• Ross Fadner, Feb 16, 2006, 10:00 AM
  • Thirty Percent Of Web Users Go Online Just for Fun Associated Press On any given day, nearly a third of us log on to the Web just to pass the time, a new study says. Compared with tasks like searching for products and services and checking e-mail, recreational surfing ranked third in an online activities study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Thirty percent of Internet users go online for fun in a given day. That's up from 21 percent last year. The research firm credits broadband penetration for the increase in the number and variety of Web sites available, which has led to greater usage of the Web for entertainment. The phone survey queried 1,931 adult Internet users in the U.S. It was conducted from Nov. 29 to Dec. 31 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Read the whole story...
  • MySpace To Launch Mobile Virtual Network Associated Press MySpace is getting into the cell phone business, offering its army of teenagers and twenty-somethings a free cellular service that let its users read and post messages to the site. The service and two branded phones will be rolled out in the next few months by partner Helio LLC, a joint venture of Internet service provider Earthlink Inc. and South Korean carrier SK Telecom Co., which owns a Korean social networking service called Cyworld. Helio Chief Executive Sky Dayton said the MySpace demographic really cares about being connected to their friends and their world all the time. No exact launch date has been set for the service, nor were prices for the phones and plans, but Dayton said they won't be prepaid. Apart from a monthly fee, access to MySpace will be free. Read the whole story...
  • Report: Amazon Readies Music Service WSJ (paid subscription required) Online retailer Amazon is said to be in "advanced talks" with the world's biggest music companies about a new digital music service. Amazon plans to launch a subscription service as well as its own branded portable digital music player that could either come preloaded with songs or be sold very cheaply alongside a subscription service contract--similar to the way mobile providers sell the majority of their phones. Music execs told the Wall Street Journal they believe Amazon's plan represents one of the only credible challenges to Apple's iTunes. However, it remains to be seen whether the retailer can amass significant usage given its late entry into the music business. The Journal points out that Amazon needs this move into digital media distribution, especially as consumers continue the transition from CDs and DVDs to online services. Seventy percent of Amazon's 2005 revenue came from physical media. Even so, Amazon did not confirm the Journal's report, and no official deal has yet been struck between the company and the four music majors: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI Group. The service could launch as soon as this summer. Read the whole story...
  • Google's Aggressive Book Library Project Financial Times It would seem that Google's actions regarding its Book Library Project indicate a belief that the world's information exists in one big collective bin for the company to mine, belying individual ownership of information. Financial Times columnist Richard Epstein says it's like two different readings of the claim that all the people in a given town own their own homes. Does each person own his home separately? Or does every person have open access to each home in the town? The former is more logical, obviously, but homes and information are two different things. Still, Google would have us believe that the world's information should be available for free--at Google's profit. For copyright holders, Google says it will let them opt-out of its Book Project--but why should individual copyright holders have to answer to Google's, which wants to use their information? Not only that, but Google has structured the terms of its opt-out so that a publisher can't just say "Don't include any books we've published in the last 50 years." No, they have to provide contract and transaction numbers for each volume, placing the burden on publishers to defend their property. As Epstein notes, it's kind of like a publisher sending a notice to each house in a town that they'll be receiving a one-year subscription to a magazine unless they opt-out. Read the whole story...
  • Gates On Security And Censorship Financial Times Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talks Internet security and censorship with the Financial Times at the RSA Security Conference 2006 in San Jose. Among other things, Gates discusses building a "trust ecosystem" on the Internet--a standards-based, open system that would allow an individual's information to be shared between Web sites in a credited network. Gates says the open system will become an industry standard. The system would make an individual instantly recognizable to a Web site, with the intended goal of maintaining privacy. Meanwhile, censorship comes into play as governments like China and corporations that store information on the Web try to block users from access to certain sites. But, as Gates says, "The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard to block anything--extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking." Because of this, Gates says, it's not necessary for the U.S. government to establish guidelines to regulate how Web companies deal with censorship. That's certainly one way of looking at it, but let's not forget Microsoft and others have agreed to self-censorship. I would call that blocking access to information. Read the whole story...
  • Internet Tech Companies Under Fire At Congressional Hearing NY Times American technology's Big Four, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems, were grilled by lawmakers at yesterday's human rights hearing, who cited the companies' "sickening collaboration" with a Chinese government that is "decapitating the voice of the dissidents" there. The chief concerns were the companies' willingness to alter their online tools and content to conform with Beijing's requirements, and their offering information leading to the imprisonment of Chinese citizens who spoke out against the government. Cisco, meanwhile, was singled out for selling Internet hardware the government in China uses for online surveillance. In response to the haranguing the Web companies received from House Representatives, executives of the four companies insisted their presence in China provided a net benefit. They also suggested the U.S. government could do more to promote human rights reform in places like China, instead of leaving it to private companies to determine foreign policy. Google said it had done enough by disclosing that it will be censoring content on behalf of the Chinese government. It chooses what to censor by studying and mimicking how it's done by the Chinese government. Iowa's Representative James A. Leach responded: "So if this Congress wanted to learn how to censor, we'd go to you--the company that should symbolize the greatest freedom of information in the history of man? This is a profound story that's being told." To which Google's rep replied that the censorship "was not something we did enthusiastically, or not something that we're proud of at all." Read the whole story...