Illegal file sharing is something that no one can really stop, every time one service is shut down another is opened. I remember back in the day of Kazaa and WinMX and I still use Limewire. Lets never ever forget good old Demonoid too. Right now Swedens very own “The Pirate Bay” are flying the flag and offering an illegal file sharing search engine free of charge to its users. The pirate bay is a very popular service and it doesn’t actually host any of the files but this is not stopping Swedish prostitutes, sorry I meant prosecutes taking them to court on behalf of Warner Bros, Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI. Remember a similar situation caused the downfall of Demonoid just a few months ago.

According to one of those prosecutors, the Pirate Bay makes $4 million a year from advertising on its site. With over 2 million registered users The Pirate Bay is the world’s largest torrent tracking service. Based in Stockholm, Sweden The Pirate Bay have always laughed off any court demands usually replying with a letter filled with swearwords and offensive language which can be pretty funny at time. The Pirate Bay was one of the subjects of the documentary “Steal This Film” and was raided by the Swedish government in 2006. Still, as of January 2008, no torrents have been removed due to legal threats from The Pirate Bay.

$4million a year on 2.5million members works out at around $1.60 per member per year, which is actually compared to other websites on the new for example Facebook, an extremely low rate of advertising.

Via: The Torrent freak & Techcrunch

Aright guys. Look I’m really sorry the last couple of weeks, I have been really busy. Since Lushable right now only has a few writers who have also been busy too, sadly the news hasn’t been updated in the last week or so. We have been working on a new design, which of the time of writing hasn’t been completed. The new design gives us a fresher look and is easier to navigate as well as having much more room for advertisement and areas for us to trial different affiliate programs and new PPC programs.

So January 2008, a month which I found out I was 92% addicted to blogging.

we saw CES 2008 unveil some amazing booths and new products such as these luxury speakers, Alienware curve display, as well as some wireless powering systems.

Veronica
January 11th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Hey there. That video was actually done with Engadget, not Gizmodo. Thanks!

Jason Bates

January 11th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
We did it on purpose V! To see if you would correct us

We interviewed:
Brian Wallace from Collective-Thoughts
Dimitri Kucher from PSD2HTML
James McDonald from EatFruitPlease

We brought you some cool coupon codes like Apple coupons, Text-Link-Ads coupons, Namecheap coupons, WebHostingTalk coupons, ThinkGeek coupons, NewEgg coupons, Hardware coupons and Technology coupons. We will bring you more coupons next month too.

I gave valentines day ideas such as the Pink cell phone. Microsoft bought a search company for quite a lot of money! And Laptops got 500GB hard drives as well as pen drives getting online automatic back up features.

So yeah, a good first month I guess for Lushable.com, still a lot of work to do, a lot of good news to supply you, more interviews will come in February, also some awesome contests too! Happy February!

92%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Apparently I (Jason Bates) am 92% addicted to blogging. The dating/Social networking site Justsayhi.com has made a blogging quiz which I thought was pretty random, its all ways good to take 5minutes out of whatever it is your doing to wether it be blogging, developing or watching naked ladies, to take a little quiz with a pointless outcome. I guess blogging is actually addictive, both reading and writing.

So this Justsayhi.com dating/social networking web site, it doesn’t just have the blogging quiz, also;

HTML Quiz

 
How Many HTML Elements Can You Name in 5 Minutes?

Test your knowledge of HTML! See how many HTML elements you can name in 5 minutes

Geek Quiz

The Geek Quiz

Ever lose your car keys and wish life had ctrl+f? Have you trained your parakeet to whistle songs from the Ocarina of Time? You could be a geek: take our 2 minute quiz to determine how much geek is coursing through your veins!

Addicted to Apple quiz

How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Ever fallen asleep with your iPod on? Do you plaster Apple stickers to anything that doesn’t move? Did you upgrade to Leopard within milliseconds of its release? Chances are you’re addicted to Apple.

I have to say, maybe these quizzes are a little pointless but there very fun I guess for people have a bit more time on there hands than normal. Why not do some geeky quizzes and post your scores in the comments?

Brian, how great to speak with you. How are you?

I’m doing great - thanks for wanting to do an interview with me!

So tell us about Collective-Thoughts, you have brought together 6 bloggers to blog about different subjects regarding Social Media, anything else?

The concept behind Collective Thoughts was to put out a truly unique social media blog with already established social media bloggers in the field. We purposely don’t write about SEO, Google, and things like that. There are enough blogs in that space already

How long have you been blogging?
I’ve been blogging off and on since 2001, back in the days of Blogger (pre-Google) and Xanga.

You’re a consultant and run NowSourcing.com, how do you mix between blogging and consulting?

It’s a simple exercise between the left and right side of my brain and back again Seriously though, it isn’t too hard. Just have to allocate enough hours in the day for both and all is well. I also help clients out in how they should be blogging, so sometimes I get the fun of overlap.

How long do you spend blogging per day?

I don’t blog every day. In fact, I make it a point not to have more than 2-3 posts per week per blog. Still, that doesn’t mean that I’m not making notes for good ideas and upcoming posts. At any given time, I have at least a dozen ideas that just need further development.

You have only just started Collective-Thoughts, how have you gone about getting your articles out to people who are interested in the social media niche?

While Collective-Thoughts is new, it is already a PR5 site and has received some major attention. All of the bloggers are already recognized in the social media space, so a lot of it is just happening. The articles have done well in social media in the StumbleUpon and Sphinn communities, to name a few.
So in regards to search engine optimization and social media marketing, how hard are methods like link bait for bloggers just starting out?
Linkbait is an art. Basic fundamentals such as choosing an effective avatar and the right title are of the utmost importance. Content is also extremely important, but if you do not get noticed, your otherwise great content will be lost in the shuffle.

Can you explain different types of social media marketing?

social media branches out as follows: Social news - (Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Mixx, niche social news sites) Social bookmarking - (Del.icio.us, ma.gnolia) Social networking - (Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn) Blogging - (Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal) Video - (YouTube, Google Video) There is a wealth of information and community to be found within these networks. The key is to get in and get involved in the communities andtopics that are of interest to you.

Do you think social media marketing is a good way of marketing a website?

It depends on what you’re after and how good your website is. Social media won’t help a product that sucks - it isn’t magic.

Do you expect social media marketing to change over the next 12 months forexample? How fast is the social media industry growing?

A lot can happen in this space over the period of a year. I’d expect to see some sort of change in Digg, probably to be sold. Look for Mixx to gain more prominence, Twitter to become more vital, and interesting things from Google and Yahoo.

Thanks for taking some time to answer these questions Brian.
You bet! Thanks for having me.

If you want more information about NowSourcing.com get in touch with Brian though the website and if you want to know more about Social Media check out Collective-Thoughts.