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Opera Mini Serves a Billion Page Views in a Day
Opera has announced that its Opera Mini users viewed over a billion pages on July 25. On that day, every second, Opera Mini servers compressed over 11,500 pages before sending that content to phones around the world.
"Opera Mini has experienced tremendous page view growth in recent years," the company says. "In June 2008, Opera Mini servers processed 100 million page views per day for the first time. In June 2010, Opera Mini users viewed more than 910 million pages on average every day, an increase of more than 161% since June 2009."
"Each day is different in the fast-growing mobile Web. Every day more people around the world choose Opera Mini and view more pages through this browser," said Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner. "Crossing one billion pages views in a day is further proof that people desire the best Internet experience, no matter where they live or what device they use."
Opera Mini is available on over 3,000 different phone models. Version 5.1 was just launched for Android a couple weeks ago. This may pad opera's numbers even more as Android growth continues.
Yesterday, Opera released its State of the Mobile Web report, looking at the mobile web explosion in Africa.
Publ.Date : Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:20:56 -0400
Amazon Introduces New Smaller, Faster Kindle, Wi-Fi Version
Amazon's Kindle has been making a lot of headlines lately, and now the company has introduced a new generation of Kindle devices. The new Kindle is smaller, lighter, faster, and has 50% better contrast than any other e-reader on the market, according to Amazon.
It has a new electronic-ink screen and a new design with a 21% smaller body, while keeping the 6 inch screen of the old Kindle. It's 15% lighter at 8.7 ounces. Amazon claims it has 20% faster page turns, up to a month of battery life, built-in Wi-Fi, a graphite color option, and double the storage, holding 3,500 books. The price is $189, and still comes with free 3G wireless.
Amazon has also introduced the Kindle Wi-Fi, which doesn't come with 3G, but is only $139.
"Kindle is the best-selling product on Amazon for two years running. We lowered the price to $189 and sales growth tripled," says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Readers are going to do a double take when they see Kindle's bright new screen and feel how remarkably light the smaller 8.7 ounce design feels in one hand."
The new devices will ship in 140 countries and 30 territories on beginning August 27.
Publ.Date : Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:03:56 -0400
Google Getting Rid of Old Version of AdSense for Search
Google is retiring the old version of AdSense for Search and telling users to switch to the new version powered by Google Custom Search, which has been offered for a while.
If you see "powered by Google" on the logo on the search results page, then you're using the old one. In a post on Google's Inside AdSense blog, Katrina Kurnit writes:
AdSense for search with CSE gives you more control over your search results without changing how you earn money showing AdSense for search ads. For example, with the new version, you'll have access to advanced features like refinements and promotions. Our team has developed a number of updates and improvements during the past few months, and you can access more advanced features at www.google.com/cse.
Your existing AdSense for search box will continue to work normally for a few more months, and we'll be sure to update you when we retire this version. To take advantage of the benefits offered by the new version of AdSense for search and ensure you don't miss any revenue during the transition, we encourage you to update your code now.
To upgrade go to AdSense setup and "AdSense for Search" then select the sites you want your users to be able to search across, customize the look and feel and update the code for your site. Google offers more info here.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:20:45 -0400
Facebook Questions Debuts In Beta
Inquisitive people, rejoice. Facebook, with its enormous user base and familiar layout, entered the question and answer space this afternoon by launching Facebook Questions. The product's still in beta right now, meaning not everyone can use it, but it's already looking well-integrated and rather interesting.
Blake Ross, a director of product management, explained on the Facebook Blog, "To ask a question to the community, just click the 'Ask Question' button at the top of the homepage. You can also ask questions about your friends from their profiles, similarly to how you would post on their Walls."
Then Ross delved into the pair of features that set Facebook Questions apart from some older Q&A services. First, he noted, "After you ask a question, you have the option of adding a photo or a poll."
Next, Ross wrote, "To help us show your question to the most relevant people and ensure the best answers, you can tag it with a specific topic."
These features should put Facebook Questions ahead of many dedicated Q&A sites, and even sites that offer more extras will have trouble standing up to the accessibility of Facebook's 500 million users.
Just know that all of the questions and answers contributed to Facebook Questions will be made public, so some competitors might continue to do all right due to privacy concerns.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:14:41 -0400
Google Adds Page Load Time Metrics to Chrome
As you probably know by now, Google considers page speed as one of its many signals for search engine rankings. With that in mind, you may also be interested in knowing that in Chrome 6, developers can access web timing metrics for measuring web page load time across browsers.
"Measuring web page load time is a notoriously tricky but important endeavor," says Google software engineer Tony Gentilcore. "One of the most common challenges is simply getting a true start time. Historically, the earliest a web page could reliably begin measurement is when the browser begins to parse an HTML document (by marking a start time in a <script> block at the top of the document)."
"Unfortunately, that is too late to include a significant portion of the time web surfers spend waiting for the page: much of the time is spent fetching the page from the web server," says Gentilcore. "To address this shortcoming, some clever web developers work around the problem by storing the navigation start time in a cookie during the previous page’s onbeforeunload handler. However, this doesn’t work for the critical first page load which likely has a cold cache."
Genticore has more details (as well as an explanation of the above image) in this post.
Web Timing metrics can be found under window.webkitPerformance in Chrome 6. Google is kind enough to point out where they can be found in other browsers as well: window.msPerformance in the third platform preview of IE 9 and soon window.mozPerformance in Firefox.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:05:03 -0400
Netflix Adds Search to the Playstation 3 Version
Netflix announced today that it has added search capabilities to its service on the Sony Playstation 3. This is part of a software upgrade from the company.
"This architecture allows us to improve your Netflix experience by adding more and more features over time," says Greg Peters, VP of product development. "Sony is the first of the game consoles to adopt this new software from Netflix, so if you’re a PS3 user, you can now search for a movie or TV episode on your TV via your PS3. No need to go back to your computer to add it to your Queue."
Speaking as a Netlix on Wii user, I can say this feature would be incredibly useful. Although, if Netflix gets the mobile apps out soon, it won't be so much of an issue, as grabbing the phone to do the searches would be almost as easy as the console search function, if not more so. Those will come eventually, no doubt.
In the meantime, Netflix says it will have "more cool features" in store with its continuous improvement architecture.
Netflix is also seeing increased competition from all sides with the launches of things like Hulu's paid service and Redbox talking about its online strategy.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:47:47 -0400
Personal Facebook Info Reportedly Leaked, Gawker Invades Zuckerberg's Privacy
ThinQ.co.uk reports that a directory containing personal details of over 100 million Facebook users has surfaced on a file-sharing site. That's about a fifth of Facebook's total user base.
Gawker's Valleywag has posted numerous paparazzi-style photos of Mark Zuckerberg, after photographer Nick Stern followed him around. The piece is framed as a way of "turning the tables" on him after he "turned strangers' intimate moments into riches."
Redmond Pie points to an update to the recent activity section of Zuckerberg's Facebook profile which indicates he is now an Android user. He had previously mentioned possibly switching to Android after making complaints about the iPhone. This may not mean anything, but it is interesting to know what kind of device the leader of one of the most important sites on the web is using. It could shape some of his thinking.
Mashable looks at a new browser plug-in called Google Alarm that alerts you when your personal information is sent to Google's servers. It works for Firefox and Chrome. With Apple releasing its extensions gallery for Safari today, it would not be surprising to see it end up there as well.
| Google Alarm from Jamie Dubs on Vimeo. |
Last week, Apple announced a delay to the release of the white version of the iphone 4. The Street has an interesting article suggesting that a "light leak" may be the cause of the delay. Gizmodo notes that this is unconfirmed.
CrunchGear has a review of the new Dell Slate, an Android "tablet". Reviewer John Biggs calls it "too big to be a phone and a bit too small to be a tablet." Speed is noted as the biggest draw. He says it's one of the fastest tablets he's seen. The size is questionable, however.
News came out yesterday that Yahoo Japan would be going with Google instead of Bing as its provider of search results. eWeek looks at Microsoft's beef with the deal, and Google's response. Basically, Microsoft has called it anti-competitive, and Google has said it isn't. Google maintains that it will only license Yahoo Japan ad technology, rather than supplying ads.
Peter Kafka at MediaMemo says Time's iPad problem is trouble for every magazine publisher. The problem he refers to is the publisher's inability to get Apple to let it sell and manage subscriptions for its apps.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:02:43 -0400
Microsoft Previews Street Slide Product
Privacy issues aside, it's hard to complain too much about products like Bing Streetside and Google Street View, considering such tools were until recently nonexistent. But Microsoft has previewed its next-generation mapping tool, dubbed Street Slide, and it promises to up the ante in several ways.
First, consider the jumpy nature of current offerings, which offers users viewpoints only every so often. Street Slide's approach is to piece images into a continuous strip, providing an unbroken look. Also, because the picture's somewhat zoomed-out, Street Slide provides a better perspective of streets as a whole.
That leads us to a second problem with Streetside and Street View: they make it easy to get lost in a blur of buildings. Street Slide corrects this by showing addresses above the images. Clickable logos and/or ads may also be presented, and users would probably welcome them.
Then here's one more interesting fact: Michael Cohen, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, told Tom Simonite that people who choose to link Street Slide to a social network might even be able to see the locations of their opted-in friends.
The sole problem with Street Slide looks to be one of coverage. It's already hard enough to find places where Bing Streetside functions; it seems unrealistic to expect that Street Slide would work in more than a few areas anytime soon.
Still, the tech should find a lot of fans whenever it arrives. Let's hope Microsoft doesn't need too long.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:53:29 -0400
Google Launches New Preview Feature for Font Directory
Google has launched a new feature for its font directory that lets users preview fonts and generates code to use them. The font directory contains fonts that are part of Google's font API.
"Now, whenever you visit the font family page of any of the fonts, you will see a link saying 'Preview this font' that will load your font selection into the font previewer," says Marc Tobias Kunisch with the Google Font API Team. "Here you can edit the text, change its size and line height, and add decorations and spacing among other things. You can even apply text shadow to your text."
The preview will then generate code that you can stick in your style sheet.
"If you want to see the font sample without any distractions from the font previewer controls, you can do that as well simply by clicking 'Toggle controls' in the upper right corner," notes Kunisch. "This will show you a nice clean example of what the font would look like in your design."
The Font API (in beta) lets users add web fonts to any web page.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:56:02 -0400
Mariposa Botnet Creator Taken Down In Slovenia
The FBI, the Slovenian Criminal Police and the Spanish Guardia Civil announced the arrest of the suspected creator of the Mariposa Botnet used by hackers worldwide.
Last week, the Slovenian Criminal Police arrested the Mariposa Botnet's suspected creator, a 23-year-old Slovenian known as "Iserdo."
The Mariposa Botnet was built with a computer virus known as "Butterfly Bot" and was used to steal passwords for websites and financial institutions. It stole computer users' credit card and bank account information, launched denial of service attacks, and spread viruses. Industry experts estimated the Mariposa Botnet may have infected as many as 8 million to 12 million computers.
"In the last two years, the software used to create the Mariposa botnet was sold to hundreds of other criminals, making it one of the most notorious in the world," said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III.
"These cyber intrusions, thefts, and frauds undermine the integrity of the Internet and the businesses that rely on it; they also threaten the privacy and pocketbooks of all who use the Internet."
In February, the Spanish Guardia Civil arrested three suspected Mariposa Botnet operators: "Netkairo," "Jonyloleante," and "Ostiator," aka Florencio Carro Ruiz, Jonathan Pazos Rivera, and Juan Jose Bellido Rios. These individuals are being prosecuted in Spain for computer crimes.
The FBI said the case is significant because it targeted not only the operators of the botnet but also the creator of the malicious software that was used to build and operate it.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:33:53 -0400
Logitech Launches Contest to Find Help Promoting Google TV Device
Logitech has started a contest to promote Google TV, the upcoming service for which Logitech is a launch partner. The contest is called "Host with the Most", and asks if "you have what it takes to be a 'host with the most' for Logitech Revue with Google TV?"
Logitech Revue is the company's set-top box that will help the Google TV service launch (alongside TVs and Blu-ray players from Sony).
The contest is looking for a "social media rock star" to help promote the device. Google's YouTube is pretty excited about it (as the device will no doubt bring a great deal more YouTube video watching to living rooms). You can read the official rules here, but YouTube Product Marketing Manager Peter Sherman sums it up nicely:
If you can prove that you are a true social influencer with a passion for the new universe of TV and video that Google TV will offer, Logitech may select you to become a Logitech host and pay you to spend time in one of their lofts in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. Your mission will be to host a bunch of parties, show off the technology, and spread the word through your social circles.
Naturally, YouTube is encouraging its users to nominate themselves.
NewTeeVee looks at a new report from iSuppli, which finds that Internet TV is more popular than 3-D TV. That could mean good things for Google and all of its Google TV launch partners.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:19:59 -0400
Apple Packs New Version of Safari with Extensions
Apple released the latest version of its Safari web browser today, version 5.0.1. The release comes with Safari Extensions and the Safari Extensions Gallery.
While extensions became available in Safari 5 lat month for developers, the gallery makes them available to users. A few organizations that have already created extensions for the browser include: Amazon, Bing, Major League Baseball, the New York Times, and Twitter.
"Millions of our customers already use Amazon Wish Lists to store items they want to buy for themselves or receive as gifts," said Gianna Puerini, VP of Worldwide Design and Community at Amazon.com. "With Safari 5, we were able to quickly build the Add to Amazon Wish List extension that lets customers add items from any website to their Amazon Wish List with the click of a button."
Jeff Henshaw, general manager of Bing's User Experience says, "The Bing Extension for Safari brings Bing search intelligence to everyday browsing with Safari. When a user selects text in Safari, Bing instantly recognizes what they might need and pops up helpful, informative tips, from real time maps and driving directions to real time translations to direct web search results."
"Our extension for Safari is a great way for readers to get all of the latest breaking news and all the important stories, blogs and columns they want to see," says Denise Warren, general manager of NYTimes.com. "While you browse other sites in Safari, our extension checks for updates and slides in new headlines and thumbnails, so you won't miss a thing."
"Creating our Twitter extension in Safari couldn't have been easier," said Jason Goldman, vice president of Product at Twitter. "By providing features like the ability to tweet about a page and view trending topics, we've created a simple way to deliver relevant, interesting content to people regardless of where they are on the web."
You get the idea. Expect a lot of useful extensions.
Safari 5 is available for both Mac OS X and Windows as a free download here. The gallery can be viewed here.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:35:53 -0400
Google Wi-Fi Scandal Concerns Most Americans
A majority of Americans are concerned about Google's Street View cars that collected private information from their Wi-Fi networks and want better privacy protections put in place, according to a new poll from Consumer Watchdog.
Overall, 74 percent of Americans view Google favorably, but 65 percent say the Wi-Fi scandal is one of the things that "worries them most" or a "great deal" with another 20 percent saying it "raises some concern" when considering online issues.
Google's cooperation with the National Security Agency without saying what information is being shared. Even more people are calling for Congressional hearings on "Google's gathering data from home WiFi networks and its sharing of information with U.S. spy agencies like the National Security Administration, the NSA" (69% favor, 19% oppose).
"This poll shows that the Wi-Spy scandal is a political minefield for both Google and Congress, and it has the power to scar both," said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the group.
"The company and the government need to come clean about how Google is cooperating with NSA."
The majority (90%) of consumers support more laws that protect the privacy of their online personal information. Among these, 67 percent say it is "very important" and there is not much difference based on age. Consumers under 50, including those ages 18-29, are just as likely to say more privacy laws are needed as those over the age of 70.
A "make me anonymous button" is favored by 86 percent of consumers, followed by preventing online companies from tracking personal information or web searches without their approval (84%).
"It's time for Congress to act on these issues and for Google and the government to deliver real privacy protections like a make me anonymous button or a do not track list," said Simpson.
"These privacy protections are ripe for ballot initiatives in states like California if Congress and statehouses won't act."
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:29:19 -0400
Adobe to Acquire Day Software for $240 Million
Adobe announced today that it has entered an agreement to acquire Day Software, a content management software company. Adobe has launched a public tender offer to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of the company for about $240 million.
Adobe says the purchase would strengthen its enterprise software solutions, and allow it to help organizations create, manage, distribute, and monetize content while optimizing the web experience for their customers. Day Software users will be able to leverage Adobe's AIR, Flash, Flex, LiveCycle and PDF technologies.
"Adobe's acquisition of Day represents a key milestone in our efforts toward delivering best-in-class customer experience management solutions to enterprises and governments worldwide," says Rob Tarkoff, SVP and general manager of Adobe's Digital Enterprise Solutions. "With the addition of Day to our enterprise portfolio, we will be able to enhance the value of our offering and deliver on our vision of the web as the hub of customer interaction."
"Organizations around the globe have recognized the importance of the online and mobile channel and turned to Day as their enterprise standard for next generation Web Content Management," adds Day Software CEO Erik Hansen. "We are excited to join Adobe and combine our expertise in WCM with technologies that create and deliver rich online and offline experiences leveraging the ubiquity of Flash and PDF. We believe this is a winning combination for both Adobe and Day customers."
Day will operate as a product line within Adobe's Digital Enterprise Solutions Business Unit. Hansen will join Adobe, reporting directly to Tarkoff. Day provides more info on the acquisition.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:01:47 -0400
LinkedIn Now A Place to Seek Legal Insight Related to Your Industry
LinkedIn has been spotlighting some new apps that third-parties have been building for the professional social network. For one, they shared Creative Portfolio Display developed by Behance. They are also sharing Legal Updates.
Legal Updates was launched last week, and provides LinkedIn users with legal news and commentary related to their industry. It also provides connections to appropriate lawyers.
Aviva Cuyler, CEO of JD Supra, the creators of the App, says it was designed to benefit two groups: lawyers and professionals who look to LinkedIn for insight.
The app provides a custom feed of legal updates, a browsable, searchable archive of legal information directly within LinkedIn, and for lawyers, distribution and meaningful connections.
Cuyler talks more about the app in this post.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:44:27 -0400
LinkedIn Gets an App to Display Portfolios
There is a new LinkedIn app called Creative Portfolio Display. The app lets users in creative industries like advertising, fashion, design, architecture, film, photography, and digital media, access tools to manage and showcase their portfolios.
"Personal websites don’t adequately broadcast your work for discovery by industry peers and top companies and neither is it tied to your professional identity on the web," says Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, which created the LinkedIn app. "Plus, keeping your work samples up to date on multiple websites is inefficient, resulting in portfolios becoming outdated and forgotten."
That's where LinkedIn Creative Portfolio Display comes in. Belsky lists the following key features:
- From one central portfolio, your work can be displayed within LinkedIn, Behance.net, AIGA, MTV, and other networks/galleries around the web.
- The Behance Network is a free service, allowing you to host an unlimited number of multimedia projects that include still images, video reels, text, and/or audio samples.
- Creative Portfolio Display seamlessly syncs with your free Behance.net account; Create a new portfolio project on Behance.net, and it instantly appears on LinkedIn and our other partner platforms.
This may prove to be an invaluable tool for LinkedIn users. The professional social network already plays a huge role in job hunting and recruiting, and this should aid many of those seeking candidates and employers in making important decisions.
This is going to be a big app for LinkedIn.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:16:22 -0400
Is Google Trends the BP to Google News' Gulf of Mexico?
Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan points out how poorly Google handles those gaming Google News, using Google Trends as a starting point.
Do you find Google News to be too heavily polluted? Share your thoughts.
He found a blatant example when the term "chocomize" became listed as "volcanic" on Google Trends. When clicking for the results, he found several sites serving Google ads that presumably only created posts about the term because it was trending (as a way to get some easy traffic, and potentially ad clicks). In fact, some examples came from sites that were clearly aimed at entirely different niches, such as a horror movies site and a TV/Anime site. The biggest problem from the user's perspective is that there was nothing immediately indicating why the term was trending.
The real reason the term was trending was apparently because CNN ran a story earlier in the day about a company called Chocomize that makes custom candy bars (a pretty cool concept, I have to say), but when looking at the Google News results, Sullivan had to really dig to find that story.
"The pollution within Google News is ridiculous," Sullivan says. "This is Google, where we’re supposed to have the gold standard of search quality. Instead, we get 'news' sites that have been admitted — after meeting specific editorial criteria — just jumping on the Google Trends bandwagon, outranking the actual article causing the term 'chocomize' to be popular, polluting the news results and along the way, earning Google some cash."
Earning Google some cash indeed. There is no doubt that this goes on all the time, specifically with AdSense sites. Interestingly, in a story grouped with Sullivan's on TechMeme, the Wall Street Journal has some words from Eric Schmidt talking about Google's famous "one trick pony". Schmidt is quoted as saying, "But if you've got a one-trick pony, you want the one we have. We're in the ad business, and it's growing rapidly. We picked the right trick." The piece goes on to talk about how that trick is going to pay off greatly in the mobile space as well, as more and more people gravitate to the Android operating system.
Schmidt has said in the past, as Sullivan reminds us, that the Internet is a cesspool (referring to an excess of useless content). So, to be fair, Schmidt doesn't come across as being very enthusiastic about the sites that take advantage of Google Trends to game Google News. Still, there is money to be made, and if sites meet the criteria of what it takes to get into Google News, there's a fine line Google has to walk, regardless.
Can it all be so simple?
Sullivan says, “It shouldn’t be that hard for Google to police what shows up in response to what it publishes on Google Trends. Spam sites ought to be nabbed. AdSense sites ought to be shut down. News publishers abusing the very lucky position they have of being in Google News, by routinely tapping into Google Trends topics that aren’t relevant to their publications, should get the boot.”
While I greatly respect Sullivan, and value his analysis and opinions, I’m not sure it’s as simple as that. We've all seen how the mainstream media sites turn to blogs to get their stories (sometimes without giving credit or links), just as the sites in question appear to have done with CNN. We spoke with Sullivan about this not too long ago after he became a victim of such a scenario.
It's hard to say that just because you use Google ads, you should be penalized. That's not to say there isn't an issue, but while there may be plenty of “garbage sites” there are some pretty highly respected publications that serve ads by Google. The horror movie blog pointed to, does appear to generally offer horror movie related news (while crediting sources), based on a quick glance of its most recent content. But if the Chocomize story on that blog doesn't credit its source, that is a problem. Maybe this is a “garbage” site, maybe it’s not. From Google's standpoint, determining that can’t be easy in all cases.
Looking beyond the credit issue for a moment, when it comes to topic-spam, who’s to say what a publication would find of interest to its audience? I’m not sure that I agree that a blog mainly focused on horror movies, for example, should not be able to blog about chocolate or another off-topic subject every now and then. That’s up to the publication and whether they want to risk alienating their own audience, if you ask me. Again, I’m not saying Sullivan is wrong about this particular site’s practices. I’m just looking at the bigger picture.
Maybe Google could do more to look at story sources, but that's got to be a difficult task across all publications, and there would no doubt be plenty of room for debate between publications about who broke a story first.
I'm not saying this is what happened either, but hypothetically, what if the horror movies blog actually talked to the Chocomize people first and had the story first, and CNN just happened to find it and find it newsworthy themselves, and do their own piece. Now, that's an unlikely scenario in this particular example, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility in other examples, such as the one Sullivan experienced recently himself.
Regardless of that even, it's hard to say "you can't have content about this topic because we posted it as a trending topic."
There is clearly a problem with Google Trends. Sullivan is right in that the result doesn't help explain why the topic was trending. He's also right in that the original source (CNN) should be more visible. However, cleaning up the "pollution" might not be such an easy problem to conquer. It’s hard to say if Google is allowing such pollution to go on so it can make more money or if the problem is just too difficult for the search giant. It could be a combination of the two.
What do you think? Comment here.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:12:47 -0400
Rumor: Facebook May Get Hands On Hot Potato
Facebook's hit all sorts of growth records in the last month or so, with its private stock reaching an all-time high ($65 per share) and its user count topping the 500 million mark. Now, it looks like the organization may expand in another way, as a rumor has it ready to acquire Hot Potato.
Hot Potato is a check-in service that takes possibilities other than physical locations into account. Users can, for example, say they're listening to a particular song or reading a certain novel, not just check in at a concert or a bookstore.
Other notable details include the fact that Hot Potato has an iPhone app, and it's also able to repost users' updates to sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.
So back to the acquisition rumor. MG Siegler wrote, "We're hearing from sources close to the deal that Facebook is in late stage negotiations to buy Hot Potato, the social activity service. The deal is not yet finalized from what we're hearing, but could be at any moment."
Siegler later continued, "Hot Potato raised a small $1.42 million Series A round late last year, so it should not be too expensive for Facebook to buy such a company."
As always, we'll be sure to report any updates if things become official.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:49:29 -0400
Women Are Highly Engaged Social Networking Users
Social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women then men globally, with 75.8 percent of all women online visiting a social networking site in May compared to 69.7 percent of men, according to a new report from comScore.
"Understanding gender-specific differences in Web usage is valuable to any digital stakeholder looking to successfully reach and engage both women and men in the online environment," said Linda Boland Abraham, comScore chief marketing officer and executive vice president for global development.
"We have seen that women across the globe share some similar usage patterns online, such as strong engagement with social networking sites, but it's also important to understand gender differences on a regional, country and local level, where cultural differences are continually shaping online usage and content consumption."
Worldwide, women have higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men. Women represent 47.9 percent of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they view 57 percent of pages and account for 56.6 percent of total minutes spent on these sites. Women spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men's 3.9 hours, revealing the strong engagement women across the globe share with social sites.
Across each global region, Social Networking reached a higher percentage of women online than men. Social networking's reach among women is highest in Latin America where it reached 94.1 percent of females online, and in North America where it reached 91.0 percent of females. Europe saw 85.6 percent of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010, while in Asia Pacific, where parts of the region still face low broadband penetration and site restrictions, reported a 54.9-percent reach.
Other highlights from the report include:
*Although men are in the majority across the global Internet, women spend about 8 percent more time online, averaging 25 hours per month on the Web.
*Globally, women spend 20 percent more time on Retail sites overall than men. Among the various retail sub-categories, Comparison Shopping and Apparel sites reached the highest percentage of women at 24.8 percent and 18.7 percent, respectively, in May 2010.
*In the U.S., women are more avid online buyers than men, with 12.5 percent of female Internet users making an online purchase in February 2010, compared to 9.3 percent of men.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:39:00 -0400
Google to Use Games in Battle with Facebook?
Google has been expected to get into gaming for sometime, but now it looks like the wheels are really in motion. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is in talks with Playdom, EA's Playfish, and Zynga.
Google was recently reported to have invested a significant amount of money into Zynga, and CEO Eric Schmidt told the WSJ to expect a partnership with the game company. Yesterday, Disney announced that it has agreed to acquire Playdom.
Any efforts in gaming that Google is making are expected to be part of the broader social networking service the company is rumored to be working on (often referred to as "Google Me"). Google Me is supposed to be Google's answer to Facebook, though Schmidt told the WSJ, "the world doesn't need a copy of the same thing." Interestingly, Schmidt also said, "Facebook users use more Google products than any other users."
Gaming isn't the only factor in Facebook's success, but it is certainly a factor. Hitwise recently pointed out the status of the "games" category when it comes to downstream traffic from Google:
ImageCredit: Hitwise
It makes perfect sense that Google would go after gaming. Integration with Google's "social network" would have implications for a number of other Google products. For example, as the WSJ suggests, Google Checkout could be heavily involved (in terms of virtual goods payments). Obviously Google has numerous advertising options that could come into play. Google accounts in general could get a boost (YouTube users will also be required to have one). Google profiles, which have become more heavily featured in search results.
On a related note, Bing has also introduced some new games.
Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:16:34 -0400
Meet the New Ask.com
We've known that Ask has been working on a new version of Ask.com for months, but now it's here. Ask is placing new emphasis on the Q&A side of search, and is injecting the Q&A experience directly into the main search experience, which is what SVP of Product Management Tony Gentile tells WebProNews, sets the new Ask apart from other Q&A sites.
He says they've taken a hybrid approach, utilizing existing partnerships and new technology that's been refined over the last six to nine months, to build a new social Q&A experience that's built directly into Ask's search capabilities. When Ask doesn't immediately give you an answer (or the right answer), you can simply ask "the community."
We asked Gentile to tell us a little about who this community is. Initially, he says, they are using their existing employee base across IAC companies in a private beta. These employees are encouraged to invite their own families and friends to participate. Some journalists have been invited as well. Eventually this will expand. He says they will also implement technologies like Facebook Connect, Twitter, LinkedIn, OAuth, etc. to get users to bring in people from their own networks.
Also as a result of the social media aspect, he says profiles can lend credibility to answers. For example, if you answer a question and your LinkedIn profile is attached to it, that can show your experience in a field related to a question you have answered.
This is where the new Ask.com comes in as a potentially useful tool for businesses. Businesses may want to answer questions about products, and even create relationships with potential customers. An interesting nugget Gentile shared is that in analyzing the questions Ask receives, the majority of them are either related to "how do I spend my time?" or "how do I spend my money?"
Ask has the ability to work at the local level, as well. Gentile says they have the ability to analyze questions of both an implicit and an explicit local nature. For example, if someone asks, "what's the best burrito shop in San Francisco?", that's clearly a local question, and they can route it accordingly to people in and who have visited San Francisco.
Another type of local question, however, is something like "who's a babysitter I can trust?" That's also a local question, but it doesn't name a specific city. Ask says it has the ability to figure it out, and again, route accordingly. It calls upon signals in the user profiles. If a user gives permission, they will use location.
Here are the main features of the new Ask.com (as described by the company):
- Proprietary semantic search technologies: Finds the most relevant, quality answers across the Web, and displays them at the top of the page. No click-throughs required.
- The largest Q&A database on the Web: More than 500 million questions and answers indexed, and the ability to quickly extract Q&A pairs from hundreds of thousands of sources.
- Ask.com community: Leverages proprietary search categorization to route questions and solicit high-quality answers from community members based on their interests and areas of knowledge.
- New user interface: Improved UI makes it easy to ask and answer questions, highlights advancing and trending questions from the Ask community throughout the site.
"Ask's heritage has always been about answering questions – in fact, more people associate Ask with answering questions than any other brand in the world," says Ask.com U.S. President Doug Leeds. "As users continue to embrace the social Web, now is the perfect time to extend Ask’s technology beyond finding pages that have answers to finding people who do as well. With 87 million monthly users and more than a decade of Q&A experience, Ask.com is uniquely positioned to answer the long tail of questions that are impossible for search engines alone to address."
It's worth noting that Google purchased Aardvark not too long ago, which also calls upon a community to answer questions, but the company's plans for the service are still somewhat unclear. It remains to be seen if that will become fully integrated with the search engine.
"As the Web becomes more conversational in nature, consumer expectations and the Web’s ability to meet those expectations are changing rapidly. It has become natural for people to ask questions and receive answers online, and algorithmic search alone can only take that proposition so far,” says Allen Weiner, Research VP, Media Industry, Gartner Research. "There is a huge market opportunity for companies who can get this right."
While they don't have any specific announcements yet, Ask has a roadmap for new directions in which they plan to take the new Ask.com, in terms of social and mobile. These could be key elements in just how successful this relaunch is.
Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:10:05 -0400
Bing Introduces Seven New Casual Games
Bing may have been launched as a "decision engine," but Microsoft's now trying to make sure it's a site where people will spend a fair amount of time. And to that end, Microsoft added seven new games to what it called the "Bing entertainment browser" this afternoon.
The seven games are of the casual variety. Think checkers (or FarmVille), not chess (or Starcraft II), in other words, meaning they'll be accessible to all sorts of individuals.
Otherwise, one important fact is that the games are free to play. Also, as you may have gathered from the screenshot below, it's possible for players to sign in using their Facebook accounts, and then see real-time feeds of how their friends are doing. Plus show off their own scores.
That Facebook tie-in represents a clever move on Microsoft's part, since it adds an extra dimension to these simple games. The social/competitive nature of many people is what motivates them to play games of any sort, too.
Anyway, the games are named Belle's Beauty Boutique, Carniball, 8 Ball Champion, Fishdom Spooky Splash, Gardenscapes, Jigsaw, and Pyramid Solitaire, and Bing's made sure searches will turn them up as the first result.
Here's hoping you find something you like if you devote your next break or lunch hour to sifting through them.
Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:25:17 -0400
Disney Acquires Social Gaming Company Playdom
Last week, rumors surfaced that Disney was in late stage acquisition talks with social game company Playdom. Today, Disney has announced that it has indeed agreed to acquire it.
Playdom shareholders will receive total consideration of $563.2 million, subject to certain conditions, and a performance-linked earn-out of up to $200 million.
"We see strong growth potential in bringing together Playdom’s talented team and capabilities with our great creative properties, people and world-renowned brands like Disney, ABC, ESPN and Marvel.” said Robert A. Iger, President and CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
"This acquisition furthers our strategy of allocating capital to high-growth businesses that can benefit from our many characters, stories and brands, delivering them in a creatively compelling way to a new generation of fans on the platforms they prefer," Iger added.
"We are at the start of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way people of all ages play games with their friends across devices, platforms and geographical boundaries," said Playdom CEO John Pleasants. “Disney is an incredibly forward-thinking company that shares our vision and is the ideal partner to further our mission to bring great entertainment to people around the world."
Disney says the acquisition will help strength its digital gaming portfolio, acquire a "fist-rate" management team, and provide consumers with new ways to interact with the company on social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:18:16 -0400
Android Developers Get New Licensing Service
Google has announced the release of a licensing service for Android apps in the Android Market. Android's Eric Chu says this comes as the result of feedback from developers who want better protection against unauthorized use of their apps.
"This simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications targeting Android 1.5 or higher," says Chu. "At run time, with the inclusion of a set of libraries provided by us, your application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records."
"This licensing service operating real time over the network provides more flexibility in choosing license-enforcement strategies, and a more secure approach in protecting your applications from unauthorized use, than copy protection."
Google will replace the current Android Market's copy-protection mechanism with the new service. More info is available at the help center.
Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:39:04 -0400
Amazon Launches Potentially Powerful Facebook Integration
Amazon has launched a new feature in beta, which lets you tap into your Facebook network. The feature says it lets you, "Connect to Facebook to get Amazon recommendations for you and discover your friends' Favorites and Likes".
TechCrunch's Leena Rao shows a screenshot which says connecting Amazon and Facebook lets you:
- discover Amazon Recommendations for movies, musick, and mroe based on your Facebook profile
- See upcoming birthdays and find your Facebook friends' Amazon Wish Lists more easily
- Get gift suggestions for your friends based on their Facebook profiles.
- Explore your friends' profiles and see who has similar interests.
Amazon also makes it clear that your personal data will not be shared with Facebook. That includes account information, purchase history, and the company will not attempt to contact your Facebook friends.
Of course that doesn't stop people from complaining about privacy. See the comments on this post on the Amazon integration on the Facebook Platform Page.
Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:08:30 -0400
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