The National Music Publishers’ Association is taking on iTunes in a battle to increase royalty rates for artists. The publishers association want the rates hiked up 66%, from 9 cents to 15 cents a track.
What kind of dumb people are sitting in this Association??? Are they aware that if Apple closes its store people would not wait for reopening but reactive the bittorrent software? A increase of 66 percent is to border on insolence.
It's my believe that the economic downturn will be much worse than it is today, and that 50-80% of the venture-backed startups currently operating will shut down or go on life-support (i.e. 3-4 folks working on them) within the next 18 months.
Is it a bad news? Will be the same happen to start-ups in Vietnam? Maybe. It depends what kind of business plan they have - and if they have one. There are so many companys just collecting money from ventures but don't earn one cent. That's part of the problem, that banks and funds are investing in expections but not in fundamental business. There is no difference between a 5-million Dollar investment in a twitterclone and a 100 Million Dollar Hotel project in Cambodia. Both will never pay back, because there is now real return on investment. The Hotel needs renovations every 2 years on a risky market and the start-up needs news ideas every 2 months in a overheated market.
So, even if some start-ups will shut down and some hotel projects in asia will be delays or stopped, at least it's necessary to bring the market back to reality.
VietNamNet Bridge – The international Internet cable system was broken at two sites in Trang Dinh, Lang Son province and Mong Cai (Quang Ninh), affecting FPT, EVN Telecom and Viettel’s Internet services.
The incident started at 8.45am, September 26, hindering Internet subscribers of the three above Internet service providers from accessing important websites like Google, Yahoo and some news sites. Email contact and transactions related to overseas hosting stations were also broken.
I am still moved by the Barcamp Phnom Penh on Saturday. It was such an impressing event, I never thought it will come true when we talked about a Barcamppp back in 2007 for the first time. But thanks to Tharum, Ramana and Viirak, it became reality.
Some impressions:
Some thoughts: We had some discussions about setting some speakers on the agenda, but then we decided to start blank - and it worked. That means at the end, that the participants accepted the concept of a un-conference - which is a huge step in a country like Cambodia. And it was a surprise that a high ranking government official were there the whole day and said thank you tothe organizers.
We also decided to offer two different places for talks, although we had concerns that most Cambodians are used to listen to one speaker instead of planning their own schedule. But it worked too and I am confident that for the next Barcamp much more Garden-locations and small rooms would be fine.
The range of topics was big, and that's what a Barcamp is about. From a Microsoft Commercial to How to date a Cambodian girl, there were a lot of different and even controversial topics.
That leads me to the last point: There was a discussion during the Cambodian girl dating session (which was kind of a hommage to Bangkok Barcamp), when one Cambodian girl asked, why we were talking about dating instead of serious problems the country is still suffering from.
Beside the fact, that Barcamp is also about fun, the point is cultural exchange. The dating topic is not a Cambodian topic, it pops up always on conferences. The cultural point is about the public relations between boys and girls. Cambodians are still shy and very cautions, especially girls. "It's our culture", they say. On the other hand, in every advertising, on live concerts or when they dress up, it's about looking sexy. So there is a gap between the cultural tradition, their own feelings and what maybe the (male) public is expecting.
There will be a change for Cambodian women, and I am confident, after they will be much stronger. They will dress sexy if they want, (and not if they don't want), but also kiss a boy in public. It's then a girls own decision and not a so called cultural thing anymore.
I know, that this topic is controversial, and I like to start a discussion about the role of Cambodian girls in the Khmer society. Thats why I choosed this headline, knowing that it will attract people as well as search enginge :-)
