Guess who’s the “online broadcaster of several of the hottest summer concertsâ€â€”including this weekend’s Lollapalozza. It’s AT&T. The anti-network neutrality phone giant is now “aligned with artists such as Coldplay and Keith Urban,†notes Ad Age. This summer, AT&T’s Blue Room is bringing online music fans “LIVE webcasts from Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza.†The Blue Room site helps debut music from CBS and has interviews with many leading music artists (including Yung Joc, Rodney Atkins, LeToya, and Tom Petty). Naturally, Blue Room runs online ads for AT&T’s high-speed Internet service. AT&T is also making a major push to reach others online, including bloggers (Project D.U.).
We think it would be very cool for Blue Room’s users—and participating music artists—to make it clear that they want AT&T to support Internet Freedom (network neutrality). They should demand that the phone giant stop its political campaign to control the future of broadband in the U.S. Otherwise, they should give AT&T’s digital monopoly–including Blue Room–a real case of the blues.
Source: “A Cool, Hip AT&T? Step Inside Blue Room.†Abbey Klaassen, Ad Age. July 10, 2006
