Satellite radio may be growing rapidly, but new Internet-enabled competitors are coming fast and furiously from all sides--and many of them are free, whereas satellite's customers are doling out $150 a year to hear commercial and censor-free radio. Wireless broadband Internet is making it possible to listen to radio on MP3 players, cell phones, and any other Internet-enabled device, which is worrying to satellite providers, especially if Internet radio makes its way to cars, where Sirius and XM reach most of their listeners. And, as MSNBC points out, satellite growth has been "far from meteoric"--penetration is now close to 10 …

MySpace has now surpassed Google in terms of page views and user time, and is now the No. 3 Web destination, behind MSN and Yahoo!'s properties. The two-year-old company, which was acquired by News Corp. in July, has roughly 45.5 million users, a number increasing at a rate of 160,000 people per day. Since its acquisition, which was completed at the end of September last year, MySpace has continued to add 16- to 34-year-old users at a torrid pace, making advertisers drool over the varying interactive opportunities the site affords them to reach the core demographic. i-Sophia, a Web site …

Following threats from Beijing, Microsoft was forced to shut down the Weblog of a well-known Chinese blogger after writing a post about a high profile newspaper strike that broke out about a week ago, The New York Times reports. The influential blogger used Microsoft's MSN blogging service in China. This is not the first time that a large American technology company has yielded to the requests of the Chinese government to stamp out or censor Web sites that promote dissent or free speech. Last summer the software giant drew criticism for filtering words like "democracy" and "human rights" from its …

In a move that threatens Apple's dominance of the portable music market, Verizon Wireless said it will sell phones that allow consumers to store up to 600 songs. Verizon will charge $1.99 for songs sent over the air, and 99 cents--the same price as iTunes charges--for songs downloaded from a new music site it plans to launch in conjunction with its new phones. The move also creates competition for Sprint, which introduced a similar phone that lets consumers download songs through its cellular network for $2.50. Cell phones have far more limited storage capacity than an iPod, which at 30 …

During his annual keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates unveiled Windows Vista, the company's next generation operating system, and downplayed competitive threats to the software giant from companies like Google and IBM. Among the new features available through Vista are 3-D scrolling between different windows, music filing and high-definition video content. Gates said that software would be the key to unifying broadband and high def content, as software is ultimately the bridge between technology and content. In spite of Google's massive challenge to Microsoft's ambitions for the Internet search and media business, …

Google is making a greater push toward the video content business by offering users the ability to buy videos from a new line of content partners. The new service, to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show tomorrow, allows users of its site to buy videos from content partners in an upgrade to its video-search service, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The paper said Google plans to enable consumers to download television programs from CBS Corp., the National Basketball Association and others, though this was not confirmed by the Journal. The report …

After years of partnership, Hewlett-Packard has ended its music distribution agreement with Apple Computer and its iTunes software, and will now bundle Real Networks' Rhapsody software with its PCs. HP's decision to drop Apple had been widely anticipated after the company decided to stop distributing its HP-branded version of Apple's iPod this past summer. Cnet suggests that HP's decision to drop Apple has something to do with the power of Apple's iPod brand, which overshadowed the fact that the music devices had been produced and distributed by HP. Now, Rhapsody will be the default music software on HP's PC's and …

Skype, the Web's most popular Voice over Internet Protocol provider, and NetGear, a maker of networking products including wireless, are banding together to create a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP phone. The Wi-Fi phone allows Skype users to access the service and call anyone in the world from any wireless network by punching in a user name and password on the phone. The system works with encrypted networks--as long as users provide a network ID--but does not work on paid Wi-Fi systems at franchise locations like Starbucks or McDonald's. Pricing was undisclosed for the service, which should be available in the first half …

An Al Ries column from Ad Age discusses Google's success and brings it back to what the company does best: search. Search is its "mousetrap," which essentially refers to a product or service's ability to keep people coming back for more. And if it is the "mousetrap" or product that keeps people coming back, what exactly is the role of marketing? These days this is an especially interesting question, as marketers themselves tout a similar mantra that the key to their marketing success is simply about being better more clever, or bigger. Is marketing success simply about being better, or …

An eMarketer analysis of studies related to marketing to teen and young adult users says that advertisers must take advantage of the younger generation's penchant for consumer electronics, entertainment, and gaming when trying to reach this group. Gaming represents the biggest opportunity, according to a study from Forrester Research, which was cited in the article. The study says more than 90 percent of young people between 12 and 21 own a gaming device, while three quarters play online and offline games on their computers. In-game advertising and customized advergames are the clearest paths to reaching this game-hungry audience, eMarketer says. …