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imeem opening own music store (MacNN)
imeem is gradually building its own music store that may afford it independence from Apple's iTunes or Amazon MP3, an investigation has found. Normally, those buying permanent copies of music from the site must go through an Amazon or iTunes link and buy it off-site; quietly, however, the company has been adding direct-download MP3 purchases of its own for certain artists, such as Iron and Wine. ...

Singing A New Tune: The Imeem Music Store. (TechCrunch)
Does embattled music streaming site imeem think it can take on iTunes? For the most part, nearly every streaming song on the site has a download button which links to both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. But it is quietly testing its own music download store which bypasses iTunes and Amazon and sells MP3s directly. For instance, this is the case with some Sub Pop artists, such as Iron and Wine ...

Free music boosts Google market share in China (The West Australian)
Google's music service in China, which lets users download Michael Jackson, U2 and Beyonce songs for free, may have helped increase its share of the worlds biggest Internet market, research company IR

Google music service helps curb Baidu's lead in China market (San Jose Mercury News)
Google's music service in China, which lets users download Michael Jackson, U2 and Beyonce songs for free, may have helped increase its share of the world's biggest Internet market, research company IResearch said.

Asia tested as music industry seeks to boost sales (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Rampant piracy and a crumbling market for CDs has put the music industry in Asia under immense pressure, but experts are hoping that technology and social media will help fill the gap.

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Posted by Roger on February 08, 2006

Comedy Podcast - Mister Rons Basement

"Mister Ron's Basement," a unique and extremely popular podcast, using the newest of modern mediums to re-popularize long-forgotten humorists is just about to send out its one millionth download.

The show, which offers readings of humorous works from the public domain by well-known authors such as Mark Twain and O Henry, and long forgotten writers like Ellis Parker Butler, Stephen Leacock, and Fanny Fern, has been drawing in an average of 7000 to 8000 downloads a day in recent months. There are a few podcasts that feature readings of public domain books and stories, but none are quite like Mister Ron's Basement.

In less than a year, “Mister Ron” Evry's podcast topped 900,000 downloads by the end of January, and is expected to hit the One Million mark sometime in February.

“I am utterly amazed,” said Evry, “that so many people are interested in what I thought was a fringe subject. I suppose that people are simply hungry for humorous stuff to listen to on their commutes, and despite the age of the material, most of the stories I read are still very funny indeed.”

Evry's search for funny material in the public domain (his operation is too small to deal with paying royalties) has been essentially limited to works written before 1923. By digging around in an ever-growing collection of old books, and researching scholarly papers on the internet, he has discovered a wide variety of mostly forgotten literature written to tickle the funnybones of generations long gone

You can get his podcast here

Or go to his website - Mr Ron's Basement