Issue no. 388 - 1 June 2008

• Kid e-Land (Washington Post)
  Disney is launching a virtual play environment that kids can access through Nintendo DS devices and their computers. The software for the service, called DGamer, comes free on copies of a video game tied to the movie, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Some industry watchers say DGamer is the latest entry in a category that is about to get crowded. As one venture capitalist put it, kid-oriented online worlds are "popping up like mushrooms everywhere."

Issue no. 387 - 12 May 2008

• Microsoft walks away from Yahoo (BBC)
  Software giant Microsoft has dropped its three-month-old bid to buy internet firm Yahoo because the two sides cannot agree on an acceptable sale price. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer formally withdrew the offer in a letter to Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang. See also Microsoft and Yahoo! - No deal (Economist).

• Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits (USA TODAY)
  Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites have been the rage of the tech industry for more than a year. Following investments by Microsoft and News Corp., the companies are valued in the billions of dollars and are considered blueprints for how to build a website. Yet a deeper question lingers: How are they going to consistently produce profits to match their soaring valuations?

Issue no. 386 - 20 April 2008

• Bypassing Carriers for Mobile Content (Business Week)
  Sales of ringtones and games through phone makers and the Web are way up, another sign service providers are losing their grip on the industry.

• UK - BBC announces Nintendo Wii deal (BBC)
  The BBC's iPlayer video service will soon be available via the Nintendo Wii. The video download and streaming service that lets people catch up with BBC programmes will soon be a channel on the hugely popular game console. The BBC is still at loggerheads with internet service providers (ISPs) over who should pay for extra network costs. ISPs say the iPlayer is putting strain on their networks, which need to be upgraded to cope. Simon Gunter, from ISP Tiscali, is leading a call for the BBC to help pay for the rising costs.

Issue no. 385 - 21 March 2008

• Circling the wagons around Google (CNET.com)
  by Charles Cooper Post. Earlier in the week, ComScore reported that Google's paid clicks dropped 7 percent between December and January. That was enough to panic already nervous shareholders who proceeded to dump Google's stock in one of Wall Street's (increasingly common) panics. But Friday morning the Internet ratings agency issued a brief statement meant to contradict the impression that it believes Google has sprung a leak.

Issue no. 384 - 24 February 2008

• Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo (CNET News.com)
  Microsoft went public with a $44.6 billion cash-and-stock bid to acquire Yahoo. In its response, Yahoo called the Microsoft bid "unsolicited" but did not reject it. Microsoft's offer, which was contained in the letter to Yahoo's board, amounts to $31 a share and represents a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's closing price. Microsoft said it will offer shareholders the option of cash or stock. see also Gates v Google: Microsoft's search for a future on the net (Observer) and How Microsoft-Yahoo could shape social networking (the social - blog on CNET by Caroline McCarthy).

• Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google (Economist)
  Microsoft should be allowed to buy Yahoo! - and Google should be free to fight back. See also When clouds collide and A $45 billion bet (Economist).

Issue no. 383 - 27 January 2008

• UK - Apple to cut UK download prices (BBC)
  Apple has announced that it will cut the price it charges for music downloads in the UK from its iTunes music store within the next six months. The cut will bring the UK into line with the charges in the rest of Europe. Apple currently charges 79 pence per download in the UK, compared with 99 euro cents (74p) in the rest of Europe. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes welcomed the move, saying that it would "allow consumers to benefit from a truly single market for music downloads". A Commission spokesman said the settlement had been the result of direct talks between Ms Kroes and Apple boss Steve Jobs. see also Commission Press Release.

Issue no. 381 - 8 December 2007

• Location, location, location (Economist)
  Nearly 35m portable navigation devices (PND) will be sold around the world this year, twice as many as in 2006, making personal navigation one of the fastest-growing areas in consumer electronics. The latest versions of these gadgets do more than simply show the stubborn or shy the way. The industry is beginning to focus on the services PNDs could provide, prompting a scramble for the ownership of the digital maps they use. Nokia, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, said that it would acquire Navteq, the world's biggest maker of digital maps, for €5.7 billion. In July, TomTom, a leading PND vendor from the Netherlands, announced plans to buy Tele Atlas, the next biggest mapmaker, for €1.8 billion.

Issue no. 377 - 5 July 2007

• Angry eBay pulls Google adverts (BBC)
  Auction website eBay has pulled its US advertising from search engine giant and adversary Google. The move comes after Google angered eBay with a provocative decision to hold an event on the same evening as eBay's annual merchants' conference. Google's party was aimed at attracting attention away from eBay's payment system PayPal to its own card processing service, analysts say.

Issue no. 376 - 10 June 2007

• Game net distribution 'lift off' (BBC)
  Steam, an online distribution platform for videogame content, has signed up more than 13 million users, the system's owners Valve has said. More than 150 PC games can be downloaded via Steam and the system has also been used to automate more than 2,500 updates to existing games. Digital distribution of game content is a growing segment of the industry. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all started online services for downloading games onto consoles.<

Issue no. 375 - 9 May 2007

• Joost opens online video service (BBC)
  Joost, the on-demand online video service backed by the founders of Skype, has launched commercially. The internet television service boasts more than 150 content channels - from cartoons to music videos and films. Services like Joost may change the way viewers consume media and revolutionise the business model of broadcasters. The service provides video streams in broadcast quality, and is distributed using peer-to-peer technology. The founders of Joost - Niklas Zennstroem and Janus Friis - are also the team behind the hugely successful internet telephony service Skype.

• US - MySpace to acquire Photobucket image-sharing site (CNET News)
  Rupert Murdoch watched Google snatch YouTube, but he's not letting Photobucket get away. Social-networking site MySpace, owned by Murdoch's News Corp., has agreed to acquire Photobucket, the Web's No. 1 photo-sharing service.

Issue no. 373 - 11 March 2007

• Virtual worlds set for shake-up (BBC)
  Big media firms are rushing to copy the success of online games like World of Warcraft, a conference has been told. Millions of dollars are being spent trying to emulate the massively multiplayer online game, experts at the Game Developer's Conference said. "We are going to have so many failures it is going to be unbelievable," said Mark Jacobs of Electronic Arts. The panel also predicted that non-gaming MMOs such as Second Life would be prevalent in the short term.

Issue no. 372 - 25 February 2007

• Ads help Google profits triple (BBC)
  Internet search engine Google said its ability to cash in on web advertising had helped its profits almost triple. The company made a net profit of $1.03bn (£524.4m) in the last three months of 2006 - compared to $372.2m a year ago. The result, on sales of $3.2bn, was helped by high internet traffic in the holiday shopping season.

• CA -Canada's Telus drops mobile porn (vnu.net)
  Canadian network operator Telus has bowed to pressure from the Catholic church and stopped sales of mobile porn to subscribers.

• 'Old' music's digital comeback (BBC)
  With music downloads outselling CD singles by four to one in the UK and the music charts revamped to include download sales, the digital revolution is having a big impact on the music industry.

Issue no. 371 - 28 January 2007

• UK - BBC plans online children's world (BBC)
  A virtual world which children can inhabit and interact with is being planned by the BBC. CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect. Users would be able to build an online presence, known as an avatar, then create and share content. Bosses said CBBC World would not have the financial aspects of other online worlds such as Second Life.

• Digital music sees sales double (BBC)
  Global digital music sales have almost doubled to around $2bn (£1bn) in 2006, according to an industry report. But the rise, which represents 10% of all sales, has not reached the music companies' 'holy grail' of offsetting the fall in CD sales.

• Papers battle online news sites (BBC)
  With news-junkies turning increasingly to the net for their daily fix of world events, papers are beginning to feel the pinch. Not since the internet began has there been so much free quality newspaper content on the web. You will have to make the most of it because the current bonanza might not last forever.

• UK - Children 'swap music via phones' (BBC)
  Children are increasingly swapping music via mobile phones, often without realising they can be breaking the law. A survey of almost 1,500 eight to 13-year-olds found almost a third shared music via their mobiles. hildren are using the built-in Bluetooth wireless feature of many phones to swap music - but without the consent of copyright holders.

• US - Are eBay sellers cheating the reputation system? (CNET News)
  A new study concludes that some eBay users are artificially boosting their reputations on the Internet auction Web site by selling items for practically nothing in exchange for positive feedback from the buyer. Sellers with good reputations can seek higher prices on items they sell, according to the study out of the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Issue no. 369 - 5 November 2006

• EMI chairman: the CD is dead (Digital Media Wire)
  EMI Music boss Alain Levy says CDs are dead and soon, music companies won't be able to sell them without 'value-added' material. Some 60% of consumers put CDs into PCs to transfer the contents to digital music players, he declared.

• Google buys JotSpot, dips into wiki world (CNET News)
  Google has bought JotSpot, a 3-year-old company with a system for building collaborative Web pages called wikis. JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus announced the acquisition on a blog Tuesday morning, saying that being part of search giant Google will give JotSpot access to "world-class" data centers and engineers.

• The ever-expanding universe of Google (International Herald Tribune)
  Google's search engine became a cultural phenomenon and a verb back around 2003. Since then, Google has introduced more than two dozen applications and tools. Last week it bought YouTube, the video-sharing site, one of the most habit-forming services on the Web. The acquisition gives Google's regular users - 41 percent of those who search the Internet - one more reason to feel they are living on Planet Google.

• UK - Virgin ends ad campaign with anarchic site (Guardian)
  Virgin has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn after a new viral advertising campaign backfired spectacularly. The company had asked readers of b3ta.com, an online community known for bad taste jokes, to create a new advert for the Virgin Money brand. Hundreds of entries were submitted, but last week the company pulled the competition from the internet after concerns over some of the submissions.

Issue no. 368 - 15 October 2006

• CN - China's pied piper (Economist)
  Jack Ma is attracting a following among entrepreneurs in China and internet companies worldwide.

more items

QuickLinks consists of

• a free newsletter appearing approximately every two to three weeks. The newsletter is distributed by electronic mail through an "announcement only" mailing list.
• a Web site with frequent updates, an events page, news items organised by category as well as chronologically by issue and full text search.