Music Companies worried about losses due to free music streaming - PCWorld

Free streaming services are replacing piracy as the chief culprit of music industry revenue loss in the minds of fiscally frustrated executives, if a number of panel discussions at a New York digital music conference are any indication.

via pcworld.com

It is an interesting scenario. Once you pair up broadband penetration with high speed mobile internet, you essentially have access to a huge database of online music. Maybe we need to move towards some sort of communal music ownership model, with collective patronage for the artists.

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Why anime fans pirate the shows they love

via arstechnica.com

It is about time big media understood the mechanics and psychology of piracy and catered to what the web 2.0 generation wants.

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Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble? | Business | The Observer

"...Right now, though, who wouldn't be excited? Every week, one of the new generation of internet firms seems to attract a sky-high valuation. Zynga, the social-network games company that has tempted millions to grow virtual vegetables in its FarmVille game, has been valued at $9bn (£5.54bn). Profitless Twitter is said to be worth $10bn. Groupon, vendor of online discounts, rejected a $6bn offer from Google and is considering a flotation with a potential valuation of $15bn. Tech-watchers say this is just the start: the real boom will come when Facebook, the head boy of the new dotcom frenzy, goes public, probably next year..."

via guardian.co.uk

The Guardian takes a look at the optimism surrounding online start ups of the social kind. Are we headed for another dot-com bust?

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Rives Controls the Internet

via ted.com

Rives is another very famous American slam poet.

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Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet - NYTimes.com

Because the Internet’s legendary robustness and ability to route around blockages are part of its basic design, even the world’s most renowned network and telecommunications engineers have been perplexed that the Mubarak government succeeded in pulling the maneuver off.

via nytimes.com

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Bicycle diaries: Tales of a Cross-Country Ride - The Times of India

Ask him if he plans to write with a book based on his diary entries of the trip, and he nods with a shy smile, "Many people have asked me that. If I get a good editor, then yes, I will." Watch out, Argentina. We have our own Bicycle Diaries.

via timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets: How companies try to manipulate Google Search.

...The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”).

This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. J. C. Penney even beat out the sites of manufacturers in searches for the products of those manufacturers. Type in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” for instance, and Penney for months was first on the list, ahead of Samsonite.com....

via nytimes.com

A striking example of the importance of Google's search engine for modern retailers. The article looks at how J C Penny managed to show up as no. 1 on Google's search for a variety of terms by manipulaitng the search, and what was Google's response when they found out.

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