According to Netimperative, online ticketing is a given. For today’s always on consumer, mobile ticketing is where the action is.

Virgin Mobile has expanded its partnership with mobile ticketing firm ActiveMedia and mobile direct-marketing Flytxt to offer customers access to live music.

The latest promotion sees Virgin Mobile offering customers free tickets, via their mobile phone, to UK band The Automatic live in concert.

For tickets, Virgin Mobile customers text the number of tickets they want to 26666 on a first come first served basis.

Selected customers will then be sent a mobile ticket for redemption at the door using ActiveMedia Technology’s RAPOS (redemption at point of sale) technology.

Rosie Newey, Sponsorship & Events Manager, Virgin Mobile said: “The youth market loves mobile ticketing. It is convenient, hassle free and novel and makes a great way to recognise and reward loyalty.”

According to The New York Times, airports are rushing to add electrical outlets to meet increased demand caused by a proliferation of power-hungry gadgets.

NC State student, Lindsey Reitz, plugged in at Atlanta’s airport

Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport recently converted some of its pay phones into free laptop recharging stations. Salt Lake City International Airport has installed new power outlets in its public seating areas and contracted with Smarte Carte of St. Paul to offer a recharging station for mobile phones and hand-held computers, at $3 a charge. And Eppley Airfield, near Omaha, just wired its snack bar in the north boarding area with new sockets.

According to Los Angeles Times, San Francisco-based BitTorrent is attempting to “pull a Napster” and go legit.

Onetime file-swapping pariah BitTorrent Inc. announced deals today with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks to deliver popular movies and television shows as it tries to reshape itself into a legitimate distribution outlet.

“This demonstrates that we’re being very successful in bringing on partners to use BitTorrent for reaching our audience with their content,” said Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent. “I think our users will be very excited by the nature of the content we’re acquiring. It’s relevant to our audience and will be programmed for their benefit.”

Analysts said BitTorrent might encounter the same obstacles that faced other file-swapping services, such as iMesh, that have attempted to transition from unlicensed free-for-all to paid service. The users simply went elsewhere.

“It’s going to confuse consumers that BitTorrent is this free, no-holds-barred, we-don’t-care-if-it’s-copyrighted place to share, then there’s this paid, copy-protected area,” said Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research.

According to The New York Times, YouTube is set to launch a mobile version available to Verizon customers who opt in to a $15-a-month VCast subscription.

“Everybody carries a phone with them, but they may not have a computer,” said Steve Chen, chief technology officer and a co-founder of YouTube. People can “take the phone out of their pocket while waiting for the bus” and watch a video, he added.

Verizon Wireless and YouTube said the service would be available early next month.

One major twist, instead of choosing what to watch from a vast library of clips, users will be limited to a specified number of videos selected and approved by the companies, which goes against the grain of the site’s core offering, the ability to find and watch video on demand.

Rob Hof of BusinessWeek is done Digging.

As much as I like the idea of Digg–a site where a community chooses the most interesting or relevant news–I must confess that I just don’t use it that much. The reason became obvious once I started using Google Reader, which streams new RSS posts from all my chosen feeds as they come in. And in that context, most of the endless new posts on Digg look like junk, geek tabloid fare, or spam.

Meanwhile, Techmeme, which doesn’t use the wisdom of crowds (or as I prefer, the power of us), instead driven by an algorithm that correlates links in a way I don’t yet understand, continues to draw me in many times a day because of the quality of the stories or posts and the associated links to other blogs. I hope Digg, which clearly has managed to create a vibrant community–no small trick–can turn the talents of that community to more useful ends.

While I don’t use Google Reader, I concur with Hof’s assessments. Digg doesn’t give me what I want, while Techmeme does. In fact, I found Hof’s piece via Techmeme.

The SINdustry Standard is a Business 2.0 blog about the business of vice. It looks at the strategies and tactics used by companies that sell alcohol, tobacco, junk food, and other sinfully profitable wares. It’s written by Sidra Durst, a reporter at Business 2.0 magazine. Before joining Business 2.0, Durst, a 2003 graduate of Brown University, worked as a freelance writer and a public health worker in Latin America.

Her Halloween entry was, appropriately enough, on candy.

Capitol Hill rag Roll Call just ran a story about the battle between the candy industry and the sugar industry–and it looks like candy is losing.

The article explains that between the recent influx of cheap foreign sugar and bad harvests driving up prices for U.S. sugar farmers, confectioners have been forced to use what they consider to be lesser-quality Mexican sugar.

What these candymen (and candywomen) want is for the government to subsidize the domestic sugar industry, in much the same way that corn and cotton are treated. That way, confectioners can use the higher-quality American sugar they prefer, but for a sweet, low price. With the Farm Bill up for reauthorization in 2007, candy lobbyists are starting to push hard for said subsidies.

Durst’s political slant is evident in her writing on the blog. I think it’s useful in this context. Good blogs are often opionated affairs.

[FULL DISCLOSURE] BFG works with Masterfoods, a big league candy maker.

I picture Bill Gates listening to Neil Diamond or maybe The Eagles, but earlier this week he was listening to New York City’s The Secret Machines live at Westlake Plaza in downtown Seattle. The show was the initial launch event for Microsoft’s new music device, Zune.

Gates and John Richards from KEXP share files

I don’t own a Zune. However, I was interested to discover a neat feature that the iPod does not currenly offer.

Stressing the ability to send and share songs with friends nearby using the Zune-to-Zune wireless feature, Gates received “Love Shack,” by the B-52’s, right away from Richards’ device. “We know many fans will really appreciate the ability to share songs with each other,” Gates said.

Some of Zune’s other launch events featured Lupe Fiasco (in Chicago), Red Hot Chili Peppers (in LA) and Queens of the Stone Age (in Brooklyn), to name a few.

USA Today reports that iPod afficiandos will soon be able to deploy their precious little machines on selected flights of United, Delta, Continental, Air France, Emirates and KLM airlines.

Available starting mid-2007, the connections would power and charge iPods in flight. They would allow travelers to watch and listen to videos and songs that they brought along, instead of having to watch airlines’ programming. It works with regular iPods and iPod Nano, a smaller version of the original. It doesn’t work with iPod Shuffle, another less-expensive version.

Instead of using the small iPod screen, passengers will be able to watch TV shows or movies on larger seat-back monitors. They range from 7 inches to 23 inches, depending on the cabin class.

London’s The Times looks at the way Gen Y consumes music and it doesn’t bode well for the neighborhood record store, nor the corporate record store for that matter.

CDs will be defunct within five years, a survey of young music consumers has predicted.

Downloading is allowing music fans to make instant purchases. Many access songs over their mobile phone on the way home from nightclubs.

The survey of 2,000 music fans, aged 16 to 24, was published by 3, the mobile phone operator. The CD will die out within five years, 60 per cent of those questioned said.

The survey found that more than 60 per cent of under-24s have downloaded music on a mobile. About 76 per cent of purchasers said that when they hear something they like, they want it immediately.

Reducing the amount of packaging, waste, and carbon emissions involved in producing and transporting CDs to shops was cited by 85 per cent as a reason to download music.

“As the cost of creating web apps continues to decrease, small direct-sale liquidity events are turning into reasonably profitable exits for entrepreneurs who have invested little capital and time in a new business idea.” - Tech Crunch

Drop Send, a service that lets users send (and store) files too large for email, is for sale.

What’s interesting here is how transparent the company is in detailing their income picture and the entire liquidation process. They’ve set up a blog, Bare Naked App, where they freely share the type of information a prospective buyer wants to know.