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RockMe. has got to the be the only five-day music festival where you won't pay for tickets. It is social-networking site Me.dium's attempt to rock your world, and the only thing you need to get in is your Web browser. (Of course, you still have to bring your own drinks.)

RockMe., which runs from September 18 through September 22, 2007, will feature bands, music video competitions, and the world's safest mosh pit--it's virtual. More important to Me.dium, the RockMe. festival will provide plenty of opportunities for band members and music lovers to swap fond memories of choice lyrics and drum solos using Me.dium's service.… Read more

Editor's Note: This review has been updated to include new information.

Once upon a time, there was an idea to electronically, immediately read and search major literary works online.

This is how Google Books first entered public consciousness, as a tangled controversy between publishers who feared copyright infringement and Internet enthusiasts championing Google's momentum to search everything.

Liberating information is good, those publishers said, but not at our expense. Not so, replied Google, who promised it could increase awareness for niche publishers, protect copyrights, and create opportunity for greater sales all while promoting a valuable public service.… Read more

Yahoo agreed to buy advertising network Blue Lithium for $300 million this week, a deal that adds to a string of industry acquisitions and signals a growing new direction for online ads.

Blue Lithium, based in San Jose, Calif., specializes in selling performance-based display ads across a network of Web sites. Like search-related text ads, performance banners let advertisers pay for exposure to customers only when people respond to the ad, whether it's by agreeing to receive more information or by taking some action. The privately held company, which also sells behavioral targeted ads, is ranked the fifth largest … Read more

Have you ever been out shopping and wondered if the item you were buying might have a coupon? We certainly have--and with Online Coupon Check for iPhone, you can find out right away if you need to wait on that big purchase. You enter in the item in question, and then Online Coupon Check, made by KeepCash, will go to work looking for potential savings. The interface is set up to search for things alphabetically, so browsing sale items is easy.

iPhone Link: http://www.keepcash.com/iphone

Web site link: http://www.keepcash.com/tools

MediaMaster is one of many companies worth keeping an eye on, mainly for the potential of having your entire music library available anywhere you go, as long as you've got an Internet connection. Their Facebook app, which went live just a few weeks ago, is a prime example of a great use of the service.

The app lets you set up a huge playlist of music, and serve it up right on your profile in a miniplayer. Anyone who comes by your profile can then get the full quality versions of the tracks streamed in whatever order you set … Read more

So ... what happened?! It seems like I should be sitting by a pool, sipping a fruity cocktail. However, the calendar claims that it's back-to-school season. (Most frighteningly, I saw my first Christmas advertisement yesterday.)

The end of August is an excellent time to optimize that old laptop for your son's freshman year of college, or to find great free software for empowering that new PC with an arsenal of goodies. Check out two collections of excellent back-to-school software: the first (with video!) from honor-roll assistant editor Jessica Dolcourt; the second from our favorite superhero, Power Downloader.

In the … Read more

It's back to school time, and Internet safety expert Linda Criddle has come up with homework for schools, students and parents: Do a safety checkup of your school's Web site to ensure that it is not making too much personal information publicly available.

She has created Guidelines for Safer School Web Sites to help schools cope with the new realities of our information society. News that can be appropriately shared within a school community--student names, team affiliations, sports practice times, and photos, for example--can expose students to considerable risk for misuse when shared with the whole world online.… Read more

In an appeal to the coveted youth vote in the upcoming presidential elections, MySpace and MTV announced Thursday that they have joined forces for a series of "one-on-one dialogues" with all the major candidates from both political parties--televised and Webcast events in which presidential hopefuls will answer questions from MySpace members and MTV watchers. Formally, it's a collaboration between MySpace's "Impact" political channel and MTV's "Choose or Lose" election effort (which it has been operating since the dinosaur days of the 1992 election), and it's the first collaboration that the … Read more

Cha, cha, cha.

Online brokerages E*Trade Financial and TD Ameritrade Holding reportedly are hitting the dance floor to test out the concept of a merger, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal notes that the parties have been in tight discussions over the past weeks but that they haven't yet progressed to that final M&A dip.

Nonetheless, E*Trade shares were up 6 percent and TD Ameritrade rose 8 percent in pre-market trading, according to MarketWatch.

A merger of the two online brokerages would bring consolidation to the market, a move that … Read more