Promusicae Spain anounced today that as of november 1st a cd will be considered a “golden album” by selling 40,000 instead of 50,000 copies(amounts of cd`s that had to be sold before). The “planitum LP” will be given to albums that sell over 80,000 copies, and not 100,000, as was required before. This, of course, is due to the huge crisis that the music industry is going through. Most people blame it entirely on black africans selling fake cd´s on the streets, but I have another idea to add to this theory. I, personally, am much more keen to go buy a cd by an unknown artist who is trying to make his name in the industry than go out and buy the latest system of a down CD, however much I like the music.Why is this?
simply because I believe that he needs it more. I think that if Britney Spears stopped showering with evian water, renting out the most exclusive hotels and buying the most exclusive homes, and appearing on MTV CRIBS showing us all her latest cars and the new gold plated dining room or something of the sort, many people would be much more keen to go after the CD for the music, and not for the woman on the cover or the size of her Malibu estate. Who knows, perhaps I am wrong, but am i the only one who finds the first cd amazing, waits for ages for the next one to come out, only to find it is totally crap?

I wont be able to post anything today, I am writing this from work, briefly. Internet connections in Spain are nothing amazing, and I have been disconnected for a pretty long time now…hopefully the arrival of FON on november 7th will provide a good WiFi connection in my house for blogging…
once again, I am sorry for this, and dont stop coming!

Martin Varsavsky has started many company’s up to now. He has demonstrated he has the skill to master entrepreneurship in fields as varied as Real Estate, Medical, and Telecommunications. Two of his biggest successes have been “ya.com” and Jazztel, probably his most famous company up to date. But it looks as if this will change soon, as preparations for FON are nearing their end. The company will officialy launch its program November 7th, as Varsavsky announced on his official webpage( http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net). So what exactly IS FON? you might be asking yourselves right about now. Why is it such a revolutionary idea and why is it receiving so much coverage all over the internet?
Well, it is ordinary an idea as it may seem. Varsavsky wants to create a WiFi community in Spain, where members share their wifi connection which in turn shares it with anybody else who has given their connection password to the company. Perhaps it is necessary to put it in a different way.(my parents certainly thought so when I first explained it to them)
You have a WiFi connection in your house.You give your connection password to FON(and so do another 1000people). While travelling in Your city, or for that matter, anywhere in Spain, you can use anybody’s wifi connection provided that they are members of the “tribe”, and additionally have access in >Starbucks and other establishments of the sort. For those technically deprived people(me included) who do not have a wifi connection to give they can either pay a fixed rate (about the price of an adsl line) to enter the group, or ask FON to install WiFi in their homes. This idea may seem bad because of the vast areas of land that have to be covered, but with a large number of members(something that looks likely from the way the news has shaken the internet world) it can be a very powerful idea. So powerful(when linked to WiFi phones), that it could even threaten Telefonica’s monopoly of spanish communications.

After a long, long break, I am back. My absence is due to many factors, from laziness to very bad internet providers in Spain(more on that, and Martin Varsavsky’s new idea,FON, tomorrow).

In Spain, there is one king sport. Unlike North America, where you can enjoy good baseball, hockey, basketball, american football, etc, spanish people are in general, completely addicted to soccer. It is so engraved in society that there is seldom any mention of any other sport in the media. But there is one thing that is the same (as far as I know) all around the world, and that is the importance that is given to some unimportant small issues. Today, spanish papers seemed incredibly worried about Ronaldo’s ankle which is sprained for two weeks than a few other people who have won world championships, or are repreenting SPain at the highest level in global sports, and obtaining medals nonetheless. I know this to be true in The US aswell. The New York Times would rather report that Terrell Owens prefers one training field to another than report that a man who had his leg amputated after cancer is triumphant in a paralympic global decathlon. In my opinion not only is this ridiculous, but also the fact that newspapers or newspaper sections call themselves “Sports” which is obviously not the case, as they whould cover a much wider array of news to read about different subjects.