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At CNET Download.com, we are very aware that--regardless of our large catalog of downloadable software, music, and games--our greatest asset is you, our users. When it comes to any development on the site, we think about you first.

We've always been grateful to have intelligent, respectful, and engaged users on CNET Download.com. Our user reviews of software are some of our most prized features, because they generally display an accurate opinion of the download community.

We continued to expand our communication with CNET Download.com users two years ago, when we introduced our blog, The Daily Download. … Read more

Reputation monitoring and management have become hot topics and will only continue to grow. These are becoming important areas for all businesses, large and small, to focus on as more and more people turn to the Web to communicate through blogs, their own Web sites, as well as the ever-growing opportunities for online consumer reviews and ratings.

Here is a quick Reputation Management 101 rundown of five tips in each of five different areas to get you started:

Pre-emptive measures are best

The old adage of prevention being the best cure carries a lot of weight here.

I couldn't help but comment on this news out of Australia that 2Clix is suing an online forum because a few forum members think 2Clix's products stink. The open-source world thrives on transparency. Not so with dear little 2Clix, which wants everyone to speak nicely about it, regardless of truth. Even in the proprietary world, this is extreme behavior.

The problem with such vendor-defined truth is that, well, it's often not very truthful. Dialogue is actually helpful for establishing such truth and motivating purchase decisions. Apparently, 2Clix can't see this.

From the article:… Read more

Freewebs is a Web site creation and hosting service that's been around since 2001 and has served more than 17 million registered users. Besides hosting photos, blogs, and user profiles, they've also got a group of customizable widgets that can be added to any site or social networking profile. This morning, they rolled out a widget that lets you host your own discussion right on the page, complete with admin controls that can be accessed without having to go off site. In fact, users can register, reply, and browse through threads without ever leaving the widget.

We've … Read more

April 15 may be known as Tax Day, but the HD DVD backers over at AVS forum are calling it something else: Buy HD DVDs from Amazon Day!

As one forum member put it: "The idea is to show support for HD DVD by buying movies on a specific day. There is no better way to show support for HD DVD than by backing it financially. That is the language the movie studios understand best. If there is a strong demand for HD DVD software, then hopefully Blu-ray-only studios will at least go neutral."

So far about a … Read more

She's holding a lit lightbulb in her hand. Is the prophecy true? Is she the chosen one?

No, that's just Amber Nystrom, founder of Social Fusion, holding up the Pharox, an LED light by Lemnis Lighting that's designed to fit into an ordinary lamp socket (there's a battery in this one; the home models just screw in). It offers about the same amount of light as a 40-watt bulb but consumes about 90 percent less energy. If you haven't heard by now, lightbulbs waste a lot of energy. Around 95 percent of the energy turns … Read more

BOSTON--So-called user generated content is being built into the business models of forward-looking media companies as they venture out onto the Web, according to experts who spoke today at the MIT Enterprise Forum's Brave New Web conference on Wednesday. (See this CNET News.com story.)

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of online video company Brightcove, said that Web is a tiny fraction of the overall media industry but that's changing because media companies are starting to distribute video over the Web. Brightcove itself is building social media features to its video distribution system which will allow people to post … Read more

I think it's pretty safe to say that none of this "Web 2.0" business, bubble or no bubble, would've gotten off the ground if it weren't for Ajax. It's a term that techies throw around a lot, and miraculously, the meaning doesn't seem to have gotten terribly distorted: Ajax still refers to the set of Web development techniques that may render obsolete the phenomenon of the page view count. And since it's pretty cool--I mean, try to imagine a world without Google Maps or Flickr--some start-ups seem to like to … Read more

Cherry OS - who'll be the first?: A new software package claims to emulate Mac OS X on Intel and AMD-based systems. Is it hype, or a viable opportunity to experience an Apple OS on non-Apple hardware?

Moving everything from a G3 to an iMac G5: One user has a quest: to port every piece of data and every user setting from his old G3 to a shiny new iMac G5. Contained in this thread are various suggestions for doing so.

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