An article in WSJ came across the old inbox a few days ago, highlighting a new product from BigChampage, called BCDash which “will bring together data from partners including Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Yahoo Inc.’s Yahoo Music, Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes, as well as traditional retailers with online stores such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also incorporate estimates of illegal file sharing activity for specific titles. ”

In the age of file sharing and downloading, as well as the multitude of digital download options (of the legal variety) this sounds like an excellent idea. Have to wonder, though, how the estimates are estimated, as well as which illegal file swap services they’re referring to.

Broadcast Flag hearings turn on iPod use (Engadget)

Name that Flickr Tag (LifeHacker)

And, finally, because its Friday - Beer + Robot = Marketing Goodness…if you like beer and/or robots. (Boing Boing)

I’m not a Skype user, thought I know a lot of podcasts I listen to (TWiT and SliceofSciFi, to name two) use it either to record shows when geusts and hosts aren’t in the same area or to get comments from listeners to put on the shows. However, Skype just released version 2.0 - which adds “high-resolution video picture phone features.” I like the idea - especially because back in the ’80s, I thought we’d already have video phones.

However, video calling isn’t what I find the most interesting. Part of the Skype annoucement came with a deal with Six Apart, makers of TypePad - which will allow Web users to instantly call (via Skype) the bloggers who use TypePad with the push of a button. I’m very excited to see if it takes off and users actually call and/or leave messages for bloggers, but I’m even more excited to see how the bloggers utilize these calls.Can you make comments available? Do a podcast of reader comments? Start talking with your readers on a daily basis (and if so, how do you plan to get anything done)? If you’re a blogger, and you’ve got an idea on how to use the calls you get, give me a yell - I’d love to see what your doing.