RioPort has unleashed the latest version of its
Audio Manager software. Apart from the features users have come to know and love—like the ability to rip MP3s from CDs, organize downloads into playlists and load them into and out of portable players—Version 3 of the application allows digital music fanatics to create custom CDs. But our favorite new feature is the menu of trippy dancing patterns that move to your music. It's real purdy and we like to just stare at it for hours and hours. In a related story, RioPort's
Jason Bernard really has to take this call, so he'll have to get back to you… The upcoming
Dixie Chicks tour will be sponsored by new Web destination
MusicCountry.com. Site users will get e-mail notification about ticket sales 24 hours in advance of their availability, access to "The Dixie Chicks Radio network," behind-the-scenes footage and other info and the opportunity to participate in contests, polls and other Dixiana. Time to get that trailer wired, pa… Speaking of the Chicks, the perky trio were part of the star-studded Las Vegas New Year's Eve gala (along with
KISS,
The Who and
Tony Bennett) sponsored by streaming media comer
Pixelon, and that $12 million fiasco prompted the ouster of the company's then leader,
Michael Fenne. The fast-talking Virginian was brilliant at raising funds, but standoffish about his past. Turns out there's a good reason for that: Fenne, aka
David Kim Stanley, was a wanted fugitive in Virginia, and had been the subject of a four-year manhunt. He's in jail there, held without bail. Among the 24 charges against the man a judge has labeled "the golden-tongued salesman": Bilking elderly parishioners at his father's church. You can see why he gravitated toward the music business… Digital entertainment site
EVEO.com allows users to create their own videos—which it has given the excruciatingly cute name "eveos"—on the Net. Rockers
Counting Crows, meanwhile, have signed on to be the first act for the site's eveo contest, which will ask users to create their own "music video interpretation" of the band's track "Mr. Potter's Lullaby." Results of the contest will appear at the eveo.com site and on the
ARTISTdirect Network. Winners will not be rewarded with stock…