Sorry, you'll have to wait for the DVD

What were you doing yesterday afternoon?

With the hydro races going on and all, we know you weren't watching video gamers compete on television. For that, you'd have to go back to the previous Sunday, when CBS aired the World Series of Video Games' Louisville, Ky., tour stop.

Yeah, that's right. Video games were broadcast on network TV on a Sunday afternoon in midsummer.

Rob Correa, senior vice president of programming for CBS Sports, wouldn't give out any audience data, but noted that summer afternoons are not exactly prime time.

"Sunday at 12 noon in late July is not the easiest time period to get people to watch, but all in all we're satisfied," he said.

Here's the thing, though. The show was not broadcast on KIRO, which opted to show paid programming (read: infomercial) instead. Which prompted one of the show's executive producers, Matthew Mills, to e-mail us, saying: "Really a shame, considering Seattle is such a great gaming town," especially, as he noted, with the "industry, developers, Nintendo and Microsoft so close."

We called KIRO to ask why it didn't air the show. No reply.

How hot are PCs?

PCs: They just can't unload them fast enough.

Microsoft last week slashed the price of its Windows Vista operating system in China by more than half, to $66 for the basic version and $200 for premium.

Meanwhile, Chinese PC maker Lenovo said it plans to sell a basic PC made for China's rural market for about $200. The computer will use the buyer's own television as a monitor. Lenovo's announcement followed news by Dell that it will sell a basic desktop PC designed for China and priced as low as $223.

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim promised to donate 250,000 low-cost laptops to Mexican children this year and more next year, to improve their "digital education."

Making a list

Every month, a blog called Seattle 2.0 publishes a list of Web 2.0 startups, ranking each company based on Alexa, a rating service powered by Amazon.com that computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of Alexa users.

In July, the list — coined the Seattle Startup Index — reached a record of 157 participating companies.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Versionate, which hosts wikis, moved 53 positions to No. 66.

• Down2night, which runs a nightlife social-networking site, moved 19 to No. 55.

• Wishpot, a site where you share your favorite products, moved 14 positions to No. 47.

• Vizrea, a photo-sharing company, fell 35 to No. 102.

• XoomPad, a real-estate mapping site, fell 28 spots to No. 83.

The top five listed were: Zillow, iLike, 43 Things, Newsvine and BuddyTV.

Since reporting that early last week, Seattle 2.0 blogger Marcelo Calbucci, founder and chief technology officer of Sampa, said nine Seattle startups were left off the list: MyTypes, Fyreball, nPost, Postacrima, imaPodHead, PeepCode, Intelius and Zumende. The largest of those — Intelius, which handles online background searches — likely comes in at No. 3 on this month's list.

And, by the end of the week, Calbucci was left defending his use of Alexa and not another ranking firm.

"This list is for fun purpose," he said. "It has no value for investors, for customers or for their business itself (except for bragging rights). Take a look at the list. We compare media, with real estate, with social media, with e-commerce — nonsense."

Bottom line: Don't sweat it, it's fun.

Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.