Changes to business digitisation brings
The members of the European Union have reached a preliminary deal on fixing the cost of Europeans roaming to other countries.
The proposal would have the price caps lasting for three years with Year 1 seeing 49c (Euro)/min to make calls and 24c to receive. The second year this would drop to 46c/22c and the last year 43c/19c. All prices would exclude sales tax and after the third year the market would then again be free, presumably because prices would be significantly lower than that already.
Following the purchase of YouTube by Google, we just knew that there would be advertising coming to YouTube sometime soon.
Many were surprised that there weren’t commercial banners to the top of the page, but they missed the obvious – Google is a master of online advertising and acts smart.
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It looks like the battle against software piracy remains in choppy seas, with piracy rates remaining stuck at 35 per cent for the third consecutive year.
According to research from IDC conducted on behalf of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), things aren’t all bad, with the piracy rate dropping in sixty-two countries out of the 102 studied.
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Another independent website gets swallowed up by a corporate giant as the well-regarded photography website dpreview.com is acquired by Amazon.com.
Beginning as a hobby site in 1998, dpreview.com has grown to be one of the biggest photographic resources on the web, providing in depth digital camera reviews backed by a thriving and passionate bulletin board community.
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Online buying has become so commonplace in America that sales of everyday items like clothing and shoes have outstripped the more traditional ‘techie’ big sellers like computers and software.
A report by Shop.org (part of the National Retail Federation) estimated online clothing sales at around $18.3bn in 2006, ahead of the $17.2bn spent on computers in the same year.
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Joost is continuing to pick up content partners with the most recent being Warner Bros. Television (WBTV). This time Joost is getting the content on an exclusive basis.
One of the common complaints of the TV service, has been that there isn’t anything to watch on it, as was brought up in a recent BBC trial. Having seen what the content of this deal is, we’re not sure that the step towards desirable programming has moved forward.
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Information overload is a buzz phrase which has been getting a lot of use recently. It refers to the enormous amount of information which we now consume (largely because of the level of accessibility to content which the Internet gives us), and the challenges that that creates. Another important issue is the Long Tail, as recognised by Chris Anderson, and the way that relates to content. In other words, there is now far more information available which makes discoverability much harder.
NetGear have announced the execution of a definitive agreement to acquire the privately-held Infrant Technologies, Inc, maker of RAID and NAS technology.
Netgear will be putting $60m cash on the table, with a chance for the Infrant shareholders to gain an additional $20m in cash for over the next three years if, in the oft-used phrase, “specific revenue targets are reached”.
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If you don’t live your life in the Blogosphere or on Digg – and why should you? – you’ll have missed out on many knickers getting in a twist.
It all started off about the posting on Digg of an encryption key for HD-DVD that is intrinsic to the security of HD-DVD content.
Next major thing – many alleged that the administrators of Digg were removing posts about this key and the growing number of anti-digg comments that were littering the system.
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T-Mobile and independent music download site ARTISTdirect have pressed the flesh, slapped each others backs and distributed manly business hugs after agreeing to work together to launch a new UK music download service.
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