independence

Indie music distributor IODA sees layoffs

IODA, the indie-music distributor, has gone through a round of layoffs, the company confirmed Wednesday.

The "reduction in workforce" took place a couple of weeks ago and affected mostly the technology and administrative units, according to Heather Staples, a spokeswoman for the company. A source affiliated with San Francisco-based IODA, which stands for Independent Online Distribution Alliance, said the company trimmed staffing by 15 percent. Staples declined to disclose how many employees were let go, but she said it was less than 15. She did say the company now has 75 employees.

"There was some belt tightening … Read more

Pay-what-you-like download site

When the history of the early 21st century is written, I'm afraid Radiohead will be included for pioneering a new business model rather than their groundbreaking music. Last year's digital-first release of In Rainbows allowed users to pay whatever they wanted for the download. Now there's an entire Web site devoted to pay-what-you-like: Aralie.com. It's a no-risk way for listeners to discover new music from independent bands.

It's also a no risk-way for independent musicians to get some exposure: it costs nothing to upload a song, there's no contract involved so you can … Read more

Last.fm's indie-music royalty program goes live

Back in January, social music service Last.fm announced that it would be launching something called the Artist Royalty Program that allows unsigned artists to reap royalties each time one of their songs is played through the site's ad-supported streaming music feature or Web radio. (They just have to upload their music first.)

On Wednesday, the service announced that the Artist Royalty Program had gone live and that more than 450,000 tracks have been uploaded in conjunction with it.

"We're leveling the playing field by offering them the same opportunities as established bands to make money … Read more

French police find "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" in Ubuntu Linux

Au revoir, les enfants de Microsoft. C'est bien l'heure de Linux ici en France!

This was the French police's message to Microsoft today, putting the icing on the open source cake it started baking back in 2005 with a move of 70,000 Windows XP desktops to Ubuntu Linux.

The process and the motives are clear:

"We will introduce Linux every time we have to replace a desktop computer," [Colonel Nicolas Geraud, deputy director of the gendarmerie's IT department] said, "so this year we expect to change 5,000-8,000 to Ubuntu and then 12,000-15,000 over the next four years so that every desktop uses the Linux operating system by 2013-2014."… Read more

MacHeist II uncovers more great Mac deals

Last year about this time, several independent Mac software developers teamed up to put together a bundle of nine award-winning Mac apps for the vastly reduced price of $49--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing took place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and more than 16,000 users snapped up the limited time offer--it was really a great deal! The fun part about the offer was that the developers of MacHeist made it into a kind of scavenger hunt by letting users search … Read more

TechCrunch polls readers on potential advertiser

The conversational nature of blogs allows editors to ask their readers to weigh in--even decide--issues that affect the publication. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch empowered his readers to determine whether the site should accept advertising from Izea. Arrington agreed to abide by the results of the poll. After 24 hours, voting concluded with just under 3,500 people taking part.

Traditional news outlets often establish a wall between the editorial and advertising departments to maintain editorial independence. In other words, the people who line up advertisements have no say in the content, and the editorial staff is completely removed from deciding which advertising clients to engage. Of course, such an arrangement is all but impossible for most blogs and other small publications. These small outlets often have a staff of one, and even with a half-dozen at the helm it may not make sense to dedicate an entire employee to handle advertising.… Read more

Nokia gets into the Asian music scene

Homegrown music talents in the Asia-Pacific region now have a new platform to showcase their latest song creations. The Independent Artists Club Web site launched recently by Nokia aims to promote local artists in the region by allowing them to upload their songs on the Web for music fans around the world to enjoy.

The IAC program will launched in Singapore and Thailand first, before being rolled out over the next six months to selected Asia-Pacific countries including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand.

With each IAC country launch, selected local artists will initially be invited … Read more

Maintaining journalistic integrity while handling human remains

A reporter is sent on an unusual assignment. A distraught women claims to have a deceased man's scalp and the reporter has been chosen to cover the story. Upon his arrival, the teary-eyed women implores the reporter to take the man's remains to the coroner. It sounds like the plot for an episode of Picket Fences, but for police reporter Steve Lannen at the Herald-Leader in Kentucky this perplexing scenario was far more than just a plot device.

As reported by metro editor Peter Baniak for the Behind the Headlines blog:It was one of the strangest phone calls I've taken as metro editor at the Herald-Leader -- and I've taken plenty of odd phone calls over the years. The woman on the line was despondent because she said the county coroner had left her friend's scalp in wooded area along Newtown Pike. The man had died there, apparently under accidental circumstances, and the coroner had removed the rest of the body several days earlier. But the woman said a piece of her friend's scalp, including hair, had been left behind. Further, she said she couldn't get the coroner's office to come out and get it.… Read more

Find a laptop to match your lifestyle

One of the biggest challenges when you're in the market for a new laptop can be translating hard specs into something that's meaningful to your life. Should you buy a 13.3-inch screen or a 15.4-inch screen? Do you want a 2.4GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, or would it be better to have a 2.0GHz processor with 2GB of RAM?

The answer to these questions, of course, is that it depends. It depends on your budget, to be sure, but also on how you want to use your laptop. With that in mind, we'… Read more