A menagerie of musings this week, if you’ll indulge me:

1. Things heat up in the war on Piracy, Oink in a Sty.

Aurgh me matey, or should I say Oink! In certain circles the Oink online file sharing service was a well known source for pirated record releases, often pre-release albums that were available to invited users only. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry some 60 albums were provided this year alone. Given the closed nature of the service, it was difficult to pinpoint any wrongdoing, however after being infiltrated by Dutch/UK officials (seemingly by performing a Whois query on the domain name to determine the proprietors address, funny that!) a 24 year old has been taken into custody and the site has been suspended.

2. Holiday Shopping heats up, according to Hitwise, but which are the more popular online categories?

I love the Hitwise guys (an Aussie entrepreneurial success story in its own right) and in this analysis they look at the popular online shopping categories leading up to the holiday season, with some predictions for 2007.

3. Microsoft and Facebook get cosy

This week penultimate social networking site Facebook expands its advertising deal with Microsoft to cover international markets. In addition, Microsoft will take an equity stake in Facebook (now valued at US$15b) and in doing so will gain access to Facebook’s nearly 50 million users. Do you have a facebook account? I must admit I’ve found it more valuable than I would have thought, perhaps not professionally (LinkedIn is my preferred choice there) but certainly in reconnection with old friends.

4. Can Google Track TV Audiences like never before?

Google and Nielsen Company will strike a deal this week to create a ‘vivid and more accurate snapshot’ of how many people are viewing commercials in real time, along with who those people are. A marketers dream, a libertarian’s nightmare, the natural progression in my mind might be to screen a Holden Ute commercial during Renevation Rescue and if the viewer is a tradesman book them in for a test drive. Or something. Oh I know, how about canceling shows like Viva Laughin BEFORE the first adbreak? Now theres some viewing democracy right there!

5. NASA Sat Pictures of the Southern Californian Fires

Courtesy of Treehugger blog and NASA, The National Interagency Fire Center reports that 12 large, uncontained fires have burned over 335,000 acres in Southern California.

6. A little design sexiness, Aaron Tang’s “Wall Stairs”

You know I’m a sucker for a well thought out idea, and here Aaron has created a simple pull out stair case. I want one! It doesn’t even have to go anywhere.

– Ben Prendergast

In Rainbows: Hows it doing?
Radiohead this week released their online-only record “In Rainbows”, pricing it at US$as-much-as-you-want-to-pay, and subsequently took in an estimated US$9m in sales (average of 4 GBP per download) in its first few days. This might not sound like much, but it is, when you consider that most major artists only make around $1-3 per record. I love these guys, just a really great band, kicking it with a really great album, representing a cause (record industry reform) just as vehemently as their rock-and-roll forefathers might have. It does beg the question though, was the album named for an available domain name? Life imitating art imitating domain name registration.

iPhone to be opened for third party apps.
Chalk one up for the customer today, with Apple announcing they will offer a Software Development Kit for the iPhone by February. After months of negative feedback on the closed-system, its great to see another step toward an open mobile computing infrastructure.

Skype hits 10m concurrent users, partners with MySpace
Global IP-Phone giant Skype this week announced a partnership with MySpace, allowing 110 million active users to make free calls. Also this week I hear mention of Naked ADSL plans. The decline of the home phone? I know I recently canceled my home phone line in favour of a Melbourne-based Skype number ($12 per year sounds like a good phone plan?).

Facebook all set to take on LinkedIn
Facebook this week announced it will be targeting commercial users looking to network, which represents a fair challenge on the commercial networking site LinkedIn.com

Wooster Collective – This week represents Melbourne Street Art
I thought I’d also add some light-hearted street-art culture to this here tech blog, courtesy of the fantastic Wooster Collective blog.
This week they bring us two Melbourne corporate crate-people attempting to go AWOL (Liberal Party Front benchers?). Also checkout the drain-people piece, inspired!

– Ben Prendergast

This week I thought I’d take a look at another round of web oddities:

1. http://www.popurls.com
Always last to hear of that great new internet site/story/video/drama/fad (if you can’t make it to my blog that is)? Popurls is like a Top 40 chart for interpop-culture.

2. Check out Nokia’s Small World Contest, A Gallery of Beautiful Tiny Things

3. http://www.crossfit.com
Gym junkies, Pilates Prophets, you have been warned! CrossFit is what the US Navy Seals use to keep in shape (the human kind, not the bomb-diffusing trained sea-lionss), these workouts are H.A.R.D. HARD, woot!

4. http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf5
Poodwaddle, because sometimes you just need a real-time clock showing Global warming, HIV infections and other global abominations.


5. Giotto Premium Coffee Machine = Uber sexy caffeination
Although currently on detox, I’d give my left-kidney to get back into coffee-culture. When I do get back on the caffeine pony it will be with the sexiest Coffee machine on the planet.

– Ben Prendergast