I love this story. It’s a variation on the classic “Man Bites Dog”. The record industry accuses an 11 year old boy from New York of pirating music downloads. The boy must have a rich daddy, because he’s counter-suing the big bullies for defamation violating anti-trust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

The BBC Trust - which nowadays is the governing body of the state-sponsored broadcaster - has given the go-ahead for the BBC to offer more TV and radio programmes as downloads.

It’s not great news for those of us independents struggling to get established in the download business. However, I am glad that they are showing some restraint as regards audio books, as there might be unfair, state-sponsored competition with an established commercial market - not that that usually stops the Beeb doing what it wants. Overall I don’t think this is positive for audio or video podcasts. We might be faced with a deluge of lavishly funded, heavily marketed material pushing us out.

The danger for the BBC, though, is that when a show gets downloaded it is disassociated from the network, and the audience starts to get loyal to the show and its stars, without holding any affection for the broadcaster. This is a continuation of what’s been happening since the ‘golden age of telly’ back in the ’70s, when people still called the BBC ‘aunty’. In these multi-station days of the zapper, few of us know or care what channel we are watching.

Storynory - our Children’s Podcast - is starting to look for a sponsor. I’ve put together a Media Pack as a PDF which can be downloaded here. The key fact is that we now have around 100,000 downloads of children’s stories per month. Children listen at bed time and on journeys, they listen with their family, parents and friends. Teachers play our stories in the classroom. The favourite stories are listened to again and again. Our audio has a life that goes way beyond the website or the podcast directory.

Bill Gate’s late and jetlagged appearence at the British Library was to launch Vista - but he also spoke about how Microsoft is working with the library to digitise manuscripts, including some by Leonardo.

It’s a good moment to mention that we’ve finished our six month run writing for another Seattle based technology company, Exbiblio- if I was still updating their blog I would written up this “digital convergence” story for them. I’d like to wish Exbiblio the best of luck with their own project to bring together books and the digital world.

There’s probably a lot I could say about our Exbiblio blog project: its noble aim was to give an outsider’s account of life at a start-up, the whole truth with nothing barred. I would rate it a 50% success - it probably isn’t possible to go into all the little details about people at a company that would bring The Office to life. They are worried about their careers, both inside the company and beyond, and there still is a feeling that it’s unprofessional to bare all. Also, my view of the ‘truth’ was often far different from the management’s view of the ‘truth, ‘ and it was hard to reconcile the two truths. Perhaps I am just a bit too truthful and tactless for my own good. I think if events had proved me wrong, my warnings on the blog would have been more easy to live with…. as things went from bad to good, it would have seemed like triumph over adversity, but when you are struggling to achieve your life ambition, and as the delays, technical glitches, and cost overruns just mount up, I suppose that reading about it on your own website becomes rather irritating.

Anyway, we have a blog relations project on the boil which, if it is signed on the dotted line will be even more interesting, and I think has every chance of being a success (cross fingers). But the truth about our own company, Blog Relations, is that many interesting projects get kicked into the long grass before they get going. I suppose this is probably the reality of many service businesses. It would be hard for me to write up all our hopes and disappointments because they involve third parties… I think this is another fault line in the “no holes barred’ theory of blogging, unfortunately. So I’m afraid that mostly I’m going to be boasting about our modest successes because they are just so much easier to write up… it’s a bit sad really.

A quick update on Storynory - we expected January to be dead quiet, but it’s been a month of growth for us and other podcasts. We were given a boost by a mention in the Miami Herald - and interestingly the article just quoted the recommendations of a blog, ParentHacks. This proves our point that blogs provide a bottom up way into the traditional media these days.

Our daily subscribers have passed 3000:

And daily visitors to our website passed 1000 on Monday:

Downloads are running at almost 70,000 per month off the feed, and 30,000 per month direct from the site. Our stats are currently spread across two servers, Libsyn and Bluehost, and my task is now to try and amalgamate them all on Libsyn so it makes totting them up a little easier.

Our aim is to build a global children’s brand on a shoestring budget. Let noone say we don’t aim high. Still a long way to go before we become the force we want to be - but the momentum is there, and Matthew and I think the time has come to start finding a sponsor. A media pack will follow shortly.

I join Scoble in my pleasure at reading that Apple has been forced to pay $700,000 to bloggers to fund their legal defence fees. It’s nice to see a bully get a bloody nose.

It’s nice to see Alex’s SmallBizPod doing well. He’s picked up a sponsor - Bibby Financial Services - and his icon is prominent on the front page of the UK iTunes podcast section, propelling him up the UK business section charts. SmallBizPod is one of the very few high quality indie podcasts coming out of the UK, with a lot of work going into original material and interviews. It stands out among a sea of dross, of backroom pods, and of unedited rambling about nothing where four letter words count for humour. Alex has some quaint views about UK banks - he used to do the PR for one and has convinced himself that they are gentle and kind institutions that take your money out of the goodness of their hearts - but otherwise he’s doing the UK small business scene a great service with his podcast and is showing the way forward.

I’m a bit wary of Second Life - which I see as having the potential to eat up oodles of real as well as virtual time - but Neville Hobson is a big fan, and his blog has a great scoop (for the non-Swedish speaking world)- Sweden To Open Embassy in Second Life. This raises lots of questions. Will diplomats enjoy immunity there? Will they be bugged / hacked by rival powers? Are MI6 keeping an eye on Second Life? What about Al-Qaeda?

A really interesting interview about what social media means for marketing with Guy Kawasaki on Podtech. He mentions a panel of teenagers who hardly ever see a TV ad, don’t use email much, but do send 1,400 texts a month. They still read magazines though, and buy products they read about in print online.

He reveals that he should work first on his book, then on his blog, then on his email - but he answers email first, then works on his blog, then works on his blook. (I recognise this - I find email addictive). He wants to write a book called “How to Change the World” (the new name of his blog). He says there’s a difference between “changing the world” and doing something BIG. It’s not just for megalomaniacs who want to build billion dollar companies - but it could be for a campaigning blogger. I think I’m going to read it - if he ever finishes his emails! By the way, he reveals that he makes $4000 a year in advertising from his blog - but it also brings people to him who want marketing advice, and he often takes 0.5% or 1% in options. He says, half jokingly, that it’s the new model for blogging. You build such credibility that people want to give you equity for advice.

…. says Matthew, I hasten to add. Not me, I wouldn’t utter anything like that, honest. He stuck his head above the parapet in his Bloomberg column, and has had a truck load of emails delivered to his in-box as a result.. It’s a brave fellow who dares to blaspheme against the iRelegion…

Interesting to see how Chinese bloggers are gaining power and influence. A blogger has attacked Starbucks’ presence in the Forbidden city, and now it looks like the coffee chain faces eviction from the ancient palace of the emperors. At least one American spin doctor in China is saying that Starbucks is probably one of the least tacky things about the way the authorities present their heritage.

But it’s good that the ordinary citizen bloggers are having their say, isn’t it? But perhaps not all is quite what it seems. The blogger in question is Rui Chenggang, a TV anchorman. Of course I do not know him, or his work, but I can’t help thinking that as a leading Chinese mainstream media person, he perhaps has official sanction for his view - or at least a sense of what would go down well with the official mandarins.

Perhaps the Chinese Government is using blogs to disseminate its message.