Pirates Beware!  Crossing the “legal” guys in Japan just became tougher. In March, a number of artists, software developers, and moviemakers registered their complaints to the ISPs in Japan for them to track down internet pirates and limit their operations severely. Take note that it is not the government imposing this rule. Rather, the four major ISP organizations in Japan agreed to track down pirates and deny them access to the Internet.

There was a similar attempt of the ISPs to ban pirates in the Internet back in 2006. The government, however, intervened, saying that this move will have important implications on the privacy of Japanese internet users.

With the huge pressure coming from the music and software industry, these ISPs are at it again. According to a report, the ISPs will use detection software that will let the ISPs know who is sharing files and who is downloading copyrighted content without the right licenses.

The ISPs will send a warning to the violators through an email. For the second offense, the Internet connection will be interrupted. But if the pirate continues to download and share files illegally, then the account of the internet subscribers will be terminated.

It seems that pirates are being tracked down all over the world and we might see the reduction of piracy in the internet in the future.

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From being simply a mobile portal in the internet, Yahoo implemented another platform to give mobile users a chance to personalize their web portal. Now, mobile internet users can customize their own web portal courtesy of Yahoo onePlace.

When mobile internet users connect to the Internet, they no longer need to memorize the web URLs, they can simply customize their web portal at Yahoo to do it for them. Bookmarks can be easily stored at the Yahoo onePlace site. All the sites being accessed regularly can be stored at Yahoo onePlace.

If you are a mobile internet user, there is another important feature of onePlace, you can add categories and collections. Any site pertaining to blogging may be categorized as such. You can also do that with your email or any websites of interest. It is also possible for you to subscribe to RSS feeds. Through onePlace, it becomes easier to use internet with your mobile phone.

If you have also membership from Digg, YouTube, and other sites, you can customize your mobile to have these bookmarks. In addition to this, you can also customize instant messaging with your mobile phone through oneConnect. With onePlace, Yahoo is competing with Microsoft’s partnership with Silverlight in managing mobile web content.

The concept for onePlace is very similar to RSS feeds, which allows internet users to subscribe to their favourite blogs and websites. Through onePlace, Yahoo also aims to boost its advertising efforts and help application developers to offer lots of widgets and apps for mobile users.

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The French government is preparing to give EUR 99 M or roughly USD 152 M to twenty-three private European firms. Among these firms, the leader is Thomson. The reason for the money? They will develop a competitor of Google that is distinctly European. This project has been nicknamed the Quaero project and the European Commission believes that such a project will have significant cultural and research benefit for European countries. These benefits will surely be worth the big amount of money given to these firms.

France is not the only government shelling out money. The German government, in July 2007, also gave 120 million Euros to one segment of the Quaero project, nicknamed Theseus. The firms leading this research and development effort include Siemens and Thomson-Germany.

With the European Union bringing in money to develop the European version of Google, it remains to be seen how they will build their online edifice from the ground up. Google has had important headstart and it has developed for several years now. In the next five years, the expenses of the Quaero project will double and the initial investment now will have to be added.

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Members of the Old Media, particularly, newspapers are banding together to target online advertising. This is perhaps born out of a realization of the increasing role of Web 2.0 in the advertising world or perhaps because of decreasing sales and ad exposures.

QuadrantONE was conceptualized and joined by four companies—Tribune, Gannett, Hearst, and The New York Times. This company is based in Chicago and will initially employ less than twenty people. Ad space will be sold in local papers such as the LA Times, Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle and Des Moines Register among others. If the paper is not local, it will not be included in the deal. As such, big league names such as USA Today, International Herald Tribune, and New York Times are excluded from this deal. 

The newspaper companies will still control the management and the sales of advertisements although the advertisements will feature ad buys. Perhaps we are seeing a showdown between the Old Media and the New. Apparently, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo among others are now targeting mainstream media sites for their advertisements and the Old media guys are being threatened by this move.  With quadrantONE, 50 million unique visitors are expected monthly.

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From being simply a mobile portal in the internet, Yahoo implemented another platform to give mobile users a chance to personalize their web portal. Now, mobile internet users can customize their own web portal courtesy of Yahoo onePlace. When mobile internet users connect to the Internet, they no longer need to memorize the web URLs, they can simply customize their web portal at Yahoo to do so. Bookmarks can be easily stored at the Yahoo onePlace site. All the sites being accessed regularly can be stored at Yahoo onePlace.

If you are a mobile internet user, there is another important feature of onePlace, you can add categories and collections. Any site pertaining to blogging may be categorized as such. You can also do that with your email or any websites of interest. It is also possible for you to subscribe to RSS feeds. Through onePlace, it becomes easier to use internet with your mobile phone.

If you have also membership from Digg, YouTube, and other sites, you can customize your mobile to have these bookmarks. In addition to this, you can also customize instant messaging with your mobile phone through oneConnect. With onePlace, Yahoo is competing with Microsoft’s partnership with Silverlight in managing mobile web content.

The concept for onePlace is very similar to RSS feeds, which allows internet users to subscribe to their favourite blogs and websites. Through onePlace, Yahoo also aims to boost its advertising efforts and help application developers to offer lots of widgets and apps for mobile users.

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Hip hop is making waves in the music industry. Now, there is an online social networking site for hip-hop fanatics. Through Hip-hop.net, you can let the world know what your favorite music is or you can even post your own, original music. Hip-hoppers all over the world could converge in this social network. Just like other social networking sites, you can create your profile and show your photos as well as your interests and your involvement in the hip-hop scene. The site also features videos, forums, blogs, and, of course, music.

Hip-hop.net also has “thelist”, which shows the top-rated materials in the site. You can also browse through the website to check out different artists. Hip-hop.net is founded by hip-hop fanatics. It is also closely related with b-boys.com. With these sites, you can certainly be kept abreast of the developments in the hip-hop international or even local scene.

The site has an interesting layout and interface and it is very easy to navigate through its features. It also has a lot of articles and media content, which hip-hop fanatics could easily read. As a music site, such content is very much needed.

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All sorts of online networking sites in various genres are on the rise and it might still be a long time before the market is saturated with these sites. As they say there are “different strokes for different folks.” As such, netizens with various interests can still band together and connect online.

With this notion in mind, ugame was launched as the online place to go for gamers all over the world. PC gamers engaged in competition and friendly games can simply register to this site and share tips and tricks regarding their favorite games. They can also form clans and groups that can engage in online gaming and compete with other groups and clans.

 Ugame, however, is still in its beta phase and it caters to aficionados of Counterstrike, Warcraft, and Quake. Its dream, however, is to be able to connect gamers from all platforms all over the world under its fold.

Gamers can also design their brag boards and show off their accomplishments in tournaments and contests. They can also complete their profiles, upload photos, manage blogs, and share photos. This site could also be a great way for people to check out new games. Likewise, game developers may also contact good gamers in gathering feedback regarding newly released games.

Tags: Web 2.0No Comments.

 Talented artists and illustrators now have a better chance to get audience for their artworks. This is through Comiqs.com, a website company based in Singapore, which features a web-based editing platform. Web-based applications seem to be the fad recently.

There are already several applications helping artists organize their artworks into coherent and stylish comics. One of the better known is Comic Life by Plasq. This software are installed in Apple Macs. There are also a number of online comics editing suite available today. Comiqs is free and it is totally online. As long as you have internet connection, you can use this program. 

When creating your comic strip, you can upload your pictures directly from your computers or you can also cross-link through websites offering free photo-hosting. There are numerous tools available for your use such as adding speech bubbles that have different fonts and frames.

You can also drag and drop pictures into the interface so it is very easy to use and you do not need to spend a year in learning its features. If you have a blog, you can also embed it so that your readers can access it readily. Cartoonists and artists can also explore the option of revenue-sharing so that both the website and the artist can benefit from the arrangement.

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Good news to fashion retailers all over the world! Connecting with wholesalers and manufacturers is now made easier through FashionGo.net. As a retailer, you no longer need to personally visit a fashion district in the United States or in Europe. Instead, you can easily choose among hundreds of wholesalers online and your choice of products will be delivered to your own doorsteps. 

FashionGo.net enables almost 15,000 retailers to connect with manufacturers for a better set of products to choose from. Moreover, they can find more diversity of products as well as new ones. With this kind of choice, then the retailers can also enrich their own set of fashion collection.

The good thing about this company is that it is financially backed by large companies that are working under the garment manufacturer. With this, the retailers will be able to effectively increase their profits without spending on operational costs in buying new garments that will boost their fashion collections. 

The website is set to launch innovations in the coming months. As such, it is expected to target both large and the small-scale retailers in the market. Although it has a specific niche in the market, it is set to increase its market shares in the coming months.

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