Thursday, May 4, 2006

Please wait in the lobby

Netcompetition.org, "an e-Forum Promoting Internet Choices for Consumers", is a public lobbying effort by the cable industry that is slick in the extreme and a "positioning" effort of a high order. "Government Regulation vs. Competitive Choices" and "Net Neutralty vs. Net Competition" are two of its sound bite slogans.

Forget the irony of pro-market rhetoric by creatures that have lived so long in a government-managed regulatory habitat that they wouldn't survive in a truly open and free marketplace. What matters now is that the Net has become politicized in an unfortunate way: with its advocates on the losing side of a business vs. government sportscast, and the carriers providing most of the quotable color commentary.

Follow up.

Heard it through the skyvine

So I'm driving along, showing J.B. (who's sharing my ride) how Sirius Satellite Radio works, tuning to Channel 103, where Gillmor Daily is running, it turns out. With... whoa: me. Kinda surreal.

I'd point to the source on the Sirius site, but it loads like dial-up, even over a T-1 here at a Starbucks. Plus the site (Sirius', not Steve's) is self-promotional beyond endurance, so fuggit. Anyway, there it is/was. Back to the road.

Sorry about Wednesday

Didn't get a chance to blog yesterday. Which is actually still today, but the blog is on Newfoundland time or something.

Anyway, I'm on the road, heading back to Santa Barbara after a terrific Internet Identity Workshop. More on that later. Meanwhile, Phil Windley has lots of coverage, starting here. Tag: iiw2006.

Christine Herron took remarkably good and complete notes on my Monday talk. Plus lots of other talks at the show. Regretably, she's one of the few people I didn't get to talk to at the show. (As I recall, anyway. But then, I spent some time looking for my glasses in the car this morning before finding them on my face.)