I'm actually a little conflicted about this. Powell's FCC did ridiculous things with respect to indecency rulings, but the man was at least enthusiastic about technology. It's true that he was kind of a tyro about it -- owning a tivo doesn't necessarily make you a hi-tech policy expert, despite how I usually comport myself. But Powell called for deregulation of additional spectrum and oversaw the dawn of microbroadcasting licenses -- both good things. I'm not sure how much of a hand he had in setting the HDTV and digital radio conversion deadlines, but they're underway and that's a good thing.

On the other hand, he bent over happily for the content industry when they demanded the implementation of the broadcast flag. And the reforms to media ownership rules were downright shameful. Overall, a mixed bag -- he was pretty good from a technological standpoint, but miserable from a regulatory standpoint. I've got a feeling his replacement -- whoever it is -- will be a bit lower-profile, but probably not much of an actual improvement.

jeff jarvis had a similar reaction - he's also worried that powell, while pretty terrible, would be better than whoever the bush people are going to put in there now.

Guys, c'mon... I'm waiting for humorous anecdotes about inauguration mishaps. throw any glass bottles from your roof?

well, given the snow, freezing temperatures and fact that our neighborhood was pretty much under lockdown (and tommy being stuck in a conference room all day), not that much happened. it turned out i wasn't willing to risk imprisonment or a beatdown from the secret service in order to come up with funny blogfodder. sorry!

Man... all talk no action. Is this how you want zunta to be remembered?

From his more candid interviews back in the day of TechTV, Powell seemed to have an intuitive grasp of new technology unlike most bureaucrats I am familiar with. Also, from his statements, the broadcast flag that the content providers got was quite a concession from what they demanded. In any event, I am fairly confident that that content protection scheme will be broken in a few years just like every other one.

As for media ownership rules, I am not terribly concerned. Radio sucks, and its day has passed. TV is only slightly better, and things like IPTV (and PVR + BitTorrent) are chipping away at it.

I do think the indecency fines have gotten out of control. Increasing the amount is fine with me; they were barely a pittance before. However, their frequent imposition to borderline cases has clearly had a chilling effect on the media. PBS cutting a nude chemical shower scene from a bio attack movie? Does that mean that if broadcast TV shows Schindler's List again it would be heavily edited? Come on. How else am I gonna see a shower scene on PBS?