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 Market Failure in the Media Sector: This speech by Prof Eli Noam of Columbia University follows his controversial column in FT in Feb, which generated a lot of heat and discussion. He follows that up with this: "In some ways, the notion that an information-based economy will be inherently prosperous must be reconsidered. Yes, information wants to be free. Now we have to cope with the consequences. That's not a fun conclusion for me to reach." [Apr. 3: Link] | Analysis | [01:55PM]

 Swiss Company Launches MMS News Service: (the link is a Google translation of the German page from the company's website) BEX Media, a mobile content provider in Switzerland, has launched what is perhaps the first MMS (multi-media messages sent on the phone) newspaper, or at least as far as someone is claiming to be an MMS newspaper. (Hey, so if I have an MMS news service, am I not an MMS newspaper?)
The SMS/text based mobile news service it already had, 468, has been upgraded to an MMS service. The two-times-a-day news service comes out morning and evening, with short takes on news of the day. The MMS service carries pictures along with the text.. [Apr. 2: Link] | Newspapers |UK/Europe |Wireless | [08:59PM]

 Developing Hyperlocal Media Through Blogs: Jeff Jarvis, president of Advance.net (the online unit of Advance Publications, Inc., includes CondéNet and Advance Internet) has revealed his plans of a joint project with Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. It is a project that explores the potential of hyperlocal citizens' content.
"I'm one of many who believe that the real frontier of blogs and citizens' media is local; it simply takes time before there is a critical mass of content and readers there. This project, we hope, will explore just how big this can grow, just how useful it can be."
A potentially groundbreaking project...I am more excited about how the student journalists would be "empowered", to use a cliche, to develop these media projects on their own, build a audience, and connect with the community...
Related: Me on Me: On working alone, and why publishers must be brave enough to empower their journalists. [Apr. 2: Link] | Nanopublishing |Newspapers | [06:20PM]

 Jupitermedia Acquires Comstock Images: Looking to expand the premium content offerings in its JupiterImages division, Jupitermedia has announced a $20.85 million cash deal to acquire New Jersey-based stock photography firm Comstock Images.
Jupitermedia said it would finance the purchase with a credit facility of up to $12 million obtained from HSBC Bank USA. The company is also arranging an additional $11 million credit facility with HSBC Bank USA to help finance the deal and other potential acquisitions.
Last June, the company inked a cash and stock deal to acquire ArtToday network of paid subscription graphic-design sites. [Apr. 2: Link] | VC/M&A; | [04:00PM]

 MSNBC.com Thrives -- Despite MSNBC: The headline says it all, pretty much. "Much of what separates MSNBC.com from the online pack is its innovative and aggressive use of graphics", according to the story. Full 24 of the site's 85 editorial employees work in multimedia operations, which encompass such duties as graphics, interactive, design and streaming-video work. [Apr. 2: Link] | Broadband | [03:57PM]

 Microsoft's Music Subscription Killer: We mentioned Microsoft's new DRM project Janus here before...News.com has more details on it and how the Microsoft copy-protection technology will finally arrive, bringing the all-you-can-eat subscription model to portable players.
Janus would add a hacker-resistant clock to portable music players for files encoded in Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media Audio format. That in turn would help let subscription services such as Napster put rented tracks on portable devices--something that's not currently allowed.
The bottom-line: If fans of iPod-like devices can be convinced to drop the idea of owning song files, they could shift to paying a subscription fee for ongoing access to hundreds of thousands of tunes--something that would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars under the current dollar-per-download paradigm...
Wondering what RealNetworks' Rhapsody or MusicMatch would think of this, since they also work on subscription model, but on the desktop...none of them are necessarily portable to portable music players... [Apr. 2: Link] | Microsoft |Music | [03:46PM]

 The Prince Mystery: So now I understand..I wasn't so sure what was so new about Prince's new download music store, since he was doing that earlier as well...now I know why. Prince first made online music available to paying fans in February 2001 in an experiment that lasted about a year...I guess they had some DRM issues back then.
Now, Prince's company thinks those issues are have been solved. Rather than entrust his latest songs to iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody or the other emerging leaders in the market, Prince's New Power Generation (NPG) company partnered with digital content commerce company Entriq so that he could maintain complete control.
Entriq CEO Jan Steenkamp said his company secures the content, provides the infrastructure, handles the backend billing and supplies reporting information to Prince's team. Encoding, hosting and processing are handled by NPG... [Apr. 2: Link] | Music | [03:40PM]

 Number of Paying Downloaders Nearly Triples in 2003: Missed this one the other day... in December 2003 as many as 22% of American downloaders aged 12 and older had paid a fee to download digital music off of the Internet. This translates into an estimated 10 million experienced fee-based downloaders within the current U.S. population...
Further, this number represents a nearly three-fold increase in fee-based digital music experimentation within the past year. In winter 2002, less than one out of 10 (8%) U.S. downloaders had paid a fee for digital music. [Apr. 2: Link] | Music | [03:33PM]

 Does Webcomics Have a Mainstream Already?: An essay by Joey Manley, founder of Modern Tales, a webcomics content and technology provider...
A point he made that is very close to my heart: "It is precisely because the business of web content is contradictory, counterintuitive, ever-changing, and, well, practically impossible, that small entrepreneurs like you and I (and, yes, if you're making a webcomic in the hopes of deriving a profit from it, you are an entrepreneur) have any hope at all of success."
Besides this, a good overview of the business models emerging in the relatively small webcomics space... [Apr. 2: Link] | Nanopublishing | [03:24PM]

 Ten Years in New Media: Looking Back, Looking Forward: A wish list for new media sector, from Steve Yelvington, VP of content and strategy at Morris Digital Works, the online division of newspaper and TV media company Morris Communications..a great read.
"Let's look for ways to create new products that people will pay for, rather than gluing pricetags onto old products they won't pay for....Let's focus on building and managing valuable audiences whose attention is worth money, because that's why advertisers pay us to help solve their business problems."
"Let's step up to the plate and make this a profitable medium, because we must replace inevitably declining print revenues with new Internet successes. We have to do that in the next 10 years. Let's learn from our competitors, especially Google and Yahoo." [Apr. 2: Link] | Newspapers | [03:14PM]

 U.K.'s Wippit To Roll Out Into U.S., Europe (sub. req.): Wippit, the U.K.-based legitimate P2P digital-music service, is planning to expand into new territories, including the United States, Germany, Spain and Sweden, Billboard.biz is reporting. The news comes as Wippit CEO Paul Myers an upgraded edition of the original subscription-based service offering á la carte downloads.
Reuters: Wippit has also strated a price war: it is offernig music downloads priced from 29 pence ($0.54), firing the first shot in a long-anticipated European price war for digital music. The relaunched service has a catalog of 150,000 songs with artists ranging from Pink to Outkast. Wippit will sell some downloads, including Outkast's hit single "Hey Ya!," for 29 pence; others will be priced at 49 pence, 79 pence and 99 pence.
The Register: The download store has intoduced an SMS reverse billing option, in a bid to attract teenagers to the site/service. The SMS payment systems is currently only available to UK customers, though the download service is open for business in the US, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Wippit pledged to bring it to those territories too.
Wippit is also widening its offering, providing software downloads alongside the songs, with initial titles filed under music, video, entertainment, games and creative categories. [Apr. 2: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [02:16PM]

 Stop the Presses! Roll Out the E-papers (sub. req.): A detailed story on the developments in the e-paper sector, and the future for it... Enough said: see below.. [Apr. 2: Link] | Newspapers | [03:49AM]

 MP3 Phone Disputes Show Sign of Settlement: The Korean mobile music controversy, that is...Samsung Electronics accepted the government's second mediation of allowing people to download free music files and listen to them via cell phones for three days.
Originally, Samsung claimed the span should be four days while the Korea Association of Phonogram Producers, the organization for the music producers, countered it should be just 48 hours.
In contrast LG Electronics continued to contend the period should be at least five days, though negotiations are still going on.
Related:
-- Samsung Delays Music Handsets, Following Controversy
-- MP3 Phone Patent Dispute Deepens [Apr. 2: Link] | Music | [03:18AM]

 Google Revises Ad Pricing for Content Sites: In essence, it says ads on content sites are less valuable than ads in pure search results...again, it shows what I have believed in: contextual ads are overblown, in terms of effectiveness...Google AdSense is not a business model for publishers in the long run. Period. [Apr. 2: Link] | Google | [12:34AM]

 Internet Movies Not Ready For Prime Time: A report on a panel on digital movies at the Digital Hollywood conference earlier this week....fledgling Internet movie services need better networked TVs, more bandwidth, better interfaces and more content before they are ready for prime time, according to the panel.
One of those services, CinemaNow, has about 10,000 subscribers and one million unique visitors a month, about four percent of which rent a movie online, according to Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow.
Content selection is another issue. CinemaNow has a library of 5,000 titles but currently makes available just 1,500 of them due to costs of servers, storage and encoding. But that is changing, Marvis said, estimating he could double the number of available titles this year. [Apr. 1: Link] | Broadband |Movies | [08:16PM]

 MSN's Quest For Dominance: An interview with Yusuf Mehdi, the head of MSN's consumer portal efforts...Mehdi, who recently launched MSN Video and MSN Premium Internet access, also has plans to incorporate a next-generation search engine, a music download application service similar to Apple Computer's iTunes and a social-networking service. [Apr. 1: Link] | Microsoft | [08:03PM]

 Microsoft's Lobbying Power Drowns Out RealNetworks' Voice in D.C.: The recent EU ruling against Microsoft hasn't been easy on RealNetworks...part of it is due to the fact that the company does not have enough lobbying presence in Washington DC, as opposed to the infnite war chest of MSFT.
Even Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a former RealNetworks executive who owns between $1 million and $5 million of RealNetworks stock, joined most of the Washington congressional delegation in issuing statements supporting Microsoft. [Apr. 1: Link] | Microsoft |RNWK | [07:59PM]

 Aussies Sites Cut Download Song Prices: Is it competition, or desperate sale moves: in Australia, prices of songs downloaded from Telstra's BigPond Music have been cut to 99 cents instead of the $1.49 BigPond subscribers usually pay and the $1.89 paid by other subscribers.
BigPond Music's rival Destra, which provides its download service through music retailers, including Sanity, HMV and JB HiFi, has retaliated by cutting its track price to 89 cents. [Apr. 1: Link] | Music | [07:48PM]

 Google Moves to Block RSS Scraping: A Web developer's attempt to create customized RSS feeds from the popular Google News portal has run afoul of the search technology powerhouse...
At the center of the dispute is British programmer Julian Bond's gnews2rss, a PHP script that takes a Google News search and turns it into an RSS feed. The script allows users to enter search keywords into a field and create an RSS feed that can be used by any news aggregator. [Apr. 1: Link] | RSS Etc. | [06:48PM]

 MarketWatch Hires Greenberg Away From Rival TheStreet.com: MarketWatch.com has nabbed the high-profile financial columnist Herb Greenberg from rival TheStreet.com.
Greenberg will write a free column for CBS MarketWatch's site, as well as make regular appearances on the MarketWatch.com Radio Network and CBS MarketWatch's weekend television show. The company also hopes to introduce a subscription newsletter featuring Greenberg "at some point soon"...
SF Gate: But funny MKTW would hope that...Greenberg switched 'cause he thought he wasn't reaching enough people with the subscription site at TSCM. "MarketWatch is giving me the chance to get some visibility again," Greenberg said. "I've been behind the high-priced walls about two years. It's been a little too long to be without the kind of readers that got me where I am." [Apr. 1: Link] | MKTW |TSCM | [04:37PM]

 Thomson and MarketWatch.com Partner on News Service; Reuters Not Happy: MarketWatch.com has tied up with B2B giant Thomson Financial, a unit of Thomson Corp, to develop a customized news service branded Thomson ONE.
Financial analysts from Thomson and journalists from MarketWatch.com will collaborate to develop news and information for Thomson ONE customers, the companies said.
MKTW's Own Coverage: The deal will allow MarketWatch to expand its staff of 80 journalists by as much as 50 percent and provide Thomson with news coverage on financial markets in North America, Asia and Europe.
The deal throws the two companies into direct competition with Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones for the high-margin institutional audience. Reuters said it finds "this move surprising," a spokeswoman in London said.
WSJ Online (sub. req.): Phil Lynch, CEO of Reuters America, said in an interview that Reuters had told Thomson Financial late last year that it was concerned Thomson was marketing Thomson's product for financial advisers to insititutional clients as well. That move put it in direct competition with Reuters. [Apr. 1: Link] | Biz/Fin |MKTW | [04:15PM]

 GMail's No Joke: Way too much meta madness: here's a suggestion...please keep the gags to minimum, however irreverant your company is...
Anyway, GMail's for real. I also got a new newsletter subscriber today with a gmail address! [Apr. 1: Link] | Google | [04:06PM]

 New: Mobile Music Report for March 2004: This is our second Mobile Music Report, covering news and analysis from the March 2004… The report covers top news in the sector during the period, neatly categorized and contextualized with plenty of links.
We have started a new section on technology solutions for mobile music sector: covered are software and hardware solutions.
We also have a special section this month on mobile music recognition services, including NTT's new service in Japan, Shazam in UK and Europe, MusiKube and Gracenote in U.S.
Also covered in the report is extensive coverage of the Mobile Music Conference from CTIA, held on March 24, 2004.
Indicative of the activity in the area, venture fundings and M&A; in the sector are picking up...and we have all the news on them.
Companies Covered in This Report: Sony Music, Sony Mobile, Universal Music, Virgin Mobile, Verizon, Nokia, Motorola, Loudeye, Gracenote, MusiKube, Shazam, InfoSpace Mobile, Faith West, SmartServ, Xingtone, Diggit, AOL Mobile, AGMobile, RealNetworks, Predixis, Beatnik Audio, Navio, Samsung, LG and others... [Apr. 1: Link] | Wireless | [04:00PM]

 Zone4Play Receives $1.2 Million Private Equity: Zone4Play, a provider of online gambling and betting software on multiple platforms, has completed a $1.2 million private placement, consisting of 1.5 million shares of its common stock, with a group of institutional and individual investor...
Zone4Play products allow easy access for interactive TV, Web, PDA, and Wireless users, and currently caters to multiple channels with its Casino games, Fixed Odds products, Interactive Lottery, Bingo and Sports betting applications, [Apr. 1: Link] | VC/M&A; | [03:54PM]

 MLB's Content on Mobiles Too: After cutting deals with MSN, AOL and three cable ISPs, MLB.com is now gunning for distribution on wireless devices...
It isn't exactly streaming audio on mobiles (which MLB tried for a while a year or two ago, with its earlier contract with RealNetworks, where you had to call a phone number and you could listen to the live audio commentary of the baseball games etc).
But it has tied up with InfoSpace Mobile to allow fans to personalize their cell phone screens with logos from all 30 of its baseball clubs...additionally InfoSpace will deliver other downloadable content including graphic wallpapers and audio ringtones (think "Take Me Out to the Ball Game").
Content is available for Cingular, T-Mobile USA, Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, HelloMoto.com, NokiaUSA.com and Samsung Fun Club subscribers with appropriate data-enabled handsets. [Apr. 1: Link] | Sports | [03:01PM]

 Europe's OD2 Sells One Million Song Downloads: Europe's digital music service provider OD2 said it has sold one million music downloads in the first quarter of 2004...the sale figure represents a doubling from Q4 of 2003 and a 10-fold rise from the year-earlier period.
The privately-held OD2 also said its total turnover for the first quarter was one million pounds ($1.84 million), with proceeds from downloads and licensing fees. [Apr. 1: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [02:47PM]

 Usenet Audio: Usenet Audio, a project that uses the existing, distributed and proven Usenet as its medium of distribution for audio streams...
"Problems due to congestion outside of ISP controlled network (for which part usually ISP's can give guarantees) are bypassed. Add to that the consumer freedom which is akin to that of PVR equipment like the TiVo. A broadcast can be re-listened - in whole! - weeks later." [Apr. 1: Link] | Music | [02:33PM]

 T-Online To Offer Online Services Through TV Boxes By Samsung: T-Online International has tied up with Samsung Electronics to jointly develop set-top box to port its online services to the PC... [Apr. 1: Link] | Broadband |UK/Europe | [01:42PM]

 Topica Users Pay the Piper: Some Topica subscribers are up in arms after the leading provider of free e-mail discussion lists started inserting spam-like ads last week at the top of messages sent to its most popular lists.
For its part, Topica argues that it had no choice but to begin putting the ads into messages sent through the busiest of its 34,000 discussion lists. The company has stayed afloat through frequent financial struggles by developing paid Web-based marketing services, but executives say that for the free lists to survive, they had to start becoming self-supporting.
Surprisingly, Topica is not offering its discussion list owners an option to pay for ad-free lists, choosing to go entirely the ad revenue route. [Apr. 1: Link] | E-mail | [12:58PM]

 MusicNet Opens UK Office, Eyes Europe: MusicNet, the online music service, has kick-started its expansion into Europe with the opening of offices in the UK.
MusicNet's senior director of strategic planning and business development, Mark Mooradian, will head up the international drive and will be based in London.
Last month, MusicNet signed a partnership deal with Virgin Group to power the Virgin Digital music subscription service and download store to be launched in August. [Apr. 1: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [12:39PM]

 Music Choice TV Channel to Expand to PCs: Everyone wants to be on the PC: TV network Music Choice will soon give cable broadband customers access to its content and a song download service through their computers...
The broadband offering will be available for cable operators to incorporate in their websites starting Friday. Cable companies refused to discuss whether they plan to deploy the service. But analysts say that's likely, since Music Choice is a private partnership of four major cable operators -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Adelphia -- along with Sony, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Microsoft and Motorola. For this service, Music Choice has a non-exclusive alliance with online music service Napster...The selection of downloadable songs will be limited to Napster's library of about 500,000 tracks. Users will also be able to buy CDs through a direct link to Amazon.com.
What does this mean for other pureplay online music service providers who have some existing relationships with these cable companies? [Apr. 1: Link] | Broadband |Music | [12:12PM]

 A Profile of Akimbo's IP-TV Service: Cable Datacom News has a profile of Akimbo, the U.S. IP-TV VOD provider which I wrote about here earlier.
"Despite the company's marketing pitch, the Akimbo service won't exactly be video-on-demand (VOD). Subscribers will have to wait for their programming choices to download in real time before they can watch it. Akimbo officials hope to skirt this issue by getting subscribers to spell out their viewing preferences so that the desired content can be downloaded automatically overnight."
"Company executives insist that their service will deliver far better quality than the herky-jerky streaming video usually seen on the PC because of the spread of broadband connections and home networks."
Related: Akimbo Launches IP TV Service in U.S. [Apr. 1: Link] | Broadband | [12:05PM]

 Mossberg Likes RealNetworks' New Music Stores, Hates Wal-Mart's: Listen ahoy: Walter Mossberg is not a fan of Wal-Mart's new music store, but really like RealNetworks' new download store..."Both Real's Web site and the RealPlayer software have been overhauled to make them simpler and easier to use. In the past, I have criticized Real for being overly aggressive and intrusive, plastering its icons and links all over your PC. But in the new music store and jukebox software, Real has dropped this approach. It politely asks if it can place icons on your desktop" [Apr. 1: Link] | Music | [11:57AM]

 AOL's Value Falls Well Short of $10 Billion: "In this climate, where optimism about the tech sector is again riding high, it's all too possible that AOL could actually fetch $10 billion -- and perhaps a bit more. But in truth, the company may be worth no more than $6 billion. Even if we take the midpoint between $10 billion and $6 billion, we get $8 billion. There is no good reason for AOL to go for any more than that." [Apr. 1: Link] | AOL | [11:17AM]

 The News/Blog Flitering Gets a New Entrant: Gawker Media, Nick Denton's blog media company, has launched its long-delayed Kinja project. The new site is a blog aggregation and search site, in essence, organized and categorized, and customizable.
The site is designed for people who may have heard about Web logs but are not sure how to start reading them...the site goes beyond RSS and Denton says can display sites which don;t have an RSS feed. I'll check it out and let you know...
Right now, for a newsreader, I am enamored by Bloglines, and can't see myself moving...
Meanhile, Denton writes his own thoughts on the project, here... [Apr. 1: Link] | Nanopublishing | [11:13AM]

 NYT On MP3 Surround: Saw a demonstration of this technoloyg at Midem in Feb...very high fidelity. [Apr. 1: Link] | Music | [11:06AM]

 MLB.com To Announce Deals With 3 Cable Companies (sub. req.): A week after signing deals with MSN and AOL, Major League Baseball's online division is signing deals with three major cable companies -- Comcast, Charter, and Cablevision--for distribution of its audio and video content.
Under the one-year deals with the three cable companies, for the next three months new broadband subscribers will get at no charge a season's worth of content with a value of about $100. Existing subscribers get a 20% discount. After three months, all of the cable company's subscribers can sign up for a 20% discount.
The deals reflect the growing importance of content as cable and telephone companies fight for market share in one of the fastest-growing businesses in the telecommunications sector.
Related:
-- MLB To Distribute Through MSFT, AOL
-- MLB.com May IPO; Sell Minority Stake [Apr. 1: Link] | Broadband |Sports | [04:18AM]

 Is Google's E-Mail Announcement An April Fool Trick?: My reader Ian Evans over at DigitalHit just e-mailed me this, and the tone of Google's press release also makes me wonder: "Given Google's history (remember pigeonrank) and the date and tone of the press release, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a hoax."
To put it mildly, if this is true, we've been royally shafted (to borrow Nick Denton's phrase)... [Apr. 1: Link] | Google | [01:07AM]

 Google Planning to Roll Out E-Mail Service: Be ready for the Google portal...it will launch a new consumer-oriented electronic mail service.
The new service, to be named Gmail, is scheduled to be released on Thursday, according to this NYT story.
Google's entry into the e-mail business will sharpen the lines between the major competing portals like Yahoo and MSN and Internet service providers like AOL and Earthlink.
Update: Wired News: It plans to offer a free Web-based e-mail service with 1 GB of storage space, far more than rival services by Yahoo and Hotmail.
Google's official press release...
Related: Seth Goldstein wrote last week about why e-mail is important to Google: "When you factor that roughly 50% of the time spent on Yahoo is email related, and that 50% of their advertising revenue is equal to over $400M per year, then its clear what the economic stakes could be." [Mar.31: Link] | Google | [07:33PM]

 Air America Streaming Only in Real Format: I've been listening in to the Air America Network, the brand new "liberal" radio network launched today....I'm listening to it online, where it is streaming live, for free. The streaming format is RealNetworks' RealAudio.
If you're wondering why only Real format, here's why: Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks, is an investor in the company.
Air America has raised $60 million from investors...
Also, funny this: Match.com is advertising on the service...
Some more details on Air America here... [Mar.31: Link] | RNWK | [05:59PM]

 Circuit City To Buy MusicNow: Funny this: While MusicNow CEO Scott Kauffman was holding forth on the online music subscription business--and how successful they have been--yesterday at a panel at the Digital Hollywood conference, the assets of his company were being bought by Circuit City. (Well, in hindsight, I do think he was slightly down-and-out: must be either the deal closing or that he was sad to see his company being acquired: when asked about whether the subscription or download model will win out in online music he said: "The answer lies deep in the belly of the consumer, and the consumer doesn't know what that answer is yet...")
The news: Circuit City is getting into digital music business: it is acquiring the assets of the troubled online music company MusicNow. Terms of that acquisition were not disclosed. The music download service will retain its brand and will be marketed through the retail stores of Circuit City and the CircuitCity.com website...
MusicNow is one of the oldest online music services, and was originally called FullAudio...it also had one of the unlikeliest locations for an online music company: Chicago..
Guess MusicNow's relationship with BestBuy (which is now heavily pushing Rhapsody), has ended...
News.com: The company, which currently powers services from SBC Communications, Charter Communications, and others, said it would continue to serve other customers in addition to Circuit City
Related:
-- Full Audio to Rebrand and Relaunch with MusicNow [Mar.31: Link] | Music |VC/M&A; | [04:53PM]

 Me on Me: An interview with me on Journalism.co.uk...On working alone, and why publishers must be brave enough to empower their journalists. [Mar.31: Link] | Nanopublishing | [04:32PM]

 Guardian Online Lifts the Lid on Global Readership: Guardian Unlimited, the online division of Guardian newspaper, is to begin publishing a quarterly geographic breakdown of its website users that, it says, will reinforce its global brand and help provide more targeted services for its advertisers.
User figures for January 2004 show that the majority of guardian.co.uk readers - around 39 per cent - are based in the US.
UK users spend much more time on the site, however, accounting for 49 per cent of page impressions. US readers account for just 22 per cent of page impressions.
Despite the high proportion of US readers, the Guardian is unlikely to attempt to lure advertisers from existing US news sites, which I think is a wonrg way to go...how expensive it is to hire one online salesperson in U.S.? Seriously... [Mar.31: Link] | Guardian |Newspapers |UK/Europe | [04:30PM]

 Judge: File Sharing Legal in Canada: Sharing copyrighted works on peer-to-peer networks is legal in Canada, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, handing the record industry a sharp setback in its international fight against file swappers. [Mar.31: Link] | Music | [04:24PM]

 DVD Business Threatened By Online VOD: Online delivery of movies could soon cause an across-the-board decline in retail selling prices for packaged DVDs, according to In-Stat/MDR.
With online services like Movielink and CinemaNow selling movies for $4 apiece, that DVD prices could come under pressure...
Disney, Microsoft and Intel are positioned to benefit the most from the expected trend, said In-Stat...Disney's MovieBeam services uses innovative push technology to deliver movies-on-demand at low cost, and Microsoft's Windows Media Division covers all the key areas in the market. Intel's mobile technology, on the other hand, promises to make laptop computers portable entertainment systems.
Small companies that are poised to provide disruptive technologies or business models include Akimbo, Euclid Discoveries, Synacor and thePlatform, most of which you keep hearing in my covearge here...
Also, Asia is likely to be the strongest market with regards to use of personal content items, accounting for 34.0% share in 2008, and Europe will be a strong number two market. [Mar.31: Link] | Broadband |Movies | [04:22PM]

 Navio Acquires Mobile Content Distributor DVNO: Navio, a content commerce startup based in Cupertino, CA (and a company I have written about before), has acquired wireless content distribution company DVNO.
Navio manages a service for selling and trading content online and through P2P networks. The company said the addition of DVNO adds a wireless aspect to its business. DVNO manages sales of wireless content including ringtones and games through retail stores, which bypasses the standard method of content distribution through wireless carriers.
Navio will use DVNO's technology to develop white-label pre-paid content payment cards...
Related: A profile of Navio's technology, in eContent Magazine [Mar.31: Link] | Technologies |VC/M&A; | [04:17PM]

 Rockford Gets $45 Million Credit: Rockford Corp, the audio electronics company and manufaturer of the hot Omnifi wireless streaming device, has closed a three year $45.0 million senior asset based credit facility with its bank, and a one year $4 million junior term loan with Hilco Capital.
Related:
-- Rhapsody on Omnifi Wireless Streamer [Mar.31: Link] | VC/M&A; | [03:49PM]

 Is a USB Key The Key To Subscription Consolidation?: I doubt it...MetaPass, a Mountain Vie, CA-based startup, has launched a USB memory, a key ring shaped device, which remembers and automatically enters names and passwords for websites.
The device plugs into a computer's USB port and displays password-protected sites in a form similar to Internet bookmarks.
To use MetaPass, you go to each site and enter log-in information, which is captured by the MetaPass device. After that, you only need to remember a "master" password to access MetaPass.
Even though it is a decent solution to keep track of all the subscription sites and services you have signed up for, what if someone loses that one device? [Mar.31: Link] | [03:35PM]

 Newsmap for Google News: One Step Closer to Automated News Layouts?: John Blossom points to a rather interesting take on a new hack for Google News: a new tool called Newsmap, which is a visual representation of Google News results..."Will there be a time when we pull up an automatically generated news page on our desktops or I-Ink PDAs that has a newspaper-like front page and section layout with banner headlines for major items, etc., based on relevance to our specific needs and interests?" [Mar.31: Link] | Google |Newspapers | [03:20PM]

 Rediff.com Jumps on Yahoo Hook-up: Whatever spin they want to give to it, effectively, this means that Yahoo has given up on developing its online portal in India. The only headway Yahoo has been able to make in India is in mobile content, and the deal below reflects it...
Shares of Rediff.com soared in midday trading Wednesday after the India-based Internet portal operator said it would join with Yahoo to jointly promote online shopping and mobile content on their sites.
Rediff.com shares were up $4.05, or 46 percent, to $12.77.
The deal calls for Rediff.com to run Yahoo's India shopping channel, and Yahoo will showcase content like ringtones, wallpapers and games on Rediff.com's site. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
More details in the press release... [Mar.31: Link] | YHOO | [03:09PM]

 SmartVideo To Launch Mobile Streaming Solution (sub. req.): SmartVideo, an Atlanta-based streamig solutions provider, will be launching its mobile streaming solution soon...the company says it can deliver news and entertainment to cell phones at the almost-video quality speed of 15 to 24 frames per second.
The plan is to create a service similar to MobiTV, the wireless TV service launched in U.S. a few months ago...the subscription service will cost up to $10 -- or about what you can spend on a peak hours call to mom -- depending on the options chosen. [Mar.31: Link] | Wireless | [02:58PM]

 Using P2P to Spur Download Sales: Using data from P2P download monitoring companies such as BigChampagne, record exectuives are tracking which songs are traded online and help pick which new singles to release. They increasingly use such file-sharing data to persuade radio stations and MTV to give new songs a spin or boost airplay for those that are popular with downloaders.
Some labels even monitor what people do with their music after they download it to better structure deals with licensed downloading services. The ultimate goal is what it always has been in the record business: Sell more music. [Mar.31: Link] | Music | [02:50PM]

 ITV UK Plans To Offer Shows Online: Classic episodes of UK TV channel ITV's show The Bill are to be screened over the internet in a pay-per-view TV experiment, with Baywatch to follow if there is an appetite among viewers.
For The Bill, one classic episode a month available on a pay-per-view basis to broadband subscribers.
The deal takes advantage of BT's recently announced Rich Media concept, which allows broadcasters and movie studios to deliver a huge library of television shows and films to broadband users at a quality equivalent to digital TV or DVD. [Mar.31: Link] | Broadband |UK/Europe | [02:47PM]

 New Radio@Netscape in Beta: America Online apparently plans to make their Radio@AOL technology available to non-AOL customers with an improved version of their Radio@Netscape application. The company is inviting Internet radio listeners to "beta" test the new Radio@Netscape player. [Mar.31: Link] | AOL |Music | [02:22PM]

 Streaming Content Delivery Exploding: Content delivery networks (CDNs) individually delivered double or triple the streaming content in '03 compared to '02, according to a new report by AccuStream iMedia Research.
AOL, Real Networks and Yahoo are the largest content distributors, and the largest consumer of bandwidth services...
CDN services for both streaming video and Internet radio is estimated at between $90 million and $115 million dollars in 2003... [Mar.31: Link] | Broadband | [09:59AM]

 Mobile Phones to Operate TV Recorder: The ultimate couch potato...Opera said that the Mobile Interactive Programming Guide (IPG) would allow clients to look up television schedules on a mobile phone and then press "record" to a video recorder, no matter how far away.
PVR Blog points out if has been done before... [Mar.31: Link] | Wireless | [09:54AM]

 CMP Site Blocking Links From Competitor LinuxToday: Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler writes about...CMP wasn't happy because LinuxToday published an excerpt from an article at CMP's Information Week, which according to them was an unfair use of their content... [Mar.31: Link] | [09:52AM]

 Local Internet Revenues For Media Companies: Borrell Associates is releasing a report that examines local Internet revenue and makes projections for 2004 in 210 U.S. markets, from New York City ($184.09 million) to Glendive, Montana ($150,000)...
The local Internet pie is growing by an average 28.7 percent in 2004, twice the growth rate of overall Internet advertising...
You can request a copy of the report here [Mar.31: Link] | Newspapers | [09:49AM]

 New wave of Web ads on the way: Internet marketers are promising a new generation of online advertising "lite" that's more effective and less annoying than some current brands. [Mar.31: Link] | Advertising | [09:46AM]

 Microsoft nixes sports video games: Microsoft said it will not release new versions of its sports video games this fall in a move Wall Street saw as opening the door to deeper ties with industry leader Electronic Arts. [Mar.31: Link] | Microsoft |Sports | [09:45AM]

 Americans: hooked on digital downloads: Some 22% of American downloaders aged 12 and older paid for a music download in 2003, says a new study. [Mar.31: Link] | Music | [09:45AM]

 Registration coming to Ohio.com: "Beginning Wednesday, we will ask you to register online to read articles from our newspaper partner, the Akron Beacon Journal." [Mar.31: Link] | Newspapers | [09:43AM]

 Digital Media Commerce Patent Being Sold: Not sure what to make out of this...Skylight Software has announced its intention to sell-off one of its inventions -- a patent it owns in the field of online distribution of digital content: US Patent 6,199,054 titled "<b>Automated Software Metering of Digital Payloads."
The patent describes a method for completing a dynamically priced transaction involving a "digital payload" across the Internet. The content could be in a variety of forms including electronic documents and multimedia data. The platform as defined may be applicable to numerous fulfillments and/or file downloading solutions such as those being offered or developed for music, research, digital photos, printing, electronic fax; digital video, multimedia content, metered email and more. [Mar.31: Link] | [09:42AM]

 Quova Acquires Competitor InfoSplit: Quovo, the geo-location technology company, has acquired longtime competitor InfoSplit, a New York-based geolocation provider, in a cash/stock transaction...
InfoSplit's product offerings, OneToOne for targeted Web content and Market Reports for site analytics, and its NetLocator technology will be incorporated into Quova's solutions. InfoSplit president and CEO Cyril Houri has joined Quova's management team. [Mar.31: Link] | VC/M&A; | [09:37AM]

 NEC To Sell Gaming Business To Index: Japanese corporation NEC is set to bow out of the game software industry with the sale of its subsidiary NEC Interchannel to online and wireless content specialist Index Corporation.
After the deal, which will see NEC selling off 70 per cent of its shares in the game publishing division for around 3 billion Yen (€23.3 million), the company will be known as Interchannel and Index Magazines president Fumihiro Hamuro will take over as president. [Mar.31: Link] | VC/M&A; | [09:34AM]

 A Princely boost for Windows (sub. req.): Like a growing number of music stores online, Prince's new music download site uses only one technology: the Windows Media format, designed to be played back on the Media Player software that has been the focus of the European Commission's attentions. [Mar.31: Link] | Microsoft | [09:33AM]

 Sun's Winning Pitch for Baseball: Sun Microsystems has announced a two-year, $25 million contract extension Tuesday with Major League Baseball's online arm that includes data center hardware, software and services [Mar.31: Link] | Sports | [09:30AM]

 Wal-Mart Takes on iTunes -- But Who's Listening? (sub. req.): Why Walmart.com's digital-music efforts won't bring about the great digital-music shakeout. [Mar.31: Link] | Music | [09:29AM]

 Digital Media Storage Company Receives $15.5 Million Funding: Isilion, a digital media storage company, has received a $15.5 million financing round led by Lehman Brothers. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Atlas Venture and Madrona Venture Group also participated, bringing total financing in the 3-year-old company to $38.9 million.
The company's clients include image-heavy businesses such as Corbis, LexisNexis, Technicolor and Paramount.
The money will provide some sales and marketing muscle to Isilon, which was founded in the middle of the economic recession by former RealNetworks engineer Sujal Patel. [Mar.31: Link] | VC/M&A; | [09:25AM]

 CNET's Expansion May Signal a Turnaround in Tech Journalism: Is it, really? After cutbacks during the bust, CNET is again expanding by buying MP3.com, WGR and Esther Dyson's EDventure.
I have my doubts about how the company intends to tie all of this toegther into one whole.. [Mar.31: Link] | [09:22AM]

Winner: European Online Journalism Award 2003, for the best news weblog of the year.
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