound far fetched?  Cable cos and DSL providers in the early days charged for the number of computers one connected to their network - not unlike charging for multiple cable boxes when such equipment was required just to watch broadcast video.

We must the consider this next question carefully.  Frankston asks,

Why do we tolerate the claim that fungible infrastructure is a telecom service? 

Roads are infrastructure and although they enable one mode of transportation we do not fund them with a service model.

Then there are the regional carriers like MetroPCS and Cricket who attract subscribers with low cost unlimited talk time.  But what about a utility holding company?  Can a group of power companies be successful where major brands and ISPs have failed?

Southern Linc began as an operation to by wholesale wireless service to support the employees of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power and Mississippi Power using the iDen network (Nextel) and it’s two-way radio communications also known as chirp and push-to-talk.  In the mid1990s Southern Company who owns these electric companies established it’s own wireless service as a move to create profit in what is for many companies a cost center: employee communications services.

Southern Linc supported its own employees and also made the service available to other businesses starting in 1996.  Recently, the company has extended its  service beyond push-to-talk plans to include cell phone and texting for consumers.  The company plans to grow its 260,000 subscriber base covering southeast Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle by offering service to rural areas not serviced by the Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers.

Regional coverage has been one focus for wireless carriers meeting with more mixed results than the disasters of ESPN, Amp’d and Disney.  Southern Linc provides all the basic wireless service plans one would find from any other carrier including, Family Plans,  post-paid plans, pre-paid plans and business plans.

A group of electric companies offering an additional utility service has a logic to it.  And their ability to provide service in areas where the economics for larger carriers are weak due to limited subscriber base makes Southern Linc look like a strong contender as a different approach to an MVNO.

Another mobile video captured with a Nokia N95 8GB recorded locally featuring Louis Libin who discusses the challenges with coordination of all wireless communications at both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican Natonal Convention this summer.

My Cradlepoint PHS-300 also called a “Personal Wi-Fi Hotspot” is used to connect my Nokia N95 GSM device to the faster EVDO Rev A network. Rev A uplink connection is a zippy 1.8 MBs, in contrast to the GSM carriers in the US who top out at 700 kbs. The N95’s Wi-Fi radio makes this solution possible. Many mobile devices are beginning to ship with a set of three radios: CDMA or GSM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s liberating to choose the best network for connectivity and have the compatibility problem solved by a Wi-Fi bridge. Adding mobility to the solution, the PHS-300 is battery-powered with a battery-life of 2 hours.

Pat Phelan telecom distruptor and entrepreneur of CubicTelecom first alerted me to the Cradlepoint as the right solution for capturing and streaming video over US CDMA networks.

The deal is good news for Cradlepoint and good news for Sierra Wireless who now face stiff competition from Qualcomm’s Gobi in the embedded mobile broadband connectivity market. Cradlepoint is well positioned to continue innovating with SWIP’s resources and SWIR expands it’s product suite.

When asked about continued support of USB modems which compete with SWIR like the Novatel I own, Gary Oliverio, vp of marketing, said,

Our mission is to make sure we support as many handsets and modems as we can…we’ll be the Mobile Broadband Router division of SWIR, and will remain intact as an organization. Of course, we’ll continue to innovate with new clever products, features, and ideas!

The current list of supported cards and devices is as follows.

Compatible Cards

• Sprint: Novatel U727, Novatel U720, Sierra 595U, Franklin CDU-550, Franklin CDU-680 & EX720-with adapter
• Verizon: Pantech UM150, Novatel 720U, Sierra 595U & V740-with adapter
• AT&T: AT&T USBConnect 881, Sierra AirCard 881U & Option GT Max 3.6 Express (with adapter)

Compatible Phones

• Sprint: LG Musiq,Motorola RAZR V3c, Motorola RAZR2, Motorola Q (Not Q9c), Palm 700w, Palm 700p, Palm 755p, RIM Blackberry 8703e, RIM Blackberry 8830, Samsung A920, Samsung i830, Sanyo Katana 2, Sanyo M1
• Verizon: LG VX7200, LG VX8000, Motorola RAZR V3c, Palm 700p, RIM Blackberry 8703e
• AT&T: Motorola RAZR v3xx, Motorola Q v9h, Samsung SGH-A707, Samsung Blackjack

The PHS-300 was the perfect solution for increasing upload speeds by using the EVDO Rev A network and enhances the quality of streamed video as I produced during CTIA last week. The last remaining piece to the puzzle is use of an external mic. This solution is being addressed by Nokia and I’m hoping to report on it very soon.

Check out the press release for the details - Sierra Wireless Announces Acquisition of Cradlepoint, Inc. (pdf)

CTIA is an organization primarily representing the America’s carriers by a bevy of lobbyists and lawyers. It isn’t the free wheeling environment of SXSW, and certainly not the event where social media practitioners preach to the converted. All of which I believe makes it the idea event to go all out with social media and indy production. So, next week in Las Vegas Bena Roberts, founder and chief editor of the awesome blog GoMo News and I, as the newly appointed US Editor for GoMo will bring a compelling social media experience to the conference.

We kick off with an invitation only party Sunday night, March 30th at the Hard Rock Cafe to unveil our mobile video broadcast studio. An RV brightly marked will cruise up to the Las Vegas Conference Center and pick up our interviewees who will be whisked away from the saturated towers serving the CC. We’ll set up to stream from the RV and go live with a variety of pioneering people and innovative companies along side the big brands that fuel mobile content and services.

Watch GoMo News for all the up to date information on where and how to watch the broadcasts. The Sprint EDVO Rev. A network with it’s 1.8MB upload capability will provide the bandwidth we need and a couple of Nokia N95s will be the video capture devices. How are we using N95s on a CDMA network? I’ll reveal that during the week. In addition, Flixwagon is a sponsor of GoMo News on Wheels! and will be used as the service to stream from the device, store the videos and alert Twitter followers or Flixwagon fans that a new video is LIVE.

The interviews and product demos are designed to be informative and conversational. Our audience will be invited to join in with their own questions through chat during the broadcast. We want to encourage respectful participation and exchange. Ask your own questions, and I’ll pass along as many as I can. As a preview, Tuesday, April 1st between 9:15 and 9:30 AM I’m interviewing Louis Libin, who serves as Chairman, Political Conventions Communications Committee. The Committee is responsible for coordinating all the wireless users for the Democratic and Republican Presidentials Conventions and events surrounding the conventions. The users include the broadcasters, Law Enforcement, the organizing committees and others.

We start March 30th approximately 9PM Mountain Daylight Time, MDT, (GMT -7). See you there.

We are grateful to GoMo News on Wheels! sponsors: Flixwagon, mPulse, MCN, and Smaato. And to the GoMo News Blender sponsor JumpTap.

He also explains the power of the same features highlighted by John Stratton, CMO of Verizon Wireless that the combination of phone, camera, data network and GPS makes the advertising delivered to mobile subscribers enormously valuable.

http://www.laptopcomputers.org

The memo said: “We are still to see a working demo of the music store; we would expect a significant level of customer confusion and increased calls to customer services as a result of housing both players on a device and our data tariffs would be negatively impacted as they were not designed to deal with such large individual music files. In short, if this was an Orange service, we would definitely not launch yet to protect our customer experience.”

As Nokia prepares to launch an iTunes competitor today, Orange wants to ensure that their handset provider doesn’t cannibalize the operator’s revenue from its own music service.  One has to wonder if the “trial” will infact result in the trottling of Nokia’s service to ensure a better subscriber experience for Orange.  So, perhaps when it comes to Nokia’s internal narrative, We have 800 million customers outside the US and only 4 customers inside the US, Orange seems to be rewriting that statement.   The network owner is still in charge regardless of what Nokia think.

It’s unclear why Nokia would not launch this device from a US city. They have Flagship stores in New York and Chicago where a launch event could be staged. Apparently, they feel that a launch in London will receive more attention. For that to be true, Nokia must also believe that their US marketing team (they do have one right?) isn’t up to the job. Ouch! Of course, Nokia doesn’t have much success to point to in the US market as they’ve missed every major trend for handsets here. Nokia has the growing reputation of not listening to the market, but who can argue with their 35% global market share?

History of Nokia Failures in the US Market

Clamshell Design

It has been very clear since the mid 1990s with the popularity of the Motorola StarTac that US consumers are in love with the clamshell form factor. I owned one. And who didn’t recognize the StarTac influence on Motorola’s more recent phenom phone, the Razr. Nokia’s response to the StarTac was belligerent with their CEO proclaiming that the candy bar form was superior and Nokia would never make clamshells. Their response to the Razr on the other hand was the N76. It comes very late as the Razr craze has ended and somehow Nokia known for utilitarian design managed to make a Razr look clunky.

QWERTY Keyboard

Another trend in the US market has been the desire for QWERTY thumb keyboards used to compose email, and driven in large part by the success of Blackberry. Nokia avoided QWERTY in favor of the phone dialpad keys despite the success of Blackberry and Treo which dominated the early US smartphone market. Only recently has Nokia acquiesced on this feature with the E62, a stripped down version of the E61i.

3G on US Frequencies

Nokia’s N95 debuted in Europe early 2007, and it looks as though they plan to make the US holiday season with a US 3G HSPDA model of the N95. The issue here is that 3G frequencies in the US and Europe are different. In Europe, 3G operates at 2100 MHz and in the US the frequenices are (ATT) 1900, 950 and (T-mobile) 1700 MHz. So a 3G phone isn’t a 3G phone everywhere. The fact that the promise of WCDMA was suppose to be global interoperability apparently died a cruel death on the sword of competitive advantage. But that’s a story for another time. The bottom line is that Nokia releases phones on European frequencies about a year before they appear in the US market.

Incoming CEO OPK declarations

Despite Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo’s declarations during his initial press conferences in 2006, as the new CEO of Nokia, results haven’t demonstrated Nokia’s focus on the US market. In fact, Nokia handset sales in North America from Q1 2006 to Q1 2007 fell by 50%. This also the period during which Nokia exited it’s CDMA handset business.

CDMA Devices

One reality of the US market is the coexistence of two network technologies, GSM and CDMA. CDMA networks used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint were the first to market with 3G speed and services. Nokia has an institutional dysfunction with the implications of serving CDMA carriers. First, their abhorrence with customizing devices per operator requirements, and second, their long-standing licensing war with Qualcomm. This dysfunction caused Nokia to exit the partnership they built with Sharp to deliver CDMA devices for the US

Some have suggested that Nokia’s abandoning the higher margin US CDMA market for low margin entry handsets in India and China was a serious miscalculation. But as I’ve said, the dysfunction on this point is institutional. A member of S60’s marketing team explained about two weeks ago that the narrative inside Nokia for the US market goes something like this: We have 800 million customers outside the US and only 4 customers inside the US.

Obviously, this isn’t a true statement. There are many European Nokia devices that are imported to the US, along with newly enabled direct sales, new channels forming like BestBuy.com, and of course, the 4 referenced by the narrative, the US wireless carriers. However, trapped inside their narrative, Nokia does not appear able to evaluate the US market objectively. Perhaps Nokia should just fold up tents and exit.

iPhone Launch

The iPhone is listed as a Nokia failure in the US market, because given the long advance notice and the media buildup to Apple’s iPhone launch, Nokia marketing in the US fell flat. There was no competitive response that has registered here from the company. The best competitive response has come from the Nokia enthusiast blogosphere. Even the blogosphere missed the mark.

A feature by feature comparison of the N95 to the iPhone is nonsense. There was much made of the iPhone’s lack of 3G support which - I love irony - is astonishing given the US version of the N95 was also not 3G. And contrary to many reports from Europe, the US has a number of 3G devices. It’s just that they aren’t made by Nokia.

Given all these failures in the US market, and the focus of Nokia on the N95 as their competitive response to the iPhone, why isn’t the US 3G HSDPA version launched from a US city?

Apparently, Nokia has scheduled it’s annual Launch Event, and it’s in London on August 29th. The Launch website is intentionally cryptic and game like - hint, hint. So whether it’s convenience or tradition or short-sightedness, check the tubes in two days for the story on what Nokia reveals. Even, a simul-launch, events in both London and New York, would have been a good idea. Nokia does have a US marketing team, don’t they? It’s truly difficult to tell.

Media is the dominant delivery mechanism of advertising and by necessity locked in fierce competition to capture and hold your attention primarily for the purposes of securing ad revenue for the profitable development of their creative products and services. Whether one watches Lost on ABC, listens to All Things Considered on NPR, or reads Robert Scoble’s blog, advertisers or sponsors are funding that experience to gain access to the media consumer’s attention. In the realm of media, the producer acts as the owner of your attention. You pay attention to their media properties. Producers collect information on what and when you pay attention, and in turn, sell your attention to advertisers who wish to deliver their marketing messages.

Who owns your attention

When you use Google or Yahoo! for web search or visit blogs that partner with Adsense or Yahoo! Publisher, it is the search engine that acts as owner of your attention. Stored on Google and Yahoo! servers are the clickstreams of millions. Whether you click through the results of a web search or on an ad placed on a blog, the search engines sell your attention and gestures to advertisers who pay for the increased likelihood that they will get your attention long enough or at the right time to convert you into a customer for themselves or their client companies.

Social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Beebo, Flickr etc. act as the owners of your attention. As you participate in building your profile, interacting with objects in the network (e.g., applications, media, other users) and/or publish your own original content an overwhelming amount of information is available on where and to what you are paying attention. This treasure trove of data is combed on both the front-end and back-end of these networks by advertisers eager to get their message into your view and attention.

John Stratton, CMO of Verizon Wireless (VZW), dramatically declared to big media and advertisers that they own the attention of their subscribers. The following audio excerpt is from John Stratton’s speech at AdAge’s 2006 Madison & Vine Conference bringing together Hollywood and Madison Avenue. In his speech, Stratton explains the value of Verizon’s subscriber attention by describing how his company sold 10,000 concert tickets in one hour.

Download audio file (JS_Verizon_CMO.mp3)

Stratton sees Verizon Wireless as the owner of your attention to be sold to both Hollywood and Madison Avenue and likely anyone willing to pay Verizon Wireless for ad delivery. Did you download a hip hop ringtone last month? Are you a mobile gamer? Do you live in Los Angeles? Is your name Stacy? VZW’s view into your clickstream is even more powerful than the view of Google, or Yahoo! Web companies have mastered the collection of to what and when you’re paying attention, but VZW can add the layers of where and who you are (identity).

The US government mandated E911 regulation requires carriers to build the infrastructure to accurately determine your location and provide that information to public safety organizations for emergency services. As a result, GPS equipped devices are widely deployed and in use (e.g., personal navigation is one of the breakthrough applications on the carriers’ data networks). Further, your mobile phone number identifies you just as surely as your driver’s license or your passport. Credit checks and state issued identification are requirements for the process of purchasing a mobile phone.

Attention Trust & Root Vault

Your attention has value. It is scarce. Businesses are using technology and services to act as owners of your attention. In 2005, the Attention Trust was formed by Steve Gillmor and Seth Goldstein in an attempt to conceptually create property rights around attention and ensure the ownership of that property resided with it’s originator, you.

Beyond providing consumer protection and the creation of property rights, Attention Trust seeks to enable individuals to capture their own clickstreams and bring them to market just as your many service providers do. The Attention Recorder is a browser plugin that enables an individual to collect their own clickstream and store it. Individuals may choose to store their clickstream on a local hard drive or on one the services authorized by Attention Trust.

Attention data stored on a service can be bought, sold or traded. Third party investors may purchase attention data and act as arbiters. Advertisers might bid on clickstreams or purchase them outright. The originator of the clickstream owns their data and can chose who is allowed to purchase the data and who is not. It remains to be seem if these initial efforts and services can sustain themselves until the market can be educated.

Attention Economy Leverage

Some companies are getting wise to the fact that the byproducts of Attention Economy also have value. A blogger swarm on any given topic can generate millions of page views; a rapid worldwide spread of a technology, story, event or concept (i.e., a network effect); and the energy drink of all web site owners - google juice. Google juice and related mechanisms for driving an Idea Virus into mainstream consciousness, generally occurring through the leap from the blogosphere into the mainstream media, results in economic value not only in the context of attention, but also, monetarily.

An early example of leverage applied to the attention economy is the phrase Web 2.0. The phrase was coined in 2003, by O’Reilly Media to name a conference held in October, 2004, and instantly popularized by the technology blogosphere. O’Reilly had partnered with CMP to produce the series of Web 2.0 conferences. A blog swarm formed across technology bloggers around the first conference and it’s central theme of “the web as a platform.” In November, 2004, CMP applied for a service mark on the phrase Web 2.0. A service mark is a type of trademark that is used to mark services instead of products.

It is notable that the Web 2.0 service mark application was filed not when the term was coined in 2003 or even over the next year during conference preparation. It was applied for after the conference in November once the term had been popularized among technology bloggers. The existence of the service mark was largely unknown until a small not-for-profit conference in Ireland chose to use the phrase Web 2.0 in the title of it’s conference in 2006. CMP sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that IT@Cork discontinue the use of it’s service mark. However, according to trademark law a mark loses protection when it becomes a generic term. According to the Harvard School of Law’s documentation on trademark law, Web 2.0 not only “lost” it’s protection via genericity,

A word will be considered generic when, in the minds of a substantial majority of the public, the word denotes a broad genus or type of product and not a specific source or manufacturer. So, for example, the term “thermos” has become a generic term and is no longer entitled to trademark protection. Although it once denoted a specific manufacturer, the term now stands for the general type of product. Similarly, both “aspirin” and “cellophane” have been held to be generic. In deciding whether a term is generic, courts will often look to dictionary definitions, the use of the term in newspapers and magazines, and any evidence of attempts by the trademark owner to police its mark.

but the clearly generic nature of “web” should have prevented the mark from becoming registered at all.

Finally, a generic mark is a mark that describes the general category to which the underlying product belongs. For example, the term “Computer” is a generic term for computer equipment. Generic marks are entitled to no protection under trademark law. Thus, a manufacturer selling “Computer” brand computers (or “Apple” brand apples, etc.) would have no exclusive right to use that term with respect to that product. Generic terms are not protected by trademark law because they are simply too useful for identifying a particular product. Giving a single manufacturer control over use of the term would give that manufacturer too great a competitive advantage.

CMP leveraged the attention network effect created by the swarm of technology bloggers writing and commenting on the Web 2.0 concept. They captured the term’s accrued value by securing a service mark. Whether these events have a direct relationship to the next case is unknown, but a precedent for business and leveraging the Attention Economy was set.

Verzion Wireless announces Mobile Web 2.0(SM)

Verizon Wireless authored and distributed a press release that no doubt many have read as it was reported across the blogosphere, trade press and the mainstream press earlier this week. The press release was titled: Now It Is Even Easier to Get the Info You Want With Mobile Web 2.0 From Verizon Wireless. On seeing the document I immediately took note of the (SM) following mentions of Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Web 2.0 product, as in the following example.

In addition, VZW’s press kit (pdf) dated 08/17/07, also, carries the service mark on it’s new product name, Mobile Web 2.0. I phoned Jim Gerace at VZW for comment to verify the service mark application and the date of application, but my call was not returned in time for this article.

VZW is capitalizing on the existing high attention valuation for the phrase Mobile Web 2.0 and it’s forerunner Web 2.0 which has clearly reached mainstream awareness and has become part of the technology vernacular globally. Applying the concepts of Web 2.0 to mobile data applications began at least 2 years ago as evidenced by a book titled Mobile Web 2.0 published in 2006, 272 mil search results at Google, and 3,164 blog posts as indicated by Google Blogsearch. The company can leverage this attention valuation to save on marketing spend, and equally prevent competitors from sharing in that value by using a service mark to proclaim ownership.

Does Verizon Wireless plan to defend this mark? If not, why apply for a mark at all?

Mobile is a generic term. Web is a generic term. The practice of versioning originally used in software parlance has produced gems such, “Al Qaeda 2.0″ from CNN, and “Al Gore 2.0″ from Fox News. Further, the application of Mobile Web 2.0 to VZW’s mobile web service is the very definition of a generic mark in trademark law.

Generic Mark Defense by Payola

One of the more sensational instances of a company defending a generic mark was the case of Microsoft v. Lindows, Inc. Microsoft claimed that the name Lindows infringed it’s trademark on Windows. In this case, Michael Robertson founder of Lindows, Inc. and previously MP3.com, was well armed to demonstrate that Windows was a generic mark. The term “windows” was used extensively in a generic sense by the Unix community and in early documents from research at Xerox Parc to describe UI design elements.

Lindows, Inc. had Microsoft in an awkward position and the company’s choices became increasingly limited. They could bring Lindows, Inc. to court for infringement and risk invalidation of their Windows trademark, or allow Lindows to dillute the trademark and lose it that way. The only way that Microsoft could save its Windows trademark in the end was to pay Lindows, Inc. $10 mil to change their name. So, Lindows, Inc. became Linspire, Inc.

Paying Attention to Verizon Wireless

Shouldn’t VZW’s move to Mobile Web 2.0 be celebrated? Afterall, the carrier is willing to embrace the principles of Mobile Web 2.0, like open APIs, open standards, the full web browser interface, the internet as platform, and the power of indy content. This is great news for subscribers and developers. Finally, carriers will lift their heavy boot from the stream of innovation that open APIs represent for developers and restore that direct relationship loop between user and developer that has propelled WWW innovation.

Similarly, Vodafone’s move to open up the full web experience to their customers this summer was met with praise across the blogosphere, mainstream press, analysts and from their subscribers in the UK. Carriers and operators are at long last understanding the value of taking down their walled gardens of content. Acceptance of Mobile Web 2.0 from VZW means the subscriber is in control and true choice is at long last possible.

Recall that the Stratton speech focused on VZW as a media company. The full embrace of Mobile Web 2.0 means that VZW would compete for ad revenue against the Internet media giants like Yahoo!, Google, MSN, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc. What a huge change this new openness represents over the carrier’s attempt of being an application company and the “Mobile Internet” (which became known to users as WAP is Crap) initiatives of the past.

VZW’s Mobile Web 2.0 is…

an updated version of their portal with space for advertising. To VZW Mobile Web 2.0 is a walled garden. Access to the walled garden costs $5.00 per month plus air time (VZW charges it’s subs for the minutes an application is open on a handset along with the monthly subscription for application access) AND comes with advertising on every page. There are, also, featured links which is code for paid placement. So then, Mobile Web 2.0 is a maximized revenue instance of a walled garden. Who knew?

So the joke is on everyone. Not only does VZW trademark a term popularized by indy media, and countless conferences where hands are held across the divide between web development and mobile development, but in a kind of one finger salute, VZW applies the term for ultimate mobile openness to their walled garden.

It’s time to pay attention to Verizon Wireless. Those who write, speak and evangelize independently may not have legal standing or individually the legal resources to follow the USPTO’s trademark application objection process, but this is the Attention Economy. We can create a negative incentive on VZW’s misappropriation of our attention. A different precedent is needed.

Perhaps a mobile startup will want to play the role of Lindows, Inc. A $10 mil settlement would be a nice round of funding with no term sheet attached.