Daily Internet Digest

Peer-to-peer sharing of files is killing the music industry slowly AND surely. Not only the music industry but also that of the movie, publishing and other industries affected by it. With the boom of the internet, people are now more “free” to share files online in a matter of seconds.

Limewire probably is everyone’s favorite for small-file sharing. You can download the program over the internet for free and log on to their servers (Gnutella) and start downloading and/or sharing files. For large scale downloads such as movies and the like, different torrent programs are available too over the internet.

There is a thin line between piracy and personal use when it comes to peer-to-peer file sharing. Some say that if you are to use the file only for yourself, then you are not committing any kind of copyright infringement. But the fight over the term “piracy” starts when one burns (technical term for copying CD contents with the use of a CD writer) a CD full of song compilations and gives that CD to someone as a gift. Some say that as long as the person did not give that CD in exchange for money, then he/she is cleared of piracy, however, some say otherwise.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has already sued a number of file sharing programs such as KaZaA, Limewire and Grokster for violating copyright laws.

Photo taken from http://www.mises.org

This was an excerpt from an interview of Jeff Zeleny of NYTimes with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. Obama’s campaign manager considered that the race for the Presidential Election Campaign is scheduled to open with the Iowans Caucuses, tentatively scheduled on January 14.
They are focusing considerably on the state. The Campaign Manager, Mr. Plouffe said that they are tracking the internet usage of the Democrats and they have found out a smaller number of Voters in the Iowan State are active with the use of internet in terms of checking information relative to the upcoming presidential election. Compared to New Hampshire, Iowa is not really into the internet, so the campaign is taking this situation seriously and will try to work out efforts to reach Iowans in a more organized effort.

With the huge volume of information on the internet on the topic social media, it will be a hard job for marketers to separate what signal is from voice. Brushing through sites such as MySpace, YouTube, FaceBook, Flickr to mention a few can be irresistible.
If you’re going to speak with most social media experts, you’ll definitely encounter words such as “conversation”, “transparency” and the “social graph”. You’ll soon ask, what does it all mean? This article was made a bit social in the light of the social media topic. Top social media marketing and PR experts on the web have been asked about their favorite social media strategies, resources and tactics.

Apart from blogging, social networking sites have gained popularity in today’s technological age. Users now have the ability to “connect” with their long lost friends and/or loved ones and, as an addition, some social networking sites give its users the option to choose the kind of relationship they have with another user (websites such as multiply.com have connection options such as “brother”, “classmate” etc.). Sounds neat, eh?

However, a new social networking website, Facebook.com, has received a lot of complaints from its members that they were unable to “completely” delete their personal information from the servers of Facebook. Yes, there is a delete option there if you wish to remove your account, but you need to write Facebook if you wish to “completely” delete your personal information from their servers.

Photo taken from http://libizblog.wordpress.com

According to an Armenian news agency, current developments in the IT arena can be compared as an “embryonic” with “vague” future prospects. IT development is described as one of the government’s priorities. There has been no legislation to control country’s internet usage.
Though there are no official stats, It is a known fact that there’s a huge increase on the use of internet and there are estimated 10,000 email and internet users some of whom who have been given email address through the UNDP project.

Several Private TCP/IP networks are now starting to avoid the public internet. America’s great universities such as Harvard who are the builders and first users of internet are preparing to join the abandonment of their sinking ship.
Privatizing the backbones has left universities with such a commodity that can’t be of good help in providing the needs for research and education. Universities are proposing new, next-level, government funded Internet. This proposal is backed by a treaty that 100 universities and research groups will commit $500,000 - $50 million total for a 3-5 year partnership.

A new Internet navigational site to bring entertainment news and information to internet users worldwide has been announced by Lycos and Blockbuster. This new site has been introduced at over 3,200 Blockbuster video and music stores nationwide today.
The Blockbuster store offers CD-Roms with customized, entertainment-oriented Internet access software that provides direct access to the new site and a link through to Blockbuster’s home page (http://www.blockbuster.com). The new site will provide online users with the latest news and information about the stars, entertainment business events and for products being updated daily. This site is powered by Lycos technology and content.

Group of high technology companies, such as Apple Computer, Netscape and America Online formed a group that will oppose the idea of charging internet access on a per-minute basis. This is a proposal issued by phone companies. They believe that charges would certainly be shouldered by internet users which will potentially stifle future growth of unlimited exchange of ideas and information.
Most net users pay flat monthly rate to a provider for unlimited access to the internet over their regular home phone. But local phone companies assumes that internet access adds up in clogging their line. The FCC started to work on the issue and is planning to make its decision by the middle of 2009.