Week of October 2, 2006

DRM For iPods Not Sold Through iTunes

Friday, October 6, 2006

For content companies looking to sell DRM content to iPod users they have one option: Apple, because the Fairplay DRM that Apple uses is owned by, well, Apple. That may change in the near future, as famous software deconstructionist Jon Johansen has reverse engineered the Fairplay DRM. He is now licensing his DRM, compatible with the iPod, to companies that want to sell to iPod users but not be beholden to Apple or the iTunes Music Store.

AOL: Better Now That It's Free?

Thursday, October 5, 2006

AOL has been releasing a ton of new features after it announced its service became free. Lots of the features are standard on the web now (webmail, storage, photosharing), but with AOL, they can be easily integrated into one place. Now comes word that AOL is releasing Openride, a web browser that includes an information manager that brings together all of your online resources in an easy-to-use program, including IM, mail, calendar, etc.

Newspaper Association of America: We Rock Online

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Compare these numbers to radio figures, and you'll see why they are so excited:

• An average of 55.5 million unique visitors went to US newspaper sites in the first half of 2006, compared to 42.2 million in the same period last year.
• Newspaper sites seem to be drawing younger readers, with the total 15-34 audience up by 15 percent and 18-24 by 10 percent.

The Coming Google Gadget Explosion

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Google gadgets, those neat things that you were able to embed on your desktop if you used Google Desktop, have been released to the web and can now be embedded into any website. These little things allow anyone to embed cool stuff on their web pages, from sports scores to photo albums to any number of things. To give you an idea of the scale, there are over 1200 current Google Gadgets. So expect a lot of web pages to have much richer content in the near future thanks to Google.

How Important Is Recommendation Engines?

Monday, October 2, 2006

In the world of old media, the distribution and content companies filtered out the bad content (in theory at least) and presented the best of the best to consumers. For example, this meant that consumers trusted radio to help them discover new music and book stores to help them discover new books. In today's digital age, that role is increasingly being adopted by recommendation engines, which are ways that people can discover new content based on their consumption patterns.

A good example are boxes on commerce sites that state "if you like this item, you may like this..." Netflix knows that in its competitive space, the ability to please consumers in the thrill of discovery is a tangible advantage. As a result, they are offering a $1 million prize to the person who can improve their recommendation engine by 10%.

While it won't make headlines, look for the battle over being the most credible source for recommending new books, music, movies, etc. to be a major focus of companies in the near future.