It’s thought that the forthcoming UK chart show, released on Sunday, run by the terribly formal sounding Official UK Charts Company, will be the first time a Number 1 will be a non-physical product. Translated – Crazy by Gnarls Barkley has only been released electronically, as a download.
Downloads have been around for ages though haven’t they? Why hasn’t this happened before, I hear you cry? Well, it’s only been a few weeks since they changed the way the charts were calculated. Previously downloads were counted if they also had a physical release, but since the change hey don’t have to have to be rendered on atoms, to be included.
Those Chart cat’s are exactly what you’d call ‘with it’ are they? But I guess we know that given how long it took the music companies to pull their fingers out and start to grab hold of the digital revolution – actually there’s many who’d argue that they still haven’t.
As ever, we tried to dig further into this story, but found it very clear that this isn’t a company familiar with having press inquiries, so dear reader, this story ends here.
UK Mobile company, Orange, is to abandon their numbered Talk plans to replace them with ‘types’ – Dolphins, Canaries, Racoons and Panthers.
Orange has always been a pioneer in dealing with customers. This started with their name, which back in 1994, was extremely adventurous – as was tying it in with a colour and trying to associate it with emotion.
On a personal note – I’ve been with Orange since they started and was highly impressed in the early days. Over the years I found that the quality has gone south a little – people you speak to there are a little less helpful; the flexibility that made you glad to be with Orange and started to atrophy shortly after Wanadoo (France Telecom) took over in 2001.
Instead we will be categorised as Dolphins, Canaries, Racoons or Panthers. Here’s the explanation …
Global revenue from music downloaded onto mobile phones went through the roof last year, with pundits predicting that the only way is up for the next five years.
How to make a mint from mobile music
After reporting Google’s 
Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Fine predicted that, “Google’s increased market share and better monetisation of queries will lead to an increased share of ad dollars relative to competitors in the first half of this year.”
Britain remains in the grip of a texting mania as new figures reveal around 99 million text messages were faithfully banged out on little keypads every day during February.
The SMS stats revealed that while love may be – quite literally – in the air, most people preferred to profess it from the comfort of their keypad, with only ten million romantics going to the trouble of sending a proper Valentine’s card through the post.
The MDA has forecast that text messaging figures will reach an annual total of 36.5 billion text messages by the end of 2006, compared to 2005’s 32 billion total.
Most built-in MP3/FM/headphone combos are so bulky it looks like the user has got two halves of a tennis ball stuck on their heads, but a new headset from Japanese manufacturers Thanko looks to change all that.
Clearly getting carried away with claims about the unit’s diminutive size, the (ahem) ‘ButterFly’ FMP3 comes in two flavours offering 512MB and 1GB flash memory capacities, with the built in MP3 player supporting MP3 and WMA at 32 – 192Kbps data rates.
Powered by a non-removable 3.7V lithium ion battery, charged over the USB connection, the hazy web translation suggests that the makers are claiming up to 700 minutes for radio play and 350 – 400 minutes of continuous MP3 playback.
With a leather-gloved stroke of the company white cat, Google’s mastermind cackled loudly as new figures revealed that their plans for UK domination are nearly complete, with almost three out of every four searches in the UK using their search engine.
It looks like the Brits have taken a particular shine to the San Francisco-based search giant, with February’s search referral stats outperforming Google’s US average for the the month (55.39 percent) and their global average (62.4 percent).
If the market for flash memory-based MP3 players wasn’t overcrowded enough, big name electronics company Hitachi have decided to steam in with a collection of their own.
Wrapping up the trio is the HMP-S3, housed in a slightly squashed square form factor and available in yellow or white (you could never accuse the Hitachi designers of being too ambitious with this range).
It is being reported that MySpace-owner, News International, is looking to expand its presence in Europe with its focus being London.
Importantly it also has social/network effects built it. This works both for the creators, as they grow their links to their friends – real and imagined; but importantly for MySpace’s income, the network effect for browsers is huge. As a browser looks at the original site, they split off in a myriad of different directions as they distract themselves, exploring the music taste and hobbies of linked friends.
It’s expanded beyond this now and has now reached the point where record companies feel bands _must_ have their own presence on MySpace, even if they’ve got their own Web presence – witness sons of Ventnor, 
With the media footprint that News International has, it’s highly likely that they’re going to be able to make best value from what appears to be a considerable purchase price. Already there’s been reports their 
Do NOT read this report, if you’re fond of crosswords. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I was being pig-headed. I only had one guess left, and all I knew besides that was that the letter ‘c’ was not one of those used. And if I got it wrong, it was “game over” while if I got it right, it was a thousand points onto the total.
Believe it or not, until I remembered my friend, it had never occurred to me to wonder where I might find such a dictionary; and of course, as soon as the thought occurred, I found 
I’ll be interested to see if this means I never do crosswords again, or whether I now do them more frequently. Amo’s is bad enough, but