Consumer content

Ever since Amazon began selling digital music and offering lower prices than rival Apple, the suspicion by many iTunes fans is that the music industry was in cahoots with Amazon.

In the comments section of our scoop Monday on Apple's MacWorld announcement that it was doing away with copy-protection software and changing its pricing policy, many iTunes fans asserted the often repeated allegation that the four largest recording companies were giving Amazon a price break.

Not so, according to two music industry insiders with knowledge of the negotiations.

The suspicion has long been that the record labels want to … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Get ready for the collision of social networking and peer-to-peer file sharing.

With the beta release of LimeWire 5.0 (download for Windows| Mac), which was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show here, the popular P2P service is incorporating a social element that will enable people using Jabber-compatible services like Gmail to share files with friends on their buddy lists. Lime Wire calls this a "personal sharing network."

The idea, said Lime Wire CEO George Searle, is to add trusted context to user searches for content, given that people are more likely to want--and feel comfortable with--content … Read more

Anybody else sort of see this one coming?

It's a matter of weeks before the U.S. cuts out analog television signals entirely, switching to an all-digital market, but the fund established by the government to provide $40 subsidies to people who need to purchase digital converter boxes is out of money and has established a wait list. More than 100,000 people had already been wait-listed as of Monday, USA Today reported.

So, if you rely on "rabbit ears" and are still in need of that coupon, here's what to do. The application process on … Read more

Article updated 1/9/08 at 1:45 p.m. PST with details on set-top boxes and a correction about the relationship with Wii. Article updated at 3:41 p.m. PST with more details on how to acquire the SDK. Correction, 10:55 a.m. PST: This story misstated the day the Opera announcement was made. It was Wednesday.

Opera has thrown a little more love at device developers by announcing an updated version of its software development kit on Wednesday at CES.

In a broad sense, the SDK will be available to all developers of consumer electronics that … Read more

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that technology from the Five Across acquisition was the foundation for the new Eos service. It is not.

LAS VEGAS --Two years after it first started courting big media companies, Cisco Systems will finally launch a new product to help these companies harness the power of social networking and connect their brands to fans.

On Wednesday, Cisco will kick off the Consumer Electronics Show here by announcing Eos, a hosted software platform that allows media and entertainment companies to create, manage and grow online communities. Through Eos Cisco has compiled technology tools and slapped on an easy to use interface to make building and customizing Web sites easy. But most importantly, it's bundled into the software, technology that will allow media companies to build interactive Web sites so that fans can connect with musicians, TV shows, movies, or whatever brand a media company wants to promote.

Cisco first began looking for ways to help big media companies late in 2006, when it created the Media Solutions business unit. The idea was to develop and market products to digital media content owners. In February last year, the company bought a startup called Five Across, which developed social networking software.

Dan Scheinman, the Cisco executive behind Eos, believes that the new software platform addresses one of the biggest problems that media companies face today.

"The reality is that media is so disrupted by digital technology," he said. "Fans are looking for ways to connect to their favorite artists or TV shows and they are seeking out communities, but the media companies have been slow to provide this for them. Eos is centered around community and allows fans to participate."

The service provides tools that allow media companies to create blogs, live chats, message boards, rating and ranking systems.

Scheinman believes that social networking is the most important way for marketers and big media companies to reach consumers. Consumers are using sites such as YouTube and Facebook to share media, like videos, music and pictures. He also believes that media companies can combat piracy by offering fans an interactive experience through their own branded Web sites.

"In many ways digital destroys the value proposition for media," Scheinman said. "Other people can rip off the content and monetize it, aggregate it, and take pennies for it."… Read more

San Franciscan Christopher Norberg went to a chiropractor after being injured in a car accident in 2006. After a disagreement with the chiropractor over billing, he posted a negative review of the business on Yelp suggesting that the doctor was dishonest. Now he is facing a defamation lawsuit that could chill self-expression on the popular gripe Web site.

"If Christopher loses then anyone on Yelp who writes a negative review better be careful," said Michael Blacksburg, an attorney representing Norberg. "This strikes at the heart of Yelp's business model and other Web sites that provide a … Read more

It's time for our aperiodic wrap-up of Google items. We'll start off with the most unusual, in my opinion: wacky ASCII art.

• September 11 obviously made quite an impression on people, and its effects continue to reverberate. The latest example: Google Trends, which monitors hot search terms at the company, has picked up on what appears to be a symbolic representation rendered in ASCII text characters. It consists of an airplane and two vertical bars.(Via Search Engine Land.)

• Google shed a little light on the popularity of its blog posts from 2008. The top item: … Read more

Updated at 4:30 p.m. PST with details on the file formats Apple is using.

Apple and the three largest music labels didn't take any half steps in walking away from copy-protection software at Macworld 2009 Tuesday.

Apple could have announced, as expected, simply that the iTunes Store would begin offering songs stripped of digital rights management from now on. Instead, the country's largest music retailer secured licenses that will enable users to upgrade their existing DRM-wrapped music and strip it of the controversial software--but it's going to cost them.

An Apple spokesman offered more details: … Read more

Updated at 10:00 AM Pacific.

Six months after announcing its intention to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G, Sling Media has another announcement to make--just not the one you're wishing for.

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone isn't ready yet, Sling said on Tuesday, but it is on its way.

Like SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, UIQ, and BlackBerry (beta) platforms, this iPhone version will let you access one or more Slingboxes from your mobile device, and watch your TV stations on-the-go. It will also be compatible with the iPod Touch.

You'll also be able to … Read more