Nickelodeon's AddictingGames, the source of free online games and the youth-gaming Web site, will extend to the iPhone this month with the launch of several games and a cross-promotion publishing network for iPhone game developers called the AddictingGames iNetwork. Games based on properties from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV and other divisions of MTV Networks will also be part of the AddictingGames iNetwork. The first AddictingGames available on the iPhone include: "iParkinglot," based on the popular "Parking It" game series on AddictingGames.com; "50 States," a geography duel; and the strategy game "World Wars." AddictingGames is part of the Nickelodeon ...

Chris Anderson responds to Malcolm Galdwell's critique of Free on his blog, The Long Tail

The battle of pop sociologists just got a lot more interesting: in the latest issue of New Yorker magazine, Malcolm Gladwell does a fisking of Wired editor Chris Anderson’s new book “Free”, the book about the future of pricing and the value of IP (and by definition business models) in a digital world. Anderson’s iron law: “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” Gladwell’s main take: that free isn’t what everything is moving ...

A new NPD Group study finds that active Twitter users buy 77 percent more digital music downloads on average than non-users. "Based on their music-purchasing history, active Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels and music retailers than those who are not using Twitter," says NPD entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick. "Twitter has the potential to help foster the discovery of new music, and improve targeted marketing of music to groups of highly-involved and technologically savvy consumers, but it has to be done right," Crupnick said. "There must ...

Apple and Amazon are forging paid access models with applications and digital content that could generate enough revenue and market share to give Google ulcers. Apple's iPhone and iTunes and Amazon's Kindle are onto something very big. Their approach to making the digital future financially viable represents as much of a psychological break with rampant free content practices as a template for conditioning consumers to pay for relevant content and valuable applications, especially for mobile devices. Just as important, they dodge reliance on media advertising that will remain in flux as it evolves into interactive marketing and e-commerce. Read the ...