This site was just linked in my comments on the previous post and shows who really owns your number… pretty interesting to decode the players based on your phone numbers. Looks like Vonage is buying from quite a few players and Verizon, not surprisingly is a primary seller. It’s also interesting to note that even though my number was ported from Nextel to T-Mobile, Nextel actually owns it.
AT&T Uses Its Long Past to Promote Its Near Future
And yet another article covering the VOIP market… The NYT takes on AT&T CallVantage. The more I’ve thought about it since my last post on the topic, the more it seems like AT&T is really pushing this harder than Vonage. I realize Vonage has yet to really launch a consumer campaign, but do they ever have their work cut out for them.
AT&T spent $25 Million just during the Olympics… I received another DM piece today as well — I believe that makes 4 so far this summer. A little birdy told me that later in the year AT&T is set to shake it up a bit with some enhanced product offerings for CallVantage…Game on!
CallVantage, which connects calls over broadband lines and also avoids some taxes imposed on phone companies, is 20 to 30 percent cheaper than ordinary phone service.
AT&T hopes the lower price will help it draw customers who would have abandoned the company for the Baby Bells, which now offer a full range of telephone services. In the coming months, AT&T also plans to introduce a wireless plan that, in theory, could be packaged with its Internet phone service at a discount.
But it is far from certain whether AT&T has the muscle to win control of the emerging Internet phone market from start-ups like Vonage, which already has 250,000 subscribers, or its more powerful rivals among the regional Bell companies.
Nor is it clear that its favored mass-market approach – which typically involves spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising and promotions – is the best way to invigorate its consumer business. [New York Times]
Getting the News Delivered
While I’ve been using Blogstreet’s Info Aggregator to send RSS feeds to an IMAP email box I’ve looked into additional methods as well to see if I might find an even better way to do things.
To quickly sum up what you might have missed on Info Aggregator — The service is free and you get an IMAP email box which automatically gets the RSS feeds you select delivered. You can check this in your email client of choice including any mobile device or use the webmail interface which is also provided. My only real complaint is the delay in delivery.
The Blogstreet network carefully polls things based on popularity and that determines the delivery frequency of each item. Some sites deliver once a day, which makes this less useful, if you tend to read at your desk in addition to on the go. I’ve found that messages received are often things I’ve seen at my desktop, but that might really vary for you if you are on the go more than I’ve been recently.
The additional services I’ve found that seem to offer similar benefits are News inMotion, IzyNews and RSS2email. I’d be open to learning about additional methods for getting RSS into an email box if you know of them, but really the only other way I’ve found was through Newsgator Online Services which unfortunately only supports POP3 and requires a payment beyond the demo period. IMAP is essential in this process for me so I can clean up things I know I’ve seen while at the desk and leave others so when I return I can either blog them or simply make a note to myself. (POP3 is an all or nothing method.. there is no memory of what’s been read or even deleted in each location you might do your reading.)
News inMotion
I just started News inMotion and it’s nice way to have daily or twice daily emails sent from up to 5 sources. Right away this seems to only make sense for a supplemental flow based on the limits (more on the number of feeds than the level of delivery, though it would be nice to see more frequency as well.) Since I am heading towards complete information overload with the RSS feeds I have coming in through all my channesl, I thought I would keep to some more major news sources as (believe it or not) they are the ones I tend to skip in my daily collection. Here’s my current subscription list…
- New York Times – Business
- New York Times – Technology
- Reuters – Top News
- StartupSkills.com – Resources for technology entrepreneur
- Washington Post – Technology News
I did throw in that StartupSkills since I had not heard of it and thought it might be interesting to read. The others are covering the bases for me given the amount of similar information I regularly track. News inMotion provides a good list to start from the usual suspects and allows you to easily add your own feed URI to the list as well.
IzyNews
IzyNews is a very interesting player in the space. First there was IzyMail which enables all your webmail accounts like Hotmail and Yahoo mail to get delivered in a mail client. IzyNews is a pretty cool yet complex way to deal with news feeds. You set up a separate account in your mail client and IzyNews automatically manages your subscriptions into folders so it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on. This is a very nice feature considering the work that many people would have to go through filtering messages appropriately from a variety of sources. Personally I like filtering mail by subject or source, Izy does this out of the gate, so I like it. I’d love to see more providers offer this server side filtering for mail as well as news since it’s such a time saver and since it (in theory) simplifies your view of information.
Here’s what the default set looks like in Thunderbird:
After I uploaded my (593 feed) subscription OPML file from Bloglines things changed pretty drastically. A new Folder was added called Subscriptions and each item from my file was added below. The folder (or outline) structure I have on Bloglines was mostly preserved which is helpful, but man is this a serious list of stuff.
For whatever reason, it’s easier to deal with this load in Bloglines, probably because the sub-folders themselves actually contain content but in mail you have to go through each and every item. I chose not to share the image of this relative chaos as this blog was getting long enough.
If you are considering reading RSS in your mail client to keep it simple for you rather than relying on separate apps or your web browser, IzyNews is pretty nice, though I’d suggest a different manner of organization than I have curently and possibly subscribing to fewer sources. My taste does not like the manner in which feeds are summarized for each source… IzyNews creates a paper for each feed you read giving you a quick extract and a link to continue reading. I personally like the full thing whenever possible…
RSS2email
RSS2email is a server based method you control. You’ll need your own server or connected machine in order t o do the processing and sending to your inbox. It’s not that hard to configure, and seems to work quite well. Of the services I’ve tried it’s my favorite. Aaron Swartz is a great contributor to the information community and has written some great tools like co-authoring RSS 1.0 and enabling a linkable URI scheme for referencing the NYT.
Meanwhile back to RSS2email… Following the directions posted on Aaron’s site was easy to do and I was able to get things running on my server. After adding a few feeds, I checked to see what they looked like and was really quite happy. If you’ve seen Tidbits, the format is similar. Each link in an entry is tagged with a number and at the bottom of each article is a list of links. I chose to limit my view to text only, though you can get HTML messages as well, which I presume would include the images rather than link to them as the text based option does. You can also set a variety of options in the main file (rss2email.py) which lets you control how the from looks, the time of the post (when it was posted vs. when it was sent) and a variety of other details.
The only trick to the whole thing is finding a machine that supports what you need to do. Fortunately my host is running linux and python was installed, because that’s how it works. I am not a programmer or a developer, I just went through the steps and it works. I know enough to find my way through the file to tweak some settings, but that’s beacause I know how to read ;). I’ve scheduled a cron job on my host to run hourly which then pumps all the new information to the email address of my choosing.
I’d like to also add that in the course of testing I ran into a few hiccups and emailed things to Aaron who promptly replied and fixed things so it would not effect anyone else. Thanks again, Aaron. You can easily keep track of fixes and additions to the RSS2email service by (what else) subscribing to the feed.
Usage Notes and Taking it With You
How you deal with, and even the amount of information you choose to manage (or not) is very personal. There is no correct way, it’s much more a matter of what works for you. I like Info Aggregator, but have found RSS2email to be more relavant for my needs since it can deliver news more timely. IzyMail is an interesting way to do things, but in the end is just not for me. Based on the imposed limitations of News inMotion makes it much more of a side player since it can’t handle the level of flow I want.
One of the key factors in my world at the moment is being able to take all this information with me on my mobile device. They can all accommodate this in different ways. Again, based on how you use your tools… Since everything is being delivered to an IMAP account on Palm that leaves a few options (Chatter Email, Snappermail, Mailwave and AgendusMail) which I’ve covered previously. Snapper and Agendus must connect upfront and you’ll have to choose which folders (keep in mind how rough this will be with something like IzyNews and it’s folder overload) to keep in sync. With Chatter and Mailwave you can set up an additional account to receive news messages and sync it how you see fit either always connected or synced over time intervals.
My preference is to use Chatter Email and sync my News account every half hour. This is efficient for me and keeps things simple as well. Chatter only works with IMAP accounts that support the IDLE command in order to push messages out to you. IzyMail does not and most likely will not support this. I did not have a chance to test this on Mailwave (I mean how many mail clients can one man actively run!), but it may work well there. Your own mileage may vary…
Microsoft to Gut Longhorn to Make 2006 Delivery Date
Assuming this is the reality, it’s quite disappointing to hear. Though I am primarily a Mac user I was really interested in seeing Redmond push the limits. If anything this is a fantastic opportunity for Apple to really hit a homer with Tiger. It will give them an enormous technology lead and given the hits Windows has taken over security, reliability and cost…
According to developer sources, Microsoft is cutting back Longhorn client’s planned feature set so as to be able to make its current delivery targets: Beta 1 by next year and final release some time in 2006.
Microsoft is expected to announce officially later on Friday its future roadmap for the desktop version of Longhorn. And while developers and customers who expected they’d be required to rewrite their applications to take advantage of Longhorn may be happy with Microsoft’s roadmap changes, others who were banking on promised Longhorn features, such as the next-gen Windows File System, will be far less so.
The end result? Longhorn is going to be a lot more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary Windows release.
Virex 7.5
.Mac members are now entitled to a new version of Virex .. version 7.5 which has a completely new control center and is able to work nicely in the background checking email and files for baddies. Another nice bonus is that it is finally able to update the virus definitions automatically as well. I’ve been using it this week on my powerbook as well as the iMac at home and so far I am very pleased.
While the vast majority of viruses and worms don’t have any impact on Mac users it is still nice to know you’ve got protection. Every so often since it’s been running I’ve seen an alert from Virex informing me that a .pif was spotted or that a particular worm was included in a piece of spam. Virex is then able to clean (though not those things) or delete the file automatically. You can easily set the preference to handle this stuff automatically.
I’d recommend the update for all .Mac users — just login to the site and download your free software.
Next Generation Treo revealed…
I walk away for a few minutes and discover that a whole host of new pictures were posted and discussed at TreoCentral, leading to even more at Engadget and of course Treonauts…
Whether you call it the Ace or not is up to you, but the official name seems to be the Treo 650. Seems like a logical progression to me. The specs are solid…
- Faster CPU – 312MHz
- Bluetooth
- High Res – 320×320 screen
- Keyboard Backlighting System and what looks like a new keyshape. The ALT key now actually says ALT, and was moved to the lower row and there is an additional shift key ala the Apple on Apple Keyboards.
- Video Recording Capability
- 1.3 MP Camera — the camera has a mirror, Sony Ericsson style for the ever important self-portrait
- Separate buttons above the main set and just off center of the 5-way for dedicated phone pick up, hang up as well as serving as the launcher Home as well.
- Removeable Battery — data and talk hounds rejoice!
The bottom connector is entirely new, so any major accessories that you used are history which means larger keyboards and sync or charge cables. You are probably OK with your headset, though I can’t find any mention of whether it uses a more standard jack or whether it’s the same. You can clearly ditch it in favor of a bluetooth headset anyway.
Some key missing details… no word on whether the WiFi SD Card will work… No real info yet on data speeds either so for now we have to assume it’s still GPRS / 1XRTT rather than allowing for EDGE / EV-DO.
VoIP Price Wars…
Andy points to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about the looming price war in the VoIP sector. Price war for all voice services is more like it, and in many ways this is the second phase of telecom’s financial meltdown. [Om Malik’s VoIP Daily]
Great piece… This ties directly into my thoughts for Vonage / ATT yesterday, not too mention the interview with Dave Dorman I just noted in the previous post.
David Dorman discusses VOIP with ZDNet
In an exclusive Face to Face interview, AT&T CEO David Dorman tells ZDNet’s editor in chief, Dan Farber, that he’s going after an untapped market — VoIP. Dorman sizes up the competition, discusses claims that his company is undervalued, and defends AT&T’s declining top line. [ZDNet]
SnapperMail 2.0 released
I’ve been a beta tester on SnappperMail 2.0 for a long time. I honestly can’t even tell you when it started it’s been quite a while and I’ve been generally pleased with the product. SnapperMail is much like a traditional email client. It offers multiple POP3 accounts, can send through different accounts than which you may have received messages and offers robust attachment support. I’ve used both the POP3 and IMAP access to both send and receive attachments and have to say it’s great – just like you would expect it to be on any email client.
IMAP support is offered only in the Enterprise level of the product which in my opinion comes at a very steep cost at $59.95. The upgrade price is like buying it again, which for me would be $29.98.
In my testing IMAP works reliably as does POP3, but POP3 is infinitely faster. If you leave your Palm in your pocket checking mail on a set schedule (say every 30 min), you might not notice, but watching and waiting for the job to get done is totally brutal. There is initial time to connect, delivery time and then clean up time which can actually take a few minutes per mailbox you are keeping in sync! Watching this over a few minutes is incredibly frustrating.
This difference is something I can’t live with easily as a solution and since I rely on IMAP for email management it becomes challenging to be satisfied when I know there are other options that very quickly (seemingly instantly) deliver mail to you.
That said, SnapperMail is an excellent, richly featured mail client with a great user interface that is very 5-way navigator friendly for Treo and Tungsten users. Full screen, HI-Res support is enabled for T3 users as well. Like most things, email software is very personal. There are choices to be made and options to be weighed. If you are only using POP3 access, I think you’ll be quite satisfied with SnapperMail.
MailWave another PUSH e-mail Option for Palm
While Mailwave actually came out before Chatter Email, it was not quite as ready for primetime until now….
Push and background capabilities within email applications is becoming a must-have feature and I’d expect customers to be demanding it soon enough from SnapperMail, AgendusMail and others. For me, it’s a personal choice… I like Chatter.
Mailwave does support POP3 accounts, calendar events (depends on your server … ala Exchange) and attachments which are still pending for Chatter at the moment. Mailwave does however, require either a subscription to the Mailwave service (a very reasonable $7/mo) or a hosted solution which they are selling for corporations.
MailWave for is intended for Palm OS 3.5 and higher. Although many handhelds carry the same OS, the features vary. MailWave is designed to take advantage of certain features when possible. For example, the TREO 600 series smartphones allow for screen object focusing. This feature allows for the user to perform everyday tasks without ever needing to use the stylus. MailWave also supports devices such as the TapWave Zodiac which has landscape and portrait viewing modes. [MailWave]
There’s a helpful testing page to see if your accounts are compatible with the service which certainly helps save the time of installing and tapping in your account info.
Thoughts for Vonage… Or ATT
It’s clear to me that Vonage is in deep now since ATT CallVantage has really been pushing their service out on a very mass, very aggressive level. As I evaluated VOIP services I considered both but felt I should go with Vonage since I had read so many favorable things about the service and how many bloggers and tech leaders had been digging it.
It struck me today how of course I felt that way based on my media consumption — primarily aggregated feed reading of blogs and news services. The ATT people have skipped that early-adopter market since they’ve already been reached instead going straight to the meaty part of the curve, suggesting a revolution in phone service for consumers. If you watch the commercials, you’ll see that they are bright and upbeat and focus on cool features that enhance and benefit life. That might be a stretch, it is after-all just phone service but they really are aspirational… the employees featured are Inventors, which seems cool. Their marketing and site is much more consumer facing that that of Vonage which feels techie.
Vonage and others (I have no experience or interest sorry in Packet8) fall into an easy trap in marketing their service… They focus on the fact that it’s a tech product. Sure you hook it up to your router and it uses your broadband connection, but that should be secondary to what can be done with the service. I just did a quick comparison with ATT and realized that while it may cost $5 more per month, it’s actually a more feature rich service and in thinking about it, I want those things… or I’d like to see Vonage counter with some additional options.
Let’s break down some of the cool benefits which clearly need to be communicated sooner rather than later since it’s already starting to get pretty noisy out there.
- Price — It’s such a clear and simple one, but it will also not matter soon enough since it seems everyone will be pretty close to the same. Vonage is $29.99 and ATT is $34.99 (not including their current offer of $19.99/mo for 6 months) for similar service. Vonage does offer lower monthly rates with minute based packages, but let’s focus on the unlimited ones which most parallel the current crazily overpriced stuff we are getting from Verizon and others.
- Call Forwarding — When I first realized what it was exactly with the Vonage service I was amazed! I can have my phone ring at the same time as another line, or have it ring the second line after a certain amount of time. This is great in my home office for when I need to step out or when travelling…Calls automatically reach me on my mobile. One number and it’s easy to have calls reach me. Tonight I realized that ATT kills this with the addition of 4 more lines for a total or 5 lines. They call it Locate Me and shoot down Call Forwarding with it since it’s much more robust. If I was Vonage, I’d be looking to add more lines to the Call Forward service to be operating on the same level.
- Voicemail — Yes they both have it (of course) and both offer email notifications which is a slick service and you can get the voicemail as an email attachment if you like to listen right on your computer. ATT understands this more as a customer benefit though and pushes the fact that you can pass the Voicemail as an email to your friends and family. There is no magic here except for the packaging.
- Do Not Disturb — Only ATT has it and it’s totally cool. With a baby at home, we turn the ringer off in the room she sleeps. We could manage this though with a few clicks instead and keep the ringer on for other times.
- Softphone — Only Vonage has it and I think they should be giving it away rather than charging $9.99/ mo for 500 minutes. This is a very slick advantage (for now) that could really be pushed for those traveling who want to use their computers to receive and make calls. I would use this for sure if I did not have to pay so much extra each month. Since the forwarding feature is already simultaneously capable of ringing a second line and in my world it would do more, why not push the softphone as a way to handle calls. I don’t really want a second number for my computer, I just want the ability to be reached and I like the idea of using the laptop. There are plenty of times when cellular is limited in hotels or it’s too expensive when abroad and the computer would be a terrific way to handle this. (I know international calling rates are different, but I also know people who take their ATA box around with them and make calls as if locally from where ever.)
- Personal Conferencing — Only ATT has it and it’s definitely missing from Vonage. The ads make it seem extremely powerful using 10 lines in the example. It’s 3-Way calling plus, but Vonage does not yet even offer this basic land-line level of conferencing.
That’s pretty much it for the current major features. Vonage does offer additional virtual lines and toll-free service which can all ring on the same original line you subscribed with.
Even though Vonage established the market here, they are clearly in serious risk of being forced into being a marginal player based on ATT’s fast product development and superior marketing clout – both in dollars and in presence. I can’t speak with any technical understanding, but on the surface the products are essentially the same. It’s only a matter of time for the hardware to be compatible (as I am sure it is now actually but not allowed easily for quality of service issues I presume) across service and people will be able to switch just as easily as they did back in the Phone Wars of the 80s and 90s. ATT is pretty comfortable in this space since that is how they were birthed… Vonage could be left standing as another tech company that innovated, but could not get out of their own way.
Amazon to sell AT&T’s Net phone service
ATT is seriously going for it… pushing TV and Direct Mail (I’ve gotten at least 3 kits) hard, and working the retail channel now as well.
The partnerships underscore the importance of VoIP in AT&T’s long-term plans. The phone giant recently said it would stop selling local voice services to new residential customers because of changes in regulatory law. At the same time, the company said it would aggressively market less-regulated VoIP services.
The company also has been pushing CallVantage through co-marketing programs with cable companies such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. [CNET News.com]
WB Is Lobbying Political Junkies
I actually just saw a phone booth poster ad for this show and I have to say while I noticed it, the look of it was more Dawsons Creek than K-Street. I’m not sure how promoting this to reporters and to convention attenders is going to gain enough interest — especially with the intense distraction of the Convention itself. Political reporters don’t write for the TV pages…
The WB has a message for delegates at next week’s Republican National Convention: Vote McCallister.
In an unusual attempt to break through the barrage of advertising for the upcoming fall television season, the WB television network has launched a guerrilla marketing campaign for its new political drama “Jack & Bobby.”
The strategy is to create a cult following in political circles for the show — about the teenage McCallister brothers, one of whom grows up to be president — to serve as a core audience and create a groundswell of buzz, much like NBC’s “The West Wing” received five years ago, albeit without a similar marketing campaign.
Among the WB’s efforts: distributing DVDs of the show inside the White House and Capitol; organizing viewing parties at political rallies for local politicians; and blitzing the political conventions with fliers, placards and buttons. Next week, Republicans will get buttons that say “Bush 2004, McCallister 2040.” In one of the more unusual ideas, the WB is mailing boxes of M&Ms to TV pundits such as former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers that are marked “President McCallister’s favorite candy.” Copies of the show were sent to the Days Inn that serves Crawford, Texas, in hopes that bored reporters would take a look. [WSJ.com]
Vonage gets $105 million
Just caught this over at Om’s blog…
Vonage, in a bitter feud with AT&T’s CallVantage and other VoIP service providers raised a whopping $105 million Wednesday, bringing its total VC funding to $208 million. Incidentally that’s $8 million more than the amount earmarked by AT&T to promote its VoIP services. To fans of World Series of Poker, this will look like a master bluff. With around 240,000 customers Vonage for now seems to be the largest consumer VoIP provider. Using those metrics, venture capitalists have put a value of $867 per customer. Or about 29 months of premium package of $29.95 a month. [Om Malik on Broadband]
I hope Vonage does not push through with the $50-70 Million reported ad campaign. They’ve got the lowest brand recognition of any phone company and are quite small. It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to pull off a Michael Jordan-esque stunt like Worldcom did pre-MCI.
In my humble opinion, they’d be much better off continuing their online marketing assault coupled with some solid Direct Response thinking and execution across Direct Mail and possibly some DRTV. 50 – 70 Million though usually means brand campaign and given the marketing purse at ATT they’ll be working pretty hard to go uphill. Let ATT establish the category (even though Vonage was first, ATT is a bigger brand to the masses) and they track where the Call Vantage adds are running and quickly move in with some targeted messaging.
ATT was able to book some time during the Olympics for Call Vantage… The budget for Vonage won’t be able to go head to head in that way. Be smart and focused. Get that aquisition cost per customer down!
Push RSS – Total Connectivity
As I mentioned previously Chatter Email is an amazing email application that allows for IMAP accounts to push and sync messages automatically on a Treo. (For now it only works on Treo, though might eventually work on an OS 5 device with bluetooth connectivity to a phone.)
Based on a post I just read and considered at Treo Central I discovered a way for RSS Feeds to automatically get pushed to your device as well. The best part is that this added functionality is free thanks to the amazing Info Aggregator, which I had also previously mentioned and actually used briefly as a way to read feeds. Info Aggregator is unique in that you can receive your feeds directly to an IMAP email account which is exactly what Chatter wants and needs in order to PUSH the feeds to you as things get updated.
First, head over to Info Aggregator and register to create a free account. You can then either manually add feeds you want to track or import an OPML file from another reader like Bloglines or NetNewsWire.
Next you need to create a new account in Chatter, which is actually called a New Folder Mailbox from the Box Menu (menu / New Folder Mailbox). Enter the settings you received from Blogstreet / Info Aggregator. You need to manually enter the server folder name as Inbox to get it to stick.
That’s it. Everything else is the same… You can set or deactivate alerts as you like and enjoy feeds and email pushing to your Treo as things happen. You are now fully connected.
Banner Report
This is a cool potentially helpful site… it’d be great to be able to sort or search…
Tari Akpodiete has what might be called a mildly unnatural preoccupation with banner ads. For the last couple of years, she’s been copying just about every one she’s come across onto a website, and in the process has built what she believes is the largest collection of such ads in the world.
This month, the Toronto web designer decided to make that collection publicly available. And her site, Banner Report, has become at once a veritable banner ad museum and a tool where designers of new ads can investigate the countless styles that have been tried in the past. [Wired News]
Michael Phelps is a class act
Just watching the Olympics and after the 100 Fly final heard that Michael Phelps has decided to pass his place to Ian Crocker, whom he touched out (.04) in the Fly final. Crocker is the world record holder, the guy who Michael has woken up to every day as motivation and he lets him go to do the final Medley Relay. Hearing him talk and seeing him interact with the other members of his team, you know he’s a together guy.
When Bob Costas asked him what his favorite race was in the Games so far he said he was not able to narrow it down, but after thinking a second declares that he was part of 3 races in which the US went 1-2. You’ve got to respect that.
VW begging customers to buy Phaetons
When I initially heard that VW was going to make a run at the luxury car space as VW, I thought they were crazy, but they apparently wanted to show the world, “just how good a car they can make.” If I find some time, I’ll track that quote down… it was in Fortune or Forbes as I recall.
The Phaeton might be a really nice car, but it’s competing as VW against family member Audi, not too mention Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Infiniti etc etc… They start at about 65,ooo and go upwards to 100K for the W12. Not exactly an easy market to try and shift up to…
It would be and has been much easier for companies like BMW and Mercedes to come through with solid entry level cars targeting the lower price points and this makes obvious sense as the premium brand is now more attainable… No one was looking to pay more for a less-premium brand.
Volkswagen has sold a mere 939 Phaetons in the first seven months of the large luxury sedan’s U.S. lifespan, and in order to get that number up over the millennium mark, they%u2019ve engineered a lease deal of $699 per month with a $5500 down payment. A 48-hour test drive is also available for the V8-engined, “Cabundantly equipped” flagship, but prospective customers are saying that if the Phaeton isn’t “abundantly equipped” with propellor or tristar badges, they aren’t buying it. [Autoblog]
Hit and Run TV
Publicist and back up challenged Lizzie Grubman is getting her own reality show on MTV called PoweR Girls. Debuting in Spring 2005, the show will tag along Grubman and her team of celebu-snarkers as they sachet through Manhattan, LA, Hamptons and Miami nightlife in search of the latest Lohan boob sighting or Hilton beating. It will also give us a glimpse inside what is supposedly real work including paparazzi bashing, guest list fights, party crashing and office life. I want my MTV for this one! [Adrants]
P2P Services in the Clear
Peer-to-peer file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster are legal, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The decision is a blow for record labels and movie studios which sued the peer-to-peer operators claiming that the services should be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users. [Wired News]