Here’s a business idea for someone - start up a blog on mesothelioma. What’s that I hear you say? Well it’s a particularly nasty lung disease brought on by asbestos, and it also so happens that “Mesothelioma lawyers” are the highest paying clicks on Google adsense according to some x-Googlers. “Mortgages” and “Refinance” also pay well, if you can stand writing about them.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on one of the Xooglers’ “mesothelioma” ads, and then through to a firm of British lawyers. After all, lawyers can well-afford 50 bucks a click.

PS It turns out that AdSense / AdWords works in mysterious ways. If you read the comments on the Xooglers’ post, you will see it might not be such a good idea to start a mesothelioma site just yet.

Apple’s lawyer says that even a moron could distinguish the difference between the Beatle’s famous label, and Apple’s iTunes.

It’s not the most elegant or judicial way of putting it, but I agree.

I read that Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has banned his children from using Google or iPods. I would say that’s a pity. The one economic benefit of having kids is that they provide bald middle aged dads with free market research.

Matt Heaton, the founder of Bluehost, writes on his blog that Utah is the place to succeed. Bluehost can keep its costs down in Utah.

I still think that Bluehost offers excellent value, though I’m still reeling from being told by customer service that they can’t sell me any more bandwidth because they lose $25 per month on their package as it is.

We’ve put our latest post to our Storynory podcast for children on Libsyn. I note from their blog that they all work at Libsyn without any salaries at all.

It seems to me that the publishing revolution that is blogging, video/picture hosting, and podcasting has made the hosting business very competitive indeed. People are actually using the bandwidth that they buy, instead of leaving it redundant. This is costing the host providers real money - even if they do live in Utah where you can buy 3000 sq ft home for around $200K.

I’ve been listening to the Financial Time’s Arts podcast. I’m pleased to be able to give it a reasonably good review.

Unlike some audio output by newspapers, it isn’t an attempt to make a talking newspaper, with correspondents reading out their columns like robots. It is formatted to sound like a talk show, with a host and with guest voices. But it is clear that the contributors are still reading their contributions, even if the audio is edited together to sound sort of like a conversation. On the plus side, it doesn’t fall into the trap of using a crappy signature tune drummed up on Garageband software. It just cuts straight into the host’s introduction. I approve.

Still it only goes half way to making a proper talk show. The host’s questions are along the line of - what have you been to see at the theatre this week? And now, in the world of film this week - what has Nigel Andrews seen? Also with us is the books editor. What have you been reading this week?

A good speech programme gets a conversation going. This is what Radio 4 does. If possible there are different points of view. There is the warmth, sometimes the heat, of human exchange. Still, I think the FT Arts Podcast is along the right lines, and is more natural in tone thant some other newspaper podcasts. I just hope that it can branch out into a fully fledged conversation. Come on chaps, it isn’t that difficult. You probably do it all the time in the office. Try chatting.

Sony has unveiled the spec for its next (and rumoured to be last) generation of mindisc walkman player/recorder - and it looks pretty good:

If only Sony had not got itself tied up to a record company, and over-excited about protecting digital rights, its Walkman might hold the position of preeminance that iPod holds now. The minidisc, which was around long before mp3 players, is an enormous missed business opportunity.

France is to pass a law forcing Apple to open up iTunes to competing Mp3 players.

This isn’t the prevailing view, but I believe that this could actually benefit Apple and iTunes. For a start, they might sell downloads to people like me who have a Sony player. Secondly, I don’t believe people buy iPods because they like iTunes so much. That really doesn’t make any sense at all, especially when you consider how clunky iTunes is for users. In the end, a closed garden is doomed. Open is the future. iTunes is almost the Google of audio and video downloads, and that is a very valuable prize indeed.

Firefox has the reputation of being the most web 2.0 browser, but my vote goes to Opera. Its RSS reader knocks the socks Firefox’s, and most dedicated readers. But Opera lost a march by charging for its full version, until about six months ago when it saw the light. Charging is not very Web 2.0.

When it comes to getting web hosting if you are just going to have a personal site then most budget web hosting may be all you need. If you’re going to need hosting for a site that sells things or is in some way monetized then decisions like Windows or Unix web hosting start to come into play.

We are running out of bandwidth: Storynory has sucked its way through 77% of our 250 Gig allowance for March. So I emailed Bluehost and asked to buy another 100 gigs of transfer. You would think they would be pleased, but I received this extraordinary response:

“I wish I could give you better news. We lose around $25 a month with
the current bandwidth we give customers and we can’t afford to sell more at this time.

You have two options at this point. Seeing that you haven’t run out
yet, you need to limit access to your content so as not to run out.
Or you can keep going and when you run out of bandwidth your site will
do down for the remainder of the month.

In the future this may change, but at this time, we don’t sell
additional bandwidth.

If you have any other question, please let us know.

Thank you and have a nice day.”

We are not quite sure we like either of those options, so we are going a “third way.” I’m uploading all Storynory’s audio files onto The Internet Archive which offers free bandwidth so long as you keep your media free to all users. You can’t say fairer than that - but it’s time consuming doing the uploading. The download quality seems excellent though.

Another alternative, Jason Calacanis and AOL are offering free bandwidth to podcasters.

“Being badgered for quarterly financial forecasts doesn’t jibe very well with our public service ethos.” Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craig’s List. in the Telegraph.

Craig’s list charges for recruitment ads in just three major US cities. Otherwise it’s a free public service that people can build their lives on - a place to find a spouse, job, house, car… It is the world’s seventh most visited English language website, and employs just 19 people.

The “public service ethos” is where the net is at nowadays. Cheap and thrusting commercialism does not work. Greed is not necessarily good for you online. The ideal of providing a high quality service is what is required. Internet entrepreneurs are the Lord Reiths of today.

A public service broadcaster like the The BBC finds that its biggest competitor is not CNN, but the net. This is backed up by recent figures showing that people in the UK spend more time surfing the web now, than they do watching TV. And you can bet that most people start their web surfing with companies like Craig’s list and Google that provide high quality, free public services, with lofty aims such as organising the world’s information. They have just as many, if not more, users as the broadcasters, but far, far lower overheads. In the end, the BBC will be brought down not by its high quality output, but by the heating bill for its buildings.

Today’s top blogs according to blogpulse are a site dedicated to a salt bath recipe and another dedicated to house-breaking a puppy. These must-read blogs push the Daily Kos, Engadget and others down the chart.

I suppose some manipulation is going on, but why? There can’t be any commercial motive, surely? Somebody trying to prove a point?