CyberAtlas: According to a Jupiter Media Metrix study, experienced users of P2P file-trading services are 41 percent more likely than the average online music fan to have increased their music spending levels. Still more evidence that, contrary to what the recording industry says, Napster and its ilk actually stimulate spending on CDs.

Netflix is a new addition to my dotcom survivor list. (Thanks Dave Hyndman!)

I’m starting a list of dotcoms that seem to have weathered the crash of the past two years. These are Internet startups that are venture-funded, consumer-oriented, not yet public, enjoying healthy growth and profitable or nearly so. Conventional wisdom is that such a creature doesn’t exist. Off the top of my head, the initial list is: Google Keen.com (though its recent management shakeup is worrisome) LinkShare Gator (see earlier post) ...

Digital television was a big topic of discussion in the early ’90s. There were grim warnings that we were falling behind Japan in the high-definition race, and that if the US government didn’t give digital TV spectrum to broadcasters, free over-the-air television was doomed. Everyone involved knew that the plan that eventually emerged — a gradual transition to digital broadcasting through 2006, at which point the broadcasters would return their ...

The surprising thing about this chart from a story on News.com is that Gator is the #2 digital wallet service, with 9.3 million registered users. (Actually, it’s probably more than that. Gator claimed 10 million users back in December.) Gator hasn’t made as much noise as other digital identity vendors, but it has become a gorilla in the space. The company isn’t public, so I don’t know its financial situation, ...

Quotes from the just-issued Digital Rivers Report on broadband deployment in the Pittsburgh area: “The team discovered that broadband access technologies are available today to deliver the necessary bandwidth, but telecommunications companies are unable or unwilling to build the necessary network infrastructure universally.” “This research suggests that broadband deployment patterns are independent of affluence, a common misperception in discussions of the Digital Divide. Rather, significant service gaps exist where broadband ...

What if a company lost $54 billion and nobody noticed? That’s what happened last week with AOL Time Warner. It reported the largest quarterly loss in corporate history, a truly mind-boggling evaporation of wealth. Despite this, AOL’s stock actually went up after the announcement. What’s going on here? More… UPDATE: This column is also running on CNet News.com.

XTremeSpectrum CEO Martin Rofheart writes: I wanted to alert you to yesterdayÂ’s news that the FCC issued its First Report & Order on ultra-wideband. The FCCÂ’s First Report & Order was made available yesterday and constitutes formal approval of unlicensed spectrum between 3.1 GHz and 10.6 GHz for ultra-wideband technology. We are thrilled with this ruling, which caps a three and half year effort by the FCC. After review of ...

For the past day, I’ve been at a small workshop on spectrum policy hosted by the Aspen Institute. Aspen regularly assembles key figures from the government, private sector and academia to frame emerging communications and Internet policy issues. This one was interesting. I was there to advocate open spectrum and unlicensed wireless technologies, like 802.11/WiFi. It was heartening to see the level of awareness about WiFi among the lawyers, economists, ...

MSNBC (from Reuters): “China trails only the United States in the number of people with Internet access at home, with more than 56 million people able to connect from their residences, according to a report released on Monday.”