The Walt Disney Company on Tuesday became Hollywood’s leader in the booming social game business by acquiring Playdom in a deal worth as much as $763.2 million.
Read more »Disney Buys Playdom in $763 Million Deal, Becoming Hollywood Leader in Social Games
New Market Research: Social Media Sites as Annoying to U.S. Customers as Cable Providers, Airlines
A new study by ForeSee Results and the American Customer Satisfaction Index finds that U.S. consumers regard social media sites Facebook and Myspace as lowly as they regard cable providers, airlines and the I.R.S.
Read more »Should Government Bailout Media, Subsidize the Press & Seek to “Save Journalism”?
Articles by Adam Thierer - articulate critique of the liberal perspective.
Read more »Carnegie Mellon Research Café
Choosing between the slice of pound cake or an apple? Carnegie Mellon researchers studying decision-making want to learn from you — and thanks to the new Carnegie Mellon Research Café, they can. The café is part coffee shop and part behavioral decision research lab, located in downtown Pittsburgh on the second level of Fifth Avenue Place.
Read more »The Dogs of War: Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft [graphic]
What's at stake? Nothing less than the future. Microsoft wants computing to continue to be tied to the desktop—three screens and a cloud, as Ballmer is fond of saying. For Apple, it's all about closed information appliances with lots of third-party apps, computers anybody can use. And for Google, all roads lead to the internet, and the internet is synonymous with Google.
Read more »Once Again, Power Laws Rule all Media & Digital Inequality is Unavoidable
Today, by contrast, will live in a wonderful world of media abundance, where every man, woman, and child really does have a soapbox on which to stand and speak to the world. Of course, no one may be listening. And there will always be someone else who will nab greater audience share than you.
Read more »Ning's Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff
Ning has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people — over 40% of its staff.
Read more »US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus
In a new report out yesterday, the government's own internal watchdog took a close look at "efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods." ... the Government Accountability Office concluded that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts."
Read more »Hungry Beast's The Beast File: Google
Isn't it ironic that this is posted on YouTube? As Barthes would say: we live to the fullest the contradictions of our time.
Read more »Apple admits using child labour
Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.
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