Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Amazon.com is unveiling a program that pays bloggers for Kindle e-reader subscriptions to their posts. Amazon will pay registered bloggers 30% of its subscription fee. At a $2 per month price point, a blogger could make $50,000 per year with just 7,000 annual subscribers. (Iwantmedia 5/14,http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/14/amazon-to-pay-bloggers-for-subscriptions 5/14)

Very nice.  Thank you Amazon.  Just published Daily Marauder.  The format is a bit wonky but what the hell, still cool none the less.  Love that Amazon even generates a Kindle preview so that you can see what your blog looks like on the device.  FYI, Newspaper companies, speak to Kindle.  They have it.

Actor Ashton Kutcher, in a quest to fulfill his promise to “ding-dong-ditch” Ted Turner‘s house after winning a race to attract 1 million followers on Twitter, unfurled a giant banner with his microblogging account’s name over the CNN logo on the Time Warner network’s building in Atlanta. (Iwantmedia 5/14,http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/14/cnn.kutcher.prank/index.html 5/14)

Google’s new search products demonstrate the company’s continued ability to innovate, says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. The Internet giant will maintain its search leadership “for the foreseeable future.” Google’s position is “essentially insurmountable.” (Iwantmedia 5/14,http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/13/is-google-insurmountable 5/13)

Just weeks after a Swedish court found the four men behind the Pirate Bay Web site guilty of promoting copyright infringement, illegal file-sharing of music is as rampant as ever, says the U.K.’s PRS for Music. “The Pirate Bay trial has done nothing to discourage file sharing.” (Iwantmedia 5/14,http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6fe991c-3fd0-11de-9ced-00144feabdc0.html 5/14)

U.S. social network advertising spending will fall 3% to $1.14 billion in 2009, from $1.18 billion in 2008, according to a forecast by eMarketer. MySpace is described as “the major problem.” While it has been cash cow for News Corp., “the brand has lost its shine.” (Iwantmedia 5/14,http://www.adotas.com/2009/05/myspace-drags-down-social-network-ad-spend 5/14)