All of these things are missing, or at least radically different, in a world filled with leaks and downloads instead of records. How does the industry deal with that? How do musicians deal with that? Radiohead found one way, Trent Reznor and GirlTalk and David Byrne have found ways — others will no doubt find their own way. It’s a fascinating time for the industry. For more on Jay Smooth, his show Ill Doctrine and his background in New York’s hip-hop radio scene, check here and here and here.

More than one person is calling this a “Techmeme-killer” (because of course new things always have to kill old things or it’s just no fun). But is it? I don’t think so. For one thing, I like the fact that Techmeme.com is kind of dynamic — even if I don’t really understand how it operates. Blog posts go from being a sub-link of a sub-link to being a headline post, then disappear altogether; others form their own sub-group and then get reabsorbed, and some form headlines without any links at all, which makes some people mad. It may be a black box, but I kind of like that. Fred Wilson says that he likes it because it’s more personal than just an algorithm.

Obviously Google’s new blog search has only been around for a little while, but it certainly doesn’t feel that dynamic to me. All the posts are given the exact same prominence, and it’s not clear whether they are even ranked at all. The chart with the timeline is a nice touch — a kind of Google Trends sort of thing, showing you whether a topic is ramping up or not, which will be good for the bandwagon-jumpers — but it would be even better if it showed you at exactly which point on the timeline each of the sub-headlines appears. I will definitely keep checking the site out, in the same way I try to check multiple sources of news of any kind.

Note: Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera says he doesn’t think that the term meme-tracker defines any kind of meaningful category of products, and that the word is “incredibly lame.” Hard to argue. And as Alex Chitu at Google Operating System notes, there are some holes left for Google to fill. Ethan Kaplan of blackrimglasses seems to like it though, and Matt Cutts has a rundown on some of the differences between the two.

“Want to know why Engadget and Gizmodo and TechCrunch and GigaOm are eating the lunch of the tech press? Because of crappy shenanigans like Vibrant’s. Or rather, lack of.

Geez PC Mag. Maintain your dignity. I have told our teams NOT to run these types of intrusive tactics out of respect to our customers and readers.”

Churbuck, who now works for Lenovo, says that Forbes.com (where he used to work) finally decided to stop using them after a tribute to a dead bureau chief contained pop-up links for a life insurance company. It shouldn’t take something like that to convince anyone that they are a waste of time. All they do is make your site look bush-league and desperate.

Real’s lawyers tried to get the jump on Hollywood (or rather, the Motion Picture Association of America) by filing a lawsuit against the organization first, asking the courts to rule that RealDVD complies with licensing agreements, but that’s the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass at best. But if Real is dumb for ever thinking it could launch such a product, the MPAA is even dumber for opposing it. If the app includes DRM controls that prevent users from sharing and burning, then why not let DVD buyers make copies that they can watch on their computers? Seeing any kind of copying as a crime hasn’t done the industry any favours so far.

Is Facebook worth $15-billion? Not in any real sense of the word. Yes, it’s true that Microsoft paid $240-million for 1.6 per cent of the company, which theoretically values the entire company at $15-billion. But the key word there is “theoretically.” There’s about as much chance of someone buying Facebook for $15-billion as there is of me flying to the moon. In real terms, Mark Zuckerberg is worth something functionally equivalent to zero. I’d love to see him walk into a bank with a copy of the Forbes magazine list and try to get a loan for a couple of hundred million or so.