17 Apr 2009
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EBay Inc. said Thursday that it expects to remain a “significant†shareholder after spinning off its Internet communications service Skype.
During a conference call with analysts, Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan said the online marketplace operator intends an “ultimate full separation of Skype.†The first stage will involve the initial public offering announced Tuesday, after which eBay initially expects to stay a “significant†Skype shareholder, he said.
Beyond that, eBay will determine the best plan to fully separate Skype, he said.
Chief Executive John Donahoe said that if the company receives an unsolicited offer to buy Skype, it will evaluate it against how it thinks it can fare through a public offering.
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Source: The Globe and Mail
17 Apr 2009
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A Swedish court handed down a guilty verdict and a year in prison on Friday to all four defendants in a copyright test case involving The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s biggest free file-sharing websites.
The verdict could be a step toward helping music and film companies seeking to recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues from filesharers, though analysts said they doubted it would stem the tide of illegal downloading.
“The Stockholm district court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws,” the court said in a statement. “The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison.”
Companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI were also asking for damages of more than 100 million crowns ($12 million) to cover lost revenues.
The court also ordered the defendants to pay just over 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58 million).
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Source: Reuters
17 Apr 2009
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Google has recorded its first ever decline in revenue, dropping from £3.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 to $3.7 billion this quarter - a drop of 3%
Its revenue increased compared to the same quarter last year, however, by 6%. Its year-on-year profit is up 8%, to £0.96 billion.
In a conference call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the recession meant the company was in “uncharted territory”, calling the economic climate “tough.” He said that “no company is recession-proof,” and that “Google is absolutely feeling the impact.”
However, he insisted that Google’s long-term future was secure. “Our advertising model is working,” he said. “Google is now well-placed for the recovery when it occurs.”
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Source: PC Pro
16 Apr 2009
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The four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay trial face year-long jail terms if found guilty when the verdict gets announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday. But even if prosecutors get their way, it’s less evident whether a legal victory would also translate to a broader deterrent against illegal file sharing.
Clearly, this case is being viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as a potentially landmark decision in the heated controversy surrounding unauthorized Internet file sharing. The prosecution accuses the four men standing trial–Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom–of making copyright-protected material available through the Web site thepiratebay.org, one of the most visited BitTorrent destinations in the world.
The challenge for prosecutor Hakan Roswall has been to prove that the site actually can be legally linked to copyright infringement. He got off to a bumpy start. On the second day of the 13-day trial, which began in February, Roswall was forced to drop accusations that the defendants facilitated making illegal copies. Now the prosecution’s case hinges on whether it can prove that the four men were guilty of making the files accessible.
No actual material is stored on the Web site that features a search function for torrent files used for file sharing with the BitTorrent technology–which is legal in itself, but commonly used for illegal file sharing.
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Source: CNet
16 Apr 2009
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Yes, Twitter is talking to big Internet companies about forming partnerships with them. No, it is not looking to sell itself.
That is the latest from Fred Wilson, the Union Square Ventures partner who was an early investor in Twitter, the microblogging start-up, and is on its board.
Speculation over Twitter’s possible relationships with various partners began earlier this month, after TechCrunch claimed that Google was discussing a purchase of Twitter. After that report was discredited, a new flurry of rumors began about the start-up’s flirtations with various big Internet and media companies, including Google, Microsoft, the News Corporation and NBC Universal.
In a blog post titled “Sometimes We Talk,†a Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, set off a new round of speculation when he vaguely said: “It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects.â€
In the interview with me, Mr. Wilson shed more light on the discussions.
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Source: The New York Times Bits Blog
14 Apr 2009
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More than three months into a medical leave from Apple, Steve Jobs remains closely involved in key aspects of running the company, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook runs the day-to-day operations, but Jobs has continued to work on the company’s most important strategies and products from home, the newspaper said in a story on its website.
He regularly reviews products and product plans, and was particularly involved in the user interface of the new iPhone operating system that Apple unveiled last month, the Journal said.
Jobs, an Apple co-founder who is considered the company’s creative leader, is also involved in the development of future projects, the paper said, citing people with knowledge of the company’s strategy.
Jobs, 54, who was treated in 2004 for a rare form of pancreatic cancer, took a medical leave in early January, saying he would return in June and would remain involved in “major strategic decisions while I am out”.
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Source: iT News
14 Apr 2009
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Artists in the UK complain that YouTube pays obscenely low rates for music videos and that they can actually make more from local radio. But that doesn’t mean they want their work pulled from YouTube; on the contrary, they need the exposure and simply want YouTube to pay more per play.
Google, under increasing attack for devastating the newspaper business, now finds itself pilloried in the UK for killing music. The company’s YouTube subsidiary has not renewed its music video deals in the UK and in Germany, claiming that the licenses now cost far too much money, but musicians aren’t buying it. They want Google to put their videos back up and then start paying more—a lot more.
At a recent press conference in London, the cowriter of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” said that the song had been viewed more than 154 million times on YouTube—thanks to Rickrolling—but that he had received a grand total of £11. Pete Waterman claimed that he made more cash from local radio stations in the UK than he did from YouTube, then compared the situation to migrant workers in the Middle East. “I feel like one of those workers,” he said, “because I earned less for a year’s work off Google or YouTube than they did off the Bahrain government.”
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Source: Ars Technica
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13 Apr 2009
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Reports of a major flash memory order from Apple are fueling speculation that a new iPhone model is on the way.
According to a report from Taipei by Digitimes, chipmakers in Asia have received orders for NAND flash memory chips totaling nearly 100 million units.
If true, the reports could confirm speculation that Apple is planning to release a new iPhone model soon.
Many in the industry have suggested that the company was looking to boost storage capacity for the handset as well as build a stripped-down iPhone model for emerging markets.
The company has traditionally marked late June as the release date for the iPhone, and with a summer release of the iPhone 3.0 software already promised and the company’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference scheduled for May, news of a new iPhone model could be just around the corner.
If Apple does release a new iPhone model, it could trigger a very hot summer in the mobile phone market.
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Source: iT News
13 Apr 2009
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Statutory damages in the US can be claimed by copyright holders in lieu of actual damages, and they range from $750 to $30,000 per infringement (or up to $150,000 when the infringement is “willful”). These huge ranges, and the lack of useful guidance on how to implement them, have led to both wildly inconsistent damage awards and huge penalties for small crimes. Here’s how two leading copyright professors sum up the problem, drawing on the Jammie Thomas P2P case in Minnesota:
Actual damages in the Thomas case were arguably about $50. Given the defendant’s lack of innocence, the jury had no choice but to award Capitol Records at least $750 per infringed work (which would have totaled $18,000). Some jurors were so outraged by Thomas’ conduct that they wanted to award Capitol Records $3.6 million for this infringement.
Recent rulings have “exacerbated the potential for excessive and arbitrary awards when skillful lawyers are able to persuade juries to become outraged about infringing conduct.”
So how do we fix the system? Pam Samuelson and Tara Wheatland, both of the University of California, Berkeley, have some suggestions.
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Source: Ars Technics
3 Apr 2009
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Google Inc may be in talks to buy internet start-up Twitter, the free micro-blogging service that allows people to send short text messages to a network of friends, the TechCrunch website said late Thursday
TechCrunch’s article by Michael Arrington said the two companies are also considering working together on a Google real time search engine.
Google would pay for Twitter in cash or stock or a combination of the two, the website reported.
Industry experts say Arrington has a mixed record but was the first to report the rumor that Google would buy video-sharing site YouTube in late 2006.
Arrington said the talks were “fairly early stage.”
A Google spokesman in London told Reuters the company did not comment on rumors or speculation. A spokesperson for Twitter could not be reached immediately.
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Source: Reuters
2 Apr 2009
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Caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? It’ll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity.
The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.
Study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, said “workplace Internet leisure browsing,” or WILB, helped to sharpened workers’ concentration.
“People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration,” Coker said on the university’s website (www.unimelb.edu.au/)
“Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity,” he said.
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Source: Reuters
1 Apr 2009
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Analyst firm Gartner has painted a bleak picture of the IT industry in the months and years to come.
Richard Gordon, managing research vice president and chief forecaster at Gartner, explained during a teleconference today entitled IT Spending Forecast, 1Q09 Update: 2009 Growth Will be Worse Than 2001 that the economic pressures affecting businesses and consumers will have a negative affect on IT spending.
“The IT market slowdown in 2009 will be worse than that of 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst,” he said.
Nearly all sectors of the IT market will suffer, according to Gordon, with the exception of software. Gartner has revised its forecasts for all industries, however, shaving as many as 15 percentage points off some sectors.
Services will fare better than some areas, and will continue to benefit from the business-critical elements of their offerings, such as security, call centres and helpdesks, as well as the fact that many firms will look to extend the lifecycle of existing infrastructure.
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Source: iT News
30 Mar 2009
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With the Jerry Seinfeld era behind it, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services is moving ahead with a new Windows advertising strategy that aims at Apple’s Achilles’ heel: Higher prices. The commercial appears to be the first in a series called Laptop Hunters, and it puts Microsoft on the offense instead of the defense.
Microsoft’s just-released Windows commercial taps into the price-conscious, recession-driven consumer mind-set by following a woman on a mission to find a laptop that’s fast and has a comfortable keyboard and a 17-inch screen — for $1,000 or less.
In the ad, the voice-over says Microsoft told Lauren, a redhead with glasses, that if she could find a computer that met her demands, she could keep it. In other words, Microsoft would buy it for her. With that, she becomes a laptop hunter
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Source: News Factor
24 Mar 2009
65 views
Finally. Here comes Twitter’s first real foray into advertising, courtesy of Microsoft’s marketing budget.
And don’t worry, Twitter users: You won’t be getting come-ons for Vista in your Twitterstream. Not yet, at least.
The program that Twitter has rolled out today–something called ExecTweets–is a fairly cautious step into marketing, and that is certainly by design. But it does give a you a good sense of what Twitter thinks it can do with its buzzy, fast-growing and almost revenue-free product.
Today’s news: Microsoft, via its Federated Media ad network/platform/agency, is sponsoring a page that collects Tweets from various executives. Twitter will get an undisclosed payment for giving the site its stamp of approval and for promoting the site on Twitter itself. Federated says it plans on launching similar programs on Twitter with other clients.
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Source: All Things Digital
