TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Microsoft’s latest foray into search, Bing, went live early June amid mixed reviews. So the obvious question many are asking is how has it fared against almighty Google in its first month? Not bad, according to research firm StatCounter, which claims Microsoft's share of the search market increased from 7.81 percent to 8.23 percent since the launch of its search portal.


That number is significantly lower than what was reported two weeks into Bing’s launch, however, showing many just took it for a spin and then moved back to their original search provider. Yahoo’s market share on the other hand stayed practically stationary last month, going from 10.99 to 11.04 percent, while Google’s share dropped slightly from 78.72 percent in May to a still dominant 78.48 percent of the market in June.

Microsoft’s gain may be small but is nevertheless important to the company, which is investing heavily in its online services business, refusing to cede the market to Google. One month is not enough to claim a strong comeback, though, we’ll have to wait and see if they can keep up the growth pace.

Windows Live Hotmail has brought incoming POP3 access to the US, Canada and Brazil – something that should have happened years ago. This of course means that you’ll be able to have centralized access to your mail from Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other services. Residents of the West are behind those in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK and Spain, which already had incoming POP3 access.

Configuring the new feature is pretty straightforward. Log into your Hotmail account and click “Add an e-mail account” on the left side of your inbox. Then, simply provide the email address and password for your other account and choose where you want the messages to appear. Naturally, you’ll also need to go and enable the POP3 services of your other account.

Then again, if you want speedier access and a more intelligent user interface, switch to Gmail and access multiple email accounts using that instead.

Having failed to compete against the likes of YouTube and Hulu, Joost is retreating from the consumer market and will instead focus on building white label video platforms for “cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators” – essentially licensing its technology to third parties. As part of the restructuring plan, Joost will also close its Netherlands office, lay off a large number of employees and appoint a new CEO.

Despite plans to focus on other lines of revenue, its Joost.com portal will continue to operate for the time being as they still have programming deals in place with a handful of networks; including CBS, Viacom and Warner Bros. The service officially launched in 2007 and was positioned to become the go-to destination for professionally produced video – mostly because of the reputation of its founders who also created Skype and Kazaa. However, Joost never quite resonated with users.

Some of its early mistakes included requiring users to download a software client, as opposed to YouTube which allowed streaming video directly from the site, and failing to sign the kind of premium content that made Hulu popular. They eventually re-launched as a web-based service and signed new content, but apparently it was too little too late.

The Chinese government has announced new regulations that would limit the impact virtual currencies have on the country’s economy, by prohibiting their exchange for cash or real-world goods. The move is widely seen as a crackdown on so-called “gold farming,” in which people amass virtual money on MMO games (usually by repeating mundane actions over and over), and then sell it to other players for real cash.

A survey carried out in 2008 by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester estimated that up to 500,000 people worldwide were involved in gold farming activities. The practice is actually frowned upon and embraced by many depending on how you look at it – after all there are those who want to get ahead on games the easy way and others willing to make a living out of it.

The market is particularly strong in China, where it amounted to nearly $2 billion last year, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. In issuing the rules, the government said they were meant to cope with a growing number of problems associated with virtual currencies, including fraud concerns.

Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) announced that it is in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for about $7.8 million – about half of which will be paid in cash. GGF owns a band of Internet cafes and gaming centers. The company hopes to see the deal close by August, after which it will introduce a new business model. Already, GGF’s shares have skyrocketed in response to the news.

Not only must the new model comply with law, it must satisfy the content providers, broadband operator and end users. GGF hopes to deploy a model which will compensate copyright owners for downloadable content. The company’s CEO, Hans Pandeya feels that in addition to paying content creators, file sharers need quicker transfer rates and overall better quality.

If you want a glimpse of what’s to come, GGF has also announced the acquisition of Peerialism, a company which has developed a “next generation file-sharing technology.”

Making good on a two-year-old promise, the folks behind infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay briefly opened up their streaming video platform for public testing today. Dubbed Video Bay, the forthcoming service is billed as a rival to both YouTube and Hulu, where its users will be able to share video and audio clips without of fear of them getting pulled due to copyright violations.


Users were able to browse though videos in a “beta extreme” version of Video Bay, but this has been disabled now – two preview clips are still available on the main page. The site implements new HTML 5 features to serve content, specifically audio and video tags, meaning you’ll need a browser that supports this functionality such as the latest Firefox Beta or Safari 4 in order to try it out.

The Video Bay will undoubtedly attract the attentions of the MPAA and other rights holders worldwide, though its founders agree that it might take a while before the site goes live. The announcement of its “beta extreme” version comes as the four men operating the Pirate Bay face up to a year in prison and some hefty fines for assisting copyright infringement.

The music industry is facing another minor setback in the courts, admitting that a case they brought to trial was faulty from the start. Specifically, RIAA member Universal Music Group has been forced to drop a case against someone who apparently did not even own a computer at the time copyright infringement supposedly occurred. The flawed evidence was collected by anti-piracy snooping firm MediaSentry, which has been criticized before for regularly misidentifying file sharers by making assumptions about the accuracy of IP addresses.

Numerous cases like this have appeared since the RIAA began their massive legal campaign. For all their effort, has it benefited them (or anyone) at all? It's been demonstrated before that the lawsuits, as a whole, are a losing proposition for the RIAA in terms of money – and it certainly hasn't helped their public appearance either.

The RIAA's more or less broken promise to stop suing people left and right has done nothing to benefit their reputation in the eyes of the music consumers. Though they insist that methods like lawsuits and making ISPs tax their customers is they way to save the music industry, they've yet to show any tangible evidence that what they are doing is right.

A few days after being found guilty of assisting copyright infringement, sentenced to heavy fines and a year behind bars, the lawyer for one of The Pirate Bay’s co-founders charged that judge Tomas Norström belonged to pro-copyright groups and was therefore biased against them. Allegations of a conflict of interest were leveled at him, with the plaintiffs asking a court of appeal for a retrial with a different judge.

Despite criticizing Norström for not being open about his engagement in the associations before the trial, a Swedish court ruled today that he was not biased by belonging to various pro-copyright organizations, adding that simply endorsing the principles of copyright law was no grounds for disqualification in a trial. The ‘no bias’ ruling can’t be appealed, which means that there will not be a retrial, but the verdict in the Pirate Bay trial can still – and likely will – be appealed.

Meanwhile the file-sharing site, which now counts more than 20 million users, keeps operating as usual.

Following its release on Linux, OS X, and Apple TV platforms quite a while ago, Boxee has finally launched a public alpha of its software for Windows users. The media center program, based on the open source XBMC project, combines Internet media with personal content and includes features such as playlists, audio visualizations, slideshows, social networking and an expanding array of third-party plugins.


The latest release introduces a handful of surprises such as official MLB.tv support, offering full access to baseball games around the country within the Boxee interface, as well as other new and upcoming integration with Digg, Tumblr and Current. Boxee also received some UI tweaks here and there, along with generally improved streaming, M4A and M4V playback, lower CPU usage on Macs, and DVD playback optimization.

The release is a major milestone for Boxee, which will now be available to a much wider user base, as it pursues its goal of getting on-demand content out of the browser and into the living room. The company is planning to release its own dedicated set-top box eventually and hopes to license its media center app to third-party hardware, software and content providers as well. For now, those with Boxee accounts can grab the latest release here, while newcomers need to register at the Boxee website first.

One of the best things the Internet gives to technology consumers is the chance to hear opinions from real people on what they feel about a certain product. Sites like Amazon and Newegg give small bits of space for user reviews, while reputable hardware sites often provide balanced analysis of new gadgets and bloggers are free to say whatever they want about any product. The latter has the FTC concerned, it seems, following a report that the agency may be heading down a path to crack down on “unethical” bloggers.

Many people might jump up and wonder what the FTC is doing even thinking about trying to stop a blogger from posting a product review of their own. It isn't the blogging that's the problem, though, but rather potential dishonesty behind it. The commission is concerned about people getting paid by companies or getting some sort of freebie, be it a free product, a free vacation or anything else in exchange for positive reviews – and not disclosing when they receive such freebies.

Should the FTC get involved at all, however? On the one hand, the proposed guidelines are intended to clarify existing rules against deceptive and unfair business practices by specifically including bloggers for the first time. On the other hand, though, many are worried that the rules will be too strict, even extending to the practice of placing affiliate links to earn a commission from product purchases, without giving readers a heads-up first.

What’s your take, should bloggers be able to take any kickbacks they want, and let readers decide whether or not they are a credible source of information?

Last year in the case of Jammie Thomas, US District Judge Michael Davis said he made a “manifest error of law” when he instructed the jury that simply making songs available for sharing could be considered illegal distribution – even without proof that anyone actually downloaded them. The case was declared a mistrial, eliminating an obscene $222,000 fine for making available 24 copyrighted songs on the KaZaA network, with a second go-around scheduled for 2009.

Turns out, yesterday the single mother of four was found guilty again, only this time she was ordered to pay a mind-boggling $80,000 per song; or $1.9 million in total. Outside the courtroom, Thomas called the penalty “kind of ridiculous,” as she has no means of paying such a large fine. It’s unclear whether or not she plans to appeal the decision, as a spokesperson for the RIAA said record companies are willing to settle out of court for a much smaller amount, and that they’ve been prepared to do so “since day one.”

While Thomas’ case is the first of its kind to make it to trial, there have been more than 35,000 similar cases where the RIAA persuaded people to hand over the cash without recourse to law. Regardless of any possible out of court settlement, many believe that the massive $1.9 million fine might actually end up hurting the RIAA’s anti-piracy campaign more than anything else, as it offers a clear example of how unreasonable and absurd their damages theory for copyright infringement really is.

According to a comScore report released today, Microsoft’s latest search engine is continuing to grow two weeks after its debut. Bing has managed to increase Microsoft’s position in the search market, but it has a long way to go before it’s rubbing shoulders with Google. Redmond has seen an increase of 3% in search result pages and searcher penetration alike.


The report shows that Microsoft has boosted its share of search result pages in the US market to 12.1% from June 8 to 12. This comes as an improvement over its June 1 to 5 period showing 11.3%. In the work week prior to Bing’s introduction, the software giant’s share was a mere 9.1%. The company’s most recent searcher penetration was 16.7%, up from 15.8% June 1-5 and 13.7% before Bing’s launch.

While the early data reflects a positive market reaction, I wonder whether users will continue to use Bing or revert back to Google and Yahoo. I played around with it for a half an hour following its opening, and I’ve not used it since. My experience wasn’t negative, but I found little reason to stick with it. Love it or hate it, let’s hear your thoughts on Bing so far.

This past March The Pirate Bay announced it was getting ready to launch a VPN service of sorts called IPREDator that would enable file-sharers to download content without leaving a data trail. The service was scheduled to go live back in April, but apparently suffered some setbacks – not the least of which are the millions of dollars in fines and possibly a year in prison for each of the site’s operators. Regardless, plans are indeed moving forward, with the service now available to 3,000 testers and another 180,000 in the queue.

The IPREDator Global Anonymity Service, which costs €5 (around $7) a month, is aimed at the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that went into effect this past April, empowering copyright owners to acquire data from ISPs identifying people linked to file sharing. Although traditional VPN services already offer some level of anonymity, IPREDATOR promises it will not even keep network records, meaning there is no point in collection agencies pressuring them to hand over customer data.

Yet another music distribution service is in the works, this time from industry giant Virgin Media Incorporated. In cahoots with the world’s largest label, Universal Music Group, Virgin plans to unveil their DRM-free music subscription service in the UK prior to the coming holiday season. The company is presently holding discussions with other labels and publishers as well.

There is no officially recognized pricing but, sources familiar with the service are hinting at a charge of £10-£15 ($16.30-$24.50). Virgin Media claims its broadband network will be the world’s first subscription service to offer unlimited DRM-less music. The company’s network serves about four million residential consumers. Universal Music’s chairman, Lucian Grainge, sees this as “completely ground breaking” – don’t ask me how.

The company acknowledges that it faces an uphill battle. Its service will be up against two well-established competitors: iTunes, and the pirate community. Downloading music illegally is now, from my perspective, socially acceptable among most crowds and Apple doesn’t need me to tell you how large iTunes has become. Furthermore, parents buying music for their children’s MP3 player probably can’t justify a monthly fee, and someone who downloads vast quantities of music likely already steals it.

Following a year-long test period, Adobe has decided to move its online productivity and collaboration services out of beta and introduced two paid subscription offerings targeted at business users. Among the products in Acrobat.com’s suite are Buzzword, an online word processor; ConnectNow, a web meeting program that enables screen sharing, chat and video among users; and Share, a file sharing program that lets users access files through a URL instead of an email attachment.


The service will retain its free version, but there are now usage limitations on certain features which can be unlocked by upgrading to either a Premium Basic ($14.99 per month or $149 per year) or Premium Plus ($39 per month or $390 per year) plan. That’s considerably more expensive than Google Apps, which packages services like Gmail and Google Docs together for $50 per user per year, but Adobe hopes to differentiate itself by offering web meetings and the ability to create documents in the PDF format.

Along with the move to paid accounts, Acrobat.com is getting a new collaborative app called Tables that handles basic spreadsheets, and in the next 12 months the company plans to offer Acrobat.com’s services on BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia and Windows Mobile smartphones.

Dell says it has generated more than $3 million in sales that can be traced back to people responding to its Twitter posts. Sure, that’s a drop in the bucket for a company with revenue of about $12.3 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, but it suggests all sorts of possibilities for how the service may earn companies some money and is particularly interesting considering Twitter has yet to find a viable business model.

The computer manufacturer has been using the micro-blogging service to publicize deals and refurbished products at @DellOutlet since June 2007. This account now has more than 630,000 followers and is directly responsible for $2 million in sales, according to Dell; with a further $1 million reportedly coming from customers who use the @DellOutlet handle as an entry point into the company’s website before ultimately purchasing something from them.

Currently, Twitter is not charging companies for using its service to promote and make sales, but something like that could indeed be underway as the social network is reportedly soliciting feedback from Dell while testing out some new features together. Twitter is also said to be looking into real-time search advertising to make a profit.

It appears that France’s controversial three strikes anti-piracy law, which would disconnect repeat Internet copyright infringers for up to a year, won’t come to fruition after all. Even though it passed the country’s National Assembly last month, after some initial resistance and tremendous pressure from the Sarkozy regime on the other side, the French Constitutional Council today overturned the decision claiming that communication and liberty of expression are fundamental rights that only a judge can rule on.

Indeed, the council found that the “Création et Internet” law violated the Declaration of 1789, which dictates that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. As a result, the law will be enacted without the “third-strike” element of cutting off people's Internet access – instead allowing the entertainment industry only to send copyright infringement warnings, something they’ve already done in the past.

The decision is a setback for President Nicholas Sarkozy, who argued that the law was crucial to protecting artistic creation in the digital era, and a huge victory to everyone opposing it. With the uproar this so-called “three strikes” law has caused in France, and an earlier measure passed by the European Parliament prohibiting EU governments from cutting off a user's Internet connection without a court order, it seems unlikely that other European countries will propose similar laws.

Facebook has decided to offer its users an additional level of profile customization. Starting June 13 at 4:01am GMT the popular social networking site will allow users to secure a custom username for their profiles. The handles will replace the present random sequence of digits in the URL.

Names will be restricted to alphanumeric characters and a period, and must be a minimum of five characters long. To lockdown your preferred name on Saturday, head over to facebook.com/username. Obviously no two handles will be identical, and with a userbase of 200 million plus – the early bird will most certainly get the worm. Fan Pages will require at least 1,000 fans and must have been created prior to May 31 of this year in order to qualify for a custom name.

Just like other social networking sites, once a profile URL has been chosen, it is set in stone. That said, in case you’re undecided or genuinely uninterested, selecting a name isn’t mandatory. The company hopes to make it easier for friends, family and even search engines to find profiles. How many of you will be spamming page refreshes at 4am to snag the common first names? I hope not too many.

It's been almost a week since the Federal Trade Commission dropped the hammer on Pricewert LLC, a rogue ISP accused of all sorts of wrongdoings, and indeed it seems the takedown has had an immediate impact on the level of spam sent worldwide. According to multiple sources around the web, spam levels have declined as much as fifteen percent since last week, with notorious botnets Cutwail and Pushdo apparently being among those affected by this move.

Pricewert, which operated under various names including 3FN and APS Telecom, is accused of actively recruiting, hosting and participating in the distribution of spam, child pornography, malware and other illegal, malicious, or harmful content. While it’s good to see at least something is being done against these scourges, the results from the Pricewert takedown are not expected to be as dramatic as last year’s shutdown of McColo. In fact, following that incident, spammers may have put better backup systems in place to maintain control of their botnets of hacked computers.

The criminals who utilized the ISP’s services will undoubtedly find new willing partners somewhere else. Pricewert has not yet been convicted of any unlawful activity, but a first hearing is scheduled for June 15.

Digg.com is testing a new approach to monetizing its content this week, with the introduction of a platform that would let users Digg advertisements or bury them just as they do with news content. According to the company’s blog, these votes will have an immediate effect on ads’ value and relevance: the more popular an ad becomes, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely, the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged.


Ads also will be subject to removal from the system if they prove unpopular with users. This may seem risky to some advertisers, but the company believes it will encourage them to optimize their campaigns, making them more effective and relevant to the Digg community. The ads will be marked as sponsored content, but will otherwise have the same “look and feel” as the news stories.

The approach is somewhat similar to one implemented by Facebook a while ago, though in this case Digg users are already heavily engaged with voting on content they see on the site. Electronic Arts and Intel will be among the first advertisers to use the product, which will be in beta for the next few months.

If you've ever made use of any online service, you've agreed at least once to a Terms of Service. While some people may be vigilant and make sure to read through every term, most of us just skip right on through – which is what most companies expect. Further, whenever a service updates their terms, they often offer no more than a brief announcement they've done such. Some may require you to “re-agree”, but even then most people just click without reading. Other companies do not even offer that, changing the ToS at will without notification.

It's situations like that which have led to numerous scandals on the Internet, such as the most recent PR issue surrounding Facebook. If you recall, their terms of service were changed on the fly and resulted in a massive uproar, ultimately ending in the company backtracking.

Unlike Facebook, however, most companies aren't interested in letting users dictate their terms of service. It is for that very reason the EFF thinks there is a need for people to be more aware of changes in services they use, and have built an infrastructure to do just that. Their recently launched “terms of service tracker” at TOSBack.org will let people see up to date changes in terms of service agreements. Currently tracking many popular companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay and others, the EFF hopes it will encourage people to be more aware of what they agree to when they create or maintain an account at any of these sites.

During an Internet Week event a couple of days ago, News Corp.’s chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, said he foresees subscription-based access to at least some of Hulu’s content. Before you grab the pitch forks and torches - the vision is presently only of Miller’s speculation. That said, he continued by suggesting that he didn’t see why pay-based content wouldn’t happen, backing the idea further by calling it a “logical thing.”

Naturally, speculation is what it is, but Miller’s last gig was running AOL. He now coordinates News Corp.’s efforts in discovering methods of getting consumers to pay for their digital content. News Corp.’s properties include Fox Television, Fox News, 20th Century Fox films, The Wall Street Journal and more, so what Miller finds “logical” is bound to bear some credence.

He went on to offer some thoughts on what mainstream newspapers must do to halt their decreasing customer-base. According to Miller, the average consumer flocks to the concept of “bundles.” He feels that printed news should resort to offering bundles of various publications relevant to a given audience.

I somehow doubt that printed media's downturn will slow, much less increase sales given the presence of the Internet and alternative media outlets. Would you be willing to pony up for Hulu’s services or buy into “bundled” paper news?

Those in the web development business know that one of the more time consuming and often frustrating tasks when developing a new site is ensuring compatibility across different browsers – especially with older versions of Internet Explorer. Looking to streamline this process, Adobe has introduced a new service called BrowserLab that lets developers test their designs for browser compatibility directly from Dreamweaver CS4.


Previously code-named Meer Meer, the new service provides its users with real-time screenshots of browser renderings and includes multiple viewing and diagnostic tools to help pinpoint compatibility issues within a project. The initial set of supported browsers includes Firefox 2.x and 3.x on Windows XP and Mac OS X; Internet Explorer 6.x and 7.x on Windows XP; and Safari 3.x on Mac OS X.

Developers using any other code editor rather than a WYSIWYG tool like Dreamweaver can also access the service, which is launching as a free preview to a limited number of users; though Adobe plans to charge for it at some point. A somewhat similar tool is available from Microsoft as a standalone application and will be available as part of the next release of Microsoft Expression Web as well. Free online tools like BrowserShots have also been available for a while to serve the same purpose; supporting a wider range of browsers but with rather limited features and lacking real-time screenshot support.

Current-gen consoles have always been touted as being capable of much more than just gaming, and recently, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has taken some significant steps towards becoming that all-encompassing entertainment center. Not only was the rumored deal with Sky Player in Europe confirmed this week, but apparently live television programming is coming to the console for U.S. residents as well through a partnership with Hulu.

At least that’s according to the rumor mill, which was set in motion by a teasing Twitter message yesterday evening from Attack of the Show host Olivia Munn, reading: “Just finished promos for Hulu/Microsoft event I’m doing on June 8!” Microsoft has previously stated that they were investigating Hulu connectivity on the Xbox 360, so the idea of it being integrated right into the dashboard similar to the current Netflix streaming option is not at all farfetched.

Hulu also just announced a desktop client for accessing their content in a media-center-like format, which suggests they have every intention of moving into the living room. Perhaps we’ll hear more about this alleged partnership next week at Microsoft’s E3 press conference on Monday.

After confirming their plans for AOL at the end of last month, Time Warner has issued an update on matter today, announcing that its spinoff as an independent, publicly traded company should be complete around the end of the year. AOL will then focus on growing its web brands and services, as well as its advertising business.

Before the company can once again stand alone, Time Warner will need to buy out what little stake others have in AOL first, which essentially sums up to the 5% Google acquired in 2005.

The decline of AOL as a service provider has not been ignored by Time Warner, and at this point they are clearly seeking to cut their losses. After that, the question is, can AOL survive? Quarter after quarter the company sees profit decline, finding it difficult to compete in a market dominated by cheap broadband and larger ad/search providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Whatever niche they had carved for themselves initially, it has been eroding for years.

Update: Bing.com has opened its doors.

As expected, Microsoft has launched its revamped search service today and confirmed it has picked Bing as the branding for this new endeavor. Why that name? In their words: “You probably didn't wake up today expecting an entirely new search experience. But – Bing! – here it is.” Ok… now that we got that embarrassing piece of PR out of the way, we should note that this is not just a rebranding of their previous search engine but rather a major update, touted as a “decision engine,” introducing several new features and a fresh look.


Unlike previous efforts, which mostly focused on returning links to websites based on searched terms and other algorithms, Bing tries to go a step further by actually retrieving and processing data so that results are presented in a predigested manner. For instance, searching for a particular type of restaurant will get you a scorecard for each option, with user comments and ratings for things like service, food, wait time and more.

Shopping searches return pages featuring product reviews and price comparisons, with an emphasis on Microsoft’s CashBack service for rebates, while searching for travel information will present users with options to book tickets and even predicts when the lowest fares will be available – using technology from Farecast.com. General searches are also improved with related searches links based on semantic technology from PowerSet, which it purchased in 2008, and the main search box now also features suggestions as you type.

Overall it seems Microsoft has done some vast improvements to its search product – whether or not it will be enough to steal away any of Google's search market is another thing. Bing needs to seriously impress users to save Microsoft from its dwindling presence in this segment. Unfortunately, the service will not be broadly available until next week, but you can watch an introductory video here.

Microsoft’s expected launch of a new search engine this week will be accompanied by a massive ad campaign and possibly a new brand name as well, according to AdAge. Known only as "Kumo" up until now, the revamped search service might launch as "Bing" – although Microsoft just lost an attempt to trademark the word, so who knows. The ad campaign will center on promoting the new brand and challenge users to think if search really does work as well as they thought.

Google has about 65% of the search market share and Yahoo about 20%, while Microsoft remains in the single digits. But the software giant believes there is a lot of room for improvement and in fact offers some internal data indicating 42 percent of all searches need to be refined after the first query.

They may be right, but even with a killer search platform and an advertising campaign said to cost upwards of $100 million, the Google brand has already become synonymous with Internet search; you can expect Microsoft to have a hard time changing that mindset.

Citing the ever-elusive “people familiar with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal has reported that a Russian Internet investment group has offered to invest $200 million in Facebook. The WSJ said that it is presently unknown whether the popular social networking site has responded to Digital Sky Technologies’ offer. The proposal comes as Facebook is reportedly in discussion with various venture-capital and private-equity firms about generating funds to aid in its growth.

Under the terms of DST's proposed deal, they are prepared to buy between $100 million and $150 million in Facebook common stock at a $6.5 billion valuation. The amount would likely be used to buy up Facebook employees' company shares.

The WSJ reports that Facebook has struggled lately with finding investors, and if this deal is accepted it’d be the first significant funding boost in a year and a half. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg has said that they may raise more money, but that it wasn’t necessary. Facebook is forecasting a 70% minimum revenue growth in 2009, that's a revenue projection of around $500 million or higher for the year.

Systemax, the company that bought bankrupt Circuit City's brand and other assets, has re-launched the online portion of the electronics retailer today with promises of lower prices, a wider selection, faster shipping and better customer service. If you go to the official CircuitCity.com website, it appears to be business as usual, although a link at the top takes visitors to a page with information about the new ownership and some other details that should be of interest to former Circuit City customers.


Specifically, the page contains a letter from Systemax executive Gilbert Fiorentino explaining that Circuit City customers can prevent their personal information from being transferred to the new owners by opting out no later than June 9, and provides a link for those who wish to do so. Of course, they encourage them not to do so and promise to always respect customers’ privacy. Systemax is also the owner of consumer electronics retail brands TigerDirect and CompUSA.

Interestingly, just a few days ago Walmart announced it was stepping up its consumer electronics push in a bid to get a portion of the market left up for grabs by Circuit City. I guess nothing’s ever that easy.

TuneCore is set to partner up with Amazon for an on-demand CD printing and distribution service that will give artists a cheaper method of physically publishing their work. The new service expands on TuneCore’s current digital distribution model, which enables artists to upload their own songs and albums to paid services like iTunes, eMusic and other outlets, and receive payments upon customer purchases.

For $31 a year, TuneCore will handle a 10-track CD from pressing to delivery; all other costs are passed on to the buyer. The service will provide an unlimited number of CDs which are made on demand and can be distributed all over the world via Amazon.com. The company hopes this will be appealing to artists because it eliminates a majority of the financial risks involved with short-lived CD manufacturing. The deal intends on delivering 100% of Amazon’s payout to the artist – or about 40% of the retail price.

This may seem strange to some as CD sales are declining and several major CD distributors are looking to switch over to a digital format. However, Jeff Prince, TuneCore CEO, is not discouraged. He believes that the costs of this service are low enough for many bands to just give it a go. “Let the music fan decide how they want the music,” Prince said. According to the CEO, TuneCore releases more music in one day than any major label does in an entire year and they are home to well-known artists, such as Trent Reznor, and unsigned bands alike.

Future plans include a widget that will allow bands to distribute tweets and songs to fans as well as an iPhone app for steaming music. TuneCore is also planning to implement some reward-based programs for artists.