Also: Eurekster | Topix | HMV | Last.fm | NBC | Red Nose Moblogs
Microsoft launched a series of lawsuits today against cybersquatters across Europe and the US. The basis is that of intellectual property infringement against people that buy domains like micrsoft.com .
Microsoft has already won two lawsuits in the US to the tune of a £3m award and the "return" of 4009 domain names. Another company "Dyslexic Domain" has agreed to pay Microsoft £24,000 - its estimated profits from cheeky domain names. (FT)
Meanwhile, the mighty Google has had its own domain names problems. The Gmail service in the UK had to be renamed Google Mail after it lost a battle over the trade name, and a similar thing is happening in China where Google is facing a number of obstacles to breaking into the market. Google has only a 17% market share in China compared with Baidu's 58% share. And in Poland, Google last month issued a lawsuit against an arts group called Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow who bought the domain gmail.pl. (FT)
Why don't you pick on someone your own size? Oh - there isn't anyone your size.
Eurekster funding
Social search site Eurekster has got $5.5m in funding to help global expansion. The community search tool - including a "Swicki" - is used by 18,000 publishers and growth has largely been word of mouth so far, according to the founder. Eurekster partners with Ask.com in the US and is also used on TechCrunch and Forbes.com, amongst others. (paidContent)
Topix to change domain
News site Topix.net will be moving to the address Topix.com after spending $1m buying the domain. CEO Rick Skrenta told the Wall Street Journal (a prize to whoever finds the story first, dammit) that his business is too dependent on search and that Google et al need to do more to help brands with domain changes. Half the traffic to Topix comes through search, and 90 of that is from Google. (paidContent)
HMV's dire straits
HMV has plans to radically overhaul its business, which isn't exactly before time. HMV has suffered from the success of music downloads services like iTunes and shop-at-home retails like Amazon - the new chief executive Simon Foz admitted that HMV and sister company Waterstones "have not adapted quickly enough to the way customers are buying and consuming media".
His three-year recovery plan includes a modest target of 20% of sales to be online by 2010, moving HMV's HQ to join Waterstones in Solihull and closing 30 Waterstones stores. HMV will start selling MP3 and MP4 players, is due to launch a music social networking site and, bizarrely, ill introduce download kiosks in stores this summer. He aims to save £40m to help get profits back to the £100m region. (thisismoney)
Last.fm's video plans
The masters of music recommendation, Last.fm, are preparing to move into music video. That means adding music video to its vast 60-million strong database of music tracks, which makes perfect sense. Chief commercial officer Martin Stiksel wasn't giving much away at the SXSW festival in Texas, but he did take the opportunity to have a go at music site rival Pandora, whose chief tech officer Tom Conrad shared a panel. Stiksel described the difference between the two as democracy versus aristocracy; Last.fm's music genres are assigned by users, whereas Pandora's as assigned by its staff.Last.fm are planning more international expansion, but we'll have to wait a bit longer for those juicy music video details. (Register)
NBC's on-demand mobile TV
NBC is planning an on-demand mobile TV service in the US to include The Office and Heroes. Users would pay $1.99 for 24-hour access under a deal with MobiTV. (Reuters)
Celebrity mobile blogging
Moblog UK already had something of a celebrity following with mobile blogs from Goldfrapp, Maximo Park, Girls Aloud and Ronan Keating (no less). It's gone all Red Nose Day with Girls Aloud and the Sugababes and if they can do it, anyone can. Join in by texting your photos to 60300 with the keyword 'nose'.
