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'Podcast' Is the Word of the Year — NEW YORK, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ — Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted "geeks." Now you can hear everything from NASCAR coverage to NPR's All Things Considered in downloadable audio files called "podcasts".

AOL Deal May Omit Stake Sale — Time Warner may not be selling a piece of America Online after all. — Time Warner is still in negotiations with Microsoft and Google over a variety of potential deals involving its AOL unit. But most of the possibilities under discussion …

Kanoodle Pays for Cookie Distribution — In a twist on the ad network concept, Kanoodle has launched a program that will pay publishers to distribute Kanoodle's targeting cookies, whether they show Kanoodle ads on their site or not. — The BrightAds Cookies program aims to increase …

Can Google Go Glossy? — Why its plan to resell print ads to its army of advertisers may be off to a slow start — It was a babystep that sent tremors through the media establishment. Seeking ways to expand its advertising juggernaut beyond the Internet, Google Inc. (GOOG ) …

Fido's First Cell Phone — Lost dog? As of next March, pet owners will be able to drop the photocopier and staple gun and pick up the phone instead. That's when PetCell, the first cell phone for dogs, is due to hit pet-store shelves. — Hung off Fido's collar, the PetCell …
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IFTF's Future Now

Top 20 Games That Nobody Played - But You Should — There are hundreds of excellent games that have been released over the last two decades that never quite got the attention and sales they deserved. Many times it is because of lousy marketing, but at least some of these games find an afterlife as a cult classic.

Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat — THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses …

Apple adds NBC, SciFi, USA to iTMS — Get out the popcorn and your 5G iPods everyone, because Apple has added a ton of new shows to the iTMS from the likes of NBC, USA, SciFi and Disney. The Office, Monk, Battlestar Galactica (including the miniseries), The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien …

Looking for the Proceeds in TV-on-Demand — For five decades or so, the television industry's main mission has been to come up with hit programs, get them on screens, and hope people will stop and watch. Now, that is just the starting point. — As an era of ordering TV shows at the push …

ESPN mulls Apple deal, eyes double digit growth — NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable sports network is mulling a deal to distribute some television programs on Apple's iTunes music and video service, possibly joining its corporate cousin in a landmark deal …

Le Chic Shall Inherit Les Blogs — A top international model is using social software and cell phones to give high fashion an air of high tech. — Anina, who struts her stuff on European catwalks and magazine covers, is a self-proclaimed geek and entrepreneur on a mission to turn …
Discussion:
...My heart's in Accra

Virtual Stars Compete for Real Money — Fatal1ty and Vo0 stood on opposite sides of a darkened theater while an announcer boomed their introductions to an appreciative crowd. Their faces magnified on giant overhead monitors, the two stared straight ahead while artificial smoke swirled around them.
Discussion:
Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

Revolution Launch — What exactly does "2006" really mean? We narrow down the launch date. — December 5, 2005 - Asking a Nintendo executive for Revolution's official launch date will always yield exactly the same response, which is, simply, "2006." In the past, the Big N's president …

VCs Survey Post-Bubble Opportunities … Venture investing has picked up from the post-dot-bomb era of a few years ago—but does the comeback signal good times ahead or a mini bubble of misguided exuberance? — To provoke discussion, HBS professor Bill Sahlman threw down the gauntlet …

Google Fixes Desktop Search Loophole — Google (Nasdaq: GOOG - news) has strengthened its Desktop Search tool so that it cannot be used any longer by hackers who are exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) Internet Explorer software.
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TechSpot

Why we invested $5 million in Attensa: RSS Investors Fund — News is out on the RSSI investment in Attensa, announced today. — KBCafe, — Red Herring — When John Palfrey, Richard Fishman and I founded the RSS Investors Fund, our aim was not simply to make money.
Discussion:
Northern Telecom, BASEMENT.ORG, PaidContent.org, The RSS Blog, Attensa and Texas Venture Capital …
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