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There have been dozens of amateur videos of Beyonce’s popular song, Single Ladies, on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. Links to several renditions of the music video have made their way throughout the Internet, linking people back to YouTube.

And while Beyonce, Britney Spears and other music artists from Sony BMG can still be found on the Web site, other videos — including amateur videos — that feature music by Warner Music Group artists have been pulled or muted.

The silence comes after failed attempts between Warner and YouTube’s parent company, Google, to come to an agreement regarding music videos being viewed and shared on YouTube. The companies could not come to a financial agreement.

The match between Warner and Google has been ongoing, and artists, including Neil Young, have come out in defense of the music powerhouse, saying the company needs to protect the rights of artists, and that artists and Warner need to be compensated.

The list of artists under Warner and its labels is long and includes AC/DC, Motley Crue, Madonna, Phil Collins, and Missy Elliott.

Fans Not Happy

Fans and amateur video makers are posting clips expressing their disappointment with both Google and Warner on YouTube.

“A lot of music you want to use as background music, you can’t,” said one video poster who goes by the name of TygerWDR.

The not-so-happy fan asked others to join him in a war against the two companies and posted Google’s and Warner Music Group’s fax numbers and addresses. TygerWDR asked fans to send faxes and make calls to Warner and Google to express their disappointment.

Another user, who goes by the name JulietOriginals, said a video clip of her singing a Christmas song was pulled from the site because Warner owned the rights to the carol. In a video where she discussed her disappointment…

The Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco will be beeping and buzzing this week as video-game fans, employees and developers gather for Think Services’ annual Game Developers Conference. The GDC, which is expected to attract just under 18,000 attendees, opened Monday and runs through Friday.

According to Director Meggan Scavio, the GDC serves as a barometer for the health of the video-game industry. “The strength and spirit of the industry,” Scavio said, “is reflected here in these five days where the community gathers together to continue to network and learn from one another and to directly challenge current global economic conditions by finding and creating new opportunities.”

Attendees can choose from among 500 lectures, panels, tutorials and roundtable discussions, and will have a chance to hear a keynote address by Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, on Wednesday.

Strong Sales

According to sales figures sent out last week by David Riley, senior manager for NPD Group, GDC attendees should be in a pretty good mood. Year-to-date sales for the video-game industry hit a remarkable $2.81 billion at the end of February, a solid 11 percent increase from the same period in 2008.

Hardware vendors received particularly good news as their sector surged over the previous year by 14 percent, compared with 13 percent for accessories and 10 percent for software.

There will be plenty of opportunity to talk over developments as the GDC hosts a variety of summit meetings. Among the events scheduled are the AI Summit, the Casual Games Summit, the Game Outsourcing Summit, the IGDA Education Summit, the Independent Games Summit, the Localization Summit, the Serious Games Summit, and the Worlds in Motion Summit.

Warning Signs?

Despite the fact that the video-game industry is bucking economic trends so far, there are some warning signs of potentially difficult times ahead. Thanks in part to steadily rising development costs,…

Adoption of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer Web browser appeared to be leveling off Monday after peaking at 2.58 percent of all Internet users over the weekend, reports Net Applications. IE8′s share of the global market was down to 2.02 percent on Monday at noon, equivalent to the new browser’s adoption rate at 5 p.m. Friday — the first full business day after its release.

Microsoft’s relatively quiet rollout of IE8 stands in stark contrast to the excitement that Mozilla generated when it released Firefox 3 to great fanfare on June 17. By the start of the following month, Mozilla’s new browser had already captured a 4.34 percent share of the global browser market.

One reason for IE8′s slow adoption is clearly due to Internet Explorer’s enduring strength as the Web platform of choice among enterprises, which are always cautious when it comes to adopting a new browser, noted Gartner Research Vice President and Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver. “While the promise of browser-based applications was that migration would not be necessary, some applications are still written to specific browsers,” Silver said.

Enterprise Caution

This helps explain why IE6, which was introduced in 2001, still has 18.85 percent of the global browser market, just behind the 19.11 percent share held by Firefox 3. “IE6 seems to be a particular problem, with many IE6 applications not working properly on IE7 or IE8,” Silver said.

“This has prevented many organizations from upgrading beyond IE6 and has even delayed some Vista migrations,” Silver said. “This is likely to continue being a problem in the Windows 7 time frame as, again, IE6 cannot be run on that platform.”

On the consumer side, IE8′s slow gallop out the starting gate suggests that Microsoft hasn’t made a good case for why users should upgrade from previous Internet Explorer releases or switch from…

The problem with being a social-networking site is that, when successful, it can become a part of people’s daily routines. The growing backlash from Facebook users over the site’s new interface shows some of the consequences of disrupting people’s routines.

More than 640,000 comments have filled the Vote on the New Facebook Layout application offered by the company, and many are resoundingly negative. And about 1.7 million Facebook users have joined Petition Against the New Facebook, a new user group. But, as large as these numbers are, they represent only a fraction of the site’s 175 million members.

‘Improved News Feed’

“I dislike it thoroughly,” writes user Cherie Hrynchyshyn in a comment posted Monday morning in the Vote section. “It gives you a lot less features than we used to have and takes much longer to find what you would like.”

Antoni Corone wrote that he has “sooooo many ‘FRIENDS’ that I care very little about keeping up with on a minute-to-minute basis.” And Ricardo Vila-Roger wrote that “it’s not as fun anymore. If I wanted Twitter, I’d have joined it.”

The interface changes were made earlier this month. On the company blog, Facebook’s Peter X. Deng wrote that “we want you to be able to find out everything that is going on in the world around you at any given moment, or shape the stream of information most relevant to you.”

Deng added that “the biggest part of the new home page is your improved News Feed, or the stream of content that’s most relevant to you.”

Competing with Twitter?

Many observers have commented that the changes were designed to capture the kind of immediacy offered by Twitter, with its constant stream of updates.

But Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said if Facebook feels “a need to compete with Twitter…

DocPoint Solutions, (www.docpointsolutions.com), a subsidiary of Quality Associates, Inc., focused on providing Microsoft SharePoint to organizations that are looking to expand employee collaboration and increase the exchange of information, today announced its status as an authorized provider of Microsoft SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS). Now, Microsoft customers throughout the U.S. can redeem their Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) credits to receive up to 15 days of onsite SharePoint technology planning, support, training, and other services from DocPoint Solutions.

Microsoft SharePoint is a server program that is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. SharePoint software enables collaboration, improves content management, promotes business process implementation, and enables faster and more powerful access to information via a secure intranet.

Additionally, DocPoint Solutions has recently achieved multiple Microsoft Solutions Competencies. These include Networking Infrastructure and Information Worker Solutions Competencies with the following specializations: Enterprise Content Management and Forms, Portals and Collaboration, and Search. Microsoft Competencies are a recognized level of expertise within a given technical or business area. These credentials mean DocPoint Solutions has earned the specialized knowledge required to deploy various aspects of SharePoint. DocPoint Solutions holds certified status in Microsoft’s Partner Program, which recognizes DocPoint’s expertise and impact in the technology marketplace.

Bob Dickerson, DocPoint Solutions, vice president, said “Many organizations, companies, and government agencies already own microsoft sharepoint on their servers, but they often lack the time and manpower needed to successfully set it up. Fortunately, we’ve found many SharePoint deployments can often be implemented and rolled out across a department or an entire organization quickly, so employees can start benefiting from a shared collaboration portal within a very short timeframe.

The video-game industry is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise grim economic environment. According to figures compiled by market research firm NPD Group, sales of games and hardware were 10 percent higher in February compared to a year before, bringing in a robust $1.47 billion in revenue.

That good news follows a similar increase in January, when U.S. retailers reported a 13 percent rise. Altogether, the industry has generated nearly $3 billion in sales in the first two months of this year.

In an e-mail to media late Thursday, NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier said that despite the tough economy, “the U.S. video-game industry continues to post strong year-over-year comps. Unit sales increased even more than dollar sales did, reflecting a slightly lower average retail price for all categories as compared to last year.”

Wii Remains Ahead

The leader of the pack in the game-console battle once again was Nintendo, which sold a remarkable 753,000 Wiis in February alone. The company was also strong in the handheld market, selling 588,000 DS devices.

Microsoft finished in second place for the month, moving 391,000 Xbox 360 units, while Sony once again brought up the rear with 276,000 PlayStation 3 sales.

Taken together, hardware sales increased slightly more than the video-game sector as a whole, rising 11 percent over the same period last year.

Sony’s solid position at the back of the console pack has lent credibility to rumors that the company is planning a price reduction (estimated to be $100 off the PS3′s $399 price) to regain market share. News on whether the company will go through with a price drop and how much it will be is expected at the end of next week.

America Getting in Shape?

Nintendo also took top honors in the software segment — the Wii Fit with Balance Board sold 644,000…