FBI investigators have been staking out online gambling venues in Second Life, as part of an investigation as to whether the service violates U.S. anti-gambling statutes, including the Illegal Gambling Business Act or the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

So far the FBI has not confirmed whether they will be taking action against Linden Labs, owners of Second Life, however the company faces not only fines but potential jail time for its directors.

According to a Reuters report, Linden Labs actually invited the FBI in to investigate Second Life so it could be clear on the legalities of it all so they could eventually get an answer either way, but interesting most legal advice would indicate that they are indeed in breach of current laws.

Originally posted on April 3, 2007 @ 8:11 pm

The News Corp owned uber social networking site MySpace delivered revenue $90 million in 2006, according to a report at BusinessWeek.

In eCPM terms, with 31.5 billion page views for the year, News Corp only managed to make 0.29 cents per 1000 pages (eCPM) from the site, way below most industry averages, which usually are at least around the $1-$5 CPM rate dependent on the site…and even rubbish sites can usually manage 10-15c CPM.

In English, MySpace is getting just shy of three tenths of one cent per 1000 pages…or even better, $0.0000028 per page.

In case I did my sums wrong

9000000000 cents /
31500000000 page views =
0.28571428571428571428571428571429

News Corp hopes to make more from the site, ramping up ad sales to $271 million for 2007, but presuming the same traffic figures for 2006, the return would then only become 0.69 cents per thousand…still insanely low.

On the current sales strategy at MySpace, BusinessWeek reports:

“MySpace sells the majority of its ads at rock-bottom rates: an average of $1.50 or so per 1,000 users”

$1.50 CPM sales rate and yet the revenue is returning $0.0029 CPM? Here’s a hint to News Corp: drop the sales price from $1.50 to 10 cents..or even 1 cent per CPM and fill the inventory so the bottom line goes up…pricing your advertising at $1.50 when you’re getting overall returns of less that 1 cent CPM really says something, doesn’t it: you’re charging more than the market wants to pay…that and it’s well known the MySpace traffic doesn’t convert as well so it’s why people won’t pay for it…are quite clearly aren’t.

If you’d like to share some tips to News Corp on MySpace, leave a comment.

 

Tags: MySpace

Originally posted on April 2, 2007 @ 9:26 pm

EMI Music has announced that it is dropping DRM on “premium downloads”.

The new higher quality DRM-free music will be offered on top of EMI’s existing range of DRM-protected downloads, and will come in a variety of bit rates up to CD quality.

EMI is releasing the DRM free premium downloads “in response to consumer demand for high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players…that will enable full interoperability of digital music across all devices and platforms”.

Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said, “Our goal is to give consumers the best possible digital music experience. By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music.

“Apple have been a true pioneer in digital music, and we are delighted that they share our vision of an interoperable market that provides consumers with greater choice, quality, convenience and value for money.”

“Selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “EMI has been a great partner for iTunes and is once again leading the industry as the first major music company to offer its entire digital catalogue DRM-free.”

Apple’s iTunes will be the first online music store to receive EMI’s new premium downloads. Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29/€1.29/£0.99. iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/€0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/€0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.

Originally posted on April 2, 2007 @ 5:31 am

Google’s Matt Cutts will wake to an interesting April Fools Day, Google’s spammer head kicker has had his blog hacked by the Dark SEO Team.

According to Search Engine Land, the hack was more than the main/ index page hijacking, with Cutts’ entire archive also being deleted as well.

Originally posted on March 31, 2007 @ 10:02 pm

Yahoo has won regulatory approval to acquire Taiwanese based social networking site Wretch.cc for $21.2m.

The relatively unknown Wretch, which we covered back in February, is a Xanga style blogging and social networking destination extremely popular in Chinese language markets, with an Alexa ranking in 36, making the Yahoo acquisition a complete and utter bargain.

According to reports, the purchase had been held up by the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission, who investigated complaints that the acquisition would give Yahoo Taiwan unfair control over Internet advertising rates in Taiwan, and excessive market share as well.

Wretch is said to have 2.8 million members.

Tags: Wretch

Originally posted on March 30, 2007 @ 7:34 pm