Top Items:
Steve Jobs / Apple:
Thoughts on Music — With the stunning global success of Apple's iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to "open" the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, Techdirt, PaidContent, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Between the Lines, InfoWorld Tech Watch, Technovia, The Technology Liberation …, The 463, Jeffrey McManus, Macsimum News, Webomatica, Forward Thinking, Seeking Alpha, Vindu's View from the Valley, Listening Post, rc3.org, The Viral Garden, Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus, Paul Kedrosky's …, A VC, Slashdot, GigaLaw.com Daily News and digg
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Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:Steve Jobs Asks Record Labels To Abolish DRM
Discussion:
robhyndman.com
Michael Barbaro / New York Times:
Wal-Mart and Studios in Film Deal — Wal-Mart Stores may have lost the online DVD rental battle, but it has no plans to lose the higher-stakes video downloading war. — Today the company will introduce a partnership with all of the six major Hollywood studios — Walt Disney, Warner Brothers …
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
Wal-Mart, The Grand Delusion, Part II — Back in the 1990s, you knew things were getting a tad frothy when you found companies with essentially no expertise in a "hot business" expanding into businesses they had little or no clue about. A good case in point: Enron and its broadband push.
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
Gizmodo:
Breaking! Wal-Mart First to Offer Digital Movies From All "Big Six" Studios — Interrupting my sleep and scoring a major coup in digital distribution—one not even his Jobsness has pulled off (yet)—Wal-Mart has become the first (and thus far, only) digital distributor to go into business …
InterActiveCorp:
IAC Reports Q4 Results — IAC (Nasdaq: IACI) released fourth quarter 2006 results today, reporting $1.8 billion in revenue, an 8% rate of growth over the prior year, and $268 million in Operating Income Before Amortization, reflecting slight growth. Adjusted EPS was $0.67, compared to $0.50 in the year ago period.
RELATED:
Danny King / Bloomberg:IAC Profit Declines 98% on Writedown of Coupon Unit (Update3)
Discussion:
Screenwerk
Martin Beckford / Telegraph:
Apple warns iPod users against Vista — IPods could be damaged by Microsoft's new computer operating system, the company behind the popular digital music players has warned. — Apple, the long-standing rival of Bill Gates's Microsoft, is urging users not to upgrade their PCs …
Kim Cameron / Kim Cameron's Identity Weblog:
CardSpace / OpenID Collaboration Announcement — Microsoft to Work With the OpenID Community, Collaborating With JanRain, Sxip, and VeriSign — Posted on Tuesday 6 February 2007 — As an outcome of the discussions that have been taking place here in the Blogosphere - and in-person meetings …
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Emily Nussbaum / New York Magazine:
Say Everything — As younger people reveal their private lives on the Internet, the older generation looks on with alarm and misapprehension not seen since the early days of rock and roll. The future belongs to the uninhibited. — Find Kitty Ostapowicz on Livejournal, MySpace.com. — Y
VoIP News:
Hacking Skype: 25 Tips to Improve Your Skype Experience — How versatile is your Skype? Ours can podcast, translate French, take conference calls from 15 people, and tutor calculus. — HACKING SKYPE: 25 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SKYPE EXPERIENCE — How versatile is your Skype?
USA Today:
Kodak plans to sell inkjet printers with cheaper ink — Struggling photo giant Eastman Kodak is launching a new line of inkjet printers aimed at luring digital shutterbugs back to Kodak paper. The pitch: cheap ink. — Kodak's ink will sell for about $25 when the printers hit stores in March.
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley, Techdirt, Guardian Unlimited, Business Filter, VoIP & Gadgets Blog and Gadgetopia
Tropical SEO:
Andy Hagans' Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing — Is anyone else sick of link baiting yet? I sure am. It's dominating talk on all the SEO forums and conferences; it's gumming up the works of all of my favorite social bookmarking sites; and it's forcing me get off of my lazy rear and make good content.
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
Google Apps for Your Domain: The Honeymoon May Soon Be Over — Google Apps for your Domain (google.com/a), an all-in-pack package of essential services like calendar, email and web pages, has become hugely popular among web domain owners especially among the not-so-geeky crowd.
Discussion:
Download Squad, CyberNet Technology News, JasonKolb.com, Googlified, Paul Kedrosky's … and Webware.com
Joseph Menn / Los Angeles Times:
Disney yet to refresh website as promised — Walt Disney Co.'s commitment of late to new technology has boosted the company's stock and earned Chief Executive Robert Iger a reputation as a far-seeing leader in a hidebound industry. — Now for the downside.
Amy Roe / Seattle Times:
A Kirkland cafe with no prices — With its blood-red walls and black leather sofas, Kirkland's Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop — until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn't have them. — You read that right: No prices.
Jon Udell:
Critical mass and social network fatigue — At the MIT Enterprise Forum tomorrow in Boston, I'll be moderating a panel with three social software entrepeneurs on the topic of getting to critical mass. I want to ask the panelists about overcoming the friction involved in joining and learning to use their services.
