Tagged.com Sued By NY AG

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:21:20 -0400

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced today that his office intends to sue social networking site Tagged for deceptive email marking practices and invasion of privacy.

Cuomo charges Tagged created an illegal plan to lure new members and artificially inflate traffic on its site. Users who visited Tagged were tricked into providing the company with access to their personal email contacts, which the company used to send millions of promotional emails. Tagged disguised the emails to make them look like they were coming from a personal contact, when they were actually spam.

Between April and June this year, Tagged sent millions of misleading emails to recipients stating that Tagged members had posted private photos online for their friends to view. In reality, the photos did not exist and the email was not from their friends. When the recipients tried to access the photos, they were required to become a new member of Tagged. The company would then gain access to their email contacts and send more bogus invitations.

Andrew Cuomo

"This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people," said Attorney General Cuomo. "Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their email contacts for Tagged's unethical - and illegal - behavior."

"This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books, and sending phony mail to all of an individual's personal contacts. We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online."

The goal of the lawsuit is to stop Tagged from sending out spam and would seek fines from the company. The company temporarily suspended its spam campaign in June due to users complaints, but it had already sent over 60 million emails worldwide.

Search Bing From Hotmail Inbox to Insert Content

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:54:45 -0400

Microsoft announced today that Bing has been added to Windows Live Hotmail's quick add feature, which itself was announced back in February. This means Hotmail users can easily search Bing for items to insert into email messages.

Users can each for maps, restaurants, movie times, images, videos and business listings from their inboxes. They can also preview and insert videos and images from the web.

To use the feature:

1. Click New to create a new e-mail message.

2. Select a category from the Quick add pane on the right.

3. Type what you want to find in the Bing search box.

4. Click Insert on the Bing search result that you’d like to add to your message

Sounds easy enough right? It makes sense that Microsoft would integrate Bing into Hotmail this way. The Live.com domain already has more unique visitors than Bing (although that is on pace to change before long). Hotmail is likely a good part of the reason for that.

MySpace, Bebo Not For Sale

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:43:51 -0400

It looks like two significant social networks aren't going to change hands anytime soon. Executives representing News Corp and AOL have, with different degrees of forcefulness, expressed their intentions to retain possession of MySpace and Bebo, respectively.

Rupert Murdoch took the more blunt (and amusing) approach. While at the Sun Valley media conference, he was asked about selling MySpace. According to Reuters, the 78-year-old chairman and CEO responded, "Hell, no."

So, although this shouldn't come as a real surprise, it looks like News Corp isn't letting Facebook's success get to it too much.

As for AOL and Bebo, the $850 million acquisition that transpired between them has garnered criticism from the beginning, and many people thought that the Time Warner-AOL split would lead to Bebo's (re)sale.

But that's apparently not happening, either, since AOL CEO Tim Armstrong "told Reuters on Thursday that Bebo still has 'great value' and that it will be moved to a Ventures unit of the online company so that work can be done to improve the site."

Unless Facebook goes public or somebody finally buys Twitter, then, the social networking world should stay pretty much the same for a while.

Third-Party Twitter Business Platform Raises $1.1 Million

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:45:11 -0400

CoTweet is a Twitter app, which is described as a real-time business collaboration platform for Twitter. It has also just raised $1.1 million in venture funding.

The funding comes from Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments and Freestyle Capital. CoTweet is used by brands like Whole Foods, Starbucks, Microsoft, JetBlue, Ford, Pepsi, Sprint, and Coca-Cola.

"Social media properties like Twitter give consumers incredible power to shape public perceptions of brands," said Steve Anderson, Founder of Baseline Ventures, who led the round and will join CoTweet’s Board of Directors. "CoTweet gives companies and their brands a set of tools to directly engage consumers and forge stronger bonds with them on the social networks they belong to, starting with Twitter."

Co-Tweet says companies can use its platform to:

- Engage people throughout your company — Share the job of being on duty. Tap the collective wisdom of people across functional areas like marketing, PR and customer service. Assign tasks and track follow-ups.

- Focus on the conversations that matter — Know when you need to jump in. Track your exchanges through simple case management. Schedule updates to make company announcements.

- Keep your brand human — Automatically include signatures in your updates to identify who's talking and keep conversations personal.

"Social networks, including Twitter, have ushered in a new era of social CRM for businesses," said Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet. "We’re thrilled have such a prestigious roster of financial backers, whose background in this space gives us a distinct advantage in setting a course for continued success."

It will be interesting to see where the new funding takes CoTweet. Recently, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone discussed the use of the word "Tweet," with regards to Twitter's copyright.

"We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of 'going after' the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter," he said. "In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important."

According to CoTweet's press release, Twitter is actually among the companies that use CoTweet, so I guess they're safe.

Teen Charged In Internet Bomb Threat Case

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:19:49 -0400

A 16-year old North Carolina teen has been indicted by federal prosecutors on three counts for his role in making false bomb threats via the Internet to Purdue University and a number of other colleges and high schools around the country.

The FBI arrested Ashton Lundeby, at his home in Oxford, North Carolina on March 6, 2009 and he has been detained and remains in federal custody.

David Capp

U.S. attorney David Capp, of the Northern District of Indiana, filed a motion to prosecute Lundeby as an adult and a federal judge granted that motion.

The indictment alleges an extensive conspiracy involving Lundeby and unnamed other individuals to transmit bomb threats via the Internet. Lundeby, often using the pseudonym "Tyrone," and his co-conspirators used Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software to set up large-scale conference calls on the Internet.

In addition, online computer gaming accounts were used so participants could listen and watch the police response in real-time. Lundeby and his associates charged fees to listen and observe. They also used other software to disguise their identities and the origins of the calls.

Lundeby and others would often target institutions that used Web-based surveillance cameras. They would log into those cameras, call in a bomb threat, and watch the police response in real-time.

The indictment also alleges "that as part of the conspiracy conspirators offered, for a nominal fee, to make bomb threat calls - often to high schools - to cause closures."

"This type of activity on the Internet will not be tolerated. No matter where you are located, conduct like this will be thoroughly investigated and, where appropriate, presented for indictment," said U.S. Attorney Capp.

Lundeby will be arraigned before Magistrate Judge Nuechterlein on Friday, July 10. The specific sentence in each case to be imposed upon conviction will be determined by the judge.

Google Maps Receives Two Useful Upgrades

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:06:55 -0400

Google Maps just keeps getting more interesting. Today, two fresh features came to light, and together, they'll make it a lot easier for users to get their bearings in unfamiliar territory and plan multiple-stop outings wherever they may be.

Let's start with My Location. For some time, this feature has allowed mobile users of Google Maps to have a small blue circle automatically show their location. But now it's come to the regular version of Google Maps, so people with laptops who move around (or people who somehow wind up in front of unfamiliar desktops) can more easily determine their position and what's around them.

Note: We couldn't get My Location to work, but a post on the LatLong Blog states, "Currently, you can use My Location in Google Maps if you use Google Chrome, Firefox 3.5 or any other web browser with Gears installed. We hope to support other browsers soon too."

Then there's an apparently as-yet-unnamed feature (found by Alex Chitu) that allows users to overlay different maps from their recent search history. Efficiency experts should love it; if, for example, you want to get coffee, go shopping, see a movie, and grab pizza on the way home, you can search for all four different things, check a few boxes, and easily figure out waste the least amount of gas and time.

So if you're doing a bit of traveling or just trying to save yourself some trouble, head over to Google Maps and check out the new offerings.

Tweet As the Real Twitterers Do

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:53:08 -0400

Some people tweet a lot. I follow a good deal of them. Sometimes excessive tweeting can include plenty of wisdom. Often times, however, it is just annoying. Chances are that if you follow somebody, you do care what they have to say, at least to some extent. If they tweet too much though, you may find yourself caring less, and you may even decide to unfollow them. Do you unfollow people who tweet too much? Tell us.

Excessive tweeting is at the root of more than one of Twitter's problems.

The Retention Problem

Twitter has been known to have trouble with user retention. People sign up and abandon their accounts. A common complaint about Twitter is that it contains too much "noise." In other words, there are too many random tweets that nobody cares about.

I've always found it a bit naive to assume that just because you find a tweet useless, it is useless to everybody. I've long considered that you control who you follow, so if you don't like somebody's tweeting, you have the power to stop following them.

This is still true, but perhaps it is more complex than that. I may want to follow @soandso (I'm only using this as an example) because I know that they will say things that I need to know sometimes, but @soandso may also flood my Twitter stream with useless conversation that I have no interest in - noise.

If that noise gets to become to much of an issue, I will likely end up deciding to unfolllow @soandso anyway, and try to obtain the info from somewhere else - somewhere that is less annoying.

The lesson here (from the business perspective) is that if you want to keep followers, you should probably limit your tweeting. That's not to say that every Tweet has to be incredibly important. Just think before you Tweet, and keep your audience in mind.

The Capacity Problem

By tweeting too frequently, you may actually be hurting Twitter's accessibility. Interestingly enough, while I was researching this article, I encountered the "Twitter is over capacity" error message a couple times (one with and one without the Fail Whale), which if you'll notice in the illustrations below, is accompanied by "Too many Tweets! Please wait a moment and try again."

If Twitter's not operating properly, it's not going to do anybody any good until it comes back. If you're tweeting too much, you're contributing to the problem. Twitter does limit the number of tweets you post in a day.

"We do cap the number of updates a user can make in a 24 hour period, whether via the API or any other input method (web, mobile, etc.)," said Alex Payne, Twitter's API Lead in a Google Groups conversation back in January. "Right now, that number is 1000, but it's subject to change at any time. "

I am awaiting confirmation on whether or not this is still the number, but whether it has changed or not, Twitter may reduce it more still, considering the capacity issue. If Twitter wants to keep growing, this has to be a turn off (despite all of the charm of the Fail Whale).

Tweet How the Real Twitterers Tweet

I thought it would be interesting to see how frequently the people who actually run Twitter tweet themselves. As far as I can tell, the frequency isn't too high. They tweet often, but not excessively. I browsed the last month or so worth of tweets from the following list of Twitter staffers (hat tip to Twittercism who has a huge list of Twitterers), and they all pretty much kept it to 20 tweets a day or less (5 or less or 3 or less in some cases, most were under 10).

10 of the People Behind Twitter

1. Evan Williams (@ev) - Twitter CEO

2. Biz Stone (@biz) Twitter Co-founder

3. Abdur Chowdhury (@abdur) - Twitter's "Chief Scientist"

4. Alex Payne (@al3x) - Twitter's API Lead

5. Crystal (@crystal) - leads twitter support team

6. Eric Jensen (@ej) - Co-founded Summize (Twitter Search) - search and text mining technologist

7. Greg Pass (@gregpass) - Director of Engineering and Ops

8. Jason Goldman (@goldman) - Director of product strategy

9. John Adams (@netik) - operations engineer

10. Rudy Winnacker (@ronpepsi) - operations engineer

I have to wonder if Twitter employees have a limit in place for themselves. Of course they know what happens when there are too many tweets. No point in creating more work for yourself.

Can You Tweet Too Little?

Depending on what your goals are for using Twitter, I would say that it is possible to tweet too little. If you are using it for business purposes, then a lack of updates could reflect poorly on your effort to stay in touch with your followers.

As long as you're not completely dead on Twitter for months at a time, you'll probably be ok though. In fact, I don't consider myself a very frequent tweeter. There is just as much (if not more) to gain from Twitter by absorbing the content that is coming in, than there is by pushing content out.

The Moral of the Story

Your Twitter frequency should be dictated by you goals. That said, you do not want to overdo it. You may lose followers from a lack of updating, but I would think you would be more likely to lose them when you update too much. Use moderation. Use other channels of communication when applicable. Use direct messages for one on one conversation.

What are your thoughts on overtweeting? Undertweeting? Discuss with WebProNews readers.

Bing's Growth Almost Back to Live.com Numbers

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:25:47 -0400

I think it's safe to say that the initial boost from the Bing launch is pretty much over, but as that pricey marketing campaign continues to run on televisions around the country, the number of unique Bing visitors (according to Compete) is rising steadily.

In only a month's time, Bing managed to jump up to more unique visitors than Digg, Twitter and CNN, as Mashable points out. Not bad considering it's only a month old and Twitter has been building its hype for a couple years.

However, you have to keep in mind that Live.com did already have some users, and that it's unique visitors were already well over those of Twitter. Live.com of course began redirecting to Bing when it launched.

Compete's data actually still shows Live.com as having more unique visitors, so apparently there are enough people out there still going to Live.com instead of Bing.com to make you wonder how effective this marketing really has been so far (though as Mashable notes, Microsoft does have other services, like hotmail, still running on the Live domain).

The Live.com and Bing.com lines are clearly well on their way to intersecting, but if Compete's numbers are accurate (as of 06/20 at least), Bing still has a bit to go just to get back to Live.com numbers. Where it goes from there will be where things really get interesting. Will that Bing line continue to rise so steadily?

Broadband Speeds Increase Worldwide

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:37:54 -0400

The United States and China were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for nearly 50 percent of total traffic, according to Akamai's first quarter State of the Internet report.

The top 10 portals saw about 90 percent of the attack traffic, with more than two-thirds of the traffic likely related to the Conficker worm.

In the first quarter, one-fifth of the Internet connections around the globe were at speeds higher than 5Mbps, a 5 percent increase from the prior quarter, and nearly a 30 percent increase over the same period last year. Worldwide, the average connection speed increased by about 11 percent, growing to 1.7 Mbps, and more than 120 countries had connection speeds under Mbps.

From a global connection speed perspective, Japan surpassed South Korea for the highest levels of broadband connectivity, though South Korea maintained the highest average connection speed, at 11 Mbps.

For the first time since publishing the State of the Internet report in the first quarter of 2008, South Korea no longer had the largest percentage of connections to Akamai at speeds above 5Mbps, with a 25 percent decline. The first place spot was taken by Japan, with 57 percent of connections to Akamai at high-speed broadband levels.

Continuing a trend started in 2008, the East Coast of the United States continued to lead the country in the greatest level of broadband connectivity, with 8 of the top 10 states on the list.

Delaware maintained its top 10 position, with 62 percent of connections at 5Mbps or greater, and the highest average connection speed in the United States, at 7.2 Mbps. Maine has nearly quadrupled its percentage of high speed broadband connection to Akamai since the first quarter of 2008.

Fake Chrome OS Screenshots Punk Tech Media

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:12:49 -0400

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that Google announced that it would be releasing a new operating system called Google Chrome OS this week. One mysterious blog entry popped up soon after, claiming to have snagged some screenshots of the OS as Google demoed the product to Acer.

Here's an excerpt from that post:

Hi there. I work for a company (Sorry to be secretive, but what I am about to post could get me in big trouble) that supplies parts for Acer laptops. Today, a Google Rep visited the Acer team to install and quickly show off some of the features of the Google OS in development.

I was invited by Acer to come and view the demo.

I can say and give only what I know and have.

...

After roughly 12 hours, the person who posted this posted the following video, pretty much laughing at the tech media industry for jumping on board and linking to the screenshots.

The video lists all of the sites that linked to it, and shows all of the diggs and tweets that got these fake screenshots a nice bit of attention. To be fair though, at least some of the publications/blogs that mentioned the screenshots were quick to acknowledge that they could indeed be fakes.

It is interesting to see how quickly false information can spread though, and that is clearly the point this person was trying to make. What do you think of his/her little prank? Share your thoughts.

Meanwhile, Google has released some more details about Chrome OS.

New Way to Watch and Broadcast Video from Facebook

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:40:05 -0400

Popular video streaming site Justin.tv has launched a new Facebook app that allows users to watch live video right from Facebook. The app is simply called "Live."

This is not the first Facebook app to do this, but this one is free for anyone to use and does not require any registration or approval.

"There have been a couple of live video apps launched on Facebook since they added the capabilities in their API, but we didn't think they were really a good fit for the majority of users," Evan Solomon, Justin.tv VP Marketing tells WebProNews. "Ustream requires a signup and approval process, so when the urge to broadcast live on Facebook strikes, you better hope it lasts. We think speed of setup is a killer feature on an app like this, so we made it open for anyone to use instantly."

Justin.tv's app comes with two main functions: Watching and broadcasting. While watching, you can also chat with other viewers and post status updates to your Facebook profile. The app shows live channels, and if you have Facebook friends that are broadcasting, they will show up first in the line-up. After friends, the app looks for anyone in your networks, and fills the rest in with content from the Justin.tv site.

You can also broadcast live from within Facebook and let your friends know at your convenience. You can see the live chat along with the broadcast window, and talk with viewers.

"Stickam charges users $0.45/gig of bandwidth for an ad-free version," says Solomon. "The truth is that almost no one cares about having ads on their content these days."

For those that do care, however, they still offer a solution. "Ustream offered a customized, ad-free app for a $15,000 signup fee and over $800/month," says Solomon. "We think that is nuts. If anyone wants a customized version of the app to include branding/remove ads, they can contact Justin.tv here."

Here is an example of a customized app:

"What people do care a ton about is paying for things they think should be free," says Solomon. "Especially when they have to pay based on something [like] bandwidth, that very few people have a good understanding of. We don't charge anyone to broadcast on Justin.tv, so we're not charging anyone to broadcast with our Facebook app either."

I would imagine that Justin.tv's Facebook app will be nearly as popular as Justin.tv itself, if not more so. Facebook is growing tremendously (it's almost catching Google in unique visitors). The app could open up Justin.tv to a lot of people that weren't already familiar with it.

Google Image Search Acknowledges Usage Rights

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:52:43 -0400

Google Image Search has caught up to - and gone beyond - Yahoo's offering in the same arena. Users of Google Image Search can now filter results according to usage rights, meaning they can more easily determine what pictures can be reproduced without the creator objecting.

About a month and a half ago, Yahoo made a similar move, but the key drawback in that case is that Yahoo's Creative Commons license filter only returns results from Flickr. If someone wants a photo from elsewhere, they're still stuck reading the fine print or contacting the image's owners.

Google, for its part, has skipped any Picasa-only promotion and is letting users apply its four filter options - "labeled for reuse," "labeled for commercial reuse," "labeled for reuse with modification," and "labeled for commercial reuse with modification" - to everything on the Web.

And although this may seem like a minor edge, to people who spend a significant part of their day looking for pictures (think artists, designers, etc.), it's probably enough to make them pick Google Image Search over Yahoo Image Search again (assuming they ever made the switch in the first place).

Credit goes to Alex Chitu for noticing the change. It should be interesting to see if Yahoo responds in the near future.

Google Talks Online Child Safety

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:47:26 -0400

Google is part of the "PointSmart ClickSafe Task Force," which is an organization that was set up to help keep kids safe online. This week, the task force released its Recommendations for Best Practices for Online Safety and Literacy, which it has been working on for nearly a year.

"The most important and timely recommendation from the report (which previous online safety task forces all agree upon) is the need for digital media literacy and safety education that empowers kids, parents, and educators," says Google Policy Analyst Jennifer Marsh. "It's important that kids of all ages learn what it mean to be a digital citizen and how to navigate the online world safely, and it's equally important that parents and educators have the resources and online tools to help kids make the right choices online."

The guidelines discussed in the Task Force's document cover things like:

1. Education and information
2. Registration/creation of user profiles
3. Identify authentication and age verification
4. Content screening
5. Safe searching.

Google views its own role in the online safety as children as consisting of three primary elements.

"First, we empower families with powerful and innovative tools to create a safe experience online, like SafeSearch, community flagging tools, and granular privacy controls for our products," says Marsh. "Second, we partner with law enforcement and industry partners to stop illegal content and activity online -- we're especially proud of our work with NCMEC and the technology we provided them to fight child exploitation online. Third, we support educational efforts -- both Google and YouTube have developed online safety resources for parents and kids, including a Online Family Safety Guide, and we continue to work and support many of the non-profit organizations doing great work in this space including FOSI, NCMEC, Common Sense Media, and iKeepSafe."

Marsh says Google supports the SAFE Internet Act, which would establish a $175 million competitive grant program for state and local education agencies and nonprofit organizations to promote Internet safety education.

Google provides tips for online safety here. Of course there is more information at the Task Force's site.

Facebook Getting Very Close to Google

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:54:19 -0400

Back in March, WebProNews looked at how Facebook was driving more traffic to some websites than even Google was. While, that was certainly not the case for everybody, it was still fascinating to see.

We also looked at how the lines between Facebook and Google were getting closer together in terms of unique visitors. Well, it's July now, and they have gotten even closer. The latest data from Compete shows the numbers up until June 20. Compete has Google.com at 145,948,025 and Facebook.com at 122,559,672 on that date.

Luckily for Google, the lines getting closer together is not so much a product of people going to Google.com less. They're just going to Facebook.com more. It looks like Google use has remained relatively flat, as Facebook use just continues to grow tremendously.

For most sites, a lack of significant growth wouldn't be looked upon as incredibly favorable, but how much further can Google really go up in terms of search market share. Google is already so far ahead of the game, the company should be happy that it's not losing an incredible amount. Bing has edged up a bit since its launch, but it has a long way to go before it crowds Google.

The competition is there, and Google knows it, but even overlap between Google and Bing use has remained relatively steady since the initial Bing hype wore down.

But back to Google and Facebook. Google.com and Facebook.com serve very different purposes. People go to Google to find information. They go to Facebook to hang out. The threat to Google here is really more about what people are spending their online time doing. As it stands right now, it appears that people are just spending more time online in general (especially kids). This leaves plenty of room for Google searches and Facebook socializing.

Of course there are plenty of variables to consider as well. These are just two homepages. This doesn’t include search boxes in web browsers, things like Facebook Connect, or any other products from either company.

Amazon Launches Web Services Start-Up Challenge

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:45:45 -0400

Amazon.com has announced its third annual Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge, a contest for entrepreneurs and start-ups.

The winner of the contest will receive $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits, mentoring sessions, and premium gold support for one year. The winner may also receive an investment from Amazon.

All finalists will receive $5,000 in AWS credits and all qualified participants will receive $25 in AWS credits.

Adam Selipsky

Contestants will be judged on originality, potential and how their business uses the pay-as-you-go platform offered by AWS. The challenge is open to people in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Israel.

"In the three and a half years we've been operating these services, we've been blown away by the innovation we've seen from hundreds of thousands of customers in a wide range of industries. One of the things we look forward to all year is the creativity that comes from the contestants in this challenge," said Adam Selipsky, Vice President of Product Management and Developer Relations for Amazon Web Services.

"By opening up the contest to start-ups and entrepreneurs in other parts of the world where AWS is being rapidly adopted, we expect to see the most exciting competition to date."

Participants in the challenge are required to submit an online application form by August 26, 2009. Finalists will be announced in early October. Each finalist will be profiled in an online video on the AWS website where registered customers can vote for who they think is the best contestant.

In late October, the finalists will be flown to Silicon Valley to present their business ideas to a panel of AWS executives and participate in an event with an audience of start-ups. The winner will be announced that evening.

Google Shares More Chrome OS Details

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:28:25 -0400

The initial announcement about Google Chrome OS was, while exciting, extremely lacking in details. Now, Google's decided to share a bit more info, and the facts paint an interesting picture about the state of the operating system's development.

Is it nearly finished? Not even started? Here's the evidence supporting that first idea: according to a FAQ post on the Google Chrome Blog, the Google Chrome OS team is working with an impressive list of computer products corporations including Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.

So it might be that the operating system's already getting stuck in various ready-to-buy boxes.

On the other hand, the post states, "If you are interested in a full time position as a software engineer please visit the jobs pages for the following offices and indicate that you are interested in Chrome." Then the cities of Aarhus, Kirkland, London, Montreal, Mountain View, Reston, San Francisco, Santa Monica, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo are named.

So apparently the Google Chrome OS team is far shy of full strength.

Both pieces of information point to an intensive, global effort, however, which is worth recognizing.

Also, with regards to the FAQ, the Google Chrome Blog post promised, "We'll be sure to add more to this list as popular questions come in," so even more details may soon be shared.

Facebook Gives Businesses a Way to Increase Fans

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:18:58 -0400

Facebook recently announced the Live Stream Box, which lets webmasters integrate a real-time social viewing experience on their site. A spokesperson for Facebook tells WebProNews, "Yesterday, CNN.com, MTV.com and other major networks implemented the technology for Michael Jackson’s Memorial, where about 1 million users posted approximately 800,000 status updates in just a few hours."

Today Facebook has announced another social widget that webmasters can use to bring the Facebook experience to their site. It's called the Fanbox. "Facebook Page owners can now add the Fan Box, a Facebook Connect-enabled widget, to their website with a few lines of code to bring content from their Facebook Page into their site and convert visitors into fans on Facebook," the spokesperson says.

To include the Fan box, you only need to grab a few lines of javascript from your Facebook page. Simply click "Add Fan Box to your site," which is located underneath your page's profile picture. Once you click it, you can choose whether or not you want to include the stream and fans. Further customization options can be found here.

This could be a great way to increase your number of fans on Facebook. In turn, this can of course increase traffic to your site, and theoretically, it can continue in that fashion.

Keep in mind, the Fan Box comes equipped with a "Become a Fan" button, which might look nice on your site. You can see how this can easily lead to a nice boost in Facebook fans. More info on the box here.

French Lawmakers Take Up Revised Internet Piracy Bill

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:14:47 -0400

The French Senate is considering a revised version of an Internet piracy law that was ruled unconstitutional last month, despite backing by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nicolas Sarkozy

The original law was set up as a three-strikes system for copyright violators, who would first receive an email warning, then a letter and finally lose their Internet access if they were caught a third time.

The Constitutional Court ruled that "free access to public communication services online" was a human right, and only a judge should have the power to deny a user access to the Internet.

The revised bill now has a provision that would allow a judge to decide if Internet access should be cut off from users. On the third strike a judge would either impose an Internet ban, a fine of up to $415,000 or a two-year jail sentence, under a fast-track ruling system.

Account holders found guilty of "negligence" for allowing a third party to pirate music or movies using their Internet connection, would face a $2,081 fine and a month-long suspension of service.

The original legislation was one of the toughest ever crafted against online piracy around the world. Supporters of the bill hoped it would encourage Internet users to visit legal download sites.

Critics warned the law could unfairly punish users if hackers used their accounts to download illegal files.

Microsoft Names New President Of Windows Division

Doug Caverly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:51:40 -0400

Steven Sinofsky is supposed to be very good at his job, and we're sure his promotion wasn't made in response to Google's operating system-related announcement. But in a move that speaks to Microsoft's confidence in Windows 7, Sinofsky, who contributed to the project, has been made president of the Windows Division.

Let's cover his qualifications first. Sinofsky has degrees from both Cornell and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He held the appointment of visiting scholar at Harvard Business School in 1998, as well, and somehow it took two people to cover his old position another time he moved around within Microsoft.

Also, Steve Ballmer said in a statement, "Steven Sinofsky has demonstrated the ability to lead large teams that deliver great products. The work he and the team have done in getting ready to ship Windows 7 really defines how to develop and ship world-class software. He is a perfect fit to lead the Windows group."

So after leading the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, Sinofsky will become responsible for Windows, Windows Live, and Internet Explorer in terms of both engineering and marketing.

You can imagine that members of the Google Chrome OS team might be feeling a little intimidated right now; whether Microsoft meant to or not, it's definitely upped the ante in the operating system arms race.

Create Events From the Facebook Publisher

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:49:24 -0400

Facebook has added a feature, which allows users to add events and invite people to them right from the publisher box. Now creating an event is pretty much as simple as sharing a link.

To add an event, just push the "more" arrow button on the publisher box, and you will find events. Once you fill out the form, it will be posted to you news feed, and you can invite guests from there.

When you click "invite guests" you will be able to go through your Facebook Friends and choose who you want to invite.

"You might wonder why you wouldn't just invite friends to an event using a status update," says Facebook's Bo Hong Deng. "Creating an event in the Publisher helps you better organize the event details, and your friends can RSVP immediately when they see it in their News Feeds. This is more structured than a status update and also takes full advantage of the Events application. You can easily find out which of your friends are coming, and of course, they can comment on the event's wall, share photos and use other Events features."

It is important to note that once you create an event in the news feed, anyone will be able to join and invite others to join. You can change this in the app and make it closed or secret if you wish.

Why It's Not Wise for Your Business to Overlook FriendFeed

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:55:23 -0400

If your business didn't have enough reasons to set up a FriendFeed account before, it has a very good one now. Last week, FriendFeed launched its real-time search feature. Results for this roll in when something that fits the query is posted somewhere. Think Twitter Search, only covering a bunch of services. Do you believe FriendFeed's real-time search is significant? Tell us what you think.

If you're unfamiliar with FriendFeed, it allows users to add their updates from pretty much any service on the web into one stream. For instance, I could include my WebProNews articles, my SmallBusinessNewz articles, my tweets, my Facebook status updates, my Digg activity, my YouTube uploads, my Flickr uploads, etc. all in one stream where people can go or subscribe to if they want to stay up to date on all things Chris Crum.

Clearly, there is plenty of potential for such a tool from the business perspective. Look at all of the services you can add to the stream:

There are a number of real time search engines out there right now. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork in fact. Most of them cover more than just Twitter too. Twitter kind of kicked off the whole real-time search party, and tweets are definitely a big part of the picture, but there is activity going on everywhere on the web. The whole web is pretty much social now. Everyone can publish anything they want, and they have tons of sites to use to do so.

FriendFeed is about consolidating all of this. That's what draws users to it. FriendFeed is more than a search engine obviously. It is a community. In fact, it's more than a community. It's a community for communities. Even as it draws from sources all over the web (as specified by the users), the conversation continues right within FriendFeed's own interface.

People are going to FriendFeed just as if they would Facebook. That is where FriendFeed's new real-time search stands out from other real time search engines. People are still using Google for search. If they want to find out what's happening "right now" they probably go to Twitter.

A more accurate picture of what is going on "right now" however, can probably be found at FriendFeed. Out of the real time search engines out there, FriendFeed is the one that already has an established (and growing) community behind it. People are using it. Now that its real-time search functionality is here, expect people to use that plenty.

FriendFeed has climbed significantly over the last year in terms of unique visitors. There is a good chance it will continue to grow as the web continues its trend of becoming more social and people look to consolidate their social media streams.

So the more FriendFeed grows, the more people will realize that they can search in real-time throughout content across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and all of the others shown in the image above. The only problem with this is that the results will only come from what is being shared via FriendFeed.

That's where you come in.

If you do not have a FriendFeed account and have all of your relevant accounts and postings going into your stream, you will be missing out on appearing in users' real-time searches.

This may become less of an issue when Google finally begins offering up real-time search. People are going to be using Google when they want to search for something for the foreseeable future. Once they add real-time search into the fold, I would imagine it will be the first place many turn for that as well.

We know it's coming, but we don't know when. Co-founder Larry Page has publicly acknowledged that it's something the company has to do. Actually, Marissa Mayer, VP of search product and user experience was just talking about the importance of real-time search again.

But for the time being, FriendFeed may be at an advantage in the real-time search space as far as looking at real-time info from across the whole web, and not just what people are saying on Twitter. At the very least, it should make for an important tool in the real-time search toolbox, which as a whole, is very important for online reputation management.

Following are a few other articles worth reading for getting a better understanding of some benefits you can get from using FriendFeed, beyond just the real-time search aspect:

- Why You Should Use FriendFeed

- 10 Ways to Get more Out of FriendFeed

- How to Use FriendFeed as a Collaborative Business Tool

- How Bloggers Can Use FriendFeed Effectively

Do you use FriendFeed? Do you agree that it is an important tool? Share your thoughts.

Marissa Mayer Talks Real-Time Search, Twitter

Doug Caverly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:30:09 -0400

In late May, Larry Page stated at a conference that he believes real-time search is a necessity. He also referenced Twitter. Now, Marissa Mayer's performed a sort of follow-up on both counts, and this might indicate an official corporate interest.

An on-the-fly response to a question from Loic Le Meur is one thing, after all. Rehearsed, repeated speeches constitute quite another - think products in development or acquisition talks. So let's move on to Mayer's statement to let you judge for yourself.

Mayer told Charles Arthur, "We think the real-time search is incredibly important and the real-time data that's coming online can be super-useful in terms of us finding out something like, you know, is this conference today any good? Is it warmer in San Francisco than it is in Silicon Valley? You can actually look at tweets and see those sorts of patterns, so there's a lot of useful information about real time and your actions that we think ultimately will reinvent search."

She later added, "I can't comment on any discussions that we may or may not be having between the companies. I can say that we think that real-time search is very interesting."

There you have it, then. Although there may be one more thing worth noting: since Bing entered the real-time search arena last week, this increases the pressure for Google to act.

AOL Names Bebo VP Head Of European Sales

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:40:25 -0400

AOL has named Kate Burns as head of its European Sales division where she will be in charge of ad sales on AOL's properties.

Burns was previously Vice President and Managing Director, Europe, of AOL's social media company, Bebo. In her new role, Burns will report directly to AOL Global Advertising and Strategy President Jeff Levick.

"Europe is key to realizing our mission of being the largest global platform for online display advertising. Kate is the right person to build our European management sales team and lead this effort," said Levick.

Kate Burns

Burns has more than 10 years experience launching and leading a number of businesses in Europe. Before joining Bebo in July 2008, Burns was Managing Director of Dailymotion UK, where she was responsible for growing its audience, developing an advertising sales operations and creating partnerships with brands and ad agencies.

Burns was also Director, UK, Ireland and Benelux at Google, which she joined in 2001 as its first employee outside the U.S. She has also held sales positions at AltaVista and DoubleClick, as well as Ziff Davis and News International.

AOL has advertising operations in nine countries in Europe, including Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. AOL had the second largest ad network in Europe in May with 173 million visitors, according to comScore.

Forrester: Interactive Marketing Spend To Double By 2014

Doug Caverly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:37:37 -0400

People who specialize in interactive marketing hardly have to worry about whether the recession has damaged their industry, according to new data from Forrester Research. Indeed, it looks like the field of interactive marketing is set to thrive, even as offline aspects may be de-emphasized.

Forrester predicts that about $25.6 billion will be spent on interactive (display, email, mobile, search, social media) this year. It's supposed to represent 12 percent of all ad spend, which is respectable enough.

But by the time 2014 rolls around, Forrester predicts that roughly $55.0 billion will go towards interactive marketing efforts. And that may represent as much as 21 percent of all ad spend for the year as overall advertising budgets decline.

Shar VanBoskirk reasons in a post on the Forrester Blog, "With dollars moving out of traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools, marketers will actually need less money to accomplish their current advertising goals."

Or, to look at the shift in a slightly less measured way, the executive summary of VanBoskirk's report also refers to the "cannibalization of traditional media."

Regardless, though, it looks like some interesting changes will be afoot in the advertising industry.

Yahoo Adds Capabilities to YQL

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:11:32 -0400

Last year, Yahoo debuted its YQL language, which lets users query, filter, and join data across web data sources or services on the web. YQL or Yahoo Query Language is based on a SQL-like language, and it helps apps run faster with fewer lines of code.

Today, Yahoo announced a new feature for YQL, and that is the Insert/Update/Delete feature. A spokesperson for Yahoo tells WebProNews this extends the platform by adding “write" capability to its capabilities, including YQL Open Data Tables and Execute."

If you're interested in seeing some examples of how the new feature can be utilized, Yahoo has a blog post up about it that shows some things it can do.

One thing it can be used for is to bring some Twitter integration to your blog. "This enables YQL's Open Data Tables to insert new Twitter status messages, not just list them; to add new comments to a blog, as well as read them; to store data in a remote database; to INSERT INTO internet," says Jonathan Trevor of the YQL Team.

"If you've developed some Open Data Tables already and the source supports some type of update, you might want to take this opportunity to go back and add the capability in," he says.

Documentation is available here for developers. To get a better understanding of what you can do, keep an eye on Yahoo's developer blog. Besides the aforementioned post, Trevor says more examples and demos will be covered in the coming weeks.

Putting Twitter into Perspective

Mike McDonald — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:11:17 -0400

Brett Tabke was among the speakers on the 'Mega Panel' at SMX Advanced this year. This session essentially consists of a panel of established industry experts fielding questions from the crowd of conference attendees. It never takes long in these type of sessions to get a feel for what's on everybody's mind. This year, to the surprise of exactly no one, it was all things social media and Twitter that dominating the Q & A.

More WebProNews Videos

I caught Brett Tabke, founder of WebmasterWorld, shortly after the session to get his take on some of the high points of the discussion. It looks like this social media thing is doing nothing but growing and it's impact is being felt across the board in ways most of us never imagined.

Realtime Search:
Realtime search is one of the biggest concepts to talk about in terms of social media. Brett brought up the example of the French airliner that crashed in South America recently. Information about the incident was available instantly through Twitter.

More significantly, this information wasn't simply in the form of Tweets about the crash, there was new content being created and linked to in Tweets. This new content, created on the fly and accessed in real time, wasn't available through Google, Bing or Yahoo yet, but it was in Twitter.

The concept of content discovery in realtime hasn't really been done (at least not very well) to this point. This is why you've been reading weekly rumors of this company or that company being interested in purchasing Twitter.

Marketing:
Social media marketing is entering a whole new level. Business interest in social media started out a lot like business interest started in blogs. When blogs were first coming into vogue, businesses were, for the most part, looking at blogging from a public relations/reputation management standpoint. Of course, as blogs became more and more prevalent businesses increasingly incorporated them into their marketing mix.

The same thing is happening with social media, just a little faster. Take a look at BestBuy and their 'Twelpforce' Twitter strategy. They have over 500 people signed up, scouring Twitter looking for folks with questions about plasma TVs and various gadgets.

Social media, particularly Twitter, is moving more and more out of the realm of the 'optional' for business. Managing your identity in social media is becoming just as important, if not more, than managing your .com domain. GoDaddy is even going ahead and registering your Twitter accounts along with your domains now.

Just like with your domains, if you aren't 'you' then somebody else is apt to become 'you'. Twitter registration has evolved to the point that account creation there is just another step in responsible brand management.

Evolution of Twitter:
Now that Twitter has become too big to be ignored and (for many) too important not to use, what comes next? Just as with anything else new on the web, it hasn't taken spammers long to get into the mix. Spammers have hit Twitter like 7 year locusts. Anyone who has been using the service of a significant amount of time can tell you that the peddlers of porn, mortgage 'deals' and pharmaceuticals have arrived en force.

Twitter by nature is completely opt-in so you would think that the spammers would have a hard time with getting much done. Fortunately for the spammers however people are, by nature, just greedy. The currency of Twitter is (for the most part) your follower count. Whether it's to increase the effectiveness and reach of your tweets or just to stroke the ego, for many, the Twitter game is largely about growing the follower number.

This has given rise to countless "add 500 followers per day" schemes and mechanisms in order to game the system. The rationale being, if you find somebody with 3000 followers, you are apt to think, "hey, this guy must have something cool to say". It's logical enough but unfortunately not necessarily the case.

So, how can you tell if somebody is worth following? That's a question a lot of people are asking. What is authority? How can you tell if someone is an authority? How do you know the person you are following is even who they claim to be?

Twitter has started verifying accounts for some of the A list set. Celebrities are finding their way onto Twitter in increasing numbers. Prompted in large part by a lawsuit filed by Tony LaRussa, Twitter has started a program of verifying the accounts of celebrities. It's a step in the right direction which will likely make it's way from celebrities to businesses soon enough but it's really just a start. What if you want to find twitter people to follow within niche industries, or within your local area?

Finding people to follow is easy enough. We have Twellow and Twellowhood (shameless plug alert) just in the way of examples of sites you can use to find interesting people. How do you tell who is worth following though once you've found them?

Brett and I talked about this a bit in the interview. We are starting to see some sites and services pop up to 'grade' Twitterers in an attempt to assign some sort of authority or rank to accounts. Sound familiar? It should. This is essentially what search engines have spent years trying to figure out for websites.

Personally, I think there is something a little unsettling about the concept of having rank or some arbitrary authority assigned to Twitter accounts, but I suppose it's probably inevitable to some extent. You can check Klout.net for an example of such a service. Here you will find an algorithmic number value assigned to Twitter accounts. The ingredients and factors of the algo are (of course) secretive and mysterious, but we're all used to that by now aren't we?

So in some regards, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. There's still a lot of ground to cover with this whole social/Twitter thing. Remember search? How many search engines did we go through before we got Google? How many Google-killers have come and gone since then?

Social Media is still an area very much in it's development. There will no doubt be plenty of twists and turns as we move along. However, there is one thing you can absolutely take to the bank: if aren't in it, you need to get there. For better or worse, "wait and see" strategists have no place in this world.

Yahoo Settles Lawsuit With NFL

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:39:03 -0400

Yahoo and the NFL Players Association have reached a settlement over the use of players' statistics, images and other information in Yahoo's fantasy football games.

Yahoo sued the NFLPA last month arguing it should not have to pay additional royalties to use players' data in its fantasy football games because the information is publicly available.

Nicol Addison

"We did reach a settlement and we are going to explore other opportunities with the NFL players union to work together," Yahoo! Sports spokeswoman Nicol Addison said.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

"NFL Players and Yahoo! have reached a settlement. We continue to explore additional opportunities to work together," Andrew Feffer, chief operating officer of NFL Players, said in a statement.

Yahoo originally filed its suit in federal court in June, alleging the NFLPA threatened to sue it if it did not pay royalties for using publicly available information.

"Yahoo, like other fantasy-football game providers, tracks, compiles and posts NLF player statistics," Yahoo said in the suit.

The company wanted the court to find that the NFL "may not continue to extract money from Yahoo for the use of this publicly available information."

Yahoo's most recent licensing agreement expired in March and it notified the NFLPA that it would not renew the contract because of a court ruling that another fantasy football league provider did not need licenses.

Yahoo offers fantasy sports services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf and auto racing.

Following Up with Website Abandoners

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:38:01 -0400

SeeWhy shared some interesting findings from a survey of over 150 Google Analytics about website abandonment. They discussed "post session remarketing" and say it is going to grow rapidly.

Post session remarketing is basically going after individual users who have abandoned your site. "Of all the techniques out there, remarketing in real-time (thru e-mail specifically) is set to grow 152 percent," a representative for SeeWhy tells WebProNews.

"When most people think about tactics to improve website conversion, their first thought is to try a number of steps in the conversion process itself: 1) the need to tune pages 2) refine page layouts, and 3) make discount or promotion offers to boost conversion," says SeeWhy Founder Charles Nicholls. But the company's research indicates the trend will go more toward targeting the individual.

SeeWhy also points to research from E-Tailing Group, which found that 76 percent of e-tailers ranked "Targeted Email" as the top initiative to improve website conversion. SeeWhy found that:

- Post session remarketing is currently used by 25 percent of Google Analytics Users

- 63 percent plan to deploy session (or website) abandonment follow-up as a technique of increasing website conversion

The overwhelming majority are currently not following up with website abandoners according to SeeWhy's data. Some say they do within a few days, while others on the same day, and a few even within the same hour.

The majority do seem to think that the current economic environment makes it all the more important to follow up with abandoners. Here's how respondents prioritize the need to do so:

It would be interesting to see this survey on a bigger scale. Do you follow up with people after they abandon your site? Do you think it's a good idea?

Chad Ochocinco and His Tweeting Ways

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:09:45 -0400

The football player formerly known as Chad Johnson is ruffling some feathers with the National Football League. He has told the media that he plans to use Twitter during games. I haven't seen any official statement on this from the NFL itself yet, but sports analysts seem to pretty much agree that it's just dumb.

We will likely see the situation addressed by the NFL in the near future, as more and more players are embracing Twitter. Those players aren't all Chad Johnson (yes it's officially Ochocinco now, but we still called Prince "Prince" when he changed his name to a symbol didn't we?). Johnson is known for his wacky antics. If you're unfamiliar with them, there's a nice collection of them here. Now he wants to take tweeting to another level.

Cincinnati Bengals fan blog BegnalsGab quotes Chad from a recent Houton radio interview: "It's big for me and I’m taking it a step further," Ochocinco said of Twitter. "I have my own application coming out where people will be able to interact and follow me. You know more than through just the keyboard and reading my messages - you’ll actually be able to follow me and when the season starts, it’s going to get even worse. I’m going to really make it fun. I’m using Twitter during games, during halftime, after the games. I’m going to be taking it to the next level."

Chad is already quite the avid Twitter user. He even does follow Friday:

It's not that the NFL is anti-Twitter. The league openly utilized it to make April's draft more social and get the fans involved more. If you ever watch the NFL Network, you can barely go ten minutes without hearing Twitter brought up, or the network's twitter account being plugged.

My guess would be that they don't want players tweeting during games though. I can't imagine that coaches would be to thrilled about it either. Of course Bengals coach Marvin Lewis is pretty used to trouble from his camp.

Trey Wingo on ESPN's NFL Live made a good point yesterday, that in order to Tweet you need to have computer, phone, or some type of mobile device, and he and his co-hosts were talking about how players aren't even allowed to have cell phones with them other than in the locker room.

What will likely happen is that either Chad will not tweet during games, or he will and will get fined by the NFL. That is not a new concept for him either though.

The whole thing illustrates just how mainstream Twitter has become. Tweeting may not be great for Johnson's bank account or for the Bengals (who have plenty to prove this year, and should probably be focused on improving on the field), but it is great for Twitter. The NFL has a lot of fans, and as its players embrace the service, fans are likely to follow (no pun intended). It's kind of like the Oprah effect.

YouTube Gets Break On Some Claims In Copyright Case

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:57:59 -0400

A federal judge has dismissed some claims for damages against Google's YouTube in a class action copyright suit involving music publishers and Britain's Premier League.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that damages are not available for any foreign works that are not registered in the United States except those that fall under a live broadcast exemption.

Copyright law excludes statutory damages for unregistered works, except for live broadcasts of "sporting events, concerts, theatrical presentations and news and public affairs programs" if the copyright owner notifies the infringer at least 48 hours before the work is transmitted, District Judge Louis Stanton wrote in the decision.

Judge Stanton did indicate the plaintiffs could, if they prevail at trial, seek statutory damages on infringement of live broadcasts.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' request for punitive damages. "There is no circumstance in which punitive damages are available under the Copyright Act of 1976," Stanton wrote.

Google attorney Adam Barea called the damage claims dismissed by the court "baseless from the start."

"We are very pleased with the court's decision and will continue to vigorously defend against the remaining baseless claims in the case," Barea said in a statement.

Facebook Movie Script Makes Reviewer's Top 10 List

Doug Caverly — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:40:42 -0400

The Facebook movie (which is titled The Social Network at its current stage of development) may be of interest to people outside Silicon Valley, after all. A professional reviewer has gotten hold of the script and given it high marks.

In response to a comment following his evaluation, Carson Reeves admitted, "It doesn't seem like it would be good. I had strong reservations going into it for sure." As part of the review, he also wrote, "I was constantly looking for a base, an obvious story or goal. And there isn't any."

Still, the script was written by Aaron Sorkin, who was responsible for A Few Good Men and The West Wing, and the man seems to have created something special.

It turns out the script is has a comedic side, with a fair amount of awkward humor, so it's not like Facebook is being portrayed as the most important thing since the light bulb. Indeed, the script's focused on human interactions and the people behind the social network.

Reeves concluded, "[T]his script really resonated with me. Which is why it makes it into my Top 10." He rated it "impressive," just shy of "genius."

Will Google Chrome OS Challenge Windows?

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:49:10 -0400

Google has announced that it is working on an operating system based on Google Chrome (their browser). The company says the project is an attempt to "re-think what operating systems should be."

The OS-in-progress is simply called Google Chrome OS, it is open source, and it will initially be aimed at netbooks. The announcement came on the same day that Google dropped the "beta" tag from Google Apps.

"Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve," VP Product Management Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Upson say in a joint blog post.

Google says the key aspects of Chrome OS are:

- Speed
- Simplicity
- Security

"We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds," Pichai and Upson explain. "The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work."

The company has been making quite a big deal about speed lately, particularly on the web. Google recently launched a "let's make the web faster" campaign, calling on webmasters all over the web to help make their sites faster.

The Google Chrome OS code will be open sourced later this year, and Netbooks that have Chrome OS running on them will be available in the second half of 2010.

It's interesting to see Google finally go right at Microsoft's core business now that Microsoft has become so aggressive going at Google's. It looks like we may have some interesting times ahead.

Just because Chrome OS is starting on Netbooks, don't think it will end there. Google has already said that it was designed to power computers from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.

If Google makes good on its promise of allowing users to get right to the web in seconds, the OS will likely be appealing to a lot of consumers who are used to Windows. The Google brand, which is already so powerful among consumers may be more appealing than other alternative operating systems (like Linux) to the average non-techie consumer.

As I said, interesting times are ahead. What are your thoughts on a Google OS for the PC? Discuss.

Online Opinions One of Most Trusted Forms of Advertising

Chris Crum — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:22:56 -0400

Nielsen released some interesting findings from a study (pdf) on consumer trust and advertising. The most important takeaway is that consumer opinions posted online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally.

Right off the bat, this tells me that:

A. You need to use social media and search to maintain your online reputation

B. Online product reviews can be of great benefit

C. Testimonials can't hurt either

"The explosion in consumer-generated media (CGM) over the last couple of years – we are now tracking over 100 million CGM sources – means consumers' reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don't, has increased significantly," says Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International, for the Nielsen Company.

One interesting detail to note is that according to Nielsen's findings, brand websites score just as high as online consumer opinions. In addition, brand sponsorships have seen the greatest increase in levels of trust amongst Internet consumers in the last 2 years.

"However, we see that all forms of advertiser-led advertising, except ads in newspapers, have also experienced increases in levels of trust and it’s possible that the CGM revolution has forced advertisers to use a more realistic form of messaging that is grounded in the experience of consumers rather than the lofty ideals of the advertisers," says Carson.

The findings indicate that businesses really need to take their web presences seriously. Obviously, many of us are already well aware of this, but you may be surprise to know that many businesses still don't even have websites, let alone professional looking ones and social media accounts.

Opinions online good or bad should be monitored. If that's what people trust, it is up to you to make sure your brand is portrayed in as good a light as possible. You can find some good reputation management tips sprinkled throughout these articles.

Online Health Videos Top Resource For Consumers

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:18:25 -0400

Almost 50 percent of consumers say that online health videos are a top resource when searching for medical conditions and prescription drug information according to a new survey by Prevention, Men's Health and Women's Health magazines.

Health information websites such as WebMD were rated as the most popular destinations to view health information videos (43%) followed by pharmaceutical websites (14%), video sharing sites (9%) and social networking sites (6%).

Mary Murcko

User generated websites are also a popular resource for consumers. The survey found that 55 percent searches these sites for health-related information. This indicates that consumers value personal health experiences of average individuals along with trustworthy medical websites.

36% searched healthcare information on Wikipedia.com
36% read online forums, message boards on health-related topics
27% read a blog on health-related topics

"Consumers are now the gatekeepers when it comes to their own personal healthcare issues," said Mary Murcko, SVP/Publisher of Prevention.

"Unlike years past, today's consumers are empowered by knowledge and seek the research to make informative health decisions for themselves and their families."

Other key findings include:

Online health searching does make its way into conversations with their doctor:

37% have discussed medical information they found online with their doctor

The majority of consumers report positive effects:

57% said it was positive, it helped our conversation
7% said it was negative
33% said it was neutral (it didn't help or hurt their conversation)

Microsoft May Be Making Antitrust Progress

Doug Caverly — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:57:09 -0400

Maybe Microsoft won't get fined a gazillion dollars by the European Union, after all. The software giant is supposedly making an attempt to settle two antitrust probes, and according to the same report, even has a firm cut-off date in mind.

Matthew Newman writes that Microsoft "is in preliminary talks to settle two additional probes before EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes leaves office, four people familiar with the negotiations said." The probes concern Internet Explorer and office productivity software.

As for the time limit, Kroes is supposed to make her exit in coordination with the Barroso Commission, and it's only due to serve through October 31st of this year. (This timeframe also makes some sense given that Windows 7 is supposed to launch in October.)

So the pressure for Microsoft to find a solution is on, then. Since Newman notes, "The commission has fined Microsoft a total of 1.68 billion euros for abusing its market dominance and failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust order," not doing so could be disastrous.

Still, Microsoft's investors seem unimpressed with the company's effort, sending its stock down 2.89 percent today while the Dow and Nasdaq went down just 1.94 percent and 2.31 percent, respectively.

Microsoft Opens Hohm To Public

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:55:59 -0400

Microsoft has launched Hohm, its new website for managing and regulating home energy usage.

Hohm allows people to better understand their energy usage, receive recommendations and ways to save money. Recommendations can vary from placing new caulking on windows to removing air leaks to installing a programmable thermostat.

The recommendations are based on specific information about a users home including house features, usage patterns and appliances. The savings will vary based on the information shared and the characteristics of consumer's households.

Users who do not provide their data, Hohm will base its recommendations on local and national averages.

"We believe technology will play a pivotal role in tackling the global energy issues we currently face," said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft.

"Microsoft Hohm demonstrates how a combination of advanced software and Internet-based services can help people track, understand and manage their personal energy usage."

Google has a similar initiative with its PowerMeter service. Google PowerMeter will work only with homes with a smart meter installed.

Hohm will use the energy usage data and feedback from its users to refine and improve relevancy of recommendations. Users will also be able to compare their energy usage with others in their area and connect with people in the Hohm community to find referrals and share ideas.

Hohm uses analytics licensed from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy to provide people with personalized energy saving tips.

Report: FeedBurner Boss About To Quit Google

Doug Caverly — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:32:16 -0400

An important figure at Google may be about to leave, according to a new report. Dick Costolo, the cofounder and CEO of FeedBurner, is supposed to depart the corporation sometime this week.

Michael Arrington apparently confirmed the news today, and with regards to what Costolo has been up to since the $100 million FeedBurner acquisition, continued, "He currently reports to Neal Mohan, an exec in the Ads group, as the group product manager for social ads."

What Costolo will do next remains unknown. He may want to start another company, join an existing entity, or pursue some big idea.

Or, as a few select tweets of his sort of imply, Costolo (who's toured Australia, Singapore, and the UK as part of an improv comedy team) may just be preparing to spend more time with his family and generally take it easy.

Regardless, since Google acquired FeedBurner almost exactly two years ago (the official announcement was made on June 1st, 2007), this development doesn't say much about the search giant's ability to retain talent; it looks like Costolo's quitting within days of some contract's expiration date.

Do Meta Geo Tags Influence Google?

Chris Crum — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:13:25 -0400

Google's Matt Cutts frequently posts useful tips for webmasters on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. The short clips generally offer valuable nuggets of info that can have an impact on your site's performance in Google.

In these videos, Matt always answers questions submitted by users, and in a recent one he answers the question: "How do meta geo tags influence search results?"

Noticed changes in your ranking based on geographic info? Discuss.

Cutts says it's not something Google really looks at at all. He says they do look at:

- IP Address
- gTLD
- ccTLD

He also points out that there's a feature in Google's Webmaster Tools where you can tell it that your site pertains to a specific country even though it's a dot com. "Typically the geotags that are in meta tags are not as useful and We don't tend to give those as much weight if at all," says Cutts. He suggests spending your time:

- trying to make sure you have the right domain name

- trying to make sure you have the right IP address if you can

- If you have content (even if it's geo-located) even if it's a sub-domain or a sub-directory, you can specify it in Google's Webamster Tools. You can tell it that certain content is relevant for a particular country.

These are good things to keep in mind if geographic information is important to your site. Have you used the Webmaster Tools Feature Cutts refers to? Tell us about it.

Shortened URLs Used in 2% of All Spam

Chris Crum — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:11:15 -0400

If it's a tool that can make life on the web easier, you can pretty much guarantee that it will be abused by spammers. That is why it should come as no surprise that spammers are now abusing URL shortener services.

Representatives from Symantec's MessageLabs contacted WebProNews to point out that just in the last couple of days, the presence shortened URLs in spam has skyrocketed. The prominent security company claims that shortened URLs now appear in over 2% of all spam.

As you probably know, these services have grown in popularity, pretty much thanks to Twitter, although they are often used in conjunction with other social networks. It is Twitter's 140-character limit however, that really highlighted the need for such services. Twitter continues to gain popularity, and so do these services. Once anything becomes popular, you can it expect spam to follow.

"There are literally dozens of websites that offer URL shortening services and spammers have realized that using these services eliminates the need to solve a CAPTCHA or register an account," says Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec.

"The newly shortened URLs also help cybercriminals disguise the true destination of where their victims will click through to, posing further risks of entering websites used to conducting drive-by malware attacks as well as spam," adds Wood.

This is why it is a good idea to make sure you trust the person that is posting a link on Twitter. You never know when the intentions of strangers are malicious. Every time you click on a stranger's shortened link, you're taking a risk. I wouldn't say that you have to know a person personally, but you should probably at least know something about them and their reputation. Although, Twitter has been known to experience account-hijacking issues.

While Twitter is a big reason that URL shorteners have gained popularity, it's not the only way they're being used - even by spammers. "Donbot, the botnet responsible for sending approximately five billion spam messages every day, is one of the main culprits for using this technique," says Wood. "Links of any size all need to be treated with caution."

Should this information discourage you from using URL shorteners or clicking on links that they produce? No. Just use judgment when clicking links. Think about trust. If you ever intend to read content linked to from Twitter, chances are you're going to have to click on shortened URLs. That is as long as Twitter has its character limit in place.

Video Game Engagement Continues To Increase

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:39:29 -0400

Fans of video games are spending increasingly more time playing games, according to a new survey from Nielsen.

The survey, "The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession," found since the beginning of the year and through May, gamers are spending an additional one to two hours a week playing games, compared to 2006, when Nielsen started tracking video game data.

In addition, gamers have upped their purchases of used games and have also increased their use of subscriptions to video game rental services by mail. Nielsen says these trends suggest the gaming category has been resilient despite the economy.

"Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly appealing games (i.e Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band) pushing their hours of gameplay up," said Michael Flamberg, director of client consulting, Nielsen Games.

"The social aspects of these games have engaged them. We don't believe hardcore gamers are driving up the usage averages we've observed. Second, gamers may be looking to stretch their entertainment dollar further through playing games they own more. The importance of value for them is evident in the findings on used game purchase."

Nielsen says new game sales have slumped because used game purchasing is at an all time high. Other reasons include more gamers using video game rental services by mail and a lack of popular titles released this spring.

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