Author: Fionna Poon

With the year coming to a close we decided to take a look back at how the Boston startup community did. It was another awesome year for the community and the numbers definitely echo that sentiment. We’d like to extend a big congratulations to the companies that went public or were acquired in 2014 and here’s to a great 2015!

It’s Friday and we have links! Grab some coffee (or a beer) because some of these are going to be a time sink.

Projects Come Alive With VideoBlocks

Enliven your creative projects with millions of unlimited downloadable content at the touch of a mouse on VideoBlocks.com. Check it out >

Download videos from Youtube (and more sites)

A small command-line program, youtube-dl lets users download videos from Youtube and other sites. The only requirement though is Python interpreter. Grab it now >

A Behind The Scenes Look Into AWS

At the re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this year, James Hamilton, vice president and distinguished engineer for Amazon Web Services (AWS), gave conference attendees a broad but insightful glimpse at the size and scope of AWS cloud. For example, Hamilton goes into detail on the ins and outs of the network AWS built from scratch. For more on the story, keep reading >

The Truth Behind W3C, the Web, and HTML5

In October of this year, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) officially recommended HTML5. For citizens of the Internet who aren’t familiar with the matter and want to know more about it, this article goes back in time, providing an in-depth history on how the Web, the W3C, and HTML5 came to exist. Keep reading >

Strategy Change For Firefox’s Search Partnerships

Last week, Firefox announced that it will be changing its strategy for Firefox search partnerships. In the announcement, it will no longer have a single global default search provider which was formerly held by Google. Instead, Firefox has chosen to promote choice and innovation on the Internet by partnering with local search providers, becoming the default search experience rather than Google, in every country. Keep reading >

Net Neutrality has been all over the news lately and I’ve been fielding a couple of questions related to it. At Setfive, we think it’s a critically important issue, both to startups and the technology infrastructure of the United States as a whole. Because of that, we decided to pull together an overview, some history, and key outcomes surrounding the Net Neutrality debate. As always, questions or comments welcome!

What is Net Neutrality? First coined by Columbia Law professor Tim Wu, network neutrality, or net neutrality for short, states that internet service providers (such as Verizon and Comcast) and governments should provide you with access to content and data regardless of where it came from equally. Internet service providers (ISPs) are not allowed to discriminate and slow speeds for one company in favor of its competitor.

Essentially, net neutrality maintains a free, open, and fair internet.

• In 2002, the FCC had the opportunity to regulate ISPs as it had done for the phone companies. Ultimately though, the FCC chose not to at all citing that ISPs are “information services”, completely different than the telecommunication services phone companies provide.
• However a few years later, the FCC began to notice the enormous power and strength that ISPs had accumulated over the years. In an attempt to curb and regulate them, the FCC created the Open Internet Rules in 2010

• Enforced transparency of ISPs operations and management of their networks
• Prohibited ISPs from obstructing access to legal content and applications
• Maintained an equal and fair playing field online by preventing ISPs from giving preference to one company over another. Essentially becoming the core of net neutrality

In response to these rules, Verizon brought the FCC to court in 2013 on the charge that the agency had no authority to use the Open Internet rules to regulate ISPs.

• On this day, a DC circuit court determined in the Verizon Communications Inc. vs FCC case that portions of the Open Internet Rules especially the ones pertaining to an equal and fair internet could not be applied to ISPs.
• The reasoning was that portions of the rules apply only to common carriers, which provide telecommunication services. But since ISPs are classified by the FCC as providers of information services, they’re not considered under the law as common carriers.

What does this ruling mean? It eliminated the only existing rules protecting net neutrality. As a result, ISPs can now:

• Charge companies fees for “premium” access to their consumers. Think Verizon charging Netflix to stream to their customers at better rates.
• Selectively prioritize one source of traffic over another. Think Comcast prioritizing delivering its Xfinity onDemand service over HBO Go.
• And of course, create “slow lanes” and “fast lanes” paving the way to charging for ala carte Internet packages, just like TV. Imagine seeing errors like: “Sorry! You need to subscribe to the ‘social package’ to access this site.”

What’s the president’s stance on all this? He’s pro net neutrality and has urged the FCC to establish strong rules that would protect it. However since the FCC is an independent government agency, Obama has no direct influence. Additionally, in a bitterly divided congress some hardline Republicans are taking an anti-Net Neutrality stance to pander to their base. See The Oatmeal on Ted Cruz.

What’s next? The FCC does have the power to reclassify ISPs as telecommunication service providers and thus subject them to the Open Internet Rules. What it decided to do instead is to create a new net neutrality framework that would hold up in court while at the same time satisfy both sides.

Right now, everyone is in a holding pattern waiting for the FCC to make a final announcement.

Welcome to the weekend! We’ve rounded up some interesting reading to carry you through the till Monday. Fire up your iPad, grab some cider, and snuggle up with a blanket:

Why are CVS and Rite Aid blocking Apple Pay?

As members of MCX, a group of retailers hoping to create an alternate payment solution, CVS and Rite Aid are blocking Apple Pay in hopes of slowing its adoption. Unfortunately for the MCX consortium, numerous disagreements about the system’s foundational premises has made it almost impossible for it to launch after 4 years of development. Keep reading >

Apple Pay, partnerships and software as disruption

Apple in recent years have changed the way industries appear and operate. It has done so in three ways. The first is it builds tightly integrated products. The second is a major drive to partner with companies who can fill in the gaps that it lacks. Third, while a partnership with apple may look great, apple has a tendency to move an entire industry into software. And so the question left is: what’s next for Apple and Apple Pay? Keep reading >

“Contact Me” surprisingly drives sales

Contrary to what you think, contacting a sales representative actually brings in more revenue than free trials can. Here is why and how you can capitalize on this. Keep reading >

A Few Non-Obvious Things I Learned as a New VC

For you future VC’s out there, there are 7 essential insider tips you need to know to take on the VC world by storm. Key takeaway? You should consider each investment as a marriage without the easy divorce option. Keep reading >

FCC proposes net neutrality compromise. Everyone hates it.

In its effort to make both sides happy in the fierce battle over net neutrality, the FCC is considering a plan that would separate broadband into two services, one as retail and another for back-end. Unfortunately for them, instead of the plan satisfying both sides as it should, it has only fueled more outrage. Keep reading >

Last week, I was catching up with some friends when one of them asked an interesting question - Which Boston area companies are currently hiring PHP developers? Surprisingly, I didn’t really have a good answer so I decided to find out. To figure this out, I searched job posts that were specifically looking for PHP developers and started pulling together a spreadsheet about the posts. As I was looking at the data, I decided to put together a graphic which is available below along with the list of companies. As always, questions or comments welcome!