Mag Ads are Insanely Inexpensive – Tip: Ads in MAKE: magazine are dirt-cheap, considering the size of the magazine’s audience (50K and growing), education level (high), income (high), ad-page density (commitedly sparse), and shelf-life (three months). You can get a full page for less than $3K– chump-change for big-company advertisers, and well within reach for many small businesses or even a committed Scout troop. Link. or email.
On Saturday, September 17th, MAKE will present Podcasting 101: How to Make, Produce and Publish Podcasts – 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Learn what a podcast is and how to make them using your Mac and GarageBand. Also learn how to get listed in iTunes, RSS and more. I’ll also show how we make our enhanced podcasts and a lot more! Link.
Well, I like Skype, I like eBay- it seems the rumors might be true– According to a BusinessWeek article, eBay will be holding an “investors conference call” at 5am PST for an announcement to be made 2 hours before. Since the eBay, Skype talks began early last week, there’s been speculation on whether or not this will happen. An article on MarketWatch, which was last updated at 11:40PM EST (Sept. 11), states eBay and Skype are in the final stages of this deal and would cost as much as $4.1 billion. Time to finsih my Skype-eBay payphone I guess. Thanks Sean! Link.
We’ll cover whatever is announced on Tuesday’s big Apple event, but Kevin Rose seems to have the scoop. Cingular will announce an iTunes compatible phone – the “Rocker”. New 2GB ipod called the “Nano” – it will sport a color screen and will be much smaller and thinner than a mini. Price = $199. Link.
The Ninth Circuit has created box-wrap patent licenses. Now the label on the box that says “single use only” is given force of law, and if you refill the cartridge you are liable for patent infringement. This from Lexmark, the company that already tried and failed to control the printer cartridge after-market using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)…Will patent owners exploit this decision as an opportunity to impose over-reaching restrictions on formerly permitted post-sale uses, repairs, modifications, and resale? Will consumers soon confront “single use only, not for resale” notices on more and more products? Will innovators stumble over labels announcing “modifications prohibited”? Link.
I’m hoping more and more micropayment systems take off…PayPal announced new micropayments processing fees for digital goods. The new pricing will provide merchants with a more affordable way to process payments for low-cost digital content such as video games, online greeting cards, news articles, mobile phone content and digital music. Link.
Here’s why…On top of that, consumers should expect punishment for tinkering with their Blu-ray players, as many have done with current DVD players, for instance to remove regional coding. The new, Internet-connected and secure players will report any “hack” and the device can be disabled remotely. “A hacked player is any player that is doing something it’s not supposed to do,” Setos said, adding the jury was still out if regional coding would be maintained or scrapped. [via] Link.
