Switching to a new email address can be a pain, but it doesn't have to be. To get personalized help on how to switch to Gmail, visit the new Switch to GMail guide. You will learn how to import contacts into GMail and how to announce your new GMail address.
Some other nice links:
Next challenges for Microsoft in 2006
Take Vista into the Boardroom
Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract, and sales of Windows upgrade rights to corporations have been disappointing. In 2006, Microsoft has to settle on a feature set for Vista that appeals to enterprises, explain clearly what that feature set is, and reveal what PC hardware and other infrastructure corporations require to reap the benefits.
"The Windows Client division has to tell corporate customers why they want Windows Vista, and why they shouldn't wait until they buy new hardware."
—Rob Helm, Director of Research
Lead on Application Security and Reliability
Microsoft has always offered guidelines for how to develop secure, reliable applications on Windows, but the company rarely had the discipline to enforce them, even with its own applications. The result has been a treadmill: developers inside and outside of Microsoft continue to write applications that fail or require unsafe levels of privilege to run, while the Windows team develops increasingly complex workarounds (such as the User Account Protection mechanism of Windows Vista) to keep these applications going. Meanwhile, Microsoft's antispyware team hesitates to say whether clearly malicious software, such as a recent digital rights management tool that shipped on some Sony CDs and that observers deemed a "rootkit," violates its guidelines. The run-up to Vista in 2006 could be Microsoft's last chance to stop badly behaved Windows applications by publishing a definitive set of guidelines, and enforcing the guidelines in its logo programs and malicious software protection products—even against its own developers.
"The time has come for Microsoft to show discipline in dealing with bad applications, and to lead in the war on spyware and other malicious software."
—Michael Cherry, lead analyst, Windows
Deliver Clarity on Managed Solutions
In 2005 Microsoft began to directly deploy and manage PC software for customers like Energizer Holdings. If expanded, this "managed solutions" business could be profitable in its own right, but could also boost the Windows and Office franchises, which together generate 50% of Microsoft's revenues and the bulk of its profits. However, expansion could also hurt the loyal systems integrator partners who not only move thousands of units of Windows and Office onto PCs, but also push the company's increasingly important server products. In 2006, Microsoft has to clarify how far it will go into managed solutions, and what parts of that business it will leave on the table for partners.
"Microsoft needs to map out where its managed solutions effort is going, how it will differ from what partners are doing today, and how it will kick-start financial growth."
—Paul DeGroot, lead analyst, sales and support
Get Going on Tools
Microsoft lavishly supports software developers with low-cost development tools and technical information, making developers some of the strongest advocates for Windows and other strategic products. However, the company's Developer Division just completed a difficult product cycle for Visual Studio 2005, and time is short to deliver the tools that corporate developers will need to take advantage of Windows Vista. In 2006, the division needs to get going on the next generation of basic tools to support Vista, so that companies start to see payoffs in the applications they develop.
"Parts of Vista like the Web services framework cry out for tools. Microsoft needs to get Vista tools out to developers, particularly to Visual Basic developers who are less comfortable programming to a raw API."
—Greg DeMichillie, lead analyst, developer
Refresh the Online Strategy, Again
Microsoft’s latest online strategy is to match Google’s every move in hopes of raking in more advertising dollars, while taking yet another stab at subscription services. 2005 saw a lot of motion—leaked memos, blog buzz, reorgs, and a new "Live" brand—but little progress in terms of service improvements, audience share, or dollars. So Microsoft’s online strategy must start to gel in 2006, or the company will find Google continuing to steal headlines and rake in the advertising bucks—or worse, building online services that begin to compete with Microsoft's core software franchises.
"Microsoft's online strategy has had more facelifts than an aging movie star. The latest strategy could deal with the Google threat, but Microsoft must get its new advertising platform up and running and clarify its offerings for small businesses."
—Matt Rosoff, lead analyst, consumer and corporate
Xbox 360 Final Death Match Challenge
Microsoft executives have promised that the Xbox business would become profitable by FY'07, which begins in July 2006. Many of the pieces are in place: Microsoft beat Sony and Nintendo to market with an impressive piece of hardware, has enlisted many new third-party publishers and developers (particularly important in Japan, where the first Xbox was a dud), and has more than two million paying customers for Xbox Live where its competitors are still figuring out their online strategies. Most important, Microsoft is committed to breaking even on the console over its lifecycle, leaving plenty of room to profit from games, Live subscriptions, hardware peripherals, and downloads. In 2006 Microsoft will have to justify the console's high price (or lower it to put price pressure on Sony), come up with the "must have" game title that was missing at launch, and prove that early shortages and glitches are temporary and solvable problems.
"Getting to profitability will require a big-name software launch while withstanding a concentrated marketing blitz from Sony. Anything less could mean years of red ink ahead."
—Matt Rosoff, lead analyst, consumer and corporate
Microsoft’s Top 10 Challenges for 2006
Will Google buy Opera?
Opera has not been approached by Google about a possible acquisition, an Opera spokesman said Friday, dismissing rumors that Google is eyeing a takeover of the Norwegian browser company.
“These are just rumors. We have not been approached,” said Tor Odland, communications director for the Norwegian company Opera.
The rumors appear to have stemmed from a blog posting Tuesday by Pierre Chappaz, a former head of Yahoo’s European operations. “According to a source who is usually well informed, Google is close to acquiring the Opera browser,” he wrote in his blog in French.
Officials at Google, in Mountain View, Calif., were not immediately available. A spokesman with the company’s public relations agency in Europe had no comment to make.
One analyst said buying Opera would make sense for Google, particularly given its expansion beyond search and its apparent ambition to offer productivity applications over the Web as a service.
Google announced a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October, part of which included finding ways to expand the distribution of OpenOffice.org, the open-source productivity suite on which Sun StarOffice is built. The companies offered few details, but some analysts saw it as a move towards Google offering hosted applications.
“Having a browser would make it easier to do the software-on-demand type of proposition they are getting into with Sun and OpenOffice.org,” said Mike Davis, a senior research analyst with The Butler Group, in the U.K. “From a pure design point of view, you want to have control over not just the back-end systems but the whole delivery process to the end user.”
Google could also optimize its own browser for even faster Web searches, he said. “It would be able to produce something very fast and slick and accessible.”
Google will inevitably have its own browser eventually, according to Davis. The question is only whether it will acquire one or develop it in-house, he said.
The company has already been rumored to be developing its own browser, he noted. “Buying an established one that already has a presence and a level of respect would be a sensible thing to do if it wants to continue its expansion outside search,” Davis said.
Another analyst called the discussion a good rumor that’s sure to “keep the perceived Google-Microsoft rivalry ratcheted up another notch.”
“Whilst it may be difficult for Google to make any direct income from acquiring a browser, there might be the advantage that the company could package a browser pre-configured with Google goodies that it could then attempt to get PC suppliers to preload as part of the machines’ base install,” said Tony Lock, chief analyst with Bloor Research of the U.K.
“This would give customers an alternative to Internet Explorer, but one with Google ‘preferences’ rather than Microsoft’s.”
In his blog posting, Chappaz said such a move by Google would allow it to respond to Microsoft Corp. if the company were to integrate its MSN search engine more tightly with its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
GMail Mobile - http://m.gmail.com
Now you can access your GMail messages from the web browser on your mobile phone or device. Read and reply to your GMail messages any time, anywhere.
GMail Mobile offers a number of cool features:
* The interface is automatically optimized for the phone you're using
* You can access attachments, including photos, Microsoft Word documents, and .pdf files
* If you enter phone numbers in your Gmail Contacts list, you can reply to messages by call
GMail Mobile should work on most web enabled mobile phones and devices that have a wireless data plan. Try it out for yourself.
Point your phone's web browser to http://m.gmail.com.
Here is a list of phones that are compatible:
AT&T
* Nokia 3100
* Nokia 6010
* Nokia 6200
* Nokia 6820
* Treo 600
Cingular
* Audiovox SMT5600
* BlackBerry 7100G
* Blackberry 7290
* LG F9100
* Motorola V3 Razor
* Motorola V400
* Motorola V551
* Nokia 3200
* Nokia 6610i
* Nokia N70
* Siemens CT66
* Siemens+SX66
* Sony Ericsson k600i
Sprint
* LG PM-325
* LG VI-5225
* Nokia 6225
* Samsung MM-A700
* Samsung SPH-A700
* Sanyo PM 8200
* Sanyo SCP-4900
* Sanyo SCP-5400
* Sanyo SCP-5500
* Sanyo SCP-7300
* Sanyo TL-4920
* Toshiba VM4050
T-Mobile
* Blackberry 7100t
* iPAQ
* Motorola A630
* Motorola V300
* Motorola V600
* Nokia 3300
* Nokia 6230
* Sidekick II
* Sony Ericsson k500i
* Sony Ericsson Z600
Verizon
* Audiovox CDM8910VW
* Audiovox CDM8940VW
* Kyocera KWC-KX2
* LG VX6100
* LG VX8100
* Motorola E815
* Motorola V710
* Samsung SCH -A890
* Samsung SCH-I730
* Treo 650
Related:
Google to Reveal the Contents of a Gmail Account
5 fast ways to check your GMail account
Yahoo Mail Beta Review
GMail Mobile offers a number of cool features:
* The interface is automatically optimized for the phone you're using
* You can access attachments, including photos, Microsoft Word documents, and .pdf files
* If you enter phone numbers in your Gmail Contacts list, you can reply to messages by call
GMail Mobile should work on most web enabled mobile phones and devices that have a wireless data plan. Try it out for yourself.
Point your phone's web browser to http://m.gmail.com.
Here is a list of phones that are compatible:
AT&T
* Nokia 3100
* Nokia 6010
* Nokia 6200
* Nokia 6820
* Treo 600
Cingular
* Audiovox SMT5600
* BlackBerry 7100G
* Blackberry 7290
* LG F9100
* Motorola V3 Razor
* Motorola V400
* Motorola V551
* Nokia 3200
* Nokia 6610i
* Nokia N70
* Siemens CT66
* Siemens+SX66
* Sony Ericsson k600i
Sprint
* LG PM-325
* LG VI-5225
* Nokia 6225
* Samsung MM-A700
* Samsung SPH-A700
* Sanyo PM 8200
* Sanyo SCP-4900
* Sanyo SCP-5400
* Sanyo SCP-5500
* Sanyo SCP-7300
* Sanyo TL-4920
* Toshiba VM4050
T-Mobile
* Blackberry 7100t
* iPAQ
* Motorola A630
* Motorola V300
* Motorola V600
* Nokia 3300
* Nokia 6230
* Sidekick II
* Sony Ericsson k500i
* Sony Ericsson Z600
Verizon
* Audiovox CDM8910VW
* Audiovox CDM8940VW
* Kyocera KWC-KX2
* LG VX6100
* LG VX8100
* Motorola E815
* Motorola V710
* Samsung SCH -A890
* Samsung SCH-I730
* Treo 650
Related:
Google to Reveal the Contents of a Gmail Account
5 fast ways to check your GMail account
Yahoo Mail Beta Review
A9 Top Searches
Here are 2005’s 99 top searched-for words that have 9 letters (A9):
1 equipment 2 refinance 3 furniture 4 insurance 5 marketing 6 wholesale 7 christian 8 treatment 9 corporate 10 directory 11 education 12 solutions 13 christmas 14 guestbook 15 personals 16 companies 17 francisco 18 microsoft 19 limousine 20 australia 21 satellite 22 downloads 23 financial 24 caribbean 25 wisconsin 26 vacations 27 apartment 28 wallpaper 29 arthritis 30 gardening 31 breakfast 32 community 33 nutrition | 34 tennessee 35 homesites 36 chocolate 37 promotion 38 franchise 39 packaging 40 paintball 41 biography 42 telephone 43 cartridge 44 childrens 45 halloween 46 financing 47 adventure 48 panasonic 49 broadband 50 executive 51 stainless 52 computers 53 elizabeth 54 resources 55 investing 56 minnesota 57 transport 58 hollywood 59 alexander 60 beautiful 61 generator 62 celebrity 63 herbalife 64 batteries 65 ecommerce 66 landscape | 67 amplifier 68 accessory 69 mortgages 70 affiliate 71 frequency 72 formation 73 charlotte 74 wrestling 75 emergency 76 honeymoon 77 infection 78 filtering 79 hurricane 80 universal 81 lakefront 82 milwaukee 83 projector 84 inventory 85 galleries 86 singapore 87 pregnancy 88 baltimore 89 christina 90 appraiser 91 barcelona 92 fantastic 93 converter 94 manhattan 95 spiderman 96 templates 97 interview 98 catherine 99 treadmill |
An Audioblogging Manifesto
AN AUDIOBLOGGING MANIFESTO
Transcribed from http://www.idlewords.com/audio/manifesto.mp3.
As broadband expands and as blogging tools become easier to use, a world
of temptations has opened up to the online writer. The latest of these has
been audioblogging, or posting snippets of speech. Videoblogging is
following on its heels.
At first blush, audioblogging sounds like a natural extension of online
writing. What better way to convey your own ideas than through your
own words, spoken in your own voice? Bloggers like Halley Suitt
(http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com), Dave Winer
(http://www.scripting.com), and Adam Curry (http://live.curry.com) have
taken this idea and run with it, mixing frequent audio posts with their
text content. In the highest-profile audio blog post to date, Winer
even announced the cancellation of a blog hosting service - affecting
hundreds of users - in a ten minute audio file (you can hear it at
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/crimson1/aboutWeblogsComHosting.mp3).
But before you jump on the audioblogging bandwagon, remember this - the
power of the Web is the power to choose. You make your own trails, and
your own links. You read what you like and skip the boring bits. And
audioblogging takes that power of choice away. Your listeners become a
passive audience - they have no power to skim, they can't skip the
boring parts, they can't link or excerpt your post effectively. Your
post becomes invisible to Google and other search engines. And anyone
who has a hearing problem, or a dialup account, or doesn't speak your
language too well, anyone who is trying to surf your site from the office,
or from an Internet cafe - well, they're just plain out of luck.
Consider also this - the average person speaks at one hundred, perhaps
one hundred fifty words per minute. Meanwhile, an accomplished reader
can read ten times faster - up to a thousand words a minute, and that's
straight-up reading, not even skimming. You're forcing people to listen
to you at a speed that's barely faster than the speed at which they can
type. Why are you wasting their time? Is your voice really that
beautiful?
From the invention of the alphabet, to movable metal type, to the advent of
cheap paper, universal mandatory public education, universal literacy,
the Internet - the modern world has built on the back of text! This is
not by accident! This is not a mistake!
Ask yourself - is the key to making your site more interesting really to
add rich media? Or is it possible that if you took more care in your
writing, said something passionate, grammatical, interesting, and pleasant to
read, it would actually make more of a difference?
Henry David Thoreau said "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which
distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means
to an unimproved end... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic
telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have
nothing important to communicate"
So what do you have to communicate?
Thoreau may not have been a big fan of technology, but we can still read
him one and a half centuries later and be pulled in by his beautiful
prose style. Is your audio post going to stand the test of time?
Brothers and sisters, we deserve better than this, and those whom we write for
deserve better. This is not what we built the web for! For the first
time in human history, you can have anything you write read by millions
of people, whether within days or within hours, and all it takes is
talent, imagination and the discipline to put up something worth
reading. There are no obstacles anymore - so why must we create new
ones? Just because you're going to be able to do a real-time three
dimensional high-definition interactive virtual reality fly-through of
the inside of your cat - does that mean you should? Does that mean it
belongs on your website? This is not the legacy we want to leave!
So stop the ridiculous self indulgence, and shut up and write.
And if you want a copy of this without having to listen through it, by God
you can find one at http://www.idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt.
August 31, 2004
Transcribed from http://www.idlewords.com/audio/manifesto.mp3.
As broadband expands and as blogging tools become easier to use, a world
of temptations has opened up to the online writer. The latest of these has
been audioblogging, or posting snippets of speech. Videoblogging is
following on its heels.
At first blush, audioblogging sounds like a natural extension of online
writing. What better way to convey your own ideas than through your
own words, spoken in your own voice? Bloggers like Halley Suitt
(http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com), Dave Winer
(http://www.scripting.com), and Adam Curry (http://live.curry.com) have
taken this idea and run with it, mixing frequent audio posts with their
text content. In the highest-profile audio blog post to date, Winer
even announced the cancellation of a blog hosting service - affecting
hundreds of users - in a ten minute audio file (you can hear it at
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/crimson1/aboutWeblogsComHosting.mp3).
But before you jump on the audioblogging bandwagon, remember this - the
power of the Web is the power to choose. You make your own trails, and
your own links. You read what you like and skip the boring bits. And
audioblogging takes that power of choice away. Your listeners become a
passive audience - they have no power to skim, they can't skip the
boring parts, they can't link or excerpt your post effectively. Your
post becomes invisible to Google and other search engines. And anyone
who has a hearing problem, or a dialup account, or doesn't speak your
language too well, anyone who is trying to surf your site from the office,
or from an Internet cafe - well, they're just plain out of luck.
Consider also this - the average person speaks at one hundred, perhaps
one hundred fifty words per minute. Meanwhile, an accomplished reader
can read ten times faster - up to a thousand words a minute, and that's
straight-up reading, not even skimming. You're forcing people to listen
to you at a speed that's barely faster than the speed at which they can
type. Why are you wasting their time? Is your voice really that
beautiful?
From the invention of the alphabet, to movable metal type, to the advent of
cheap paper, universal mandatory public education, universal literacy,
the Internet - the modern world has built on the back of text! This is
not by accident! This is not a mistake!
Ask yourself - is the key to making your site more interesting really to
add rich media? Or is it possible that if you took more care in your
writing, said something passionate, grammatical, interesting, and pleasant to
read, it would actually make more of a difference?
Henry David Thoreau said "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which
distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means
to an unimproved end... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic
telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have
nothing important to communicate"
So what do you have to communicate?
Thoreau may not have been a big fan of technology, but we can still read
him one and a half centuries later and be pulled in by his beautiful
prose style. Is your audio post going to stand the test of time?
Brothers and sisters, we deserve better than this, and those whom we write for
deserve better. This is not what we built the web for! For the first
time in human history, you can have anything you write read by millions
of people, whether within days or within hours, and all it takes is
talent, imagination and the discipline to put up something worth
reading. There are no obstacles anymore - so why must we create new
ones? Just because you're going to be able to do a real-time three
dimensional high-definition interactive virtual reality fly-through of
the inside of your cat - does that mean you should? Does that mean it
belongs on your website? This is not the legacy we want to leave!
So stop the ridiculous self indulgence, and shut up and write.
And if you want a copy of this without having to listen through it, by God
you can find one at http://www.idlewords.com/audio-manifesto.txt.
August 31, 2004
Do you trust your computer?
Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, designed by Trusted Computing Group, an industry consortium including Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed.A 'trusted' computer does not mean a computer that is trustworthy. The Trusted Computing Group describes "Technical Trust" this way: "an entity can be trusted if it always behaves in the expected manner for the intended purpose." Critics characterize a trusted system as a system you are forced to trust rather than one which is particularly trustworthy.
Trusted computing:
- Unique machine/CPU is identified using certificates
- Encryption is performed in the hardware
- Data can be signed with the machine's identification
- Data can be encrypted with the machine's secret key
Why trusted computing is bad:
- Users can't change software
- Users don't control information they receive (DRM, restricted sharing)
- Users don't control their data (sealed storage)
- Loss of Internet Anonymity
Trusted Computing video
{ 3 min 30 sec - credits http://www.lafkon.net/tc/ }.
Can you trust your computer? (great essay by Richard Stallman)
Yahoo! Top Searches in 2005
Read the whole list of top searches from Yahoo.
Google Music Box
Google started to give some musical artists the star treatment by spotlighting links to their songs, lyrics and other related material at the top of the results page.
The music section is designed to provide a more direct route to the content that most music fans want to see when they inquire about a singer or band, said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of Web products. "We are addressing a deficiency in our Web search," she said.
The music section is similar in concept and placement to other special sections Google has created to make it easier to find information about airline flights, express freight shipments, news stories, movies and weather.
Among other things, Google's music section provides lists of all the songs recorded on a specific album and also will point to places where the music can be legally downloaded. Google is working with several online libraries to make sure its song list remains up to date.
Unlike Yahoo, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has no plans to create a music library of its own, Mayer said. Google also won't collect a referral fee if its visitors click on the new music section and go on to buy songs from one of the linked libraries.
From Forbes.
MOMA - Google intranet
From Your MOMA knows best, a great article written by a Xoogler:
"MOMA, Google's intranet, was designed by and for engineers and for the first couple of years, its home page was devoid of any aesthetic enhancements that didn't serve to provide information essential to the operation of Google. It was dense and messy and full of numbers that were hard to parse for the uninitiated, but high in nutritional value for the data hungry.
MOMA displayed latency times, popular search terms, traffic stats for Google-owned properties and, at the center of it all, a large graph with colored lines labeled with the names of Muppet characters. I can't reveal what that graph represented, but if Rizzo or Fozzie started closing the gap with the Great Gonzo, Oscar would not be the only grouch on Sesame Street. (...)
As the company grew, the most useful aspect of MOMA for me was the phone list, which contained the title, email address, IM name, photo, extension and location of everyone on the payroll. The individual's name would be linked to a list of his or her quarterly goals and objectives, so you could understand exactly where your proposed project was likely to fit in their priority list before you even spoke with them.
I came to take it for granted that any information I needed about Google could be found on the intranet, from the status of products in development to the number of employees at any point in the company's history. Ironically, the lack of decent search capability would make some things hard to find in the early days, though Google finally hooked up one of its own search appliances to fix that problem."
"MOMA, Google's intranet, was designed by and for engineers and for the first couple of years, its home page was devoid of any aesthetic enhancements that didn't serve to provide information essential to the operation of Google. It was dense and messy and full of numbers that were hard to parse for the uninitiated, but high in nutritional value for the data hungry.
MOMA displayed latency times, popular search terms, traffic stats for Google-owned properties and, at the center of it all, a large graph with colored lines labeled with the names of Muppet characters. I can't reveal what that graph represented, but if Rizzo or Fozzie started closing the gap with the Great Gonzo, Oscar would not be the only grouch on Sesame Street. (...)
As the company grew, the most useful aspect of MOMA for me was the phone list, which contained the title, email address, IM name, photo, extension and location of everyone on the payroll. The individual's name would be linked to a list of his or her quarterly goals and objectives, so you could understand exactly where your proposed project was likely to fit in their priority list before you even spoke with them.
I came to take it for granted that any information I needed about Google could be found on the intranet, from the status of products in development to the number of employees at any point in the company's history. Ironically, the lack of decent search capability would make some things hard to find in the early days, though Google finally hooked up one of its own search appliances to fix that problem."
Google Homepage API
Google Blog notes:
The personalized homepage was created to bring together the stuff that interests you from across the web. With the Google Homepage API, developers can now create modules for the personalized homepage. It's designed to be flexible and easy to use, and you don't need to download anything to create a module. To get the ball rolling, the team's created a few modules to add to the directory. So check these out and get started creating your own.
Google Homepage API lets you add XML modules that wrap existing content or applications.
Here is an example of a module that just uses HTML. This module displays a clickable photograph that opens a photo album in a new HTML page:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title="Go to Photo Album" height="250" scaling="false" />
<Content type="html">
<![CDATA[
<div style="text-align:center">
<a id="Riggs" title="My Photo Album" target="_blank"
href="http://www.photo-hosting-site.com/photos/26243604@N00/">
<img border="0" alt="Photo"
src="http://static.photo-hosting-site.com/27/62190238_2210325e9d_m.jpg"
title="Click Here.">
</a>
</div>
]]>
</Content>
</Module>
AOL dumps Google for Microsoft
Time Warner Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are close to a deal to form an online-ad service rival to Google Inc., people familiar with the negotiations told The Wall Street Journal. Under the proposal, AOL would drop Google as its primary provider of Internet-search services and adopt Microsoft’s MSN service, the paper reported. Currently, AOL relies on Google's search-engine, and Google gives AOL a cut of the advertising revenue generated by AOL customers. Last year, Google turned over $300 million in revenue to AOL. Their current contract runs well into 2006.
PaidContent says the Wall Street Journal has more, although you can’t read it unless you are a subscriber. They say:
The deal would combine advertising-related assets, with minimal, if any, money changing hands…and of course, AOL would drop Google for search ads and use MSFT.
The deal would be done before year end, though there is a chance Google might still come in…
Another set of negotiations are over creating a joint ad sales force that would sell online ads across both the AOL unit and Microsoft’s MSN, while keeping the two online services under control of their respective owners.
The New York Times runs down the negotiations, saying that this was always about who would drive AOL’s search, and that talks only briefly escalated into mergers and aquisitions. Google’s primary bid was to give AOL more of what it is already getting:
By this account, Google, which values its neutrality, is making proposals that do not involve an investment in AOL at all. It would offer to give AOL an even greater share of the revenue - currently about 80 percent - from search-based advertising placed on AOL sites. Google would also find ways to drive traffic from its sites to AOL.com.
PaidContent says the Wall Street Journal has more, although you can’t read it unless you are a subscriber. They say:
The deal would combine advertising-related assets, with minimal, if any, money changing hands…and of course, AOL would drop Google for search ads and use MSFT.
The deal would be done before year end, though there is a chance Google might still come in…
Another set of negotiations are over creating a joint ad sales force that would sell online ads across both the AOL unit and Microsoft’s MSN, while keeping the two online services under control of their respective owners.
The New York Times runs down the negotiations, saying that this was always about who would drive AOL’s search, and that talks only briefly escalated into mergers and aquisitions. Google’s primary bid was to give AOL more of what it is already getting:
By this account, Google, which values its neutrality, is making proposals that do not involve an investment in AOL at all. It would offer to give AOL an even greater share of the revenue - currently about 80 percent - from search-based advertising placed on AOL sites. Google would also find ways to drive traffic from its sites to AOL.com.
The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005
Dion Hinchcliffe compiled a list of the best Web 2.0 software.
Here are some winners:
Best social bookmarking software: del.icio.us
Best peer production news: digg
Best image storage and sharing: flickr
Best 3rd party online file storage: openonomy
Best project management & team collaboration: basecamp
Here are some winners:
Best social bookmarking software: del.icio.us
Best peer production news: digg
Best image storage and sharing: flickr
Best 3rd party online file storage: openonomy
Best project management & team collaboration: basecamp
Google makes ads look like organic search
Google increased the font size of the AdWords ads displayed to the right side of search results.
As Philipp Lenssen notes, this is likely to be an effort of Google to increase the click-through rates for AdWords, thus make more money.
It seems that, for the first time, Yahoo! and MSN SERPs look less bloated than Google's.
As Philipp Lenssen notes, this is likely to be an effort of Google to increase the click-through rates for AdWords, thus make more money.
It seems that, for the first time, Yahoo! and MSN SERPs look less bloated than Google's.
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