Google revs up RSS ads with FeedBurner buy
Google has acquired another medium for its advertising engine by purchasing FeedBurner, a company that distributes syndicated content for blogs and other media websites. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the figure of $100m had been reported. Google has been expanding aggressively into enabling offline forms of advertising, such as in print and on radio and television. Now it can put ads in the more than 430,000 RSS feeds FeedBurner has and it can expand its AdSense website publisher network with the FeedBurner publishers. FeedBurner helps publishers deliver RSS feeds, as well as manage the feeds, track usage of the subscribers and serve ads.

Apple planning iPhone shortage
Apple knows how to create a stir when it releases its iPhone on June 28. Apple has had shedloads of time to work out how much real demand there will be for iPhones, yet it seems to be deliberately keeping supplies low for the launch. It has also limited the number of iPhones that each store. Many industry watchers think that there will be an initial demand for the phones as Apple fans buy them, although most analysts do not think that demand will be sustained. It seems that by limiting the sale of the iPhone, and creating the same sort of in store scenes that greeted the release of the PS3, Apple is hoping to keep its phone in the media spotlight. The phone is going on sale in two weeks, but few stores know how many phones they will have. The largest say that they will be getting only 40 which is probably not enough to handle pre-orders.

RIAA backed Congress people named and shamed
The Consumerist Magazine has published a list of Congress people who have taken money from the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) in a bid to get themselves elected. The money is not large by campaign fund standards but might give an indication of who the RIAA thinks supports it in Congress. They seem to be a mix of Republicans and Democrats. Robert Wexler, a Democrat took the most, $9,000. Lamar Smith, a Republican took $7,500. Most of the rest took $1,000.

Demand for Wi-Fi mobiles to explode
Dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets represented only 3% of total global shipments in 2006, but are set to become the "breakout market segment" in 2007. In-Stat said that the devices will soar in popularity to reach 20% of the total chipset market in 2009. Dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets are pushing hard into the market in 2007, and handset vendors Nokia and HTC are leveraging Wi-Fi as an alternative high-speed broadband connectivity option. Wi-Fi for voice is expected to pick up this year following T-Mobile's nationwide fixed-mobile convergence roll-out in the US. 213 million Wi-Fi chipsets shipped worldwide in 2006, representing a 32% growth rate over 2005. A notable market sub-segment to watch in 2007 is the portable media player market. Sales of Microsoft's Zune media player are ramping up, and a Wi-Fi enabled version of Apple's iPod is scheduled to hit shelves in the second half of 2007.

'Personal data' in iTunes tracks
The launch of music tracks free of digital locks on iTunes has been overshadowed by the discovery that they contain data about who bought them. Some fear this data could be used to identify the owner of the tracks, if they turn up on file-sharing sites. The tracks from record company EMI cost more and are of a better quality than standard iTunes songs. Apple has yet to comment on what it plans to do with the information embedded in the music files. The tracks without the digital locks, known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, officially went on sale on 30 May under the iTunes Plus banner. The downloads cost $1.29 rather than $0.99. Apple uses a technology known as Fairplay to limit what people can do with downloads. Fairplay can be circumvented by burning tracks to a CD and then converting them to another format.

Sony cuts price on new Blu-ray player
With dominance of the market for high-definition movie discs still up in the air, Sony said it is including a small surprise with the new Blu-ray disc player it is shipping this week: a price tag $100 lower than previously announced. When Sony announced the BDP-S300 player in February, it put the price at $599, but it has now set a list price at $499. That means the new player costs half of what the company's first Blu-ray player cost when it launched just six months ago — probably one of the fastest price declines in the consumer electronics industry. The new player has essentially the same capabilities as the older BDP-S1 but is smaller. Sony has been undersold in the market for high-definition disc players by Toshiba, which created the rival HD DVD format. Its players are now selling for less than $300, 14 months after Toshiba's first player appeared in U.S. stores. Neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD players have caught on strongly with consumers, who have been waiting for the market to settle on one of the formats. But dropping prices for players and HDTV sets in more homes mean a big showdown between the discs may be looming this holiday season. Hollywood studios are split on the issue, but Blu-ray has the strongest support. Most people buying Blu-ray discs are apparently buying them for their Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles. The cheapest version of the console costs $499, but its game-oriented wireless controller and relatively loud fan makes it a less than ideal movie player.

Amp'd Mobile Files Chapter 11
Start-up wireless carrier Amp'd Mobile Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday night after it ran out of cash and failed to raise additional funding in time to meet debt payments. With its filing, Amp'd Mobile becomes the latest of several wireless ventures to stumble in the effort to bring video, music and other content to cellphones. Amp'd Mobile offers a wide range of videos, music and games to distinguish itself from other wireless carriers. But it is fighting over a relatively thin slice of the wireless market. While the number of U.S. cellphone users has been steadily growing, relatively few of them regularly use cellphones to watch TV and listen to music. Bill Stone, president of Amp'd Mobile, said the company was forced to make the move because its business has been growing fast in the past six to eight months and couldn't keep up with the growth. "We are pretty confident we'll come out stronger," Mr. Stone said in an interview. According to legal documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Amp'd Mobile has total assets of less than $100 million but is more than $100 million in debt. It owes Verizon Wireless, its largest creditor, about $33 million; its handset provider, Motorola Inc., about $16 million; one of its investors, Vivendi SA of France, about $10 million; and one of its retailers, BestBuy Co., about $8 million. Amp'd Mobile leases access to networks of Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC of the United Kingdom, and markets voice and other services under its own brand. Launched in December 2005, Amp'd Mobile has close to 200,000 subscribers and has advertised its brand name heavily. It has also developed original video content. Comedy Central has bought the TV and digital rights to an animated series that was originally developed by Amp'd Mobile and will start broadcasting it this month. Another wireless-content business,

Brits are Busiest Surfers
Web surfers in the U.K. spend more time online than those in the rest of Europe or the U.S., according to results from a study released on Monday. The average U.K. Internet user spends 34.4 hours on the Web each month-- or almost a day and a half-- followed by the Swedes with 31.7 hours and the Spanish with 30.6 hours, according to the figures, from comScore Inc.'s World Metrix study. The U.K. and Sweden also beat out the U.S., where the average Web surfer spends 31.4 hours online each month, the study found. Asked to explain the U.K.'s high usage rates, Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, cited an increase in broadband usage and Britain's poor weather. Germany has Europe's biggest Internet population, with 35.6 million people, although Germans spend less time in front of their computers on average, racking up just 22.6 hours online each month. The average for Europe is 24.1 hours per month. The Netherlands has the greatest Internet penetration, at 83 percent, followed by Norway and Sweden with 70 percent each. Russia came last with 11 percent Internet penetration. The figures come with several caveats: They include only Internet users aged 15 and older, and are based on data from 16 of Europe's biggest markets, with the numbers extrapolated to find averages for the rest of the continent. They are based on data collected in April from PCs at home and at work, and do not include Internet access from mobile phones and Internet cafes. On average there were 122 million Europeans online each day in April, compared to 114 million in the U.S., comScore said. Web sites owned by Google Inc. generated the most page views in most of the countries, followed by those of Microsoft Corp. The countries studied were Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K.

Europe won't get Zune any time soon
Steve Ballmer has told Europeans can forget about seeing the Zune music player in time for Christmas - the iPod rival won't be hitting these shores before 2008, at the earliest. Speaking to Wirtschafts Woche, Ballmer revealed that Zune was a business that was losing money, and that to go into new markets with such a proposition would be dangerous. He declined to reveal when Europeans might get their hands on the Zune. This probably isn't a terrible blow for music lovers.

China won't license new Internet cafes
China will license no new Internet cafes this year while regulators carry out an industry-wide inspection, the government says, amid official concern that online material is harming young people. Investigators will look into whether Internet cafes are improperly renting out their licenses or failing to register their customers' identities, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its website. "Industry and commerce bureaus at all levels must not license any new Internet cafes in 2007," said the notice, dated May 30. The communist government encourages Web use for business and education, but authorities are worried it gives children access to violent games, sexually explicit material and gambling websites. President Hu Jintao has ordered Chinese authorities to clean up "Internet culture," and the government launched a crackdown in April on online pornography. China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online, and is on track to surpass the United States as the largest online population in two years. The government tries to block access to online material deemed obscene or subversive. Internet cafes are hugely popular with customers who spend hours playing online games that link multiple competitors.

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