Consumer content

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff portrayed his company on Wednesday as one that needs the merger with Live Nation to survive.

"Any of you guys can write a program to sell some tickets," he told the crowd at the D: All Things Digital conference here.

Conference co-host Kara Swisher took issue with his positioning. "Most people don't consider Ticketmaster a victim," Swisher said.

Azoff noted that more and more entities are getting into the ticketing business, forcing his company to diversify as well.

"It's the natural evolution of business," he said. &… Read more

CARLSBAD, Calif.--After a shaky start, tech veteran Philippe Kahn impressed the crowd at D by showing how his company's motion-sensing technology could be used to stabilize a blurry cell phone photo.

Kahn's Fullpower Technologies was the first of several companies invited to do a no-slides tech demo at the conference. Kahn drew the ire of Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg when he tried to sneak in some PowerPoint.

The last moments were interesting, though, as Kahn and a co-worker took an iPhone photo and showed it as initially captured and then stabilized using their technology. The best … Read more

We've all heard the rant. With e-books, there's no paper, printing, transportation, and so forth. So why should an e-book still cost $9.99 (typical for Kindle) or even more?

The idea of e-books being cheaper makes a lot of intuitive sense. If everything you physically hold in your hand and everything it took to deliver that physical good to your hand can be converted to a few megabytes worth of electrons, surely the cost of the book must be dramatically lower than a typical hardcover--and the price should reflect that fact.

The problem is that the costs … Read more

We've all had those ideas that seemed like good one at the time and then perhaps didn't seem so good the following morning. Or when the police got involved.

But a marketing agency in Australia reportedly decided to skip straight to the part involving the police.

Mentally Friendly (because mental friends really are the best) decided to set up a Twitter account in the name of the New South Wales police. Which was an interesting thing to do, save for the fact that an increasingly large number of people thought it really was written by the New South … Read more

Facebook announced on Tuesday a $200 million investment from Digital Sky Technologies (DST), whose social networks are market leaders in Europe.

Presuming Facebook is valued at $10 billion, DST's $200 million comes out to about a 1.96 percent stake, the companies said in a statement. DST would not have a seat on the board or hold special observer rights, the companies said.

DST also plans to offer to purchase at least $100 million of Facebook common stock from existing stockholders whose shares have vested. The details of the plan will be announced during the summer.

"This investment … Read more

Update at 6:30 p.m. PDT: Details on the semifinals have been added.

Fans of Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle have been counting down the days to the semifinals of "Britain's Got Talent."

Of course, most of us (yes, I am one of her fans, big time) don't normally try to watch British TV live. After spending a bit of time scouring the Net to figure out how to watch her performance in the semifinals, I found one of her fan sites that pointed to a Justin.tv channel's stream.

On Saturday's show, … Read more

Why would anyone with eyes, fingers and a pulse bother with Lolcats when they can go to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com?

Yes, cats do the cutest, silliest things. But nothing compared to some of the examples of extended human exceptionalism on this extraordinary site.

The creation of two Los Angeles writers, Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, AwkwardFamilyPhotos celebrates the sheer nonsense that is the family.

It also may provide new sources of business for those photographers who set up studios in malls and hang pictures in the window that look like the subjects were drugged for the sake of art.

At least … Read more

A judge has ordered Henry McMaster, attorney general of South Carolina, not to file any criminal charges against Craigslist until the related matter is settled in court.

A judge for the U.S. district court in South Carolina on Friday issued a temporary restraining order in the case. Craigslist sought the order after McMaster threatened the service as well as its managers with criminal prosecution.

McMaster has demanded that Craigslist do more to halt prostitution ads from appearing on its site. He said he would instruct his staff to launch a criminal investigation unless the ads were removed. He continued … Read more

One thing is for sure, if a story reported yesterday is accurate, Henry McMaster, the attorney general for South Carolina is no expert at fighting prostitution.

Earlier this month, McMaster threatened Craigslist with criminal prosecution if the online classifieds site, did not do more to remove prostitution ads on its site. But according to a report by The Associated Press, McMaster said Thursday he has "never handled a single such case in more than six years as the state's top prosecutor."

"I don't think this office has handled any prostitution prosecutions ever," McMaster was … Read more