SoundScan adds music download data

Reflecting the growing importance of online music, Nielsen SoundScan has begun compiling sales of permanent music downloads. SoundScan, a sister company of Billboard, will add these sales to its "non-traditional" category, which also includes Internet, mail-order and concert-venue sales of physical music. Sales of downloaded singles and albums will be included in Billboard`s charts for those configurations. In addition, SoundScan and Billboard will offer a new download tracks chart.

The first list of top online track sales shows that Beyonce featuring Jay-Z "Crazy in Love" (Columbia) was the week`s top online seller.

Cnet news reports that Adobe Systems` new versions of its video-editing software include a Windows-only application that marks another high-profile defection from Apple Computer`s Macintosh operating system.

Adobe, a specialist in publishing and imaging applications, will this week announce a new version of Premiere, its main application for editing digital video. The new Premiere Pro will work only on PCs running Microsoft`s Windows XP operating system, ending years of support for the Mac OS.

The new Adobe products continue the company`s push into video software, which company executives have identified as a major growth area for the software-maker. Enhancements include a new design in Premiere that allows editors to see the changes they`ve made without waiting for the PC hardware to render images.

Geneva scientists will soon throw the switch on what could be the start of the biggest communications development since the Internet, reports the Mail & Guardian. The scientists will link 10 laboratories around the world in a grid that will combine the processing power of thousands of PCs.

"You`ll just say I want this information and the grid is set up so that it goes out and collects that for you and makes it accessible," says Roger Cashmore, director of research at the European particle physics laboratory in Cern near Geneva.

A Web site that takes a different approach to the online dating experience is reported to be growing more popular in the US. The site, www.friendster.com, is now the 151st most-visited site by US Internet users.

It allows users to use their own friends to meet new people online. Once a user joins the group, he or she invites friends to join too, forming a group of like-minded people who can contact one-another. Users say this reduces many of the safety issues associated with dating online.