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Make sure to check out this cool site I’ve been into lately, AddPile.com.

A&P Supermarkets have filed a lawsuit against two brothers who worked at the store and shot a video called “Produce Paradise” while working.  The supermarket chain sued the former produce workers with defamation.

A&P claims that the video starring Mark and Matthew D’Avella have disgusted at least one customer enough for that one customer to boycott the supermarket.  This is due to “repulsive acts” in the video.

How much is one customers boycott worth?  The Montvale, NJ based chain is seeking $1 million in damages and are also demanding the video get pulled off the internet.  A&P claims the video “contains numerous false and defamatory statements that are injurious to the reputation and livelihood of A&P.”.

I for one plan on boycotting because A&P is suing these kids.

In the days of super-high speed internet access across the country there are still millions of people in the US that lack broadband access.

This is no mistake.  Cable and other high-speed providers must answer to analysts and stock holders.  The cost to run lines to rural areas in the country are too high for companies fighting for survival in these competitive times.  Since the telecommunications industry is mostly unregulated there is no mandate to handle the requests of potential customers in many suburban and rural communities.

That leaves some people in rural areas without service.  There have been reports that even if a customers offers to pony-up for the bill to have the cabling pulled to their homes, companies are refusing to provide the service.  In one case a New Hampshire resident offered a $7,000 bill and the local cable provider refused to perform the installation.

The next step for people is to start up a T1 service, which can run on average $450 a month, that’s about 10 times what the cable company would have charged for similar service.

About 17% of rural homes have broadband service, leaving the US in 15th place, worldwide, in broadband penetration.

The Mythbusters take on a “Bull in a china shop”.  So what does a bull in a china shop really do?

Comcast, provider of cable, telephone (VoIP), and broadband internet has sent out letters to subscribers of it’s high-speed internet services with a warning.  The warning is to throttle back their downloading or face a 12 month suspension.

One of the issues that face subscribers is that the telecom giant never specified how much is too much.  Years ago the company offered “unlimited access” to the internet.  Now, in a 23 part terms of service agreement, that seems to have changed.  As stated in the contract a vague sentence looms…“levels of traffic sufficient to impede others’ ability to send or retrieve information.” That is what a breach of contract looks like to Comcast.

Some customers who were legally using the service (one to trasfer large files to his son) have now started a blog called “Comcast Issues“.  Another customer was accussed by Comcast of downloading 200-300 GB of data in month.  That number is too far out of reach, even for the heaviest of users.

Leopard build 9A527 intro movie. Fan boys, get your jaw off the keyboard.

Remember when you thought Facebook was so much better than MySpace?  Think again.  The social networking site has developed a new target ad system based on the information you put in your profile.

The more detail a profile  reveals about a user the more the site will target the ads.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that this system will “let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves” and in the future the site will “predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.”

Social networking sites have been historically hard to earn revenue from.  It wasn’t until MySpace struck a deal with Google that the money really started to roll in.

As one search engine once put it “Do no evil” may only apply to when you first start up.

Google website YouTube has offered 20 companies to run advertisements on some popular videos.  Until now YouTube has been “commercial free”.

Some of the partners in this deal include the BBC and Warner Music Group.  There is also a healthy mix of, interestingly enough, traditional broadcasters and other groups.
The ad giant claims that these commercials are about 10 times more effective than any other display advertisement.  The advertisements are semi-transparent and run on the bottom of the screen for about 15 minutes.  If you click on the ad, the main video will be paused.

Is it more effective though?  In trial runs about 25% of users did not watch the entire advertisement.  Google purchased YouTube last year for $1.65 billion with no model to make money on the site.

About three years since the IP of search giant Google the company has enjoyed a 500 percent increase in its share value.  That’s impressive compared to Microsoft’s third anniversary in 1989 with a 400 percent increase.

With any success companies like Google and Microsoft will have their critics.  In their case, lawsuits.  Antitrust regulators in the US and in Europe are looking at Google’s purchase of DoubleClick as possible violation.  Antitrust regulators looked at Microsoft the same was back in the mid 90s for its Windows operating system.

Like Microsoft Google also has people working on an open source solution that doesn’t include the company.  The growth of the open source Linux operating system is due, in large part to the success of Microsoft.

Some analysts are saying that this is pretty much where these talks should end.  Microsoft has about a 90% share of the operating system market, a clear majority.  Google, on the other hand, holds a 50% share.  That certainly doesn’t come close to Microsoft’s hold on the OS market.  Others are saying that is only a matter of time before Google reaches critical mass like Microsoft has.

With the advent of an open source solution there may be ways around Google (ala Windows/Linux) but until that time we’ll all have to live in a world of an 800 lb search gorilla.

Over the past few weeks subscirbers to Comcast’s high-speed internet service have noticed that their data transfers from the BitTorrent network have been cut off.  Customers who have not been cut-off completely have noticed their download speeds are not very good on the fairly quick network.  Most important to users of BitTorrent: They have been unable to seed their downloads.  This is important because the more files that are seeded the better your download speeds using a BitTorrent client.
Most ISPs have been pulling back on BitTorrent traffic, but Comcast is taking it a step further.  This is a measure by ISPs to prevent their customers from downloading data they shouldn’t be.  Although BitTorrent can be used for perfectly legal downloads (freeware games, open source programs, etc) companies are afraid of getting sued by the MPAA or RIAA for customers downloading movies and music.
Comcast is using a program called Sandvine that prevents its customers from seeding their downloads.  By seeding downloads users are able to download other files faster.  The BitTorrent system works on a credit system that allows users with more seeds to download faster.  In the case of Comcast, a user will have very slow download speeds.
Since Comcast and other ISPs cannot tell the difference between legal and copyrighted downloads they automatically “turn off the switch” which prevents people from downloading items like a Linux operating system, a musician from spreading their own music around, or a software programmer from sending out their new product.