Pay per download: Will Google milk money out of U Tube

I graduated into the internet in the year 2000! My first email account was the huge popular usa.net then. However, in mid of 2001, usa.net migrated to being a paid service under the American Express group. Almost none its consumer base migrated to the paid service. Internet has been a "liberating and democratic medium". Information and communication was available free, it was the economics of "Free". I call it Freetardonomics! A lot of the Freetardonomics was through using Google as the Gateway.

On 13th February 2009, Google decided to monetize its hugely popular You Tube. You Tube has been the problem child for Google from sometime because inspite of its huge following, it was not adding revenues and profits to its financials! The paid download is a new way for Google to add monetization options for its services and looking beyond the advertisement streams! Most of the downloads will be charged $1 and Google is trying to replicate Apples iTunes business model. (If users can pay for music, why not videos?). Not all videos will be monetized!

One can guess that Google will look to monetize content such as music videos, commercials, soaps and other entertainment content. It would also probably look at educational content to be monetized. The typical model would be a trailor of 30 seconds of the video content and then the channel asking for purchase of the content.

However, the one immediate challenge that Google faces is how would it control the hacks and the download tools available to users? How would it control mechanisms like Firefox plug ins and webs sites like YouTubeKeep.com, which allow users to rip content from YouTube at will?

Microsoft's marriage to surface computing: Risking redundancy?

U.S. Patent No. 7,479,950 was awarded to Microsoft for a application which tracks position of gadgets and applications on the screen of a computer.

Incidentally, this patent was Microsoft's 10000th. So far, so good. However, it increasingly begins to look like Microsoft is obtaining and getting patents in a territories which will not find much takers. Surface computing. With the trend moving to the clouds, OSs diminishing, Browsers and web apps getting more potent , Microsoft is increasingly finding its users vacating their seats. Even if nothing, the browsers are migrating to "available for free" instead of a Microsoft License. The Web 2.0 with its freetardonomics principles is something that Microsoft will have to figure out!

So long for Patents!

Interestingly, earlier patents were used a legal aids with which a corporation would defend its turf. Lately however, the trend has changed and Patents are being used as bridges to collaborate with others in developmental stages of new products/technologies! Microsoft has been at this. However, the cloud and the web 2.0 seem to make the software gaint redundant faster than Microsoft would like it!