Is the Long Tail affecting American Idol?

The last time "American Idol" endured ratings so low, Brian Dunkleman was the co-host, George W. Bush was president, and Simon Cowell was just some jerk from Britain.

But on Tuesday, with the show's contestant field whittled to five, "Idol" dropped to its lowest overall audience since August 27, 2002, its first season on the air.

The Fox reality competition show was watched by an average of only 17.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Fast Nationals, and was actually beaten in that benchmark by ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" (averaged 19.6 million watchers).

Fox officials were quick to point out that "Idol" won the night in terms of the all-important adults 18-49 demographic, scoring a 6.0 rating/18 share, beating next closest competitor "Dancing" by a margin of 94 percent in that metric.

But the erosion of "Idol" this season, which has struggled amid the departure of longtime host Paula Abdul and the pending exit of Cowell, is undeniable, with the show dropping 13 percent from last week's episode.

And that's not a good thing, considering that April 17 broadcast was off 17 percent from the comparable week in 2009.

http://bit.ly/dr2cNO

Did a glitch spark the stock plunge?

In class on Monday, we saw that most of our stocks that we had invested in earlier in the semester had gone down within the last couple of days. Is there an explanation for this?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A spine-chilling slide of nearly 1,000 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, its biggest intraday points drop ever, led to heightened calls for a crackdown on computer-driven high-frequency trading.

The slide, which in one 10-minute stretch knocked the index down nearly 700 points, may have been triggered by a trading error. Major stock indexes eventually recovered from their 9 percent drops to close down a little more than 3 percent.

But the follow-through selling that pushed stocks of some highly regarded companies into tailspins exacerbated concerns that regulators can quickly lose control of the markets in a world of algorithmic trading.

High-speed trading, which uses sophisticated computer algorithms based on specific scenarios to automate transactions at speeds in the millionths of a second, now accounts for about 60 percent of U.S. equity volume.

"The potential for giant high-speed computers to generate false trades and create market chaos reared its head again today," Senator Edward Kaufman said in a statement.

"The battle of the algorithms -- not understood by nor even remotely transparent to the Securities and Exchange Commission -- simply must be carefully reviewed and placed within a meaningful regulatory framework soon."

continued... http://bit.ly/bqshow

American Consumers most powerful

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., May 5, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) ----The power to transform the world's economy and end the current recession is in the hands of U.S. consumers, says author Barr McClellan in his new book

, "Made in the USA", now in bookstores nationwide.

"Made in the USA" offers an insightful, timely and thought-provoking look at the economic decline of America and its clearly identifiable causes. McClellan explains how the loss of USA- based manufacturing jobs to overseas suppliers not only exports consumer dollars but undermines the American economy. His solutions range from the closing of governmental loopholes and tax incentives that encourage the outsourcing of jobs, to simply asking American consumers to buy products that are "Made in the USA".

The book has been published by Hannover House, the media division of Target Development Group, Inc., and released in America in association with Publisher's Releasing Organization, a unit of Empire Film Group, Inc.

...to see more... http://bit.ly/atTvDq

Digg cuts 10 percent of staff..

Digg, which saw the departure of longtime CEO Jay Adelson a month ago, is now laying off 10 percent of its staff. In an e-mail sent to employees, founder Kevin Rose says the layoffs are necessary for the “long-term health” of the business.

The job cuts—Digg’s second round of layoffs in a year-and-a-half—raise questions about Adelson’s claims that he was leaving because the site was doing well. In fact, Adelson had specifically noted in a blog post announcing his departure that the company’s sales force was “growing” and the company’s hiring “ramping.”

Digg has made some very aggressive moves lately—the success of which aren’t known. The company ended its exclusive ad-sales agreement with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) a year ago and, a few months later, announced a new ad platform of its own that let users vote on ads just as they do with stories. It also said this fall that an ad network—which would include non-Digg sites—was in the works.

http://bit.ly/dli3AS

Facebook Fears

On wednesday, Facebook users noticed a "hole" in the security of their profiles. Private information such as chats were being revealed openly. Facebook quickly responded and believes this glitch will not harm their reputation; however, there is still concern among users.

Facebook Glitch Brings New Privacy Worries

By JENNA WORTHAM

Published: May 5, 2010

On Wednesday, users discovered a glitch that gave them access to supposedly private information in the accounts of their Facebook friends, like chat conversations.

Not long before, Facebook had introduced changes that essentially forced users to choose between making information about their interests available to anyone or removing it altogether.

Although Facebook quickly moved to close the security hole on Wednesday, the breach heightened a feeling among many users that it was becoming hard to trust the service to protect their personal information..

“It’s clear that we keep discovering new boundaries of privacy that are possible to push and just as quickly breached,” Mr. Katz said.

Social networking experts and analysts wonder whether Facebook is pushing the envelope in a way that could damage its standing over time. The privacy mishap on Wednesday, first reported by the blog TechCrunch, did not help matters...

Mr. Schrage of Facebook said the controversy over the site’s changes was indicative of a larger shift online.

“Facebook has been made the center of attention around a really important issue of how technology is changing the conception of privacy, control and sharing,” he said. “People are uneasy about it, but as they start to see the benefits and advantages of it, they start to see the value of the experiences.”

More at: http://nyti.ms/dksdtq

Regulating Internet Access

New U.S. Push to Regulate Internet Access

By AMY SCHATZ

WASHINGTON—In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.

The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.

Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt "net neutrality" rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites...

At stake is how far the FCC can go to dictate the way Internet providers manage traffic on their multibillion-dollar networks. For the past decade or so, the FCC has maintained a mostly hands-off approach to Internet regulation.

Internet giants like Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc., which want to offer more Web video and other high-bandwidth services, have called for stronger action by the FCC to assure free access to websites.

Cable and telecommunications executives have warned that using land-line phone rules to govern their management of Internet traffic would lead them to cut billions of capital expenditure for their networks, slash jobs and go to court to fight the rules.

Consumer groups hailed the decision Wednesday, an abrupt change from recent days, when they'd bombarded the FCC chairman with emails and phone calls imploring him to fight phone and cable companies lobbyists.

Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Arts + Labs Coalition:

"The question is how heavy a hand will the regulatory touch be," he said. "We don't know yet, so the devil is in the details. The network operators have to be able to treat some traffic on the Internet different than other traffic—most people agree that web video is different than an email to grandma. You have to discriminate in some fashion."

Wall Street Journal: http://bit.ly/aU3YkS

Feds to look at Apple's policy on programming tools

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

Does Apple have the right to tell developers what kind of software they must use to create applications for its mobile devices?

That question is about to be pondered by federal regulators, who plan to examine whether Apple's (AAPL) new rules for developers violate antitrust rules, according to the Associated Press, citing a person with knowledge of the inquiry who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Apple has declined to allow Adobe's Flash software on its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, saying Flash is susceptible to crashes and battery drain.

In response, Adobe tried a workaround, introducing a new version of Flash that would let software developers create programs in Flash but save them in the format that plays on Apple mobile devices. Apple put the brakes on that with the rules it introduced in April...

Apple said this week that it sold 1 million iPads in 28 days, half of the time it took it to sell 1 million iPhones. Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches, which is why this battle is worrisome for Adobe.

check out USA Today's article: http://bit.ly/bNX6uA