Archive for September, 2006

China bloggers surpass 30 million

CNN.com - China bloggers surpass 30 million - Sep 26, 2006

“The rapid growth of blog sites in China also brought potential business opportunities to the advertising industry,” Xinhua said. “Some blogs written by famous people attract millions of daily readers.” The report said that out of the 34 million blog sites, 70 percent were “dormant,” having remained unchanged for more than a month.

Now that’s a lot of bloggers. How long would it take to check out each one? But even with 70% being dormant, that’s still a very large number.

26 September, 2006 | No comments

No guarantees when it comes to Web privacy

CNN.com - No guarantees when it comes to Web privacy - Sep 15, 2006

“All those things you do are chipping away at the edges of the problem, and the problem is still there glaring at us,” he said. “That information is being collected, and the IP numbers are there with varying degrees of ease for tracking down.”

Great article which identifies some ways that we can try to keep things private. But the bottom line, the internet is a public network and as such nothing is private. It is just like talking/searching/looking in a public place. You may think no one is watching, but they might be. You might think you are whispering, but someone could have a listening device. It is best to face reality and know what you are dealing with.

15 September, 2006 | No comments

CNN.com - Microsoft Zune to share the music

CNN.com - Microsoft Zune to share the music - Sep 15, 2006

“The idea is to legitimize peer-to-peer sharing in a healthy way that works for everybody,” said J Allard, a Microsoft vice president in charge of the Zune product line.

How did MS manage to make two posts today, even after not posting for a bit. But this is another good idea by Microsoft that could change the way we share music. The only problem, they are not the first mover and I would suspect Apple could add this to future iPods as well as possibly an attachment for current ones. Apple already has a successful marketplace. But then again, if the music companies do not like it, it might take some tome before we see it.

15 September, 2006 | No comments

Is open source getting to Microsoft?

Is open source getting to Microsoft? | CNET News.com

The best thing about this is the fundamental mind shift at Microsoft. A couple of years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now it is real. This is really a major change in the way Microsoft deals with the open-source community,” said Gerald Beuchelt, a Web services architect working in the Business Alliances Group in Sun Microsystems’ chief technologist’s office.

Humm, MS deserves some credit for this one. This is a briliant move. Hopefully it is a change in strategy and the consumer will benefit.

15 September, 2006 | No comments