Congress has passed legislation that would make it illegal for credit-card companies and other payment providers to process online gambling transactions. Is the game up for online gambling? Supporters and opponents expect President Bush to sign the bill into law in the next several weeks, citing "family values" in the process. While other news outlets focus on what is undoubtedly bad news for the $12 billion online gambling industry (half of that revenue comes from American gamers), there are loopholes. The American Gaming Association, for example, doesn't believe the law outlaws betting on online casino-style games like blackjack and …

While Apple Computer scrambles to sew up the right to collect dues for any product service with a "pod" attached to it, podcasters are similarly looking for ways to cut out Apple. "Remove the middleman" is the mantra of a litany of podcasting startups, and by middleman, they mean the iPod and the computer. At the 2006 Podcast and Portable media Expo this weekend, podcasters showed off devices and software that could make iTunes software irrelevant to podcast listeners. What is the new listening medium of choice? Why, the cell phone, answers Yusef Cheema, senior vice president of Liquid Air …

You've heard this before: as media companies look at the expanding digital broadband universe, they're faced with the question of whether to build or buy their way forward. Perhaps no company represents the "buy" strategy better than Yahoo. From Yahoo Search, which was pieced together with Inktomi, AltaVista, and Overture's technologies, to recent purchases like Flickr, Del.icio.us, and most recently JumpCut, Yahoo has always had at least one eye focused on making its services stickier for users. And of course, the most recent speculation linked the Sunnyvale Calif. Web giant with buying the popular social network Facebook for $1 billion. …

Classified listing aggregators like vFlyer, Postlets and Mpire are now popping up on the Web. These sites offer templates for creating and posting classifieds ads, sometimes for free, on major listings services like Craigslist, eBay, Google Base, and Windows Live Expo. Since many of the listing providers like Craigslist offer largely free services, one wonders how these resellers plan to make any money. Some analysts aren't too sure, either. "It's relatively easy for someone to cut, copy and paste, and slap a posting for a used couch out there," said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps large retailers …

We often wonder what monetary impact digital piracy is having on Hollywood, and now, a new study from the Institute for Policy Innovation shows that the problem is more than three times worse than previously thought. The report, largely paid for by a think-tank run by former Republican Congressman Richard K. Armey, says that movie piracy causes a total lost output of $20.5 billion per year for U.S. industries, impedes on the creation of about 140,000 jobs and accounts for more than $800 million in lost tax revenue. The Motion Picture Association of America previously released a study that focused …

Here's a good publicity stunt: Netflix, the online movie rental service, will award $1 million to the first person who can improve the accuracy of its movie recommendations. How do you do that? We're not sure, but we would like a million dollars. Anyway, here's how the contest works: Netflix wants someone to devise a system that's more accurate than the company's current recommendation system by at least 10 percent--and to improve the quality of research, Netflix is making 100 million of its customers' movie ratings available anonymously to the public, which it says is the largest of its kind …

Ad shop Leo Burnett is opening up a virtual shop in Second Life, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game played by nearly a million Internet users. The Chicago agency, which has done and recently lost work for clients like Cadillac and the U.S. Army, is now opening an "ideas hub" within the massive online world. What's an "ideas hub?" A virtual time-waster for employees who want to feel like they're working? Maybe, but real-life marketers from ESPN to Adidas to American Apparel have moved into Second Life, where they sell virtual incarnations of their real-world products. Perhaps these manufacturers need …