It’s clear that social-media has reached a saturation point in our popular culture, but it’s surprising that so many businesses, especially SMEs still find it hard to commit to full-time social-media marketing strategies. The good news is that with each week, more big brands continues adopt new and exciting social-media marketing strategies, which allows us to provide more examples and case studies for those that are still on the fence.

FORD SPENDING 25% OF MARKETING AVENUE ON DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA
David Kiley wrote a Business Week article describing an effort by world renowned car brand Ford, investing 25% of its marketing avenue on digital and social media, to reach out to potential customers around the world.

Perhaps Ford’s biggest single bet on digital and social media has been the Fiesta Movement, a program that began in 2008, 18 months before the cars will actually arrive in dealerships. Ford gave 100 European Fiestas to people to drive and live with. The results of the blogging, Facebook-ing, YouTub-ing and Tweeting by those people, plus the echoing of those messages by the blogosphere, followers, etc. has been an eye opener. Consider this: The awareness level of Fiesta, a car that is not even in the U.S. yet (though it has been a fixture in Europe for years), is 37% among Generation Y, according to Ford-commissioned surveys. That is about equal to the awareness level of Fusion and Flex, models that have received, especially in the case of Fusion, hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media spend. “The Fiesta movement has changed the way the whole company views media planning and buying,” Farley said at the conference.

Here we have one of Ford’s online video storytelling, featuring the Ford Mustang muscle car.

Gary Dilts, senior vice president of J.D. Power’s global automotive practice, who is former sales chief at Chrysler, says he would have thought any company “crazy for starting such a marketing program 18 months ahead of showroom launch.” But, Dilts added, “I think the Fiesta campaign, and the other digital video Ford is running is already a case study for any marketer in or out of the auto industry.” Up to now, Monty’s responsibility as Ford’s social media chief has been concentrated on North America. But he is gearing up to take his job globally, coordinating social media practices among Ford’s global operating units, all of which, under CEO Alan Mulally and Farley, are much more answerable to Michigan headquarters than in the past.

COCA-COLA CAMPAIGN SENDS 3 BLOGGERS AROUND WORLD
Forbes featured an article by Emily Fredrix, soft drink giant Coca-Cola is launching a new social media push that will send three bloggers to over 200 countries to uncover what makes people happy in as part of its "Open Happiness" campaign.

The effort, dubbed “Expedition 206,” marks another venture by a big-name brand to delve deep into social media. Such efforts, which include blogging, posting updates on Twitter and adding videos to YouTube, can generate talk by consumers and sales, companies hope.

The around-the-world journey is ambitious, involving stays of just a day or two in each of 206 countries, all where Coca-Cola ( KO – news – people ) is sold. The three people – who will be chosen in an online vote starting Wednesday – will spend the entire year traveling. Coke will pay their travel expenses and pay them a salary. It wouldn’t disclose the cost of the venture.

COCA COLA’S URL SHORTENER
And coke’s efforts do not stop there. Mashable featured an article by Adam Ostrow, describing the new steps taken by soft drink giant Coca-Cola, in creating a URL shortener of their own for the convenience of twittering and flexibility – as this allows them to maintain their own branding, something that we envision more companies will likely do in 2010. Speaking of which, we have our own URL Shortening Service that allows us to brand the framed links – UR1 – where we have some very interesting plans laid out for its future…

URL shorteners are a dime a dozen, and some industry onlookers actually believe they are bad for the Web. But in reality, if you’re sharing links on a service like Twitter, you need one, at least for the moment. So how do you choose? Some services offer detailed analytics (like bit.ly), while others offer schemes that can get you more traffic ( DiggBar and StumbleUpon’s Su.pr for example). Coke moving to its own shortener is a big deal in this little corner of the Internet. While for most people, tinyurl, bit.ly, or any other third-party service will continue to be more than sufficient, big brands and celebs certainly have an opportunity to benefit by launching their own shortener. With the relative ease with which it can be done, expect Coke to be far from the last major name to go this route.

BIG BUSINESSES HIRE TWEETERS
The Times and Democrat highlighted a Heather Lalley, describing a new marketing strategy by big businesses – hiring Tweeters that enable them to expand the business to greater horizons around the world, using various social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Multinational corporations, such as Ford Motor Co. and Coca-Cola Co., are beginning to use social media to increase positive sentiment, build customer rapport and correct misinformation, says Adam Brown, Coca-Cola’s Atlanta-based director of social media.

“Having the world’s most-recognized brand, we feel like there’s an obligation or a responsibility when people are talking about us, we have a duty to respond,” Brown says.

STARWOOD LAUNCHES TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND IPHONE APPS FOR LOYALTY PROGRAM
Starwood have launched applications for many of the major social media platforms; such as Twitter, Facebook and iPhone, to enhance its Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) loyalty program, as featured in an article by Mary Elizabeth Hurn in DM News.

The social media tools, which can also be downloaded by non-members, include SPG TripShare, a Facebook photo application developed with Buddy Media . Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, explained that Starwood’s goal is to create loyalty among and retention of current customers, “but getting new members is always great.” The apps can be accessed at www.spg.com/stayconnected. SPG also launched a travel tips “mash-up” using Twitter and Google Maps. SPG Insider enables travelers to Tweet about restaurants, bars and entertainment destinations around the world from their Twitter application of choice. The app then uploads the tip and places it on the map using longitude and latitude coordinates.

TWEETING PLANES
In an extremely interesting article from Mashable by Pete Cashmore, we find that now, even commercial jets are making waves by applying the benefit of Twitter for its passengers.

Admittedly, it’s not the plane itself doing the Tweeting: it’s the airline. Lufthansa has set up a new service named MySkyStatus that automatically posts the current position of your flight to Twitter or Facebook so your friends can follow your travels (and your friends living in those cities can look up! ). .

Typical status updates read “flying over San Francisco Intl, California 94030, USA on United Airlines” or “flying over Grantsville, UT 84029, USA on United Airlines”. It seems the system posts the flight’s position around once per hour, pulling info from a database of flight information.

EARNING FANS VERSUS BUYING EYEBALLS
An interesting discussion about the use of social media and its potential ROI in comparison to the old days and what we can expect from new engaged audiences took place in Marta’s article featured on the Espresso blog:

Instead of relying on traditional advertising to introduce their feminine hygiene products to teenage girls (who represent a massive pool of prospective life-long customers) or wasting money “selling” to them, P&G created BeingGirl.com , an online community where teenage girls can “Learn and share about growing up and puberty while having fun playing girl games and listening to the latest teen music”. Instead of bombarding their target audience with ads or pouring dollars and resources into “campaigns,” P&G is investing in conversations; in context that supports the growing library of content (both user- and professionally-generated) around the issues that their target audience cares about. The challenge in moving from traditional to new marketing is in weaning oneself off of the addiction to “buying eyeballs” instead of “earning fans.

RAKING IN THE MILLIONS USING SOCIAL MARKETING
The Bonafide Marketing Genius Strikes Again; explaining that tweeting to promote a low graded movie was all it took to rake in millions at the movie box office. If this does not prove the value of social-media, is there really anything left to say…?

Remember the Blair Witch Project? Rumored to be “the most profitable movie in US history”, Blair Witch cost $38,000 to make and raked in $48 Million in its first weekend thanks to an expertly orchestrated buzz campaign in the pre-Facebook era (or was it just plain dumb luck? Thoughts?) And so the clever folks at Dreamworks (or whomever they hired to promote the film? Anyone know?) have done turned their artillery on hungry-for-good-horror fans across the social web to promote Paranormal Activity, another low-budget film ($11,000) that screened in just 160 theaters last weekend… and grossed $7 million.

As Facebook continues to grow (with over 300 million users; 50% of which log-in on a daily basis), we’re dedicated to keeping you up-to-date with some of the feature and activities that continue to allow it to grow:

TAG FRIENDS IN STATUS AND POSTS
Tom Occhino featured an article regarding new features allowing you to tag users.

People often update their status to reflect their thoughts and feelings, or to mention things they feel like sharing. Sometimes that includes referencing friends, groups or even events they are attending — for instance, posting “Grabbing lunch with Meredith Chin” or “I’m heading to Starbucks Coffee Company — anyone want some coffee by any chance?”.

Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.

LAUNCHING OF NEW GROUPS LAYOUT
In an article from All Facebook, we hear about layouts for groups now being identical to Facebook Pages.

For the longest time there has been a discussion as to which product was better to use for organizing groups of users. There have been pros and cons of both and at this point there is very little remaining to differentiate one from the other. While Facebook has suggested that Pages are for people to organize around companies and individuals, the two products have been meshing together overtime.

FACEBOOK NOW RUNNING OVER 30,000 SERVERS
Having a lot of users would need a lot of servers. As reported by All Facebook FB is now running over 30 thousand servers to power their network.

This information came from a presentation delivered by Jeff Rothschild, Facebook’s VP of Technology, at the Center for Networked Systems . With so much growth over the past two years, the company has been forced to invest heavily in infrastructure. There have been large capital investments in infrastructure at Faceboook over the past couple years. The company previously borrowed $100 million to fund server expansion, and with around 20,000 new servers, it’s clear that a decent portion (if not all) of that loan has now been allocated.

FARMVILLE SURGES PAST 60 MILLION MONTHLY USERS
All Facebook highlighted in an article that Facebook’s largest application Farmville is thriving continuously.

FarmVille has become an icon on the platform as no other application has come close to matching its massive user base. It has almost doubled the second largest application, Causes, in terms of monthly active users and has tripled the Facebook iPhone application in terms of daily active users. The second most popular, non-Facebook developed, application based on daily active users happens to be Café World which has just under 7 million daily active users.

The results have been nothing short of astonishing. If Zynga keeps at this pace, the company could soon come close to matching Facebook’s own revenue, at least until Facebook releases their payment platform and opens the gift shop to developers. Playfish has also proven to be a stellar company which not only creates top tier games but also has a great revenue model.

ONLINE GAME LEGENDARY CIVILIZATION IS COMING TO FACEBOOK
Mashable featured a Stan Schroeder article, showing yet another breakthrough about to take place on Facebook, stating that the online game Civilization will be coming to Facebook soon in the form of Civilization Network.

Originally released back in 1991, Civilization is a turn based strategy game so fun and addictive that players kept playing its various iterations for decades. Sometime in 2010, we’ll also be able to play it on Facebook

Whilst on the subject of Facebook, we also threw together our own application this week, a simple tool that mimics TweetDeck by allowing people to manage their Twitter accounts and search trends all from within Facebook – we’ve called it No Twitter Limits – let us know what you think…

With The Nielsen Company reporting that internet users have increased the time they spent on social networks by a substantial margin in August 2009 from just 6% to 17% and advertising spending on the top social networking and blogging sites more than doubling from $49 million in August 2008 to about $108 million in August 2009; everyone is looking for that miracle formula that will clearly define a Return on Investment that can be expected by adopting social-media, but unfortunately, it is just not that simple. If it were, ad-agencies and PR firms would have figured it out long ago.

While it is tempting to believe that there is a single, simple equation or calculator that can clearly define the Return on Investment that can be offered by social-media, it does not exist, especially when the goals and objectives of adopting social-media can differ for each company and brand – where one looks at lowering turn-over by having more engaged employees and another wants to influence the market that they occupy. Quantifying the Return on Investment by visitors and traffic severely limits the potential of social-media and how it can affect one’s bottom-line.

In order to ascertain any returns on investment, you have to take timelines into consideration – measuring the start and end of a specific campaign in relation to changes in sales and other metrics, and it’s the other metrics that really stand-out with social-media. The ability to engage an audience and targeted demographics in conversation, to measure the results of those conversations and refine products, ideas and other marketing messages. Listening to staff, developing capabilities and encouraging personal growth in those that work with you – this is new territory, and it’s governed by social-media…

LAUNCHING SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES
We begin with a special article featured in Ross Dawson’s blog, showcasing the launch of the Social Media Strategy Framework that should provide vital basic understanding as to how social media functions in the world we know.

The Framework begins by LEARNING (Use social media yourself, Study relevant case studies, Educate senior executives, Hear from practitioners and Explore the latest trends), from where it then follows two streams of ENGAGEMENT (where we can listen, converse, measure and refine) and STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT (where we can prioritize, establish governance and define), all ultimately leading to the imperative to DEVELOP CAPABILITIES, which will in-turn allow us to return to LEARNING, where we can start the cycle again.

It’s no wonder people are asking for an ROI with facts and figures such as these:

300 MILLION AND ON
In a recent Facebook article by Mark Zuckerberg, social network giant Facebook are registered with 300 million people on a global scale. And it doesn’t stop there, it has been revealed that Facebook is aiming to reach out to EVERYONE! That’s right…every living person on the planet. On how that can be achieved, only time and strategy will tell.

PLANNED 2010 INCREASE IN SOCIAL MEDIA, SEO AND VIRTUAL EVENTS BY MARKETERS
Marketing Charts featured an article about a research by Unisfair, that explains the numerous strategies marketers are prepared to use in order to increase their outreach to social media in 2010.

MACY NOW DIRECT THEIR ADVERTISEMENTS TO SOCIAL-MEDIA PROFILES
As explained in an article by Nick O’Neil in All Facebook, Macy’s is the latest brand to promote their Facebook Page through display advertising campaigns around the web. The strategy appears to be working. Over the past month, the Macy’s Facebook page has grown from 28,000 to 67,000 fans.

Another interesting aspect of the company’s new promotion is that they are giving one meal to Feeding America for every Twitter follower that they obtain. By promoting this campaign through Facebook it seems weird that the company would direct people to become a fan on Facebook before following them on Twitter. Despite the confusing strategy by the company, what’s more important is the apparent shift from promoting the company’s own website to sites that they can directly engage users on.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL TEAM NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS USES FACEBOOK AS PRIMARY ONLINE PRESENCE
When it comes to fan power, sports can make a sure bet of being the first to be given great attention into promoting that influence. And as described in an article in Inside Facebook, New England Patriots teamed up with Buddy Media to give primary source of online content for their fans.

Several of the features in the Fan Zone still link back to the Patriots’ official Web site , but the new Facebook page is intended to be their primary online portal for fans. Both the team and Buddy Media acknowledge that it’s much easier to bring together fans through Facebook, where followers of the team are already congregating. “It’s still very difficult to pull people into other gated communities. We think leveraging against Facebook is a no-brainer. The audience they have and their data speaks for itself,” said Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow, whose company also handles social media for sports-related clients like Reebok and Sports Illustrated.

Which brings us back to the ROI and Bogus Social-Media Experts:

Olivier Blanchard created an interesting article in The Brand Builder concerning the misuse of social media and the many frauds who use it without fully understanding its benefits and consequences.

Here’s a flash of obvious: When most of us don’t know how to do something, we typically know that we don’t know how to do it. Yet this line of logic (and basic sense of professional ethics) seems to escape a disturbingly large group of people who evidently have latched-on to Social Media as an easy meal ticket  – one to be earned, in many cases, on the backs of people and companies who don’t know any better.

This stuff isn’t just going to go away on its own. It’s great to see some folks in the Social Media management community speak out against this kind of BS, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Below is another example of social media nonsense passing for expertise. I don’t want to make any assumptions about anyone’s motives in this specific case, so to be fair, it’s probable that whomever put this together genuinely thought that the thinking behind the equation and methodology was sound. There is no reason to think that anyone at Digital Royalty was trying to make a quick buck off unsuspecting clients when they developed this. (My guess is that they mean well.) But the fact remains that the people behind this thing don’t understand either Social Media or program measurement well enough to teach either, which is downright mind boggling.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ROI (RETURN ON INVESTMENT) FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Jason Falls wrote an article in Social Media Explorer, regarding the discussion on how ROI for social media.

What Katie evangelized a bit in her session was that the conversation (comments on your content) was the best measure of a level of engagement. Avinash Kaushik says much of the same in his discussions on web analytics. This isn’t an end-around the need for ROI, it’s the answer. Or at least a big part of the answer.

When you ask businesses why they are participating in social media, what do they say? If they say, “to make money,” then they will fail because currency in the social web is found in both relationships and content. If they say, “to grow our business,” they’re just saying, “to make money,” in a nicer way. If they say, “to participate in the conversation,” which is the more appropriate reason to be involved in the social web, then why on earth would they not measure success by the value of the conversations they have? This is why every session on measuring ROI in social media is a waste of time. None of the measurement experts are going to make that point and that point alone because without throwing page views and unique visitors and number of subscribers and sentiment and tone, they have nothing to offer.

THE BONAFIDE MARKETING GENIUS VIEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
In these two videos posted on Posterous by the Marketing Genius, we can witness the impact social media has had on humanity and the many sectors of marketing frontiers.

However way we see it, social media has changed the face of communication and information as we know it. We may or may not know what comes next to take its place, but like all things, it evolves…

The Domain Name System is about to be radically updated and much debate has recently took place that start-ups need to be know about, as not to miss out on new potential opportunities…

SHOULD START-UPS TAKE NOTICE OF THE UPDATE?
Mike Butcher highlighted in an article for TechCrunch some important information about the impact that comes with the updating of online domain names.

From next year The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that oversees the structure of the Internet, will liberalize the market for domain name extensions – the .com or .uk part of a web address. This means that anyone, in theory, can apply to operate an extension. So instead of “DietCoke dot com”, Coke could set up diet.coke, zero.coke etc etc.

GUIDES ON HOW WE ENTER THE .FUTURE
Kieren McCarthy wrote in an article for ICANN Blog featuring steps we can take while welcoming the change of applications for a new "generic top-level domain"

Alot of people have raised concerns about expanding the namespace over the past few years, and those comments have been listened to and taken into account. ICANN has said “wait until we produce the draft RFP, then if you still have concerns, let’s talk”. Thus, ICANN released a draft version of the Applicant Guidebook for those interested in applying for a new “generic top-level domain”.

You can download the Guidebook and its modules (all pdf files) at the links below:

• The Full Guidebook

Individual Modules:

• Module 1: Introduction
• Module 2: Evaluation .
• Module 3: Dispute Resolution
• Module 4: Contention
• Module 5: Transition
• Module 6: Terms and Conditions

A new update of the Applicant Guidebook was also featured later in the ICANN Blog in Kieren McCarthy’s article:

So, no doubt you have all been wondering what exactly ICANN and its staff have been up to over January with respect to the Applicant Guidebook and the reams of comments covering the new generic top-level domain process. In order to provide some answers and perspective, ICANN’s most senior executives dealing with the process – the CEO Paul Twomey, the COO Doug Brent and the Senior Vice President for Services Kurt Pritz – have done a video update on where we are now and where the process is statistically going.

SIMPLIFIED EXPLANATIONS ABOUT THE DNS (DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM)
Kim Davies featured an article in ICANN Blog concerning the many characteristics of DNS (Domain Name System), the problems that arise and some simple solutions to counter them.

The DNS can be considered to be a question-and-answer system. When you type in an address like “icann.org” into a web browser, your computer needs to turn that into a numeric address of the computer hosting that website. Let’s say I want to execute an attack on this question and answer exchange, in order to convince the computer to go to the wrong address. When the computer I wish to attack asks a question, my goal is to provide a fake response back to that computer quicker than the real server comes back with the response.

While the DNS itself can’t be properly fixed for the security problem, a new protocol that overlays the DNS called DNSSEC does. DNSSEC uses a system of certification to show that a DNS answer has not been modified. If someone tries to execute an attack, the certificate won’t validate, and the incorrect answer will be thrown away. DNSSEC is difficult to deploy. It requires upgrades in DNS servers, it changes the way domain name holders manage their name servers, and it adds extra complexity. However, with the knowledge that DNS attacks are so simple to execute without it, there is growing consensus that the pain it will take to deploy is less than the pain of a DNS that you can no longer trust.

ASSETS AUCTIONED BY THE PARENT COMPANY AND TOYS.COM DOMAIN SOLD FOR $1.25 MILLION
Robin Wauters wrote an article in TechCrunch featuring a huge business transaction between some of the world’s largest joint domain companies.

The Parent Company filed for bankruptcy in December 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware, and has auctioned off several substantial assets at the law offices of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP yesterday morning. Although creditors still need to approve everything, most of the assets on auction were sold, and you couldn’t tell we’re in a recession if you look at the sums that were coughed up.

ePregnancy.com and other eToys assets were bought for $2.15 million (they were actual operational businesses, not just domain names), while Birthdays.com, Pinata.com, eParties.com were acquired for $200,000 by Done Ventures and Domain Equity picked up Hobbies.com and iToys.com for $102,000.

Speaking of auctions and domain name sales, ToysR’Us bought over the domain name of Toyrs.com in an auction at $5.1 Million, as reported in a TechCrunch article by Eric Schonfeld.

Everyone except ToysRUs and domain holding company National A-1 (owner of domains such as free.com, boys.com, girls.com, and divorce.com) bowed out of the auction at $3 million. The last $2 million was just those two companies going back and forth for hours. ToysRUs really didn’t have much choice. If it wants to be the first thing people associate with toys it really couldn’t afford to allow anyone else to own that domain.

As the saying goes; "When the going gets tough, the tough get going"… Let’s face it, despite its continued problems, the Twitter-Crowd is stepping things up notch after notch! Here we feature some of the coolest and latest features from Twitter and its universe that is forever altering the characteristics of online social communication as we know it.

THINK YOU CAN TWEET 4320 TIMES IN 3 DAYS FOR A FREE GLOBAL FLIGHT?
John Davidson of Australia recently highlighted in a Marketing Interactive article concerning the collaboration of Virgin-owned airline V-Australia and Droga5 Sydney, coming up with an innovative new social media campaign offering the public a chance at an around the world free trip just by Twittering.

Droga5 created the project, which will see three people flown to Los Angeles to complete the Twitter challenge – if they are able to send 4320 tweets in 72 hours they will win round-the-world plane tickets. Apart from the Twitter profile 4320LA and the website 4320la.com/, the campaign includes print, ambient, radio and viral elements of all varieties.

V Australia is the international offshoot of the Australian budget airline Virgin Blue. V Australia launched in 2007 and flys from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Los Angeles.

As part of the campaign a film crew will follow the three Twitterers around Los Angeles, and their feeds, photos and video can be viewed at  the dedicated website. The ambitious marketing push is the first time an Australian airline has tried to promote Los Angeles as a short-break destination.

CAN’T FIND A PUBLISHER FOR YOUR BOOK? TWEET IT OUT!
In a recent TechCrunch article by MG Siegler, it’s never a lost cause for a writer-wannabe to get his / her work out to the public yet hampered by not being able to find a publisher to sponsor the work. Matt Stewart wrote his novel The French Revolution by using Twitter – practically 130 characters at a time!

Here’s how this works: Every so often, Stewart is tweeting out sentences (or incomplete sentences) from the book. No, he’s not doing this by hand, he got a programmer to help him automate the process. The result is slowly spilling out the entire narrative of the book to his Twitter feed.

If you think this would be impossible to follow in a regular stream of tweets, you’re right. That’s why Stewart has a website chronicling the whole story thus far (or, of course, you can simply click on his Twitter page to read it — though backwards). Stewart expects that will will take about 3,700 tweets to get the full story out there.

5 NEW TWITTER GAMES TO ENHANCE THE FUN OF TWEETING
Ben Parr highlighted some pretty cool new Twitter games that continue to spice up the fun of tweeting in an article in Mashable.com, have loads of fun while tweeting!

The game is simple: reply to @Trivia with the answers to questions tweeted by Trivia. What really impressed us was its ability to monetize, through sponsors that would provide real prizes to Trivia contestants. Trivia is absolutely engaging and already has found a business model. What more can you ask for?

Snods (Social Networks Online Defense Squad) is a role playing game of cops and robbers. Use your Twitter account to earn virtual money, take on missions, capture other players, and beef up your stats. Your missions are to “capture” Twitter’s most popular users too.

Have a Twitter follower you just want to beat the snot out of every once in a while? Instead of a embarking on a real-life brawl, how about trying Tweefight, which pits your accounts against your archenemies?

140 Mafia is another Twitter RPG that has you recruiting friends, managing your mob, and trying to take over the Twitter mafia. This game is in the same vein and class as SNODS and Twitter’s best-known and most popular game.

THE TWITTER SEARCH WIDGET
Understandable that Twitter is constantly coming up with new features for the convenience of its titanic member base. Here they have come up with a new widget in the form of a widget search page.

We continue to follow user behavior and pay close attention to feature requests. We launched our mobile site, m.twitter.com after getting lots of requests for this feature. However, we are also very much guided by our philosophy of keeping things simple and intuitive so we like to restrain ourselves with regard to features. That being said, people seem to be calling for more interesting ways to share feedback with one another and organize themselves and their updates into groups–we’re paying attention to these requests. Therefore with this widget, put your updates anywhere or create a live stream for an event. Compatible with Facebook, MySpace, Blogger etc.

All you need is a Twitter account and a PayPal account. Now, with RT2Buy™, you can instantly engage with your audience. You upload your content: music, ebooks, pictures, videos. You tell your followers about it. They buy it. We deliver it.

7 USEFUL WAYS TO TWEETING YOUR CORPORATE CULTURE
Mashable featured an article by Twitter addict Sharlyn Lauby concerning ways of maximizing the full benefit of one’s presence on Twitter. In other words, try being more sociable and direct.

Some people don’t like communicating with a company logo. But when a company offers a pleasant look and feel, and tweets out information of value to customers, then it is possible to connect with them. Here are 7 suggestions (along with some Twitter examples) for establishing a rock-solid corporate culture on Twitter. Use the examples in this post as the starting point for a conversation or training session about Twitter best practices and your corporate culture. By sharing with your team the right way to leverage Twitter, we can all celebrate our successes together:

• Share Your History – tell the Twitterverse when you make history. For example, if your company is named one of the Top 50 Places to Work or wins an industry award; that’s making history and you should tell the world by tweeting about it.
• Talk Vision and Mission – People want to be engaged with companies that look engaging. Think about the purpose of your organization. Twitter can be a place to talk about goals, plans and offer a glimpse of what life is like at your place of work.
• Reveal Industry Insights – Rather than hoping customers find that information via some travel survey, then put two and two together.
• Recognize Employees – There are so many ways you can share with Twitterland the things you do from an employee standpoint. Everything from healthcare coverage, to free gyms, and employee orientation can all get the Twitter treatment.
• Profile Customer Successes – Twitter, like many other social networks, is made up of groups of really supportive individuals who want to see positive happenings and big wins with social media..
• Be Responsive – Whether your customer is a consumer of your product or service, or in my case, a potential employee who is interested in working for APCO – the tone should still be conversational and friendly. And ultimately, you want it to be an extension of yourself and a reflection of your organization’s culture..
• Ask Questions About The Future – If you’re looking to reach into the mind of consumers, Twitter can be a medium to get real-time information. Just ask a simple question, what are you concerned about?

13 TERRIFIC TOOLS FOR TWITTER LOVERS
While most of the fuss is about the latest features from Twitter for its users, tools for social networking such as this is also important. Smashing Apps recently featured an article compiling some cool tools made for Twitter lovers:

• TwitterFone – TwitterFone is free service that lets you update your Twitter feed using your voice from any mobile or cell phone.
• Splitweet – Splitweet is a multi-account Twitter reputation management for all corporate users.
• Tweetafile – The only thing that people can do through email that they can’t do with Twitter is send files. Now with TweetaFile, you can.
• Tweeterless – Twitterless tells you who stops following you and graphs your follower history over time.
• Bubble Tweet – A BubbleTweet is a short video (currently up to 30 secs) that plays in our floating Bubble video player over your “twitter” page and when it’s over, it pops and goes away.
• TwitterFriends – TwitterFriends helps you to find the users that are meaningful for you and keep in touch with them.
• Twonvert – With Twonvert you can easily convert your tweets into SMS shorthand language and allows you to say more with less characters.
• Twist – With Twist, you can keep an eye on current trends in twitter.
• Flash Tweet – FlashTweet is a mass follow tool that simplifies the process of adding your twitter friends.
• TwitRobot – This is the right option for you to promote your product or affiliate link, blast to twitter.
• TwitChamp – This is a fun tool to find out how popular you are compared with your friends and foes.
• Tweet Promote – Tweet Promote is a fast and powerful way of finding targeted friends and followers on Twitter.
• Tweetpler – Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers and even foes.

TWITTER VISUALIZATION POWERED BY JQUERY
In Tori’s Eye, we see a cool looking visualization of Twitter using the features of jQuery. This can be applied to practically any subject!

Tori’s eye is a Twitter visualization tool, inspired by papercraft and origami. It’s a visual and technical experiment implemented using only standard XHTML/CSS and Javascript. To use it, enter a word in the search box and then catch some birds with your mouse to read the tweet they’re carrying. Tori’s Eye fetches the latest tweets containing the word you input from Twitter Search.

30+ CREATIVELY DESIGNED TWITTER BACKGROUNDS
Pro Blog Design featured an article by Narendrasv, compiling some of the most creatively designed backgrounds for Twitter, adding a touch of personality into the user’s account!

We’re all on Twitter now, and it needs no introduction. But with so many people on Twitter, how can you make your profile stand out? Featured here are some of the most creative Twitter backgrounds around. The most common trend is a fancy background design to the left, but you’ll see that some people have used very large images to get effects right across the screen.

KEVIN SPACEY EXPLAINS TWITTER TO DAVID LETTERMAN
Last but certainly not least on this awesome compilation of Twitter updates, have a great last laugh with this video featuring Kevin Spacey explaining the simplicity of David Letterman in a hilarious way. Enjoy!

This is Kevin Spacey. He’s a man who gets paid millions of dollars to pretend to be other men, for entertainment. And here he is on the “Late Show With David Letterman” trying to explain Twitter, the pulse of the planet, to Mr. Letterman. Key points to remember: Twitter is free; you type with your thumbs; it’s “a waste of time.”

The ever evolving world of virtual frontiers reaches new heights – as featured today in our review of Virtual Worlds…

HABBO RAKES IN $74 MILLION IN REVENUE FROM VIRTUAL GOODS AND SECOND LIFE ADVERTISING
Erick Schonfeld wrote an article in TechCrunch highlighting a new level of profit gain through the virtual world of Habbo which features the variety of Second Life to online users.

Once the rollout is complete, the functionality will be available right in the web-based Gmail interface. It is possible to initiate a voice or video chat right in the chat window when you are already talking to someone or you can start the video right from the contacts list with any video-enabled user. But don’t expect to see many friends with video chat enabled just yet as it is too new with only a small portion of users aware of its existence probably perhaps.

The virtual world’s parent company, Sulake, today reported some selective financial and user data for Habbo. In 2008, Habbo’s revenues rose 20 percent to $74 million (50 million Euros), and posted positive operating cash flow (EBITDA) of $7 million (4.8 million Euros). It was even slightly profitable on a net income basis as well, however the company chose not to disclose that exact amount. Perhaps the bulk of revenues are being plowed back into global expansion or to pay the salaries of Habbo’s 300 employees (yes, 300). But its sub-10% margins so far are underwhelming. And Habbo is supposed to be one of the shining examples of a real business based on a virtual economy. It also makes money from advertising, but the vast majority of its revenues comes from in-world gifting and virtual vanity items.

While on the subject of Habbo’s achievements, there begs the question about the costs of using its Second Life as highlighted by Robin Wauters in one Tech Crunch article.

Using publicly-traded online gaming companies as a proxy, Next Up pegs the median enterprise value (EV)/ Revenue multiple for that group at 7.2x off of 2009 revenues. Subsequently applying this self-proclaimed “conservative” multiple of 7x to the estimated revenue of Linden Lab ($100 million for this year), the current target valuation amounts up to $700 million.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF REALITY IS LAYAR’S AUGMENTED REALITY
Ciara Byrne wrote recently in Tech Crunch concerning an announcement made by Augmented Reality (AR) browser Layar, launching a new version of its browser and Layar would be pre-installed on the new Samsung Galaxy Android mobile phone.

Building a new layar is pretty straightforward using the Layar API. A layar can be customised via a simple web form and an Android APK is available for testing. Full info is available on the Layar Wiki . The layars announced in today’s event range from Sapporo hot spots, Poetry in motion (geotagged poems), celebrity sightings and city soundwalks to mobile coupons. There are also plenty of layars for navigation, tourism and real-estate applications to choose from.

HUGE SCOOPING €4.5 MILLION BY TWINITY TO DEVELOP 3D CITIES
As bluntly mentioned by Mike Butcher in a Tech Crunch article, virtual worlds would be bare and boring without any elements of the real world. So Twinity came up with the solution: virtual cities.

Twinity’s owner Metaversum , which has taken a totally different tack to the likes of Second Life , won the backing from existing investors Grazia Equity and Balderton Capital, which joined BFB BeteiligungsFonds Brandenburg from InvestitionsBank des Landes Brandenburg, which is managed by BC Brandenburg Capital and KfW’s combined expertise.

A COOL REINVENTION OF THE DESKTOP IN 3D WITH SOCIAL SITE INTEGRATION (INVITES)
Mashable.com featured an awesome article about the recreation of the basic desktop but in 3D modification with cool added features by BumpTop, as explained by Ben Parr.

It’s quick to understand the concept: people interact with the real world in three dimensions, with certain items being bigger, others being more important, and yet others being in a pile of mess. BumpTop turns that concept into reality by creating a 3 dimensional room for organizing all of your files. It takes a little time to get the hang of it, but the starting tutorial and screencasts help.

Google is one of the most successful online services on the planet and it shows no sign of slowing down its massive influence on the Web. Today; we’ll be featuring some of Google’s latest contributions.

GOOGLE CREATES A COMPLETE COMMUNICATIONS SUITE WITH VOICE AND VIDEO
It seems as though almost everything online is influenced by Google in its relentless quest to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Svetlana Gladkona wrote a post in Profy.com concerning a cool online communication suite recently created by Google, which includes online chat plug-ins and various other features.

Once the rollout is complete, the functionality will be available right in the web-based Gmail interface. It is possible to initiate a voice or video chat right in the chat window when you are already talking to someone or you can start the video right from the contacts list with any video-enabled user. But don’t expect to see many friends with video chat enabled just yet as it is too new with only a small portion of users aware of its existence probably perhaps.

GOOGLE EARTH GOES UNDERWATER, AN INSIDE LOOK AT GOOGLE WAVE AND SOME LOW POINTS
Mashable.com featured a few articles depicting the various strengths and weaknesses of Google…

Going Underwater With Google Earth
Google Earth is a successful map interface of the world atlas. In an article by Adam Ostrow in Mashable.com, Google has taken it one step further by litterally making its mapping imagery features included underwater!

According to The Guardian, the new features will also include environmental data to help track the “effect of climate change on the world’s seas and oceans.” Former Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore will be part of an event today in San Francisco to announce the Google Earth upgrade. While it sounds like Earth underwater would be super cool for the curious to check out, it also sounds like there could be a wealth of well-organized data that’s worth money to the types of people that seriously research this stuff.

3D Perspective In Maps API For Flash
The Google Geo Developers Blog featured an article that describes the cool new 3D Perspective map scan that is a new option preference for Google Earth.

We’ve taken the regular API, added pitch and yaw, borrowed the look-around control from Google Earth, and thrown in some nifty camera trajectory support. The opportunity to see the world from a chosen point of view is now in the hands of a user!

An Inside Look Into Google Wave Extensions
As attention mounts on the massive features of Google, Ben Parr wrote an article in Mashable.com featuring the Google Wave Extention, with features that allows developers to add their own customized gadgets to the open-source tool.

Google’s strategy with Google Wave seems to be to instigate mainstream adoption as quickly and widely as possible. This is why the platform is open-source and extendable. It makes it easier to tailor Google Wave for your needs. Businesses especially can put Wave on their own servers and run it within their own firewalls. Thus, expect Google to provide many incentives for developers to build on this platform, and expect many programmers to bite. Because Wave is open-source, it could go in almost any direction.

Google’s Occassional Dark Clouds
Nobody’s perfect… Stan Schroeder posted an article on Mashable.com revealing some rare weaknesses within Google. To name a few: Google Lively, Google Answers and Jaiku have all come to an end…

Google Lively, a virtual world in which users can create their own environment and avatar and communicate with each other, is about to be shut down. True, this was one of Google’s 20% projects, meaning that it was created by one of Google’s engineers in their “spare” time, but still, time and money were invested in it and it flopped badly, with hardly anyone ever using it.

 

GOOGLE CONTINUES TO BURN FEEDBURNER, INTRODUCES PUBSUBHUBBUB AND INTEREST BASED ADS
Improvement or failure of a business is sometimes based on the nature of a deal. As explained in an article by Marshall Kirkpatrick in Read Write Web, Google bought over an RSS and poscast publishing service called FeedBurner as one of its business growth strategies, and since then, have done very little good with it…

FeedBurner was acquired by Google in the Summer of 2007. People have criticized it for taking an unhelpful amount of control away from publishers, for failing to update publishers regarding ping processes for updates, and the Chinese government saying that FeedBurner was just plain unwelcome anywhere in the country. Still, for everything from analytics, to nice clean easily transferable URLs and accounts, FeedBurner has been great.

The Initial Support In FeedBurner For PubSubHubbub Protocol
Adsense for Feeds made an article to announce an open specification in draft for web-scale publishing and subscription features called PubSubHubbub. And also describes in full detail about its usefullness.

The protocol can be used to transform any existing Atom and RSS feed on the web into a real-time stream. Best of all, it’s open, free, and decentralized like the rest of what makes the web so great: No single organization controls the protocol.

Introducing "Interest-Based" Advertising
Read Write Web featured an article by Frederic Lardinois concerning one of Google’s marketing strategies – Ads Preferences Manager. This customizable feature allows users to either create profiles of their own interests, or wait for Google to automatically customize it according to the users’ browsing habits and preferences.

Google, of course, made its fortune by matching ads to the content of a page, but now, Google will go a step further and also take your own interests into account when it decides which ads to show. Theoretically, this should make the ads more relevant and – in return – make Google and its publishing partners more money.

GOOGLE WEB ELEMENTS AND GOOGLE’S ICEBERG STRATEGY (GOOGLE I/O)
In the O’Reilly Radar blog, Tim O’Reilly wrote an article concerning some new Google features that were brought-up by DeWitt Clinton on Twitter:

Google Web Elements, a new simple interface layer to Google Ajax APIs. The goal is to make bringing Google features to other sites as easy as cut and paste. And indeed, the cut and paste functionality is impressive: Add news, custom search, conversations, maps and more to your site with only a few clicks. The new version of the Google search Widget uses AJAX tabs for improved performance, as well as featuring new kinds of ad elements. And of course, search results can be styled to your site with CSS function features.

In the midst of all the fuss about Twitter, Microsoft and Google, Yahoo may have taken a backseat in discussions. However, they their new OPEN strategies and myriad of APIs have the potential to change the web as we know it.

YAHOO! OPEN STRATEGY, MAIL APPLICATION PLATFORM GOES LIVE AND RE-INVENTING THE KNOWN WEB PORTAL
Silently but effectively, Yahoo has released a number of new online applications that have interesting features as Rob Diana explains in a recent Mashable article.

In the past few months, we have seen the release of SearchMonkey, FireEagle and the BOSS API. On Monday we saw the addition of two preview technologies, Yahoo! Social APIs and Yahoo! Query Language (YQL). Obviously, Yahoo has not been giving us empty promises:

• SearchMonkey – the structured search result data API
• FireEagle – the location aware API
• BOSS – the build your own search service API
• Social APIs – a suite of preview APIs for basic social networking, contact communications, user status and user activity.
• Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) – a preview release of a single endpoint service to query, filter and combine data across Yahoo and beyond.

Talking about Platforms, Yahoo launched an application platform that allows users and developers to build applications, adding functionality to users’ inboxes, as explained by Adam Ostrow in Mashable.

Beyond Mail, Yahoo also made several developer-related announcements for other products, including My Yahoo, which now also enables users to add applications to their start pages. Despite competition from iGoogle, Netvibes, and others, My Yahoo remains the leading start page in terms of traffic, making it an equally big opportunity for profitable purposes.

When the Platform was completed, the next phase Yahoo took the initiative to move on in re-inventing the Web Portal in its YUI2.x and YUI3-based framework which enables customization for users, while developers will be able to create third party applications for their pages. Stan Schroeder explains this remarkable breakthrough in Mashable:

From the user’s standpoint, this means that Yahoo’s new homepage will be very customizable, with a dashboard area (on the left side of the screenshot) where you’ll be able to check Yahoo and non-Yahoo applications and services. On the other hand, Yahoo will “learn” from your browsing habits and bring you content tailored to your needs. Finally, you’ll feel more connected, as you’ll be able to see what your friends are up to, be it on one of Yahoo’s services or the web in general.

YAHOO! RESHAPES THE FUTURE OF WEB 3.0
Read Write Web recently featured an article by Lidija Davis, concerning one of the latest online business strategies that involves the Open Strategy (Y!OS).

Dubbed the ‘rewiring of Yahoo,’ Y!OS 1.0 launched this week with the introduction of the social suite . Its strategy focuses on opening up almost everything to developers, including content, traffic, and Yahoo’s user base. To make things simple for everyday developers, the Yahoo! duo told the audience they are concentrating on APIs for sites like FlickR and Delicious. “Of course, there are other technologies, like Yahoo! Query Language (YQL), the next generation of Yahoo Pipes, that brings ease of use to query language,” says Hughes-Croucher.

Tech Crunch was also in on the action with an article by Mark Hendrickson when it covered the official launching of Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) in San Francisco.

Today, application integration and a new theme API will be released for My Yahoo. You will also be able to view your friends’ activity across Yahoo’s property. The new applications will be listed under “Add Content” in a section called Open Apps (there appear to be eleven of these apps available right now). One such application is “Addicted to House” from App Developer Watercooler that shows a quote of the day and trivia of the day. You can also view a full-length episode of House from within the application. The theme API lets you and your friends create new themes and then send them to each other.

BREAKING DOWN THE MICROSOFT AND YAHOO! SEARCH DEAL
Cnet.com featured an article by Tom Krazit that depicted a paper deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! that has the ability to make the former into a media-driven advertising broker.

Yahoo is paying below market rate for an outsourced search engine: Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88 percent of future search revenue, a better ongoing deal than had been expected, according to IDC. It gets a guaranteed stream of search revenue for 18 months, and it gets to sell all the search ads on both Yahoo and Microsoft properties. And it gets to save money, one of the highest priorities for Bartz and new Yahoo CFO Tim Morse: the company estimated it will save $200 million in capital expenditures and see an overall benefit of $500 million in operating income.

In line with this sealed deal, Cnet.com managed to highlight an article that was a sign of change in Yahoo!’s favour of increasing business horizons by taking over ZIMBRA.

Though Zimbra is a standout in the industry, Yahoo’s own strength in consumer e-mail likely keeps Zimbra in second place for resources internally, especially since Zimbra’s enterprise-grade e-mail may not be a tight strategic fit. Zimbra would have been an exceptional match for Apple or Adobe with their design-savvy customer based conceptualizations.

YAHOO CEO STEPS DOWN AND THE SEARCH FOR A SUCCESSOR BEGINS
Tech Crunch highlighted an event that is set to send some waves of anticipation throughout the online community as Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang has stepped down, according in an article by Michael Arrington.

This was an unavoidable event, and in our opinion Yang took too long to step down. In May it was clear that Yang’s heart was no longer in it, and he reconfirmed that last month at the Web 2.0 Summit. Under his watch the company has lost tens of billions of dollars in market cap and thousands of former Yahoo employees (and hundreds of execs) are now gone. Whoever ends up as successor for the job, let’s just hope it’s an outsider. Yahoo is being clear that they are considering internal candidates. President Sue Decker is likely being considered for the post.

THE INTRODUCTION OF WINDOWS 7
Much has been discussed about Microsoft and its annual system application upgrades. Vista has since been scrutinized for its many defects. Taking note of this, Microsoft has developed Windows 7, described as a more reliable upgrade than its predecessor Vista. Michael Pietroforte gave us more insight of Windows 7 in his 4Sysops article which includes a Windows 7 complete feature list.

Probably the most important is that there is already a new version of RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools), which allows you to manage Windows Sever 2008 R2. These tools can also be used to administer some roles and features of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003. In my opinion, it was one of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes to release Vista without a replacement for the Adminpak tools.

• Windows 7 Walkthrough: AppLocker
• Windows 7 Walkthrough: Problem Steps Recorder
• Windows 7 Walkthrough: BitLocker and BitLocker to Go
• Windows 7 Walkthrough: Deployment Image Servicing and Management
• Compatibility Administrator
• Windows 7 Walkthrough: Enterprise Application Compatibility
• Windows 7 Walkthrough: User State Migration Tool

And though Microsoft is moving ahead with its innovative ideas and new applications, its “battle” with European Commission (EC) regarding Internet Explorer, has reached new heights that are both bizarre and puzzling as Michael Pietroforte explains in another 4sysops article:” If it is really true that it is against the law for a company to decide what kind of features a software product can have, then there is obviously something wrong with this law. To escape insane fines, Microsoft has decided to ship Windows 7 in Europe without Internet Explorer. Manufacturers and customers will have the option to install Internet Explorer. All Windows 7 editions sold in the European Union will have an “E” at the end of the product name.”

THE RETURN OF SEADRAGON
Seadragon.com, which is located at the top of Windows Azure, is a simple yet special site that allows the user to share images of pretty much any size on the web as a zoomable photo. Microsoft recently launched this incredible feature which has the potential impact to influence presentation methods in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter should it be adopted by either, as explained in Geek In Disguise Blog.

With Seadragon.com you end up with a URL that can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or through email or IM. Or embed it directly on your blog, eBay listing or virtually any site…if sites like eBay and Amazon were to adopt this it’d have a great impact for certain purchases where you need to see a lot of detail.

BUNDLING FIREFOX AND CHROME WITH WINDOWS
Recently featured in Dana Oshiro’s Read Write Web article, Microsoft offered to give consumers a choice of browser installation through a browser ballot screen consisting of Firefox and Chrome.

According to Stat Counter, Internet Explorer currently holds the majority market share for browsers at 61%. The next competitor is Firefox with roughly 30% of installs and Opera, Safari and Chrome make up the difference. With the new multi-browser bundling, competitors will finally reap the rewards of Microsoft’s distribution channels. As new PC’s are purchased, it’s likely that Firefox and Chrome will see a new opportunity to thrive.

INTEGRATING TWITTER IN YOUR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK
Every Microsoft Outlook user would normally have their account open at all times to be aware of newest inboxes. Recently, Microsoft Office Online featured a cool add-in for Outlook users called TwInbox. This add-in seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook thus saving the user from having to open any other applications when all features are at their fingertips.

If you are an Outlook user, you probably have it open all the time. Now you can have a fully-featured, powerful Twitter client at your fingertips without having to open any other applications. TwInbox seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook. It is a perfect Twitter client for any Outlook user, from a Twitter newbie to a business professional. Compatible with Outlook 2003 and 2007.

A NEW OUTLOOK WEB ACCESS VERSION AND BRINGING FACEBOOK AND TWITTER TO XBOX LIVE
Not satisfied with just a new upgrade in software, Microsoft announced recently that the next version of Exchange server called Exchange 14, includes full support for browsers as explained by Rafe Needleman in a Cnet article.

The Web access product is now called Outlook Live. University users of Microsoft’s free hosted e-mail service (Exchange Labs) will get the beta of the service shortly. Corporate users, who know of Web access to Exchange servers as Outlook Web Access, will get it when their companies upgrade to the Exchange 14 platform.

Cnet News also highlighted an announcement by Microsoft at its annual press briefing at the E3 Expo, that Facebook and Twitter will be featured in Xbox Live, enhancing its interactive features.

With the Facebook app, which will be a download from Xbox Live, members will be able to engage in a limited number of features including photo browsing, status updates, and looking at friends’ profile “streams.” But what’s more important to game developers is the fact that the Facebook Connect standard–which was rolled out first to Web developers, and then to iPhone developers –is coming to the Xbox this fall.

THE E309 OF THE NATAL PROJECT AND A GLIMPSE AHEAD MICROSOFT OFFICE LAB
Speaking about breakthrough technology, Microsoft unveiled Natal: a 3D motion sensing, facial and voice recognizing "controller", which literally lets the user become the controller! Offoworld.com featured an article by Brandon Boyer which gives us more info on this awesome new technology.

Microsoft promised the moon in its demo video for their Project Natal, carrying the tagline that it would “make ‘you’ the controller” and that, as the controller is the current “barrier separating game players from everyone else,” with Natal, “the only experience you need is life experience.”

CODEPAX DEEPEARTH AND THE NEW WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER WEB TOOLKIT
Live Services highlighted a special open-source project that integrates Microsoft Virtual Earth with the Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 platform called DeepEarth. The Live Demo requires the user to install Silverlight to view its amazing features.

DeepEarth is a mapping control powered by the combination of Microsoft’s Silverlight 2.0 platform and the DeepZoom (MuliScaleImage) control. At its core, it builds on these innovative technologies to provide an architecture for bringing together layers for services, data providers, and your own custom mapping elements together into an impressive user experience.

Live Services also featured a special application by Microsoft called Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit which consists a set of controls and libraries that enables the user to connect Windows Live Messenger users and their friends in a Network pattern concept. A video demonstration is also included in this insightful article.

The Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit provides Web sites with three core benefits: User acquisition-Your Web site visitors can help you build your audience on the fly by inviting their friends to your site through instant messaging.

Deeper engagement-The toolkit allows people on your Web site to easily chat with their Messenger friends or others on your site, keeping them their longer.

Return traffic-Bringing people back to your Web site is difficult when the only weapon in your arsenal is email. Using Messenger functionality you can break through the inbox chatter and remind people why your service is so great and worth using.

INTRODUCING B.I.N.G. AND ITS FEATURES
Tech Crunch featured an article by Michael Arrington recently that gave us a bit more info about BING (But It’s Not Google) search engine from Microsoft.

I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised. The images search was better (more relevant) that what I was getting at Google. I also tried some searches that I normally use Google for and most of the same results came up, in roughly the same order (meaning I could use this thing for real after all). The only problem I see is breaking the habit of using Google. That Bing is actually competent and useful for search is really surprising. MS nailed it.

Tech Crunch also highlighted an article by Erick Schonfeld encouraging the more frequent use of BING based on numerous positive reviews and tests.

Bing, Microsoft’s latest effort to compete in search , is now live on a “preview” site. The key thing to pay attention to is the guided search assistance on the left and the different experiences for the travel, images, video, maps, news, and shopping tabs.

LAY OFFS OF WORKERS AND LOSES OF HALF A BILLION ON THE WEB IN THE LAST QUARTER
Every empire has its occasional downfall, and thus was the case with Microsoft when the economical crisis arrived this year. Tech Crunch featured a sad day in Microsoft’s history as Robin Wauters explains in one of its articles.

In the midst of declining earnings, Microsoft announced today that it will be laying off up to 5,000 people over the next 18 months, or about five percent of its total workforce. Of that amount, 1,400 are losing their jobs today. Microsoft also says that it will continue to hire and that the net headcount reduction over the next 18 months should amount to between 2,000 and 3,000. The layoffs, along with salary freezes, the elimination of contract workers, lower marketing spending, and other measures are expected to reduce operating expenditures by $1.5 billion this fiscal year.

And with the economical crisis looming large upon every business, even Microsoft was not spared of huge loses in recent times as Erick Schonfeld explains in a Tech Crunch article.

Overall, Microsoft’s quarterly net profits declined 11 percent to $4.17 billion for the fiscal period ended in December. Operating profits were down 8 percent to $5.94 billion. If you drill down to the individual operating businesses, every business unit except for Servers and Tools suffered from lower operating profits. The Client division (Windows) took the biggest hit, with operating profits down $440 million to $2.95 billion. (Windows revenues were down 8 percent to $3.98 billion).

We seem to have resolved the issue now and just wanted to apologize for the recurring updates that took place today…