Week of January 1, 2008

Digital Music DRM Is Dead

Friday, January 4, 2007

Businessweek is reporting that Sony/BMG, the last major label hold out on releasing music via the open MP3 format will soon announce that they will release their music without DRM and sell them via Amazon. With the move, DRM has effectively been removed from the digital music landscape in 2008. Soon, the only remaining DRM limitations will be on digital subscription services like Napster, where users don't purchase the music.

Facebook Open? Not If You Want Your Data

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Well known blogger Robert Scoble had his Facebook account disabled today over his use of a script to import his own and friends data into Plaxo. This is a good reminder that, despite all the press about newly open social networks, they are still and will likely remain closed systems. Here's Scoble pointing out the inherent flaw in closed systems like Facebook, which let you bring stuff in but won't let you go the other way: "It's ironic that you can import your Gmail address book into Facebook but you can't export back out."

Goodbye Netscape

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

AOL has announced it is pulling the plug on Netscape browser development, meaning that the original commercial browser (Netscape followed the non-commercial Mosaic browser) is no more. Not many people currently use the Netscape browser, having switched to either Internet Explorer, Firefox, or something else. Still, it's a sad day in the history of the world wide web.

Happy New Year!

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year!