New online music site NewArtist.com has a message to tell everyone who refused to cross the boundaries from the traditional music industry to what is now known as the new digital revolution.  And that message goes something like this – 2010 will usher in a new era of how we consumer discover music and musicians. The Internet will become the medium for launching new musicians and connecting them with their prospective fans.

And NewArtist.com wants to be part of that revolution by way of  a social network geared for new musicians and music fans who will help build the career of these promising artists.

A Social Network for New Musicians

Boasting of being the world’s first social network dedicated for rising musicians, NewArtist.com will be the stage for these aspiring artists to upload their original music contents.  It aims to let you discover music, become fans of new musicians, and help them rise to fame through online community voting. It’s like Digg for new music artists.

A Social Network for Listeners

NewArtist.com aims to change the way the music industry operates. That is, instead of letting listeners buy into music, why not let listeners influence the way the music industry is shaped up.  Hence, you can create free online profile quickly, meet new friends and artists, discover music events, share music playlists and practically everything that you’d normally find in a music social network.

Alright, why don’t you just check out the site and see for yourself whether NewArtist.com really has the potential to make it big so much so that it can influence the music industry?

They say life begins at forty. As we stand at the cusp of the semantic Web, that adage certainly holds true for the ‘Net. To mark the fortieth anniversary of the Internet, the Computer History Museum brings us an eyewitness account of how it all began. More →

901am Is part of the blog network Splashpress Media. Splashpress Media maintains more than 100 blogs and also offers several internet and blogging related services. We will weekly feature some of the best content across the network.

New Editor at Splashpress Media

On Monday Jayvee Fernandez was announced as new editor for all blogs maintained by Splashpress Media. Jayvee is an experienced editor and has previously maintained the b5media Inc. technology channel.
Read the announcement here.

WordPress and WordPressMU will merge: good or bad

Blog Herald editor, and designer of many Splashpress Media blogs, Thord Daniel Hedengren shares his opinion on the announced merger of WordPress with WordPressMU.
Read at The Blog Herald.

Domain names and self-hosted content still important in a Web 2.0 world

Andy Merret on the important role of self-hosted content and domain names.
Read the entry at Performancing.

The next revolution will come in waves. Google Waves

901am Was not the only Splashpress Media blog reporting the much hyped Google Wave preview. Sophia Lucero also reviewed the announcement at Wisdump.
Read Sophia’s take here.

Looking for a blog conference in your area: Check the blog conference calendar at The Blog Herald

Our colleagues at The Blog Herald announced a new service this week. The Blog Herald now is your first resource if you’re looking for a blog conference in your area.
Find all blog conferences in The Blog Herald’s blog conference calendar.

Yahoo! 360 Closing Shop. How Confident Are You With Your Blogging Service Provider?

After the announcement that Yahoo! 360 will be closed J. Angelo Racoma wonders how safe it is to keep all your content on a hosted service such as Blogger or WordPress.com.
Read the entry at Performancing.

Sexy girls clean your iPhone screen

Over at Forever Geek yours truly announced a new iPhone application bringing sexy girls to your Jesus phone.
Read the entry at Forever Geek.

Is Norton cool enough to have its own comic

Andy announced the news that Norton, from Norton Security ‘fame’, an own comic launched. Are they cool enough for this?
Read the entry at Forever Geek.

Splashpress Media finally on Facebook

Last but not least, Splashpress Media finally launched its own Facebook page. You can now follow a selection of the finest Splashpress Media content on Facebook.

And 901am finally has a 901am Twitter account.

Entertainment network for gaming Machinima.com announced the creation of Machinima Comedy Lab, a collaboration with fifteen leading episodic television writers from popular series such as The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, and Seinfeld.Revolutionizing the digital content development process, Machinima.com is pioneering a cost effective way to create computer-generated online programming with professional Hollywood talent to incubate series that can migrate from the Internet to traditional platforms like broadcast and cable TV.

The series will be distributed on the Machinima.com network, which served more than 38 million video views in November, is among the top five most-viewed channels each month on YouTube, and in less than 14 months, has become the seventh most subscribed YouTube channel of all-time. Machinima.com provides a revolutionary platform for creative talent to develop computer generated content using video games where all game components, including the characters, sets and environments can serve as a “virtual backlot” to quickly and inexpensively generate high-end original content in real time.

Widget network Clearspring Technologies announced the acquisition of AddThis, the bookmarking and content sharing service on the Internet. Together, Clearspring and AddThis will serve over 20 billion views per month and reach more than 200 million unique visitors, creating the most widely used set of content sharing services on the Web.

“The Internet is becoming the backbone for digital communications – an essential part of our everyday lives,” said Ted Leonsis, chairman of the board at Clearspring. “With the acquisition of AddThis, Clearspring is now at the forefront of that evolution, connecting digital content publishers and consumers via a single set of universally recognizable tools that enable people to easily communicate with content.”

Clearspring and AddThis enable people to easily share content with trusted friends and social groups across popular sites like Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, Twitter and Digg. Compelling content often shared includes Web pages, videos, movie trailers, news, sports updates, trivia quizzes, games, music, and more, and can be shared across more than 80 social networking, blogging and bookmarking services.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

bidEup announced the launch of their new website that provides the world’s first online, legally binding real estate marketplace. bidEup’s propriety patent-pending system provides an online sale platform and is the first secured website that authenticates users, creates electronic signatures and allows real estate contracts to be executed digitally. This combination provides an efficient marketplace where real estate professionals representing buyers and sellers can conduct transactions online with the advantages and legal protections typical to traditional offline transactions.

Sellers, who include individuals and financial institutions represented by licensed real estate agents, and builders can post properties and perform an online sale or auction anywhere in the United States. Any person who can provide evidence of sufficient cash or financing from a reputable lender can purchase property through bidEup. SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. and bidEup have forged an initial alliance, in which SunTrust will be the first in a series of preferred providers of mortgage financing.

bidEup’s system takes the pressure off of real estate sellers by providing them instant access to domestic and international pools of credit-worthy and cash buyers, well beyond current mainstream real estate marketing tactics. The system takes advantage of the Internet to streamline real estate processes and create a more efficient marketplace. For the first time, the world has convenient access to the U.S. real estate market providing an environment where both buyers and sellers benefit.

Internet Brands, Inc. has acquired five leisure-related websites in its consumer Internet division, extending the company’s strategy of targeting high value, high growth vertical markets. All five sites feature deep vertical content and high user involvement.

The largest of the sites, FitDay.com, is a global leader in the online dieting and fitness segment. Three other sites target rapidly growing consumer interest in high-definition home entertainment, while the fifth site, VetInfo.com, features extensive content related to pet health.

With these acquisitions on a full-month basis, Internet Brands’ unique monthly visitors climbed to 34 million in March 2008, while monthly page views increased to 458 million in the same period.

The full list of acquisitions includes:

• FitDay.com, a free online fitness journal and calorie counter with more than 2 million registered users that helps dieters and fitness enthusiasts achieve and maintain their fitness goals.

• HighDefForums.com, a thriving community website that hosts discussions related to all aspects of the next-generation HDTV format, including topics about HD televisions, receivers, camcorders, and other hardware; cable and satellite HD programming providers; and Blu-ray and HD-DVD movie discs.

• HighDefDigest.com, a site dedicated exclusively to high-definition movie discs, including reviews of thousands of Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles.

• AVRev.com (Audio Video Revolution), a comprehensive home theater resource featuring professional and user-generated audio/video equipment reviews and ratings, as well as the latest home theater product news.

• VetInfo.com, a leading provider of pet health content that helps pet owners understand diseases, disorders, and health maintenance requirements of their animals.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. is marking 2008 as its 10th year as a business. Born out of an academic research project at MIT, Akamai’s early focus on providing services to allow Web sites to handle ever-larger audiences set in motion an Internet revolution. Akamai’s proprietary technology, based on years of software development, ensured that a Web site could always deliver the intended end-user experience quickly and reliably irrespective of audience size or location. The result was an unparalleled solution for providing guaranteed business performance on the Internet.

Since its start in 1998, Akamai has grown from a research “big idea” into one of the world’s most successful technology companies, with 2007 revenue of more than $630 million, consistent profitability, and inclusion in the S&P 500 since last year. With more than 1,300 employees in locations around the globe, Akamai is committed to innovation in technology and service.

Today, Akamai serves:

* hundreds of billions of daily Internet requests
* an average of 20 percent of total daily Web traffic
* 75 of the top 100 U.S. online retail companies
* nine of the top ten global auto makers
* the leading media companies around the world
* seven of the top ten social media networks
* the top five anti-virus companies
* e-commerce sites that are generating a total of over $65 billion dollars in annual revenue
* thousands of mission-critical business applications for enterprises and SaaS providers that have users located in nearly 150 countries

Admittedly, there is a growing number of people who are hooked on the Internet because of social networking sites, chats and emails, illegal downloading, online games and of course the never-ending saga of pornographic video clips and images.

I can only imagine the frustration, withdrawal symptoms and incessant craving of many people to connect online when that mysterious cut of 5 undersea cables in the Middle East took place.

That’s why it comes as no surprise that some medical experts are pushing to make Internet addiction as an official mental disorder. The Ottawa Citizen reports that Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, pushes to include this in the upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. More →

VideoBloom announced the creation of the Video-Enabled Web Index, or VIEW Index. The VIEW Index will give insight into the companies and sectors that are using online video and how they are using it.

By using a methodology that analyzes in fine detail 17 key web site variables, the VideoBloom VIEW Index tracks, for example: placement of video within the Web site, the web video formats used, the uses of online videos, and if there is an Internet video center. VideoBloom VIEW then offers analysis of these trends along groupings of companies (Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, etc.) and major vertical markets (travel, real estate, retail, blogs, etc.).

VideoBloom VIEW breaks down its results into three main percentages that indicate organizations’ use of video on their main Web sites. For example, in February 2008, the VIEW main index for the 30 Dow Jones companies was 13-93-7, which indicates that 13% of the companies had video on their home page, 93% had video on their site, and 7% didn’t use video at all. As more and more companies discover the effectiveness of Web video, this information will become an invaluable resource and window into online video’s evolution.