Miscellaneous
24 April 2007
'Google is the world's top brand' The Guardian
Google is the most powerful brand in the world, according to a survey that takes financial muscle and consumer sentiment into account. Google overtook Microsoft, formerly the world's top brand and which fell to third, and General Electric moving into second position.
From GooTube to GoogleClick - Is Google's latest string of deals a sign of strength or weakness? The Economist
Another month, another string of victories for Google, the internet's emerging superpower. With the most popular search engine and the most efficient system for placing text advertisements alongside the results, Google already dominates the lucrative market for "paid search" advertising (where advertisers pay only for mouse clicks). On April 13th Google announced that it would pay $3.1 billion -- making this its biggest acquisition ever -- for DoubleClick, the web's largest independent broker between online publishers and advertisers in the market for "branded" or "display" advertisements (where advertisers pay each time the ad is displayed). According to some estimates, this market segment, although smaller, is now growing faster than paid search.
Google - How Much More Should It Be Allowed to Grab? Washington Post
Google is the quintessential business success story. Two bright young guys started with an idea, built a company around it and grew it into a $150 billion juggernaut that now dominates the Internet. It nudged aside rival Yahoo, challenged traditional media giants and frustrated the Web strategy of the once-invincible Microsoft. And it did it all fair and square.
20 April 2007
Europe Not Pushing Enough Fiber to Home BusinessWeek
The Continent doesn't match North America or Asia in fiber-to-the-home delivery of broadband services, which could lead to slower innovation claims BusinessWeek, while blog postings from internet users claim it depends on where you are in Europe!
17 April 2007
Google's DoubleClick Strategic Move Business Week
With its $3.1 billion acquisition, the Internet giant secures entry into the promising business of display advertising and thwarts Microsoft in online search
07 April 2007
us: House ripped apart after fake ad placed online News.com.au
The home of a woman in the US has been stripped and trashed after a hoax listing on an online classified ads service Craigslist. There is little left of Laurie Raye's home after the fake ad on Craigslist invited people to take whatever they wanted for free.
05 April 2007
Chinese company tops Greenpeace "Green Ranking" of electronics industry (news release) Greenpeace
The latest Greenpeace ranking of electronic manufacturers' recycling and toxic content policies has a couple of surprises: Lenovo leaps to the number one spot, and Apple stays in last place.
Google and Microsoft 'in race for DoubleClick' The Times
Google has been flagged as a rival to Microsoft in a $2 billion race to buy DoubleClick, the largest broker of display advertising on the internet.
Research points the finger at PowerPoint Sydney Morning Herald
If you have ever wondered why your eyes start glazing over as you read those dot points on the screen, as the same words are being spoken, take heart in knowing there is a scientific explanation. It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time. The Australian researchers who made the findings may have pronounced the death of the PowerPoint presentation.
03 April 2007
Google April Fools: Web Service Through Toilet Sydney Morning Herald
Presiding over a company with a market value of $143 billion apparently gives Silicon Valley's most famous billionaires a good sense of humour - and a case of corporate potty mouth. Senior executives at Google Inc. launched their annual April Fools' Day prank Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing systems.
Is Google Too Powerful? Business Week
As the Web giant tears through media, software, and telecom, rivals fear its growing influence. Now they're fighting back: It's the year 2014, and Googlezon, a fearsomely powerful combination of search engine Google and online store Amazon.com, has crushed traditional media to bits. Taking its place is the computer-generated Evolving Personalized Information Construct -- an online package of news, entertainment, blogs, and services drawn from all the world's up-to-the-minute knowledge and customized to match your preferences. And it's all collected, packaged, and controlled by Googlezon.
Telecoms in the developing world: At your service The Economist
The idea of "universal service" is being extended from voice to broadband: The rapid growth of India's telecoms industry is visible not just in the subscriber numbers -- over 6m Indians now sign up for a mobile phone every month -- but in other ways, too. This week the government was to have announced the winners of an auction of the rights to create and run networks in remote rural areas. Around the world, such networks are often subsidised by a "universal service fund" (USF) paid for by taxes on existing telecoms services. Auctions are held, and the network operators that demand the smallest subsidies win. They must then provide a certain number of public payphones, as well as signing up subscribers.
30 March 2007
Wikipedia braces itself for April Fools' Day The Guardian
The online encyclopaedia anyone can edit has been the target of joke contributions since its launch in 2001, but April Fools' Day has proved an irresistible opportunity for internet pranksters, as well as normally trustworthy contributors inspired to let their hair down.
Vista shifts 20 million copies ZDNet
Microsoft claims Windows Vista is off to a fast start, having sold more than 20 million copies since its 30 January consumer release. By comparison, in its first two months, Windows XP sold 17 million copies, Microsoft said.
26 March 2007
The very model of a modern creative society? I don't think so The Observer
The problem with copyright we have now is that a gross imbalance has been allowed to develop between the legal privileges of rights holders and society's need to facilitate innovation and creativity.
Wiki wars The Observer
One of the internet's greatest success stories is under constant attack from cyber vandals. Now Wikipedia is fighting the information saboteurs - but can it stem the damage?
Google's expansion is coming at a price: it's losing its popularity The Observer
Is Google becoming the new Microsoft? On one level, the question is preposterous, as the two companies do different things. Google is the most widely used internet search engine and dominates online advertising. Microsoft rules the world of computer operating systems: its ubiquitous Windows powers most of the world's personal computers. In addition, Microsoft has a commanding position in basic office software, such as word-processing and spreadsheets. But increasingly, the two technology giants are treading on each other's toes. For instance, Microsoft is building a search engine business, while Google is launching products that allow users to tap into Google-branded word processing and other web services.
23 March 2007
The fat lady is clearing her throat and getting ready to sing for Opera The Guardian
Two months ago I stopped using Opera - the smallest, once the fastest, and often the best browser ever built. Opera had all the good ideas years before everyone else. It had tabbed browsing in 1997, and proper CSS support in the same year, long before there was any proper CSS to decode. Early this century it had a tiny chat client built in that would work across all the main networks. The Opera email client worked the same magic as Gmail, sorting and searching the mail without you needing to do so yourself, but more quickly, and it worked offline as well; its junk filter is very nearly as good Gmail's, and much better than Thunderbird's.
19 March 2007
‘Microsoft sucks’, says top blogger The Sunday Times
Robert Scoble, formerly Microsoft's tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a "technology evangelist". Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet. ... At a "global summit" of its most-valued software developers, Microsoft repeatedly declared that it would "win" in search and other parts of its Windows Live internet strategy. "The words are empty," Scoble responded. "Microsoft's internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that's 'in it to win', then I don't get it." He continued: "Microsoft isn't going away. Don't get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the internet? Come on."
17 March 2007
50 Largest Telecommunications Service Providers for 2006 Cellular News
The Eastern Management Group has released the names of the World's 50 Largest Telecommunications Service Providers for 2006. Topping the list as the world's largest service provider in 2006 was Japan's NTT, with revenues of US$95 billion. Verizon ranked number two among service providers worldwide, followed by AT&T. The smallest company making the list of the 50 was Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni, with revenues of US$6 billion.
08 March 2007
UN outlines global e-waste goals BBC
The UN launches a global initiative to tackle the growing mountain of electrical and electronic waste.
Microsoft: Google 'cavalier' on copyright The Guardian
Microsoft will today launch a blistering attack on Google, accusing the Silicon Valley giant of a "cavalier" attitude to copyright. In a prepared speech to the American Association of Publishers, senior Microsoft lawyer Tom Rubin is expected to hit out at Google for profiting from other people's work.
06 March 2007
On Advertising: BBC creeping toward commercialism International Herald Tribune
With its agreement with You-Tube, the BBC is moving away from its position as a publicly funded broadcaster.
04 March 2007
BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal BBC
The BBC will soon offer trailers, classic clips and news on Google's YouTube video sharing website.
02 March 2007
WhyMax? A much-hyped wireless technology is about to be put to the test The Economist
FOR the 60,000 people attending at 3GSM, the wireless industry's annual trade show that took place in Barcelona last week, WiMax was everywhere: on huge banners, on the lips of executives and on products in display cases. Everywhere, that is, except in the real world. The vaunted new wireless technology promises to combine the speed of broadband internet access with the ubiquity of mobile phones. Even as mobile operators start to upgrade their networks to the latest enhanced third-generation (3G) equipment, WiMax boosters say their technology is superior. Now that WiMax networks are starting to pop up around the world, the industry will soon find out if they are right.
