iTunes kiosks coming to an airport near you?

A patent filing uncovered by industry blog AppleInsider shows that Apple has plans to develop a series of wireless iTunes 'kiosks' or download hubs where users can load content on their iPods before travelling.

The 19-page patent, filed in November 2007, reveals that Apple wants to develop an iTunes Store distribution hub, that could potentially set up shop in airports and train terminals, and would allow wireless downloads of music, films or television programmes for commuters.

The kiosks would be able to detect an iPod in the immediate vicinity, allowing users to download content without wires or cords, even in areas without wireless internet access.

The wireless component would mean that users could purchase content without having incur roaming charges on their devices while waiting for downloads to complete.

Apple said in the patent that the kiosks would be useful for travellers who wish to load their iPods, iPhones or other handheld devices before boarding a flight, ship or train.

The notoriously secretive Apple has not previously mentioned the iTunes kiosks, but it would undoubtedly prove to be a lucrative source of revenue, especially with the right branding and selective location. Hopefully this is one that doesn't get swept under the Apple rug.

Caught redhanded - BBC, Guardian sourcing Wikipedia

A little over a month ago, the French composer Maurice Jarre died. Ashes to ashes, etc., but emerging from his death comes a tale not of our frail humanity, but rather a sprawling yarn revealing the impact of the internet, globalisation, Wikipedia and it's role in journalism.

Yawn. But bear with me, it's a morbid and perverse anecdote almost too good to be true.

It starts with Shane Fitzgerald, a 22-year-old sociology student at the University College Dublin, and apparent average bloke, who on the evening of Jarre's unfortunate end, mere hours after his death was announced, took it upon himself to edit the composer details on Wikipedia. All in the name of research.

As news outlets came round and began their regulatory obituary routine, it soon became clear that many journalists, including those from the BBC, Guardian and Independent, were citing Jarre's Wikipedia page to supplement their articles.

As far as I know, a major faux pas, but who can be sure these days.

Fitzgerald had edited the page to include a benevolent, serendipitous quote from the music man, which read: "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."

The quote was included in several of Jarre's obituaries, the Guardian even electing to open with it, before the hoax was made public many days after the fact.

Wikipedia initially removed the quote because it gave no attribution, but thanks to Fitzgerald's perseverance, it remained on the site for more than 24 hours.

The offending publications eventually redacted and retracted, but the damage was done.

Fitzgerald claims his actions were based in research, despite his reluctance to defile a dead mans legacy, and wanted to show that - with startling clarity - Wikipedia was a primary source for many of the world's elite journalists.

In defence of those scribes that were caught redhanded, it's probably a result of our, as in we, a culture, yearning for an ever-churning 24-hour news cycle. Sprinkled with a hint of laziness.

I won't be enticed to say anything along the lines of, 'no wonder print is dead', so please hand me my 56-inch Kindle so I can help bail these yobs out.

Mixx beckons advertisers with Sifter service

Some interesting innovations going on at Mixx, the social networking/news ranking website that's like Digg, but probably a little better.

Mixx is offering advertisers the chance to get direct feedback for their creatives from its heavyweight users with a new service called Mixx Sifter.

Advertisers can upload their creatives to the website, which will then be voted on and ranked by Mixx users, with the most popular ads awarded prominent location (and preternatural hype) on the Mixx homepage.

There's incentive for the users too, called Karma Points, which can be exchanged for prizes and such.

So advertisers need not fear unwarranted backlash from those in power, well, in theory, as the Mixx users voting on the ads are those trusted resources who have spent many hours logged on and contributing to the site.

Techcrunch reports that the service will typically costs advertisers $8,000 to upload their creatives to the site -- which can be in any format, banner ads, video, etc. -- and will compete against four other ads, which are then ranked 1-5.

It's a good idea, appealing to both advertisers and users, and even the uninitiated -- as a frequent Digg user, I'm suffering from Mixx-remorse, as the number of hours spent on Digg could have meant exciting prizes and notoriety on Mixx.

Let's see if Digg responds, well not 'if', but when, as it has been long speculated that Digg was working on something similar to Mixx Sifter.

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Conde Nast cut jobs at Ars Technica (and Wired?)

Ouch, this one hits a little close to home. Reporting media redundancies is becoming a wearisome task, one has to ask where the bottom is? However, news out of the US that the excellent digital website Ars Technica is slashing nearly 50% of its staff is like pouring scalding lemon juice on a salty, open wound.

Part of the media empire that is Conde Nast, which is seriously, seriously in trouble, ad revenue down 30% in Q1 '09 and seemingly cutting staff every other day (folding its hip-hop rag King just yesterday), Ars Technica appeared to be immune from such shenanigans, simply for the high quality of its content.

Seven of Ars Technica's 17 staff were sent packing yesterday, unfortunately not a cruel April Fool's day joke, but a harsh reminder that the digital media's crooks and crannies are as open for perversion as those poor saps still working in print.

The layoffs were buffered with an unknown number of cuts from Wired's digital team too, although rumours say the Wired.com layoffs were limited to about three.

Is quality not enough anymore? Surely the cuts will have a dramatic effect on the website's editorial output, and what does it say for the highly anticipated launch of Wired UK when they are shuddering employees stateside?

Conde Nast's digital arm, CondeNet, purchased Ars Technica for $25m last May and merged it with its Wired digital business, which also included popular aggregator website Reddit.

Seemed like a decisive move for Conde at the time, for in 2008 Ars Technica was pulling in about 4m unique visitors every month.

It's assumed the acquisition resulted in some sort of redundant titles, and Conde Nast made its intentions clear in January that it was planning to drastically streamline its digital business, even consolidating the long-standing CondeNet, which had impressively remained independent since its launch in 1996.

The new entity, Conde Nast Digital, had an impressive roster and over 50m unique users, but represented an unproportionately small amount of big brother's revenue, less than 5%.

It appear Conde Nast was intent on 'waiting-out' the recession before making any drastic cost cutting measures... well the wait is over.

And it's a damn shame, because Ars Technica is a quality publication, and as Conde Nast makes it's moves, it's now us in the digital community who play the waiting game, to see how badly staff cuts like these effect editorial content.

Sound the bugle, is that Taps I hear lilting along the warm Spring air?

Chinwag: The economics of Free

The emergence and abundance of free content online over the past number of years has had a profound affect on the way many of us conduct our lives and indeed the way businesses conduct their business.

Whether email, newspapers, Skype, Wikipedia, Spotify, etc., how come we're so deserving of all these free services when we were absolutely willing to pay for the same (similar) right less than a decade ago?

And how free is free? Is it sustainable? Must companies now monetise or die? Or risk asking Generation Free to pay for content?

These were some of questions being tossed around the basement in a slick-Soho bar last night at the UK's Trade & Investment Chinwag discussion, cleverly titled Freeconomics.

A panel consisting of Azeem Azhar, managing partner at Open Capital Partners; Victor Keegan, technology columnist at the Guardian; the night's MC Nic Brisbourne, venture capitalist and partner at DFJ Esprit; Charlie Blake Thomas, commercial director at Huddle; Alan Patrick, consultant at Broadsight and finally Bruce Daisley, representing YouTube.

On the agenda: free content, and at what cost does success at "free" come with..

For example, storage dependant sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, subsidies from display advertising can not meet the costs of scaling.

But what are the other options, and what issues do they bring? Why for example do Freemium models (free 'basic' and paid 'pro') work for some and not for others (think flickr vs Facebook)? Will we see a return of micropayments?

Before panic sets in, the panel agrees that a universal micropayment approach seems a bit far off, but would be a possible solution for a number of businesses struggling under the advertising decline, specifically newspapers.

Victor Keegan said if a micropayment system would have been introduced when the internet was still a nascent luxury, relegated to programmers and D&D enthusiasts, then "we wouldn't be in this mess".

He gives an example of a teenager sending a text-message, they don't think twice about sending a 50-word text message for 18p, but scoff at the idea of having to pay for a 25,000 word email, simply because the micropayment system has always been there for texting, it is engrained in its structure.

Today's generation has grown up with free email, with nearly limitless storage, such as Gmail, which was criticised last month when its servers crashed, rendering the service useless for a number of hours - invoking a strange kind of furore that could only be quelled by reminding users that Google offers the service for free, thus, no reasons to be angry.

It brings the question whether 'free' is really 'free', obviously Google serves targeting advertising to users in exchange for using the service, which brings up the question, who is the service for?

Charlie Blake Thomas said that Google really isn't a service for us, the searchers, but actually for advertisers, where it gets its revenue from, we're just the middlemen, acting as a muse.

Thomas said that understanding who the end user for your business is critical when deciding at what point will users pay, and how it fits into the overall business.

Azeem Azhar said that even though Google figured it out, thanks to the proliferation of open source software, we have witnessed the end of big companies making huge profits, such as Microsoft, or Google itself.

Azhar said: "It's difficult for people to accept but the granduar of a huge company like Microsoft has been shifting to teenagers coding in their parents basement. It's not the American dream."

Alan Patrick said that open source software, such as Linux, has also shifted the economics to the user, when suddenly companies are forced to upgrade their systems on their own instead of those who created the software.

The people who have created this free software aren't getting rich, but they've managed to offset costs by shifting the expenses to the user.

To the dismay of Nic Brisbourne, venture capitalists were given a lot of slag for the current state of affairs, by encouraging digital startups to seek out audiences with loads of free content without having a business models first or ways to monetise traffic.

But for new start-ups, is it better to have a premium product in which you can charge a few hardcore, loyalists, or free content to the masses at your expense, hoping advertising revenues will pick up.

A large portion of the evening was dedicated to talk about the newspaper industry, however the panel offered a refreshing view on the plights of print, opposed to what is being espoused in the media itself.

The introduction of new devices such as the Kindle and the iPhone could be an industry saviour, as paid digital content could translate better on these handhelds better than on a computer screen.

There is new innovation about, including in Japan where readers pay simply for a newspaper barcode, which allows access to online articles.

Newspapers are also looking at manufacturing their own proprietary hardware to carry about digital editions of their content.

The panel predicted that a number of newspapers will make the transistion online, its inevitable, but print will never completely die out.

Charlie Blake Thomas said that the industry needs to face its 'Kodak Moment' when the film company itself realised that the entire industry had shifted digital, and it had to react to stay in the game.

The panel said that newspapers are afraid to make the first leap because of the readership that could be gained or lost by making a miss-step. They asked for more collaboration between titles, but not mergers, as that would only inhibit innovation, allowing newspapers to wallow in complacency, like they have been doing for the past 20 years.

 

Are online publishers just Digital Windsocks?

We are entering an age where publishers are becoming "Digital Windsocks", following the audience and the advertising revenue, damaging reputations and quality of content quality in the wake.

The role of a journalist is evolving to include a greater understanding of search engine optimisation and interpreting data, but in the effort to appeal to search engines, is quality journalism suffering?

Yesterday, an Association of Online Publishers (AOP) forum brought together an expert panel to examine the editorial impact of SEO and to look at what the future for news production might be.

Andrew Currah, lecturer for Reuters Institute of Journalism at Oxford University, and author of 'What's Happening to Our News', which examines the changing business of journalism in the digital age, introduced the concept of a Digital Windsock.

Currah said now there is a focus to accumulate attention around news to build advertising revenue. Publishers are chasing clicks, but have no clear sense of how much the digital audience is worth or when digital revenues will recoup the costs of multimedia integration.

According to recent trends, most commercial news website traffic enters through a "side door" of search results and RSS feeds, leaving the site within a matter of minutes.

In the UK, 30% of time spent online is on 10 URLs or less, none of these are commercial news sites.

During his research Currah found that new forms of reading are emerging. People now power browse, looking horizontally through titles and a few lines down the left side of the content, scouring for anything of interest, before moving on.

He also found that publishers are now frequently looking towards experimental methods to take advantage of the user "clickstream" some even turning to neuroscience to measure the subconscious foundations of the web user.

Publishers at the Guardian, Al-jazeera and the Times have recently experimented with an open-source approach to their websites, allowing the user to control and shape the content they want.

However, Currah warns of a dark side to the innovation and the pursuit of clicks, such as what happens to quality when content is shaped for the digital crowd, will new techniques like SEO lead to softening of the news agenda and will publishers continue to funnel resources into keywords instead of newsbreaking content?

The evidence is already apparent that the news agenda is as soft as butter. Scanning the 'Most Popular/Most Read' story lists from national news websites, it becomes clear that reader attention is concentrated around quirky content, clicks can give a good indication of audience interest and boredom, and the immediacy of clickstream is starting impact editorial decision making.

Currah predicts that the future will see a division between the Windsocks and The Anchors; those handful of publishers able to resist lure of clickstream.

However, it is certain that navigating the clickstream whilst maintaining editorial standards will require some sort of economic shelter, and it's inevitable that Anchor publishers will provide this by using a mix of paid-for-content and advertising revenue.

It's a combination that works, in my opinion, and I don't think the Windsock concept is totally lost on the readers themselves. Those wanting unbiased, quality news content will pay for it if necessary, leaving the quirkiness and frivolous to those that don't charge.

Is this Twitter's first third-party advertisement?

Twitter has been quietly promoting a new service for the business class, known as ExecTweets, a sort of Twitter/LinkedIn mash-up created by conversational ad agency Federated Media, with a healthy dose of sponsorship from Microsoft.

ExecTweets itself doesn't seem to be anything worth Tweeting-home about, a worthy service I guess, if you're interested in following stuffed-shirts from Coca-Cola, GM, Unilever, etc.

However, it's interesting that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone chose to officially endorse the website on the company blog.

Twitter always appears to be teetering on the edge of being an enjoyable, clean service, to one bogged down with targeted, obnoxious advertising.

It seems inevitable, the ads will come, or will they?

It's unlikely that Twitter chose to promote ExecTweet's just because, especially with super-savvy John Battelle at the helm of Federated Media, whose advertising network includes a couple of sites you might of heard of, say the insanely popular BoingBoing, or TechCrunch.

On Battelle's official blog, he noted that: "Federated Media felt that Twitter should share some of the revenue associated with ExecTweets since this project is made possible using their open platform."

So a little cash goes Twitter's way and ExecTweet's gets a mention on the company blog and a small display ad on users' homepages, easypeasy. It's not clear how much money Federated Media is offering Twitter, but I doubt that's important.

The small display ads, which popped up on homepages a couple of weeks ago to promote Twitter's in-house services, such as it's new search function, will also advertise a couple of different platforms, including Tweetie, an iPhone client and the self-explanatory Twittervision, although it has been made clear that Tweetie will not be offering revenue to Twitter, rather, Twitter approached Tweetie because it genuinely found it to be a useful application. Fair enough.

Is this as close as Twitter will come to full-fledged advertising? Quiet promotions billed as "interesting topical experiences"?

That's fine with me.

A while back Brand Republic reported about an advertising network called Adjix which developed a platform for Twitter text ads, yet I have not seen anything of the sort. And if I did, I would probably stop following said advertiser.

In-house Twitter ads have popped up on the website in the past month or so, but I would hardly call them obtrusive.

BR also reported yesterday that Twitter is being tempted with boatloads of cash from potential investors who want their share.

Stone said the company was "being very careful about who they accept money from and who they give their equity to" and also said that a recent round of funding from venture capitalist Benchmark and Institutional Venture Partners was enough to get by.

So the question remains, is ExecTweet Twitter's first official but unofficial looking third party advertisement? Can a slough of targeted, annoying advertising by sure to follow a la Facebook?

Probably not. For a while at least. But it's possible a precedent has been set.

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Blink TV giving gigs that something extra

The music industry is not well, we all know it, and for the most part, likely contributed to the grandiose, well-publicised downfall.

While digital innovation -- a la Radiohead's now canonised In Rainbow's -- have put power in the hands of the consumer, the question needs to be asked: who is looking out for the little ol' musicians, who now have more pressure than ever to produce money-making albums to appease beleaguered music labels?

A company called Blink TV has come up with a plan.

While Blink TV can't really help musicians on the album quality side of things, it can help bands put together a kick-ass live show, an increasingly important stream of revenue for the labels, and all at a reduced cost.

It's an interesting business model, Blink TV supplies video screens and visual content for the live music industry, however the company subsidises the hiring costs of the giant screens, and the production costs of the live shows in exchange for media rights and some onscreen advertising.

The company is currently on tour with indie-band Snow Patrol, and has created pre-show entertainment, customized by the band, including music selected by the band set to time-lapse photography of the stage being set up.

Blink TV says the resulting imagery builds anticipation within the crowd prior to the band's arrival on stage. The package includes targeted advertising which helps offset the significant rental costs of the video equipment and allows the band to incorporate more visual elements into its show.

The company is expanding as well, recently hiring former NME and Uncut live advertising manager Alex Wright as its business development manager.

It's an interesting partnership, but hopefully the company can sign on with more indie acts, recently adding Keane to its client roster. But whatever helps drive ticket sales is something that bands and labels alike can welcome with arms wide open.

Blog plans £12k subscription fee

It appears one online publication is not waiting for the rest of the industry to begin charging subscriptions for their content, but isn't £12,000 a bit steep?

Mobile Industry Review, an online news portal for the mobile telecoms biz, was recently acquired by an unnamed company, with plans to transform the blog into a private research company.

The company plans to charge a staggering £12,000 per year to access the website, "plus applicable taxes", yeesh.

On the company blog, website admin Ewan McLeod said: "Our new client is unwilling to subsidise our existing audience of readers (300-400k last month) so the content that we'll be creating -- reports, video interviews and day-to-day industry news and analysis -- will become proprietary from 27th of March. After this date, the public version of MIR will no longer be updated."

Besides offering their congratulations (cha-ching), the soon-to-be-former MIR readers baulked at the exorbitant cost for a continued subscription.

Reader barneyc wrote: "I can well understand the need to move at least in part to a subscription based model - after all producing this stuff isn't free. BUT I seriously think the value of MIR will be eroded without the contributions, attention and goodwill of everyone who makes up the extended community.

"Industry news, reviews and such are NOT worth 12k a year to anyone in my humble opinion -- no matter how good they are. These is stuff out there in the public arena already and is best left as is so that said community can augment it -- i.e. add value."

Google strengthens mobile range with Google Voice launch

Google seems intent on flexing its telecoms muscle once more with the introduction of Google Voice, a new product that creates transcriptions of  voicemails and archives SMS messages.

The service mingles Google's Gmail product with mobile phone voicemail, storing the transcribed document in the Gmail inbox, using speech recognition technology that it developed for its Goog-411 directory service.

The product, which also allows low-cost international calls, is currently only available to users of GrandCentral, the mobile start-up Google acquired two years ago, however a public release is expected in a number of weeks.

It's a nice companion to Google's Android product, and will no doubt feature prominently on the new Google phone, the HTC Magic, which is being launched via Vodafone in April.

There doesn't appear to be any immediate benefit to Google for offering such a product, as no revenue would be acquired from simply transcribing voicemails, besides the international call thing.

Which is sure to fuel speculation that Google could be culling this information for more nefarious purposes, bringing up the same argument about online privacy and Google's all-conquering reach across the internet.

As far as privacy goes, you would have to be an idiot to have Google transcribe all your voicemails if you've got something worth hiding.

It would appear Google is aware of this, as shown by its tongue-in-cheek video explaining how Google Voice works, in which a voicemail is transcribed, reading: "Hey, I left the secret plans for the project on your desk, keep them safe."

The product is pretty handy in a number of ways, for example, when voicemail-inept callers leave a longwinded message, only mentioning their phone number at the beginning, Google can send me a text of the transcribed voicemail.

Same goes with addresses, emails, etc.

Oh, there's more, like being able to send an ex-girlfriend a transcribed recollection of her 3am drunkdial voicemail. Instant humiliation and gratification, which I guess can be used vice-versa. Perhaps someone should develop a drunkdial blocker for Android's app store.

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New Shuffle, bad design

The Apple Store went down today. People panicked, speculated and gossiped - some suggesting that the servicing was due to the launch of a new iPod Shuffle. A few moments later, they were correct.

When the Apple Store returned, users were met with a promotion for the shiny new Shuffle. Smaller, sleeker and undoubtedly sexier (they claim it's the size of a AA battery, yikes), it has new VoiceOver technology which speaks song titles to you, updates you on your battery life, etc., in several different languages, but really who cares?

The Shuffle solely comprises Apple's "low-end" product range, if the company ever had such a notion. It's the mp3-player of choice for gym rats and gutter rats alike.

Any worthwhile innovation on the Shuffle will eventually make its way to the better iPods, in which I will happily and fervently empty my wallet.

What is interesting, however, nearly escaped my eye when glancing over the photos... how the hell do you change the songs?

Upon closer inspection, confirmed in the excitable press release, the volume and tracking controls have been moved to the iPod earphones.

The earphones, proprietary earphones... why Apple, why?

Seems like a kick in the shins to devoted iPod users, just what happens if (when) you (eventually) lose the earphones, besides obviously shelling out £40 for another set?

An explanation? Are we granted an apology? A hand written letter from Steve Jobs with a dab of his Apple musk sealed in the envelope?

Since when is the World's Nicest Company^TM so mean?

Proprietary earphones have been the damned nuisance of many failed mp3 players, but it's doubtful the Shuffle will be the next.

It's interesting to see how this one plays out, if it manages to slip under the radar, would it be feasible if it sneaked its way into Apple's other products?

Or is this just bad design, a "mistake" made by Apple (it's silly that saying those to words in the same sentence feels blasphemous) that will be quietly removed when the Shuffle launches a new campaign, in a myriad of ridiculous colours with the latest pseudo-indie hit playing in the background?

Google vs Twitter, Thrilla in Mozilla

Heads have been rolling over Google CEO Eric Schmidt's recent Twitter snub, when he called the ridiculously popular (too early, too late to call it a phenomenon?) microblogging service a "poor man's email", one he doesn't "get".

Personally, I didn't think too much of the slag-off - he is Eric Schmidt after all, an "untouchable" in the digital world and despite what many, many (so many) news stories report, Twitter still retains a sort of subversive, grassroots air around it.

Cutesy, that's the word.

Sure its mainstream, but not Google mainstream (even though Google seems a little cutesy too, which is no accident no doubt).

Anyways, techno-pundits have introduced an interesting theory, that Schmidt's rebuke was an intentional act, a stroke, an attempt to devalue Twitter before either acquiring the company under Google's own ubiquitous umbrella, or to sully its name before launching its own Twitter-killer.

The theories hold water, certainly, and for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, there is no way in hell that Google, or Schmidt, can ignore the potential behemoth that the cutesy-Twitter represents.

Behind it's playful mask of those perfectly pointless 140 characters "tweets" lies a powerful tool: search. Something that Google might be familiar with.

In fact, Twitter is much like a chip-off-the-old-block, a spitting-image of a young Google.

A younger, fresher, dare-I-say better version of itself. Not only is Twitter search, but it's real-time search. Something Google can not (presently) lay claim.

Schmidt knows, and his recent rebuff could really be a hairline fracture in his usually steely resolve. Has Twitter got Google sweatin'?

It's pretty obviously that Facebook is rattled, which, after a failed acquisition of its own, subsequently introduced a swathe of similar services.

After spending the better part of his life putting the boots to Microsoft, painting the company as the evil empire, could "poor man's email" be the crucial first steps towards an all out war against Twitter? Just what is Google planning?

The battle of big media in smalltown New Jersey?

The battle of big media is being waged at the community level, as both The New York Times and a Google executive launched rivalling "hyper-local" news websites this week, in the exact same New Jersey suburbs, with plans for expansion. Small town newspapers be warned, the big boys are gunning for your advertising dollars.

Maplewood, Millburn and Clinton Hill - the bland, upper middle class 'burbs of big-city Newark seem like a strange place for two of the worlds largest, most powerful media companies to launch coinciding "hyper-local" news websites within a matter of weeks.

The New York Times' The Local, and Google exec Tim Armstrong's Patch have invaded these quaint communities with a soft focus lens and hard news angle.

Both publications will basically employ one journalist per community, who will report on local news in the area, which will be connected to one ubiquitous news portal website.

Patch, which launched in mid-February, was whispered to be Google's "Trojan Horse" to Troy's, in this case the idyllic communities of smalltown USA, advertising revenue, with Armstrong acting as a proxy.

The Local, which launched this week, picked the exact same towns as Patch, plus two more in Brooklyn, New York, seems to be NYTs volley.

Is it war?

Both start-ups claim benevolence, and to an extent I see their point, hell, the industry isn't exactly well-off enough to begin shuttering this kind of innovation, but certain questions must be raised.

For instance, do we really want Google dipping its pinkie finger in (assumingly) every community honey pot across the United States, controlling the news?

As a disclosure, Patch isn't a Google initiative, rather a Tim Armstrong initiative, the same man who heads Google's uber-lucrative advertising operations. Armstrong has put his own money down, Google supposedly gave the greenlight, but still, that's barely a degree of separation.

And why would the NYT launch is the exact same communities at Patch, unless it's a blatant attempt to thwart Armstrong's advances in its own backyard.

And could the winner, if any emerges, be holding the golden calf? The saviour of the nation's utterly (no-pun-intended) beleaguered newspaper industry?

We shall see, best bet is to grab a bucket of popcorn and watch the ensuing theatrics, it should be entertaining.

Blame Bono

Poor Techcrunch, which can't seem to help making enemies in the digital industry, accidentally or otherwise.

Less than a month after Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington announced a blogosphere-sabbatical after being spit on at the Davos World Economic Forum (amid apparent threats against himself and his family), co-editor Erick Schonfeld has riled the locals at Last.fm, in what has the makings of a bitter and adorable internet-feud.

On top of that, who's to blame? Bono. Yes, it's fucking Bono's fault.

Well not directly, but the rose-tinted Dubliner is a worthy scapegoat when two of my favourite online portals are at odds.

It's not something I like to see, like two family members quarrelling, as both Last.fm and Techcrunch are held near to my heart.

It all began with U2's newest album 'No Line on the Horizon', which isn't due out till March 3, but was mysteriously leaked on the internet last week. Mysterious due to the fact that U2 is notoriously secretive about its new releases, allegedly refusing to send out industry samples and insisting on private, in-person listening parties.

When the album hit the web, it was illegally shared several hundred thousand times, which understandably upset some of the cheery lawmen at the RIAA.

After some investigating, Schonfeld posted a "rumour" on Techcrunch, which said that the RIAA had sent its lawyers to Last.fm to gather data about possible users who had been listening to the new U2 album, a function that is pretty much Last.fm's crux, showing others what you are listening.

Fuelled by hearsay, Techcrunch alleged that Last.fm had actually handed over data of the possible U2-pirates, which could have resulted in prosecution and legal action of those who were sharing 'No Line on the Horizon'.

That sparked a revolt from both Last.fm users and its London-based staff, including a blogpost by Last.fm co-founder Richard Jones, titled "Techcrunch are full of ***" in which he lambasted the tech-site, and vehemently denied the rumours.

Jones also offered an explanation on the original Techcrunch article, which has received over 500 comments (TC averages about 30 comments), and said:

"We never share personally identifiable data such as email and IP addresses. The only type of data we make available to labels and artists, other than what you see on the site, is aggregate data of listeners and number of plays."

There you are, squabbling over scrobbling, courtesy of the rumour-mill.

Hopefully, the two parties will be able to shake and make-up, but that doesn't answer the biggest question... just how did that U2 album get leaked anyways?

It was U2's label of course, Universal, who accidentally put the album up for sale a week before the actual release date. Oops.

Getmusic.com.au, which is owned by Universal, put the album up online, and didn't catch the error until it was too late. Far too late.

Since then, the new U2 release, which is bound to be dreadful in every sense of the word, has been getting some pretty good online buzz, which should help sales when the album does finally hit shelves.

Social media proves protest prowess

Two days after criticising Facebook users for their pathetic protest attempts, the masses, rather emphatically, proved me wrong, creating a big enough stir to get CEO Mark Zuckerberg to stammer and stumble his way out of another privacy issue.

Egg on the face actually tastes pretty good, I should be wrong more often.

Anyways, earlier this week, Zuckerberg provoked a storm of controversy after releasing updated terms of service for the social networking site.

Under the new terms, a clause that allows users to permanently delete any uploaded content was removed, which critics claimed granted Facebook lifelong ownership rights to user photos, videos, written content and music, even if their profile had been deleted.

Within a day, a number of Facebook groups were launched to protest the changes and the story appeared across national newspapers, while bloggers fervently expressed their opposition to the new terms online.

Apparently, the one thing Facebook users are universally passionate about, is indeed Facebook. But I guess they proved that with Beacon two years ago.

A brief statement from Zuckerberg on Monday attempted to quell the storm asking for users to "trust" Facebook, with the analogy: "When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created -- one in the person's sent messages box and the other in their friend's inbox.

"Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work.

"One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear."

However yesterday, after Zuckerberg's statement drew even more criticism from users, the company decided to revert back to its old terms while it "resolves the issue that people have raised" promising the new terms "will be written clearly in a language everyone can understand".

The new finalised terms are expected to be released within a number of weeks and will be allowed to be scrutinised by Facebook users.

Being a semi-amateur photographer and a professional-hack-writer, it caused little concern in me, but really I could care less. All my good photographs are diverted into the less-cloistered Flickr, and as far as I know, my rights are protected. Similarly, with Livejournal, I reserve my right to remove any of the content I've loaded up there.

And I can see Z'berg's point, and frankly I don't understand why the furore was so large, and swift, impressive as it may be.

Professional photogs definitely have a reason to be angry, but the other 175m users with their stupid "night-out" albums, which, who are we kidding, is really just an excuse for girls to take pictures of themselves with two friends squished into their cheeks, not so much. Unless Facebook has plans for a super-PG Girls Gone Wild spinoff in the near future.

Users should realise that Facebook is a service, and a business, not just some namby-pamby social portal, and it reserves the right to stick it to you if it wants. If you don't like it, don't use it.

I've never been too fond of Facebook to begin with, all seemed a bit of a platform to show off your various wares and tales rather than a place to relax and connect with chums, isn't that what the pub is for, but of course not everyone is a bitter recluse like myself.

Undoubtedly this sets an eerie precedent for user rights and online copyright terms. While other social networking sites are shaking in their boots, I bet they're glad Facebook bit the bullet on this one (again).

The people have spoken, but who knew it would be so damned loud?