want links to open a new window?

Report: 127 design guidelines for subscription interfaces & newsletter content based on user research ---------------- JOBS   VNU: Corporate Information Marketing Director   Wireless Jobs at Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment   Yahoo: Alliance Director   Manager New Media - TVT Records

 Apple Creates New iPod Division: Does this mean Apple will spin off the iPod division? BW wrote a few weeks ago about an iPod IPO...pure speculation, nothing else.
The news: Apple is splitting the company into two product divisions--one focused on the Mac and the other focused on iPod digital music player.
Reuters: Industry analysts have speculated that Apple might ultimately broaden the uses for an iPod beyond playing music, such as for watching movies. [May.20: Link] | Apple |Music | [02:48AM]

 Lycos US: Client Services Manager: So how come you lay off so many people, almost the whole company, and then hire this one person? Strange... [May.19: Link] | Terra Lycos | [07:43PM]

 RealNetworks: Product Manager - Hardware OEM: If you read in between the lines here... [May.19: Link] | RNWK | [07:37PM]

 OD2 Cuts Download Price to Foil Napster UK Launch: The online music price wars are reaching UK's shores, even as Napster is getting ready for its UK launch...Europe's top digital music service OD2 slashed the price for song downloads in half on Thursday, ahead of Napster expansion plans announcement.
OD2 said the discounts would be made available to the British customers of its largest download sites including those run by partners Wanadoo, Tiscali, Coca-Cola, Virgin Megastores and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. OD2 will sell the songs in bundles priced at 20 pounds, the company said...40 songs for 20 pounds... [May.19: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [07:21PM]

 Sony Launches Desktop Content Aggregator in Japan: Sony Japan has launched a new desktop content aggregation service in Japan, called "Grami Online Contents Guide"...in essence, it is desktop browser app, which monitors and serves content from about 33 news and retailing sites... The service generates an icon for each website, and informs users when new content becomes available.
I just downloaded the service, just to test it out, and it is a heavy, broadband-based client, much like a web browser. I'm intrigued about why they have launched such a retro thing: it is such a 1996-97 move, much like AOL was before Open-Web came along...my theory is that since Japan had not been a very heavy Internet-user society (more communication/cellphones based), this is an attempt to guide the Japanese broadband users through the content maze, and in the process hope to sell Sony merchandise... [May.19: Link] | Broadband |Sony | [07:17PM]

 AOL Composes 'Fanfare' for Broadband: If AOL's mission is to make it easy for the consumer, it certainly is not doing a great job of explaining the various platforms it is developing. I'm a bit confused with all their new "heavy" and "lite" versions and this code names like "Copland" and "Strauss".
Anyway, AOL has begun preliminary testing for a new product code-named "Fanfare," which will provide broadband subscribers with a next generation alternative to the classic AOL client software. It is, in essence a digital media and communications platform on which it will deliver broadband-based content and messaging services to users...
Integrated into Fanfare will be AOL's cross-format AOL Media Player, AOL Spyware Protection, and AOL Calendar into the Communicator code base.
By incorporating AMP, AOL is establishing a digital media platform that will play and manage media files. Exclusive TimeWarner video content from Video@AOL, Sessions@AOL, as well as music videos, movie trailers and news feeds available through AMP are a sampling of things to come. [May.19: Link] | AOL |Broadband | [06:56PM]

 BMI Licenses Songs To New P2P Service: (sub. req.) Performing rights organization BMI has signed a deal with new peer-to-peer service Qtrax to pay artist royalties on songs illegally downloaded on the Internet.
Songs put onto the Qtrax service, scheduled to launch in the third quarter of this year, will be translated into a new format that tracks playback and prevents users from burning them onto CDs or transferring them to portable devices. Singwell and LTDnetwork, the companies behind Qtrax, are hoping to sign deals with labels to allow users to purchase the right to burn or transfer those tracks.
Royalties will be funded by contextual ads related to searches.
For more details, read the release [May.19: Link] | Music | [06:38PM]

 Telstra Merges Media Divisions: Telstra, Australia's biggest telco, has merged its two main media groups--content division of its Big Pond internet group and the existing Telstra Media--in its latest attempt to find a role in the sector.
Big Pond Media would hold Telstra's 50 per cent investment in Foxtel, its broadband streaming content services, its online music and DVD rentals businesses. [May.19: Link] | Broadband | [06:28PM]

 Content Winners For SIIA Codie Awards: SIIA Codie Awards for 2004 were announced yesterday...for the information industry, Dow Jones/WSJ.com swept the awards. Google News (surprised?) won the best consumer online news service.
List of winners:
-- Best Content Management Solution: Vignette Content Management Enterprise Suite, Vignette Corporation
-- Best Digital Rights Management Solution: Macrovision FLEXnet Universal Software Licensing Platform, Macrovision Corporation
-- Best Enterprise Search Engine: Atomz Search, Atomz
-- Best Online Business News or Information Service: The Wall Street Journal Online, Dow Jones & Company
-- Best Online Consumer Service: Google News, Google
-- Best Online Professional Financial Information Service: Dow Jones NewsPlus, Dow Jones Newswires
-- Best Online Reference or Directory Service: One-Stop Research, Nationalgeographic.com
-- Best Online Science/Technology/Medical Information Service: The Wall Street Journal Online's Health Industry Edition, Dow Jones & Company
-- Best Online Tax or Government Information Service: Checkpoint, Thomson / RIA [May.19: Link] | Biz/Fin | [06:14PM]

 MSN Butterflies Swarm Broadcast Upfronts: I say, more power to Microsoft in getting ad dollars out of TV into online: A butterfly invasion greeted media strategists attending broadcast upfront presentations, as Microsoft Corp.'s MSN pulled out all the stops to convince them to allocate more money toward online media. [May.19: Link] | Advertising |Broadband |Microsoft | [03:12PM]

 Business Side of Convergence Has Myths, Some Real Benefits: Combined news units aren't going to save much money in staff or operations, and revenues won't boom. Instead, cross-promotion and brand-building are what sells convergence.
In essence, the business side drives convergence, not editorial... [May.19: Link] | Newspapers | [03:09PM]

 WSJ.com Ends Time Concurrency: About time, really...WSJ.com, which has been fairly open about its usage policies (password sharing rampant among WSJ users; cookied on unlimited machines before this), has now ended time concurrency (meaning two people cannot be logged into WSJ.com at the same time using the same username-password), Jessica Perry, VP of biz dev at Dow Jones Consumer Electronic Publishing told me at the SIIA Content Forum.
High time they did that...it needs more multi-seat licensing revenues, and is now making a push for it... [May.19: Link] | WSJ | [02:59PM]

 Dell's Digital Jukebox Plays Open-Source: Dell's portable MP3 music player is now compatible with computers running Linux... its Dell Digital Jukebox music player, or Dell DJ, is now Linux-compatible for customers who install Lsongs software, a product from San Diego-based Lindows. Dell launched the digital music player in October 2003. [May.19: Link] | Music | [02:53PM]

 Napster on Music Services Using MSFT's Janus: A reader of mine send this in: at today's Piper Jarray investor conference (which I mentioned in some posts below), Chris Gorog, CEO of Roxio [Napster's parent] stated that Janus [MSFT's new portable subscriptions DRM scheme] downloads will be transferable to portable devices at no additional charge beyond the $9.95 monthly subscription.
Others, including Sean Ryan of RealNetworks's Rhapsody have said pricing with Janus is "still being discussed with the labels" or would be "higher charge than current subscription charges."
An archive of the webcast here. [May.19: Link] | Music | [12:21PM]

 Linksys Ships Real Rhapsody Media Device: Cisco-owned Linksys has announced shipment of its first Real Rhapsody-interoperable device, the Linksys Wireless-B Media Link for Music, a new home audio component that uses Wireless-B (802.11b) networking to send digital audio content stored on a PC or other storage devices to a home stereo.
Related:
-- Rhapsody to stream through Prismiq
-- Netgear to Offer Real's Rhapsody In New Wireless Streaming Device
-- RealNetworks Ties Up With Comcast For Music; Intel For Set Top Boxes [May.19: Link] | Music |RNWK | [12:16PM]

 Napster to Announce Deal With NTL: Napster is to announce a tie-in with UK cable ISP NTL, according to this story, for its launch in UK. It's likely to centre on a joint marketing program. [May.19: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [12:08PM]

 The Salon Watch: I was at Salon offices in SF today...their offices have certainly shrunk down from the heydays, but for the better, I would say. Met Patrick Hurley, the VP of operations at Salon Media Group, and had a good chat. From the sound of it, things have finally stabilized into a rhythm for the company...the "Salon Death Watch" is off, finally, or so it seems.
The ad revenues are coming in at a good clip, and it is as if someone has turned on the ad spigot in the last three/four months, Hurley told me. Which, of course, is a sentiment you'll hear from other media sites as well these days.
On the premium side, the company is moving from "subscription" model to a "membership" model, a la NPR. The pricing will remain the same, but the idea is to get the paid users more involved with the site: Table Talk will be integrated more into the membership model. Some people will say it is just a matter of semantics, but I think it is a smart move: people, especially old timers in the online journalism field have always considered Salon as some sort of a public utility, and it would be good to build on that, especially the loyalty bit.
As part of that membership drive, Salon will get into more offline, ancillary products and services: the first one is a political holiday cruise, where Salon members will have a chance to interact with certain celebrity political figures for the duration of the cruise etc. Some other focused talk/fireside chat based events are also planned…
On a related front, Hurley wonders why other media sites have not adopted the "day-pass" model of Salon: users can either subscribe to an ad-free version, or site through dedicated ads before they get access to stories...I tried to think of a reason, and couldn't, really. I think it is a good hybrid model, but online news/newspaper sites are afraid, plain and simple, to try anything new. But when they do, they have this herd mentality: case in point: registration and behavioral advertising. [May.19: Link] | SALNC | [11:25AM]

 The Issue of Coverage: : I have been accused, somewhat unfairly I believe, of ignoring the traditional online publishing industry (online newspapers etc) in my coverage these days. Here's what I say: maybe the problem is with you, not me. Maybe the industry needs to think about why there isn't that much news coming out of the industry. Maybe there isn't much worth covering...maybe you, as an industry, are not doing a good job disseminating that info...
As a journalist, by definition, I'll be where the action is...I ride the curve, if only to deflate it. [May.19: Link] | Newspapers | [11:24AM]

 Google's Own Content Acquisition Program: Is Google really planning a content service? I heard some rumbles at the SIIA content forum, where Google is making round of media companies which don't necessarily have much content online, and Google will host and help monetize that content...I doubt Google will finally go that way...indexing for search is understandable, hosting on their own site will be foolish of them... [May.19: Link] | Google | [11:23AM]

 Yahoo's View on Google's Gmail: At the first day of the SIIA Content Forum in SF this week, Yahoo's VP of Search Content David Mandelbrot spoke about the company's newly launched "Content Acquisition Program", and cleared some misconceptions: some people in the industry have said that CAP is just a paid listing service, and Mandelbrot cleared that it is not...it is a way to make sure that Yahoo indexes more content that it is now, by working together with publishers etc...of course, it is more nuanced than just that, but that's the essence of it.
Besides that, Mandelbrot raised an interesting theory: on Google Gmail, besides the fact that Google wants to monetize it through contextual ads within e-mail, Mandelbrot believes that the real reason on Gmail's launch is that Google wants more registration data on users, and use that data to monetize users and perhaps move into more services down the line. In essence, become more like Yahoo...
The fact remains, it is difficult to monetize e-mail, Mandelbrot admitted, and it is the data you get from e-mail that helps you upsell and package more services for users... [May.19: Link] | YHOO | [11:23AM]

 The Evil Empire: Days were when Yahoo and other search engines were considered the evil empire by publishers...that was then, this is now. Now Yahoo is actively courting publishers, especially the B2B ones, as evidenced by their presence at the SIIA Content Forum. Now Google is the evil empire…
One of these days, we will discover that Google makes weapons of mass destruction… [May.19: Link] | Google | [11:21AM]

 The Rise of Individual Business Consumer: I've been harping upon it for some time now, and how the content dinosaurs like Factiva, Lexis-Nexis and Dialog have to be wake up and smell the coffee...Patrick Spain, CEO of HighBeam, put it nicely on a panel yesterday at SIIA Content Forum: the separation between the business user and consumer is a matter of microseconds now [use to Open-Web] as opposed to the days when business users were 9-5 and consumers (the general user of content) were after 5...now, with the generation growing up on Open-Web, that distinction is gone...
That, more than anything else, is why proprietary content behemoths need to think about... [May.19: Link] | Biz/Fin | [11:21AM]

 Where Are They Now: Tom Rogers: I missed this one a few months ago, but worth mentioning: The WSJ story on broadband (see above) mentioned Tom Rogers, former CEO of Primedia. Wonder what he is doing now? He has started his own media consulting and investment firm, TRget Media. According to this story, he is working closely with Cerberus Capital Management, a $12 billion investment fund that wants to do more in media and entertainment circles. He also is working with Apax Capital Management, another private equity firm, to identify and acquire media-related concerns.
Besides traditional media properties, I expect his firm to be active in the broadband content market, and how that ties into the TV market (read IP-TV)... [May.19: Link] | [11:20AM]

 Broadband Content Players Making a Comeback(sub. req.) It's nice to know that WSJ has "discovered" broadband...a story on how some ventures failed in the boom period due to lack of broadband penetration, and how some of them are finally making a comeback....The Feedroom, NewsMarket and others... [May.19: Link] | Broadband | [11:19AM]

 Are ISP Home Pages The Most Valuable Media Properties?: Inertia, my friend. According to a Harris poll, the online news sources used by the largest number of people are the home pages of regular ISPs, followed by the Web sites of newspapers, online news services and TV networks or stations. Weather was the No. 1 type of news viewed by those online, followed by national news, international news, and local news. [May.19: Link] | [11:18AM]

 Easy Rider With EasyMusic: The man behind EasyJet and EasyInternet cafes, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, is launching a digital download music service [mainly for unsigned artists] that gives away tracks. So what's in it for the entrepreneur...He admits: "The benefits to me are less than obvious at the moment."
It's about the bigger picture, he says. "It's a brand extension for us. It makes the Easy brand more relevant to the youth. The software is very cheap and there's a low cost of entry. We're only spending Ł100,000 at this stage because it's a long shot." [May.19: Link] | Music |UK/Europe | [11:17AM]

 Mark Cuban Invests In Weblogs Venture: Speculation was rife for the last few weeks, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban confirmed it in a NYPost story: he has invested an undisclosed amount in Weblogs Inc, the weblog nanomedia venture by ex-Silicon Alley Reporter founder (and my ex-Boss) Jason Calacanis. [May.19: Link] | Nanopublishing |VC/M&A; | [11:15AM]

 BT to Push Broadband on Services Rather Than Speed: That seems about right... [May.19: Link] | Broadband |UK/Europe | [11:14AM]

 Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft: Oh really? I doubt it...this is just pre-IPO hype, with John Markoff as the clear conduit of this calculated leak...my opinion.... [May.19: Link] | [01:29AM]

 Legal downloads catch on (sub. req.): Paid online music downloads have more than tripled among regular CD buyers so far this year, according to NPD.
NPD research suggests that there's only limited cannibalization of regular CD purchases. Among consumers who downloaded from a legal service or joined music subscription services, research revealed only a slight reduction in the number of purchased disks. [May.19: Link] | Music | [01:12AM]

 Kazaa Media Desktop Removed From Download.com: Pressure on CNET or on Kazaa? [May.19: Link] | Music | [01:08AM]

 BT trials mobile video service: BT Wholesale is to start commercial trials of a mobile video streaming service with wireless application service provider Newmediacom.
BT plans to extend the service as a white-label product to its broadband ISP, ASP and mobile operator customers. [May.19: Link] | UK/Europe | [01:03AM]

 AT&T;'s Wireless Moves and Content: Do not believe the "innovative" hype...the basics: AT&T; is launching an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator...riding on someone else's infrastructure to develop your own branded wireless service, like Virgin Mobile has done), now that it has sold AT&T; Wireless to Cingular...
Do not, for a second, believe that AT&T; will have it any easier when developing value-added content services for its mobile customers...I don't know why Bambi Francisco makes that assumption.
For more on the AT&T;'s deal with Sprint, read, "AT&T;, Sprint in Five-Year Wireless Services Pact" [May.19: Link] | Wireless | [12:50AM]

  Lycos challenges rivals with first launch of 1Gb email: First, it is the crappy Lycos name...secondly, it is just free e-mail. Wake up...the world has more things to worry about than the size of a free e-mail account... [May.19: Link] | Terra Lycos | [12:25AM]

 Kasenna Buys ViewNow: Consolidation in the broadband IP-TV/VOD infrastructure space...Broadband video network system developer Kasenna has bought the business of ViewNow, a video on demand programming, management, and marketing services company for cable and telco providers.
Some more details here. [May.19: Link] | Broadband | [12:19AM]

 Questions For Netflix: (Read the Piper Jaffary conference post below first):
-- What has been the customer response thus far to the announced 10% monthly fee increase?
-- Who does NFLX view today or in the future as its biggest competitors (i.e., bricks and mortar, video-on-demand, new technologies)?
-- Is there any evidence of diminishing return from marketing spending?
-- Given the rapid adoption of new technologies in the Bay Area, how realistic is it to assume that other parts of the country will mimic the Bay Area's penetration (now approaching 10%)? [May.19: Link] | Movies | [12:14AM]

 Questions for CNET Networks: (Read the Piper Jaffary conference post below first):
-- How big can the new consumer facing areas (music, games) be for CNET and when will we see some impact from these initiatives?
-- How much leverage is in CNET's current cost structure? How much more can be done and what type of incremental operating margins can we expect?
-- Can CNET better monetize its properties and develop a better coordinated sales strategy across its segments?
-- Are we already seeing a full recovery in tech advertising? [May.19: Link] | [12:13AM]

 Questions For Yahoo: Piper Jaffray is holding its tech conference in NYC this week, and the weekly newsletter from them, the "Silk Road" has some questions it will ask the presenting companies...below are some questions it will be putting to Yahoo: (I think the questions are more interesting than the answers that will come out of it, 'coz the answers won't come out from the official route anyway...)
-- What is Yahoo looking to gain from its recent $100M advertising campaign and what is its long-term branding strategy to differentiate itself from its competitors?
-- Is Yahoo gaining any increased revenues from the improved search capability and higher search market share?
-- How is Yahoo gaining market share in brand advertising and is this sustainable? [May.19: Link] | YHOO | [12:12AM]

 Tune In: RealNetworks' Analyst Meeting Webcast: Tune in on May 25th, 9 a.m. to approximately 1 p.m. EST..."The meeting will focus on the consumer services and technology strategies driving the digital media industry and RealNetworks' business. Rob Glaser, Chairman and CEO, and other executives will be presenting." [May.18: Link] | RNWK | [11:59PM]

 iVillahe Re-Ups With Hearst: Since Hearst can't necessarily figure out (much like Conde Nast) what to do with Internet (and I'm being simplistic here), it has extended its deal with iVillage, which runs and hosts its magazine sites. The new deal, extended of three years, includes content licensing and hosting.
iVillage gets paid $12.5 million ($4.15 million every year) for the next three years, re-upping at about 35 percent from what it got in the last fiscal year...
iVillage would also continue to receive a commission on sales of magazine subscriptions generated through its own network...
Some other details (read the release carefully) reveal that the lawyers did some heavy lifting on how to structure the revenue share and commissions...as you can see, the press release has also been written by lawyers... [May.18: Link] | IVIL |Magazines | [11:55PM]

 AOL Launches 'Lite' Client; Working on Heavier One (via Microsoft-Watch): What it needs is paring down of the client...seriously. I had my first ever disastrous attempt at trying to install an AOL client..a pay-as-you-go version. My poor little laptop couldn't take it...
Anyway, back to the news: "AOL 9.0 LE", is targeted for users with less RAM and overall inadequate specs to the modern surfer. The most noticeable changes include no 'Welcome Screen', no AOL man greeting you with 'You've Got Mail' or 'Welcome', no AOL Companion, no AOL ads, no channels bar, and an icon free toolbar.
Meanwhile, "AOL 9.0 SE", AOL continues with its strategy of releasing more frequent client updates to stave off subscriber exodus by adding premium features and improving the service's broadband experience. In this release, AOL places a premium on security, personalization, and overall service enhancements. [May.18: Link] | AOL | [11:41PM]

 Only in SF: I'm staying near Bush street, right off Chinatown entrance...and took this pic of a street sign yesterday...no judgements from my part. My question: how did they climb that high up?

[May.18: Link] | [02:16PM]

 Thin Media: Sorry again for the slowness of news over the last week or so...promise I'll make it up starting next week...
Just as an aside, it took me exactly 30 seconds to fall in love with San Francisco...now I'm torn...
Had a very enjoyable boat cruise yesterday through the SF harbor, going beneath the Golden Gate etc...some breathtaking views...
Wish I had more time to go around SF...had a great and quick tour of the whole city by my friend Robert Spears last evening...

[May.18: Link] | [02:07PM]

 SportsNetwork.com Sues ESPN: Funny this... [May.18: Link] | Sports | [01:45PM]

 What Makes Nick Tick?: (sub. req.) Don't ask me what I think of this story beyond this: I think Greg's got Nick's anti-hype hype spot on... [May.18: Link] | Nanopublishing | [01:43PM]

 Napster Ties Up With Citi, Energizer: Music, music everywhere... [May.18: Link] | Music | [12:55AM]

 Download service slated for Stones: Through MusicNow and UltraStar tie-up.... [May.18: Link] | Music | [12:54AM]

 Danger to bring Yahoo Messenger to handhelds: Danger is providing a second instant-messaging client to wireless devices that rely on its software and services, following positive buzz about its efforts with America Online. [May.18: Link] | Wireless | [12:43AM]

 EAccess to Acquire AOL Japan's ISP Business: Japan's eAccess will buy AOL Japan's Internet service operations for 2.1 billion yen ($18.33 million) in cash... [May.18: Link] | AOL |VC/M&A; | [12:40AM]

 Business.com's Comeback: Is it worth it? [May.18: Link] | [12:38AM]

 2004 Subscription Summit Wrap-Up: Some good notes from the conference I also attended in part last week in NYC... [May.18: Link] | [12:36AM]

  BBC launches WAP and online services for children: The BBC has launched its first online search and mobile phone services aimed specifically at children. [May.18: Link] | BBCi |UK/Europe |Wireless | [12:32AM]

 Will Publishers Revolt Against Google's Latest Move?: They just might...If Google's system blossoms, its publishing partners would get paid for display ads only when users click, even if they carry branding value. That has irked other online ad networks specializing in display ads, which have spent the Net's boom and bust years trying to prove that online ads are vital for influencing brand loyalty. [May.17: Link] | Advertising |Google | [09:17AM]

 Samsung to unveil satellite TV for phones: In Korea, Samsung plans to release a phone that can receive satellite TV signals and launch a service package that lets customers receive up to 40 stations. The company expects to launch both the service and the handset, called the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) phone, in the third quarter.
Related:
-- BT To Form Ambitious Wireless Content Streaming Venture
-- Satellite Mobile Radio Ready for Japan, SK
-- Asian Mobile Broadcasting Satellite Launched [May.17: Link] | Wireless | [09:14AM]

 In San Francisco: I'm in San Francisco most of this week, attending and speaking at the SIIA Content Forum...promises to be a good one...good attendee list and finally meeting some of the industry people who I've been interacting with online for a long time...I'll try to live blogging if they have Wi-Fi... [May.16: Link] | [11:23PM]

 Koreans Will Kill TV: With broadband, that is, predicts the ever-optimistic-and-resurrected-from-oblivion-pundit George Gilder. According to Gilder, "massive dinosaurs" of influential American TV networks proactively stifling U.S. broadband to levels that cannot support full motion video in order to hold their market share.
Gilder said that widely distributed broadband network would kill the TV advertising model, since it is based on capturing reluctant "eyeballs."
"It is totally based on wasting the customer's time, and it will die this year," he said. [May.16: Link] | Broadband | [10:43PM]

 Ringtone Rumble Brewing in U.S: A primer on the slew of players operating in the ringtones market in U.S., and the vested interests of each of them...
No consistent model has yet emerged for dividing the proceeds of a master ringtone sale, and as technology changes, the deals are changing. But various deals have followed standards established by polyphonic ringtones and such online music stores as Apple's iTunes.
To begin with, telecom carriers keep 10% to 40% of the gross revenue. Then the billing/verification players get 10% to 16% of retail for their efforts. Next are the aggregators, who earn 35% to 65% of retail. From this, they typically pay the publishing share.
When dealing in master ringtones, however, the aggregators can get squeezed, typically down to 15% to 20%, but sometimes the cut can drop all the way to zero. [May.16: Link] | Music |Wireless | [09:00PM]

 TechTarget Acquires myITforum.com: Missed this one last week...techTarget is on a bit of a roll (see their Q1 earnings, just announced). The targeted tech media company has acquired the tech forum/discussion site myITForum.com from Altiris. No financial details were released.
myITforum.com is a collection of more than 60 forums where IT professionals share expertise and exchange technical tips on a wide range of topics related to Windows systems management, from security to patch management and Microsoft SMS. [May.16: Link] | VC/M&A; | [06:41PM]

 Factiva Completes Five Years: As Outsell's weekly newsletter points out, Factiva, the joint venture between Reuters and Dow Jones has completed five years. It started as the ungainly "Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive", and thankfully changed its name soon...
Outsell thinks that the joint venture has worked well, even as the two parents compete in the corporate info market otherwise...joint ventures are notoriously hard to sustain in this industry and most fail. I have my own views about how this relationship might get strained going ahead, not because of the two companies, but divisions within the two companies: on the Dow Jones side, from WSJ.com and on Reuters' side, Reuters.com, down the line...
I have spoken to a lot of WSJ.com and DJ executives over the years, and the relationship between WSJ.com and Factiva has been a frustrating one, at best. Frustration on part of WSJ.com executives, as they feel their hands are tied on the innovation and expansion front...any expansion or upscaling move runs into Factiva territory.
Also, Factiva is still groping around on how to deal with the open-Web, as are other big players in B2B info market....
I'm meeting Factiva CEO Clare Hart and other Reuters and Dow Jones executives this week at the SIIA Content Forum in SF and will try to stir the pot a little.... [May.16: Link] | Biz/Fin | [06:37PM]

 Drafting Blueprints for the Digital Home: Networking PCs, TVs and sounds systems is getting easier, but behind-the-scenes standards squabbles could undermine the digital home's foundation. The TV-vs-PC divide I've talked about here earlier....security, interoperability, connectivity and DRM, et al... [May.16: Link] | Broadband | [04:34PM]

 XML Syndication Supporters Mulling W3C Move: Some more controversy in syndication format wars...W3C renews debate over the best place for Atom backers to form an XML content syndication standard to rival RSS. [May.16: Link] | RSS Etc. | [04:26PM]

 Microsoft Turning Attention to Research: Three analysts quoted in a story on research? That's even more vaporware than the research itself... [May.16: Link] | Microsoft | [04:23PM]

 Quit Your Job: "Do it slow, or do it fast, but do it. In retrospect, people will say that 2003 was the best year in a decade to start your own company. Even better, the people with the guts to do it fast or the perseverance to do it slow will be happier, healthier, and more in control of their lives, their ethics, and their contributions to the world.
Did you ever notice that almost nobody who is successful at running their own thing ever goes back? In my case, I quit my one and only non - food service job in 1986. Take it from me: You're too smart, too fast, and too talented to waste any more time.
Get going. Do it today.
You'll thank me tomorrow. It's the right thing to do in 2003 -- or any year."
This quote made me do it: take the plunge. This quote by Seth Godin came out in the Jan 2003 issue of Fast Company..it seized on the inner conflict I was going through at that time. Penniless in London, literally. This quote ended up as a wall paper on my laptop and every evening, when I sat down trying to hunt for a job, it mocked me. It mocked me while I was applying for an entry level position at Mining magazine, or going to interviews for a media reports editor at Datamonitor, or chatting up clueless recruitment agency drone in the hope that she might help push my resume for that glorified data entry position.
I had no choice but to take the plunge..it rings true as it did then. Thanks Seth. I still hate you for never replying to my thank you e-mail back then... [May.16: Link] | [04:04PM]

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

Winner: Find/SVP's Best of Business Web Award for 2003, for coverage of the B2B info industry, and the converging business and consumer info market.
------------

Winner:

------------


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.