The Good

It’s been a positive week for the likes of imeem, Pandora and EMI, as along with several other labels and networks, they’ve become the outlets of choice for Google’s ‘Discover Music’ service.

Much like the sponsored links on Google’s homepage, the partnership provides a new search feature that makes it easy to listen to or purchase a track.

As reported in new media age this week, Google doesn’t tend to officially recommend partners, but this is as close as it gets to receiving the nod of approval.

The Bad

Lord Mandelson hasn’t made a good impression on the online community this week. His plan to cut off the Internet connections of those ‘indulging in persistent illegal file sharing’ has met a fierce reaction from the UK’s biggest providers.

Talktalk is ready to go to court, and BT has dismissed the move as ‘sad’, with JP Rangaswami writing on his blog about his hopes for ‘Britain to have set a good example instead of taking 10 steps backwards’.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Cabinet’s creative industries conference, Mandelson said that he wanted to crack down on peer-to-peer file sharing with warning notifications, followed swiftly by targeted legal action by the rights holders.

The Ugly

Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs threw common sense out of the window on Tuesday while indulging a Twitter heckler. After an arguably ‘out of line’ comment from a fan, he responded with a very clear homophobic slur, which in turn granted him a one game suspension, and a loss of roughly $600,000 in earnings.

After a loss to the San Diego Chargers, the former two-time Pro Bowl player also turned to Twitter to insult his own team’s head coach, Todd Haley.

Even though Johnson has since issued a formal apology, he has been asked to ‘stay away from the team pending a probe into his use of a gay slur’, as well as being told that ‘disloyalty will not be tolerated’.

Though the cost of his initial mistake is relatively low in relation to his yearly salary, a reputation for turning against his own side could result in him losing much more.