Month: December 2010

Friday Five: 5 golden posts

In the spirit of Christmas and stealing borrowing an idea from Chris Syme (her 12 Blogs of Christmas post), today I want to sing that “five golden rings” refrain, only in blogspeak. So here I give to you — or rather regift to you, since none of these are my creation, but gifts from others — my picks for the five golden blog posts from fellow higher ed bloggers. Each of these were posted earlier in 2010, but they’re worth revisiting any time of year.

1. IMHO 7 Reasons Why Higher Ed Is the Best Gig in All the Web, by Michael Fienen of the .eduGuru gang. Fienen was responding to a couple of posts (by Mark Greenfield and co-.eduGuru contributor Nikki Massaro Kauffman) on why higher ed is the toughest gig in web work. But Fienen flipped the topic to remind us why higher ed web work may not be so bad after all.

2. In The Silly Season: No Connections to Branding, Educational Marketing Group CEO Bob Brock weighs in some of 2010’s most talked-about higher ed branding campaigns and suggests that “It’s not possible to brand an organization by simply launching a new creative campaign. Especially if the campaign is a unilateral advertising effort of the Admissions unit!” Some common-sense brand management perspective from a seasoned pro.

3. mStoner’s First Law of Branding, by another seasoned pro, Michael Stoner, should be required reading in every Branding 101 class, up there with Trout and Reis’s 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

4. Why Lady Gaga Matters, by Jessica Krywosa. I can’t stand Lady Gaga. But damn, Jessica nailed this long before the meat dress incident. Good examples on how to build a brand.

5. Message From Your President, by John Warner of InsideHigherEd.com. Is this the future of public higher education? It cut pretty close to the bone in 2010, and I suspect it might be prophetic for 2011.

R.I.P., net neutrality?

This just in: Top Wireless Firms Plot to Make Wireless Users Pay Per Page, from DailyTech.com. Maybe the worst-case scenario isn’t so far-fetched after all. – AC

Sometime today, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on a rule that will allow a two-tiered system of Internet access. This rule, if approved (and it appears to be a done deal), would open the door to make portions of the Internet off-limits.

This rule would kill the concept of net neutrality, which argues against tiered rates for different types of service. Net-neutrality advocates support the idea of a level playing field on the Internet.

Instead of net neutrality, however, the new rule “would allow mobile internet service providers to charge content companies for more efficient delivery to US homes,” according to this report from the Guardian. “Wireless providers will also be allowed to block applications or services, providing that they are not competitors. Fixed-line and wireless provider Verizon, for example, would not be allowed to block access to Skype because it provides a rival voice service.”

After the FCC approves the new regs, you’ll probably hear them spinning the vote as a strong stand in favor of net neutrality and consumers’ rights. Don’t be fooled.

While the rule would keep much of the “land-line” Internet more or less neutral, it exempts the growing and thriving mobile Internet from those protections. As Timothy Karr points out in his Huffington Post piece, the proposed rule “enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.”

That may be a worst-case scenario, but it isn’t much of a stretch. Karr adds:

[T]he Commission has opened the door for broadband payola — letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

… Instead of re-establishing the FCC’s authority to act as a consumer watchdog over the Internet, it places the agency’s authority on a shaky and indefensible legal footing — giving ultimate control over the Internet to a small handful of carriers.

It may be too late to do much about this, but the Save the Internet Foundation is rallying net-neutrality supporters in a last-minute effort to get President Obama to uphold his pledge to support net neutrality. If you care about this matter, then I encourage you to add your name to the petition to President Obama.

The only other thing to do right now is enjoy the message of Pete Townsend and the Who, as relevant today as it was 40 years ago. Think about net neutrality and the art of political compromise that is playing out once again in Washington, D.C., as you enjoy this wonderful acoustic solo performance of Townsend singing “We Won’t Get Fooled Again.” It’s coming your way via YouTube, which is still available to you free of charge. So enjoy it while you can.