Main Stories
o Microsoft to Launch Paid Search Ads to Compete with Google, Yahoo
o 2009 U.S. Ringtone Market to Hit $724 Million, Mobile Games $430 Million
o Report: $400 Million Mobile Porn Market to Grow to $5 Billion in 2010
o Illinois, Alabama Lawmakers Approve Bans on Sale of Violent Games to Minors
o Apple Seeks Share of Revenues from "Official" iPod Accessories
o Snocap Licenses Independent Labels for File-Sharing Song ID Service
o Report: U.K. Online Casino 888.com Planning IPO This Year
o Dutch Content-Protection Firm Irdeto Buys LockStream

o Briefly Noted: Sen. Ted Stevens - Internet indecency, Samsung - MP3 players, Matsushita - MP3 players, Volvo - iTunes, Cdigix - U. of Maryland, Digital Techniques, Avica - Irish digital cinema, THQ, Planetwide Games, Weather Channel, "Narc" - video game drug use
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Redmond, Wash. -- Microsoft plans to launch its own paid search advertising service, to compete in the lucrative market dominated by Google and Yahoo, which currently provides paid search ads for MSN Search. The service will provide advertisers with non-personally-identifiable information on users of its search engine, such as gender, age and location -- gathered from tracking users of Microsoft's Hotmail and other online services. Microsoft will test its new adCenter service in Singapore and France, in tandem with Yahoo's service, over the next six months. The company's contract with Yahoo to provide paid search listings for MSN Search is due to expire in June 2006, but MSN corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi told the Associated Press it is too early to say if its service will launch in the U.S. before that date.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050316/microsoft_paid_search_8.html
http://tinyurl.com/4lw2w 
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o 2009 U.S. Ringtone Market to Hit $724 Million, Mobile Games $430 Million

New York -- U.S. revenues from mobile phone ringtones, which were $91 million in 2003 and $217 million in 2004, will reach $724 million in 2009, according to New York-based market research firm JupiterResearch. Additionally, the report forecasts that mobile games revenues were $24 million in 2003 and $72 million in 2004, and are projected to reach $430 million in 2009. Even so, JupiterResearch said, ringtones and games made up just 10% of carriers' non-access data revenue in 2004, mostly due to the fact that advanced handsets capable of downloading such features do not yet have wide market penetration. "During the next five years, the mix of data services will evolve, but messaging will still account for 65% of non-voice, non-data access revenues," said JupiterResearch research director Julie Ask. The firm also predicts that ringtones will remain the largest revenue stream in the premium content category, but will not dominate to the degree they have in recent years.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050315/155599_1.html 
http://www.jupitermedia.com 
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o Report: $400 Million Mobile Porn Market to Grow to $5 Billion in 2010

Boston -- Adult entertainment services for mobile phones will face challenges in the short-term, generating just $400 million worldwide in 2004, before growing to a $5 billion market by 2010, according to a report from Boston-based market research firm Strategy Analytics. Despite the greater availability of advanced handsets, and the recent launch of services from pornographers including Playboy and Private Media, Web-based porn will continue to dominate the market. "Adult services are not a killer application in waiting. With so much free pornography available on the fixed Internet, and mobility conferring only limited advantages to adult content, we believe that demand for adult material will continue to be largely met by fixed Internet services," said Strategy Analytics senior analyst Nitesh Patel. The firm did, however, upgrade its mobile adult entertainment outlook, from an earlier projection of $1 billion in 2008 -- based on stronger evidence of consumer demand and advances in carrier technologies.
http://www.strategyanalytics.com 
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o Illinois, Alabama Lawmakers Approve Bans on Sale of Violent Games to Minors

Springfield, Ill. -- Illinois state lawmakers have approved a bill that would ban the sale of violent video games to minors in the state, with the Illinois House voting 91-19 in favor of the legislation. The bill will now move to the state Senate. Meanwhile, a similar bill to ban violent game sales to minors passed on Wednesday in the Alabama House of Representatives. Courts have routinely struck down similar video game sales bans on First Amendment grounds in the city of Indianapolis, St. Louis County, Missouri and the state of Washington.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/94/hb/09400hb4023.htm
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-leg17.html 
http://tinyurl.com/568kk 
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o Apple Seeks Share of Revenues from "Official" iPod Accessories

San Francisco -- Apple is seeking a share of the revenue that third-parties are making off of accessories for its iPod digital music player, CNET News.com reported. The company announced in January its "Made for iPod" program, wherein Apple would provide a special logo and endorsement for official iPod accessories, in return for 10% of wholesale pricing, people familiar with the situation told News.com. The program would not apply to cases and protective covers for the iPod, but would cover accessories that feature an electrical connection to the iPod, such as portable speakers or FM transmitters. "With more than 400 iPod accessories on the market and growing, the Made for iPod logo program is designed to help consumers choose iPod accessories that work properly with their iPods, and also provide participating iPod accessory makers with guidelines and technical specifications to develop their products," Apple said in a statement.
http://tinyurl.com/5kzlr 
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o Snocap Licenses Independent Labels for File-Sharing Song ID Service

San Francisco -- Snocap, the digital music licensing and copyright management firm founded by Napster inventor Shawn Fanning, announced on Thursday that it has signed agreements with a number of independent labels and aggregators, to include their music catalogs in Snocap's database of songs authorized for purchase on peer-to-peer networks. Labels including TVT Records, Absolutely Kosher, Artemis, Gammon, Nacional, Nettwerk and OM Records have committed to Snocap; in addition, independent music aggregator Independent Online Distribution Alliance will offer 75,000 tracks from 500 labels for Snocap's database. Major labels Sony BMG and Universal have also provided their catalogs to San Francisco-based Snocap, which the company says will allow them to securely distribute their songs on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Using acoustic fingerprinting, Snocap will identify songs being traded on peer-to-peer networks, and enable labels to sell authorized, protected versions of their tracks. A company called Mashboxx plans to launch a peer-to-peer file-sharing network using Snocap's technology later this year.
http://www.snocap.com 
http://www.mashboxx.com 
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o Report: U.K. Online Casino 888.com Planning IPO This Year

London -- According to a report by Reuters, online casino 888.com is planning an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) later this year. Quoting unnamed sources close to the company, Reuters said Cassava Enterprises --- 888.com's Gibraltar-based parent company -- had already hired Credit Suisse First Boston to prepare an IPO that would value 888.com at about $1.6 billion. Industry experts have long tipped the online casino to cash in on the booming U.K. Internet poker market. A recent study conducted by 888.com found that the total number of people gambling over the Internet in the U.K. has increased by more than six times over the last 12 months. What's more, the survey of more than 2,700 people also found a remarkable 566% increase in the amount of money staked online since the end of 2003. Neither Cassava nor CSFB has commented on the Reuters report.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N26C321BA 
http://www.888.com 
http://www.cassava.net/default.asp 
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o Dutch Content-Protection Firm Irdeto Buys LockStream

Amsterdam -- Irdeto Access, a provider of content protection technologies for digital video and IP networks, announced on Thursday that it has acquired LockStream Corp., a Seattle-based mobile digital rights management (DRM) firm. Irdeto is a unit of Dutch media group Naspers. "LockStream is a great addition to the Irdeto Access content protection portfolio for digital TV, IPTV and mobile networks," said Irdeto CEO Graham Kill. "With this acquisition, Irdeto Access gains leading-edge products which are already deployed in real applications, and a top-notch team to drive us towards our objective of leading the mobile content protection market." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://www.irdetoaccess.com/iapr001.asp 
http://www.lockstream.com 

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(San Francisco) CNET News.com reports that Senate Commerce Committee chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has proposed extending the authority of the Federal Communications Commission's indecency regulators to the Internet. "We ought to find some way to say, here is a block of channels, whether it's delivered by broadband, by VoIP, by whatever it is, to a home, that is clear of the stuff you don't want your children to see," said Stevens. Specifically, Stevens mentioned extending FCC authority to regulate indecency on cable and satellite TV networks, hinting that such extensions could be inserted into other legislation targeting broadcast indecency.
http://tinyurl.com/64dkg

(Seoul, Korea) Korean consumer electronics firm Samsung on Thursday introduced a line of six new MP3 players under its Yepp brand, featuring both flash memory and hard drive-based models. The players range from a 256MB flash memory-based model to a 30GB, hard drive-based player that can hold up to 2,500 songs. "We aim to sell more than 5 million MP3 players this year versus 1.7 million sold last year and will seek various strategic alliances with content providers such as Microsoft to boost sales," said Samsung vice president Kim Suh-kyum.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/17/bloomberg/sxsamsung.html
http://www.samsung.com

(Osaka, Japan) Japanese consumer electronics maker Matsushita (Panasonic) on Thursday introduced four flash memory-based digital audio players, under its new brand. The square-shaped SV-SD100V and SV-SD90 D-Snap Audio players are small enough to be worn around the neck; the SV-MP720V (512MB) and SV-MP730V (1GB) models are rectangular and come in five colors. "We expect the shipment of audio players in Japan to reach 130,000 units by the end of March 2005 and it will rise to some 330,000 units over the next year," said Shunzo Ushimaru, director of corporate marketing for the Panasonic brand in Japan. The new audio players, priced from about $134 to $268, will ship on April 8 in Japan.
http://tinyurl.com/4d8bn

(Irvine, Calif.) Swedish automaker Volvo said on Thursday that it will promote native Scandinavian musicians through a monthly playlist of songs from Scandinavian artists on Apple's iTunes Music Store. Beginning on March 23, the "nu: the sounds of new Scandinavia" promotion will include a Times Square launch event live concert featuring performances by Sahara Hotnights and The Ark, in addition to iTunes gift certificates tied to Volvo test drives and direct mail to Volvo owners. Volvo is offering a branded iPod connectivity kit for its entire line of 2005 model year vehicles.
http://www.volvocars.us/itunes

(Englewood, Colo.) Cdigix, a provider of licensed digital music and movie download services on college campuses, announced that the University of Maryland has signed on to offer its services. Students will have free access to Cdigix's library of 1.2 million tracks for streaming, and pay $0.89 and $9.99 to download songs or albums, respectively. In the spring, Colorado-based Cdigix -- which currently services 21 schools -- plans to launch a Ctrax2Go service that will allow students to download unlimited tracks to portable devices for an additional fee.
http://www.cdigix.com

(Elm Grove, Wis.) Consumer electronics manufacturer Digital Techniques on Thursday introduced its line of Blackbird digital music receivers, which offer storage of up to 80,000 songs and streaming both over a home network and from any Web browser. Wisconsin-based Digital Techniques' receivers start at $499 for an 80GB model, and include an $899, 300GB model that stores up to 80,000 songs.
http://www.digitaltechniques.com

(Thurles, Ireland) Avica, a provider of digital cinema technology, announced on Thursday that its Avica Europe unit has launched the first phase in its plan to convert all movie theater screens in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to digital cinema. The company's Digital Cinema Limited subsidiary said its distribution infrastructure will cover 500 Irish screens in the first national network.
http://www.avicatech.com

(Calabasas Hills, Calif.) Video game publisher THQ on Thursday said it will ship its "MX vs. ATV Unleashed" for PlayStation 2 and Xbox to retailers on March 24. The off-road racing title was developed at Phoenix, Ariz.-based Rainbow Studios.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050317/lath042_3.html 
http://www.rainbowstudios.com

(Costa Mesa, Calif.) Game developer Planetwide Games announced on Thursday that it will host a $1 million grand prize tournament for players of its "RYL: Path of the Emperor" massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. The company said qualifying will begin on July 1, with a finals tournament to be broadcast live from the 2006 E3 Expo.
http://www.planetwidegames.com 
http://www.ryl.net

(Atlanta) The Weather Channel on Thursday announced the launch of mobile video weather forecasts, which offer personalized forecasts and information for over 100 U.S. locations delivered to video cell phones. The service, currently available for Sprint wireless subscribers, also features severe weather reports, general weather news and feature clips like "Dr. Nese's Notebook."
http://www.weather.com

(New York) The New York Times on Thursday reported on an upcoming video game, Midway Games' "Narc," which is the first title from a large publisher to feature drug use as a key aspect of gameplay. While drug use is not mandatory for the narcotics officer characters that players become within the game, "a digital puff of marijuana, for example, temporarily slows the action of the game like a sports replay. Taking an Ecstasy tablet creates a mellow atmosphere that can pacify aggressive foes. The use of crack momentarily makes the player a marksman: a 'crack' shot." While addiction can develop and hamper a player's progress, Midway says the game mirrors drug use seen in movies about undercover narcotics officers, like "Narc" and "Training Day."
http://tech.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/technology/circuits/17drug.html
http://www.narcgame.com 

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