internet

Web users reading more, saying less, study says

Internet users are spending more time looking at content and less time communicating with others, according to an index of Nielsen/Net Rating statistics released by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

In 2003, Internet users spent about 46 percent of their time communicating and 34 percent reading online content. Those habits seemed to have reversed in the last four years. From January to May 2007, about 47 percent of users' time was spent looking at content and 33 percent spent on communicating.

The change in media habits can be attributed to changes in technology over the last four years, according … Read more

Maybe Firefox is not so great, after all (?)

Just back from coaching my daughter's soccer practice, and I stumble into this on Slashdot: "only 50% of the people downloading Firefox actually try it out, and only a further half of those continue to use it actively.

In other words, a 25% retention rate, as ZDNet points out. Why is the retention rate so low?

Arguably, because Firefox isn't much better. Let the flames begin.… Read more

When only Big Bird is safe enough

Toy makers have made good progress in robots and pretty much anything with a remote, but they've never quite been able to figure out computers for tots. Usually they're just toy laptops with lame black-and-white screens that are barely legible, making them kind of like fancy Etch A Sketches with some flashing lights and a mouse.

The latest offering from Fisher-Price, the "Easy Link Internet Launch Pad," takes a different approach. Rather than just try to look like a notebook for kids, it's a plug-and-play navigation device that works with any regular computer with a … Read more

Two Senators seek to save Internet radio

As Engadget recently reported , senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) have pledged to move forward with the Internet Radio Equality Act when Congress returns in the fall unless the industry is able to forge a solution amenable to webcasters. In a press release issued August 2, the senators offer their analysis of the situation:The fact is online radio services do not have enough revenue to support what will amount to unprecedented royalties. The $500 per channel minimum fee alone will deliver an over $1 billion annual windfall to record companies, a windfall that is not justified by any business or equity considerations.… Read more

Senators take another stab at shielding kids online

Here's another bill to add to the heap of congressional proposals offered in the spirit of combating child pornography and keeping kids safe from predators on the Internet.

It's called the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, and it was proposed on Thursday by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)--along with Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

But this one doesn't seem to be as aggressive as some previous approaches, which called for requiring everything from labeling Web sites containing sexually explicit content to wiping out access to social-networking sites and chat rooms on school- and library-based computers. … Read more

Online sequencing with Splice

Splice Music, a Flash-based online sequencing tool, opened to the broad Internet public about a year ago. It's free, although registration is required, and filled with thousands of sound samples and remixable songs, all licensed under various Creative Commons licenses, meaning that they're available for you to recombine. It's a fun place to start for old-school analog musicians who've never played with a sequencing program before. (And who don't have a Mac with Garage Band preinstalled.)

Remixing other users' songs is one way to learn how the tool works, but if you're like me … Read more

IntraNets vs InterNets

For some reason the fact that intranets can significantly outperform Internets and in particular THE Internet is a shocking concept. It shouldn't be. An intranet is a contained network managed to optimize the performance to meet the needs of the participants on the network. Your corporate network in your local office is an intranet. You probably have IT people working hard to make sure its up and as fast as they can make it. Your home network is an intranet. Wired or wireless, you are probably able to get throughput that far exceeds the speed you get from your … Read more

Are you ready to claim YOUR share of the Billions in Revenue on the internet?

That's what invitation from C. R. Sanderson said. Its also the invitation I had been waiting on for a long time.

Why ? Because it came from StoresOnline. StoresOnline is a public company that i have been short in the past, but currently don't have a position in. I was short the stock of this company because I always believed that it was a company that specialized in ripping off people who didn't know any better with claims of grabbing their "Share of the Billions in Revenue on the Internet"

I wasn't the only one … Read more

Browsing for dummies made pretty: Fichey

Fichey is a new approach to serving up content that's been popularized by social bookmarking services like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit among others. Similar to DuggTrends, and other sites that cache Web pages that have gone down or become incredibly sluggish due to a high traffic, Fichey's solution is to take a snapshot of the page, sans links, and serve it up in a slick Flash viewer. Pages can be viewed one at a time, and have a slick rotation animation similar to Apple's Front Row. All you have to do is go back and … Read more