bruceb news

Microsoft and Yahoo are aggressively trying to push people to paid e-mail services by making it harder than ever to rely on free ones. Apple Computer is cutting free e-mail service altogether.

In the latest move, on Wednesday Microsoft cleaned out all messages that were more than thirty days old in everyone’s Hotmail “Sent Items” folder. Within the last few months, both Microsoft and Yahoo reduced the amount of storage space for messages and cut off access to POP3 accounts. Microsoft appears to have weakened its junk mail filter so more spam clogs up each Hotmail mailbox, which uses up the allotted storage space very quickly. […] continued

You’ll recall that the recording industry appeared to have won a one-sided mediation to set royalty rates for Internet radio broadcasts. Rates were chosen that were far higher than rates for conventional radio stations – high enough to put virtually all Internet broadcasters out of business.

The Librarian of Congress had final authority to set the rates, and didn’t approve the mediator’s ruling. Today he announced that the rates would be one-half the rates proposed by the mediator – still punishingly high, but it’s plausible that the Internet broadcasters with the deepest pockets will stay in business. Here’s an article about the ruling – still subject to more appeals, of course. […] continued

The days of free e-mail are drawing to a close. Yahoo, Lycos, and Hotmail have all started to change their free e-mail accounts to make it more likely that users will pony up a monthly subscription fee. Today, Hotmail announced it will start charging to retrieve mail from other POP mailboxes – just as Yahoo and Lycos announced earlier this year. More importantly, Hotmail reduced the amount of storage space offered for free, and tweaked its junk mail filter a few months ago so that most junk messages are no longer caught and filtered into the trash can. Since Hotmail accounts are inundated with spam, the result is that your Inbox quickly fills up to the (reduced) space limit and Hotmail shuts off your account until you manually clean out your Inbox. […] continued

On May 2, I wrote about an order due to take effect this week requiring Internet streaming radio stations to pay punishingly high royalties for songs – far higher than comparable royalties for conventional radio stations. It was the result of strongarm tactics by the recording industry to end web broadcasting, since no broadcaster could have afforded to pay the royalties.

There’s been a temporary reprieve. After fierce lobbying and a bit of a public outcry, the Librarian of Congress issued a terse order rejecting the proposed rates and promising a final decision on June 20. It’s not obvious that the new rates will be lower, although that’s the most likely result. […] continued

The death of Internet radio is three weeks away. No fooling.

The recording industry collaborated with the media conglomerates that own virtually all conventional radio stations in the country to close down the Internet radio industry before it has a chance to develop into a true competitor. Congress and the Copyright Office jumped right in to help, under the auspices of the evil Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

The result is an order requiring Internet-only radio stations to pay exorbitant royalties. On May 21, Internet-only radio stations are required to pay twice the royalties for the music they Webcast as over-the-air stations pay – even if the latter have Internet feeds of their own. […] continued

I had to chuckle (to avoid crying) reading this article about the squabbles between Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia. At first, you’ll be sympathetic to the claims that Orbitz is competing unfairly by obtaining lower prices from its airline owners than are available to Travelocity and Expedia. But keep reading, and it becomes obvious that all three are would-be monopolists who have no interest in consumers, except to figure out the most effective ways to pick our pockets. Think you’re being offered the lowest fares when you do a search? Think again. All of them skew the results in favor of the airlines that pay the most generous commissions, or that pay for higher rankings, or shut out airlines that don’t play ball. […] continued

The music industry’s pay services, RealOne and PressPlay, are worse than you realize. Read the details here, then do what I did – uninstall all the RealNetworks software from your system and ignore the industry’s efforts to provide “legal” sources of music until they come up with something that isn’t insulting.

Yahoo has created its own web site for maps, instead of relying on AOL’s MapQuest. Here’s an article about the corporate stuff, and here’s the new Yahoo map service.

If you’ve got kids and a broadband Web connection, you might want to check out Kick Out The Jammies, a new online radio station for kids. The playlist ranges from “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Purple People Eater,” to Mozart, the Rolling Stones and Steven Sondheim. It stands out a bit because it’s created and operated by David Bowie. Bowie has an extraordinarily active online community – a lot of artists talk about interacting with their fans, but Bowie has been doing it on an unprecedented scale for more than three years now. Click here to take a look around. […] continued

If you’ve got a broadband connection (DSL or cable) and you want to listen to some music, don’t overlook AOL Time Warner’s Spinner.com and Microsoft’s MSN Music. Both allow you to choose a channel from a long list of narrowly-targeted choices (Big Band jazz, Dixieland Jazz, Fusion, Ragtime, Smooth Jazz, and a couple of dozen more jazz channels, for example). The music quality is surprisingly good. Some commercials, but no DJs talking. Since conventional radio stations are virtually unlistenable for music now, these are a pretty good alternative.