There are many arguments on how to release an album on the internet. Radiohead’s In Rainbows album was a success if you ask them but they have not come forward with the numbers yet. Trent Reznor’s NiggyTardust experiment was a moderate success. The album wasn’t flying off the digital shelves but it did sell an impressive number even when a free download was available. You will find debates everywhere from Digg to Slashdot to NIN.com on the proper way to release an album digitally, over the internet, and directly from the artist.
This past Sunday, Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV and I have to say that I think they might have done it just about every way possible. First and foremost, there is the album’s digital download. You can download the album from NIN.com or Amazon.com’s Mp3 Download Store. The cost? Five whole dollars. If you purchase from Amazon, you’ll get DRM-Free Mp3 files encoded at 256kbps. However, if you choose to purchase from NIN.com, you will have your choice of 320kbps Mp3 files (DRM-Free of course), FLAC files, or Apple Lossless files. That is five dollars for lossless digital downloads, that means $5 for exact CD quality audio. But it is not just the digital downloads for five dollars but rather the other "packages" available for purchase. That’s what I want to focus on today.
Michael Koby 
How Much? 140 Characters Worth
Yesterday, I listened to the latest episode of TWiT (This Week in Tech), episode 134 to be exact. In this episode, the question was asked, is there value in these 140 character message conversations being had on the likes of Twitter, Jaiku, & Pownce? One would think that 140 characters is not a lot of space to say anything in but if you really sit and think about it, you do it everytime you send a text message. Can you same something worth while in a text message? Most of you will answer "Yes" to that question. So it stands to reason that valuable conversations can be had in short, 140 character messages.
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