The News Review:
- Music stars have blogs — and portals
- Blogging The Bombers – NY Daily News
- Japan’s garrulous bloggers go strangely silent
Music stars have blogs — and portals
Globe and Mail – Apr 4, 2008
That connection is — or can be — a powerful thing, so it’s probably not surprising that musicians and other artists have taken to blogging as a way of reaching their fans in a more direct way than the bi-annual record-store appearance or the backstage pass. But even more than blogs, what is becoming increasingly popular is the all-in-one artist “portal,” with blogging elements and a music store and contests and so on. When it comes to straightforward blogs, David Byrne has one that is.
Blogging The Bombers – NY Daily News
New York Daily News – Apr 4, 2008
The Rays just knocked out Ian Kennedy. He helped, too, walking four in his abbreviated stint. He was yanked with one out in the third after allowing a three-run double to Shawn Riggans. Kennedy’s final line ? 2.
Related: Let’s dance! – Turkish Daily News Apr 05, 2008
Japan’s garrulous bloggers go strangely silent
The Age – Apr 4, 2008
What is most alarming, critics contend, is the decision totarget kozensei — an ambiguous term meaning “contentthat has openness”. That would almost certainly make millions ofcurrently unregulated services, including blogs, personal websitesand bulletin boards, eligible for forcible correction orclosure. Kazuo Hizumi, a journalist-turned-lawyer who blogs prolificallyon media issues, has been particularly scathing. “If you look atthe fascist movement in prewar Japan, the dangers in the regulationof information by the Government are obvious. “That the Government is going to get involved in selecting, bymeans of filtering software, what information should be blocked— this is completely outrageous. This absolutely cannot beallowed. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication says this isa silly overreaction… A Communications Ministry spokesman said the Government was”simply aiming to regulate the harmful and illegal online contentthat is sometimes spread on influential sites”. There is concern that if some of this content is allowed tofilter through Japan’s multitude of blogs, the result could beembarrassing for the Government. According to a State of the Live Web report by blogsearch engine Technorati, 37% of the world’s blogs are in Japanese,putting it ahead of English, on 36%, and making it theinternational language of blogging. Doubts remain over how many Japanese blogs are actually spamsites, but Chris Salzberg, co-editor of international blog round-upGlobal Voices, says that, either way, the Japanese produce adisproportionately high number of blogs. The issue, he says, is notthat the Government is trying to regulate online content, but thatno one is paying attention to the fact. Recently, Japan’s four biggest internet service providers,responding to a separate Government directive, agreed to adopt a”notice and disconnect” policy for illegal downloaders. It allsuggests the ruling party is preparing to “bring to an end the daysof the country’s largely hands-off approach to onlinecommunication, ushering in an era of increased governmentinvolvement”, Mr Salzberg wrote in The Japan Times.
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[...] Three Record Companies Team Up With MySpace for Music Web SiteNew York Times – Apr 4, 2008The music companies are expected to make their entire digital music catalogs available for listening and downloading on the new site, which will be introduced later this year. The deal highlights the music companies’ scramble to keep pace as consumers migrate toward the fast-changing market for digital downloads, upending the industry’s traditional approach to marketing and distribution. It is also an attempt to encourage competition to… MySpace Music will be run by an executive team that will report to a board composed of representatives from MySpace and the music labels. EMI Group, the fourth major music corporation, was not part of the deal, but people involved in the negotiations said it would probably join soon. The major record companies, who have suffered a long slump as CD sales have declined, are eager to prop up digital sales. Sales of albums in the United States, including digital sales, have declined roughly 11 percent so far this year, and sales of individual digital tracks, though up about 29 percent, have not increased enough to make up for that drop. Overall music sales dropped to $11. 5 billion in 2006, from a peak in 1999 of nearly $14.Related: Music stars have blogs — and portals [...]