Wall St. Journal to End Fee for Web

From The New York Times - Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, said today that he intended to make access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue.

“We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having one million, having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth,” Mr. Murdoch said, referring to The Journal’s online readership.

The News Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Company, and the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. A special shareholders meeting is scheduled for Dec. 13 in New York. | Read full article

File-sharing is good for Big Music

From The Globe And Mail - Earlier today, Industry Canada, a ministry of the federal government, released a surprising study of peer-to-peer file-sharing on the music industry.

The study is called The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada, and was written by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, of the Department of Management at the University of London in England.

Its conclusion: P2P file-sharing does not put downward pressure on purchasing music, as the music industry has insisted for years. In fact, it does just the opposite: It tends to increase music purchasing.

What? | Read full article

MySpace hones targeting of online advertising

From The Globe And Mail - News Corp. has taken the next big step in the move toward commercializing social networks Monday by expanding MySpace's advertising platform, allowing advertisers to deliver precision-targeted banner ads based on user-created data.

Advertisers can now pinpoint exactly who they want to reach, based on data collected from users' personal profiles, the groups they join and the messages they post for their friends. For a studio looking to promote its latest vampire film, the technology represents the difference between advertising to movie fans en masse and reaching the 205 members of the Doomed Moviethon Horror Review group and others like it more directly. | Read full article

Google to unveil 'Android' phone software

From CNET - Google is ready to unveil a suite of software for mobile phones based on open-source technology, backed by some of the largest wireless industry companies in the world.

The company is expected to hold a press conference on Monday to unveil the project, which is expected to incorporate software from the Linux world into a mobile platform code-named Android that's designed to run on phones, according to sources familiar with Google's plans. A software development kit for what's being called "a complete mobile-phone software stack" is believed to be in the works and will be released relatively soon thereafter, the sources said. It's not exactly clear what kind of software will come as part of that stack, but it's said to include everything you need to run a phone. | Read full article

A Computer That Works With Google, Not Microsoft

I believe that we need only a fraction of the computing power we are purchasing. What we need is better, more stable and secure software. And we don't need expensive operating systems. So when I stumbled across this short article on NYTIMES.com, I knew I had to post it in case someone else finds this as interesting as I do. Only $200, and a WalMart, no less.

From The New York Times - Advocates of Linux, the free open-source operating system, like to say that buying a standard-issue computer involves a Microsoft Tax, because you have no choice but to pay for Windows. New versions of Linux and inexpensive hardware like the new Everex gPC TC2502 make that tax avoidable.

This computer has a 1.5-gigahertz Via processor, 512 megabytes of memory and an 80-gigabyte hard drive. What makes it stand out, however, is GOS, a version of Linux specially made to run Google applications like GMail and Google Documents. It also runs OpenOffice, an open-source office suite that can handle Microsoft Word documents, and some multimedia applications. | Read full article

Facing Competition, iTunes Revs Up Its Film Section

From The New York Times - When Edward Burns’s latest romantic comedy, “Purple Violets,” had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, it drew positive reviews, but only lukewarm offers from movie distributors.

Mr. Burns, the director of indie favorites like “The Brothers McMullen” and “She’s the One,” but whose latest movies have not done as well, knew from experience how that story would end, he said: “Not enough money to market the film, not a wide-enough release to even make a dent in the moviegoing public’s consciousness.” | Read full article

Networks Start to Offer TV on the Web

From The New York Times - Music and TV were lazily paddling their canoes down Prosperity Creek when Music suddenly heard a deafening roar ahead. “Help! What’s happening?” cried Music — but it was too late. The canoe tumbled over the Internet Falls, knocking Music upside-down into the churning vortex.

TV, following at a short distance, was determined to avoid Music’s fate. “I shall go with the current and not fight it,” vowed TV. And with only seconds to spare, TV threw every shred of brainpower and muscle into avoiding its doom.

End of Chapter 1.

Now, nobody knows how that story will turn out. But everybody knows that fewer people are watching network TV with every passing year. This year, the networks have mounted their first counterattack. In addition to short mini-videos for the short-attention-span generation, they’re putting full-length free on-demand episodes online. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CW are all in the game, with surprisingly pleasant results. | Read full article

How Many Site Hits? Depends Who’s Counting

From The New York Times - How many people visited Style.com, the online home of Vogue and W magazines, last month? Was it 421,000, or, more optimistically, 497,000? Or was the real number more than three times higher, perhaps 1.8 million?
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The answer — which may be any, or none, of the above — is a critical one for Condé Nast, which owns the site, and for companies like Ralph Lauren, which pay to advertise there. Condé Nast’s internal count (1.8 million) was much higher than the tally by ComScore (421,000) or Nielsen/NetRatings (497,000), whose numbers are used to help set advertising rates, and the discrepancies have created a good deal of friction. | Read full article

As Apple Gains PC Market Share, Jobs Talks of a Decade of Upgrades

From The New York Times - It may have dropped the word “computer” from its name, but Apple is certainly selling plenty of Macs.

Driven in part by what analysts call a halo effect from the iPod and the iPhone, the market share of the company’s personal computers is surging.

Two research firms that track the computer market said last week that Apple would move into third place in the United States behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell on Monday, when it reports product shipments in the fiscal fourth quarter as part of its earnings announcement. | Read full article

Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web

From The New York Times - Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services. Microsoft places a similar restriction on the books it converts to electronic form. The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service. | Read full article