NBC's legal precedent: iTunes bow

Yahoo exec: Labels should sell music without DRM

NEWS.COM: Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg raised eyebrows Thursday at the Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles with a proposal rarely heard from executives at large digital music services: Record labels should try selling music online without copy protection.

According to attendees, Goldberg pointed to the experience of eMusic, which offers its subscribers access to MP3 files without any digital rights management attached. Rights management restrictions have created a barrier for consumers, he said, making it a hurdle to transfer music to portable devices, and creating incompatibility between music services and MP3 players.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said that Goldberg was "basically trying to move the industry forward," and wanted to prompt industry-wide discussion "about what the consumer experience is."

It's a small (online) world after all

GQ Magazine Sends a Message

Social Networking Site Adholes Membership Passes 1,000 Member Mark

ADRANTS.COM: Along with the Adrants Network, another new social network for those in the ad industry has seen rapid growth. Adholes, launched at the beginning of November by Marc Lefton, a freelance advertising creative, and Mary Crosse, a project manager at Euro RSCG Worldwide, now has 1,000 members.

Much like social networking sites Myspace or Friendster, AdHoles, like the Adrants Network, is a niche advertising industry targeted social networking website that allows advertising professionals to keep track of their current contacts and meet new ones from independent and major agencies. Additionally, users can post blogs on industry topics, which spur comments from members of the site, forming a very collaborative and information rich environment.

Currently, the Adrants Network has 1,265 members.

Pixel millionaire in new online venture

FT.COM: Alex Tew, the 21-year-old who raised $1m with milliondollarhomepage.com, plans to launch a new online social networking business which he believes could become a billion-dollar company.

Mr Tew has been bombarded with emails since January, when he reached his target by selling a million pixels for $1 each on a static webpage to advertisers.

Most of the emails ask for advice on setting up a business, investment, and what he calls straight-out “begging emails”. But the young entrepreneur has also received advances from about a dozen potential investors interested in what ideas he has next.

Mr Tew said he would use some of the money he raised to start the new business, and would look for “second-round funding” about April.

“It’s very much a web 2.0-oriented application, about connecting users to each other, but with a specific market in mind,” he said. “It’s moving into a market that’s already established, but a market where there’s huge growth and room for innovation.

“I’m always thinking really big – there’s no point thinking small. I wanted to do something as impactful and profitable as Google. This year it won’t be as big as Google, but it could be a billion-dollar company.”

During a live Q&A on FT.com, Mr Tew said he believed having a good idea was crucial to getting good publicity.

“The crucial thing in creating the media interest was the idea itself: it was unique and quirky enough to stand out,” he wrote. “I only had to push the idea a bit in the first few days by sending out a press release - which essentially acted as a catalyst.”

“I’ve been coming up with ideas all my life and trying them out and although I’ve had some small successes in the past, The Million Dollar Homepage was in many ways my ‘breakthrough’,” he wrote.

In addition to the web 2.0-based business, he plans to invest smaller amounts in several different businesses – a few thousand here, a few thousand there – but is wary of getting ‘unfocused’.

Mr Tew readily admits the milliondollarhomepage idea was a one-off, and although it was a valuable learning experience, he still doesn’t know enough about business. “I’ve got a good instinct for marketing and I can recognise good ideas. I’ve learnt about delegating,” he said.

Ideally, he says, he would not be running a business but “sitting in a room all day, coming up with ideas”.

What the other Steve is saying about Apple's striking resurgence

Google Names Larry Brilliant as Executive Director of Google.org

Esther Dyson on the Value of Attention

An interview with Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia

Can Braun lift Yahoo's media group?

A Search Engine For Every Subject

BUSINESSWEEK.COM: Google and Yahoo rule, but a flock of upstarts is offering new ways to find info. Ron Conway hit paydirt as one of Google's earliest bankrollers. But don't try to convince him the search giant has a hammerlock on the sector. Sure, Google, by some estimates, handles nearly two-thirds of the world's Internet queries. It also shells out half a billion bucks each year on research and development and plucks the top engineers from powerhouse universities. Nevertheless, Conway believes that some of the most interesting search innovations will soon emanate from companies not named Google or, for that matter, Yahoo! or Microsoft. Over the past two years, he has bet heavily on this hunch, putting his money in nearly two dozen startups. "Search is in its infancy today," says the seasoned Silicon Valley investor. "It's at 10% of its potential, maybe."

=> Read the full story in BusinessWeek here.

Yahoo's Challenge