PRS for Music cuts online streaming rate, Jonathan from Spotify is delighted

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Royalty collector PRS for Music has cut its online streaming rate from £0.0022 per song to £0.00085 per song, which is music to the ears (punilicous) of struggling online music services.

The decision comes after a lengthy consultation with music industry heavyweights and new media professionals who argued that by making music more readily available the publishers and artists stood to make more money in the long run.

We7 CEO Steve Purdham, said: “On first glance, this looks like a good step in the right direction and it is pleasing to see that the PRS has listened to many of the consistent views from the consultation period. It is these minima which significantly affects the evolution of new digital businesses and the PRS have done a good job in going some way to address this problem.”

PRS is, however, authoring new Online Music Licenses which will replace the old Joint Online License, meaning PRS is sticking to the notion that the artist should be paid everytime their song is played. Even it is Flo Rida. Seriously who is listening to Flo Rida – whoever you are, will you ruddy stop please. He’s just awful.

Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt sales soar as Amazon reviews go viral

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Humorous reviews of a wicked-cool T-shirt featuring 3 wolfs and a moon went viral this week sending sales soaring 2,300%.

“It’s got 3 wolves on it. Like, I’d be happy with a t-shirt with one wolf on it, but this one’s got three. Three wolves – and a moon, and it’s a full moon and stuff, so it kind of makes me feel like a werewolf when I’m wearing it – which is kind of my favourite way to feel,” said Carl Chesterson, in one of the 454 reviews on Amazon.

But Isabelle O’Carroll, editor of online fashion bible, Catwalk Queen, told us that actually, “Wolf print t-shirts have been the height of hipster cool for some time now, and then Martin Margiela had some airbrush hippy tees in his SS/08 collection (that’s spring summer 2008 for the non-fashion types)”

“Then Topshop followed suit with their take on the trend, so the wolf tee might be hitting headlines but as usual fashion got there first!”

And actually, Tech Digest wouldn’t mind a return to the days when a man could don a wolf, or He-man, or Fat Willys t-shirt without being castigated.

Michael McGloin, art director of the firm behind the tee said: “We’ll take ironic fashiom any day, we’re printing another 400,000 more t-shirts.

“It’s just a fantastic thing.” It is. It really is. Wolf t-shirts for all.

4Chan hit YouTube with Porn Prank

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4chan are at the centre of another internet crapstorm after users of the site laid siege to YouTube, posting a plethora of lewd and pornographic videos.

Already infamous for attacks on white supremacist Radio DJ Hal Turner and responsible for the Rickrolling phenomena, 4channer posted videos tagged with the names of tweenie stars The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana.

The films start with innocent footage then meander into smut.

“We are aware of the slew of pornographic videos that were uploaded,” said a spokesman for Google.

“We are addressing them as we would any video that violates our community guidelines.”

“In addition any account we discover that has been specifically set up to attack YouTube will be disabled.” Yeah YouTube you tell them.

Linden Lab announces Second Life in-world to out-world phone calls

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Thats equal to 28,539 years. If we put those minutes end-on-end and launched them back into the mists of time, they’d reach the Pleistocene era – then they’d probably get eaten by a giant sloth, or Madonna – zing!

The success of VOIP in Second Life is marked by the fact 50% of Second Lifers, including educators, consumers and large enterprises use voice in their everyday in-world activity.

More interesting though, is the annoucment that Linden Labs, the white-coats behind the Second Life experience, are lauching a service called AVLine which allows people to make calls from a landline to a user in Second Life, and users to make calls out of Second Life to a landline – to a non-Second Life user.

“We’re launching a beta-testing programme today with the full service launching later this year,” said Linden Labs.

Does anyone else feel like the lines are starting to blur? Does anyone else feel pretty excited? Does that arouse anyone else? No? Just me then.

eBay scammer told to cough up £102,000…

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An eBay fraudster has been ordered to pay back £102,000 of money he scammed on the internet auction site by Preston Crown Court.

Jonathan Hartley sent out bogus electronic goods all around the world from 11 separate accounts making a total of £140,000. So my first question is, what about the other £38,000? So, does he get to keep that?

Just in case anyone has decided that that means that crime does indeed pay should note that Mr Hartley has already been sent down for 18 months for the crime and faces a further 12 months slapped on if he fails to come up with the cash.

He was clever enough to use a string of fake names and addresses while operating out of his parents’ place in Nelson, Lancashire, but after 1,600 complaints and evidence from 640 victims the police were able to bring Mr Hartley to trial.

Judge Simon Newell has set aside £927 compensation for each of the known victims of the fraud. Worth looking to see if the names are all anagrams of John Hartley.

(via The Citizen)

Facebookers phished in hack-attack

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200 million facebookers have they’re accounts targeted by hackers. Facebook were yesterday frantically identifying compromised accounts and blocking their asses.

Infected users had their passwords ‘phished’ and then their accounts were used to spam their friend lists.

Facebook-chap, Barry Schnitt, wouldn’t say how many accounts had been compromised but confirmed those that had were being blocked.

It’s not the first time facebookers have found themselves on the sharp end of a hackers keyboard; last year the Koobface virus hit the site, tricking people into downloading it to their computers.

Security experts say the problem is that all too often passwords are all too simple, the names of pets, old school, football teams and spouses which tend to be on profile’s frontpage.

It’s lucky then that my account is private and my cat is called (shnucky[21mittens%
(Via BBC)

Scribd to offer paid-for web content

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Scribd, for those of you not familiar with it, is a bit like Youtube, but with words instead of video. Sounds a bit tedious? You’d be right. Finding anything worth reading is frankly a chore. But this week Scribd launched a function that will allow its users to upload a document and charge others to view it.

In the new Scribd store, authors will be able to upload document, set their own price and keep 80% of the profit. Users will be able to download copies in PDF for use with the soon-to-be released in the UK, Kindle 2. And, with an iPhone application in the offing, Scribd look to have their bases covered.

“One reason publishers are excited to work with us is that they worry that publishing channels are contracting as Amazon and Google are gaining control over the e-book space,” said Jared Friedman, chief technology officer and a founder of Scribd.

The announcement comes hot-on-the-heels of Rupert Murdoch’s plans to start charging for access to NewsCorp’s newspaper websites and may mark the start of paid-for web content.

“That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience,” said Murdoch.

“The current days of the internet will soon be over,” added the eery media mogul.

But rest assured, Techdigest has no plans to start charging its handsome and intelligent readership anytime soon. Yeah that’s right – you guys! What do you think? Do Murdoch’s plans NewsCorp’s web content have legs? Or will you just get your news elsewhere if you have to pay for it? Could this be the rebirth of the newspaper? Let us know in the comments.

Google unleash pedal power trikes to map more

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Continuing with it’s relentless campaign of digitization, Google this week unleashed a fleet of “Google trikes.” The camera-laden bikes are designed to access those parts of the undulating European expanses that the google car can’t.

The first places to get the “Google trike” treatment will be three landmarks chosen by the public in a scheme with VisitBritain, if the current tests on the streets of Geneo go to plan.

Justin Reid from VisitBritain said: ‘The new trike will enable us to showcase even more of Britain’s wonderful destinations and we look forward to some great ideas from the public.’

The trike, which weighs a mighty 18 stone or two Theo Walcotts, will be hauled across Europe by ultra-fit Google cyclers.

“Depending on what the public vote for, users will be able to virtually tour castles or monuments before visiting – or check out which side of a football stadium they need to be on before leaving the house,” said a Google spokesman.

But as google oil their trikes chains ready to send them out, whiffs of a backlash were begining to perculate, as angry villagers in Broughton, Cambrighshire blocked a google car from entering their affulent village. The angry mob chased the car with pitch forks and torches – no they didn’t really, but they probably wanted to.

Wolfram|Alpha – A new dawn in search?

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This morning hailed the launch of Wolfram Alpha, sorry “Wolfram|Alpha”. A new type of search that looks to provide you with concrete answers, rather than referring you to another site which might have the answer.

Wolfram|Alpha is the brainchild of British-born Stephen Wolfram. Despite having a name that makes him sound uncannily like a Bond villain, Dr Wolfram’s aim for the Wolfram|Alpha project is to, “collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything”. Well it’s good to be ambitious.

So does it work? Ish, would be my answer. Can it tell you how big the US is in square miles? Yes, down to three decimal places (3.179 million square miles or about 1.037 x 10 to the power of 14 feet squared). Can it tell you the population of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso? Yes – 1086505.

But can it tell you how big Wales is? Or how much the moon weighs? Or, as John Humphrey’s asked on this morning’s Today program – which population is shrinking faster, the population of Sparrow or the population of Haddock in the north sea? No, no it can’t.

Wolfram’s aim is to create a compendium of knowledge, not with the intention of rivalling Google to provide answers, think of Wolfram as an encyclopaedia with a search bar. But is it better than Google?

We asked both: what were the results of the Scottish devolution referendum? Google’s top hit gave us the answer, in figures and as percentage and by unitary authority and how that compared against the 1979 ballot.

Wolfram gave us…”try Scottish.” Google 1 – Wolfram 0.

Dinner party dorks will have a field day with this, and I’m sure it’s got plenty of wholesome practical applications but for now Wolfram seems too US-centric and fiddly for it to be a really useful internet tool.
(via BBC)

Britain's top 20 tweeters by posts

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Jonathan Ross is the UK’s most influential Twitterer and that Mashable’s Pete Cashmore has the biggest number of followers for a Brit (though we know he spends lot of time in San Francisco these days), but the question that I really wanted to know the answer to is who in the UK tweets the most?

Is it a very bored person in a dull job whose boss hasn’t yet got round to mastering email let alone micro blogging or a social media advocate who has to spend days following everyone and retweeting influentials cos that’s the main part of their job description?

So, some time in April, I started a on a mission to find out who the UK’s top twitterers are.
I guess I was just intrigued by how often people use Twitter and why they use it. Perhaps, most importantly, what kind of people are posting 20 plus tweets a day. Are they as immoral as the Daily Mail thinks they might be?

If you want to do a worldwide list of top tweeters this is very simple. You go to Twitterholics main list and click the tab marked Updates. You’ll then discover that, at the of writing anyhow, it is Internet Radio, which is basically using Twitter to tell its few followers what tunes various web based radio stations are playing. You then have to scroll down a long way before you reach a real person in the guise of Big Willie who has racked up an astonishing 55,000 tweets in six months. He is quite possibly cheating, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now as I can’t be bothered to spend hours combing through his many pages of tweets.

As for the UK, well the Twitter feeds for media groups like Popbitch, Q radio and The Daily Telegraph are highly popular, but they aren’t really people so I haven’t included them.
There’s also the added difficulty of there not being a single location for the UK which makes it very tricky using Twitterholic. So while I trawled through lists for most of the country’s biggest conurbations, if you are a heavy tweeter in St Neots, Lowestoft or Camspey Ash, I probably missed you.

I did think I had found a winner in Dave Pattern who had racked up over 50k tweets in a couple of years. He did DM me to confess though that many of those tweets were library codes and so he gracefully ducked out of my little poll.

So the real winner, unless you know different, is a web designer from Leeds who goes by the name of Shubox. He is likely to be the first Brit to reach 50k tweets which is a pretty amazing achievement as he needs to have been averaging an impressive 60-ish tweets a day. I DM-ed him but got no response, so I wonder too if he has been tampering with library codes, playlists or something even more sinister.

My number two, Robert Brook has agreed to a mini interview via DM which you can read here very shortly. If you have questions as to why he tweets so much and what he tweets about etc and don’t fancy wading though 35k tweets then tweet me @shinyashley

So here’s the list. I will fess up now that, although it has taken me ages to compile this list, it is quite possibly wrong on many counts, So, if I missed someone please let me know. It would be good to publish a more definitive list in a few weeks time

1 Keith Murdoch (shubox)
47,562 tweets

On Twitter 28 months
Britain’s most prolific tweeter (unless you know different) bills himself as a ‘Scouse Artist living in Leeds as a Web Designer! Occasionally known as Supasnail.’ Like many prolific tweeters he has been on Twitter a long time, but only has a comparatively small amount of followers

Mainly tweets about – Fairly serious tech stuff, Liverpool FC and Rhubarb

Sample tweet – I was often amazed that a Farm in Wakefield seemed to reject tonnes of Rhubarb each year. It’d be piled high for weeks.

2 Robert Brook (robertbrook)
35,411 tweets

On Twitter 32 months
Robert works for the UK parliament as part of skunkworks team, which, if like me you haven’t a clue what that is he defines it as: a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy.

Mainly tweets about – Descriptions about what he is up to (you get to know what he has eaten and when he goes to bed most days)and conversations with other tweeters, plus lots of stuff about getting parliamentary staff using Twitter (now there’s a good idea)

Sample tweet – Bt have sent me a letter about my wife’s death. She’s right here!

3 lo fi (infobunny) London
28,702 Tweets

On Twitter 26 months
Lo fi remains a mystery as she protects her tweets. She’s a librarian which makes me suspicious that she might be doing something with library codes. She also blogs at a cool little site at twitterapps.co.uk

4 Amanda (Hedgewytch)
28,542 Tweets

On Twitter 20 months
Hedgewytch describes herself as a ENFP Mac Support general creative wannabee. Don’t know much else about her as she protects her tweets, but 28k tweets in 20 months sounds like she is either obsessed with Twitter or has been using it for something else interesting.

5 Danie Ware (Danacea)
25,920 Tweets

On Twitter 26 months

Danie is a PR for @forbiddenplanet (dotcom!) and also a Writer, Warrior, Fitness Nut, Geek, Gamer, Art Toy Freak, Mum and Lemur!

Mainly tweets about – Lots of chat with her many followers. Also lets you know how she is faring with the book she writing.

Sample tweet – in dire need of wine. There’s a bottle of Vino Collapso in the fridge calling me – but must finish chapter and put my son to bed first…

6 Jennie (jaffne)
18,340 Tweets

On Twitter 24 months
Another Librarian, this time for a law firm. She also protects her tweets. There’s plenty of legal stuff on her blog.

7 Sizemore (sizemore)
18,163 Tweets

On Twitter 29 months
Sizemore is Mike Atherton, a London-based writer who is not only prolific but also has a lot of followers and is occasionally rather witty.

Mainly tweets about – Lots of TV-related chat with his many mates

Sample tweet – Hello Dublin. Extra points scored for listening to Come Fly With Me by Sinatra while playing FlightControl in the air.

8 Steve Lawson (solobasssteve)
16,614 tweets

On Twitter 15 months
Steve Lawson is a lovely bloke who is quite possibly the world’s best connected bass guitarist. He blogs, lectures, makes vids and from time to time still finds time to play his bass

Mainly tweets about – lovin his bass and his podcasts

Sample tweet – in a sound war of bass vs power tools, I *could* win… but today, I’ll valiantly surrender 😉

9 James Governor (monkchips)
16,405 posts

On Twitter 29 months
James Governor (yep I think that’s his real name) is an industry analyst whose Twitter feed is chocka with interesting little insights into the way he sees the tech world going.

Mainly tweets about – Big companies like IBM and Amazon and the ecosystem that surrounds them.

Sample tweet – Get Excited and Make Things. Work on Stuff That Matters. Ignore Everybody.

10 Charonqc (Charonqc)
16,392 Tweets

On twitter 11 months
Legal blogger – sometimes very funny
Mainly tweets about – getting fit and other law companies

Sample tweet – Allen & Overy is now following me… that’s nice. I wonder what they will get from the experience? They issue lots of bulletins on Twitter

11 Suw (Suw) London http://chocolateandvodka.com
14,306 Tweets

On Twitter 29 months
The original British social media guru who has a very fine and very popular blog. Twitter feed is a must.

12 PaulWalsh (Paulwalsh)
13,869 Tweets

On Twitter – 29 months
Irish entrepreneur and start up guru who spends a lot of time in London. Can be very funny.

13 dominiccampbell (dominiccampbell)
13,621 tweets

On Twitter 22 months
Works on developing social media strategies for governments.

14 amypalko (amypalko)
Tweets 13,496

On Twitter 15 months
Bio says – ‘Fascinated in everything with a limitless curiosity – I live in a state of constant intrigue. ‘ Works in social media then.

15 joannayoung (joannayoung)
13,091 Tweets

On Twitter 20 months
Writing coach who has an interesting blog. Lots of details about her daily life.

16 Ram Solanki (jun6lee) London http://blog.ramchandra.me.uk
12,626 Tweets

On Twitter 22 months
Aspiring screenwriter. Lots of stuff about veggie food.

17 adamjones (applemacbookpro) London http://macbookismydream.blogs…
11,605 Tweets

On twitter 15 months ago
Given the title of his feed no surprise to find he has lots of followers. Lots of tech stuff and many retweets

18 Chris Leydon (chrisleydon) london http://www.chrisleydon.com/blog
11,440 Tweets

On Twitter 13 months ago
Astonishing tweet ratio from this 20-year-old who actually went cold turkey on Twitter a couple of months ago.

19 James Whatley (Whatleydude) London http://whatleydude.com
11,390 Tweets

On Twitter 25 months
Social media for voice to text people Spinvox

20 Phil O’Kane (icedcoffee)
Tweets 11,066

On twitter 26 months
Belfast-based photographer