Consumer content

Kindle owners stage e-book price protest

Wired's Gadget Lab blog has a story about how a group of about 250 Kindle owners are staging an online protest over Kindle e-books that cost more than $9.99. The weapon they're using is Amazon's own tagging system, as price offenders are getting hit with a special "9 99 boycott" tag.

The roving--and most likely growing--band of annoyed Kindle owners includes such folks as Connecticut librarian Crystal O'Brien, who spends "a few minutes every day in the Kindle book store tagging the more expensive digital books with the '9 99 boycott' tag … Read more

Google to publishers: We're not evil or illegal

A day after the editor of The Wall Street Journal referred to online news aggregators--particularly Google and its Google News product--as "parasites or tech tapeworms," and the chairman of the Associated Press announced an initiative to protect print media content from infringing use online, Google has fired back in a blog.

The gist of Tuesday's blog post, penned by Google associate general counsel Alexander Macgillivray: don't point fingers at us.

"We show snippets and links under the doctrine of fair use enshrined in the United States Copyright Act," he wrote. "Even though the … Read more

Taking your health records online

roundup Many companies are working on efforts to make patients' medical records available on the Internet.

Wireless industry wants in on health care stimulus money Wireless industry is hoping it can reap the rewards of billions of dollars being spent on health care technology as part of the economic stimulus package. (Posted in Wireless by Marguerite Reardon) April 7, 2009 4:00 AM PDT

Google Health expands deal with CVS Customers of CVS' pharmacy will now be able to import their prescription records into Google Health. (Posted in Beyond Binary by Ina Fried) April 6, 2009 12:48 PM PDT … Read more

Wall Street Journal, AP take aim at Google

Traditional media is once again rattling sabers in the direction of Google and other sites that aggregate news stories.

There's tough talk coming from managers at The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press that include threats of legal challenges and even name calling.

"There is no doubt that certain Web sites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet," Robert Thomson, the Journal's editor, was quoted in Australian newspaper The Australian on Monday. "It's certainly true that readers have been socialized--wrongly I believe--that much content should be … Read more

Amazon finds niche in iTunes-dominant market

The NPD Group just sent out some interesting statistics, based on a study conducted by its music-tracking service.

"In 2008, 87 percent of digital-music buyers in the U.S. used iTunes to download music, versus just 16 percent who used Amazon MP3," according to a spokesman for the research group. (Those surveyed could list more than one store.)

On the face of it, the study's numbers don't sound so bad.

Russ Crupnick, an NPD analyst agreed that they should encourage Amazon. For one, the online retailer's music store is in second place only 18 months … Read more

Yahoo Music opening pages to YouTube, others

Yahoo plans to fire up a revamped version of its Artist Pages on Tuesday, a service that lets people add content from iTunes, YouTube, and other sites to the Yahoo Music site that previously only had Yahoo's own content.

The site publishes information including tour dates and music videos for more than 500,000 artists and lets people download and purchase music. Now the site will blend in information from non-Yahoo sources, the company said, part of an effort to make the site a better starting point.

First come modules from iTunes, Amazon.com, Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, YouTube, … Read more

Why baseball benched Microsoft Silverlight

The thwacking sounds of bats striking balls will once again fill stadiums, as Monday is opening day for Major League Baseball. This year, Microsoft will watch from the sidelines.

MLB.com no longer uses Microsoft's Silverlight to stream games to its 500,000 subscribers. This season fans will watch live and on-demand video via Adobe's Flash player.

In November, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league's tech unit, announced it would discontinue using Silverlight, the browser plug-in that MLBAM had signed up for barely a year earlier. The decision was not insignificant. MLBAM not only runs the … Read more

Overhauling Facebook's photo system

This was originally published at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Facebook's photo storage system holds 850 million photos and costs a lot of dough. Niall Kennedy has a nice overview of what Facebook is doing to minimize its storage costs.

Facebook's system, dubbed Haystack, is custom-built but relies on content delivery networks and NetApp. Facebook is trying to minimize the custom stuff and use commodity hardware.

Kennedy does a nice job of synthesizing Facebook's storage system. In a nutshell:

• Facebook's previous system relied heavily on Akamai and Limelight to improve latency. • That Akamai and Limelight use … Read more

Now streaming on Netflix: SpongeBob, Cartman

Viacom's MTV Networks has brought some of its television content to Netflix's library of streaming online video, the companies announced Monday.

The offering consists primarily of kids' shows from the Nickelodeon network, with select seasons from the shows "iCarly," "Blue's Clues," "Dora the Explorer," "SpongeBob SquarePants," and a handful of others, as well as the first nine seasons of "South Park," the Comedy Central animated series that you probably don't want your kids watching.

Netflix's streaming-video service still very much takes the back burner to … Read more