Nielsen has released the Search Statistics for March. No surprises… at least no big ones.

The biggest surprise is that Google remained stagnate at 58.7% when compared to the same statistics from February. But if you look at the same period last year, Google’s numbers go way up with an increase of 25.5%.

Yahoo! Search gained a bit from last month but saw a 4.5% decrease from last year. The third place still remains (and will probably remain) with MSN/Windows Live with a share of 12% (up 0.8% from last month).

From Nielsen-Online:

What strikes me in these numbers is, for example, the 130.5% yearly growth of AT&T Worldnet Search. It seems that users are trying to find alternatives to the big ones.

What do you make of the numbers? Everything as expected? Is your favorite search engine on the top 3?

Share your thoughts bellow.

Other sites discussing this topic:

• SearchEngineWatch.com
• Search World Summary
• Search Engine Land
• Business News

Related on this blog:

• New Twists and Turns on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal/fight/partnership/dance... thing...
• Google being sued... yet again
• Forget pennies - 707 is the new number... no, wait, it's higher!
• PageRank Update is here... All of it!
• Smacking Google on the head: the 3 main problems

This time, the honor goes to The Christian Institute. The non-denominational christian charity is suing Google over a refusal from the internet giant to publish advertisements featuring religious and anti-abortion messages on basis of its own policy, according to which it refuses sites mixing religious and abortion views.

The refused ad would be something like

UK abortion law - news and views on abortion from the Christian Institute. www.christian.org.uk

The legal proceedings against Google are based on a possible infringement of the Equality Act 2006 by discriminating against christian groups, and the religious institution is looking for damages, costs and permission to publish the ad.

Although a brief search on Google will clearly show you ads both from abortion clinics and other religious groups (anti-abortion), if it’s their policy (which I fully support) to not want ads that mix both issues, I don’t see much of a discrimination here.

Other sites discussing this issue:

SacredScoop, The Apostolic Report, Womensphere, Valleywag

Related on this blog:

• New Twists and Turns on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal/fight/partnership/dance... thing...
• March Search Stats - Google still grows from last year
• Forget pennies - 707 is the new number... no, wait, it's higher!
• PageRank Update is here... All of it!
• Smacking Google on the head: the 3 main problems

What is up with it this time?

In my last post, I noted that the popular Make Money Online blog John Cow not only was for sale but had actually sold less than 36 hours after the auction started at SitePoint.

It seems that the buyer didn’t honor his part of the agreement and the Cow is still for sale.

If you want to go for it, at the time of writing you still have 12 days and 16 hours to do so. And it got cheaper too…

But this only brings a new question. How reliable is SitePoint when it comes to enforce the winning bids?

After a series of “phantom” bids, the popular marketplace site changed the rules and states that bids are now legally binding. But how to enforce them? This is a worrying question since auction values, specially for premium sites, can easily reach 6 figures.

Either Sitepoint starts thinking about a valid way to do so, or it may start loosing business.

Related on this blog:

• Cow for Sale? Not anymore, it was sold

One of the blogs that reached A-list status in a short period of time has just sold for $50,000.

Much has been discussed about whether bloggers should or not turn their blogs into some quick cash by just selling them. Some agree, others disagree (mostly invoking personal links to the sites).

The truth is, it’s a way to make some quick (and not so small) amounts of money.

Just a few days ago, Ben Cook from BloggingExperiment.com announced his decision to sell his site (which sold fast for 5 figures value). Now it was the turn of JohnCow.com.

Less than 36 hours after making the announcement, the Buy it Now value of $50,000 was met (only two much smaller bids were posted before the final one).

How things will turn for the milkiest site around, we’ll have to see in the time to come.

Related on this blog:

• The Cow still gives milk

Besides Yahoo and Microsoft, names like Google, AOL and News Corporation are now reported to be potential participants on either side of the field. Something like a Yahoo-Google-AOL vs. Microsoft-News Corp.

AP sheds a bit more light into the whole thing.

In a related story, TechCrunch reports that this whole mess is prompting the Congress to speed up things regarding the discussion of online advertising.

In February, the House Judiciary Committee announced plans to hold a hearing on the State of Competition on the Internet. Yesterday’s announcement of a two-week trial venture between Yahoo! and Google, as well as reports of a possible Yahoo!/AOL merger, further underscore the need for a hearing on the state of competition on the Internet and online advertising. The Judiciary Committee’s Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws will continue to explore these issues.

This is a big deal… Lot’s of money is going to exchange hands and it will probably affect, to some extent, the navigation experience of consumers.

Now it’s time to sit back and wait for the next episode on the soap opera. Do you have your popcorns ready?

What do you think about it? Is the fact that Yahoo is letting Google share ad space a good thing or just further extends Google’s monopolization? And what about Microsoft, will it get a piece of Yahoo or not? Share your thoughts on the comments bellow.

Related on this blog:

• March Search Stats - Google still grows from last year
• Google being sued... yet again
• Forget pennies - 707 is the new number... no, wait, it's higher!
• PageRank Update is here... All of it!
• Smacking Google on the head: the 3 main problems

The “service without a smile” is probably more known from certain type of restaurants / breweries. Actually, although maybe it was not the initial intention, it was something that stuck and owners of this type of restaurants make a point of having the “service without a smile”. But let me assure you that in the majority of places you’ll get your smile.

But back to the topic, the idea of a fully automated restaurant really attracts me. It might be much more impersonal (it really is) and probably not the right place to take the special someone, but occasionally it would be somewhere to go. A “sushi” bar without the sushi…

Unfortunately, still didn’t get around here…

What was surprising to me, after reading it at the Global Geek Podcast site, was that the price of the two versions is, for now, the same: $399.

If Asus and Microsoft reached some sort of agreement (maybe MS is starting to fear Linux after all) or if Asus is cutting it’s own throat to increase sales, is unknown to me, but looks very promising to reach a wider audience.

Asus Eee PC Reviews at:

• PC Prespective
• Brighthand
• LaptopMag

If you want to wait before buying to see what the competition has to say, you can start with the HP 2133 Mini-note PC.

Related on this blog:

• Windows Vista Magazine Wishlist 2007 Awards

The iPlayer, the TV on-demand service from BBC (available to UK users), has been around since Summer 2007 but had it’s official launch only on Christmas day. Since then, it has grown immensely in popularity and functionality, with the first figures showing over 250,000 stream requests per day and recently reaching as high as 500,000.

Although it is well know that TV habits are changing with more and more consumers shifting from conventional TV to online media, the bandwidth costs can’t be dismissed lightly. ISPs in the UK estimate a cost of £830 million to increase network capacity.

Who should pay for all this?

On one hand I can understand the ISPs: they see a dramatic increase in operation costs due to a trend that didn’t exist until a few years and to keep with service quality these costs need to be matched; On the other hand, publishers understand what consumers want and know that to keep ahead they need to provide more and more content, independently of whatever costs the ISPs may face.

So, now comes the question: to keep the quality standards (ISPs) and still satisfy consumer demands (publishers) who will end up paying the bill?

Ashley Highfield, director of future media and technology for the BBC, claims that ISPs should pay to keep their clients happy, without limiting access to content.

“Content providers, if they find their content being specifically squeezed, shaped, or capped, could start to indicate on their sites which ISPs their content worked best on (and which to avoid). I hope it doesn’t come to this, as I think we (the BBC and the ISPs) are currently working better together than ever.“

Simon Gunter, from Tiscali (a UK based ISP), answered back and, although directed specifically at BBC, raises and issue that could affect all major publisers.

“The question is about whether we invest in extra capacity or go to the consumer and ask them to pay a BBC tax. Inflammatory comments about blacklisting ISPs do not help. There seems to be a lack of understanding about how networks are built. Either we are not explaining it properly or it is falling on deaf ears.“

Widening the scope

This question was raised in the past few days, mainly because of the impact the iPlayer is having (affecting around 3 to 5% of the UK network) but the issue could be widened to a global scale.

I think there are no doubts about the impact that online media is having on communications and how the general public is embracing on-demand and citizen generated content (look at the success of youtube.com). It’s here to stay and will only increase in a cycle that will affect ISPs and ultimately consumers.

On a brilliant marketing strategy, ISPs started offering “unlimited” bandwidth, “unlimited” downloads, “unlimited” everything… and oh look, so cheap. There is no such thing as unlimited. But if they offered it, it should be kept without capping any sort of content from any sort of provider.

Unfortunately for them (and alas, probably also for consumers) their business model started cracking. Not everyone uses the web only to check email and read the news anymore. Times, values and demands changed and, instead of fighting mindless fights about who should pay the bills it’s time to move on, go back to the drawing board and come up with something new to keep everyone happy.

Easy? Not really… but business is made of challenges.

The way I see it, either

• ISPs will start again to introduce limits on how much bandwidth consumers can use which will mean much more selectiveness from the consumer’s part;
• Publishers will pay the extra costs but it will probably mean that advertising will be much more prevalent;
• Plans will just get more expensive for the consumer.

And now it’s your turn? What do you think will happen? Should ISPs, publishers or consumers pay the bill? Voice your opinion in the comments section bellow. I think we have a subject open for much debate in the times to come.

Other sites discussing this:

- HighPosition.net

- ISPreview.co.uk

- What Hi-Fi?

- Neoco

Related on this blog:

• TV loosing more and more ground to Online Media
• The Siege of the Entertainment Industry

The two-year dispute between Sony’s Blu-Ray and Toshiba’s HD-DVD has finally come to an end. Consumers play a major role on the final decision.

The fall of the axe on the HD-DVD started before Christmas with Nintendo not managing to supply all the demand for the Wii, which led thousands of consumers to choose the PS3 instead as a gift, which reads Blu-Ray discs.

The next big blow came from Warner Bros. when, on January 4, announced that would drop the HD-DVD format and go exclusively with the Blu-Ray format for high-definition discs.

While, up to now, the format war looked still far from the end, everything went downhill from here for the HD-DVD. After Warner Bros., Paramount/Universal, Netflix, Best Buy and lastly, two days ago, Wal-Mart all announced Blu-Ray as their choice. Even Microsoft (and early supporter of HD-DVD) mentioned that it could consider using Blu-Ray on the Xbox 360.

…and the end…

According to the japanese public broadcaster NHK, a source at Toshiba confirmed the announced dead:

We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business

What I find somewhat weird is that, although they are going to pull the plug and stop development and support for the HD-DVD players they sell, Toshiba will still keep selling the existing stock. Isn’t this ripping off the customers?

After the move, which will cost Toshiba hundreds of millions of dollars, they’ll have no other choice than to start producing their own Blu-Ray players if they want to stay on the high-definition discs market.

Do you own a HD-DVD player? What is your take on this announced death?

Others talking about the dead of the HD-DVD format:

• Toshiba pulling the plug on HD DVD already? - Yup it’s over. - at Engadget
• Market sources claim Toshiba to give up on HD DVD format - at TechWhack
• Toshiba to withdraw HD DVD support soon - at qj.net
• Toshiba Confirms Withdrawal from HD-DVD - at RealTechNews
• It’s all but Official: HD DVD is Dead - at Practical Technology

So, this week’s productivity killer:

Zwingo

Enjoy and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Related on this blog:

• Animator vs. Animation: Flash animation at its best

Are we all under siege in spite of the exorbitant prices we pay for any media we intend to call our own?

Thanks to TUIBGuy for posting it.

Related on this blog:

• BBC's iPlayer tests UK ISP's business model
• Animator vs. Animation: Flash animation at its best

And as usual on these things, it’s up to us to decide who/what gets the award.

Through a scientific process of arguing and shouting, the magazine team have narrowed down our favourite products of 2007 to six per category. Now we want you to pick the best.

As an added incentive, participants will be entered into a prize draw. And the prizes aren’t so bad (but I guess only for UK voters).

Just out of curiosity, I’ve taken a look at the “Big 6″ for each category. Not bad a selection with a wide range of choices but I’ll have to say that probably some of those got a “sponsored” selection. Just my guess…

In any case, here are my choices for each of the 11 categories (the 12th will be decided by them alone).

1. SanDisk Sansa e200 series
2. Crysis
3. Intel Core 2 Extreme
4. Nokia N95
5. Canon 400D (sorry Sony, if the alpha was there it would have my unbiased vote)
6. flickr
7. 4oD
8. Toshiba Portégé R400
9. MS Office 2007 Pro (if I had the option to choose none, I would have)
10. BT Broadband
11. HP Touchsmart PC

Related on this blog:

• Asus Eee PC with Linux same price as with XP

Nintendo’s Wii has proven to be a huge success, mainly due to the family oriented games provided. Now, with rumors that Nintendo may not be able to supply the Christmas season demand, some others are getting on the game. And XBOX 360 Arcade is just one of them…

Watch the video bellow for more details (by Reuters):

Is the Wii or similar the console for you?

photo by Reuters

I’ve heard about this “granny” sometime ago, but recently it has been all over the news and I found it interesting to share with my readers. It demonstrates, not only how ageless the internet is, but how personal willing can reshape people.

At 95, this spanish elder is considered the oldest blogger in the world. And guess what, she has more success than the majority of the bloggers around.

Online for less than one year, María Amelia López has managed to attract over 500,000 visits to her space on the internet, 95 years old blogger.

While for the most tech savvy, the “95 years old blogger” might not be much than a curiosity, for her it’s almost a personal statement of how the internet can be conquered, independently of age. Knowing this can be a fantastic lesson for many.

When I saw my grandson using the Internet, it caught my attention. I said to myself “What’s this? You can find out about anything. I want an Internet!”

Way to go granny López!

• CrunchGear confirms what everyone was was thinking. The recent ditch of Apple’s iTunes by NBC (and it seems that other major media companies are following) was just a matter of money.
• Daily Blog Tips shares 10 tips for Managing Email Efficiently. While some of these tips cannot be followed by some people (usually for workflow reasons), the majority of them are sure to increase your email productivity.
• So, you want to try the new Vista, but are still too uncomfortable to drop XP altogether. HD Geek tells you how to have both on one box with dual booting. It’s a step-by-step guide.
• Laptop Info Today goes into detail on how to extend the autonomy of your laptop battery. Something that we all should keep in mind when taking the laptop for a walk.
• For all the bloggers out there, this is a must read. The standard editors on the most common blogging platforms can be sweet or a nightmare. But there are alternatives and Blogging Bits found 17 of them albeit some more useful than others. Personally, I’m with Windows Live Writer. What is yours?

Related on this blog:

• Tech Net: 13th Oct 2007