Intel Corp., having failed disastrously with its own efforts to break into the digital home/television market, has decided that is going to buy its way into the market. It has acquired Israeli-start-up Oplus for $100 million. Oplus makes video processors and other chips that go into digital televisions. The company which had raised nearly $20 million from the likes of Benchmark Capital was in the process of raising another $15 million, when Intel came calling. Intel has seen Texas Instruments get bigger-and-bigger in the DTV market and is trying everything possible to add some oomph to its stagnating business of selling PC processors.
Donald Trump used to say, any publicity is good publicity. Hope Paris Hilton agrees, who seems to be having a terrible week. Her Sidekick Hacked, her voice mail hacked and now there is a mobile virus going around that promises naked videos of Hilton, except it leaves your phone naked. This virus is called Sober.K and now accounts for 10% of all the new viruses detected over past 24 hours, reports the Inquirer. When all the noise and fury dies down, The Feature’s Carlo Longino thinks this could give carriers an excuse to lock down their networks even further. Crippling bluetooth on mobiles might be okay now?
Hedge Funds, smelling a quick kill are moving into MCI, and buying up stock, hoping that Qwest will prevail and offer some premium for the limping long distance giant. The Wall Street Journal reports that hedge fund types are betting that at worst, Verizon will have to up its offer to meet Qwest bid. Some estimate that Q could offer as much as $35 a share, and has retained six banks to finance the bid. I think this whole deal - Q+MCI - is a way for Q to clean up its balance sheet and eventually sell the whole package to anyone who is interested. [ Hat tip to the fearless trio at Wall Street Journal for following the merger madness so closely.] Meanwhile, from this report in the Journal, a nugget about lies being spread by MCI executives.
The General Services Administration ruled that the company won’t be barred from signing contracts with the government. People close to MCI had suggested that in any Qwest-MCI tie-up, a possible ban on Qwest’s business with the government could hurt MCI’s government business.
Sometimes it would be great to have paper copies of a manual that was never printed, or whose publication stopped long ago due to lack of demand. On the other hand, printing whole tomes by yourself is slow, not to mention that the result is of lower quality and more expensive than a real book version. In some parts of Italy this problem is solved by Project GNUtemberg.
Insect sounds : "but have you heard a rice weevil larva eating inside a wheat kernel, a termite cutting a piece of wood, or a grub chewing on a root?"
Dave Jung says his ical calendar page is newly getting pinged like mad by a Googlebot. While that constitutes far from irrefutable proof that Google is planning to launch a (beta) calendar service, but it makes sense to me -- and...
I've tried to avoid doing this as long as possible, but it's time now to throw myself on the mercy of the blogosphere and ask whether you believe NanoBot is worth having around. If so, please consider donating through the PayPal form below, through Amazon or by buying an ad through Blogads. I'm not very good at asking for money, so for once I'm short on words. NanoBot is in danger of coming to an unceremonious, crashing halt. Information needs to be free, and nanotech information in particular needs an open and free forum such as this one. I hope you agree.
kamhp writes "Recently earthreactor.com published an article stating that the whole Loki Torrent suit was a fraud and that it was all staged to collect donations toataling in the tens of thousands then sell the domain. "It seems that the owner of LokiTorrent decided to take the donation money and run, and to cover his tracks, scare the hell out of the entire p2p community. The scare tactic was probably nothing but a decoy to convince intelligent people not to ask the right questions" "
Symbiot writes "eBay is being sued in a Calilfornia court for a practice that the plaintiff, Glenn Block of Pennsylvania, claims artificially raises the amount of a bid. The practice combines the warning emails that eBay sends out when you are the highest bidder and your bid is at your maximum, with the bid increment mechanism. It seems that if your original maximum bid settnig prevents your current bid from falling on an increment then your current bid will be raised to the next increment as soon as you raise your maximum. If the plaintiff wins this class action suit could cost eBay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars."
While there were a few fan websites that quickly disassembled the new iPod Shuffle soon after it came out, one research firm has done so in an attempt to figure out just how much Apple is making off of these devices. After examining the pieces, they found that the Shuffle components probably cost about $60, meaning Apple is getting lovely 40% margins. While this ignores things like marketing expenses, it's not bad for hardware -- and as the article notes, the priciest piece (the flash memory) is only going to get cheaper. Of course, this also means that there is likely to be much cheaper competition hitting the market soon, but (so far) Apple has been able to convince people that they're worth the premium by having a superior interface, close integration with the iTunes store and a general premium for "style."
Considering the entertainment industry's standard response to unauthorized copying of content and counterfeit products, it's quite surprising to see them actually respond to the issue via pricing, rather than legal means. Usually, the industry uses its lobbying efforts or lawyers to exert pressure on those involved or (in foreign countries) to put pressure on local governments to "crack down" on the counterfeiters. However, Warner Home Video is apparently recognizing that the issue can't just be solved this way, and has realized that it's a market perception problem. Their products are simply too expensive. With that in mind, they'll be offering super cheap DVDs in China soon after the theatrical release. The movies will be priced around $2.65, which is more than the standard $1 the counterfeiters charge, but still much lower than the standard price. They're hoping that the better quality and the legitimacy will make it worthwhile. Who knows if it will work, but it's nice to see them at least recognize that price is an issue in all of this.
It had to, or will have to, happen sooner or later. Last year, rumours were flying that maybe Google would buy Flickr, then we heard that Yahoo! and Google had both offered to buy Flickr Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the folks behind Ludicorp, who own the immensely popular photo blogging service Flickr have been holding out though, untill perhaps now.
Om Malik reports for Business2 that rumours are flying in Silicon Valley that a deal may have been struck between Yahoo! and Flickr for an undisclosed amount last week. The same rumour has it that Yahoo! are holding off on an official announcement untill March 1st.
If it's true - it's HOT news for sure...
"Pretty soon, the number of DSL subscribers will come close to matching cable broadband subscribers: we expect 30 million DSL and 32 million cable broadband subscribers in North America by 2008," suggests the author of a new report studying DSL growth (Networking Pipeline). DSL providers are provisioning broadband lines at nearly the same speed as their cable counterparts, and the DSL subscriber base in the United States grew by 41% last year.
Chinese peeved, walked out over procedural move in ISO over WAPI: The Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) proprietary standard that the Chinese government originally intended as a mandatory element for all domestically sold Wi-Fi gear was made optional and moved into the ISO standards organization to be approved as an international protocol. It was fast-tracked for approval initially, but then through a procedural move placed into a slower track. 802.11i remains fast tracked and may be approved as an optional security standard by April.
I learned recently that the Chinese object to 802.11i because it includes a 128-bit key length version of AES which they believe the NSA has the ability to decipher. The corresponding problem with WAPI is that it is a proprietary protocol controlled by the government which leads one to believe that it has either a back-door or a weak known flaw in it that would allow interception.
: Audible, the spoken audio company, has been hit with five class action suits in a space of two days, a few days after it announced its Q4 earnings and new strategic initiatives.
The gist of allegations: that investors weren't adequately warned of the push into mobile, UK and other new areas now taking a heavy toll on the stock price. Also, the law firms filing claims against Audible are trying to tie in insider trading, prior to these announcement, by CEO Don Katz, who sold 150,000 Audible shares for gross proceeds of $3,675,000, and CFO Andrew Kaplan, who sold 125,000 shares for gross proceeds of $3,062,500 in the secondary offering (on Nov 18, 2004).
Audible e-mailed me a statement in response to my question: "We have received the complaints. They are utterly without merit and we look forward to demonstrating this in court."
Meanwhile, some analysts have also downgraded Audible: for instance, Adams Harkness says, "management's strategic decision to double-down -- investing in new businesses such as wireless and education -- should eliminate the hoped-for margin ramp in 2005."
Still no news on the rumors that Apple is buying TiVo, since Apple isn't suing anyone this time there's no way to be sure one way or the other. However, people putting their TiVo stickers on the backs of their iBooks might want to hold off a little while. It's unlikely that either company will come out and deny the rumors even if they're untrue, so we'll just have to wait and see if they get confirmed.
While we're waiting, let's look at what the companies could offer each other. First off, TiVo is built on top of Linux, Mac OS X is built on top of a NetBSD FreeBSD port called Darwin. I'm no kernel hacker, but it seems like it would be possible to port TiVo's Linux changes to Darwin. It would be easier for Apple and TiVo than most companies because they both are built on PowerPC architectures - at least easier than if there were rumors of Microsoft buying TiVo.
Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes Music Store continues to sell iPods (well, they don't sell them on the iTMS, but you know what I mean). There is speculation that Apple will be building a QuickTime Movie Store; if Apple could make money selling the hardware they could use the iTunes Music Store business for it as well. It would also help cement the position of the Quicktime Streaming Server, which would likely sell a number of Xserves.
A TiVo acquisition would also provide a place for iTunes in the living room. Apple's AirPort Express proves Apples interest in moving out of the office and into the living rooom. There's even a way to control an AirPort Express from the TiVo using HME.
The TiVo could also tie into Apple's iLife suite. TiVo already plays well with iPhoto and iTunes, why not add iMovie and iDVD integration as well? My sister could make an iMovie of my nephew and send it to my TiVo between my 10 hours of Law & Order a day, then I could burn it using iDVD. Heck, why not let me show my Keynote slideshow using my TiVo?
Then there's the perennial talk of a video iPod. This fits in perfectly with TiVoToGo, you would simply dock your iPod on your TiVo and download your shows. Obviously there are some technical challenges there for the TiVo and iPod, but TiVo provides a great platform to build on.
So what does TiVo gain from this? For one thing, Apple is sitting pretty well these days. It could afford TiVo some elbow room to innovate; right now Ramsay is frustrated with investors not seeing the bigger picture. As an Apple division they could focus more on user experience and product development.
Apple's name would also give Om Malik the premium branding he says will save TiVo. Apple has a firm grasp on how to survive with a premium product and a small marketshare. TiVo's competition with the cable providers looks a lot like Apple's competition with Microsoft. Apples experience in this fight could prove invaluable.
Apple's offerings also tie into TiVo's Tahiti plans. TiVo knows that in order to compete with the cable companies, it needs to offer something they can't. Access to content through Apple would be a great start to that.
We may never hear anything else about this rumor but there's certainly plenty of reasons why an Apple/TiVo merger could work.
Are you a digital camera photographer? You might want to check out the collection of over 400 digital photography tips available at http://malektips.com/digital_cameras_help_and_tips.html . The tips are divvied out by...
New Zealand has legalized, regulated prostitution, and so the NZ Occupation and Health Service has produced a safety manual for sex-workers that talks about all the usuals (how to unionize, smoking in the workplace, handwashing, repetitive strain injuries) as well as prostitution-specific issues. The juxtaposition of dry governmental prose in use of discussion of sex-for-hire is disorienting and interesting:
In situations where more than one worker is providing service to a client (e.g. threesomes) it is necessary to ensure that equipment such as vibrators and dildos is not used by one person and then another without being cleaned, disinfected and having a new condom put on first. Ideally each worker should have her/his own toys and equipment, which are not used by other workers. Each worker may choose to use a condom of a different colour in order to identify who has used the dildo last.
(Thanks, Derek!)
Update: Michael sez, "the Australian Capital Territory (the DC equiv) has had ">one since 1989. The Aussie/Kiwi rivalry goes way beyond cricket and rugby."
Couch Potato asks: "I'm worried that, come next July, the FCC mandated broadcast flag will soon take away all sorts of fair use rights I have long enjoyed. Given that there are only a few months left to make purchasing decisions, how best can one prepare for the advent of the broadcast flag?"
prostoalex writes "U.S. federal authorities have conducted the first arrest for spimming. Eighteen-year-old Anthony Greco was arrested for sending spam to instant messenger users of MySpace.com." From the article: "Greco had allegedly threatened to share his methods for spamming members of the group if MySpace.com didn't sign an exclusive marketing deal that would have legitimized the messages he was sending via the service."
How many online accounts do Ameritrade, E*Trade and Schwab have, and how has that number changed over the last year? Here's the answer:
Schwab: 3,886,037 online accounts; down 3.1% year over year.
Ameritrade: 3,643,000 online accounts, up 8.4% year over year (includes acquisitions).
E*Trade: 2,972,542 accounts, up 3.3% year over year.
Quick comments:
Full disclosure: at the time of writing I'm short SCH.
Emerging issue:
The new Google toolbar adds links to content through a function named Auto-Link. For example, it is my understanding that if an address appears on a webpage, a program in Google's toolbar can create a link from that address to, perhaps, Google's map service. This has stirred some controversy, as it gives Google the ability to steer traffic off the page to one of its services or advertisers.
Does the third-party addition of links to content create an unauthorized derivative work or is it within the implied license created by making the content available? Is it accurate to state that auto-link makes the html code work differently, in a way the original coder did not anticipate? Or is this similar to, for example, copying text from a webpage - using browser functionality to act upon the html code?
Does the third-party addition of links to content constitute a false statement of endorsement of the 'linkee' by the 'linker'? Would the user understand which links have been created by the source of the content and which have been created by Google (and is that distinction important)?
Does the addition of links create unfair competition issues, under 'sweat of the brow' or 'unjust enrichment' theories? In what way is auto-link different from a situation where, for example, the user cuts and paste text from the webpage into an auto-link window in the toolbar itself?
I tried out auto-link - the user has to voluntarily click an auto-link button - does this mitigate all confusion?
Some websites will appreciate the value-add, some won't. If the website can opt in or out of auto-link, does the problem go away?
Discussion from Micropersuasion, eWeek, Dave Winer, John Robb, News.com, Dan Gillmor and SearchEngineWatch.
Historical aside: Many commentators note the resemblance of the Google feature to Microsoft's Smart Tags function of several years ago.
One of the main reasons for the Firefox browser's successful seizure of market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the desire to escape the inundation of PC-slowing spyware. However, spyware experts indicate that with its increased popularity, Firefox itself will become a target for spyware creators, who are already poking at the open source browser alternative.
Seems like common sense to me that once a browser has enough users that the spyware folks have to target it to keep their businesses alive?
This thread is now in it's 3rd update :) Thanks to Chris and Gurtie at Search Guild we now have a working script that webmasters can insert into their webpages that kills Google AutoLinks.
What you need to do:
The debate over the broadcast flag moves to the courts tomorrow, as a Federal judge will hear a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's mandate that all devices capable of receiving digital TV broadcasts made after July 1 obey the broadcast flag. That flag will be transmitted with the signal and will indicate that the broadcast is protected, meaning it cannot be transfered to non-flag-compliant devices and in some cases, not even recorded in the first place. The theory is that this would result in a major clampdown in the amount of broadcasts being shared over P2P networks.
Tomorrow's hearing comes from a lawsuit filed last March by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups which argue that the FCC has no authority to create such requirements. Essentially, by creating the broadcast flag requirement, the FCC mandated the design of consumer electronics, which it typically only does after being directed to do by Congress. That was the case for closed-captioning and V-chips. In this case, the FCC acted on its own, with encouragement from the MPAA and broadcasters.
Repository of microphones with pictures, comparative recordings, links chronicling golden years and gallery of celebs with mics.
![karloff[1].jpg](http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/yyy/karloff[1].jpg)
William Henry Pratt, a. k. a. Boris Karloff.
Via Create Digital Music.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has compiled a list of gadget "species" under threat of extinction. Endangered gizmos highlights the grip industry holds over gadgets.
![gizmologo[1].jpg](http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/yyy/gizmologo[1].jpg)
Concerned about technology that facilitates piracy, the entertainment industry is putting pressure for legal action over devices and technologies and this stifles innovation. Enforced industry standards on programs that control the free copying of a music file, for example, are to blame as well.
Also high up on the "endangered" category are devices that let people create, record, transmit, play back, and share any kind of digital content.
"We hope [the list] will turn more people into activists in these issues and that it will make more people realise that the copyright wars are not just about arcane flags and TV signals," said Wendy Seltzer of the EFF.
Via Eyebeam reBlog < Slashdot < BBC News.
While T-Mobile does a close-lipped investigation of how Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked, security resource Rootsecure.net (and just about everyone else) theorizes on how it happened. Hilton could have been duped into giving away her password to someone posing...
Right Wing Front Group Attacks AARP Amazingly the right wingers are going after the American Association of Retired People for being an anti-military, pro-gay liberal front group. Really. Web ads placed on American Spectator mag from USANext have a caption, "The Real AARP Agenda" and a big red checkmark on an American soldier and a green "X" on a picture of two men in tuxedos kissing. The implicit message is that the AARP hates the military and loves gays. Even better, USA Next has hired the media geniuses behind the Swift Boat Veterans to attack the AARP and work for the phase-out of Social Security bia private accounts.
Even as we patiently wait for fiber to the home, VDSL chip maker Ikanos Communications has released a new chip that will allow carriers to stream data at speeds of upto 100 megabits per second over boring-ole copper cables. The new chip - Fx 100100 - allows 100 megabits both in upstream and downstream directions over a single copper line. Ikanos believes that its new solution enables carriers to increase their revenue stream by offering the same high-speed symmetric bandwidth over existing telephone lines. This chip could also boost ethernet-over-copper as well. Now if we could get the company to work on its product naming strategy. [Press Release]
Qwest is likely to launch a new improved bid for MCI, this time with total support of MCI shareholders who are upset with the management selling out for cheap. “From where I sit, what has been reported as the Qwest offer appears to me to be superior, and I prefer that one,” said Bill Miller, chief executive officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, which as of Dec. 31 owned 5.6 million shares of MCI and 250 million shares of Qwest told The Wall Street Journal. “If they are rebuffed, Qwest should make the offer directly to the MCI shareholders.” The Journal lays it out - Qwest has a lot to loose if it doesn’t win MCI. The company has too much debt and is a small fish in a choppy sea dominated by large sharks.
Folks pardon my tardiness, I have been amidst a move and there is no furniture in the new apartment. Sitting on the floor and typing is a bit of a problem, so I am going to do a few round-ups before I can get to a more blog-worthy seating arrangement.
On the muni broadband front, Florida has joined the parade of states - eight in total - who have introduced anti-muni broadband bills, mostly backed by incumbents including Sprint, BellSouth, Comcast, Verizon and in other places, SBC and Cox. Oregon will begin its anti-muni deliberations on Febraury 23rd, while Illinois is thinking against muni broadband.
My buddy Glenn has a scathing must read editorial on this whole mess. “Why are incumbent telecommunications firms and cable operators so afraid of municipal networks? They must work or they wouldn’t be spending tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and advertising to fight them,” he writes. Free Press echoes the sentiments and writes, “If I were a municipality, I would certainly NOT be signing up for ‘how to deliver good service’ lessons from a telco or a cable company.”
On the flip side, Lafayette Daily Advertiser says that the “city should move forward on the fiber-to-the-home plan.” And those of you who think that muni-broadband doesn’t work, think again. Google is going to Oregon precisely because of the broadband infrastructure. Daily Wireless has the full lowdown.
This is from Richard M. Smith:
Tukwila, Washington firefighter, Philip Scott Lyons found out the hard way that supermarket loyalty cards come with a huge price. Lyons was arrested last August and charged with attempted arson. Police alleged at the time that Lyons tried to set fire to his own house while his wife and children were inside. According to the KOMO-TV and the Seattle Times, a major piece of evidence used against Lyons in his arrest was the record of his supermarket purchases that he made with his Safeway Club Card. Police investigators had discovered that his Club Card was used to buy fire starters of the same type used in the arson attempt.For Lyons, the story did have a happy ending. All charges were dropped against him in January 2005 because another person stepped forward saying he set the fire and not Lyons. Lyons is now back at work after more than 5 months of being on administrative leave from his firefighter job.
The moral of this story is that even the most innocent database can be used against a person in a criminal investigation turning their lives completely upside down.
Safeway needs to be more up-front with customers about the potential downsides of shopper cards. They should also provide the details of their role in the arrest or Mr. Lyons and other criminal cases in which the company provided Club Card purchase information to police investigators.
Here is how Safeway currently describes their Club Card program in the Club Card application:
We respect your privacy. Safeway does not sell or lease personally identifying information (i.e., your name, address, telephone number, and bank and credit card account numbers) to non-affiliated companies or entities. We do record information regarding the purchases made with your Safeway Club Card to help us provide you with special offers and other information. Safeway also may use this information to provide you with personally tailored coupons, offers or other information that may be provided to Safeway by other companies. If you do not wish to receive personally tailored coupons, offers or other information, please check the box below. Must be at least 18 years of age.
Links:
Firefighter Arrested For Attempted Arson
Fireman attempted to set fire to house, charges say
Tukwila Firefighter Cleared Of Arson Charges
NY Times CEO Janet Robinson, EVP Digital Ops Martin Nisenholz and CFO Len Forman discuss their company's acquisition of About.com for $410 million:
About.com will strengthen and diversify the Company's on-line advertising base, adding a significant and highly profitable cost-per-click advertising business, as well as impression-based display advertising. More than half of its revenues come from cost-per-click advertising... will also extend the Times Company’s reach among Internet users. The Company will be the 12th largest entity on the Internet with the addition of About.com's 22 million monthly users to our already significant base of 13 million users. This scale is important as we compete for market share in readership and advertising.
Last year ad revenues rose 38 percent at our new news media group websites.
According to PRIMEDIA, the purchase price of 410 million reflects a multiple of about ten times About, Inc's 2004 revenues and a multiple of over 30 times About Inc segment EBITDA. Based on The Times Company projections, the transaction reflects a multiple of 23 times estimated 2005 About EBITDA…compares well to the multiples for other recently completed Internet acquisitions,such as CBS MarketWatch. We anticipate the acquisition will be accretive to earnings in 2007.
Google supplies the sponsored links that appear on About's content pages, and we expect this relationship to continue.
This is a business with 80 people.
(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)
Stamps.com (ticker: STMP) CEO Ken McBride discussed his company's "PhotoStamp" trial, which allows customers to create stamps from their own uploaded images. Here's what he said:
As you know, during Q3, we launched and completed a market test of photo stamps, which is a system that allows customers to order U.S. postage from a simple website. We publicly launched the service on August 10th, 2004, and concluded the market test on September 30th of 2004. During the 7 1/2 week test, we received 51,000 orders, representing more than 75,000 individual images, and over 138,000 individual sheets of photo stamps... Late in the third quarter, we submitted a formal request to the U.S. Postal Service to continue testing the photo stamp service. At the end of September last year, the USPS told us that they wanted us to cease taking orders on October 1st while they considered our request during an evaluation period that was originally expected to take 90 days. The evaluation period is still in progress, and we have not been given any decision by the U.S. Postal Service regarding the outcome of our interest to continue testing the photo stamp service. Unfortunately there is not any more information we can share at this time, but we hope the USPS will reach a decision soon.
(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)
Detriot News story (and photo) re tatoo artist's claim that Rasheed Wallace infringes copyright in tatoo by appearing in Nike ad. EFF commentary here.
Judging by the fact that Yahoo! are to host a "web spam summit" organized by Technorati, i assume that Search Engines and Blog Vendors have finally admitted that the NoFollow debacle will not solve blog spam...
AOL, Google, MSG, Six Apart, Technorati, and Yahoo aswell as Wordpress and Feedster will be attending.
Technorati is organizing the event (thanks guys!) and we're hosting it on-site at Yahoo in Sunnyvale. The main goal to get the tool makers in a room together to talk about web spam, share info, and brainstorm.
Social Security Benefit Cuts Calculator. As President Bush barnstorms the country for Wall Street, you can find out what effects the proposed changes will have on your current benefits.
Silicon Valley venture fund Crescendo Ventures got a bit of bad news today - another one of their optical/telecom investments went poof …. in the air. Swedish optical component maker Optillion called it quits and filed for bankruptcy. During the boom times, this company had raised more than $68 million from investors like Crescendo Ventures and Cisco Systems. This two were the big participants in the $53 million series B round back in 2000. Nothing like the $100 million plus investments made in other telecom disasters, but this one was right up there. Optillion’s closure shows that long haul business and products related to that market still remain as viable as chances of Kansas City Royals’ winning the world series. Sycamore Networks for instance has seen its revenues whither away and even Ciena is moving away from the long haul business.
-- Lauren Rich Fine, media analyst, Merrill Lynch: "While the multiple appears high, it seems rational to us in view of recent deals and expected growth, especially if dilution is contained. ... We appreciate the need by NYT, as an owner of print which is under secular pressure, to diversify into a faster growing business. Given the company's success within its own digital operations, we can understand why this deal looks strategically attractive to them. In essence, they appear to be running out of inventory to monetize on their own sites and this will give them more traffic to monetize."
-- Peter Appert, media analyst, Goldman Sachs, via NYT: "The appeal of About is that it gets the NYT Company into the fastest-growing component of the advertising market place, and therefore it makes strategic sense."
-- Edward Atorino, publishing industry analyst, Fulcrum Global Partners, via AP: "I think the Times is making a very bold statement. We'll have to see how it plays out. It's still pretty small in the scheme of things .... but it's an important growth area."
-- Bear Stearns via MarketWatch: "Positives of the deal include exposure to higher growth Internet business and a much more diverse advertising base, and a younger demographic. ... Negatives include the very high price of the deal."
Two former employees of the Gorilla Foundation, home of Koko, the talking, kitten-loving gorilla, are suing the foundation, claiming they were pressured to bare their breasts to satisfy Koko's "nipple fetish". Francine Patterson, the woman who taught Koko sign language reportedly told the women that "exposing one's breasts to Koko is a normal component to developing a personal bond with the gorilla". During one incident Patterson told Koko, "'Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples."
Via Glassdog
IainMH writes "Over at the BBC, there is a report that despite the slow build up, IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software. It continues: 'The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers.'" Commentary and coverage also available on TechNewsWorld and ZDNet.
FreshlyShornBalls writes "WebProNews is reporting that Google's new beta toolbar apparently sports an "AutoLink" feature which appends hyperlinks to existing content. These hyperlinks, of course, point to their services, such as maps for addresses, isdn numbers for books, etc. Sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's "Smart Tags"." Update by J: ... except that Microsoft's proposal was in the monopoly browser while Google's software is a third-party add-on, and Microsoft's was (originally) on by default while Google's is a button to click.
India might be one of the hottest broadband and telecom destinations for equipment makers, but for its citizens the country is a frustrating ride on a dial-up roal to nowhere, says Broadband Blog’s Abishek Puri. “Internet services have so far still stuck in the dial up mode, despite the hype in the media about the broadband services. Indeed getting a decent connection is a far-fetched dream, almost a utopia. Frequent disconnections, rude and ignorant customer services, almost nil technical support are all reflective of a developing economy gone horribly wrong.”
Every new technology goes through a phase, where the sheer newness makes early adopters like myself put-up with all sorts of bugs. Hey that’s all part of living on the bleeding edge - you will bleed a little. Actually first couple of million users will put up with any kind of crap. Remember cellphones back in 1980s? I have put up with poor performing VoIP services for one simple reason - they keep improving and well teach me a vital lesson in patience. But as the popularity of VoIP continues to surge - check out all those new companies at upcoming VoN - I have a feeling that the honeymoon phase for the technology is over.
Vonage is having problems with other phone companies. A few people have told me they have to wait too long for getting customer support, or have them address billing questions. Which is quite understandable since the company is growing faster than mushrooms after a monsoon shower.
Yesterday, Skype’s problems became buzz of the moment after C/Net posted a story. Which actually I think might have been inspired by this post by Neville Hobson, who posted problems with SkpeOut almost ten days ago. Many others have been bitching about this for a while over on Skype Forums. The problems are about billing and support services.
Much as we like to bitch and moan about the incumbents, they do get the backend part right. For any new technology to succeed, there is a need for a special focus on backend and making sure that the customers are happy. Skype for instance is adding new partners by the day, but I fear that their infrastructure and support costs are going to go through the roof. And given how little their margins are, I am once again left shaking my head.
Texas has jumped on board of the anti-muni broadband legislation bandwagon. Phil King, chairman of the regulated industries, has authored a bill which even by Texan standards draconian. Some believe that it could even put the kibosh on the free wireless in places like public libraries and parks. Now only having scanned through the bill, I don’t see the extreme nature of the bill, but perhaps I am missing something here. Meanwhile, Esme points out that Electronic Frontier Foundation has joined the fight against the bill and has set-up a website called, SaveMuniWireless. Esme also wonders out aloud on what’s going to happen to two current Muni projects in Texas - Granbury and Corpus Christi. Broadband Reports has a piece on it as well. The way I see it, the whole issue of muni broadband should be put on the ballot, with no one, and I mean none allowed to lobby, or advertise their position, except for the politicians who are either in favor or not in favor of the trend of muni-broadband.
: Steve Jobs apparently couldn't resist emailing top record company execs a link to a site that showed how to rip "Napster To Go" tunes to CD. Napster CEO Chris Gorog fired back with email of his own, the LA Times reports, pointing out that the "hack" doesn't go through the company's Windows Media DRM and that it isn't unique to Napster. He then helpfully supplied a link to a page that shows how to unlock iTunes "in seconds." Napster also posted a note on the company's website with its official stance that "neither Napster To Go, Napster, nor Windows Media DRM have been hacked."
Update:Meanwhile, AOL has pulled the Winamp Output Stacker plug-in used in the Napster "hack" and is working with Microsoft to ensure Winamp complies with secure playback of WMDRM-protected files. "We are both proponents of legal consumption of digital music" AOL spokesperson spokesperson Ann Burkart told TechNewsWorld. "No one wants a betrayal of that going on." For those wondering what impact this has on the idea of subscription, or "rental" music, as some people describe it, the quick concensus is not much. It's not an unexpected issue -- say something is secure and some people immediately start to prove otherwise -- and it's not the biggest obstacle faced by subscription download services. As NPD director of industry analysis Ross Rubin told TechNewsWorld: "They have to do with a pretty dramatic shift in how consumers think about consuming music and how they think about owning music versus renting it. The biggest hurdles for subscription are conceptual."
: Some interesting data on TV shows swapping online...According to web monitoring firm Envisional, UK leads the world in global TV piracy, followed by Australia and then US. According to the company, after each episode of the Fox show "24" screens at 21:00(EST) in the US, it has seen copies circulating online by 22:20(EST).
The top 10 pirated TV shows worldwide are:
1. 24
2. Stargate Atlantis
3. The Simpsons
4. Enterprise
5. Stargate SG-1
6. The O.C.
7. Smallville
8. Desperate Housewives
9. Battlestar Galactica
10. Lost
Those of you with an interest in shopping search might be interested to learn that Silicon Valley startup IM2 Inc. has received $8 million in their first funding round. An article from TheDeal.com goes onto say, IM2 unveiled its FatLens...
canfirman writes "Reuters is reporting that SCO could be delisted from the NASDAQ because "it has not filed its annual 10-K report with the SEC". The company claims it's because "it is examining matters related to stock issued as part of its compensation plans". SCO Stock is sitting at $4.30 at opening today. It'll be interesing to see where it goes from here."
certron wrote to alert us that earlier this week, Mozilla passed the milestone of 25 million downloads. From the official site: "With a minimal set of tools--an affiliate system, a small donations fundraising system, blogs, galleries, forums, and the good old human larynx--you all are spreading Firefox to a quarter of a million people a day. More than 500,000 sites now link to Firefox according to Google--a fivefold increase from six months ago. What was just a small flame 100 days ago has since exploded into a phenomenal demonstration of the power of open source. Tens of thousands of devoted users and fans are a powerful and capable force of change. We have created a special commemorative image if you would like to mark this milestone on your own site." Reader asa also wrote to mention an interview with Bill Gates from this week where the mogul was asked directly what he thought of Firefox.
Apparently a rape conviction has been overturned and a retrial ordered after a member of the jury used the internet to research the crime of rape. That juror apparently printed out the documents and brought them into the
jury room as well. This gets increasingly tricky in an information age, when doing additional research has become like second nature to many people. For some people, it's probably almost impossible not to call up Google and do some extra research if they're asked to make a difficult decision, such as deciding someone's fate as a juror. The problem, of course, is that the defendant's lawyers have no chance to see what the jurors are reading or to rebut the claims they make. However, in an age where Google seems like an extension of the brain for many people, this sort of issue is going to come up more and more often.
Audible CEO Donald Katz outlined the expansion initiatives that will reduce Audible's earnings and cash flow in 2005 and which consequently crushed his stock this evening in late trading. Geographical expansion will startwith the U.K. and sector expansion with the education market. But his most interesting remarks were about distributing Audible content wirelessly (cell phones and car audio), and becoming a distribution channel for bloggers and Podcasters.
He might not have judged the stock impact correctly, but he certainly gets The Long Tail:
We plan to increase our marketing partnerships at retail with catalogers and with online distribution endpoints…
…we plan to significantly step up our focus on wireless distribution and enabling support in future automotive telematic systems. By the middle of 2005, we plan to allow our customers to receive over-the-air delivery of the Audible service...
…we will shortly publish powerful tools and support services to aid the growing community of talented self-publishers, bloggers, and Podcasters. We will move to combine some of the singular advantages of the Audible listening experience, our broadly adopted platform for Internet-based audio distribution and powerful new RSS enclosure-based distribution technologies, both as additive services for our current content partners and as new tools for the growing self publishing community.
Many of our listeners and partners are among the thought leaders in the blogging and Pod casting communities, and we plan to keep up with members of this community as we move forward. This is particularly heartening for me as engaging the vast pool of undiscovered creative capacity and allowing these voices to be heard and even to be compensated as professionals is an element of the business plan I wrote back in 1994...
(Quotes from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)
Jupiters David Card points out the patently obvious (though it does need saying) about IE7 - it's got very little to do with Firefox, it's all about Search:
Make no mistake though, this move ain't about Firefox. Well not much. Rather, it's an attempted preemptive strike at Google and, maybe, Yahoo. (And AOL, of course.) It's about sticky apps that blend in desktop search and link to preferred search engines. Personally, I'm not sold on integrating desktop search with Web search for consumers, but that doesn't matter. The competitors all are.
Whether it's a beta or not, IE 7 is about Microsoft getting a new browser into consumer hands - XP users anyway - at least a year before the first one starts using Longhorn. Finally, Microsoft has acknowledged it can't afford to have a sub-par application in users' faces every day because its dev cycle is in lockstep with that of an OS.
2005 was already shaping up to be a hot year in Search and with IE7 on it's way it's set to get hotter...
It's a pity it's US and CA only but Yahoo are now sending driving directions to your phone via SMS.
Imagine this true story, you're a poor SEOing Brit lost in the depths of Ontario in a horrendous storm and you have no f*&$ing idea where you are. You drive around for hours looking for what might be a landmark, a sign or (hopefully) a person who could help out.
None were found, just fields of corn and the odd animal.
If Yahoo had launched this a few years ago that poor little lost Brit could have opened his phone, started a GPRS session, entered a WAP browser and had details to get him home sent to him.
Ahhh if only......
Anyway, well done Yahoo, just launch it for Europe. We get lost too !!!
From their About page: MP3 4U is a network of music lovers called "sources" who search the internet for mp3s that are available as free and legal downloads. When a source finds a song they like, they post it on their MP3 4U page. They also create a song card containing a brief reason for the posting and a link to download. The MP3 4U sources listen to music all day and only select the music they like...saving MP3 4U users valuable time in discovering quality free music. Sources also keep track of their other favorite MP3 4U sources on their MP3 4U page...helping you to discover more music through people who love music!
Microsoft sits at the heart of a five year transformation that should turn your local bell into a TV provider (provided they aren't Qwest). It's one of the most significant shifts in telecom history, with each bell attempting the transformation in a slightly different fashion.
Video via IP was the star of last year's CES, and should be an even larger player in Congress this year. One of the first major bills proposed this session was the "Advanced Internet Communications Services Act", which aims to put the bells on equal footing with the fairly unregulated cable providers.
"DVDs will remain the predominant mechanism for [film] delivery for the next five years," claims one Netflix executive, when asked by the San Francisco Business Times to chime in on SBC's TV plans.
An analyst recently predicted that within five years, SBC could gain 14% of the pay TV market in areas it deploys fiber (of course another predicts they'll quit the TV business by 2007). On a recent conference call, SBC told us that within five years, they hope to be the number 2 video provider in those areas.
According to eWeek, Apple has agreed to hold off on subpoenas against the websites that reported the announcements at Macworld before Steve Jobs had the opportunity to introduce the new Mac mini and iPod Shuffle himself. Here is a what eWeek is reporting…
Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told eWEEK.com that Apple, which is represented by the San Francisco law firm of O'Melveny and Myers LLP, has agreed to hold off on serving subpoenas until after the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, has held a hearing on the EFF's request for a protective order for its clients, two of the Web sites listed in Apple's suit. EFF filed the request this week; a date for the hearing has not yet been set, but it may be held in early March.
Congressional supporters of human embryonic stem cell research launched their most intensive effort to expand federal funding for the controversial field, introducing identical bills yesterday...
file under "why senior execs probably shouldn't blog".
Link: A peak through Intel's public facade.
Intel President Paul Otellini recently started an internal blog discussing the company and its plans, and it has been leaked. What does Otellini have to say about AMD?
Reading Bizweek (yup, the print edition) earlier this week, I noticed this article, titled "Keywords for Ad Buyers: Pay Up." (BTW, it's entirely too hard to find this stuff on B'Week's site, but that's another issue.) In the article, Ben Elgin notes Google's extraordinary earnings, then adds that Google has the enviable position of pricing power:
What accounted for the outsize profits? The high prices Google charges for search keywords, for one. Industrywide, they were up an average of 43.7% last year, according to search marketing firm iProspect.com Inc. And the most sought-after words have become far more dear: ``background check'' rose 258% in a year. On the day of the earnings announcement, Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt told analysts: ``There does not seem to be price resistance'' from advertisers.
But the pricing power cuts two ways. Elgin goes on to give eBay as an example, quoting CEO Meg Whitman:
``It's incumbent upon us...to figure out how to moderate these quite significant increases in media costs,'' eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman declared in January following disappointing fourth-quarter results, when rising search marketing costs helped pinch profit margins.
If I am reading this right, it seems that eBay, which got hammered after its last earnings for not living up to its reputation as a growth machine, is blaming Google for increasing its cost of goods sold. Now that's interesting. Recall Paul Ford's wonderful essay on how Google out-eBay's eBay (not to mention the Epic piece about "googlezon").
This is a trend to watch. (And thanks to Lincoln Milstein, head of Hearst's digital media efforts, and Peter Negulescu, head of SFGate, for heping me put two and two together at dinner last night!)
Another variant of the MyDoom worm, which spreads by sending copies of itself using its own mail engine and harvesting potential e-mail targets from search engines such as Google and Yahoo, was spreading quickly on Thursday. Make sure your virus scanner is up to date!…
Direct and Related Links for 'Updated MyDoom targets Google—again'
It’s just been revealed that 145,000 people have had their personal information has been stolen from a company called ChoicePoint. This company is one of those that gathers info from phone books, court records, motor vehicle departments, etc. and then resells that personal information to companies who want to know. What happened was that any number of identity thieves, using “social engineering” techniques quite common among hackers and crackers, convinced CheckPoint that they were legitimate…
Direct and Related Links for 'Hot Off the Bad News Wire'
Now this is a hoot. This morning in a call with the Wall Street, MCI CEO Michael Capellas made a presentation, that claimed that MCI had 4500 pops, 3.2 million dial modems, 130 data centers and did business on six continents and 140+ countries. Funnily enough, something about this doesn’t add up. Capellas’ remarks don’t match up with MCI’s own numbers.
For instance, if you go to this webpage on MCI website, and you will find this information: MCI owns the world’s farthest reaching global network (based on company-owned POPs), and spans more than 4,500 Points of Presence (POPs) throughout the world, with 2.2 million global dial modems and high-capacity connections to more than 102,000 active buildings.
Another claim which doesn’t make sense - 130 data centers. Even at the peak of the dot com bubble, Exodus did not have that many data centers. This has to be a bogus claim. I checked on their IP network map, (click here to view it) and you find less than two dozen data centers. (Dan points out that Verizon CFO said they had nine data centers!)
The way I see it, someone did not read the corporate literature on the website which might not have been updated; or was confused about the whole state of affairs of the company or just simply made stuff up. Given that the problems at MCI/WorldCom were all due to non-integration of various disparate networks, one can assume that the executives don’t really now what all assets they have even now.
MCI’s track record of trying to merge with anyone has been checkered at best. Back in the day, it did a deal to sell itself to British Telecom, only to see its plans come apart at seams with Bernie & his crew came all guns blazing. Back in the boom years, the MCI+WorldCom tried to do a deal with Sprint, and that fell apart. When Verizon wanted to buy them, well did not happen. Will this time MCI be lucky, and things go on? Not sure entirely because there are a lot of problems with this deal. As I pointed out on Sunday, the deal is going to face some serious regulatory scrutiny. (Read New York Times’ superlative piece on the role of FCC in this new consolidated environment!)
“The deal will require a sizable number of concessions,” Andrew Lipman, regulatory telecom partner at Swidler Berlin LLP in Washington told The Daily Deal. He thinks that the “companies would likely need to sell MCI’s consumer business nationally to achieve regulatory approval. The FCC could also require Verizon to divest some of MCI’s business and government customers, in which both companies operate. But some sources said the companies will need only to shed certain MCI business customers within Verizon’s region.” Well if that’s the case, then what is really the true value of MCI?
What about that X-factor, Qwest? “I’m disappointed, but I respect the decision of the MCI board,” Dick Notebaert, Qwest CEO said. “We’re moving on. . . . We have to focus on us.” Not so fast because according to some news reports, privately the company is telling major MCI shareholders, that its deal is better than Verizon’s deal, and they should support their deal.
Qwest also has yet to publicly announce the details of its offer to MCI. On Sunday, a source close to Qwest said there was only $1 billion of cash in Qwest’s $7.3 billion offer delivered Friday night to MCI’s bankers and MCI management. But Qwest was saying Monday that its bid included $4.9 billion of stock and $2.4 billion of cash. It would be fairly routine for the largest MCI stockholders to request more detail from Qwest, Verizon and MCI. Another source said Qwest also was offering a $1.60-a-share dividend to MCI stockholders, which would have boosted the total offer by another $500 million to about $7.8 billion.
“Verizon is buying MCI for $14.75 of their currency and $6 of my money,'’ said Cooperman, whose Omega fund in New York has 2.9 percent of MCI.Paulson, MCI’s fourth-biggest holder with a 4.1 percent stake, and Cooperman said Qwest should make its offer public and press to forge a deal with MCI. MCI shares may have traded as high as $25 or $26 had Qwest’s offer been accepted, Paulson said. “I don’t think it’s all over yet because ultimately this is going to have to be approved by MCI shareholders,'’ New York- based Paulson said. “If Qwest puts its offer forward, I think there’s a good chance shareholders would prefer the Qwest alternative.'’
Yahoo! is announcing an expansion of their European operations by adding more than 400 new jobs in Dublin, Ireland. According to the article the jobs will involve financial, web hosting and customer support. More in the RTE story: Yahoo HQ...
HTS Member writes "California has a new excuse for more taxes. Claiming losses due to fuel-efficient cars, such as Gasoline/Electric Hybrids, California is cooking-up a new system to punish people who aren't using enough gasoline. They want to tax commuters by the mile. How would this be accomplished? By requiring everyone to install a GPS device in their vehicle, and charge them their "taxes" every time they fuel-up. From the article: 'Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that.. [a] team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.'"
Last year, Verizon basically decided to hold fiber in New Jersey hostage unless regulations were changed in their favor. Because they have more or less monopoly rights to installing fiber to the premise and offering service to it in New Jersey, they had no fear that a competitor might come in and challenge them on fiber installations -- meaning they could demand whatever they wanted. The strategy worked. The FCC made it clear that they wouldn't have to share fiber lines and now it appears Verizon is wiring up New Jersey with fiber again. Of course, while the telcos have been whining about how they're being bled dry on line sharing, there's increasing evidence that this is just a ruse from companies that rely on having a monopoly to still have a business model.
I saw this Enquirer Story this morning but there was so little information i gave it a miss. Now the good geeks and freaks at Slashdot have picked it up however, it becomes much more fun..
Apparently "Bully Boy Gates" tried to blackmail the Danish government over the EU's software patents directive:
Bill Gates tried to pressure the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen into accepting the European Union's proposed directive on software patents by threating to terminate the 800 jobs at Navision, which had been acquired by Microsoft.
Naughtly naughtly billy boy!
Mark Frauenfelder:
Great collection of free fonts inspired by rock and roll band logos.
Link (Thanks, phxartboy!)
IE 7.0 is under development. In his keynote at the RSA Conference, Bill Gates mentioned two things of note: Internet Explorer 7.0 is being developed, and the final version of Microsoft's anti-spyware software (currently in beta) will be offered to all Windows users free of char..
Most say no, a few say possibly.... Debate continues web-wide over whether the MPAA can do anything (read: effectively sue) with the server data collected when they forced Bit Torrent trading site LokiTorrent off-line. Outfits like Slyck claim the MPAA received no useful info in the d..
thpr writes "The Electric Power Research Institute and its partners have completed their Offshore Wave Power Feasibility Demonstration Project, which defined potential wave energy projects off the shores of the United States. This is building off of work already done in Scotland (and elsewhere). San Francisco, New York and other areas are considering trial installations of the technology. It is interesting to note (table 1 in the report) that the energy density (kW/m^2) that can be achieved is much higher than wind or solar. In addition, harnessing 24% of available wave energy near the US at 50% efficiency is equal to all of the hydropower currently generated in the US (~7% of total electricity production). On a separate note, in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's $1.2B 2006 budget the Department of Energy is closing out the Hydropower Technologies Program. Maybe that's why this technology is missing from our National Energy Policy?" Until it reaches maturity, though, U.S. readers can pay for other forms of green energy.
One of the more recent types of spam on the Internet is what's known as referer spam. Basically, bad guys set-up scripts to 'hit' a website and leave whatever URL they want as the referer. Some people have referer logs available publicly (intentionally or not), so there might be a chance that the spammers get some kind of benefit from littering web server logs with their URLs. Not many people actually make their referer logs available to the general public anymore, but the referer spammers continue. (No, the rel="nofollow" thing didn't really help any.) Personally, I'm fed up with them. I don't have my referral URLs available to the public anywhere, but the spammers don't seem to care and continue to hit my site with their viagra-xxx.info sites as the referer. It wasn't bad for a while, but as I took measures to stop them, they increased their efforts. At one point this last weekend, they were hitting the same page 20+ times per second, basically DDoSing my site. Besides making the site inaccessible to my human visitors, the bots from Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines can't reach it either. So, I started searching the web for ways to combat the stupid refferer spammers who were DDoSing my site. While there's no foolproof protection, or even an absolute way to contact them, I offer some pointers picked up over the weekend to stop the madness.
As BitTorrent sites drop like flies and spring up anew, keep updated on current status with the Torrent Site Status service. The Status Tracker displays a list of torrent sites, whether they're on or offline, if they require registration and...
Last March, Chris had many positive things to say about Onfolio, a web search assistant. Today, a new release of Onfolio is available (ver. 2.0). It includes MANY new features including the integration of Feedster into Onfolio. Other new features...
blamanj writes "Jazz artist Maria Schneider won a Grammy last night for her album 'Concert in the Garden.' What makes this unusual, according to CNET, is that she might be the first artist ever to win a Grammy for an album distributed solely on the Web. None of the sales were in record stores, and the album was financed through Artist Share."
Nortel (NYSE:NT) and Research in Motion (Nasdaq:RIMM) signed an agreement under which BlackBerry devices will have added VoIP capabilities via Wi-Fi. This will require a tight integration between RIM's BlackBerry enterprise platform and Nortel's CSE 5100 multimedia server. As announced at VoiceCon 2005, the first model to incorporate this feature will be the BlackBerry 7270, albeit it will be a VoIP-only device (to be used not only in enterprises, but also over public WLAN hotsports). However, the future is really all about seamless roaming, so the market is IMHO ready for a dual mode BlackBerry that could function in 2.5/3G mode or in Wi-Fi/WLAN mode.
Note: RIM also signed a similar partnership deal with 3Com, which will use its own IP PBX and WLAN switch (licensed from Trapeze).
The City of Cincinnati has banned employee access to blogs, despite maintaining access to racist groups, organisations advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government, cult groups, and abortion and sex education sites.
Interestingly, Brendon Cull, the press secretary for Mayor Charlie Luken, was granted an exception to the rule and allowed access to two local blogs, Cincinnati Blog and Black Cincinnati Blog.
The bans have been defended by the City as a means of promoting employee productivity, but a number of activists have accused the City of trying to censor blogs critical of Mayor.
Whether racist cult groups advocating abortion and overthrow of the US Government who maintain blogs are included as part of the ban was not disclosed.
(ref: The Enquirer)
News from the Google Analyst Day that Jason Calacanis’ Weblogsinc is bringing in over $600 USD per day in Adsense revenue and made $45,000 USD in its first 4 months with the program, which would put its yearly take from Adsense revenue alone to in excess of $180,000 per year based on this early figure, but with continued growth amongst the Weblogsinc sites and regular new additions to the network, we asre guessing that the figure will be closer to $250,000 USD over 12 months.
This, coupled with strong private advertising sales for a number of the more high profile Weblogsinc properties, could well be propelling Weblogsinc towards the $1 million USD advertising revenue figure.
The news follows recent reports that Gawker Media’s new blog Lifehacker recieved $75,000 for a 3 month exclusive advertising deal from Japanese electronics maker Sony.
(via Problogger)
Janco Associates released its First Quarter 2005 Browser Market Share Study showing that Firefox now has 4.5% market share and Microsoft Internet Explorer's market share has now fallen to 84.9%. But the situation for IE might be worse than that.
In his write-up of the report, ClickZ's Rob McGann says:
According to Rafael Ebron, a Mozilla spokesperson, Firefox's penetration into various sectors of the digerati, or early-adopting members of the Internet elite, is even more widespread.
"Among traffic leading news sites, we estimate that Firefox has an approximate penetration of 11 percent," Ebron said. "Throughout the blogger community, it's perhaps as high as 35 percent."
That suggests that Firefox should see further market share gains. Early-adopters are, by definition, a lead indicator of adoption by wider groups. 35% market share among bloggers suggests that IE could be in for considerable market share loss in the future unless Microsoft does