TLT-SWG Blog This - Clippings & Comments

Doppler : Redefining podcasting » About Doppler

2006-09-09T11:20:00.000-04:00

Doppler : Redefining podcasting » About Doppler

Apple Nears Deal for Feature Films on IPod

2006-09-07T09:06:00.000-04:00

So, how are we exploring ways in which all students having small multi-function internet-connected devices in their pockets during class could be used to improve teaching/learning?

Apple Nears Deal for Feature Films on IPod

The U.S. Edge In Education

2006-09-04T09:17:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Edge In Education

Wrong Way to Reward Teachers

2006-09-03T15:39:00.000-04:00

Wrong Way to Reward Teachers

Google, EBay Partner on Ads, Calling Tool

2006-08-30T09:10:00.000-04:00

Google, EBay Partner on Ads, Calling Tool

It's on Wikipedia, So It Must Be True

2006-08-06T23:46:00.000-04:00

It's on Wikipedia, So It Must Be True

2006-08-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

SMS Everywhere - For webmasters

2006-07-29T10:37:00.000-04:00

SMS Everywhere - For webmasters

Can download free HTML code to insert free text messaging service on a Web page

Camping Alone

2006-07-19T07:32:00.000-04:00

Camping Alone

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071801375_pf.html

“Speed camping?”: "All the fun in half the time!"

Camping Alone
Ready for S'More Networking, Billy?

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; A19

A decade ago, Harvard sociologist Robert D. Putnam captured the increasing fragmentation and isolation of American society in his perfectly titled book: "Bowling Alone." At the sizzling height of summer, I'd like to offer up the kiddy corollary to Putnam's thesis: Camping Alone.

I'm not one of those Michael Eisner "All I Really Need to Know I Learned at Summer Camp" types. But I do have some very strong views about what camp should be:

· Everyone should be assigned to a group, preferably one named for a furry woodland creature. In deference to modern sensibilities, the camp itself need not have an Indian name.

· This group should march from activity to activity, preferably singing silly songs that will be etched into the campers' young brains for decades. My New Jersey day camp's song consisted of -- this was the Garden State, after all -- highway directions: Stay on Route 10, dum, dum, dum, to 46, dum, dum, dum, you're on your way to Jeff Lakes Camp.

· Campers should be required to learn various skills that will get them absolutely nowhere in life and that they will never again be called on to use. These include, but are not limited to, archery and lanyard-making. Extra credit for camps that send kids home with trivets made from tiles.

This is a view of camp that is fast becoming as antiquated as the bowling leagues and bridge groups of Putnam's description. The modern camp is specialized and short-term; the modern camper spends a week at tennis camp and a week at computer camp, a week at baseball camp and a week at art camp. Think of it as Attention Deficit Disorder Goes to Camp.

I know children this summer who are going to horseback-riding camp, rafting camp, caving camp, science camp and something called "rock star day jam camp" -- and that's just two kids (not mine!) for part of the summer. A tae kwon do camp may be added to the mix.

Whatever happened to camp camp?

In fact, even camp camp isn't what it used to be. My 9-year-old daughter is attending one that lets campers sign up for activities as if they were so many college electives; the campers trudge individually to their daily activities, schedule in hand.

My daughter received hers in the mail the other day, and it included indoor soccer, "pom-poms" and yoga. She had managed to create for herself the world's first fully air-conditioned summer camp.

The Camping Alone phenomenon reflects a number of strands of 21st-century childhood: not only the atomized nature of the modern condition but also the frantic pace of life today, the pressure to specialize early and the indulgent, child-centered nature of the contemporary family.

The latest trend in sleepaway camps, the Wall Street Journal reported recently, is the speed session. Instead of eight weeks away from home, some camps offer sessions as short as 3 1/2 days -- barely enough time to finish a single lanyard. One camp's pitch: "All the fun in half the time!"

This is a function not just of the accelerated modern lifestyle but of the clingy modern parent, for whom clicking on the camp's Web site to see photos of happy campers doesn't suffice. "Parents can't seem to part with their kids," one camp consultant -- yes, camp consultant; at prices that run north of $1,000 a week, this is big business -- told the Journal.

Meanwhile, camps are increasingly specialized toward individual interests -- often with a not-so-subtle eye toward college admissions. One friend whose daughter is attending a day camp for gifted children reports meeting out-of-state parents who had booked a hotel room for the three-week duration so their child could go to this elite program.

My older daughter, a soccer player whose path to college probably won't be eased by her ball-handling skills, is sternly instructed that she should spend a few weeks at soccer camp over the summer to keep in shape. When I asked last year if she'd like to go to drama camp with her sister, she responded with preteen exasperation: "Mom, I'm not a drama person." How, exactly, does a 10-year-old become so certain of that?

And the frenzied "If it's Tuesday this must be rock-climbing camp" atmosphere reflects the modern sensibility that children should get to do what they want, no matter what parental scrambling that entails. I have friends who maintain an Excel spreadsheet of their kids' three conflicting camp schedules to coordinate the various drop-offs and pickups. It takes a village to carpool these children.

My mother put us on the bus to Jeff Lakes because (1) it stopped in front of our house and (2) that's where the neighbors' kids were going. It would no sooner have occurred to her to race around collecting me and my two brothers at different camps than to leave the house with dishes in the sink -- or to inquire where, exactly, we were going when we sped off, helmetless, on our bikes, after the camp bus dropped us off.

She did, however, save the trivets.

marcusr@washpost.com

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

MySpace Gone Wrong

2006-07-16T11:12:00.000-04:00

MySpace Gone Wrong: “MySpace Gone Wrong,” Cheryl MacPherson, Washington Post, p. B8, Sunday, July 16, 2006

I joined MySpace.com at my best friend's urging. It will be fun, she promised. So I quickly signed up and asked her to create a fantastic layout for my new page. I typed a couple of personal tidbits about myself, and 15 minutes later, my page was beating with pink and green flowers and Cat Stevens music.

The next day, still flush with excitement about finally joining the MySpace revolution, I overheard some kids in the seventh-period world geography class I teach talking about the Web site. I eagerly announced that I, too, had a MySpace page. Soon I was connecting to current and past students through the Web site. That's when I started to realize the difference between my MySpace and their MySpace.

Unlike my generation, which tends to use MySpace to keep in touch with friends across the world, the generation of students I teach uses MySpace as a prolonged, entirely unsupervised locker break. This adolescent MySpace is filled with profanity, dangerously personal information, sexually explicit pictures, drug references and, in some cases, even pornographic videos. Usually these posts are riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors. But the message is clear: Anything goes. During this locker break, there are no hall monitors, no teachers watching for trouble and, clearly, few parents who are anywhere nearby.

As a teacher of these talented young people, I am uneasy about this virtual world and unsure of my role in protecting my students from the damage it can cause. The other day, a previous A student of mine (soon to be a high school sophomore) posted a sexually explicit bulletin for his friends. The posting urged friends to answer 10 questions about ideal locations for having sex, favorite positions, preferable sexual acts and more. When I contacted this student about the offensive message and directed him to remove it, he replied that he posted this message because it was "fun" and that he did not really see anything wrong with it. Despite his reaction, he did heed my request and deleted the posting soon after. This troubling experience forced me to realize that these children are not ready to live unsupervised. I would not condone any 14- or 15-year-old living alone in an apartment and driving a car. So why do we allow these children to live independent lives online?

***And so, this fall, during parent-teacher conferences and back-to-school night, I am going to provide every parent I meet with detailed directions for creating a MySpace profile, making MySpace friends, posting comments and reading bulletins. And for those young adults such as myself who want to take back MySpace from the too young, send me a message or comment. You know exactly where to find me.

-- Cheryl MacPherson

Alexandria

teaches eighth grade at Gunston Middle School in Arlington.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

“Accessory to Advertising?”

2006-07-16T10:41:00.000-04:00

And Now, a (Scripted) Word From Our Sponsors

SWG: “Accessory to Advertising?”
EXCERPTS
This past spring, SAG's magazine ran an article headlined “Are you acting . . . or an accessory to advertising?,"

[Also see: http://www.sag.org/Content/Public/Overview.pdf
and other articles in summer 2006 Techs issue of Screen Actors Guild Mag
http://www.sag.org/sagWebApp/application;JSESSIONID_sagWebApp=EySFhd2wu0dvDZmqqyz5pAzu1Amwfkzt1O63cazq1mTnzypgsj52!-294071337!NONE?origin=page1.jsp&event=bea.portal.framework.internal.refresh&pageid=Hidden&contentUrl=/NewsAndAnnouncements/announcementLander.jsp&cp=null&announcementPage=/Content/Public/newscreenactor.htm
and
http://www.sag.org/sagWebApp/index.jsp
And, see below for text of
Backstage.Com

“Where Product Meets Program Execs push for seamless integration,” June 26, 2006, By Andrew Salomon
http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/multimedia/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002728003 ]

And Now, a (Scripted) Word From Our Sponsors
Film, TV Dialogue Puts Product Endorsement In a Troubling Place: Characters' Mouths

By Bridget Byrne
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, July 16, 2006; N07

It's always been there, but it used to know its place.

Now it's running riot, out loud.

Product placement -- or, as the marketing industry likes to call it, "brand integration" -- has made the leap from props to the mouths of actors in movies and on television. And it's at the point now, says Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, that **some actors are being asked to speak lines that are essentially commercials -- ones you can't TiVo through.

"Whereas they used to place product in a fairly innocuous way, they are actually giving actors dialogue extolling the virtues of these products," Rosenberg says.

SAG, in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America -- whose members are finding their dialogue can be usurped by the jingles of the ad world -- have been seeking to discuss these issues with the advertising industry, the networks, studios and producers.

This past spring, SAG's magazine ran an article headlined ****"Forced Endorsement: Are you acting . . . or an accessory to advertising?," which proposed guidelines for future contract negotiations and invited members to report examples of inappropriate shilling.

In a world obsessed with logos and status, it's only natural that brand names turn up in movies and television. In response to complaints, the Federal Communications Commission is calling for more hard-and-fast rules about disclosure. That might eventually affect the ****seamless integration of show and product.

But for now, the bigger problem with dialogue endorsement may be that it usually isn't seamless enough.

For example, Sony Pictures made a deal with the NBC show "Medium" last season and the result was hardly subtle: Main characters Allison and Joe discuss going to see "Memoirs of a Geisha," walk by a poster for the movie and then run into acquaintances who enthuse, "Oh, we just saw that, you'll love it!" Cut to a commercial for: "Memoirs."

They used to do it better.

In Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller "Rear Window," when Jimmy Stewart queries Grace Kelly about whether she's brought a suitcase for her overnight stay, she replies: "A Mark Cross overnight case, anyway. Compact but ample enough." Her beauty and the sight of her glorious nightgown and satin slippers spilling out when she snaps the little case open no doubt sent legions of young women hunting for a similar carryall.

So why do we worry about similar stuff today?

"It's distracting," regular moviegoer Thom Shelden says of the practice in the current summer films he's seen, among them Adam Sandler's "Click," much of which is set in Bed Bath & Beyond. "They are doing it so much," he says. "It's everything, everywhere."

Sandler's Happy Madison Productions has long filled its comedies about the crassness and commercialism of modern life with overt product placement, and the fact that Sandler is both producer and star means he's clearly not being forced.

But other actors may feel strong-armed, and that's what concerns Rosenberg.

"Our members are really being given a triple whammy," he says, noting that ad dialogue can take work away from commercial actors, might be a conflict of interest for an actor who is a spokesperson for another product, and doesn't compensate the actor involved.

****It's not just about money; it's also raising ethical questions.

****Rosenberg predicts that product placement eventually may involve political or religious thought and worries that "when at the last minute you're given something that is anathema to you . . . you've got to have the right to say, 'Yeah, I'll do that,' or 'No.' "

Traylor Howard of the cable series "Monk," who plays the detective's assistant, notes, "We do it here. It's a pain." She cites the use of a bleach product that none of the actors wanted to be associated with, because it seemed inappropriate to character and story line. A seasoned commercial actress, she recalls she eventually said, "I'll do it. I'll figure a way to make it seem normal." Another example was a car placement that "didn't fit the script . . . but we ended up making it work. . . . But sometimes you just can't do it." She says, "Hopefully it pays the bills for the show, but I don't know. I try not to worry about it, but sometimes it's really annoying."

The companies seeking brand integration stress they are sensitive to what seems appropriate.

Volvo knew it couldn't get a car into a story that predates autos, so instead created a global multimedia treasure hunt for its sport-utility as a promotional tie-in to Disney's adventure film "Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." But many other recent movies, including "The Da Vinci Code," have featured the company's car on-screen.

Dialogue isn't demanded, but clients are happy to hear it, if it's apt.

"If it fits into the story line," says Roger Ormisher, Volvo's vice president of public affairs. "There's always the quip, you know, 'Oh, it feels as safe as a Volvo,' or something. It's fine, because it's reality. That's not cheating. But we've never in any product placement asked for a specific name check. If the director, the producer or the writer feels they can roll a joke off the back of it, that's okay."

Linda Swick, president of the North Hollywood company International Promotions, which secures "brand integration" for companies such as Volvo, Corona and Heinz, points to dialogue in films that showed up even though no such demands were made. In last year's "Four Brothers," Tyrese Gibson referred to Volvo as "one of the safest cars," and in the original "The Fast and the Furious" Vin Diesel said, "You can have any brew you want -- as long as it's a Corona."

***"The audience laughed," she says, "and there you go: That's a perfect integration because whenever there's humor behind the integration there's also much more recall value. So there is a way of doing it."

*Swick sees problems only if there is audience backlash to a movie coming over like one big commercial. She believes the writers and actors should have confidence that the "director is not going to do anything in his film that is going to interfere with its integrity." She adds that branding integration "may be evolving and going through many changes, but it will continue because it's life. It's life!"

**For now, Rosenberg is looking for compromise on the issue: "If you consult with writers and actors, we will find a way to help you do it seamlessly so it doesn't infringe upon the art," he says. ****"But to just foist it upon us is wrong, and now they don't even want to compensate us for selling ourselves out like they normally do when we sell ourselves out!"

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Backstage.Com

“Where Product Meets Program Execs push for seamless integration,” June 26, 2006, By Andrew Salomon
http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/multimedia/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002728003

Last month, while the television networks were staging their upfront presentations for advertisers, the Writers Guild of America held a press conference to reiterate its objections to product placement — the practice of positioning name-brand items in a scene and weaving them into dialogue. This was the latest instance in a steady stream of disapproval by the artists' unions, whose leadership over the past year has pushed for a say in the process and, possibly, a financial stake.

Though money is most often the bottom line, both the WGA and the Screen Actors Guild say they are most concerned about their members being contorted into — in their view — nakedly shilling for companies. Nevertheless, marketers still need to sell their products and studio executives still have to generate ad revenue, without which free television would not exist and many movies wouldn't get made. In an ever-shifting media landscape — with new technologies competing for viewers' attention, sometimes enabling them to avoid commercials altogether — this has become more challenging. Thus there is product placement, which has been on the rise in television and film for the past decade. Its net worth, according to the research firm PQ Media, was $3.46 billion in 2004, a 30% increase over 2003. The company also found that product placement grew at an annual rate of 16.3% from 1999 to 2004.

Though there seems to be a great divide between management and labor over this issue, there is more common ground than some might realize. Like actors and writers, marketers and studio executives are wary of branded entertainment, because excessive commercialism can have a negative impact on the products being sold and the shows serving as a platform. Witness NBC's The Apprentice: According to advertising and entertainment industry experts, ratings for the reality show declined this season in part because of too much product placement.

A Virtually Simple Solution

To avoid that situation, advertising and studio executives are developing ways to seamlessly meld products with shows. One occurs during postproduction, when editors can insert the image of a soup can or box of cereal onto a kitchen counter — a process known as digital product placement. Developed by Marathon Ventures in Burbank, Calif., the service is sold to ad buyers and studios. Not only does it allow for more-discreet advertising in a show but the placement can be used in four different ways. For example, Coca-Cola can pay for a can of Coke on a table in the foreground of a scene, then change it to a carton of Minute Maid orange juice for the rerun, A&W root beer in the syndicated version — both of them Coca-Cola brands — then back to Coke for the DVD.

This innovation would seem to answer the complaints of the WGA, the most vocal critic of product placement among the unions, because it doesn't involve writing at all. However, it's hard to know the writers' position: Gabriel Scott, spokesperson for the guild, said the union would not comment on this technology.

The actors' unions seem to be sidestepping this issue, as well. When asked to comment, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists released a statement outlining its general policy on product placement, saying it's studying the matter and working to ensure that the process does not "compromise members' employment or employment opportunities."

Though SAG spokesperson Seth Oster also declined to comment on the issue, he pointed to the spring edition of Screen Actor, the union's magazine. It contains an article titled "Forced Endorsement," in which the union expresses its concern about digital product placement: "Technology now allows advertisers to digitally insert their products during postproduction, meaning actors may not even be aware of what is being advertised in their own shows."

According to several news reports on Marathon Ventures from outlets such as The New York Times and CBS's The Early Show, an episode of Yes, Dear in April 2005 was the first scripted program to use digital product placement — in a scene in which a box of Club crackers sits on a coffee table. In an email to Back Stage, Jean Louisa Kelly, an actor in the scene, indicated she didn't have a problem with it: "I was okay with the product placement on Yes, Dear and didn't notice anything really inappropriate."

'Perfect' Integration

Jeff Greenfield, executive vice president of 1st Approach, a branded-entertainment marketing firm based in Portsmouth, N.H., has long been a champion of product placement, but he also understands its limitations. "When it's done too much, it becomes exhausting to watch, viewers start to tune out, the bloggers pick up on it," Greenfield says. The resultant negative buzz can hurt show and brand alike.

Instead, he says, the future of integrated marketing will involve brands producing their own programs. "Why try to get pigeonholed into a show?" Greenfield asks. "What I tell my clients is, if you create good content, the distribution will be there&hellip. I see TV as an excuse to do marketing." Greenfield is working with two companies to develop two new programs, but they will be reality shows, not scripted.

Enter Lovespring International, an improvised comedy on the Lifetime channel that catalogues the tribulations of a sputtering dating service in the digital age. The fictional service's nemesis is the real-life website Perfectmatch.com, which paid for the tie-in that makes the show possible. It might seem that the talents behind a program in the tradition of Curb Your Enthusiasm and This Is Spinal Tap — which pillory the hypocrisy and self-seriousness of show business — would reject any kind of product integration. But the opposite is true, and not just because it provides work for actors and writers.

"When I was told about the idea, I thought it was terrific," says Jack Plotnick, an actor on Lovespring and one of its developers, "because we needed that idea anyway" — another dating service to serve as a foil. "It's a fun tie-in. I don't see it as a slippery-slope kind of thing."

Having a real-life competitor lends the show a legitimacy it wouldn't get with a fictitious company. In general, such verisimilitude can be a creative upside to product placement. Sam Pancake, another actor on the show, said he'd rather see a character eat Wheaties than a contrived, generic brand such as "Crunchy Flakes." "Seeing an actor hold a can that says 'Cola' takes me out of a show as much as excessive product placement," he says. Of the Perfectmatch.com tie-in, he adds, "It makes sense to me, and it doesn't bother me. I've never felt that it went against me creatively." The actors say they are not even required to mention Perfectmatch.com in every episode.

Guy Shalem, the show's creator, says he was pitched several ideas for product placement by Lifetime, including one for a computer company. "Not only did [the company] want to be mentioned but also [wanted] some sort of story line," he says. "It was asking way too much of us. We wanted flawless integration, and in Lovespring [Perfectmatch.com] was the only company."

The Power to Persuade

Achieving a flawless integration of programming and product would appear to satisfy all parties: marketers who need to work around DVRs and consumers' general dislike of ads; studio executives who are under pressure to boost revenue each year; writers, actors, and other artists who don't want to blatantly promote a company's wares within the context of a show. Yet the very idea of commercial legerdemain unsettles people outside and inside the entertainment industry.

Product placement is "deceptive advertising," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy organization that agitates for a church-and-state-like separation between ads and shows. "It sneaks by people's cognitive capacities and plants messages in their brains when they're paying less attention," Ruskin explains. "We're already seeing the effects of subliminal advertising: obesity, addiction to gambling, Type II diabetes.… Americans are suffering."

The WGA addressed the issue in a position paper about "stealth advertising" released in fall 2005: "That Guild members are now being forced to take part in stealth and often subliminal advertising concerns us a great deal." The tract also raises the specter of the Federal Communications Commission by mentioning an FCC regulation that states, "Listeners are entitled to know by whom they are being persuaded."

The FCC has worked diligently to raise its profile and influence during the Bush administration, most notably with the passage of a much tougher indecency bill. Jonathan Adelstein, one of the agency's commissioners, told the Los Angeles Times last year, "Everything from Coke to soap is subliminally hawked in TV programs. In today's media environment, product placement has moved beyond Coke tumblers prominently displayed at the judges' table of American Idol. Now products have even seeped into plot lines."

Likewise, the WGA report states, "The Guilds do not want members put in the unacceptable position of facilitating violations of FCC regulations. We, therefore, think this issue ultimately requires discussion both at the bargaining table and before the FCC in Washington."

The Bottom Line

The uncertainty caused by technology and the changing tastes of viewers forces studios and advertisers to seek alternatives to traditional models of marketing so that everyone can achieve the same goal: to get paid. Although the unions try to negotiate the margin between craft and commerce, ultimately their members work for the studios — and everyone wants to work, period. "I was in pilot hell for six or seven years," Shalem says. "I haven't gotten anything on the air" before the Perfectmatch .com deal. Creative talents can advocate for what they see as a better system, but, in the end, advertising pays the bills. There's no doubt marketers are going to have a big say in how the system works at any given moment.

Consumer advocates such as Ruskin say that if the television industry struggles to survive, that's good. "For us, the television industry is doing great," he says. "They're making people want to watch less."

People won't stop watching television, of course, and Ruskin knows that. But he believes that artists who work in the medium will eventually be affected by the integration of products and programming. "The infomercial medium allows for fewer opportunities for acting brilliance and screenwriting brilliance," he says. "As the constraints grow on television and it starts to look more like QVC, it's inevitable that the quality is going to decrease. Good actors and good screenwriters will flee opportunities [in TV] for those of higher quality."

For some of those working in the television industry, their outlook is much more sanguine. Kelly, the actor on Yes, Dear, writes, "There will probably always be a tension between the advertisers' interests and the creators' interests." Says Shalem, "The bottom line is moderation. That's true for everything in life."

Find this article at:

© 2006 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.

Law.com's In-House Counsel ©2005 In-House Counsel Online
Page printed from:
http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleFriendlyIHC.jsp?id=1146560723702

'Branded Entertainment' Deals Mean More Money for Companies -- and More Complexity
By Amanda Bronstad
The National Law Journal
May 3, 2006

It's no accident that contestants of "The Apprentice," Donald Trump's reality television show, designed the actual marketing brochures for a new Pontiac model. Or that the Man in the Yellow Hat in the recently released "Curious George" movie drives a Volkswagen.

They're the results of a new type of promotional contract between advertisers and entertainment, loosely dubbed "branded entertainment," which is generating substantial revenue for many law firms throughout the United States.

Designed to incorporate a company's product or brand name directly into the script of a television show or movie, the new deals go far beyond the day when Reese's Pieces candy got a famous feature in the 1982 film "E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial."

They involve product placement, joint marketing of a film or show and Internet or cell phone promotions. In the most far-reaching deals, advertisers have agreed to pay for portions of a production, such as the recent opening of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.'s "Akeelah and the Bee," which coffee giant Starbucks Corp. helped finance.

"The percentage of work for branded entertainment has grown exponentially in the last three to four years," said Brian Murphy, a partner at New York-based Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, a media and advertising firm that has about 10 lawyers handling the new deals. "Our practice has bloomed."

But branded entertainment hasn't come without scrutiny. Jonathon Adelstein of the Federal Communications Commission has called for stricter and clearer rules regarding disclosures of branded entertainment. Ron Whitworth, a special assistant to Adelstein, a commissioner, confirmed that the FCC has received a number of formal complaints involving potentially inadequate disclosure of product placements.

In another legal wrinkle, the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America are protesting the use of branded entertainment, describing it as a form of "forced endorsement" without compensation. The guilds may file protests with the FCC.

THE NEW 'REALITY'

The growth of branded entertainment comes as advertisers are seeking new ways to broadcast their message to consumers, who, with high-tech products such as TiVo and digital video recorders, or DVRs, are able to fast-forward through traditional 30-second commercials. It also comes as producers and television networks, which depend on revenue from commercials, are seeking new ways to obtain financing.

Nowhere has branded entertainment been more successful than in reality television programs, where product-placement deals have helped fund production of the shows.

One of the first shows to incorporate real products into the story line was "The Apprentice", which is in its fifth season on NBC. Last year, the winning team of one episode designed a brochure to market General Motors Corp.'s Pontiac Solstice, a new model that "sold out production output in a month," said Clark Siegel, a partner and co-chairman of the intellectual property and entertainment practice at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, which crafted the product deals on behalf of Mark Burnett Productions, producer of "The Apprentice."

"They paid a lot of money, but it was incredibly successful," he said.

The recent deals are much more complicated than simple product placement, which only five years ago rarely involved lawyers. Advertisers want their brand or product to have the most screen time, be in the most retail shops and generate the biggest gossip on Web sites.

As a result, more companies are looking outside their own legal departments to craft the deals.

"The prior deals were fairly simple, straightforward," said Larry Ulman, a partner at Los Angeles' Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who crafted a $200 million deal last year with NBC Universal on behalf of Volkswagen of America Inc.

"You either supplied the goods for free in exchange for seeing your goods on television, or you paid a small amount of money to make sure your goods are shown," Ulman said. "But the deals now are much more complicated. That's why you'd go to a big law firm."

'TREMENDOUS GROWTH AREA'

Most of the law firms that structure brand entertainment deals already have developed advertising and entertainment practices, typically in New York and Los Angeles. With branded entertainment deals, both departments are working closer together.

"It's been a tremendous growth area for us, without question," said Murphy of Frankfurt Kurnit. "It's given us an opportunity to take the expertise in the entertainment area and have those attorneys work closely with attorneys who've been working with brands for decades."

Linda Goldstein, chairwoman of the advertising, media and entertainment group and a partner in the New York office of Los Angeles-based Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said that five years ago the firm handled few, if any, product placement deals. Now, about a half-dozen lawyers, split between the advertising group in New York and the entertainment group in Los Angeles, structure up to 25 deals a year.

Few of the firms doing branded entertainment deals have a background in traditional motion picture financing.

"Unlike traditional forms of financing, where, if you put money into a film or television production you'd have the expectation of getting money back, in these deals there is no expectation of getting the money back," said Craig Emanuel, partner in the Los Angeles office and head of the entertainment practice at Loeb & Loeb, which has doubled to eight the number of lawyers working on branded entertainment deals in the past year. "The value to the product is getting your presence in the film."

Many branded entertainment deals involve some level of co-promotion, in which a movie is advertised or promoted by the financier. The movie "Akeelah and the Bee," for example, is advertised on Starbucks' cup holders.

"Anytime you can get somebody else to pay for your promotion of the movie, that is terrific," said Bob Darwell, chairman of the entertainment, media and communications group at Los Angeles-based Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, who called branded entertainment "a pretty meaningful part of our practice at the firm."

The deals come with an inherent challenge in getting advertising clients, who want complete control over the project, to communicate effectively with the various production heads who share their own creative input.

That becomes a challenge for lawyers, who spend much of their time making sure a product becomes a natural part of the story line, said Arnold Peter, a partner at Los Angeles-based Raskin Peter Rubin & Simon, which derives nearly 15 percent of its revenue from branded entertainment deals. He said many of the deals take months to negotiate.

"If you're representing the brand, you want to have as much of a product on the screen for as long as you can, but if you're representing the studio, you want to make sure you give value to the brand for the money they're paying you," he said. "You argue about the language. They want to say, 'No. Re-write that because you barely see the product.' Whereas, the producer will want as much discretion as they can [get] so that the product does not violate the integrity of the film."

As a result, the deals are "getting increasingly more complicated to negotiate because of issues of creative control," he said. For most attorneys, branded entertainment deals are unlike any other contract.

Ulman said he had to start from scratch in drafting Volkswagen's five-year deal with NBC Universal, the first of its kind by a major studio. In the deal, Volkswagen is allowed to work with producers in crafting its vehicles into the scripts and plot lines of the studio's movies, theme parks and television, including the SciFi and USA channels. One of the outgrowths from the deal is the recent movie "Curious George," in which the Man in the Yellow Hat drives a Volkswagen.

"It's not like you can pull out your standard promotions form," he said. "It's all new and creative; nobody knows the problems that will develop."

FCC GETS INVOLVED

One problem has been recent complaints made to the FCC related to the recent spate of branded entertainment deals. In its petition, Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Ore., asked the FCC to require better disclosures of product placement in television shows.

"Sometimes product placement is disclosed, sometimes it's not," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, which, in addition to petitioning the FCC, is lobbying Congress to introduce legislation that would require disclosures of product placement in all media.

Commercial Alert filed a similar complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which rejected its request last year because displaying an image or brand name on a show was not enough to constitute "deceptive claims," Ruskin said.

"That argument is based on this very antiquated notion that advertising persuades only through objective claims, not images," he said.

Ruskin favors a "pop-up" that would notify viewers as the show is going on that a product placement is taking place, instead of disclosing the placement in the ending credits.

Rebecca Fisher, an FCC spokeswoman, said that the commission has not yet replied to Commercial Alert's complaint.

'STEP UP ENFORCEMENT'

But Adelstein, the FCC commissioner, noted in remarks posted on the FCC Web site that concerns over product placement "clearly indicate that the time has come for us to step up our enforcement in this area.

"In today's media environment, product placement has moved beyond Coke tumblers prominently displayed at the judges' table of American Idol," he wrote. "Now, products have even seeped into plot lines. Soap operas have woven cosmetic lines into their tales of who-did-what-with-who, while 'The Apprentice' sounds more and more like an hour-long infomercial for the latest corporate sponsors."

Adelstein called for stricter and clearer rules regarding disclosures, which should be more than "a split-second during the credits in small type that no one could possibly read," he said.

Ronald Urbach, a partner and head of marketing and communication at New York's Davis & Gilbert, agreed that the regulatory issues are "still open" with regard to product claims.

"If you make a claim in a particular program, what is that and what is that not?" he said. "What rights do I have in content versus advertising? It has First Amendment issues across the board."

Branded entertainment deals have raised several other legal issues about trademarks, copyrights and free speech.

"One of the issues that I think will be the subject of negotiation in future discussions is what the SAG is calling essentially a 'forced endorsement,' " said Peter of Raskin Peter.

He said actors might request in their contracts that they have a say in product-placement arrangements, especially if the show relies on their "name and likeness," he said.

Last fall, WGA and SAG held a news conference in which they threatened to petition the FCC if networks failed to make more disclosures of product placement. The guilds are making similar protests this month at the annual "upfronts" in New York, at which networks are scheduled to announce their fall programming lineups to advertisers.

"Creators, writers, directors and actors don't have either consolation or compensation for being required to integrate products into their programs," said Patric Verrone, president of WGA, west. "Not only is that not part of our contracts, but it conflicts in many respects with what we're obligated to do. We're supposed to be writing television. You try to make it realistic if appropriate, but if a product gets shoe-horned in, we need to be able to say, 'No.'"

In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge

2006-07-10T10:03:00.000-04:00

In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge

In YouTube Clips, a Political Edge

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 10, 2006; C01

It starts off like a typical negative ad, with swelling music and pictures of John McCain: "Flip-Flopper? Yes. Waffler? Yes."

But then the Internet spot takes a strange turn: "Eh, whatever. He should still be president," the graphics say. "John McCain 2008. He's Not Hillary."

This is one of the 60,000 videos added each day to YouTube.com, a shoot-it-yourself Web site that has exploded in popularity over the past year. And while many of the most widely viewed videos are merely intended to entertain or titillate -- rants, parodies, pet tricks, soccer brawls, singing, dancing and booty shaking -- company executives say politics is on the rise.

The site's sixth most popular group -- as measured by the number of people who click to subscribe -- is titled "Bush Sucks," with 2,018 members and 741 videos. Also near the top is "Nedheads," with 841 members signing on to a group created by activists backing Ned Lamont in his Democratic primary race against Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

While bloggers played a role in the last presidential election, most advertising and message delivery still comes from campaigns, political parties and interest groups with enough money to bankroll a television blitz. But the YouTube revolution -- which includes dozens of sites such as Google Video, Revver.com and Metacafe.com -- could turn that on its head.

If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.

"YouTube is a campaign game-changer, shifting the dynamics of how to reach voters and build intimate relationships," says Julie Supan, senior marketing director for the small, California-based firm, which by one measure now runs the 39th most popular Web site. "YouTube levels the playing field, allowing well-backed and less-known candidates to reach the same audience and share the same stage."

Even the seemingly simple act of posting footage of a politician's interview on "Meet the Press" or "The Daily Show" has a viral quality, because it can be seen by far more people than watched during a single broadcast.

The 18-month-old site, which makes its revenue from banner ads, is free for viewers and contributors. The company says 80 million videos are viewed every day. Each video, group or page is placed in easily searchable categories, and those who subscribe to the groups are automatically notified of new content.

The networks are just starting to awaken to the power of these citizen video sites. After feuding with YouTube for illegally showing a clip from "Saturday Night Live" earlier this year, NBC realized the power of such online promotion and recently struck a deal with the site to publicize its fall lineup. Hollywood studios are interested as well.

Contributors to YouTube seem to lean to the left. There are videos of verbal stumbles labeled "Stupid Bush" and "Bush Screwups," along with "President Bush Drunk," a bit on CBS's "Late Late Show" that slowed down a tape of the president so it appeared as if he were slurring his words. Another shows Bush, in his Texas days, extending his middle finger. (One positive video features a group called the Right Brothers singing "Bush Was Right.")

Any registered user can form a group, and the site includes one called "Support George Bush," which says, "Don't be afraid of your beliefs -- most campuses nationwide have a liberal bias anyway . . . as does the media." But it doesn't crack the top 100 in terms of membership, unlike "Bush Sucks," which is designed "for everyone who hates Bush and all his Republican cronies."

A video about Virginia's junior senator is titled "George Allen (R-Exxon)." It turns out to be an old commercial slamming Allen's votes on energy by Democrat Harris Miller, who lost a primary bid to oppose Allen.

Not everything is serious business. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is razzed with a song parody called "Gay Wedding Bell Blues," to the tune of an old Fifth Dimension song: "I've heard your rants, I wish you'd quit / Just listen to you and hear your passion against gays / (Oh, but you're never gonna take my wedding day)."

And Rudy Giuliani would probably not choose to appear in drag, being nuzzled by Donald Trump, as he does in the video of a six-year-old press roast.

Democrats don't get a free ride on YouTube. While one supporter put up footage from "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC with the title, "John Kerry goes on the offensive against the right wing smear machine," other videos were titled "Kerry's Lost Again" and "Senator 2 Face Kerry." And several people posted anti-Kerry commercials from the 2004 campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Former senator John Edwards has his own page, or "channel," but elsewhere on the site, someone has posted footage of Edwards in the makeup chair, titled "Pretty Boy John Edwards / Watch as the ambulance chaser pretties up for the camera."

Hillary Rodham Clinton gets skewered in such videos as "The Scariest Monster," "Hillary Clinton's Campaign Frauds," "Hillary's Plantation," "Hillary Goes Nuts" and "Ken Mehlman on Hillary's Anger!," reprising an ABC interview with the Republican Party chairman. A video by a draft-Clinton group -- which flips through images of previous presidents and ends with the former first lady -- has been seen just 351 times, compared with 5,404 views for a draft-McCain video.

Politicians are increasingly joining the party. Former Virginia governor Mark Warner, a Democrat who is weighing a White House bid, has posted a two-minute video, which has been viewed 426 times. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has a channel featuring C-SPAN clips of various Democrats. (Readers can offer comments; one called her "the biggest windbag in the House.") Krissy Keefer, a Green Party candidate challenging Pelosi, also has a channel, which includes a taped endorsement by a San Francisco street poet named Diamond Dave.

YouTube does not verify the identities of the posters. Supan says political campaigns often put up their ads and speeches under unknown screen names but have begun doing so more openly. (Of course, little-known operatives can also post videos mocking opposing candidates.) Television networks have the right to demand that their clips be deleted when posted by people who have no rights to the material, but Supan says such complaints are declining as the major broadcast and cable networks -- all of which have held talks with YouTube -- have recognized the importance of not alienating their viewers.

While the site's amateur contributions range from nasty to uplifting to downright silly, they also restore a measure of fun to politics -- precisely what might appeal to younger people turned off by traditional speeches, ads and rhetoric. Supan says the modest viewing levels for politicians' pages reflect the pedestrian content of standard speeches and ads -- and will likely remain that way until they come up with behind-the-scenes footage or other eye-catching fare.

"At the end of the day," she says, "it's all about entertaining."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

In War-Torn Congo, Going Wireless to Reach Home

2006-07-09T11:37:00.000-04:00

In War-Torn Congo, Going Wireless to Reach Home

#pfmnav {background:#0D3159; color:#fff; font: 11px Arial; text-decoration:none; margin-bottom:15px;}
#pfmnav .pad {padding:6px; width: 760px;}
#pfmnav a {color:#fff; text-decoration:none;font-weight: bold; }
.wp_pipe {font-weight:normal;}

NEWS OPINIONS SPORTS ARTS & LIVING Discussions Photos & Video City Guide CLASSIFIEDS JOBS CARS REAL ESTATE
') ;
// -->
= "04210000" && now ');
}
//-->
') ;
if ( ( adTemplate & TOOLBOX_RIGHT ) == TOOLBOX_RIGHT )
{
if ( document.getElementById )
document.getElementById('toolbox_ad_right').style.display='block' ;
}
// -->
') ;
document.writeln ('' );
}
// -->
if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & BIGBOX_FLEX ) == BIGBOX_FLEX )
{
placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,5,'',true) ;
}
dcmaxversion = 9
dcminversion = 4
Do
On Error Resume Next
plugin = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." & dcmaxversion & "")))
If plugin = true Then Exit Do
dcmaxversion = dcmaxversion - 1
Loop While dcmaxversion >= dcminversion

') ;
}
// -->
.correction {
margin-top:8px;
padding-top:10px;
margin-bottom:8px;
border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC;
padding-bottom:10px;
font-family:arial,sans-serif;
font-size:11px;
color:#333333;
}
.correction strong {
color:#CC0000;
text-transform:uppercase;
}
In War-Torn Congo, Going Wireless to Reach HomeFor Poor, Cellphones Bridge Digital Divide
By Kevin SullivanWashington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, July 9, 2006; A01
KINSHASA, Congo -- Until not long ago, if Zadhe Iyombe wanted to talk to his mother, he had to make the eight-day boat trip up the Congo River to the jungle town where he was raised. In a country with almost no roads, mail or telephone system and a grisly guerrilla war raging, making that exhausting and dangerous trip was about the only way he could find out if his 59-year-old mother was still alive.
Then he got a cellphone.
Now he talks to his mother every day. And once a week, with a simple new feature in African cellphones, he uses a text message to transfer five minutes of airtime to her phone to make sure she can always call him.
"Now I know immediately how she is doing," said Iyombe, who lives here in the capital, 400 miles southwest of his mother's home. "These phones make everything easier. It has totally changed life in Congo."
As surely as the light bulb and the automobile before them, the cellphone and text messaging are radically changing the way people live in the developing world. In widespread use for about five years in much of Africa, technology long taken for granted by the world's rich has made life easier, safer and more prosperous for the world's poor.
For the first time, millions of Africans are able to communicate easily with people who are beyond shouting distance. Farmers and fishermen, for example, use text messaging to check market prices, eliminating middlemen and increasing profits -- and preventing long trips to the market on days it is canceled.
In cities, cellphones are becoming a basic tool of electronic commerce, allowing consumers to transfer money to merchants with a few presses on the keypad.
Restaurant owners now can advertise by sending bulk texts to their customers, promising something delicious for lunch. People call a doctor, mechanic or police officer instead of walking miles to find one. News of births, deaths and illnesses instantly reaches the farthest corners of the jungle, where mothers like Iyombe's struggle with the concept of their children's voices emerging from a little plastic box with buttons.
"Before, if you had a sick baby in the middle of the night, he could easily die," Iyombe said, holding the Nokia phone that has raised his ambitions and expectations of life. "Now you can call somebody to help."
Worldwide, there are more than 2.4 billion cellphone users, with more than 1,000 new customers added every minute, according to industry analysts. About 59 percent of users are in developing countries, making cellphones the first telecommunications technology in history to have more users there than in the developed world.
Cellphone usage in Africa is growing faster than in any other region and jumped from 63 million users two years ago to about 152 million today, according to David Pringle, a spokesman for the GSM Association, a trade group that represents cellular companies whose customers account for 80 percent of the global total.
Few places are seeing faster growth than Congo, which has 3.2 million cellphone customers and just 20,000 conventional land lines. At least 8,000 new cellphone customers sign up each day here; the number of users has increased more than tenfold in the past five years.
When one of Congo's first cellphone networks opened in 1999, it had capacity for 4,000 customers, but 30,000 people lined up outside the office demanding a phone, said Gilbert Nkuli, of Vodacom Congo, the largest of the five cellphone companies competing in the country's booming market.
Africa has attracted multimillion-dollar investments from many of the world's major cellphone companies, including Finland-based Nokia and U.K.-based Vodafone. Vodacom Congo is co-owned by Vodafone and a South Africa-based company, while Celtel, the second-largest provider in Congo, is owned by a Netherlands-based company that has operations in 14 African countries.
The two operators have built about 700 cellphone towers across Congo. Vodacom's Nkuli estimated that 70 percent of the country's 60 million people now live in areas with cellphone coverage.
"People would rather be without a shirt and trousers," Nkuli said, "and they'd rather go for days without food, instead of not having a phone."Dealing in Minutes
Down a rutted dirt road on the tattered outskirts of Kinshasa, Iyombe, 36, sat in the tiny two-room house he shares with his wife. He had been hoping for a career as an electrician, but when he finished his training in 2001, he couldn't find a job. The Congolese economy had been run into the ground by three decades of corrupt dictatorial rule by Mobuto Sese Seko. Then, after Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, the country dissolved into a war that has left 4 million people dead.
Amid all the despair, Iyombe spotted something new and promising: people carrying cellphones. The more he looked, the more he saw his future in the little gadgets. So he saved and borrowed, spending $500 for his first phone (the average price has since come down to about $40), and started charging people to make calls.
Now he's at the heart of Kinshasa's new airtime economy, in which minutes on a cellphone are a commodity that can be used, bartered or sold for cash.
In Kinshasa's noisy street markets, thousands of people sit at little wooden benches with signs that say appel , French for "call." They keep one or two -- sometimes four -- cellphones in their laps. They buy airtime in bulk from phone companies, then charge customers a small premium to make calls.
Amid the exhaust-choked chaos, airtime dealers sit patiently under colorful umbrellas or in wobbly plastic chairs offering exactly the same service as perhaps 30 or 40 other dealers working the same corner. They're all busy all the time.
At his little stand, which was the first one in his neighborhood, Iyombe said, he sells hundreds of calls a week and makes a profit of about $20 -- a fantastic weekly wage in a country where most people live on $1 a day. Iyombe supports his wife and pays rent for an aunt and school fees for two nephews. "I love my work," he said, wearing the bright red T-shirt of Celtel.
A large part of Iyombe's business is transferring airtime for his customers. They give him cash, and he transfers the minutes from his phone to wherever the customer wants them sent -- a friend, a relative or a business partner, often in some distant corner of this country the size of Western Europe.
The transfer takes only a few seconds: Iyombe needs only to enter the amount of airtime and the phone number of the person receiving it. Cellphone companies have added that function to phones in the past year.
Iyombe said many of his customers transfer airtime so that family members in the countryside can resell it. Customers in Kinshasa send airtime to a brother or parent in a distant village, who then sets up under a shady tree and acts as a human phone booth. They sell calls on their phone and earn enough cash to feed their families. In many Congolese villages, cellphone ownership marks the divide between haves and have-nots.
Iyombe said text messaging has been slowed by widespread illiteracy but has started taking off in recent months as people learn key words to text, such as "Call me." He said it is becoming more popular largely because a text message costs five cents, compared with 26 cents for a one-minute voice call. When his mother wants to talk to him, he said, she sends a text telling him to call.
"It was a little difficult getting her to use texts, but now she's very good at it," he said, smiling at the thought.
The demand for cellphone calls has sprouted several offshoot industries. For a fee, people type text messages for the illiterate. In places where there is little or no electricity -- which means most of Congo -- entrepreneurs set up small diesel-powered generators and connect plug boards with 30 sockets. People plug in their phones to charge for a couple of hours for about 30 cents.
Iyombe keeps his own small generator to make sure he's never without battery power.
"Without these cellphones, we wouldn't be able to move forward," he said.Mobile Accounts
Iyombe spoke while sitting in the larger room of his house, which is just big enough for a bed -- and a television he bought in a cellphone transaction.
Last year he walked into an electronics shop in the city center and picked out the 20-inch TV. To pay, he punched a few buttons on his cellphone and transferred a down payment of $150 into the shop's bank account. The shopkeeper received a text message confirmation that the money had been transferred successfully, and Iyombe walked out with his new TV. Iyombe settled his bill with three more $50 payments via his cellphone.
"I went in empty-handed, but I could still buy something because I had my phone," he said.
Conveniences such as laptops, Internet access, ATMs and credit cards are rare or nonexistent in Congo, so entrepreneurs are devising ways to use cellphones to serve the same functions.
Iyombe is one of about 25,000 Congolese subscribers to Celpay, a company that offers Internet banking through cellphones. Celpay customers make cash deposits into their Celpay accounts and can access their accounts, transfer money or pay bills with their phones.
Dozens of businesses, including gas stations and grocery stores, now allow customers to pay for goods through Celpay. The company that distributes Coca-Cola and Heineken beer also uses the system to collect payment, which means drivers no longer have to carry a safe full of cash on their trucks and constantly worry about bandits.
When Iyombe wants to make a deposit to his account, he can go to one of more than 100 "cash points" set up across the country. Most are small booths with a person sitting inside with a cellphone and a cash box, known here as "human teller machines." Iyombe gives cash to the clerk, who sends a text message to Celpay noting the deposit. Iyombe then receives a text message confirmation that the money has been credited to his account.
Lazarus Muchenje, chief executive of Celpay, said his company is trying to capitalize on the Congolese embrace of cellphone technology: "We are using the credibility of the cellphone network." Celpay is owned by FirstRand Banking Group, a major South African financial institution.
At a busy gas station in Kinshasa, manager Tharcisse Tshimanga said he gets six or eight customers a day paying with their phones.
"People trust this," he said. "It's made everything easier."Tool of Corruption, Peace
Cellphones have also created a new kind of corruption in a country rife with it: People here tell of government officials demanding bribes in the form of airtime transferred to their cellphones. Local officials said they believe armed rebel groups use cellphones and texts to coordinate their operations in the country's eastern provinces, where they fight regularly with 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers, the largest U.N. force in the world.
But the technology is also being used to create peace, as with a program to disarm more than 150,000 men and women who fought in Congo's gruesome war.
One recent morning in downtown Kinshasa, Fiston Disundi walked up to a little white Celpay cash point booth and handed over his government ID.
The woman in the booth entered his ID number into her cellphone and sent a text message to Celpay's computer database. Ten seconds later the response came back. Disundi, 27, was a former soldier who had turned in his AK-47 rifle in January. That meant he was entitled to a monthly $25 cash payment, which she promptly handed over to him.
The World Bank, Britain, France and other big donors have put up $200 million for the year-old program, designed to turn Congo's warriors into wage earners. So far more than 75,000 people have handed over their guns in exchange for job training and a cash incentive: an initial $110 payment, followed by monthly $25 payments for a year.
Initially, clerks using thick account books with handwritten entries were having trouble making the thousands of payments efficiently. So, in February the program contracted with Celpay to modernize the process.
Disundi said when he received his first two $25 payments, he waited nearly six hours in long lines while clerks dug through record books to find his details. But when he went to the Celpay booth recently, the transaction took less than a minute. The system also confirmed that Disundi was where he was supposed to be: Ex-combatants must agree to stay in their home regions rather than gathering with others in hotspots.
Sitting in the shade in the intense morning heat, Disundi, a thin man with a scruffy beard, said he'd been carrying a gun since 1997, when his parents were killed by a mortar shell that fell on their house. "I saw so many terrible things," he said. "I felt nothing anymore. I was just waiting to die."
He said he's relieved not to be carrying a weapon. He wants to become a mechanic so he can support his two children.
"I don't want them to go through what I've been through," he said.
He has no job and almost no money. But he has a cellphone, which rang over and over as he talked.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
') ;
// -->
Ads by Google
Aaron Klein for DelegateA Voice for the Community Silver Spring and Takoma Parkwww.KleinforMaryland.com
') ;
if (! ( ( adTemplate & AD_LINKS_BOTTOM ) == AD_LINKS_BOTTOM ) )
{
if ( document.getElementById )
document.getElementById('ad_links_bottom').style.display='none' ;
}
// -->
if (document.domain != '') {
rs = (typeof thisNode != 'undefined')?thisNode.split("/")[0] + "/" + thisNode.split("/")[1]:null;
if (typeof thisNode != 'undefined' && rs.split("/")[1] == 'undefined') rs = thisNode.split("/")[0];
DM_addToLoc("thisNode",rs);
DM_tag();
var DM_CSID = "J05531";
var DM_UIDS = 3;
var DM_CHN = document.location.hostname;
var DM_PIX = "pix01.revsci.net";
var DM_BPIX = "pix01.revsci.net";
var DM_UIDD = document.location.hostname;
DM_addToLoc("thisNode", rs);
DM_tag();
}
placeSiteMetrix();
var SA_ID="wpost;wpost";

Camp E-Mailaway

2006-07-09T11:34:00.000-04:00

Camp E-Mailaway

#pfmnav {background:#0D3159; color:#fff; font: 11px Arial; text-decoration:none; margin-bottom:15px;}
#pfmnav .pad {padding:6px; width: 760px;}
#pfmnav a {color:#fff; text-decoration:none;font-weight: bold; }
.wp_pipe {font-weight:normal;}

NEWS OPINIONS SPORTS ARTS & LIVING Discussions Photos & Video City Guide CLASSIFIEDS JOBS CARS REAL ESTATE
') ;
// -->
= "04210000" && now ');
}
//-->
') ;
if ( ( adTemplate & TOOLBOX_RIGHT ) == TOOLBOX_RIGHT )
{
if ( document.getElementById )
document.getElementById('toolbox_ad_right').style.display='block' ;
}
// -->
') ;
document.writeln ('' );
}
// -->
if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & BIGBOX_FLEX ) == BIGBOX_FLEX )
{
placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,5,'',true) ;
}
dcmaxversion = 7
dcminversion = 4
Do
On Error Resume Next
plugin = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." & dcmaxversion & "")))
If plugin = true Then Exit Do
dcmaxversion = dcmaxversion - 1
Loop While dcmaxversion >= dcminversion

') ;
}
// -->
.correction {
margin-top:8px;
padding-top:10px;
margin-bottom:8px;
border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC;
padding-bottom:10px;
font-family:arial,sans-serif;
font-size:11px;
color:#333333;
}
.correction strong {
color:#CC0000;
text-transform:uppercase;
}
Camp E-MailawayCompanies Offer New Ways for Parents To Keep in Touch
By Kim HartWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, July 8, 2006; D01
When Laura Roy sent her two nieces to summer camp in Southern Maryland, she equipped them with stamps, stationery and pre-addressed envelopes. Two weeks later, the postal service hasn't delivered any letters from them.
Instead, Michelle, 11, and Danielle, 8, have been sending handwritten notes to Roy's e-mail inbox, telling tales of canoe trips and cold showers at Camp St. Charles near Newburg, Md., and she replies with e-mailed messages of her own.
"I don't think I would have received too many through the mail," said Roy, a D.C. resident who was worried that her nieces would be homesick at their first overnight camp. She has printed out all of the letters and plans to keep them forever. "It's a treasure -- something in their own handwriting instead of just a plain old e-mail printed out."
For the past several years, kids have been able to receive e-mails at camp from their parents and other loved ones, often handed out with the regular mail at mealtimes. But technology companies are rolling out new ways for kids to report home, including scanning images of handwritten notes, sending digital photos, and posting live video of kids playing kickball.
While technology can alleviate homesickness for antsy campers -- and lessen anxiety for parents -- some camp enthusiasts warn that such constant contact defeats the independence-boosting spirit of summer camps and keeps kids too plugged in when they should be frolicking outdoors.
Several Internet-based companies provide these features for camps, which often don't have the resources or the know-how to share video or photos online. New York-based Bunk1.com hosts photo galleries, organizes parent e-mails and sends handwritten letters to parents' inboxes. Ecamp.net, owned by Thriva LLC, offers similar services, as well as video messages with webcams. Camp Channel Inc. sets up cameras for online streaming video of camp activities.
Camp Staunton Meadows, a small co-ed summer camp in Clover, Va., posts more than a hundred photos on its Web site for parents to view and print, distributes about 50 parent e-mails to campers, and sends about 30 handwritten replies to parent inboxes with the help of Bunk1.com each day.
"Parents have really enjoyed being to able hear back from campers on the same day," said Andy Adams, the camp's director. "By the time parents get home from work, replies are in their inbox telling them what their camper did this morning or how the ropes course was this afternoon."
However, the system comes with a few challenges. Letters written in pink pen -- a favorite among female campers -- don't scan well, and some of the male campers have to iron the wrinkles out of letters that have been stuffed in pockets.
With a dial-up Internet connection, uploading all of the photos takes some time, but the galleries have been "a huge hit," Adams said. The photos, however, sometimes open the kids up to parental scrutiny.
"We get great calls from parents asking 'Why is my daughter wearing the same shirt she wore yesterday?' and 'My son has a Band-Aid on his elbow -- what happened?' " Adams said.
Many camps are going high-tech, according to the American Camp Association. This year, 82 percent of accredited camps have Web sites and 92 percent have e-mail addresses -- up more than 50 percent from five years ago.
Still, the majority of camps do not offer such tools, said Bette Bussel, executive director of the American Camp Association's New England chapter. Because camps have varying levels of technological involvement, families can choose which approach works best for them, she said.
Christopher Thurber, a psychologist who is spending his 26th summer at Camp Belknap in New Hampshire, said no technology is used at the camp except for the occasional stereo in the cabins. Kids write traditional letters to send home, and they save photos and stories to share with parents at the end of the summer.
"I think there is great value in bringing kids away from things they have the other 10 or 11 months out of the year," Thurber said. "Because the possibility exists to write a letter every day, some parents are writing four or five e-mails" a day.
He urges parents to "get out of the instant-message mode" and correspond with their campers two or three times a week. "That still promotes self-reliance and independence and cuts that digital umbilical cord."
Ari Ackerman, founder and chief executive of Bunk1.com, agreed that campers should have limited access to technology. His company's service allows kids to write their letters on pre-printed stationery with their parents' e-mail addresses encrypted into barcodes. The campers write letters and then pass them to counselors to fax to Bunk1.com, which scans the letters and sends them to parents' inboxes.
"It provides a one-way window into the child's world," he said. "Parents are on the computer, but kids are outside playing ball where they should be."
At Camp St. Charles, where Michelle and Danielle are finishing their stint, campers are not allowed to have cellphones, televisions or MP3 players. But most of the camp's 155 campers write home on Bunk1.com's stationery.
"Our kids are not anywhere near the technology," said Laura Hall, the camp's director. "We just offer the high-tech tools for the parents. I think it's the perfect balance: Parents get that quick turnover that technology offers and the kids get the back-to-nature break from technology."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
') ;
// -->
Ads by Google
Build a Computer at CampKids build their own computer and take it home! 6 locations.www.kidsntechnology.net
Adventure Links VirginiaSummer, Overnight, Expedition Camps Rock Climbing, Caving, Kayakingwww.adventurelinks.net
The Camp WizardSearch New York, Pennsylvania and New England accredited summer campswww.campwizard.org
') ;
if (! ( ( adTemplate & AD_LINKS_BOTTOM ) == AD_LINKS_BOTTOM ) )
{
if ( document.getElementById )
document.getElementById('ad_links_bottom').style.display='none' ;
}
// -->
if (document.domain != '') {
rs = (typeof thisNode != 'undefined')?thisNode.split("/")[0] + "/" + thisNode.split("/")[1]:null;
if (typeof thisNode != 'undefined' && rs.split("/")[1] == 'undefined') rs = thisNode.split("/")[0];
DM_addToLoc("thisNode",rs);
DM_tag();
var DM_CSID = "J05531";
var DM_UIDS = 3;
var DM_CHN = document.location.hostname;
var DM_PIX = "pix01.revsci.net";
var DM_BPIX = "pix01.revsci.net";
var DM_UIDD = document.location.hostname;
DM_addToLoc("thisNode", rs);
DM_tag();
}
placeSiteMetrix();
var SA_ID="wpost;wpost";

2006-06-30T16:07:00.000-04:00

MySpace Plans New Restrictions for Youths

2006-06-21T08:54:00.000-04:00

MySpace Plans New Restrictions for Youths

MySpace Plans New Restrictions for Youths

By ANICK JESDANUN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 12:55 AM

NEW YORK -- MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site.

The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen's list of friends.

Under the changes, expected to be announced Wednesday and taking effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's friends' list unless they already know either the youth's e-mail address or full name.

Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. The difference is that currently, adults can then request to be added to a youth's list to view the full profile; that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over.

However, users under 18 can still make such contact, and MySpace has no mechanism for verifying that users submit their true age when registering. That means adults can sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old's list of friends, which would enable the full profiles.

The partial profiles display gender, age and city. Full profiles describe hobbies, schools and any other personal details a user may provide.

Driven largely by word of mouth, MySpace has grown astronomically since its launch in January 2004 and is now second in the United States among all Web sites by total page views, behind only Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. The site currently has some 87 million users, about a quarter registered as minors, according to the company.

At MySpace, which was bought last year by News Corp. for $580 million, users can expand their circles of friends by exploiting existing connections, rather than meeting randomly or by keyword matches alone.

It offers a mix of features _ message boards, games, Web journals _ designed to keep its youth-oriented visitors clicking on its advertising-supported pages.

MySpace has recently become a target of parents, schools and law enforcement officials concerned that teens who hang out at MySpace can fall victim to sexual predators.

Just this week, a 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl who tricked her parents into getting her a passport flew to the Mideast to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

Besides the contact restrictions, all users _ not just those 14 and 15 _ will have the option to make only partial profiles available to those not already on their friends list.

All users also will get an option to prevent contact from people outside their age group. Currently, they may only choose to require that a person know their e-mail or last name first; that will remain an option to those 16 and over, even as it becomes mandatory for those younger.

MySpace also will beef up its ad-targeting technology, so that it can avoid displaying gambling and other adult-themed sites on minors' profile pages and target special public-service announcements to them.

The changes follow a number of safety-related measures that includes the hiring of a former federal prosecutor and Microsoft Corp. executive as its online safety chief. MySpace already has developed safety tips for parents and children and devotes scores of employees to monitoring the site around the clock.

© 2006 The Associated Press

"Learning the Mane Things in Life" - Joys, Sorrows, Bad Hair Days

2006-06-17T08:55:00.000-04:00

Learning the Mane Things in Life
Please don't judge this article by the title or even by the interesting first few paragraphs. This article is about the real feelings we have when we are young and when we are old - the feelings that cannot be prevented or banished. Without ever using the terms, this article is about happiness and depression and, perhaps, about how we must accept life's inevitable sorrows if we want to receive life's joys.

The Chronicle: 6/9/2006: The Right Time and Place for Big Questions

2006-06-13T16:41:00.000-04:00

The Chronicle: 6/9/2006: The Right Time and Place for Big Questions

SmartClassroom

2006-06-11T18:37:00.000-04:00

SmartClassroom

JK Audio

2006-06-06T19:13:00.000-04:00

JK Audio

Social Networking - The Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web - Mar. 3, 2006

2006-06-06T01:43:00.000-04:00

The Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web - Mar. 3, 2006