GigaOM

MySpace Music has inked a deal with digital music distributor the Independent Online Distribution Alliance that doubles to around 2 million the number of independent label tracks offered on the site. MySpace Music’s executive director of strategy and operations, Frank Hajdu, said the deal should clear up any misconceptions about the massive online music site’s relationship with the indie music community, which took a hit after MySpace Music launched late last month. Continue »

The concept of offering free portable computers bundled with wireless Internet connections has been kicked around for a while, but not many have gone ahead and done it. Till now. Reliance Communications, a large telecom carrier in India, says that it will be giving away free netbooks for those who sign up for its two-year wireless Internet service. It has teamed up with Intel, Acer, Asus, HCL and Lenovo in order to make this happen. Continue »

Since Google pays News Corp millions of dollars to be its friend, it is no surprise that MySpace, the elder social networking service, would be one of the first companies to release an Android-version of MySpace Mobile just ahead of the commercial release of the Google Phone tomorrow. It looks remarkably like the iPhone version on Facebook. (Check out my review in case you are interested in buying the phone.) Continue »

Brand Asset Digital launched its P2P advertising platform P2Pwords today, promising to bring pay-per-click advertising to file-sharing networks like Limewire, Gnutella and Emule. The NY-based company received a largely positive review from John Healey over at The LA Times Bitplayer blog, who thinks that “the opportunity presented by P2Pwords is so large, it may be hard for advertisers to resist.” Continue »

Google was the second most active cleantech investor last quarter, has unveiled a $4.4 trillion U.S. energy plan, and could one day actually make revenues off energy management tools. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt has his own plans when it comes to energy and politics. Schmidt, who has been acting as the spokesperson for Google’s energy plan, has also been advising the Obama campaign on both energy and technology issues and tells the Wall Street Journal that he will personally back Obama and join the campaign trail at an event on Tuesday. Earlier this month I wrote an op-ed for Forbes suggesting that Obama should fill his planned Chief Technology Officer with a Chief Cleantech Officer and appoint Schmidt to the role. Who knows, maybe that’s the plan? For my complete take, check out the full story over at Earth2Tech. Continue »

Shutdown: Mygazines, a web site that allowed folks to share digital copies of magazines, has shut down. It was sued by magazine publishers and later settled. It was a bad idea to begin with, no surprise it is gone. (Folio) Continue »

Like Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali and Data Center Knowledge’s Rich Miller, I was surprised by the big dip in Google’s capital expenditures that the company revealed when it reported third-quarter earnings yesterday. At $452 million, this was the lowest spending on equipment for its data centers, networks and other infrastructure since the first quarter of 2006, when Google spent $345 million. Continue »

Pandora CEO Tim Westergren says ad sales are looking up and that the Internet radio company is bringing on more staff — in the same blog post in which he announces that the firm’s laying off 20 of its 140 employees due to the broader economic downturn. But if ad spending in general is heading south in an already wobbly economy, then strong ad sales at Pandora might not last for long. Continue »