The only way after September you’ll be able to move your music around or play it is if you decide to burn your music to compact disk and re-import it to your machine (or alternatively bust the DRM with an underground tool). This is because every time you use your purchased music, your player will go attempt to go out and ping the Yahoo DRM server to verify proper ownership. When it is no longer there, your player will simply assume you’re a pirate and not play the music.

Interestingly enough, this circumvention by CD method was the course of action suggested by Yahoo in the service’s fairwell email to its users. The PDF embedded via Scribd below.

RealTechNews is reporting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has issued a set of demands from Yahoo (as they did when Microsoft pulled this same stunt) including an apology to their customers as well as a full refund for the cost of all the music purchased.

We’d be inclined to agree, but we’d settle for a simple executable designed to undo the DRM to turn our Yahoo music into universally playable music.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Sony Connect Music Service Shutting Down
Yahoo Kills Yahoo Music Unlimited, Signs Deal With Rhapsody
Yahoo Saying Goodbye to More European Businesses
Yahoo Starts Layoffs While Deciding What To Do Next
Yahoo’s Playing with our Mashing Emotions Today
Skype Worm Causes Video-Sharing Shutdown
Yahoo OMG. Get Your Celeb Gossip Here.

Redlasso, the web service we occasionally used here at Mashable to illustrate a point using footage from mainstream television, has shuttered their service for the time being in the face of a lawsuit being brought against them by NBC Universal and Fox.

According to a press release issued by the company today, in light of the litigation, they’re cutting off all access to the video side of the service to bloggers, but retaining the audio clipping functions as well as their business services.

On their site, they offer a final note to the disgruntled bloggers like myself:

We would like to thank you for your continued support of Redlasso. You have been essential to making Redlasso a household name online. Unfortunately, due to the legal actions taken against Redlasso by two networks, we are left with no alternative but to suspend access to our video search and clipping Beta site FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. The networks have provided a big blow to the blogger community’s right to exercise the first amendment and comment on newsworthy events. It is anti-Web. During this service suspension, we will continue our conversations with content providers, with the goal of establishing formal partnerships that will quickly help us restore access to the Beta site.

It’s a highly unfortunate end to a very valuable service.  Being able to include clips from newsworthy events was a nice luxury to have while it lasted (we used it in a few cases, including a local news broadcast concerning Loren Feldman, and a CNN clip detailing an investigation on child pornography controls on Craigslist).

At the moment, our embeds still work, but we’re unable to use our account to make any clippings of current TV broadcasts. Michael Massnick made a salient observation on the matter today over at TechDirt:

This is especially odd since TV stations are in the business of attracting viewers, and giving people an easy way to promote your content to others (at absolutely no cost to you) would seem like a good plan for attracting more viewers. However, it would appear that the execs suing believe that companies should have to pay TV studios to promote their TV shows.

It was a gutsy move by RedLasso, and I had no doubt that it was all going to end badly for them when they opened the service, but Mike has a very good point.  All the usage of these clips could have possibly lead to were increased viewership of those networks’ content, and possible increased brand affinity.

Given the fact that newspapers continue to be upset when more than a few words are quoted on a blog (and for that matter some bloggers even have a hard time seeing themselves promoted elsewhere), I’m not particularly surprised to see TV networks blowing a gasket when we use their content to supplement our own.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Hippy Bloggers of the World Unite
Fox Clips on Your Blog, Thanks to Brightcove
Bebo London Office (Video)
Craigslist’s Child Sex: Who’s To Blame? [smcb]
Verizon Reportedly Drops Loren Feldman Over TechNigga
DivShare Direct Goes Free, For Now
PayPerPost Video Ads

Remember custom reddits? Back in January I spoke with MG Seigler about his experiences with then a closed beta service called “custom Reddits.” Essentially, it as a niche filter moderated by power users of the Reddit service, and later I was invited along with a number of other bloggers from across the tech blogosphere to help moderate the filter.

The feature has been hugely popular in terms of helping sort news relevant to folks wanting a better handle on the news than the hodge-podge that typically shows up on the front page of the site.

Last night there was a Digg meet-up in Chicago, and the attending press was particularly interested in getting comment from Digg folk Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson regarding the intense rumors of a $200 million acquisition by Google. Of course, as per usual, they had no comment on the matter.

They did have news of an upcoming feature to Digg that allows for the Digg equivalent of the Reddit filters that have been so popular with users over the last six months or so.

According to the Windy Citizen, Adelson said the feature was still about six months away from launch, but will open up Digg to “new verticals and make it possible for stories that wouldn’t make the cut on the main Digg site to find an audience.”

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Digg Adds New Features to API
Digg Launches Digg Widgets
Digg Goes With DataPortability
Metacafe Adds Digg Section
Pownce Co-Founder Upset Over New Digg Features
Digg API, Baby!
Digg Introduces Fully Threaded Comments

If you like EasyTweets for managing your Twitter account(s) and scheduling the posting of tweets, then you’ll love Sendible. It’s similar in concept to EasyTweets, but supports more accounts than just Twitter and has a larger management feature set as well. In addition to Twitter, you can also schedule messages and updates for email, SMS, Facebook (messages and status), MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, hi5 and Blogger. There will be more added to this list, making it even easier to maintain your Web presence in its entirety and keep it consistent across multiple services.

In terms of management, you’ll need a centralizing hub for tracking all these scheduled messages you’re sending out. Sendible offers reminders and the ability to import and subscribe to information such as your Facebook friends’ birthdays. Another very helpful tool is the calendar, which allows you to see upcoming and previously scheduled messages sent out across your various services. It would be great if this calendar could be synced with your iCal or Outlook, especially for power users, but Sendible’s reminder system addresses the main aspect of this particular issue, with the option of both email and SMS reminders.

The last of the notable features for Sendible is the ability to include targeted ads in your messages, which can be sent to people’s mobile phones and other messaging systems. Considering Sendible’s overall feature set, it’s clear that Sendible can easily be used as a marketing platform that sends messages on a slightly more personal level.

Given this advertising option, along with the rest of Sendible’s management tools, I’m surprised to see that there’s no business or client-facing interfaces that can be used for marketing or promotional purposes on behalf of users. Anything from email and mobile phone number collection options to badges and widgets that can be used in conjunction with messaging for marketing purposes, along with public calendars and events (similar to Spongecell), could tie in with Sendible should the company decide to enable so many business-oriented features.

This is a completely original series that has been developed specifically for the small screens on cell phones. It comes with an original musical score and a full cast of voice overs that includes Ben Shenkman, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee. Artwork for the series is being drawn by Alex Maleev, with the coloring being done by Jose Villarrubia. The adaptation from the short story form was done by Marc Guggenheim with creative oversight by King himself.

If you want to get a head start and watch the first episode before its official release you can head over to NisHero.com, enter in your name and email address and have at it. You can also watch the trailer for it there as well.

The official release schedule will start Monday, July 28th, 2008 with a new episode being released each weekday until August 29th. At the same time, blocks of five episodes will be released on iTunes each Monday until August 25th. Each block of 5 episodes will cost you $0.99 but you can get a season pass for all the episodes for $3.99.

You can read more about “N.” here.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

The Daily Poll: The Politics of Facebook
Fastest Growing Facebook Group Now Has A Million Members
Stephen Colbert Parodies on YouTube = Legal
Amazon Dishes Out $300 Million for Audible
King.com Offers Games for Cash with MumboJumbo Deal
King.com Game Network Grows 138% in One Year
Yahoo Games Still Kickin’ Thanks to Extended Deal with King.com

As a publishing platform, Squarespace is also looking to change the very concepts surrounding website publishing, hoping to allow users to create sites with a process that’s more aligned with the human thought process, which, according to Squarespace, is semi-structured publishing. That allows a great deal of room for customization, merging many of the existing models already in use by other website publishing tools such as WYSIWYG editors and template designs with the structured back-end CMS for building a fully functional website.

Squarespace V5 expands on the custom options made available through the company’s fluid approach to website creation, with a live editing interface, pluggable features that work for all aspects of Squarespace’s site building, including search and data collection. There are more than 60 new style templates to choose from, all of which are fully customizable by users.

A couple of new partnerships grant back-end grid architecture powered by Oracle Coherence and hosted by Peer1 Network for improved support for a wider variety of sites, regardless of size. To see how Squarespace can be implemented, you can check out the video here, or stick around for Kevin Rose’s announcement in the coming hours, as his diggnation show on Revision3 will be taking advantage of Squarespace’s site creation capabilities.

The aim with Squarespace’s tools are to offer a platform for simplified design options that are available to all user types, despite technical knowledge. As platforms such as Squarespace and Secondbrain create a more accessible process for site creation, the need for easy, all-inclusive services are being met with continued development coming from the platform space.

Everything from advertising and analytics to redistribution and application creation will eventually become part of this one-stop shop concept that these services are approaching, targeting those website publishers that don’t have a strong technical background but would still like highly customizable and easily implemented options for their online presence.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

40+ Free Blog Hosts

Having children enter the public school system this last year has really opened my eyes up to a number of things that only parents can identify with. Not only is my son becoming something resembling a person (as opposed to a chubby mass of toddler cuteness), he’s exposed to teachings outside the normal curriculum of information I’d normally expose him to (for instance, unlike the local public school system, I probably wouldn’t have spent a week of lessons centering around the ins and outs of recycling).

It’s not to the point where I feel like I need to intervene and start suggesting alternative topics for my son’s teachers, but it is making me aware the need to be in touch with what it is the teachers do with our children during the days, and the importance of having a hand in helping your child get the best education possible.

That’s why it was refreshing to sit down with Edward Fields recently on Mashable Conversations and talk with him about what he’s doing as CEO of HotChalk.  They’re a niche social network for students, teachers and parents that uses the power of quality user-generated-content to improve the education experience for all involved. It’s a place for teachers to share in lesson plans that cater to students at all levels of development, parents to stay in touch with what the kids are learning, and kids to better understand and relate the the curriculum they’re being taught.

This is one of the most apt and useful applications of the niche social network concept I’ve come across. If you have a school-aged child or are a teacher, this is a must-see site.

Listen to the MP3 to hear more from CEO Edward Fields and I as we discuss American education and how HotChalk aims to help our children succeed in learning.

Never Miss an Episode!
Get the Mashable Conversations podcast here (video feed).
Get the Mashable Conversations podcast here (audio feed).

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Streamfile

20-word Description: Streamfile is an emerging startup with revolutionary technology in the file transfer space.

CEO’s Pitch: Streamfile.com allows anyone to “stream” files that are too big to email without any additional need of installed software other than a browser. Streamfile is a hosted FTP replacement solution that allows streaming functionality. By streaming, we mean that when an uploader sends a file, downloaders are able to start the download process immediately. This single functionality enhancement actually allows time savings of up to 90% (compared to a traditional FTP server-to-client transfer). It’s like P2P, but with a 24h answering service. All of the file transfers have the option to be encrypted with high-grade AES 256-bit SSL encryption.

Mashable’s Take: Streamfile is intriguing not only for its ability to rather quickly broadcast files of up to 2GB in size to specified email addresses, but its simple construction as well. Everything is done via the browser within an elegant and sparse input menu. There is absolutely no need to operate proprietary software. Just browse for a file, provide one or more email addresses (you can also specify whom the package is from), and begin “streaming.”

At the backend, Streamfile operates as a replacement to your traditional FTP transfer service. As with some other modern transmission options of today, Streamfile allows for files to be downloaded almost immediately after an upload is begun. A similar option is offered by Pando, yet that service requires the use of proprietary software at either end of an established link to function properly. Streamfile can go without. And the fact that it is able to maintain 256-bit encryption if requested will please some privacy seekers.

As it explains within its site copy, Streamfile hosts data for a total of 24 hours. Which might irk some users, particularly if a situation isn’t time-sensitive and could ideally do with, say, a week’s worth of server/network access. The reason provided for this limit is quite logical for a startup of its type to cite: “By storing data for shorter time periods than our competitors… we can maximize performance and bandwidth to guarantee superior door-to-door delivery speeds.”

For the time being, Streamfile, based in Stockholm, Sweden, comes free of charge for users. (Period ends August 31.) Its stated profit model is business-to-business file transfers (integration with corporate websites is said to be possible). Such subscriptions run 49€/month or more.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

The detractors claim corporate blogs lack transparency, fail to adapt to the changing times, and generally play the PR game without ever admitting issues or entering into a discussion with the reader.

I think that’s pure rubbish.

Sure, most of these corporate blogs play the PR game and would rather tell you how wonderful they are than how awful they’ve performed over time, but who cares? Do you really go to a corporate blog looking for the company to bash itself? I seriously doubt the shareholders would be too happy with that.

Instead, corporate blogs provide me with some insider knowledge into what’s really going on behind the scenes at some of these companies. And while some make the complaint that transparency is an issue and corporate blogs keep things guarded, most corporate blog posts are actually quite transparent if you read between the lines.

Is the company trying to hide something when it uses some clever language and side steps some major issues? Is the company saying something different than it’s writing by including some innuendos? These are the questions you need to ask when you read a corporate blog and generally, the answer is yes.

That said, not all corporate blogs are created equal. Zillow has a great blog and Garmin has done a fantastic job of adding some personality to an otherwise vanilla landscape. Twitter has a nicely informative blog now that it’s trying to have a dialogue with its users and explain its issues and Google is easily one of the most entertaining companies in the corporate blogging space.

These blogs, much like countless others from companies across vastly different industries, may not offer something compelling with each post and sometimes they’re nothing more than an extension of the PR team, but even the most self-adulating blogs tend to offer some entertaining and extremely informative posts that not only act as the backbone for news stories, but for shareholder consumption as well.

Who can forget Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s response to Engadget’s open letter? Who else finds value in Garmin’s answers to reader questions? How about Zillow’s celebrity listings that show you how much some of your favorite celebrities’ homes are worth?

See, it’s not that I love corporate blogs because they only talk about a company, but I love corporate blogs because they give a company some personality and they offer you some insight (no matter how guarded) into the people behind an organization that seems so cold and calculating.

Lest we forget, tech companies are moneymaking machines. Sure, some may not turn the kind of profit Microsoft does and others don’t seem to have their finger on the pulse of consumers like Apple, but each is managed by individuals with unique identities and something interesting to say – if we’ll listen.

I don’t love corporate blogs because they spread propaganda – that’s a guarantee that you should be aware of before you head to the site – or because they tend to gloss over some of the less glowing facts. I love corporate blogs because at the very least, they provide a human element to something that is devoid of emotion, understanding, and personality.

On top of that, I love corporate blogs because they’re the easiest way to file a complaint and tell more than a recording or a customer service agent that something is wrong. In a matter of seconds, you can file a complaint in the comments and if people agree, they’ll jump on the bandwagon and in one fell swoop, your singular issue becomes a major problem and someone will be forced to listen.

I understand that most people look at corporate blogs as nothing more than another propaganda machine, but I don’t. Sure, they’re inundated with useless crap from time to time, but I see them as more than a place for a company to write things about itself. Corporate blogs give you clues about the organization’s culture, its people, and why (right or wrong) most of its employees believe in what they’re doing.

And if you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with that.

[Image credit: Wyetha Lipford (attribution)]

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

LinkedIn Launches Corporate Blog
What Would You Ask Robert Scoble?
A Peek Behind The Curtain Of The Purchase Of MySQL
Microsoft Exec Fired for Company Violations
YouTube and CBS Censoring Comments
Blogging’s 10th Birthday: Your 10 Favorite Blogs?
CoComment is The Best Web 2.0 Service Launched This Year

socialbrowse, the Firefox plugin that lets you surf the Web in a link-sharing social manner, has just re-released its service with a couple of major new features. The Y Combinator-backed startup as been in private beta for some time, and will remain in private beta for a little while longer, but those users testing the service will be able to access and utilize its new features (get your invite below).

The new features revolve around the social sharing capabilities that socialbrowse has already laid out. The first new feature supports in-page commenting, which allows you to leave comments on a link you’re visiting without having to leave the page. Submitting a comment, just as with a shared link, will broadcast your content across the Web in real time. Comment icons will also appear on pages you visit so you and your friends will immediately be able to see the connection between your own activity and that of your friends.

An interesting visual tool accompanies the socialbrowse sidebar, offering a very direct and internally circular view of the Web as well as your own browsing behavior. This of course can be turned into immediate recommendations as well as useful information regarding a particular site that may be more difficult or time-consuming to find otherwise via standalone bookmarking sites. This capability also ties in closely with socialbrowse’s second major new upgrade, the embedded icon expansion option.

Icons that display on pages as you surf the Web, indicating comments and shared links, can now be expanded when you hover over them, so you can get an at-a-glance view of the details behind each icon; who submitted the link, and what friends have contributed to the comments thread. Similar to the concept now being employed by JS-Kit, the act of turning comments into a more visual and social component of Web surfing is a budding function that can be leveraged for all sorts of things.

While socialbrowse uses these comments on a more internal basis and JS-Kit acts as a centralizing factor for comments you leave across the Web, they both result in a useful capacity for direct and indirect marketing and recommendations. JS-Kit has already begun to expound upon its features for the use of third-party sites like evite, and Socialbrowse being the existing community that it is can begin to leverage its capabilities in different ways, which will be interesting to observe as Socialbrowse continues beta testing and moves into a more public space.

socialbrowse is offering Mashable readers 400 invites. Click here to get yours.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Web 2.0 Invites for July 1st, 2008
Web 2.0 Invites for July 4th, 2008
New RealPlayer Now Available for Download
20+ Free Press Release Distribution Sites
Firefox 3 Beta 3, Now Available for Download
Apple’s iPhone to Hit Stores June 29th?
Wordpress 2.3 Released

Be sure to sign up for the events now if you haven’t, because prices will go up (and not down) for each individual SummerMash. You could win tickets to one of the best tech events of the year!

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

FlashMashMeet @ Austin Airport Concludes SXSWi
Chance to Win 1 of 4 tickets to Future of Web Apps Miami
StubHub Ordered to Give User Info to New England Patriots
Future of Web Apps Miami - Vote for 4 People to Win Tickets
Future of Web Apps Miami Mini-Contest Winners
MySites Offers Free Tickets to SummerMash Events
NFL and Ticketmaster to Take On StubHub Next Season

The 140 million dollars that Google dished out for Russian contextual ad company Begun now seems rather cheap, given their fantastic financial results for the first half of 2008.

As reported by Profy, Begun has had 25% higher profits in the first two quarters of 2008 than in the entire 2007. Add to that the 173.000 publishers (an increase of 30.000 over last year) in Begun’s roster and it’s obvious that this company is on track to completely corner the huge Russian contextual advertising market.

In other words, Begun was ripe for acquisition; it probably needed funds to be able to sustain its quick growth, and on the other hand it showed huge potential. The question is, how do Microsoft, AOL and others always manage to miss chances like this one, while Google always seems to snag them at the exactly right time?

Check out the press release (in Russian) here.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Google Buys Russian Contextual Ad Service Begun
Mozilla Financial Report Shows its Increasing Importance to Google
Google Adds Picasa Images to Search
YouPorn Blocked by Google.de
Google Announces Financial Results; Revenue Up 57 Percent
The Daily Poll: What’s Wrong at Google?
Ien Cheng Switches FT With Google

Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for helping us grow to be the #1 social news blog in the world.

Advertise with us and get noticed.

Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, PR people, developers, bloggers, and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our brand new media kit and rate card.

This week, our valued sponsors are DEMOfall08, EdgeCast, IDrive, Clickatell, and Userplane.

On September 7 through 9th, 2008, be the first to see the most innovative, marketing defining new technologies unveiled for the very first time. Attend DEMOfall 08 on September 7-9, 2008 in San Diego. Mashable readers are invited to attend for a special rate of only $2,395 – a $600 savings off our regular rate. Click here to learn more and register: http://www.demo.com/F8mashable

EdgeCast Networks offers a superior, cost-effective, global content delivery service that gives our customers competitive advantage in the delivery of digital media. Our world-class content delivery platform provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network while liberating them from ISP contracts, capital investments and operational hassles.

Social Networks and Applications are the bread and butter of the new age Internet, commonly referred to as Web2.0. Clickatell believes that using SMS to bind the two worlds together is the most cost effective, reliable and simple to implement method available. With Clickatell’s truly global reach, your social application can now extend its mobile communications channel to 750 networks spanning 212 countries

IDrive is a leading Consumer and Small Business focused Online Backup service. IDrive is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of user data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster user data is retrievable from anywhere via Internet. IDrive’s features include automated critical data selection and scheduling via web as well as desktop agent, fast search to backup data, central console to manage multiple accounts, Continuous Data Backup, Open File and Locked file backup, Virtual Drive access and many more.

Userplane is the premier communication platform for online communities. The company’s hosted applications enable instant community and communication for websites of any scale and audience. The combination of instant and elegant with robust and powerful has made the platform a must-have for thriving sites worldwide - supporting millions of daily users.

Additionally, thanks to the following partners for making Mashable happen:

Thanks to ConVerdge for implementing our My Mashable social network and W3 MARKUP for the development and maintenance of Mashable.com

We can get your name out there.

Contact us for more information on supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:

-Competitive direct ad sales
-Sponsorship Opportunities for Events, The Daily Poll, and other channels
-Sponsored giveaways and contests
-Custom ad deals and partnerships

CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but contact us for information and unpublished discounts.

---
Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

Open Web Awards Voting Has Ended - Final Winners Announced Tomorrow
Meebo’s Custom Chat Rooms for New Advertising Options
Adam Hirsch Joins as Mashable Community Director
Happy New Year!
Meebo Hyping Kanye West Listening Party Tonight
Rocketboom’s New Sponsorship Program Launches with YouTube
Another Googler Moves On