Lets take a look at all the news that slipped through the cracks.

RIAA Finds Even Sillier Attack Vector

The RIAA ignores safe harbor and instead decides that all those naughty Usenet users with their “free communication” and “fair use” are dirty, rotten pirates. This is not to say that Usenet isn’t used for piracy, but rather that once again the RIAA is choosing to attack a symptom rather than taking a look at the bigger problem. What is the problem? Well, among other things, in the last month Radiohead, Madonna, and a host of other big name acts have jumped ship. This is not a good sign.

Solution: RIAA, please pay attention to the next few sentences. You must realize that digital music can no longer be successfully monetized. This isn’t coming from a pirate, this isn’t a joke, isn’t pandering and is certainly not a symptom of a lack of perspective. This is cold, hard reality. Your job is now to take a look at how to leverage your catalogs to draw more people out to venues where you can find other ways to get into their wallets.

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Yahoo!!

Yahoo is finally pulling itself out of its slump. Third quarter financial data suggests that free cash flow is up, revenue is up and (a bit of a downer) operating margins have declined. It’s a good day to be Jerry Yang.

Prognosis: Yahoo still needs to find itself in the marketplace. It’s Ad network is far behind the closest competitors in terms of penetration and the companies culture still isn’t getting the tech punditry hot and bothered. My suggestion is that they make a strong push in the social media space. Right now, Google’s strategy involves “doing something with Orkut.” If Yahoo could make a strong enough push, they might really be able to reestablish “relevance” in the marketplace.

Live From The Echo Chamber

[Insert Social Network] will [destroy / be acquired by / subsume] [Insert entrenched corporation with actual revenue] even though [Insert Social Network] has, up until this point, been unable to convert its [Insert random means of scrapping by, usually Advertising] into a viable business model. [Insert Tech Journalist] believes that this must be the case because [Insert thesis that seems sensible but misses the point entirely].

Apple has [Insert anything up to and including mowing the front lawn of their complex].

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