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Besides the TV show, Cyrus has released CDs, draws huge crowds of screaming young girls to her concerts and is scheduled to appear in Hannah Montana: The Movie. According to a story in Adweek, one of her two Web sites drew more than 280,000 unique visitors in April.

As the top four recording companies continue to see CD sales shrink and as they scurry to find profitable business models in the digital age, Walt Disney Records has grown 40 percent from last year according to Matt Fitz-Henry, the label’s director of New Media.

Another important ingredient is partnering with acts that appeal to children or tween-agers, a group that isn’t likely to pirate the content. Some of the other properties on the label include franchises such as High School Musical and Camp Rock featuring the The Jonas Brothers.

Walt Disney's music label is expanding the Web presence of popular shows, such as Hannah Montana

According to Nielsen Soundscan, High School Musical 2 was the seventh largest selling digital album of 2007.

A 360 deal is the practice of promoting an artist across different entertainment genres and platforms, including the Web.

“What everybody in the music business is now talking about is the 360-deal,” Fitz-Henry said. “The Disney company has been doing that for 50 years.”

For example, Walt Disney Records oversees much of the work of Miley Ray Cyrus, of Hannah Montana fame.

LOS ANGELES–Only the mouse appears to thrive in a music sector pulverized by digital technology.

“The Internet is not only an important piece of our business, it’s relevance continues to expand,” Fitz-Henry said. Disney is focusing now on promoting acts in mobile by creating widgets that include audio, video, tour dates, Webisodes and photos.

(Credit:
Walt Disney Records)

Fitz-Henry, who spoke at a panel session at the iHollywood Conference on Monday, said that it’s no secret how the company has found success in such a gloomy environment.

“Microsoft is in a unique position to help in that dimension,” he said. “We bring a little different gravitas to the table. I think we can actually change the dynamic around responsible disclosure.”

The MSRC already reports vulnerabilities to other companies, but now it is asking for recognition in finding the vulnerability. Microsoft will not post advisories on any of the third-party security issues it finds, like it does with vulnerabilities found in its own software, Cushman said.

Earlier in the week, Microsoft said it would be giving third-party vendors a sneak peek at the technical details of the vulnerabilities in Microsoft software before the company releases its monthly “Patch Tuesday” updates. The company also announced it would help companies prioritize the vulnerabilities in its updates.

The issue of responsible disclosure is constantly being debated, with vendors often arguing that researchers are too quick to go public when they find a vulnerability and researchers countering that if they didn’t go public the vendors would drag their heels on fixing the problem.

“We’ve seen the threat environment change,” said Andrew Cushman, who runs the Microsoft Security Response Center.

The company announced at the Black Hat security conference on Thursday that it is formalizing its program of informing third-party software vendors of security problems with products that run on top of Windows.

Click here for full coverage of Black Hat 2008.

Vista is more secure than XP and has fewer infections, he said. In addition, there are an increasing number of third-party exploits, and fewer browser-based exploits than in third-party software, he added.

LAS VEGAS–Microsoft is jumping into the responsible disclosure game.

Last year, Dell announced that it was cutting 8,800 jobs from its payroll and Thursday the company said that it has already laid off 5,550 employees in an attempt to cut costs and make the company more financially sound.

And while many would say that Dell is moving in the right direction, I’m not so quick to agree. How can a company that sat atop the entire computing industry for so long become a shadow of its former self in just two years? Is it that Dell has had a string of bad luck or did Hewlett-Packard, Acer and the rest finally find a way to take the company down?

The company may be able to turn things around in retail outlets, but the computer industry has quickly become a commoditized business where a Dell desktop is the same as an equally equipped HP computer. Realizing this, a price war has emerged and so far, Dell has come out on the losing end in many of these battles, which tells you exactly why it’s trying to reduce overhead and maintain costs at a far more manageable level.

“We are not satisfied with the current state of affairs and are on a mission to fix it,” Reuters quoted Dell saying. “Every area of the company is being pursued” for cost cuts.

Over the past two years, Dell has been subject to a litany of issues that most of us never saw coming. By the second quarter of 2006, Dell commanded 19 percent of the worldwide PC market share and led its closest competitor, HP, by about 3 percent. Since then, the company’s worldwide market share has slipped to below 13 percent, while Acer and HP gained ground. So much ground in fact, that HP is currently the world’s largest PC manufacturer and controls almost 19 percent of the market, while Dell commands just 14 percent. And to make matters worse, HP’s growth was estimated at 30 percent in 2007, while Dell’s was just 1.7 percent.

In recent years, Dell’s tried and true business model has changed and suddenly people are more likely to buy a computer at their local Best Buy than ever before. Realizing this, Dell was forced to start selling its computers in retail outlets once again, but the company was too late–HP already owned that market.

To make matters worse, last week Dell announced that it was closing one of its desktop manufacturing facilities as part of its layoff program and indicated that it wants to reduce expenses by as much as $3 billion per year over the next three years.

Years ago, Dell’s idea of direct selling through its telephone and online channels worked better than most thought it would. After pulling its computers out of retail outlets in 1994, some wondered if Dell would be around much longer. After some impressive quarters and a new business model emerged out of its gamble, the world became believers and both companies and consumers jumped on the Dell bandwagon.

Fast-forward to today and Dell is in trouble. Sure, the company may be turning a profit, but its growth has slowed to an alarming rate and HP is making the company look bad. But let’s be honest–what can Dell do about it?

At this point, Dell is in deep trouble. The company’s stock price has plummeted in the past six months and, although it’s turning a profit each quarter of well over $200 million, its practice of selling computers just doesn’t work anymore.

Is it just me or was Dell on top of the world a few years ago? Not only was it pummeling just about every other PC manufacturer in the industry, its online business was buzzing and its business integration was better than ever. And then it all came crashing down.

Unfortunately, the answers to those questions are locked deep within the company’s headquarters where Michael Dell is trying to do all he can to right the ship and turn things around. But will he?

So what’s going on at Dell? Did it stem from its need to restate financials after alleged corporate malfeasance? Was it the fact that Dell executives relied too heavily on the company’s tried and true business structure that was dominated by online and business sales? Or was it simply that Dell’s popularity has run its course and HP realized what consumers want today before Dell?

Sadly, it looks like the latter.

Trouble is on the horizon for Dell, and if you ask me, that’s a sad development.

On top of that, Michael Dell was one of the first CEOs to realize that if people used a Dell computer in the business, they would like it, understand it, and want one in the home. And although some doubted the rationale, it worked and Dell walked away from a future-proof company–or so he thought.

Sadly, there’s not much more Dell can do. In an environment where margins are extremely low and companies are forced to find innovative ways to entice customers, Dell is fighting an uphill battle. And although its revenue has grown, its growth has slowed to a crawl and things may get worse if they ever get better.

“Far too many people are falling victim to costly surprises from mysterious charges, fees and ringtone subscriptions they learn about for the first time when they see their mobile phone bill,” Kuneva told a news conference, according to the Reuters story.

The EU investigation found that some Web sites had unclear pricing information posted. Others didn’t provide required contact about the vendor offering the services. And some had “hidden charges” in fine print on parts of the Web site that were hard to read. Many of these sites advertised their service as free, and coaxed customers into long-term contracts.

The AT&T settlement was the first nationwide settlement that refunds customers’ money from charges for third-party content, according to a story published by the Associated Press. Similar lawsuits have been filed against Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile USA.

Consumers in the United States have also complained about similar practices. And last month, AT&T settled a class action lawsuit with wireless subscribers who claimed they had been hoodwinked into signing up for recurring charges for ringtones and other content. The consumers in that case will be given refunds as part of the class action settlement.

On Thursday, EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva launched an investigation into 500 Web sites that sell ringtones, wallpapers, news feeds and video games to consumers. Kuneva believes these Web sites are misleading consumers, notably teenagers, and getting people to spend hundreds of millions of euros on services.

The European Union’s consumer chief is taking action against dodgy Web sites selling mobile phone ringtones and wallpapers with unscrupulous practices, according to a story by Reuters.

• Browser profiles, so you can set up a browser configuration with particular settings such as bookmarks and cookies.

• Under the hood, the update gets a new version of the open-source WebKit engine for converting a Web page’s descriptive HTML and CSS code into the page displayed on a computer. Chrome’s current stable release uses the same WebKit version as is used in Apple’s
Safari 3.1, but the new Chrome developer preview uses WebKit 528.8, which is faster and supports features such as CSS canvas drawing for 2D shapes such as lines on maps or custom-generated charts.

“That team now is able to render most Web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it’s very basic,” Rakowski said of the Mac version. “We have not spent any time building out features. We’re still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right.”

Showing signs that it’s working to meet requests for new developments to its Chrome browser, Google on Friday said it hopes to release versions for
Mac OS X and Linux by the first half of the year, and it released a new version Wednesday that paves the way for the most requested feature: extensions.

Also updated with the new version is Google’s Chrome release structure.

• Faster Safe Browsing, a feature to issue warnings about sites that may conduct phishing attacks or other malicious behavior.

In an unscientific CNET News survey from November, a Mac version was the second most common barrier to getting people to switch to Chrome, trailing only faster performance. Eager beavers can monitor Google’s Chrome for Mac progress and install the Mac test shell.

Before, Google let people subscribe to two Chrome update channels: beta and developer. The first was for relatively well-tested versions; the second for programmers, Web developers, and people with more curiosity and a higher bug threshold.

“We have user script support. That’s a baby step,” he said. As Chrome develops, Google will “expose more capabilities, then expose containers where can you have your own toolbar-like thing. You’ll see it evolve over time.”

• Full-page zoom, so that using Ctrl+ and Ctrl- to increase or decrease elements on a Web page works better. Before, only text grew or shrank, but now other elements do, too.

Extensions en route
Another major missing piece of Chrome is a framework to handle extensions, optional features that can be downloaded and plugged in to customize the browser. Extensions were one of the early advantages that helped
Firefox blossom, it’s the top-requested feature for Chrome, and it ranked third in the CNET survey of Chrome barriers.

• An update of Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine from version 0.3.9.3 to 0.4.6.0. JavaScript is used for more elaborate Web pages, and the new version is faster, Rakowski said.

Now there are three Chrome channels: stable, beta, and developer preview.

Google has high hopes for Chrome–in particular, the Internet giant wants better performance, so browsing the Web is faster and Web-based applications are more powerful. Now Google is filling in some missing pieces Chrome needs in order to attain wider usage.

Counting Chrome
Google released Chrome 1.0 in December, just three months after the software publicly debuted, and the company is working hard to maintain a fast development pace. Wednesday’s version, though not for the general public, is the first to sport the version 2 number.

Major new features
Version 2.0.156.1 includes many new features besides Greasemonkey support. Among them:

“That’s what we’ve been hoping for,” he said in an interview Friday. “Those two efforts proceeding in parallel. They’re at the same level of progress.”

• The ability to import bookmarks from the Google Bookmarks site.

• Autocomplete, so Chrome can remember what you’ve typed into Web forms and enter them again. “A lot of people asked for that. It turns out it’s more complicated than it seems on the surface,” Rakowski said.

Missing from the new version is support for automatic discovery of Web site subscriptions through RSS and Atom “feed” technology. Google has mapped out feed support; the company plans to add it in the version 2 time frame, Rakowski said.

Brian Rakowski, Chrome’s product manager, said the company wants to release Chrome for Mac and Linux before the first half of 2009 is up.

Most folks will just use the stable version, which Google expects to update roughly once a quarter, Rakowski said. “The beta channel is now what the developer channel used to be,” he added, with newer features but still a reasonable amount of testing. Newest is the developer preview channel, where code will be frequently updated and much more raw, and where Google expects some features to fail and be withdrawn.

Google promised an extensions framework when Chrome launched, and more recently, Google outlined its Chrome extensions vision.

But a new cutting-edge version of Chrome, 2.0.156.1, gets support for some “Greasemonkey” scripts to customize the browser, a move that lays the groundwork for extensions, Rakowski said.

• Autoscroll, so clicking a mouse’s middle button, then moving the mouse, lets you slide around larger pages. This is handy for panning around large images without constantly zooming in and out.

Google expects to issue new developer preview versions roughly every couple weeks and new beta releases roughly monthly, Rakowski said.

The Mac and Linux versions are up to the level of a basic “test shell” that can show Web pages. But a test shell is pretty raw.

DENVER–If you’re a candidate for president during the 2012 primaries, you may want to watch how sharply you criticize your rivals. Your critiques may come back to haunt you on the Web.

Notready08.com features a video board of clips of former candidates criticizing Barack Obama.

(Credit:
Notready08.com)

That’s what the Republicans, at least, are hoping to demonstrate with their notready08.com site, which features clips of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards slamming Barack Obama last year and earlier this year for being inexperienced or over his voting record in Illinois.

Other sections include a YouTube video listed as the “Temple of Obama” that shows the makings of Obama’s stage tonight at the Invesco stadium here, where he’s scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday. Another features press conferences from Republicans–held, intentionally, right in the middle of the Democratic convention.

For his part, Obama has replied to Republican attacks with his “Fight the Smears” Web page. And you can probably expect clips to surface of John McCain’s rivals attacking him in the primaries in the not-so-distant future.

According to the release, “Just over 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies have public blogs. Fewer still have Chief Bloggers, and Kodak is among the first to name a female Chief Blogger.” Wow. I had thought that writing, customer service, and public relations jobs were chock full ‘o women, but now I discover that Chief Blogger was a job title heretofore out of my chromosomal reach. So much more rewarding than CTO or CFO.

Now, there are lots of corporate blogs and bloggers out there (can I officially coin the terms “clog” and “clogger”?), some of whom I even read, like Adobe’s John Nack. But really, once you’ve appointed an official blogging overlord and publicly announce it just to impress Wall Street analysts, blogs take on all the glamour and interest of CRM.

Sometimes, you get a press release that’s so accidentally, astonishingly funny that you can’t stop laughing long enough to make fun of it. This morning’s latte-through-the-nose nominee is the deadpan announcement “Kodak Names Chief Blogger: Company Extends its Revolutionary Approach to Product Innovation with Cutting-edge Approach to Social Media.”

The rest of Pingdom’s results can be found on the company’s blog.

Facebook, for example, started in the United States and still has more members there than in any other country. But there’s more proportional “interest” in Facebook in Turkey, based on Google searches for the term. In second place is Canada, followed by the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Colombia.

For MySpace, the U.S. ranks at the top of the list when it comes to regional interest, followed by Puerto Rico, Australia, the U.K., and Malaysia. Beyond that, many American-founded social networks are much more popular overseas than at home: Friendster, which recently affirmed its focus on Asian countries, gathers the most “interest” in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Myanmar, respectively. The top five Google Insights locations for Hi5, founded in San Francisco, are Peru, Portugal, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica.

The popularity of a social site such as MySpace or Twitter is frequently measured in unique users, page views, or user registrations. But a recent ministudy by Pingdom chose instead to look at how much of a proportional lock a given social network has on the countries’ Web users. The tool of choice was Google Insights for Search, which was formally launched earlier this week.

Performance-monitoring firm Pingdom thinks we should look at social networks differently.

The two engaged in a public relations battle last year when NBC suggested that it wanted out of its iTunes contract. Apple fired back by accusing NBC of demanding that iTunes double prices of its content on the site.

Apple has taken issue with NBC’s claims that the media conglomerate was able to change pricing policy at Apple.

This time around, NBC again was able to circulate it’s version of events before Apple.

Cue disagreed that pricing policy has changed at iTunes.

NBC Universal executives have suggested that they agreed to start selling downloads of TV shows on iTunes only after being allowed more flexibility to set prices for its wares on iTunes. That’s just not correct, Eddy Cue, the vice president in charge of Apple’s iTunes Store, told CNET News on Wednesday evening.

However, all of this was available at iTunes before the NBC deal was struck, according to Cue.

Cue pointed out that while most TV shows sell for $1.99 on iTunes, retailers have always been allowed to sell videos for less. He said Viacom has offered many of its shows for 99 cents, including episodes of South Park and MTV’s The Hills. The History Channel has offered shows such as Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men

“Apple realized it wasn’t worth the fight anymore,” Perrette continued. “They were better off to just have the content. So they agreed to the pricing that was at least equal to the DVD pricing.”

On Tuesday Apple announced at the company’s “Let’s Rock” press gathering that NBC shows were returning to iTunes. A year ago, NBC yanked its show off iTunes over the issue of pricing. Following the press event Tuesday, JB Perrette, who runs NBC’s digital unit, told CNET that Apple’s increased flexibility on pricing led to agreement between the two companies.

“We’ve never told anyone they can’t lower prices,” Cue said.

“If you look at some of the things we’ve done for holidays,” Cue said, “we’ve had holiday packages with shows with the right themes. We’ve done things in the past with big name actors so we’ve packaged those things in the past.”

Both Cue and Perrette say their companies are glad to be working together again, but what this disagreement over how NBC returned to iTunes illustrates is how the relationship continues to be a troubled one.

And when it comes to packages, Cue said there have been packages on iTunes before.

Cue said that the $2.99 price NBC is selling its HD content for is the same price for all HD content. “People can see (Showtime’s) Californication in HD live right now on the site,” Cue said.

He said that NBC was given a chance to charge $2.99 for high-definition downloads of its TV shows and that it also could sell catalog titles for 99 cents or $1 less than the price for the vast majority of videos sold on iTunes. NBC would also, according to Perrette, be given the opportunity to bundle TV show compilations and sell them for whatever it wanted.

“Frankly, ever since we dropped our relationship with Apple last fall, they have made a gradual progression culminating in (Tuesday’s announcement that NBC was returning to iTunes),” Perrette told CNET. “Originally, Apple had no film content (from the major motion picture studios) on the service because they were asking the film studios for years to accept a price that was below their DVD price.

“We’re glad to have NBC back and they are participating under the same terms with all of the other content providers.”

The other service, called Babel, is more useful for people visiting Beijing as part of this summer’s Olympics. By calling a special phone number you can leave a voice message that will be translated to Mandarin in just a few seconds. It’s meant to be used as an on-the-go tool for English speakers who are over there to watch the games and who might run into translation issues while getting around.

I gave Babel a spin earlier this morning and had mixed results. You might as well give up for things like URLs or long words. Even when I spokes as slowly and as clearly as possible, it managed to flub up more than half of the words in some cases including classics like turning “point” into “porno” and “get” into “Georgia.” Regardless, its speed is truly impressive as it spits back results in just a few seconds. You can view my trials with it in the video below, or give it a spin yourself at 1-718-513-2969. You can also find the other local access numbers for the U.K. and Australia here.

If you’re a native Mandarin speaker, I’d love to hear how this does with English translations. Let me know in the comments.

Unfortunately, Babel requires calling a local U.S., U.K., or Australia local access number to access it, as there’s not currently one for China. The good news is that if you’re in the depths of a local Chinatown in one of these supported countries, you’ll be able to ask for directions or order a dish off a restaurant menu using your phone instead of having to point to it on a menu.

Telephony service JaJah has launched two completely different voice tools that are both useful in their own right. The first is a new “concierge” service that lets you call any of your contacts with voice dialing using a special local access number. It works even if your handset does not support voice dialing, and will connect you to that person as long as you’ve synced up your address book with JaJah’s.