I don't have an opinion on this topic yet, so I'm just observing the discussion.
Link: FON: WiFi everywhere!.
Link: WSJ.com - Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static.
Link: Fon: a billionaire Wi-Fi Utopian and his Blog Chorus | The Register.
Fon: a billionaire Wi-Fi Utopian and his Blog Chorus
Share my network. Please.
Published Sunday 12th February 2006 11:34 GMTFew start-ups encapsulate the desperate utopianism of the times so much as Fon Technology.
Created by the Argentinian dot.com billionaire Martin Varsavsky, who built and sold the Spanish portal Ya.com and ISP Jazztel before the bubble burst, at the heart of Fon is a soulful of hope.
Fon sets out to create a virtual 'roaming' network based around individual subscribers (and friendly ISPs) opening up their Wi-Fi networks to strangers. It requires special software, which only works with a couple of modems at the moment, but Fon is betting that for participants, the rewards outweigh the pain and the risks. Honoring the dot.com tradition, Fon will be buying $50 Linksys routers, and selling them to members for $25, reported Fortune magazine.
Last week Fon announced it had raised $21.7 million from Google, eBay (via Skype) and Sequoia Capital.
It certainly faces problems aplenty. Ubiquitous 3G data networks have relegated Wi-Fi to a few captive niches, and elsewhere it's either a loss-leader or a second-rate service for the needy. There's little gain for margin-squeezed ISPs to invest in the venture, and convert potential customers into freeloaders, and punters risk their pristine networks clogged by P2P traffic and porn downloads.
In short, it's a venture that requires a huge leap of faith.
But the story took a further twist as the week progressed, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Fon's paid "Advisory Board" heard the penny drop, and rushed to their blogs to praise the venture.
This so-called "Advisory Board", it transpires, is rather short on data communications technology experts and hard-nosed business experts - only one, David Isenberg has any chops in either area. But it boasted of an abundance of technology utopians, the kind of people who form the backbone of any conference about blogging. Not only is Esther Dyson represented, but the Board also boasts no less than three "Fellows" of the Berkman Center, a sort of new age think-tank attached to Harvard Law School: Isenberg, David Weinburger and Dan Gillmor. The irony of discovering this professional blog 'A-List', one that usually never shirks from advising others on "ethics", itself being caught shilling did not go unnoticed.
But this isn't the most intriguing part of the story, which Varetsky inadvertently highlighted when he defended his happy blogging board.
Veretsky said none of the payola bloggers wrote about Fon "because they're going to get paid," he told the WSJ "These are people who love what Fon is about."
[...]
Link: WSJ.com - Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static.
Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static
By REBECCA BUCKMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 9, 2006; Page B4When Spanish Internet start-up FON Technology SL tried to generate some buzz this past weekend about new funding it had snared from Google Inc. and eBay Inc.'s Skype Technologies, it pitched stories to traditional media outlets.
But the tiny company also got publicity from another source: influential commentators on the Internet who write blogs -- including some who may be compensated in the future for advising FON about its business.
Most of the nine members of FON's U.S. advisory board, including former newspaper journalist Dan Gillmor, technology author David Weinberger and Internet-law expert Wendy Seltzer, wrote about FON on their blogs late Sunday. That was right after FON founder Martin Varsavsky revealed on his own blog that the closely held company had raised $21.7 million in funding from Google, Skype and others, declaring it "a dream come true."
[...]
The avalanche of blogging about FON, much of it from people now tied to the four-month-old company, highlights the rising influence of blogs in shaping opinions about tech start-ups, particularly in Silicon Valley. It also reveals the possible conflicts of interest such complicated relationships can dredge up.
Some lawyers and academics with expertise in the Internet said the disclosures by the FON advisers were adequate and appropriate. But Bob Steele, an ethics specialist with the Poynter Institute, a journalism organization in St. Petersburg, Fla., says bloggers with financial ties to companies -- disclosed or not -- have "competing loyalties" that could taint their independence as writers. "It's still a problem," he says. While many bloggers don't consider themselves journalists, anyone putting information into the public domain about people or companies has certain ethical responsibilities, Mr. Steele says.
That can be a murky issue in today's clubby blogosphere, where many people including venture capitalists, lawyers and journalists write about Web issues and companies -- and often, each other -- with little editing. The rebound in Silicon Valley's economy, coupled with the popularity of cheap, easy-to-use blogging tools, means there are more aspiring commentators than ever opining about start-ups and tech trends on the Web. And increasingly, it is difficult to discern their allegiances.
[...]
You know, the Wall Street Journal attacking bloggers for lack of transparency and conflict of interest seems to be begging the question, as mainstream media is particularly criticized far more than bloggers for a lack of transparency. Transparency is one of the hallmarks of the blog movement. This article belabors the point, especially when it chooses to cite Armstrong Williams as an exemplar of badness (he is, insofar as he is one who was caught). Perhaps the Journal should lead the way to greater transparency, and open to the public its practices in building its own editorial page.
Oh, and for the record, I have no financial ties to FON. Haven't even tried it yet.
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