As the housing market continues its collapse, the tech sector is starting to look like "somewhat of a safe haven," says Standard & Poors' analyst Scott Kessler. Since the stock market's 387-point drop on Aug. 9, the tech sector hasn't been impacted by the sustained slump. But a safe haven? "Money has got to go somewhere," says David Geltner, professor and director of MIT's real estate program. Indeed, there is a ton of cash out there--particularly among large caps, and media firms, especially, are investing in online advertising. So far, Wall Street seems to approve. …

What's the problem with successful television programming today? "South Park" creator Matt Stone says: "If I'm overseas and have to get an episode right away, you have to go to an illegal download site." Comedy Central parent Viacom is much slower to the draw than fans in uploading clips of the show. It's an irony that a cartoon series that started out as a viral phenomenon before almost any existed has had its presence reduced by the parent company. It's also why an interactive distribution plan was made part of a new four-year contract for Stone and co-founder …

Great Britain, farther along than the U.S. in the areas of broadband adoption, cell phone technology and Web advertising, is in the midst of a revolution in communication services, according to a new study. The Web, cell phones and MP3 players are all contributing to a shift in media habits, away from older technologies like TV, radio and DVD players. Interestingly, the Ofcom study says that women are the dominant Web users in certain age groups, while older Web users spend more time online than their younger counterparts, who also are spending more time with Web-based and wireless media. …

As the days go by, more and more is being revealed about the massive security breach at Monster.com that resulted in the theft of information from some 1.3 million job seekers. The online recruitment site waited five days to tell users about what the report calls "one of the biggest Internet security breaches in recent memory." Using a Trojan, a program that facilitates the stealing of log-in information, hackers broke into the online recruitment site's bank of resumes to steal sensitive personal information from Monster's users. The attack was launched from servers in Ukraine using a software program …

An eye-tracking study from Jakob Nielsen reveals what many marketers have long known: Web users have trained their eyes to move directly towards content, away from ads. As a result, ads need to look more like content, right? Unfortunately you can't really do that on the Web like you can in say, a print magazine. So what are advertisers to do? Eye-tracking studies don't exist for newspapers or magazines. You can't measure where someone's eye lands. For example, whole sections of a paper are often ignored--sometimes, the paper just sits there. Other times maybe 10 percent of it …

SoundExchange, the music royalty board set up by the federal government, will limit the fees imposed on Web radio stations that offer more than 100 channels to consumers to $50K per year. Representatives from radio companies agreed this was a positive first step in repairing relations with the royalty overseer. SoundExchange sets the royalty rates that terrestrial and Internet radio companies must pay artists and labels for broadcasting their music. Following the announcement of a substantial royalty hike and a fee of $500 per station or channel, Webcasters said the new rates were unfair as compared to terrestrial radio. …

Could YouTube overtake Craigslist as the undisputed classifieds king? After all, video is a far more helpful resource for a prospective buyer than a photo--especially when it comes to apartment hunting. Brokers and landlords are using the video-sharing site as an opportunity to give walking tours of their properties. After a few clumsy first attempts with his MiniDV player, broker Andre Kendall bought a Treo and started making movies with his mobile phone. "I got so many comments from people saying they hadn't seen anyone use YouTube for an apartment," he says, and it was a definite …

A new study that says music piracy will cost the U.S. economy more than $12.5 billion this year takes a shortsighted view of pee-to-peer file sharing technology. The Institute for Policy Innovation study, like many that measure the negative effects of P2P networks, assumes most illegal downloads should be considered lost sales. To its credit, the study substitutes a weighted average that says 65.7%t of illegal downloads would have been CD sales. Still, it's a somewhat arbitrary, if educated guess. One important factor not considered by the study is that P2P users also buy a lot of music. …

Selling legitimate, digital rights management-free music looks like a trend that will continue, as encouraging signs emerge from Europe, particularly France. DRM freedom allows consumers to play music files purchased from any online store on any music device. Once music opens up, the future belongs to ISPs that offer DRM-free music for a monthly flat rate. This is already happening in France, where Cegetel and Orange France are offering access to large catalogs of music for either an added price of 5 euros (in the case of Cegetel) or as part of its existing service. In the U.S., …

Third-party software development on Facebook is booming, but are application makers making any money? Where is the business model? Advertising is the logical choice, but even the most interesting Facebook applications are attracting small audiences. For many companies, like Fantasy Stock Exchange, Facebook is treated more like a marketing tool than new business tool. However, there's no reason you shouldn't go right to HedgeStop.com (the developer) to participate in the fantasy stock market. What's the benefit on Facebook? Also, HedgeStop hopes to make money selling banner ads-but who would buy 92,000 users who are most likely novice traders? …