The Library of Congress has given iPhone users a get-out-of-jail-free card.

As part of a periodic review, the agency determined that “jailbreaking” the iPhone is allowed under American copyright law. Owners of iPhones (and other smartphones) have the right to unlock their devices and use applications not approved by the manufacturer or seller.

The decision is important in a variety of ways, not all of which are directly related to phones, or even to the wider goals of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sought a smartphone exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Basically, the Library of Congress reinforced the idea that when you buy a device, you own that device. This concept should apply to all sorts of technologies.

Automobiles are one example. Between built-in DVD navigational systems and the impenetrable engine service codes, drivers have to rely on the manufacturer for updates and service more completely than ever before. The days of teenagers in garages tinkering with their cars are all but over. Any owner, however, should be able to buy a third-party DVD database for the navigation system, or a program that can interrogate a car’s onboard computers to learn which malfunctioning gewgaw is making the “check engine” light flash ominously.

The world of e-books is another arena where the rules of ownership are fuzzier than they ought to be. A year ago, Amazon incensed its customer base when it wirelessly deleted certain previously purchased books from Kindle users’ libraries. Though the customers owned their Kindles, the files were apparently not so clear cut. And, while Amazon has since acknowledged that it was wrong to handle the matter the way it did, the company still has recall-enforcement mechanisms that are not available to merchants who sell more traditional merchandise.

Technology changes quickly, but some concepts ought to be enduring. One is that you own what you buy. Yesterday’s ruling means that, if you wish, you can install unauthorized applications on your own device, or make changes to the firmware.

Be careful. These modifications can have consequences much worse than a copyright violation notice. Jailbreaking your phone will almost always void its warranty. The practice can also open the door to spyware and viruses. But those choices are now firmly in the hands of the individual user, as they should be.

Apple claimed that permitting iPhone owners to jailbreak their phones would destroy the company’s technological protection for software on the device. But the Copyright Office noted that jailbreaking involves changing fewer than 50 bytes out of 8 million. It’s a small change that yields a lot of flexibility.

Vendors are usually eager to invoke the digital copyright law to the maximum extent. Apple understandably wants to keep its iPhone customers tied as closely as possible to its own iTunes and App stores, and to the wireless carriers (in this country, AT&T) with which it makes exclusive marketing arrangements. But hardware customers are not serfs. A car company cannot tie its customers to a certain brand of gasoline. Television makers cannot select only certain channels that will appear on their screens. (I am old enough to remember when the Federal Communications Commission mandated that all TVs must be able to receive UHF signals.) Even my shaving razor accepts third-party blades.

Our mothers taught us that we can’t “eat our cake and have it, too.” The Library of Congress now has delivered the same message to smartphone makers: You can’t sell a device and still behave as though you own it.

Larry Elkin is President and Founder of Palisades Hudson Financial Group LLC.

Photo Credit: Apple-Phone-Hacks.com

Arbitron is going high tech with their portable people meter rolling out a replacement for the 80’s-like pager-looking device with hardware that uses cell phone technology.

The new wireless PPM 360 technology will use a cellular network to collect data from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) panel. PPM ratings using the existing cradle technology will be available in 50 markets for the Summer 2010 book.

“We have multiple solutions for data capture and retrieval,” says Arbitron spokesperson Jessica Benbow. “While this version is on a cell phone delivery system, the existing PPM technology retrieves data from the meter through a docking station and sends it to Arbitron through a landline or a cell modem depending on status of the household and the availability of cell coverage. That system will remain intact simultaneously as this system is deployed.”

Arbitron’s president says the enhanced PPM will liberate audience measurement from the home and make it easier to follow the mobile consumers. “This platform is designed to be an integrated component to our existing radio services and drive future innovation for media measurement,” says William Kerr, Arbitron President and CEO.

Arbitron has decided to keep the name of the cell phone carrier secret. Rollout plans for PPM 360 will be announced after field testing of the new system concludes at the end of 2010.

by Kathryn Koegel

A veil of silence hangs over the advertising industry, as thick and unattractive as Scarlett O’Hara’s post-war recycled drape dress. At a mobile conference last week, the hot NON-topic was the iAd. Agency execs one after another deflected questions about Apple’s iAd platform and one after another began admitting it was all due to non-disclosure agreements. We’re talking about an ad unit here, not the plans to a stealth bomber and it’s just odd when an industry that focuses on communication goes silent due to Apple’s power in the market.

There’s something strange afoot when one of America’s most beloved and popular companies starts acting like it’s working with Pentagon-level secrets. The latest Apple response to “leaked info” is enlivening the trade media these days and has even made it into the realm of top pop culture. I still can’t believe that “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart devoted eight minutes to rant about how “Steve” had become “the man” while Bill Gates, the one we always knew to be nefarious and anti-competitive, was now off in Africa saving children from malaria.

I was in the midst of writing an extensive paper for Ad Age about the ins and outs of mobile marketing when Apple CEO Steve Jobs dropped his A-bomb on the world at an April 8 press conference. I foolishly expected Apple to respond to my queries — Ad Age is after all a publication of record in the ad world — but Apple stuck to its usual behavior of not commenting on anything. A contact of mine who had been given a demo of this top secret ad surreptitiously whispered (with the drama of Deep Throat) on her non-trackable landline: “watch the video.”

I encourage anyone who wants to see a cult of personality in action check out the widely available video from the press conference. You’d think we were in North Korea or something with the continuous claps of approval and bowing and scraping. They say Obama got a 30-day pass with the White House press corps but he has nothing on Steve.
What You Need to Know About Mobile Marketing

For everything you need to know about mobile marketing but were afraid to ask for fear of appearing uninformed, see the just-published Ad Age Insights white paper.

About 44 minutes into the presentation, he gets to the iAd. But first, he disses mobile advertising in general: “most of it really sucks.” Ok, Steve, if it sucks, why did you buy a mobile ad network? Quattro does creative for some of its clients. Are you saying their work sucks and you are going to save them from doing a bad job? I’ve seen some of their stuff — it’s good. He then reveals his exciting new units which are…. (ta-da!) exactly what companies like Medialets, Greystripe and Crisp Wireless have had in the market over the past year.

No, they do not seamlessly sync with commerce, but the commerce Steve is referring to is his commerce, as in things sold through the iTunes store. I don’t like that Steve. I wanna buy through Amazon, I wanna pay with PayPal. This is a democracy, and a free market. I want choice and I want competition for my business.

So what is the iAd? My theory is that it is the best possible ad vehicle for selling casual games. If you watch the video, he notably does not refer to the creators of apps as “publishers,” “content creators” or “producers” but as “developers.” He also notes the downward pricing pressures that app developers face: poor guys are making $.99 or less on a fancy version of Bejeweled or increasingly likely: giving those apps away for free to get enough usage to attract advertisers. (ComScore data show a 13% decrease in gaming behavior over the past year but an increase in the number of games downloaded — that means we are talking serious churn.)

The Apple app store is a victim of its own success and has learned the bitter lesson content producers online already know: the more content available the greater the downward pressure on price and the less consumers are willing to pay for any of it. With more than 185,000 apps in that store, it’s tough for consumers to discover new apps. If download numbers are going down as well as prices paid, developers are screwed. It is nice to know that Steve thinks the fairy dust of the iAd will fix it all. But I’m not so sure. Here’s why:

Environment can trump audience

Yes, the Apple app-natics are highly favorable to advertisers, but the top free apps that drive the volume of downloads are not exactly the kind of context/environment that brand advertisers are dying for: let’s see, you have an IM app, a social network, a violent video game (“World at War: Zombies Lite”), some casual games I’m clueless about and my personal favorite: “Exotic Positions”. While that new KY product that promises the ultimately fulfillment for both parties may have found the ultimate context, Nabisco, not so much.

Available inventory and channel conflict

Martin Nisenholtz, the executive in charge of The New York Times website, stood with Steve at the iPad launch to proudly show off his free ad-supported app. Is Martin going to say to Steve: “Yeah Steve, sell the New York Times in your network. I don’t need to have any say in what ads show up and let us take 40% of the revenue.” It seems unlikely the Times and other “branded” content sites will agree to Steve’s terms.

The ban on third-party analytics in apps

There is no definitive answer on what will be allowed in terms of measurement of apps. On the panel I lead at the mobile conference, a representative from Flurry, an app analytics company, said that if the language Apple has issued around analytics is indeed interpreted as stated, his company has a great product for Android and BlackBerry phones. One thing that Steve doesn’t seem to get about advertising is that “Brand” advertisers typically want to understand the “who” of a media property and the subsequent reach of an ad. He does not allow Nielsen and comScore to meter iPhones, and unless Steve also builds an app demographic-based panel, he won’t be able to get at that. His iAds will appeal, but purely from a direct response basis.

Apple does creative?

For the time being Apple will be creating ads — partly because there just aren’t that many HTML5 developers out there. How does AKQA feel about that or leading mobile agencies like Ansible or PhoneValley? Wish they could talk about it on the record. And by saying you’re doing the creative but basically offering programming services, aren’t you just repurposing ideas developed for the wired web, print or TV? Apple’s in-house creative folks are probably good, but are they Cannes-worthy idea people or just a bunch of programmers?

The whole Flash vs. HTML5 pissing match

Steve says Flash doesn’t work that great. Adobe says HTML5 isn’t fully baked. Why are we in advertising forced to suffer through arguments about programming languages that we cannot possibly contribute to? What this seemingly unfair fight will do is add more cost to the creation of content and ads for mobile — online has long been burdened by disproportionate technological costs to print and TV. Mobile is now that much worse.

The terms

It’s a 60/40 split with Steve getting 40% of the cost of the media buy. Even in the iTunes store, he only gets 30%.

The flash-in-the-pan nature of apps

According to mobile analytics firm Umber, 90% of apps never get used. Marketing is supposed to be about some kind of ongoing relationship with a halo effect from environments with loyal audiences. In apps that are downloaded today and gone tomorrow: the majority of them are games, entertainment and lifestyle, according to Flurry, will the ads matter? Will they achieve appropriate frequency?

His media math is flawed

Steve says 10 ads for every 30 minutes of content like TV with 100 million devices which equal 1 billion impressions a day. Serious scale. But the argument does not take into account the reach of individual apps, context, audience (the iPhone audience is not one specific demo), the global nature of the usage (nobody really buys on a global basis) and the fact that nobody could afford to actually buy all that inventory. This is a tonnage metric or what is politely called “potential reach” in the online media world.

He believes in clicks as a way of measuring effectiveness

Steve discussed effectiveness in his iAd network as being measured in clicks. OK, then, just admit it’s a DR business based on gaming and not some kind of brand engagement play as his ad examples showed. We all know about the fallacy of clicks as a pure measure of ad impact. Get with it, Steve.

Android is proving that the iPhone is not as special as we once thought

According to data supplied for the Ad Age mobile WhitePaper from MobClix, a neutral party as they are a mobile ad exchange that works with inventory on all device platforms, behavior on the latest Android devices and iPhones is remarkably similar. If we’re going to talk metrics like click rates, it’s almost identical. Phones like the HTC Incredible with their eight-megapixel cameras and ability to use two apps at once (now, not when the latest OS comes out) are becoming a personal statement in the same way iPhones were over the past two years. In fact, is the iPhone sooooo…2007-2009?

Just like Jon Stewart who ended his anti-Steve rant with a confession of absolute love for the product, I will conclude with a paean to Apple and its use of advertising. Apple truly gets that you can create value out of something that costs more than anything else in its category if you can develop a lifestyle and a culture around a brand. (Yes, in an article about Apple’s retail architect, the stores were referred to as the “cathedrals” of our age — take that, Chartres.) From the brilliantly art-directed “1984″ to the thematically compelling “Think Different” to the current personification of brand values of “PCs vs. Macs” (the hopeless nerd John Hodgeman vs. geek chic Justin Long), Apple has told us stories about its products that consumers embraced. I draw the line, however, about this latest fairy-tale. There is nothing magic about iAds, and while I applaud Apple for trying to elevate the mobile ad to take its place beside TV and interactive ads, I vehemently disagree with some of the ways Apple has chosen to go about deploying it in the marketplace.

This is a marketplace, and one that is supposed to be open at that. Let’s let the agencies do the creative, the measurement companies assess it, the programmers not have to do all that redevelopment to make it work, and all the parties who want to, sell it. Comments, Steve? I look forward to hearing back from you.

Kathryn Koegel is the Strategic Marketing Practice Lead at Primary Impact, a media research and marketing boutique. Kathryn has worked for internet, TV, print and mobile media companies including DoubleClick, the Gemstart TV Guide Television Group, U.S. News & World Report and the Online Publishers Association.

This article originally published on AdAge.com

A Ball State University and Sequent Partners study commissioned by the Nielsen funded Council For Research Excellence reports computer usage has replaced radio as the No. 2 media activity. The finding is consistent across big and small markets — unaffected by longer commuting times which should favor radio’s morning and afternoon drivetime dayparts. Print ranks fourth.

The study includes some predictable news, too: despite the growth of streaming media, TV is still the way most people consume their video.

Ball State observers recorded media consumption in :10 increments for traditional television,  computer,  mobile devices and “all other screens” (including display screens in out-of-home environments, in-cinema movies and other messaging and even GPS navigation units). The study recorded 750,000 minutes of usage over 952 days. Researchers used a handheld smart keyboard equipped with a custom media collector program to collect media exposure data.

Source: Council For Research Excellence

Democratic Senator Herb Kohl is looking into why a la carte text costs have doubled at a time when operator costs have remained flat. In fact, the technology costs the operators nothing at all in terms of bandwidth.

Last September Democratic Senator Herb Kohl from Wisconsin sent a letter to the top presidents of AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile asking them to explain why the price they charge customers continues to rise. As chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, Kohl wants to know why prices have doubled during a period while competition, through operator consolidation, has decreased.

The text business is a booming business. SMSing is up 32 percent since 2007 totaling 2.5 trillion worldwide messages sent each year. The Gartner Groups says that number will jump to 3.3 trillion in 2009.

Consumer advocates — who have filed more than 20 class action suits against the carriers — are incensed because sending a 160-character text costs the carriers no additional bandwidth to transmit. That’s because the message is carrier in a dedicated part of the communication called the control channel, reserved for setting up calls, ringing your phone, sending SMS texts and other overhead operations. Kohl’s case centers around why operators have doubled their fees while shrinking their operating expenses through consolidation for bandwidth they doesn’t cost them anything to use.

Sources: Engadget, Geek.com, tech.blorge.com, NYT,  HowStuffWorks , IntoMobile