A blogger is a person who writes a blog (or weblog). Bloggers are not a homogenous group. They have a variety of personal and professional motivations for blogging and they come from a variety of political, economic and social backgrounds. One way of segmenting bloggers is by their blog type:[1]
Personal: blog about topics of personal interest not associated with work
Professional: blog about industry and profession topics but not in an official capacity for a company
Corporate: blog for a company in an official capacity

Blogging is not a full-time job for most bloggers, nor is it their main source of income.[2] A blogger can also be a doctor, a mechanic, a lawyer or a musician, and thus bloggers typically maintain a variety of professions for which the act of blogging is their communicative outlet with the public.
[edit]
Bloggers and journalism

The relationship between bloggers and journalists is complicated. On one hand, journalists feel intimidated by bloggers’ ability to rapidly cover new material; on the other, journalists are dismissive of bloggers’ lack of code with respect to neutrality and checking of sources.[3] In general only one-third of bloggers think their blog is a form of journalism.[4] Overall the most frequently reported journalistic activities are spending extra time verifying facts, getting permission to post copyrighted material, and including links to original source material that has been cited or in some way used in a post. Whether or not someone engages in these activities may be one way to distinguish between a blogger and a journalist.

Blogging has allowed for people worldwide to communicate very quickly through internet communications. RSS feeds are just an example, where information can be uploaded into a blog, and RSS subscribers be notified that new information from a particular blog has been released. This form of communication allows for news of events to travel dramatically faster than earlier forms of information gathering and releasing. The particular interest in blogging from a journalist point of view might become essential, in order to keep the public informed of information in a timely manner.

Journalist-identified bloggers view their practice as journalism and believe that they should be given journalistic protections under the law. The 2004 Apple v. Does case triggered the debate on who should be considered a journalist on the web. Apple lawyers contended that posting information on the Web should not automatically confer the title of journalist since these folks “are not members of any professional community governed by ethical and professional standards”.[5] In the end the courts decided against Apple and ruled that those who post information on a Web site are entitled to the same legal protections the law extends to the mainstream media.

Bloggers generally have a particular premise to their blog. Some may be on an issue such as healthcare, college, MBAs, or many other various topics that people may have expertise in.

[6]
[edit]
See also Internet portal

Blog search engines
List of blogging terms
List of blogs
Microblogs
Social blogging
Weblog software
[edit]
References
^ “State of the Blogosphere 2008: Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers?”. Technorati. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
^ “State of the Blogosphere 2008: Day 2: The What and Why of Blogging”. Technorati. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
^ Boyd, Danah (2006). “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium” (PDF). Theories/Practices of Blogging (danah.org). Retrieved 2009-07-12.
^ Lenhart, Amanda, ed. (2006), “Bloggers: A portrait of the Internet’s new storytellers”, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Internet, retrieved 2009-07-12
^ Cooper, Charles (2006-05-26). “Who’s a journalist? Now we know, thanks to Apple”. CNET. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
^ “MBA Blog”.

from : en.wikipedia.com/wiki/blogger

b2/cafelog, more commonly known as simply b2 or cafelog, was the precursor to WordPress.[4] b2/cafelog was estimated to have been employed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing developer to WordPress. Although WordPress is the official successor, another project, b2evolution, is also in active development.

WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little to create a fork of b2.[5] The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of Mullenweg.[6]

In 2004 the licensing terms for the competing Movable Type package were changed by Six Apart, and many of its users migrated to WordPress – causing a marked and continuing growth in WordPress’s popularity.[citation needed] By October, 2009, the 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report reached the conclusion that WordPress enjoys the greatest brand strength of any open source content management systems. That conclusion was based on an extensive analysis of rate of adoption patterns and brand strength and was backed by a survey of users.[7]

In 2009 WordPress won the best Open Source CMS Award [8]
[edit]
Features

WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations. WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; multiple author capability; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters that provide for proper formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes) are also included. WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.
[edit]
Releases

“Add New Post” page of the WordPress administration interface. Version 2.8

Most WordPress releases are code named after well-known jazz musicians starting after Version 1.0Version Code Name Release Date Notes
0.70 27 May 2003 contained the same file structure as its predecessor, b2/cafelog. Only 0.71-gold is available for download in the official WordPress Release Archive page.
1.2 Mingus (after Charles Mingus) 22 May 2004 It’s notable for containing the support of Plugins. The same Plugin identification headers are still used unchanged in the latest WordPress releases.
1.5 Strayhorn 17 February 2005 Strayhorn added a range of vital features, such as the ability to manage static pages and a template/theme system. It was also equipped with a new default template (code named Kubrick[9]) designed by Michael Heilemann.
2.0 Duke 31 December 2005 This version added rich editing, better administration tools, image uploading, faster posting, an improved import system, and completely overhauled the back end. WordPress 2.0 also offered various improvements to plugin developers.[10]
2.1 Ella 22 January 2007 In addition to correcting security issues, version 2.1 featured a redesigned interface, enhanced editing tools (including integrated spell check and auto save), and improved content management options.
2.2 Getz 16 May 2007 Version 2.2 featured widget support for templates, updated Atom feed support, and speed optimizations.[11]
2.3 Dexter 24 September 2007 Version 2.3 featured native tagging support, new taxonomy system for categories, and easy notification of updates. 2.3 also fully supports Atom 1.0 along with the publishing protocol, and included some much needed security fixes.[12]
2.5 Brecker 29 March 2008 Developers skipped the release of version 2.4 so version 2.5 contained two releases worth of new code. WordPress 2.5 saw a complete overhaul of the administration interface and the WordPress website was also redesigned to match the new style.[13]
2.6 Tyner 15 July 2008 Tyner contained new features that made WordPress a more powerful CMS: you can now track changes to every post and page and easily post from wherever you are on the web.[14]
2.7 Coltrane December 11, 2008 It once again saw the administration interface completely redesigned. It also introduces an automated upgrade feature, and automatic installation of plugins from within the administration interface.[15]
2.8 Baker June 10, 2009 Baker offered improvements in speed, and made it easier to install themes with a single click. It also introduces the CodePress editor for syntax highlighting and a redesigned widget interface.[16]

[edit]
Vulnerabilities

Many security issues[17][18] were uncovered in the software, particularly in 2007 and 2008. According to Secunia, WordPress in April 2009 had 7 unpatched security advisories (out of 32 total), with a maximum rating of “Less Critical”[19].

BlogSecurity maintains a list of WordPress vulnerabilities,[20] up to version 2.3. Secunia keeps a more recently updated list[21].

In January 2007, many high-profile Search engine optimization (SEO) blogs, as well as many low-profile commercial blogs featuring AdSense, were targeted and attacked with a WordPress exploit.[22] A separate vulnerability on one of the project site’s web servers allowed an attacker to introduce exploitable code in the form of a back door to some downloads of WordPress 2.1.1. The 2.1.2 release addressed this issue; an advisory released at the time advised all users to upgrade immediately.[23]

In May 2007, a study revealed that 98% of WordPress blogs being run were exploitable because they were running outdated and unsupported versions of the software.[24]

In a June 2007 interview, Stefen Esser, the founder of the PHP Security Response Team, spoke critically of WordPress’s security track record, citing problems with the application’s architecture that made it unnecessarily difficult to write code that is secure from SQL injection vulnerabilities, as well as some other problems.[25]
[edit]
Multi-blogging

WordPress supports one weblog per installation, although multiple concurrent copies may be run from different directories if configured to use separate database tables.

WordPress Multi-User (WordPress MU, or just WPMU) is a fork of WordPress created to allow simultaneous blogs to exist within one installation. WordPress MU makes it possible for anyone with a website to host their own blogging community, control, and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard. WordPress MU adds eight new data tables for each blog.

Matt Mullenweg announced that WordPress MU would be merged with WordPress as part of a future release.[26]

Lyceum is another enterprise-edition of WordPress. Unlike WordPress MU, Lyceum stores all of its information in a set number of database tables. Notable communities that use Lyceum are TeachFor.Us[27] (Teach For America teachers’ blogs), BodyBlogs and the Hopkins Blogs.

In 2008 Andy Peatling joined Automattic to continue his work on BuddyPress – a plug-in extension of WPMU that is adding additional community features to WordPress[28].
[edit]
Developers

WordPress development is led by Ryan Boren and Matt Mullenweg. Mullenweg and Mike Little were co-founders of the project.

The core contributing developers include:
Dougal Campbell
Mark Jaquith
Donncha Ó Caoimh
Andy Skelton
Michel Valdrighi
Peter Westwood

Though largely developed by the community surrounding it, WordPress is closely associated with Automattic, where some of WordPress’s main contributing developers are employees.[29]

WordPress is also developed by its community, including WP testers, a group of volunteers who testing each release. They have early access to nightly builds, beta versions and release candidates. Errors are documented in a special mailing list, or the project’s Trac tool.

from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress

Google uses its Internet search technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user’s geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google’s targeted advertisement system may enroll through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the advertisements are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website. The use of proxy is allowed but if you use a proxy to enter your adsense account your account will be disabled.It has been seen lately that you can use proxies for logins but sign up must be from a real computer. Proxies like hidemyass, armyproxy, schoolproxy, Etc. can be used after signup.

Many websites use AdSense to monetize their content. AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small websites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and sales people. To fill a website with advertisements that are relevant to the topics discussed, webmasters implement a brief script on the websites’ pages. Websites that are content-rich have been very successful with this advertising program, as noted in a number of publisher case studies on the AdSense website.

Some webmasters invest significant effort into maximizing their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:[citation needed]
They use a wide range of traffic-generating techniques, including but not limited to online advertising.
They build valuable content on their websites that attracts AdSense advertisements, which pay out the most when they are clicked.
They use text content on their websites that encourages visitors to click on advertisements. Note that Google prohibits webmasters from using phrases like “Click on my AdSense ads” to increase click rates. The phrases accepted are “Sponsored Links” and “Advertisements”.

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program, which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction. AdSense commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (i.e., a bid not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.
[edit]
History

Oingo, Inc., a privately held company located in Los Angeles, was started in 1998 by Gilad Elbaz and Adam Weissman. Oingo developed a proprietary search algorithm that was based on word meanings and built upon an underlying lexicon called WordNet, which was developed over the previous 15 years by researchers at Princeton University, led by George Miller.[2]

Oingo changed its name to Applied Semantics in 2001,[3] which was later acquired by Google in April 2003 for US$102 million.[4]

In 2009, Google AdSense announced that it would now be offering new features, including the ability to “enable multiple networks to display ads”.
[edit]
Types
[edit]
AdSense for Feeds

In May 2005, Google announced a limited-participation beta version of AdSense for Feeds, a version of AdSense that runs on RSS and Atom feeds that have more than 100 active subscribers. According to the Official Google Blog, “advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising—and in the long run, more quality feeds to choose from.”[5]

AdSense for Feeds works by inserting images into a feed. When the image is displayed by a RSS reader or Web browser, Google writes the advertising content into the image that it returns. The advertisement content is chosen based on the content of the feed surrounding the image. When the user clicks the image, he or she is redirected to the advertiser’s website in the same way as regular AdSense advertisements.

AdSense for Feeds remained in its beta state until August 15, 2008, when it became available to all AdSense users.
[edit]
AdSense for search

A companion to the regular AdSense program, AdSense for search, allows website owners to place Google search boxes on their websites. When a user searches the Internet or the website with the search box, Google shares any advertising revenue it makes from those searches with the website owner. However the publisher is paid only if the advertisements on the page are clicked: AdSense does not pay publishers for mere searches.
[edit]
AdSense for mobile content

AdSense for mobile content allows publishers to generate earnings from their mobile websites using targeted Google advertisements. Just like AdSense for content, Google matches advertisements to the content of a website — in this case, a mobile website.
[edit]
AdSense for domains

Adsense for domains allows advertisements to be placed on domain names that have not been developed. This offers domain name owners a way to monetize domain names that are otherwise dormant. Adsense for domains is currently being offered to some users, with plans to make it available to all in stages.

On December 12, 2008, TechCrunch reported that AdSense for Domains is available for all US publishers.[6]
[edit]
AdSense for video

AdSense for video allows publishers with video content to generate revenue using ad placements from Google’s extensive Advertising network.
[edit]
XHTML compatibility

As of September 2007, the HTML code for the AdSense search box does not validate as XHTML, and does not follow modern principles of website design because of its use of
non-standard end tags, such as and ,
the attribute checked rather than checked=”checked”,
presentational attributes other than id, class, or style — for example, bgcolor and align,
a table structure for purely presentational (i.e., non-tabular) purposes,1 and
the font tag.2

1: using a table structure for unintended purposes is strongly discouraged by the W3C,[7] but nevertheless does not cause a document to fail validation — there is currently no algorithmic method of determining whether a table is used “correctly” (for displaying tabular data or for displaying elements, that get proportionally wider or narrower when browser window resizes in width without active client side scripting).
2: the font tag is deprecated but does not fail validation in any XHTML standard[citation needed].

Additionally, the AdSense advertisement units use the JavaScript method document.write(), which does not work correctly when rendered with the application/xhtml+xml MIME type. The units also use the iframe HTML tag, which is not validated correctly with the XHTML 1.0 Strict or XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOCTYPEs.

The terms of the AdSense program forbid its affiliates from modifying the code, thus preventing these participants from having valid XHTML websites.

However, a workaround has been found by creating a separate HTML webpage containing only the AdSense advertisement units, and then importing this page into an XHTML webpage with an object tag.[8] This workaround appears to be accepted by Google.[9]
[edit]
How AdSense works This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to train. Please help improve this article either by rewriting the how-to content or by moving it to Wikiversity or Wikibooks. (September 2009)

The webmaster inserts the AdSense JavaScript code into a webpage.
Each time this page is visited, the JavaScript code uses inlined JSON to display content fetched from Google’s servers.
For contextual advertisements, Google’s servers use a cache of the page to determine a set of high-value keywords. If keywords have been cached already, advertisements are served for those keywords based on the AdWords bidding system. (More details are described in the AdSense patent.)
For site-targeted advertisements, the advertiser chooses the page(s) on which to display advertisements, and pays based on cost per mille (CPM), or the price advertisers choose to pay for every thousand advertisements displayed.[10][11]
For referrals, Google adds money to the advertiser’s account when visitors either download the referred software or subscribe to the referred service.[12] The referral program was retired in August 2008.[13]
Search advertisements are added to the list of results after the visitor performs a search.
Because the JavaScript is sent to the Web browser when the page is requested, it is possible for other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their own webpages. To protect against this type of fraud, AdSense customers can specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. AdSense then ignores clicks from pages other than those specified.
[edit]
Abuse

Some webmasters create websites tailored to lure searchers from Google and other engines onto their AdSense website to make money from clicks. These “zombie” websites often contain nothing but a large amount of interconnected, automated content (e.g., a directory with content from the Open Directory Project, or scraper websites relying on RSS feeds for content). Possibly the most popular form of such “AdSense farms” are splogs (spam blogs), which are centered around known high-paying keywords. Many of these websites use content from other websites, such as Wikipedia, to attract visitors. These and related approaches are considered to be search engine spam and can be reported to Google.[citation needed]

A Made for AdSense (MFA) website or webpage has little or no content, but is filled with advertisements so that users have no choice but to click on advertisements. Such pages were tolerated in the past, but due to complaints, Google now disables such accounts.

There have also been reports of Trojan horses engineered to produce counterfeit Google advertisements that are formatted looking like legitimate ones. The Trojan uploads itself onto an unsuspecting user’s computer through a webpage and then replaces the original advertisements with its own set of malicious advertisements.[14]
[edit]
Criticism

Due to concerns about click fraud, ‘Google AdSense’ has been criticized by some search engine optimization firms as a large source of what Google calls “invalid clicks”, in which one company clicks on a rival’s search engine advertisements to drive up the other company’s costs.[15]

To help prevent click fraud, AdSense publishers can choose from a number of click-tracking programs.[citation needed] These programs display detailed information about the visitors who click on the AdSense advertisements. Publishers can use this to determine whether or not they have been a victim of click fraud. There are a number of commercial tracking scripts available for purchase.

The payment terms for webmasters have also been criticized.[16] Google withholds payment until an account reaches US$100,[17] but many micro content providers[citation needed] require a long time—years in some cases—to build up this much AdSense revenue. However, Google will pay all earned revenue greater than US$10 when an AdSense account is closed.

Many website owners complain that their AdSense accounts have been disabled just before they were supposed to receive their first paycheck from Google. Google claims accounts have been disabled due to click fraud.[citation needed]

Google came under fire when the official Google AdSense Blog showcased the French video website Imineo.com. This website violated Google’s AdSense Program Policies by displaying AdSense alongside sexually explicit material. Typically, websites displaying AdSense have been banned from showing such content.[18] Some sites have been banned for distributing copyright material even when they hold the copyright themselves or are authorized by the copyright holder to distribute the material.[19]

It has been reported that using both AdSense and AdWords may cause a website to pay Google a commission when the website advertises itself.[20]

In some cases, AdSense displays inappropriate or offensive ads. For example, in a news story about a terrorist attack in India, an advert was generated for a (presumably non-existent) educational qualification in terrorism.[21]
[edit]
See also
Google AdWords
List of Google products
Pay per play
Scraper website
[edit]
References
^ What happened to the pay-per-action beta?
^ Paula J. Hane (1999-12-20). “Beyond Keyword Searching”. Info Today.
^ “Google Buys Applied Semantics”. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC. 2003-04-24.
^ “Google Acquires Applied Semantics”. Press release. 2003-04-23.
^ Shuman Ghosemajumder (2005-05-17). “Official Google Blog: Feed me”. Retrieved 2007-12-29.
^ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/12/adsense-for-domains-now-available-for-all-us-publishers/
^ W3C. “Tables”. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
^ Stu Nicholls. “Adding AdSense to application/xhtml+xml pages”. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
^ Roger Johansson (2004-09-01). “Content negotiation, AdSense, and comments”. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
^ “Google AdSense Help Center: What are CPM ads?”. 2007-12-29.
^ “Google AdWords: All About Site-Targeted Ads”. 2007-12-29.
^ “Google AdSense Help Center: What is the referrals feature?”. 2007-12-29.
^ “Google yanks AdSense referral program, offers shoddy surrogate”. blog.anta.net. 2008-07-01. ISSN 1797-1993. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
^ Benaifer Jah (2005-12-27). “Trojan Horse program that targets Google AdSense ads”. TechShout.
^ Charles C. Mann (January 2006). “How click fraud could swallow the internet”. Wired.
^ Lem Bingley (2007-02-01). “Google keeps on coining it in”. IT Week.
^ “When do I get paid?”. Google AdSense Help Center.
^ “Adult content”. Google AdSense Help Center.
^ “Google AdSense Program Policies”. 2007-12-29.
^ “BE CAREFUL when using both AdSense + AdWords by Google”. 2009-02-19.
^ “Google’s Worst Ads Ever (GOOG)”. 2009-08-20.

from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense

RapidShare has two different websites, but both sites claim to be entirely different organizations and entities.[citation needed] The original site is RapidShare.de, which uses the German top-level domain “.de”, and the organization has its central office in Cham, Switzerland.[3]

On October 20, 2006, RapidShare announced that “Unfortunately all drives of RapidShare.de are full right now”.[4] A new website, RapidShare.com was set up in an attempt to transfer usage from RapidShare.de to RapidShare.com.[citation needed] When the new Rapidshare.com was launched, holders of “Premium” accounts at the time on RapidShare.de were able to use both the RapidShare.de and RapidShare.com, until their account expired. It is not possible, however, to use a RapidShare.com account on the German site.
[edit]
Operation and services

Upon uploading, the user is supplied with a unique download URL which enables anyone, with whom the uploader shares it, to download the file. No user is allowed to search the server for content; all files have to be downloaded by following a given URL.[1]

RapidShare stated in April 2008 that it had 240 gigabit/s of Internet connectivity and 5.4 petabytes of storage for users.[5]

Registration and payment allow benefits such as unlimited download speed, download of several files simultaneously, queue skipping, the facility to interrupt and re-start downloads, uploading and downloading bigger files up to 2 GB, allowing Free Users to download their files with Premium privileges (“TrafficShare”) and to store up to 500 GB of data that can not expire.

Premium accounts last for a certain number of days. If an account is still valid is measured in seconds, not days. Thus, if you buy a 30 day account, its valid 30*86400 seconds. The timer starts with your first login. However, there seems to be a limit of the delay, so people can not hoard cheap accounts for ages. Every premium account is limited to a maximum of 150 GB download traffic per month, divided equally over every day of the month. If there are 30 days in a month, then the user will receive 5 GB per day. The user is allowed to “save” traffic up to a maximum of 25 GB and can then spend the saved traffic all at once.[6]

There is now a rewards program that allows the user to trade “RapidPoints” for a selection of products depending on the amount of points the user has collected.

As of May 2009, the downloads limit has been established for Premium Members at 5 gigabyte per day. The unused volume is automatically rolled over to the following day, up to a maximum limit of 25 gigabytes. If the complete download capacity is used up during one day, the premium-user is able to download another 5 gigabytes the following day (or after midnight CET).

The Rapidshare service is subject to frequent alterations, such as the size of the traffic allowances and the policies for their application. Users are notified of changes via the ‘News’ page on the Rapidshare website.
[edit]
Software

Rapidshare offers two computer programs to simplify file managing: It allows for torrents to be uploaded to their own file server and quickly be seeded.
[edit]
Rapidshare Uploader

This software allows queuing of uploads. However, it cannot resume interrupted uploads. It is available for Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP and runs without installation.[7] An Perl-based uploader is also available[8].
[edit]
Rapidshare Manager

This software has many more features than the Uploader, especially queuing and resuming the upload as well as the downloads (only for the Premium Member – free users cannot resume). The version linked on the site works with Windows Vista only, however there is an older official client available for Windows XP, which may be obtained upon request from Rapidshare or alternatively from various third-party sources.[9]
[edit]
Issues

On 19 January 2007 the German collections agency GEMA claimed to have won a temporary injunction against both RapidShare.de and RapidShare.com. “The latter is said to have used copyright protected works of GEMA members in an unlawful fashion.”[10]

Rapidshare started to check newly uploaded files against a database of files already reported as illegal. By comparing the files’ MD5-hash the site would now prevent illegal files from being reuploaded. While this would be sufficient under United States law, it was later established in court that under German law it is not. That decision forced Rapidshare to check all the uploaded files before publishing them. [11]

According to the TorrentFreak blog, in April 2009 Rapidshare handed over the personal details of uploaders who uploaded copyright-protected files to major record labels.[12][13][14] The incident is reported to have arisen due to a leak of a prerelease copy of metal band Metallica’s Death Magnetic album.

A month later, Rapidshare stated on their website that “we will not spy out the files that our clients faithfully upload onto RapidShare, not now nor in future. We are against upload control and guarantee you that your files are safe with us and will not be opened by anyone else than yourself, unless you distribute the download link.” [15]

Rapidshare has been banned in Saudi Arabia since mid 2009.
[edit]
See also
One-click hosting
Megaupload
[edit]
References
^ a b Stroll, Randall (2009-10-03). “Will Books Be Napsterized?”. New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
^ “RapidShare.com”. Alexa. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
^ Central office in Cham, Switzerland: Reuters.com website. Retrieved on April 13, 2008.
^ “Archived front page of RapidShare.de on 25 October 2006 by Archive.org”. http://web.archive.org/web/20061025014424/http://www.rapidshare.de/.
^ RapidShare: Retrieved on April 13, 2008.
^ “RapidShare.com – News”. RapidShare. 2008-07-07. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
^ http://rapidshare.com/rapiduploader.html
^ http://images.rapidshare.com/software/rsapi.pl
^ http://rapidshare.com/rsm.html
^ “Heise Online”. Retrieved 2007-01-31.
^ http://webhosting-und-recht.de/urteile/Oberlandesgericht-Hamburg-20080702.html
^ http://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-shares-uploader-info-with-rights-holders-090425/
^ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86179/german-lawyer-speaks-about-risks-of-using-one-click-file-hosters/
^ http://www.gulli.com/news/rapidshare-cease-desist-letter-2009-04-30/
^ http://rapidshare.com/news.html

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidShare

Among the very first MP3 blogs were Buzzgrinder, Fluxblog, and Stereogum. Buzzgrinder began in 2001 as a way for musician SethW to fill time on the road. Stereogum began as a music-related LiveJournal in 2002, though its format was focused on indie/pop gossip rather than MP3s. Fluxblog (also founded in 2002) trumpeted LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah (Stupid Version)” in early 2004 brought increased attention to MP3 blogs. A May 2004 story on National Public Radio[1] further galvanized the trend, and today there are thousands of MP3 blogs covering a cornucopia of musical styles.

A significant number of indie music labels, promotional agencies and hundreds of artists regularly send promo CDs to MP3 blogs in the hopes of gaining free publicity. Major labels with small acts to promote have also attempted to use MP3 blogs. In 2004, Warner Bros. gave permission for a song by their act The Secret Machines to be posted by the MP3 blog Music (For Robots). This drew attention not only for the song and the label granting permissions, but also due to the fact that several comments praising the track came from IP addresses within the Warner Bros. network. The publicity generated by MP3 blogs crossed the line from the internet to TV in early 2005, when Music (For Robots) was featured during MTV’s Total Request Live program for bringing the Hysterics, a Brooklyn rock band composed of four 14 and 15 year-old high school students, to the network’s attention.

In 2006, Rolling Stone did an article tracking “blog buzz” called First Hype, Then Kill with the subtitle “How the geeks who control the music blogosphere destroy the bands they love.”[2] It followed the hype of bands such as Tapes N’ Tapes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arctic Monkeys and Cold War Kids. While the article brought exposure to mp3 blogs, it was blasted on blogs for misrepresenting what impact they have on a band’s career. According to the chart, Gorilla vs. Bear giving a good review of Cold War Kids was the highpoint of the band’s career, and signing a record deal marked the beginning of their decline. It also assumed that music blogs have collective opinions instead of an array of many different musical leanings.[citation needed]

In 2006, Sirius Satellite Radio began broadcasting “blog radio”, a show on the College/Indie Rock channel Left of Center. The show lets music bloggers talk about the latest in the indie-rock scene.
[edit]
Aggregators

Aggregators such as The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws track MP3 blog posts and display the most recently updated posts on its front page. The services are meant to provide a snapshot of what’s going on in music blogging and make it easier to search through recently posted MP3s. The Hype Machine features a list of the most popular tracks of the last three days, as well as the most blogged bands and most popular searches. In June 2009, the popular songs list was altered so that it is only affected by user accounts that are several days old, after it was discovered that the “hearts scores” for dozens of songs were being artificially inflated by dummy accounts, often created in batches numbering in the hundreds.[3] Elbo.ws has a similar feature listing which Bands, Tracks, and Videos are currently “hot.” Music Blog Aggregators have caused a boom in MP3 blog readership and accessibility. Aggregators use RSS technology to collect data from MP3 blogs and link to the individual blog posts instead of directly to the MP3s.

Hype Machine has a policy preventing blogs from being listed whose writers or editors are involved in the music PR industry. It is not known whether Elbo.ws shares this policy.
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Legal status

Many MP3 blogs post copyrighted material as a free download. While this is essentially illegal, record companies often turn a blind eye because of a belief that the blogs constitute free advertising.[4] Bands such as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and The National have reported increases in sales as a result of attention from MP3 blogs, which often provide links to legal album downloads.[5]

It is common practice for mp3 blogs to post a disclaimer stating that all mp3s are intended only for sampling, and attempt to place responsibility for deleting the files from personal computers on the blog readers. It is also common practice for mp3 links to expire after a short period of time to limit the number of downloads (usually 48 hours)

In addition the economic significance of mp3 blogs is relatively small compared to peer-to-peer networks[6] and so it seems unlikely that the record industry or related bodies would target them over legal issues.
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References
^ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2004/05/13/blog-jockeys-2/
^ “First Hype, Then Kill”. Rolling Stone (1011): 87. 2006-10-19. ISSN 0035-791X.
^ “Hype Machine On Chart Integrity”.
^ “MP3 Blogs Offer File Sharing Even the RIAA Could Love”.
^ “MP3 Blogs: A Silver Bullet for the Music Industry or a Smoking Gun for Copyright Infringement?”.
^ Legal Outlook for MP3 Blogs Revisited – http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ugasser/2005/08/03/legal-outlook-for-mp3-blogs-revisited/
from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3_blog

Author: Dean Barnard

Article Posted: 14/08/2007

Below are some reasons why small to medium businesses waste so much time waiting on hold to fix a simple I.T. problem, so make sure this is not you.

MISTAKE 1: The internet goes down and everyone is lost on what to do.

We all know that when the internet goes down people are unable to send emails and work productively, it’s kind of like hitting a “brick wall”. I am sure you would have experienced this problem before, with almost every computer, only a lucky few have not!! Most of the times it will be fault on the network side of things not your ISP/Internet provider. So how do you prevent this from happening and reduce your risk and maximize you time and business profit? Read on.

MISTAKE 2: Trying to fix a problem and making it worse.

We have all tried to fix an IT problem before only to realise WE HAVE MADE IT WORSE than it originally was and causing more pain and more problems. Then further trying until you result in wasting more time, getting frustrated and annoyed only to go the next step for help.

MISTAKE 3: Getting on the phone to call for help, but waiting and waiting and WAITING.

Now not knowing what to do we call our ISP/Internet Provider for some assistance and help. Only to realise the majority of the time we wait 30 minutes, sometimes 1 HOUR. So that is more time and more business productivity and more FRUSTRATION!! Once getting through on the phone, we find out that the problem could be fixed in 5 minutes, or something so simple it annoys you, you spent so MUCH TIME on it!! Other problems may occur, like the technician being new or unfamiliar with the problem and requests you do some steps to find out that does not work either. Their response : “Sorry I can not help you this needs further assistance, we can send a technician out to help.”

MISTAKE 4: Getting a technician to fix a problem in a matter of SECONDS or MINUTES.

The final step we go through is booking a technician in ASAP to resolve the problem. The problem, we have thought was a problem was fixed in a matter or seconds or minutes (and we have all experienced this) and began thinking the technician is a “GENIUS” When in fact it was dead easy and simple set of steps to follow.

So ask yourself, how much time do you think you have just lost? How much money do you think you have just lost? How much productivity do you think you have just lost? Imagine if the problem can be solved before it escalates within 5 minutes, Instead of 4 hours or days.

Join us at http://deansitsupport.com and prevent your business from down time.

Be in touch soon friend.

Wishing you great success.

Dean Barnard