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Bondi Digital Publishing is planning to offer separate DVD-ROM editions with page-by-page reproductions of the Playboy and Rolling Stone archives.

Source: JANE L. LEVERE

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When the I-35W bridge collapsed last week in Minneapolis, staff members at nearby Internet Broadcasting revived a nearly defunct Web site to publish their coverage.

Source: BRIAN STELTER

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Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair columnist and author of “Burn Rate,” is helping launch an online news aggregation service.

Source: ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

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Some authors compulsively check their sales rank on Amazon.com while others try to game the system, which offers a quick way to keep tabs on book sales.

Source: LYNDON STAMBLER

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I’m a big fan of all the 3D imaging tools in development around the net. Microsoft’s Photosynth project is clearly the most ambitious - it takes thousands of photographs of a geographic area and constructs a 3D model that the viewer can “fly” around and view.

Tonight they are pushing a new 3D model - coverage of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before launch. If you are on a Windows machine only, you can view it here. Click and drag the mouse, zoom in and out, etc.

There are other interesting projects as well - see our coverage of Everyscape, Fotowhoosh and VisualSize. See also Microsoft Street Side and Virtual Earth as well as similar efforts from Google, which should eventually incorporate a lot of this stuff into one big interactive virtual world.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: Michael Arrington

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Peer to peer lending startup, Prosper, is expanding operations to Japan and other Asian countries as a shared partnership with Tokyo-based SBI Holdings, Inc. SBI will be helping prosper navigate the navigate Asia’s regulatory environment. SBI Group has a market capitalization in excess of $8 billion and consists of 65 consolidated subsidiaries and 12 affiliated companies, including 9 public companies.

Prosper handles loans of up to $25,000 (the average funded loan is $5,000), broken into smaller loans to distribute risk. Money for the loan is then supplied by Prosper lenders bidding for the most attractive interest rates. Prosper earns revenue by taking 1% of the loan amount in fees from the borrower up front, and charging a 0.5% yearly loan maintenance fee to lenders. Prosper currently has over $79 million in funded loans and more than 380,000 members. So far it appears a lot of those members are logging on to pay off credit card debt at a lower rate. Prosper’s backer, Benchmark, has also invested in another P2P lender, Zopa.

It’s ironic to see these peer to peer lending startups expanding at same moment domestic markets are reeling from the collapse of the sub prime lending market sends waves through the mortgage market. Similarly, these startups will be sink or swim based on their ability to effectively manage risk.

Prosper is managing risk by encouraging transparency, automatically deducting monthly loan payments, and tracking reputations. Borrowing groups are another risk management tool, both helping first time borrowers get some initial credibility (and lower rates) while encouraging the network to police itself by tying together their reputations.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: Nick Gonzalez

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Reuters - In the 18 weeks since Ticketmaster
acquired a majority stake in echomusic, the direct-to-fan Web
platform has made a number of significant moves — not the
least of which is bringing country legend Dolly Parton into the
digital world with her first official Web site.

Source: ROBERT LEVINE

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The New York Times have spoiled the fun: Fake Steve Jobs has been outed as Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes.

Since August 2006 Fake Steve Jobs has become a must read in the Valley and beyond. Lyon’s acerbic wit coupled with continuing Apple related headlines created a blog that not only Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both admit to reading, but one where Bill Gates himself denied being the author of at the All Things Digital conference.

Half of the fun related to the blog has been not knowing who the author was. The Fake Steve guessing game became nearly a sport on certain blogs, and a number of people have been outed previously as being Fake Steve.

Lyons said in a statement on the Fake Steve Jobs blog:

Now you’ve ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina. One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag.

He goes on to state that the site will be back after a break with a new sponsor.

One has to wonder though whether Lyons can continue to draw the same attention and traffic for the site now that his real identity has been exposed.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: Duncan Riley

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