It’s been a week full of numbers. And we’re not talking the usual investment dollars. Or a mega purchase like AOL buying Bebo for 850 million bucks. No, we’re looking at sales, estimated sales, profitability, downloads, a first-time dip in online video viewership, and future profit from allegedly sleeping with the now-former governor of New York.
So, without further adieu, and in no particular order (it is Friday after all), a look back at a week of numbers.
Nine Inch Nails earns $1.6 million in first week
“Ghosts I-IV”, the latest from the industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails, totaled just under 800,000 transactions in its first week, racking up $1.6 million in revenue for Trent Reznor — not a traditional record label. “Ghosts”, a collection of interesting sounds and electronic improvisations, is the band’s first release since Reznor declared NIN a free agent last October.
“Ghosts” transactions include all available configurations, including free and paid downloads and advance orders for physical releases of limited-edition vinyl, CDs, and a boxed set. In fact, the deluxe-edition box, priced at a whopping $300, already sold-out of its limited 2,500-copy run.
These numbers were provided by NIN, which will not release traditional sales figures to SoundScan, which tracks sales data for singles, albums, and music videos in Canada and the U.S. We’re not sure why, other than the fact NIN doesn’t have to as the music was not sold through traditional channels.
Take that music industry!
Now that the iPhone is conquering the mobile world … and the super-thin MacBook Air has made its debut … and the AppleTV has been updated into something useful … and the iPod line has been revamped for the future … and the Intel transition is long over … everybody wants to know what’s next for Apple.
It seems a bit late, but the important thing is that 
If you are away from the living room TV or a sports bar and want to watch March Madness, there’s always your laptop or desktop computer and the Internet. Joost, the Internet TV service, is making live-streaming video available through an update to its desktop client.
Hulu
What fascinates me about comedian Steve Hofstetter — other than being a funny, wickedly intelligent comic — is that he’s doing the same thing as Radiohead, Trent Reznor, and Nine Inch Nails. And yet Hofstetter is not a household name.
Japanese users of Nintendo’s DS Lite portable games console can now purchase and download movies for the device,