Transcript

Thursday May 8, 2008

Piwik: Open Source Google Analytics Alternative

French software firm Piwik has developed as an open source alternative to Google Analytics, the Internet giant’s free Web usage tracking application. Piwik analytics is closely affiliated with OpenX, the open source ad server alternative to Google Ad Manager. Piwik, which is still mostly unknown in the U.S., has gained traction in Japan and China, as well as in Europe. Piwik Analytics hopes to be a viable alternative for larger companies that often pay for pricey web analytics services or for those firms that don’t want to give Google rights to use their data in exchange for Google’s free analytics program. Piwik has made an effort to be developer-friendly, and has relied not only on open source code, but on what it sees as four big advantages to its Web analytics including an open API, a plug in architecture, a data abstraction layer, and a customizable dashboard.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/piwik_google_analytics_alternative.php

Entertainment Industry Wins Piracy Suit Against TorrentSpy

In a victory for entertainment companies, a federal judge in Los Angeles issued damages totaling $111 million against Internet company TorrentSpy for directing Internet users to BitTorrent files, which often contain freely downloadable copyrighted music, movies and software. The TorrentSpy verdict, which Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said she calculated by assigning a value of $30,000 to each of the 3,699 infringements shown, may not be enough to get the attention of people running similar sites since most sites helping to make piracy easier are largely based overseas and out of reach of U.S. laws. However, the TorrentSpy ruling may make it more difficult for such sites to attract legitimate advertisers or funding from venture capitalists. TorrentSpy, which Executives shut down last March, intends to appeal the court decision.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121020844695775655.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9939000-7.html?tag=nefd.top

[edited by: Vanessa_Zamora at 9:31 pm (utc) on May 8, 2008]