What are the rules for doing evil in social media? The Star Tribune explores this question in a story entitled “In social media, why let facts get in the way.”

One Facebook user, angry over a dispute with a neighbor, ridicules her online as a thief and a liar. On Twitter, someone accuses a murder suspect of being a killer. A blogger discloses sensitive details about a political candidate’s personal life.
…
Court actions involving users on youth-dominated social media remain surprisingly low, suggesting a new outspoken culture that’s more tolerant of lies, rude behavior and character assassination.

The article deals with US cases, but raises the universal point that “A lot of people recognize that these unaffiliated bloggers don’t have a lot of financial resources.”

On the other hand, in some cases, the defamatory postings are made from their places of employment by people who can be easily identified. Last week, a federal government employee landed in hot water for writing an email bashing a Sun Media writer (and Sun Media itself).

What policies do you have in place for employee use of corporate facilities for personal activities? This theme continues to remind me of a piece I wrote more than 4 years ago: “4 degrees of impersonal communications.”  People say things in emails that they would never say to someone over the phone. And, over the phone (especially in a voice message), we seem willing to speak in ways that one would never consider saying face-to-face. What people say things in anonymous comments add the further dimension.

 

A silly tweet: “it’s funny how all these ISPs claim it’s a capacity issue but if you pay them more money they magically have more capacity” demonstrates the lack of understanding of the core issue in the usage based billing discussion.

Everyone seems to agree that the best way to deal with congestion is to add more capacity. Even the oft-reviled CRTC said this clearly in its landmark internet traffic management policy (2009-657). Of course that is the right answer.

The issue is how to fund that capital investment. Do you spread it across the entire base of customers or do you charge more to people who are using more resources?

So my reply to the tweet – “When you pay ISPs, they can invest in more capacity. Not magic, just network engineering.” Of course, my network engineering friends like to make everyone believe they are magicians.

This posting appears in today’s Financial Post as an OpEd, under the title: Net pricing means service flexibility: No network can ­handle every user around the clock

Internet pricing has become front page news in the wake of a CRTC decision (now being revisited) that changed the wholesale cost for some of the smaller service providers. In the confusion, the question of retail pricing for our home Internet service has become the subject of a parliamentary committee meeting, editorials and countless online debates.

For most Canadians, there is a choice between two large Internet service providers — the local or regional telephone and cable companies — that have built extensive fibre networks coupled with wire connections to 95% of our households. In addition, the CRTC estimates that there are 500 other Internet service providers of all sizes offering increased choice. With two large players and many others sharing a smaller position, it is a marketplace somewhat similar to the soft drink industry.

Just as we want Internet service providers to have the flexibility to offer unlimited plans should that be their business model, we need to ensure that there remains the flexibility for them to offer a variety of price plans that target other users, including low-cost entry level price plans.

About one in five Canadian households still have no connection to the Internet. More than half the homes in Canada’s lowest income quintile have no computer. Flexibility in Internet pricing is needed to give all Canadians, including those with lower levels of disposable income, an opportunity to participate in a digital future.

When we have a broadband connection to the Internet, it is accessing a shared resource. People choose from plans that offer a range of speeds that determine the maximum rate that data can flow between your computer and the rest of the world. These speeds contribute to how fast you receive your files and how high a resolution you see when streaming video.

As a shared resource, the quality of your connection also depends on how much other people are using their service and the level of investment being made by your service provider. The major phone companies and cable companies in Canada are investing billions of dollars each year, trying to stay ahead of demand that is growing by 50% each year as more of us consume more rich media over our Internet connections.

We have changed the assumptions that helped network engineers create affordable access. At one time, 20 or more households could share a high-speed connection without noticing any impact on their service. As more households adopt more advanced services, like streaming movies, more investment is being made to meet the demand. No network has ever been engineered to handle every user using the service around the clock. To do so would be irresponsible; we know that different users have different needs at different times and we can take advantage of that, statistically, to build networks more economically.

As the parameters change, the networks have evolved. For many of us who have been on price plans in the $40-$50 per month range, the speed of our broadband service has quadrupled over the past 10 years, delivered for about the same price. Lower-priced plans have appeared for people who don’t yet need the higher speeds and in many areas, ultra high speeds are being offered to the leading edge users who are the early adopters of what will seem commonplace in a few years.

Flexibility in pricing allows each of us to choose a service that matches our needs, priced to match our willingness to pay. Flexibility in pricing models means more choice and more opportunities to deliver options for Canadians who want to be part of Canada’s digital future.

There are more than 500 Internet service providers in Canada; there is no need for the government to regulate how I choose to buy my Internet service.

A few nights ago, I saw a TV commercial that used your tax dollars to advertise the Health Infoway – a government initiative promoting its missed objectives. I say your taxes, not mine, because my wife will tell you that my taxes are being used to fund those TV and print ads telling me how great the economic action plan worked for us.

The missed objectives for the Health Infoway? You may recall it was the budget in 2009 that provided $500M to the Canada Health Infoway with a specific target: half of us were supposed to have electronic health records by 2010. I don’t think I have an electronic health record yet; do you?

At the time I wrote up the program, quoting the budget documents that promised that this funding would also speed up the implementation of electronic medical record systems for physicians and integrated points of service for hospitals, pharmacies, community care facilities and patients.

What do we actually have to show for it? Click on the graphic and at least the Infoway folks have put together a nice multimedia ad for what they should have already delivered.

I am certain that the current advertising campaign is designed to help prepare us for the next injection of a half billion dollars to be announced in the 2011 budget later this month. Hopefully, the media will ask tough questions like what happened to the money 2 years ago and what is being done about the missed 2010 objectives.

At the end of the day, I’d prefer an ad campaign that brags about successful completion of a project, rather than squandering my cash to lobby for more of my cash.

The ad claims “Knowing is better than not knowing.” What do you think? Do you feel better knowing than not knowing?

Yesterday, comScore released its 2010 Canada Digital Year in Review. The whitepaper is a free download [pdf, 4.6MB]

It is 44 pages filled with data on how Canadians are consuming digital media and it provides an important snapshot of 2010 with comparisons to the previous year.

• How are Canadians consuming digital media, and how does this compare to other countries?
• Which trends dominated the digital landscape in 2010?
• How does media consumption differ across age and gender segments?
• What trends are we seeing in the social networking space, and what impact does that have on email activity?
• How has digital advertising shifted in the last year, and how has social media played a part?
• Which content categories are serving up the most videos? Who’s watching online video in Canada?
• What is the current state of the search market?
• How will mobile media consumption in Canada stack up against other markets?

The headline – Canadians again are the world’s most engaged consumers of digital media, spending double the global average amount of time on-line and about 20% more than the runner-up, the United States.

It is an important and timely injection of hard data that challenges some of the assertions being made about of Canada’s digital economic capability. Given that usage tiers have been a part of mainstream Canadian retail internet for the past 4 years, comScore’s study appears to shoot down charges that usage sensitive pricing inhibits Canadians from heavy use of internet services. Further, the data gives credence to why Canadian internet access networks may be experiencing different levels of stress from that experienced in other countries. More study is required, but it is helpful to have new quantitative analysis added to what has recently been an emotional discussion.