Wal-Mart is our DRM friend?

Wal-Mart orders ALL of its online store music vendors to provide plain MP3s!

The 800 pound gorilla has spoken!

There is an interesting, if somewhat frightening, quote in the article: "Though Wal-Mart maintains a modest 2% market share in the digital download arena, its market share for physical CDs is considerably larger: about 22%, Billboard estimates."

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/12/wal-mart-kills.html

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i6efb69eb2243cb842be35f0eab40082d

EDIT: the Slashdot thread hit after I posted this: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/235241

I, for one, welcome our new Russian overlords!

In case you hadn't heard, LJ has been sold to the Russians. This could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing. Personally, I think it'll be a good thing. We shall see.

http://brad.livejournal.com/2351564.html

http://news.livejournal.com/104520.html