Today, I'm posting a collection of links to other places covering similar topics to us, and providing a roundup of the stories we've done lately categorized by topic. So, a few links to start off:

The editor of Wired magazine and author of "The Long Tail" has a long tail blog with a lot of details. Today's post includes why 'hit' albums are declining.

Michael Geist has a summary of some recent P2P developments, including the French dismissing their latest P2P case.

Update: Wired Magazine is running an article about some VC's re-examining some of the dot-com ideas. Turns out they weren't so crazy after all. Some of this may sound familiar to people who read the Trawler:

"While many chalk up the dotcom extinction to the catastrophic impact of a single asteroid called economic rationality, Morgan holds that it was actually a series of fundamental factors - broadband access, consumer buy-in, search technology, and Web advertising."

Funny, I think I said something exactly like that a few weeks ago. And how about this:

"First, online access was spotty and slow. Second, consumers weren't accustomed to operating online. They didn't trust ecommerce sites with their credit cards and hadn't figured out how to form online communities. Third, search technology was weak. With the advanced algorithmic breakthroughs of Google still years away, it was hard to find what you were looking for. And finally, the online advertising business wasn't yet mature."

Deja-vu! I think I talked about this here. In fact, you should just read the entire web series.

And on a completely different note, apparently the GTA franchise has been valued at $900M. That's a lot of money for a single game franchise and the majority of the value of Take Two as a publisher. Interesting that video games are moving more towards the blockbuster format when movies and music are clearly on the downslope of that wave.

And, in case you're a newcomer, here's a roundup of some of the recent topics on The Trawler:

Music Industry

Behold the next generation of rock stars
Earth to music industry: It's SO over
Why downloading is 'legal' in Canada
Debunking music industry mythology
Breaking free from the analog economics of the music industry


Web Technology

Web 2.0? More like Web 1.0
The 'Earned' Boom

Video Games

Video games need professional writers

Enjoy. [Bookmark at del.icio.us]

Tags: web|music|games|news