In China, the company is more recognized for its gigantic consumer-facing e-commerce site, Taobao.com, but internationally it’s more known as providing a marketplace to connect Chinese suppliers with retailers at the wholesale level.

Today, the company is expanding those wholesale services to include the Premier Channel on AliExpress.com, which aims to introduce up-and-coming Chinese brands–which are producing apparel, electronics, jewelry and items in other similar categories–to small-to-medium-sized retailers in the U.S. that are looking to differentiate. At launch, the company is showcasing more than 30 brands such as AKseries, DeereMarchi, Dilong, Etonian Kidd, Justmatch, Mbox, rip, and VANCL.

“We think that smaller retailers are especially in need of a differentiator and need unique products that they can make a margin on. Margins erode so quickly when tons of sellers sell the same thing,” said Annie Xu, general manager of Alibaba.com and AliExpress in the U.S.

For the Chinese manufacturers that have often done well on Taobao.com, it gives them the opportunity to expand internationally. ”There are lot of innovative designers and innovators in China. We want to help the people, who have capability to design authentic original products, move up in the value chain. That’s the thinking behind it.”

She said China’s often known for following trends, but increasingly, she said there are examples of more original work being done. “We want to transform ‘Made in China’ to ‘Designed in China,’” she said. “We can help with smaller emerging brands and designers, who don’t have the research and knowledge base to acquire customers.”

Xu said Alibaba has a number of strict policies in place in order to help retailers gain trust in the system. Manufacturers will have to provide 24-hour customer service and promise to ship items within 24 hours. There’s also free shipping on all returns. Additionally, manufacturers will have to put up a deposit with Alibaba in case there are any disputes and a customer demands a refund.

Those steps may be necessary to establish trust: the top management of Alibaba.com resigned earlier this year when an internal company investigation determined that thousands of fraudulent sales were taking place.

Along with classic movies like “Serpico” and “Dog Day Afternoon,” Lumet also directed “Network.” It is BoomTown’s go-to film for the answers to every one of life’s questions.

At the very least, because of its iconic “mad as hell” scene with actor Peter Finch, embedded here:

Of all the many entertainers in Hollywood, none was more authentically a star than screen legend Elizabeth Taylor.

Ailing in recent years, it’s too easy to forget what a global sensation she was, in the days well before celebrities had the Internet and other digital means to become well known.

Taylor needed none of that to shine, as you can see here from the trailer for BoomTown’s favorite of her many movie roles, as Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

She was buried today at Forest Lawn, of course. Sigh.

While John Hughes has almost nothing to do with the Internet, BoomTown–who is of a certain age–was saddened to hear about the premature passing of this director supreme of suburban teen angst movies of the 1980s.

He died yesterday of a heart attack at 59 years old.

His hit films included “The Breakfast Club,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He wrote “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles,” as well as “Pretty in Pink,” “Home Alone,” “Some Kind of Wonderful” (I heart Watts) and tons of others.

In other words, the creator of the infamous “Brat Pack.”

Here are two movie clips to enjoy on this slooooow Friday in August, from Hulu, and a terrific montage video from YouTube, which make me feel–almost–young again.

And here is a link to a fascinating blog post about someone who, oddly enough, was Hughes’s pen pal.

The Breakfast Club:

Sixteen Candles:

Hughes Montage:

At DEMOfall yesterday, RealNetworks’ Rob Glaser chitty-chatted with BoomTown about a lot of things, such as the Presidential race (he is a big Obama supporter), his twins and more.

But in this video interview, Glaser talked about RealDVD, the company’s new “legal” DVD copier, which was launched here in San Diego yesterday.

At an introductory rate of $30, buyers can use the software to rip all the parts of a DVD, including cover art.

To avoid violating digital rights management schemes, RealDVD adds its own DRM layer, preventing ripped DVDs from being copied and shared and imposing further barriers to piracy.

But there are still possibilities for illegal ripping, of course, because RealDVD users must promise not to copy videos they don’t own.

Thus, an honor-system product that makes it even easier to copy DVDs might not be so welcomed by Hollywood, which has been trying to protect its movie revenues from suffering the same fate as the music industry via rampant CD-ripping.

Here’s the video of Glaser talking about RealDVD:

After an overlong and unsuccessful campaign to spread adoption of ATRAC, Sony is scrapping the proprietary audio format. This morning the company said it would close its CONNECT digital music store and forthcoming Walkman digital media players will support formats that consumers actually use like Windows Media Audio, along with MP3 and AAC (or advanced audio coding). “Customers don’t want to be locked into one service, consumers are demanding choice in music,” said Jeffrey Van Ede, Sony Europe audio marketing VP. “There has been a fundamental shift in legal downloading, and that is toward DRM-free music.”

And what of those few Sony customers who actually own ATRAC music? For them the company’s offering an MP3 Conversion Tool and some advice that CONNECT users have been likely following for some time now: “For your purchased music from CONNECT, you can burn it to audio CD and rerip it into MP3 format to continue enjoying it for personal use.”