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In a blog a few weeks back I posted about a possible Social Networking trail that Google was attempting.
This being called +1, and of course you know in Facebook when you are logged in you can like something, well now you will start to see a new button in town labeled +1. We are not sure if this is the start of a new social network that Google is building or if it is just a simply a social layer that Google wanted to introduce but really is not meant to be a real rival to Facebook. As of right now a small % of US Google searchers that search in English will see a +1 button next to the search listings when they are logged into their Google account. What this does is if you +1 a site it will become enhanced in the search results once a search is done again. Part of it will help you see how popular a page might be by +1 users. You will also see +1 next to AdWords, no doubt to help in advertising revenue for Google and make the companies who use it show its popularity to people who may not have seen that company before. Soon +1 is supposed to be as normal as the Facebook like button you see on so many web sites. Who knows what this will mean in revenue for Google in the ad world but when Google puts its stamp on something people do tend to follow.

Amazon yesterday announced a new service in which you can store all of your music in one place and then be able to stream it through your phone and other devices. Well once again the music industry is crying foul. Stating that Amazon needs to get streaming licensing agreements for people to access their own music that they most likely already bought from a source like iTunes. Apparently Amazon is in the works of obtaining such licenses but not before launching the Cloud service. Of course the first thing I read about this is from Sony music having issues with the fact this streaming deal hasn’t been put into place but they are in high hopes that this happens.
This is not the first time a company has been taken to court over this back in 2007 EMI sued MP3tunes, which was a company that offered a service similar to the Cloud. It is unclear whether customers who own the music are allowed to remotely access the storage services offered by cloud computing. I am against the whole litigation against companies that are offering a service to stream music you already own to your private devices. If the music companies want to get paid for stuff they didn’t invent, why they don’t start working on these technologies. I feel like this is a bit of double dipping. The customer pays for the song but yet can’t access it from their computers via their phone. Well the funny thing s if you have an iPod and put music on that, you still have the music on your PC and iPod. So should the music industry put a tax on companies who make MP3 devices, full knowing the music could go on an iPad, iPod and still be on someone’s computer? But since it is not being streamed over the internet it’s ok to do that? This is a convenience service that a company created and people will love it and it is free for the first 5GB but the starving music industry must need a bail out from the government with all the litigation they do. I hope that if this goes to court the judge rules in the favor of Amazon. I am always angry to read these types of things, we can all understand the music industries battle against piracy because that is illegal but this cloud computing seems like a gray area to me. By ruling in the favor of the music industry this could open problems for other cloud computing ideas everywhere.

Amazon has finally broken into the streaming music realm. The Amazon Cloud Player is the name and streaming YOUR music is its game! Unlike other streaming music sites like Pandora or Spotify it lets you stream your music library from any PC or Android device. I have read a few things about this Cloud Player and will share some information I feel is interesting. If you have iTunes at the start of using cloud while it uploads your music it will also take playlists that you have already created from iTunes. The layout of Cloud seems easy and organized and it also lets you skip around to different points in your music library obviously something that you can’t do on the streaming music players today. The music quality is about the same as any other streaming music player. The cloud is free for the first 5GB of music but most people will need a bit more. You can spend $20/year which is basically 1GB per $1. All though this is a very interesting idea from Amazon which could possibly be huge if people decide not to put music into own android phone.

A few blog posts back I wrote about how Warner Bros. was putting the The Dark Knight up for rental through Facebook. Well it looks like it must have been successful. By now you should be able to rent films such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Inception, Life as We Know It and Yogi Bear. So it seems like a strong mix of movies to rent. Although they are still in the testing phases and the movies such as Harry Potter and Inception were put on this test because of what the President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution says has a very popular and active Facebook fan page. Customers will have full control over the movie while watching it through their Facebook account and will have it for 48 hours from rental. Seeing as Warner is expanding on the test it The Dark Knight must have been successful for them to try some movies. Although it is interesting they said two franchises have strong followings on Facebook, which could lead me to believe they are going to see if they can do the rentals on movies that are just capitalizing on a strong Facebook following.

New research is suggesting that at this moment 9% of United States internet users are using peer-to-peer or P2P networks, which is down substantially from 2007. The market research firm NPD Group, has stated that P2P has actually dropped from 16% to 9% in the last 3 years. This data comes from the 4th quarter of 2010, right after a federal judge shut down LimeWire. This shut down defiantly helped bring that number down, even though other P2P programs saw an increase in usage. The numbers also show that the average number of downloads per person also fell, from 35 per quarter in 07 to 18 per quarter by the finish of 2010. Warner music also did some data mining and found that 13% of consumers were pirates and noted that even the pirates spent some of their money on recorded music. Even though there has been a decent decline in the piracy sector, it is still far from eradicated. It will be truly difficult to gage whether or not we will see piracy decline even further. My money is on a slow and gradual decline but we will never truly be rid of piracy.

Ashley Mitchell a 29 year old hacker has received 2 years in a United Kingdom jail for hacking into a computer server. He has been found guilty of stealing 400 billion virtual poker chips from the company Zynga. Zynga makes such social networking games as FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Zyngapoker. The poker chips are estimated at a value of $12 million. What he did after he received the chips was transferring the poker chips to multiple accounts on Facebook. Then he would sell the chips at a cheaper price vs. what you would pay Zynga for them. Mitchell made just over £50,000 before he was caught. It is estimated however that he could have made around £184,000. The funny thing is how he actually got caught. He accidentally used his own Facebook profile during one of his attempts to hack into Zynga. So it just goes to show you, if you put your hand into the cookie jar one too many times you are bound to get caught.

If you had an outage on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 while trying to instantly stream your Netflix movies or TV shows well you should have received an email from Netflix apologizing for the downtime and not only that but also offering you a 3% discount on your monthly bill for the downtime. So check your email and click the link within the email within 7 days of receiving the email to earn your 3% credit. Although in the email Netflix doesn’t divulge why exactly it was down but sited that it was experiencing technical issues. To me honestly I am fine with an answer like that. Why you may ask? Well because they made good on the downtime. They issued everyone who had a problem a credit and that is how business like that should be done. It is no wonder Netflix has taken the rental world by storm, not only are they extremely convenient but they make good on mistakes and issues. I would love to see if my cable went down for a whole day they issue me a credit for it. It is just really nice to see that Netflix appreciates your business and you aren’t just an $8 a month number they collect.

A few posts back I put down that when IE9 launched it had over 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours. Well Firefox was about to double the amount of downloads with the first 24 hours of its launch. A decent 4.7 million downloads in the first 24 hour span. That is still less than the 8 million copies that were downloaded of Firefox 3 in 2008 but obviously there were fewer browsers to choose from back in 2008. With a more informed customer base you have internet users spread out across Google Chrome, Safari, IE and of course Firefox. This new version brings more features to the already reliable browser, such as new security and privacy options, faster loads and JavaScript, support for a variety of new standards including WebM video and WebGL 3D graphics, and 3D acceleration that extends to even Windows XP. Maybe with these new enhanced features, Firefox can steal some people back from Google Chrome.

Bertrand Serlet, the leader of the development of the Mac OS X from the very start is leaving Apple. It would be no surprise if the majority of the people reading this right now are unfamiliar with his name, because he really wasn’t in the spotlight. He is one of those figures that is in the trenches making things happen for the customers of the Apple products. For not knowing who he is, he played a vital role in Apple. He started with Steve Jobs over 22 years ago and was one of the great minds that developed the iPod.

This departure can be very troubling to Apple. Seeing as they are in the middle of developing Lion which is the first major update to the desktop operating system. The only real reason that he was giving for this is that he wants to focus more on the “science instead of the products. Although any talk of why he is actually leaving is really just speculation and conjecture at this point. We will most likely find the answers to these major questions of why someone who has been with Apple basically since its inception would be leaving at such a crucial time with Lion in the middle of development.

When iTunes hit our PC’s everyone who had an Ipod was so happy to see a program that they could keep all of their music in one place to easily transfer to their iPod. This eventually evolved into applications and movies as well. Well no its Android’s turn for an app store, well sort of. Amazon has launched an Appstore with 3,800 applications for the Android. Tonight Amazon will be available online through amazon.com/appstore. Users of the android will also be able to download a version to their Android device. Amazons appstore will launch with some mobile heavy hitters being on the platform, including companies such as Gameloft, Handmark, and one of my personal favorites Glu Mobile. Though Apple is suing Amazon for trademark infringement and unfair competition over the name, who would have thought Apple would be afraid of a little competition.
The appstore is actually very small compared to the Android Marketplace and of course the iTunes market. Amazon is even making a splash with some exclusive content for Angry Birds. To drive more business Amazon will be offering a few things to drive it.
• First Amazon will offer one free application a day to help promotions.
• Amazon will offer a feature called Test Drive, which will allow a customer to try an app out before they buy it. The technology is using Amazon’s cloud services. Users will be able to open and use the application from within their computer browsers. The sim will last around 30 minutes at said point you will have to buy the product.
• Finally, Amazon will drive recommendations based on a user’s purchase history. So if someone purchases cook book and high-end utensils, Amazon will recommend a recipe application.
• Amazon will also have a one-click purchase for anyone who wants to keep a credit card on file.

So all in all Amazon is shaping up to be a true contender in the application market. We will just have to wait out and see what will happen with the lawsuit Apple has placed on Amazon and what will come of it if Apple does win.