Highly Influential Macworld Conference May Be Shutting Down

With its decision to end its relationship with the Macworld Expo, Apple is cutting one of its last ties to an era in which it wasn't a technology powerhouse. The shocking news that January's Macworld would be the last with Apple's participation--and that CEO Steve Jobs will not appear--reveals an Apple that has decided it no longer needs to make an appearance at the event that has come to define the company in recent years. In doing so, it's also preparing for a future when its iconic founder no longer dominates the stage the way he currently does while confirming a shift in its strategic thinking when it comes to reaching customers. Apple relies on two types of marketing: one, the slick commercials with the cool music that showcase what its products can do, such as the Mac versus PC ads and the famous silhouetted dancing iPod listeners. The second method is the Stevenote: Jobs is a master at the art of presenting new products and rolling out strategies to both the public (Macworld) and the press (WWDC, iPod events).
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/17/apple.macworld/index.html

Twitter Partners With Google (Not Facebook) for Universal Log-ins

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone announced this morning that the micro-blogging service would integrate Google's Friend Connect service. That means means Twitter account holders can use their login ID on any other site also integrated with Google Friend Connect. It also means Google account holders can use their Google account ID to sign up for Twitter. Facebook just launched a similar service -- called "Facebook Connect" -- that lets Facebook members use their Facebook account across the Internet. Facebook and Google (GOOG) want their users to to sign up for the "connect" services so the companies can better keep tabs on how their users behave across the Web. That knowledge may lead to better, more profitable ads and ad networks in the future.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/siliconalley/media/2008_12_google_friend_connect_gets_twitter_goog.html

Could the stars be aligning for a Google-N.Y. Times merger?

As the New York Times Co. is negotiating with lenders over its debt, speculation has been floating around the blogosphere, pushing the premise that Google Inc. should acquire the beleaguered Gray Lady. The thesis (or, rumor, as some would put it) has been around since the beginning of the year, with SpliceToday on Thursday reintroducing the idea of the unorthodox union of the stalwart of old media with the scion of new media. For one, John Ellis at RealClear Markets said earlier this year the Sulzbergers would run into the arms of Google to avoid any takeover from Rupert Murdoch, who reportedly covets the Times. Meanwhile, cash-flush Google reportedly would be able to scoop up the Times, which includes prime New York real estate, for $4 billion or possibly less in this declining market. Ellis argues the addition would make sense for Google because it would be able to "make money repurposing the cultural and culinary coverage, to pick just two categories, of the New York Times, across both its Internet and mobile platforms."
http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2008/12/could_the_stars_be_aligning_fo.php

Google Chrome Out of Beta

Google vice president Marissa Mayer announced Google Chrome is coming out of beta in an interview with Michael Arrington at Le Web 08. The Google’s open source browser has a number of eager customers, including OEMs who can’t offer the browser until it is in full release. Chrome’s Windows client has been in beta since its roll out 3 months ago, and with the new move will likely spur bundling with Google Toolbar and Google Apps. Chrome’s official release comes at a time when Google is accelerating efforts to redefine the browser around open Web standards while adding rich media and secure code extensions. Google’s open source Native Client project is just one possible future for the Chrome platform, where applications can run in a browser but incorporate native code modules. For example, this would allow developers to perform image processing on the local client without requiring round trips to the server.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/google-takes-chrome-out-of-beta/

http://www.google.com/chrome

Gmail Enables SMS Messaging

Gmail has introduced a new feature allowing users to send free SMS messages through its integrated Chat. To activate the feature, visit the Gmail Labs page and scroll down until you see the appropriate listing. To send a message, just type a phone number into the search box at the top of the chat window on the left side of the Gmail interface, and hit ‘Send SMS’. Numbers can be associated with contact names so you don’t have to keep manually entering them. Recipients of these messages can respond by simply hitting ‘reply’ on their cell phones to send their own SMS message (Gmail ties a unique phone number with each of your contacts).
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/gmail-enables-sms-messaging-from-chat/

AOL Relaunching Bebo With More Cross-Utilization

So what do Bebo users get for the $850 million AOL (NYSE: TWX) shelled out for the social site? Easier Yahoo Mail access, for one. Bebo is today launching Social Inbox, a social feed and email aggregator that brings access to services including Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, AIM, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO) Mail and AOL Mail, all from within the Bebo site. It’s basically the injection in to Bebo of SocialThing, the little FriendFeed-type aggregator AOL bought in August and which has come under former Bebo president Joanna Shields’ newly widened remit as AOL People Networks president; and it certainly helps unify communication options at a time when our social memberships are fragmenting. But the main beneficiaries are users of Bebo, rather than AOL, and its true to say that, technologically speaking, this could have been accomplished pretty easily without Bebo being absorbed by AOL. Other additions today… Nine months after the acquisition, Bebo is also letting users log in with just their AOL/AIM screen names. And it’s starting to make video recommendations from its Open Media platform, which has over 500 broadcast partners; users will get recommendations based on their profile preferences, friends’ viewing habits and what unknown but similar people are liking.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-aol-relaunching-bebo-bringing-frenemies-under-its-roof/

Google Book Search Expands To Magazines

Having finally settled with book publishers about scanning and indexing hundreds of thousands of books, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has set its sights on another print medium—magazines. Announced today via a blog post, Google is partnering with publishers like Hearst, Johnson Publishing, Emmis Publishing and New York Media to bring a bunch of magazine archives and current issues online. It’s the formal start of an initiative that has been in the works for a while, as there are currently more than a million articles available from titles like Men’s Health, Atlanta Magazine, Ebony and New York Magazine, with new ones being added continuously. Users search through the articles—complete with vintage ad spreads—via Google Book Search, though magazine results will eventually show up in general searches on Google.com. Google is running sponsored links against the articles, and a spokesperson said that publishers get a cut of the revenue. With magazines folding, downsizing and taking financial and editorial hits left and right, any new revenue source seems like a good thing.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-google-book-search-expands-to-magazines/

HP to Offer 3-Year Laptop Battery

A fast-charging laptop battery that promises to last at least three years without any degradation in performance is coming to the market as an option with Hewlett-Packard laptops. The Sonata battery is the product of three years of development work by Boston-Power and will be rebranded by HP as the "Enviro" battery and offered from early 2009 with select machines. A fast-charging laptop battery that promises to last at least three years without any degradation in performance is coming to the market as an option with Hewlett-Packard laptops. The Sonata battery is the product of three years of development work by Boston-Power and will be rebranded by HP as the "Enviro" battery and offered from early 2009 with select machines.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/10/HP_to_offer_3year_laptop_battery_1.html?source=rss

Blackbird: Firefox for Black People

Blackbird is a new browser built on top of Mozilla technology that is supposed to make it easier for African Americans to discover relevant content on the web and to interact with other members of the African American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos via the browser. The browser displays a pre-set news ticker on top, pulls in news content from Google News that might be of interest to African-Americans, and features a section with video content from online TV sites like UptownLiveTV, NSNewsTV, DigitalSoulTV and ComedyBanksTV. Other than that, there’s a lot of integration with the most popular social networks, a ‘Black Search’, preset ‘Black Bookmarks’, etc. There’s also a ‘Give Back’ program that streamlines donations to a number of non-profit organizations (Blackbird intends to donate 10% of its 2009 revenue to these partners as well).
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/08/blackbird-is-a-custom-browser-for-african-americans-built-on-top-of-mozilla/

http://www.blackbirdhome.com/

The Many Possibilities of Facebook Connect

What if Amazon or iTunes integrated Facebook Connect? iPhone games? This presentation from Razorfish ponders the possibilities…

Portable Social Graphs - Imagining their Potential

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: retail marketing)

Yahoo To Relaunch Launchcast Next Year With CBS Radio

Yahoo has turned to CBS to help keep its LAUNCHcast streaming radio service alive. As part of the new partnership, CBS Radio will provide the player and handle the ad sales for LAUNCHcast, and various CBS (NYSE: CBS) stations will be available on Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music. Yahoo will also incorporate more radio content throughout its news and sports portals. It’s the latest move in Yahoo’s strategy to “completely open” its music operations to other services: the company recently launched an enhanced music search service with Rhapsody. CBS Radio’s ad sales expertise is a big plus: it has a 1,600-member sales team, can sell ads on national and local levels, and has a vested interest in TargetSpot, the ad technology firm that can serve hypertargeted ads into various types of streaming media. CBS also has experience with a partnership of this size, as it merged its online radio network with AOL’s back in March.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-ties-up-with-cbs-to-save-streaming-radio-service/

Windows Live Rolls Out Its New Social Network Hub

Today, Microsoft is rolling out some of the sweeping changes to Windows Live it announced two weeks ago. Windows Live seems to be gradually replacing MSN as Microsoft’s central hub for everything you do on the Web. The new home page shows both your email and an activity stream of what your contacts are doing across the Web. It’s more FriendFeed than Facebook, with a little MyYahoo thrown in. You can also customize it to show the local weather, your calendar, and news headlines. A handful of recent your photos are displayed at the top, along with a search box and links to other Live services (Profile, People, Mail, Photos, Events, Spaces, Groups, SkyDrive, and even MSN). The new services here are Groups, Photos, and Profile. The Profile page shows all of your activities on Wndows Live as well as other Web services like Twitter, Flickr, and Yelp. Groups lets you set up collaborative pages with others and includes a group calendar. Windows Live Photos also has a nifty slideshow feature that uses Silverlight to change the background color to match the dominant color in each photo. With this redesign, Microsoft is also boosting the storage limit of its online file storage service, SkyDrive, from 5GB to 25GB. Primarily that is to make Windows Live Photos a more competitive photo sharing service. The photos take up storage in your SkyDrive account.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/02/windows-live-rolls-out-its-new-social-network-hub-boosts-skydrivephoto-storage-to-25-gb/

MSN Ends Relationship with LeBron James

Microsoft and the NBA's "chosen one," LeBron James, are dropping a marketing relationship that had the Cleveland Cavaliers star forward hawking Windows Vista and promoting himself on an MSN site, Bloomberg reported. "James' spokesman Keith Estabrook confirmed Wednesday the contract between the Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star and Microsoft is not being renewed," according to Bloomberg. "...The partnership faltered when Microsoft executive Joanne Bradford, who struck the deal with James, resigned as head of the company's media network this year." In Februrary 2007, Microsoft's MSN group announced a Web site, lebron.msn.com, to promote James' off-court persona and help him connect with fans. It featured content focusing on his rise to NBA stardom and sports statistics, but also his involvement with the community. Just visited that Web address and, sure enough: "The site you have requested has concluded publication."
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2008/11/26/bloomberg_microsoft_and_lebron_james_not_renewing.html

Samsung Withdraws Bid For Sandisk

Samsung has withdrawn its proposal to acquire SanDisk...it launched a public bid for $26 per share in cash last month. The memory card maker rejected the bid right after, and it was only a matter of time before Samsung had to cave in, considering the current economic climate (not conducive to public takeovers), and of course SanDisk’s less-than-stellar earnings yesterday.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-samsung-withdraws-bid-for-sandisk/

Google Project Attracts 150,000 Ideas

A $10 million call by Google Inc. for beneficial, world-changing ideas has generated more than 150,000 online submissions. The deadline for people to submit ideas for the initiative, called Project 10^100, was Monday. Google employees will now sift through the ideas, submitted in 25 languages, and choose 100 semifinalists by January 27. Funding for up to five winning ideas will be awarded in May. Google launched the ambitious project September 24 to help celebrate its 10th birthday. In announcing Project 10^100 (pronounced "10 to the 100th"), the Internet giant said to hoped to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas it believes will have broad and beneficial effects on people's lives. The project's Web site (http://www.project10tothe100.com/) suggested that successful ideas address such critical issues as providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy. As an example, Google cited the invention of the Hippo Water Roller, a barrel-shaped container that holds 24 gallons and can be rolled with little effort like a wheelbarrow, making it easier for African villagers on foot to transport critically needed fresh water to their homes.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/10/22/google.project.update/index.html

Google Profiting From Typo Squatting, Class Action Lawsuit Coming

Google is profiting from millions of typo-squatting websites that earn advertising from Google's Adsense advertising program, Harvard University professor Ben Edelman says. In a report published Monday, Edelman says Google profits from typo-squatting websites that run ads using Google's Adsense — which, ironically, are often bought by the owners of the legitimate sites web surfers were trying to visit. Typo-squatting sites are found at domains that have one letter different from legitimate, trademarked domains — bankofdamerica.com, for instance, as depicted in the screenshot above, which has a "d" in the URL. Typo-squatting has been around since the beginning of the web, but until recently, typo-squatters had limited means of profiting from surfers' bad spelling or clumsy typing. But using Google's Adsense for Domains (AFD) program, typo-squatters fill their sites with sponsored links that often point to the legitimate domain. If a misdirected surfer hits a sponsored link, the legitimate domain owner ends up paying the typo-squatter for that referral, and Google as well. Edelman and other lawyers have filed a class action lawsuit representing domain owners who claim the Google Adsense for Domains (AFD) program is assisting in violating trademarks. A hearing is scheduled for as early as next month in which Edelman will ask an Illinois federal judge to allow the case against Google to proceed.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/google-profitin.html

Google CEO Backs Obama

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, signaling Mr. Schmidt's push for a greater voice in politics while giving the Obama campaign a boost from a highly desirable constituency. Mr. Schmidt said his planned endorsement of the Illinois senator is a "natural evolution" from his role as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. The Google chief plans to join executives from other technology companies to announce their support for Sen. Obama. Sunday, Sen. Obama received an endorsement from Colin Powell, who was President George W. Bush's first secretary of state. Congress is considering measures that could have an adverse impact on Google's business, including laws that could limit companies' ability to deliver personally targeted online advertisements and rules that would allow telecommunications companies to charge different prices for different levels of Internet service. Lawmakers' and regulators' scrutiny of Google, in particular, is intensifying. The company's proposed ad-sharing agreement with Yahoo Inc. triggered a Justice Department probe into whether the deal would give Google too much control over the market and lead to higher prices for online advertisers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122446734650049199.html

Google To Allow Gambling Ads After Self-Imposed Four-Year Ban

Google is allowing gambling advertisements in its search results in Britain - for the first time anywhere in the world since a self-imposed moratorium in 2004. Industry experts say the search engine, which welcomed the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to its London offices yesterday, could generate more than £100m in revenues from rule changes, which come into effect today. The business commands a 70 per cent share of the paid search advertising market in the UK. Google has been reviewing its gambling advertising policy "to ensure it is as consistent as possible with local business practices", said James Cashmore, industry leader, entertainment and media, at the company. "We hope this change will enhance the search experience for users and help advertisers connect with interested consumers." Google banned gambling advertisements when the US Congress cracked down on the industry in 2004. Online gambling companies welcomed the lifting of the ban, which follows the UK Gambling Act's removal of prohibitions on television advertising of casino and bingo gaming, which came into force in September 2007.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a125f8a-9be4-11dd-ae76-000077b07658.html

Microsoft Gets Bleeping Patent

Microsoft got another &#@*%-ing patent. The software maker last week was granted U.S. patent No. 7437290 for, essentially, a technology that lets the company bleep out words in an audio stream that match a list of predefined bad words. Ars Technica, which reported on the patent both when Microsoft applied for it in 2004 as well as now that it has been granted, notes that the technology could be used for more than just censoring profanity, suggesting that perhaps China or another government would want it employed for other phrases, such as Tibet or free speech. Ars notes that the technology could be particularly adept if applied to cell phone audio given that cell phones have proved an important tool for dissidents aiming to organize.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10070201-75.html

Google/Yahoo Talking to Justice Dept. About Settlement of Antitrust Issues

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are in talks with the Justice Department in an effort to head off an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement. The settlement negotiations are at an early stage and it isn't clear whether they will resolve U.S. objections or be acceptable to the two companies, lawyers close to the effort said. At the same time, investigators are continuing to build a lawsuit to block the deal, worried it would give Google too much power in online advertising. Major advertisers have raised objections to the Google-Yahoo deal, which would align the two largest players in Internet ads. Advertisers have told Justice Department officials that the partnership will limit competition, raise prices and reduce choices. In the settlement talks with the government, both companies have discussed concessions. These include capping the volume of Google ads Yahoo would use, assurances that Yahoo would continue to compete in search ads, and a reporting mechanism to ensure compliance, people close to the talks said. U.S. officials hope to impose measures that will ensure that prices advertisers must pay don't rise significantly after the deal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122393254528030085.html