E-commerce

Hewlett-Packard has partnered with Ominfone to distribute the U.K. music provider's MusicStation service on PCs sold in Europe, Ominfone announced Sunday.

The service, which boasts unlimited access to more than 6.5 million music tracks from the four major recording labels, distributes music in DRM-protected WMA files. Songs are downloaded to the user's computer for online and offline play, but the songs are playable only as long as the subscription is active.

MusicStation Desktop will be preloaded on 16 HP models sold in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. … Read more

There's an interesting spat going on between Tom Silverman, who founded hip-hop/dance label Tommy Boy Records and runs the New Music Seminar for new artists to learn about the music industry, and Jeff Price, the CEO of TuneCore, a service that helps musicians place their songs on iTunes and other digital-distribution outlets.

In a three-part interview with Musician Coaching, Silverman dismissed the idea that the Internet is helping new musicians break. For purposes of this argument, his definition of "breaking" is selling more than 10,000 copies of an album in the year of its release, … Read more

Amazon announced Thursday the release of a software development kit for its Kindle e-book reader, which will allow developers to build and eventually sell their own applications for the device.

There are only a few hints as to what we'll actually be seeing: Electronic Arts is building some games, smaller game publisher Sonic Boom is creating word games and puzzles, and restaurant review company Zagat is releasing city guides. None of these developer-created apps will be available until later in the year, and the software developer kit is currently in limited beta.

So why's this announcement coming now? … Read more

The New York Times has made it official: It's going to charge for access under certain conditions starting in 2011.

The model, detailed in a statement, goes like this: Users will have free access to a certain number of articles a month and then have to pay once they exceed a cap. Think of it as an article cap similar to a salary cap in sports.

The Times says the model will give the company a second revenue stream to support its ad model and also fund its journalism. Print subscribers will have free access without an article cap. … Read more

This is the finest NBC sit com since "The Office."

The spittle being tossed by Conan O'Brien toward NBC executives who have removed his show from its time slot and Jay Leno, who is re-taking it over, is both tautly orchestrated and touchingly sincere.

Last week, O'Brien offered to sell the "Tonight Show" on Craigslist.

Now, in what appears will be his final week as host of the NBC show, he is using the "Tonight Show" Web site to link to show memorabilia he claims to want to sell on eBay.

O'… Read more

There were many people, quite a few in America, who were excited, delighted, even positively beaming when some clever cove created that smiley colon/parenthesis thing that is now the universal sign of a written smile.

:) That's the one. The one that is sometimes written as ":0" or ":-)" or, for a smiling wink, ";)." Or even, and this is far beyond my intellectual galaxy, "J". Does that signify "JOKINGYOUMORON!!!!!!!!"? I think that it does.

All these symbols have been such great successes in bringing people together and making them … Read more

Since tweets such as "Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief" went viral Wednesday, more than $8 million has been donated--about double the amount donated to all charities via text messaging throughout all of 2009, a Red Cross spokeswoman tells CNN.

The Red Cross has solicited text message-based giving campaigns in the past, but its biggest peak was when people raised $190,000 via the Text2HELP campaign in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008, according to the organization.

And while Red Cross reports that it has already received far more money via larger donations--about $… Read more

Authors worldwide can now self-publish Kindle versions of their books, Amazon.com said Friday.

Amazon also said that its Digital Text Platform will now support books written in German and French.

The self-publishing platform, which allows writers to upload electronic versions of their books to Amazon's e-book reader store, was previously limited to English and to authors based in the United States.

In an effort to expand global readership, Amazon said support for additional languages is expected to come over the next few months.

The Digital Text Platform enables writers to publish without the middleman (i.e. a book … Read more

I am sure there are many of you who inhale marijuana for purely medicinal purposes. Your pains might be physical. They might be psychological. But you feel as though your world is going to pot, so you turn to pot.

Now, an enterprising man called John Lee has decided to bring a little online rigor to your smoking vigor.

Sonoma, Calif.-based Lee has created PlainView Systems, a remarkably non-hippie name for a venture that, according to CNNMoney.com, he describes as the Amazon of pot.

That would be Amazon.com, rather than the never-ending river.

A visit to the … Read more