But why do we auction off spectrum in the first place? It would seem to me that it would be far better to declare all available spectrum free to be used by anyone. That would be the perfect breeding ground for successes similar to Wi-Fi, but then on a much larger scale. No auctioning was required there… And nobody HAS to build a double-digit billion dollar infrastrucure. It will probably become a distributed effort by many, based on standards, software defined radio , wireless mesh networking, etc.

So the EC, governments and Deutsche Telekom are all thinking in their own (short term) interest, not our long term interest. As long as that does not change, these discussion won’t end. There will be no cheap abundant wireless broadband when we do not change spectrum policies radically to begin with.

“Your media company has made or is about to make a significant investment into web video or video archiving. You are wondering what format you should choose. Video for Flash reaches everyone now, but the format is not an ‘industry standard’ so you have the fear that content you will create will become obsolete and unsupported at some point. Flash Player 9 Update 3 comes to the rescue: MPEG-4 is an extremely well documented ISO standard and completely vendor independent. And by using the Flash Player now you get instant gratification for viewers.”

“Last month I suggested that Facebook may be launching an email application. Today, Facebook took a huge step in that direction. Facebook announced a new feature that allows users to write messages to their friends that aren’t currently using Facebook from within the messaging system. Not only can they send; they can receive as well. Even if your friend is not a Facebook member, they can now reply to your messages.“

“What’s this got to do with social-networking advertising? Everything. Search marketing works because it understands search’s essential nature: people looking for stuff. Where social networking advertising (at least the passive model that uses banners or, in many cases, contextual advertising) falls down is it fails to recognize the essential nature of social networking. People come to hang out with other people. Anything that gets in the way ruins the experience and will be avoided.”

“At this point, “friend” relationships remain unique to the social networks. The web still lacks a generalized way to convey relationships between people’s identities on the internet. The absence of this secret sauce — an underlying framework that connects “friends” and establishes trust relationships between peers — is what gave rise to social networks in the first place. While we’ve largely outgrown the limitations of closed platforms (take e-mail or the web itself), no one has stepped forward with an open solution to managing your friends on the internet at large.”

“So imagine if one could add anybody to your “friend” network on Facebook. But instead of checking on a button that only allows them to see your “Limited Profile” today, you also have a check-box that says “casual acquaintance”. That definition is not visible to anyone else but you. But checking it simply adds the contact automatically into a category that limits them to seeing only your public feeds (as in Pownce), AND gives you tools to build that relationship into a meaningful contact over time.”

“The bottom line? Messaging is evolving and now has stronger network hooks, understanding these changes are key to being an effective communicator. The company trying to reach an audience on Facebook will obviously have to join this community and adapt to their tools.”