Hitwise announced that the market share of visits to the Zune website (http://www.zune.net/) jumped 299 percent on Christmas Day 2007...

...(December 25, 2007) versus Christmas Day 2006 as new Zune owners visited the website to sign up for a new account and download software. In addition, the market share of visits to Zune.net showed an increase of 392 percent when comparing Christmas Day 2007 to the previous day.

There was significant growth in traffic for Zune.net on Christmas Day, but iTunes remained the predominant download site with a market share over 6 times larger than Zune.net. The total market share of visits for Zune.net reached 0.09 percent on Christmas Day, as opposed to the market share of visits to iTunes which reached 0.68 percent.

Additionally, the market share of visits to the iTunes website (www.apple.com/itunes ) jumped 339 percent on Christmas Day 2007 (December 25, 2007) from the previous day as new iPod owners went online to download iTunes. The Apple Store was the ninth most visited website in the Hitwise Retail Index on Christmas Day 2007 and the market share of visits to the Apple Store (store.apple.com) showed an increase of 169 percent when comparing Christmas Day 2007 to the previous day.

Online Holiday Shopping Update:

* The Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were down 10 percent for the week ending Dec. 22, 2007 versus last week (Dec. 15, 2007). U.S.traffic is up 16 percent compared to the same week last year (Dec. 23, 2006).
* Amazon.com was the most visited website within the Retail Index last week, receiving 12 percent of U.S. visits.
* Walmart.com received the second-most visits with eight percent. Shopping.com, Dell.com and Macys.com were the biggest gainers for the week, as their websites traffic increased 34, 18 and 18 percent respectively, compared to the previous week.
* The Nintendo Wii and Uggs were again the most popular product search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ending Dec. 22, 2007. The terms "wii", "nintendo wii", "uggs" were the top three product searches. Nintendo Wii and Ugg have consistently been the top searches this holiday season. The iPod made a strong showing this week as that product could have been a favorite last minute gift for many.

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Tag: Zune, Hitwise

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COMMENTARY: With the addition of Warner Music Group product to its 2.9 million track DRM free mp3 catalog, Amazon is poised to...

...to take on the mighty iTunes. The final piece of the product puzzle, Sony BMG, will inevitably be forced to join the other three major labels in freeing their downloads of unpopular and restrictive "copy protection".

Inevitably too, other digital retailers like Rhapsody, Napster and even iTunes will soon be allowed to sell WMG product without DRM. Universal compatibility also means that player manufacturers are now on a more equal ground when selling next to the iPod; although competing with consumer love of all things Apple will be difficult.

By giving Amazon a sales exclusive, WMG also joined Universal in attempting to counter the download sales dominance of iTunes. But while this is a coup for Amazon, Warner's real blow to iTunes came from the act of dropping DRM itself and and is incomplete unless it makes its mp3's available to all retailers.

Apple's stranglehold on download sales came in large part from its own proprietary DRM which effectively forced millions of iPod owners to use iTunes exclusively. Only when consumers are certain that any track they purchase anywhere can be played on any device, will many feel safe leaving the Apple cocoon.

WMG's other major contribution yesterday was in tipping the scales. By being the third of four major label groups to from DRM, Warner's has forced any stragglers to do the same.

Of course the real winner is the consumer who will finally be able to buy music without restrictions from competing digital stores. And both consumers and the music industry will benefit from new innovative applications that are sure to blossom in a more open environment.

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Apple announced a deal with 20th Century Fox, adding Fox films to the iTunes video store. The movies will be available for download...

...as video rentals, the first time iTunes has offered rentals, showing that low-price rentals are the better deal for users than offering the same DRM-laden low-quality videos at a higher price for permanent sale.

Apple is the Xbox Live Marketplaces only real competition for digital movie distribution, and them embracing movie rentals (chatter is Fox is only the first studio, with more to come), leaves another wrinkle for Microsoft to deal with. Worse, part of the deal is that Fox DVDs will ship with iPod-formatted copies of the movie on the disk, wrapped in Apples FairPlay DRM. Those movies wont run on anything but an iPod/iPhone, due to the copy protection.

Two years ago, Microsoft could have pushed for similar treatment for its own DRM, but thanks to its abandonment of PlaysForSure and splintering of the WMV-based DRM market, it cant claim that its DRM serves the entire non-Apple player market. Apple gets a great deal, and Microsoft has no hope of getting something similar for itself.

Microsoft needs to think of some means to even itself out with Apple. One suggestion: Its time to finally bring the Xbox Live Video Marketplace to the PC. If you have to, require the movies to stream from a 360, but make the connection work.

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Start with minvestment

United States banks on average borrowed $4.83 billion a day directly from the Federal Reserve in the week ended Dec. 26, up from $4.62 billion a day the previous week, Fed data released Thursday showed.

Click for Story

Someone stole my credit card numbers.

I have 3 credit cards. Two of them have similar numbers on the end. Over the Christmas holidays, I found out that those 2 card numbers had been hijacked. According to the credit card companies, people have been running random card numbers through a computer and using those numbers to make their own purchases. Both cards had charged a Shaw Cable Systems, which I found out is in Canada. Those were the first erroneous charges on both cards, so I believe those may have been the "test runs."

I had to cut both cards and am now waiting for replacements. That leaves me with one card and only a little cash. On top of that, I ordered a new ATM card for my bank account in the States, which was sent to my grandmother's address. They canceled the card that I have, so I can't use it and they have yet to send out the new card. I'm kind of fucked up at the moment.

I'm going to Manchester for New Year's Eve. I would have preferred to have more resources so that I can thoroughly enjoy myself with no worries. I'm getting short on cash and I'm not dug into the city as well as I would like to make a decent amount of money. I met with a guy who runs an escort agency here, but I've only had one date from that and it wasn't for as much as I usually charge, plus I have to give him a percentage.

It seems to me, though, that before something gets really good, it has to get really bad. I think it's a test to see if you will give up. If you do, you miss out on the good stuff. If you tough it out, you reap the benefits. This is the closest I've been to broke in 4 years. That tells me that whatever is coming is BIG. I'm gonna keep it moving.

Please share with others.

The Next Step Not Taken
By Ralph Nader

1. Call them small investors, savers or shareholders - corporate crimes, frauds and abuses have battered them in the past decade. Think Enron, Worldcom, Wall Street’s brokerage and investment giants and now the big shaky banks. Trillions of dollars have been drained or looted by these corporate bosses while they pay themselves handsomely with other people’s money.

Speaking, writing and testifying against these massive unregulated rip-offs of defenseless Americans are two former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – Arthur Levitt and William Donaldson. Openly sharing their urgent pleas for reform are John Bogle, founder of mutual fund indexing and severe critic of excessive, often hidden, mutual fund fees, and Lynn Turner former chief accountant of the SEC.

These men are well known and respected in their fields, have ready access to the mass business media, possess great rolodexes of supportive people all over the country and could raise substantial sums of money. They are part of the monied classes themselves.

And for what? To start a large investor protection and action organization to represent the 60 million powerless and individual investors in our country. Individual investors really have no organized voice, either in Washington, D.C., or the state and local level where public sentiment and demand for action generates the rumble for change.

These experienced, superbly connected men, who have respected each other for years and are frustrated over inaction by those in authority, are not taking the next step.

To demonstrate their credentials, see their books Take on the Street: How to Fight Your Financial Future and Take on the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know by Arthur Levitt, and The Little Book of Common Sense Investing and The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John Bogle. To document the broader urgency of their concerns, see veteran shareholder rights leader, Robert Monks’ new book Corpocracy.

2. It would not take you very long, searching the Internet, to come up with scores of retired high military officers, from Generals and Admirals on down, high-ranking former diplomats and national security officials, who have spoken and written against the invasion of Iraq and the continuing quagmire and casualties that have cost our country so much and destroyed so much of Iraq and its people.

These outspoken, stand-up Americans, include former cabinet secretaries, agency chiefs, and White House special assistants, who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

No one can question the experience and service of these straight-talk, former public officials. They have seen it all. Wealthy, like-minded funders would return their calls.
Organized together into a powerful, well funded advocacy organization, these Americans can have a decisive impact on Congress and the White House, because they would be able to reach the American people through the mass media with the truth, and the strategies for peace and justice.

Although active in their pursuit of a sound foreign and military policy that does not jeopardize and bankrupt America, they have not taken this next step.

3. Can you possibly count all the progressives—elected, academic, authors and columnists—who are tearing into the Democratic Party for how often they caved in Congress this year to George W. Bush and his minority Republicans in the Senate and House?

There is nothing new about their complaints. Whether on foreign or domestic policy, whether on the domination of giant corporations over elections, legislatures, regulatory agencies and mass media, whether on the destructive results and portents of corporate globalization and autocratic trade regimes (WTO and NAFTA), progressives have been criticizing the Democrats for years now.

Hear it from Bob Herbert of the New York Times, John Nichols of The Nation magazine, the duos of James Carville and Paul Begala, Mark Crispin Miller and Jim Hightower, Bill Moyers and Anthony Lewis, Senators Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown, and Congressman John Conyers and Ed Markey – to name just a very few of the grossly disappointed and outraged critics of the establishment Democrats, and their Democratic Leadership Council and their corporate financiers.

But they do not take the next step. Or steps. Either organize into a powerful counter-weight inside the Democratic Party to make progressive demands that cannot be shrugged off, or move to a progressive third party that can either lever its messages to the Democrats or compete with them?

How many years can the bad Republicans and their corporatist allies keep pulling the mainstream Democratic Party toward them and leave progressives with the futility of the least worst form of disastrous corporate government?

There are many influential and knowledgeable people in our country who know what causes are critical to pursue, what redirections are necessary for present and future generations, what assets of persuasion and change to amass. But they are stalled in this state of the next step not taken.

Taking the next step is the difference between talking and acting, between promise and performance, between autocracy and democracy!

END

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SoundtrackingYeah, i decided against the Full Rape Joke For Christmas thang i was cookin' up. Not to scare th' Villagers, and all. Call me puss, call me soft on JudeoChrIslamicist Usurpation of Pre-Roman Custom. Call me Ishmael, W/e; just don't you fucking look at me.BTW~ RE: Pakistankania- Please, don't say that Democracy may be in danger there, too? OMGWTF?!? They™ said it couldn't happen there.

Sri Bhutto: En Memoriae

open playlist in new windowI love the way this one is unraveling. Al Qu'e D'oh? Ex-KGB? She hit her head on the sunroof handle? We know it couldn't have been recently-civilianized coup-d'creed Demagogue d'Magog Musharef; but any other crazed theories as to who assassinated Sri Benezir Bhutto may turn out to be as plausible and/or mandatorily acceptable in lieu of elections as the latest Official Word™.(Segue? Way!)

The AntiChrist Dajjal will be a Reptilian ShapeShifter open playlist in new window The New Improved Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory.From Hashems Films. VideoChannelling By B0BThe Constitutionalist's Warroom

Allzy'all can't see this blogs stats, so let me explicate what it means to be one of those who are still with Us™ at this point. In the last couple months if deliberately tried to affect numbers one way or the other, at one point getting the bravest of Thee, Nase, to comment cautionarily. I Came upon Thee Rape Joke idea'r, and have now whittled Readership™ down to one quarter what it was in October (On average; i'm not counting the hellza-scary 500+ pageviews day, which i attribute to scripts-n-B0tz)So i assume that the 50-someodd of you are not one person. I assume that 10 of you are indeed B0tz. I assume 10 more are random cruise-throughs. 10 more are...what, Moderators? Nah. I'm a Mod somewhere myself; either they'd call me on something or pull it. ThierSpace Mods DO watch my pics, since i'm flag'd due to the Pr0nB0t Endorsement, Regardez:See how long it lasts this time.At any rate, i assume there's about 20 of you, half of whom are p33pz i personally ACTUALLY know, as in R/L; i have touched some in their sleep (perhaps), or stolen food from; helped move, obtain or dispose of something or one. These are folks whom about 5 of which i have confidence in thier ability to discern the difference between the above and the below.The continuum explicit in the confluence of money and power which draws our collective along in it's wake even as it drives us to carry it, aka Them™, is a very real nexus of men and lies whose angle of reproach is deliberately obscured.Invasion of the Katrinians

Enclosure 2007

Open Playlist in new windowYes, yes. They™ always get More. Why? Well, because some of us will take stuff from the rest of us by force if told to do so. Even if its stuff like orchards, or the airwaves. Pretty shitty, huh? The fact that only 5 of you (plus Nase, but he's a Non-American so that don't help us none) care to try to grok this means that of the 10 people i don't know...well, probably 5 are with Them™.Luckily They™ are cheap and lazy. Tnx Gawd 4 teh cumbrrsum beurocraci3z.A B0tScr1b3 summed it up like this for me the other day:

• From: "lyddite West"To:�shuzapo@yahoo.comSubject: Buy ED VIRAGRAOnline Secure omrder, low priczes and fast, discvreet shipping wonrldwide.Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 05:37:12 +0000Order Teoday Get Tvomorrzow - SOFTGTABKSand mauny morke. http://lyndacroucherdq.googlepages.com/Oh, you neednt worry about that either, Raskolnikov went on in thesame tone. People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity forsaying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarilyso in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all thesegrades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularitysome law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but Iamconvinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast massofmankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some greateffort,by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races andstocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of athousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhapsIspeak roughly, approximatelyis born with some independence, and withstill greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of geniusis one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity,appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I havenot peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But therecertainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter ofchance.

 

Oh yes. We'll be touching on this "Law" some more some future some. 

Bring The Paine

open playlist in new windowHere's some up-beat stories from the Occupied Terror-Tories. No really! Aljazeera got positively positive about Christmas in Nablus. W/e.Aljazeera English Special Reportsopen playlist in new windowA'ight, Crakaz. Mad love for NYE; anybody in SeaTown who knows of fucking ANYTHING worth going out for or to PLEASE lemme know. Otherwise it's bottlerockets and rattlecans for all your picket fences. Maybe some.Be Social To Each Other, and Steal Time From Work.

Slowing US Economy

Companies will be forced into bankruptcy. And so their valuations and stock prices are falling down across the board. There will be belt tightening this coming year for workers and their dependents.

The heart of financial system of America will announce a painful write-off of loan accounts. Hedge funds will be closing its doors and equity funds will have a disappointing report on returns. Interest rates are set by people who run financial institutions --- Central Bank.

Is the US economy aging? Slowing down? Is this the beginning of the crash of US economy? Are the US economic planners to blame? The one that benefited from this is the Bush Family, who is with an insider government connection --- Carlyle Group.

The US economy, weighted down by the subprime credit crisis that started in the middle of the year. The global investment banks ended on losses, disastrous note, layoffs and marred by profit warnings. The signs are clear, indeed there is slowing and aging of US Economy.

There is a slowdown in the US economy and one of the reasons is the tight competition among exporters. There is an anemic performance of exports in the first 10 months, short of meeting the target. Government should protect our exporters.

There should be overhaul and reform to get back our economy on the right tract. The real cause of this crisis is monetary. Income assurance policy should be set-up for the benefit and welfare of every citizen of this country. Or should we say “In God We Trust”.

Happy New Year to All!

An easy way to spread the word to the masses is VIA EMAIL...

Forward an email to everyone you know, and...

Tell them to go to: http://zeitgeistmovie.com

If you're skeptical, then consider it to be a movie of PURE FICTION....

But watch it ANYWAY.

Be sure to watch the entire thing.... with an open mind... even if you watch it as pure fiction...

Guaranteed, you'll find it interesting.... at the very least.

For more information, also see the "kicks I am currently on" link... http://del.icio.us/brucewagner/kicks

After watching the movie, be sure to click on the "Activism" link at the bottom of the page on http://zeitgeistmovie.com

"Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God" -Thomas Jefferson

Bruce