Monday, January 31, 2011

Facebook to unveil financials, raises $ 1.5 billion (Reuters)

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Facebook is preparing to open its books this year or early in 2012 to give investors a glimpse into the financial workings of the world's No. 1 social network, after it sealed an oversubscribed $1.5 billion round of financing led by Goldman Sachs.

The financing, $1 billion of which is from Goldman Sachs' overseas clients and $500 million from Goldman itself and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, gives the company a projected value of $50 billion, setting the stage for what could be one of the largest initial public offerings next year.

Facebook, founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, said it would begin to file public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012, in a statement detailing the new investment.

United States securities regulations require companies with more than 499 shareholders to disclose financial information whether they are publicly traded or not. Facebook expects to exceed that number some time this year.

The new funding was organized by investment bank Goldman Sachs, which raised $1 billion from non-U.S. investors in a fund that Facebook said was oversubscribed.

Goldman Sachs originally pitched the investment to U.S. investors, but switched focus to overseas clients as concerns grew that intense media coverage surrounding the offering could run afoul of U.S. securities laws.

Initial projections from Goldman Sachs in documents circulated to potential investors earlier this month indicated it was looking to raise up to $1.5 billion.

Facebook said it made a "business decision" to limit the offering to $1 billion, without explaining further. It said it had no immediate plans for using the money raised.

The company earned $355 million in net income in the first nine months of 2010 on revenue of $1.2 billion, according to a document distributed by Goldman Sachs to potential investors earlier this month, the only source of financial data on the company.

In December, Digital Sky Technologies, Goldman Sachs and some funds managed by Goldman invested $500 million in Facebook.

Facebook has more than 500 million users and is challenging big Web businesses like Google Inc and Yahoo Inc for users' time online and for advertising dollars.

Investors are increasingly eager to buy shares of Facebook and other fast-growing Internet social networking companies on private exchanges.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Google's Page brings change and questions (Reuters)

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Larry Page will need a rare combination of vision and solid management skills when he takes over at Google in April.

One day after Google's surprise announcement that Page would replace Eric Schmidt as chief executive officer, investors and industry insiders are grappling with how the change will affect the world's No.1 Internet search company.

"What's going to change under Larry?" said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, asking the question on the minds of executives from Silicon Valley to New York City.

"In our opinion, Larry is likely to increase investments as a priority. It could be a long-term positive, but short term it's a negative."

The company hopes 38-year-old Page will help streamline decision-making as it tries to deal with tougher competition from Facebook and Twitter.

Within technology circles, the move to replace Eric Schmidt left some wondering if Page can make a successful comeback to the company he helped create during the first dot-com boom. For a list of tech executive departures and hires see: http://r.reuters.com/pyh67r

"Founder becoming CEO ... Is this like a Steve Jobs returning or a Jerry Yang returning?" tweeted Chris Dixon, a technology veteran who has invested in Skype and Foursquare.

Steve Jobs returned to Apple Inc in the 1990s to save the company he founded. Yahoo Inc's Jerry Yang made a similar comeback, returning to his Internet company during a troubled stretch, but failed to restore its fortunes.

"It is important to note that, although the titles have changed, the core team remains the same ... this new team structure makes a lot of sense and could result in faster decision making," JP Morgan analysts led by Imran Khan said.

Some analysts believe Google's stock could gain another 20 percent from current levels.

Brokerage UBS said it was bullish on Google's long-term prospects and expects the company's focus on its emerging display network business, YouTube, Android and enterprise customers to deliver healthy returns in 2011.

Fourth-quarter operating margins were slightly weaker than expected at 53 percent on higher sales and marketing expenses.

JP Morgan's Khan, who lowered his 2011 operating margin estimates by less than a percentage point to 52.4 percent, said the expenses are necessary to promote future growth.

Evercore Partners, however, said it was still concerned about Facebook's growth trajectory and deepening integration with third party sites. Investors have speculated Facebook could cut into Google's business if advertisers shift to the social network.

Google Inc shares -- which gained 2 percent following Thursday's better-than-expected quarterly results and the announcement of the CEO change -- finished Friday's regular trading session 2.4 percent down at $611.83. The shares of Mountain View, California-based Google have risen 16 percent since Google reported third-quarter results mid-October and are up almost 45 percent from its 52-week low of $433.63 touched in July 2010.

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch in New York, Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Sayantani Ghosh and Mary Meyase in Bangalore; editing by Joyjeet Das, Phil Berlowitz and Andre Grenon)

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Update: UK Woman Wins Wins the Apple App Store's 10 Trillion Challenge (PC Magazine)

Update: Apple has just announced the winner of the $10,000 iTunes card: Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK. After downloading Paper Glider, Davis became the 10 billionth customer at the Apple App Store.

"With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years-a staggering seven billion apps in the last year alone-the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in a statement. "The App Store has revolutionized how software is created, distributed, discovered and sold. While others try to copy the App Store, it continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on the planet."

How would you spend $10,000 at Apple's App Store? On Saturday Apple announced it has reached its 10 billionth download, ending a promotion to award a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the 10 billionth customer.

"Thank You. Ten billion times," Apple wrote on its homepage. The winner's name will be announced on its site later on.

Last week Apple announced it was giving away a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the 10 billionth customer. Since the promotion began on Friday, January 14, the App Store received nearly 25 million downloads.

Apple launched the App Store in 2007 featuring mobile software for iOS devices, and is currently attempting to trademark the phrase "app store." See what analyst Will Greenwald thinks the App Store could learn from traditional game stores.

Now about that gift card. Is there even $10,000 worth of apps to download? With most paid apps costing no more than $0.99, or $4.99 at the most, the recipient may take quite a while to finish his prize.

Apple's App Store hits 10 billion downloads (Reuters)

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Apple's App Store reached landmark 10 billion downloads on Saturday, further underlining the lead of the iPhone-maker in mobile online software battle, a counter on front page of the store showed.

Apple launched the iPhone store in mid-2008 and it proved to be an instant hit, driving sales of the smartphone and helping reshape the way mobile content is delivered.

The iPhone app store offers more than 300,000 programs, and there are also more than 40,000 apps available for the iPad.

Its closest rival is privately-held GetJar, which sells software for all platforms, and reached 1 billion downloads in June 2010.

Google's Android Market and Nokia's Ovi Store are among other larger mobile online stores.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki)

Friday, January 28, 2011

Google looks to its next decade (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Google, which prides itself on helping people navigate the Internet, is facing a tangled Web as it weaves its own future.

While more profitable than ever -- with nearly $30 billion in revenue last year -- Google is under pressure from new rivals such as Facebook and Twitter for the attention of Web surfers, advertising dollars and engineering talent.

In naming co-founder Larry Page, 37, to be chief executive, analysts said Google is seeking to return to its startup roots and ensure its place amid a constantly evolving Internet landscape.

Outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt, 55, was brought in to run Google in 2001, when it was battling other, now defunct search engines, and Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin were just a few years removed from Stanford University.

Schmidt, who has jokingly referred to himself as the "adult supervision" at Google, is widely credited with helping build the company into the technology titan it is today alongside the likes of Apple and Microsoft.`````````

And while Schmidt is expected to remain an influential voice at Google as executive chairman, the Mountain View, California-based company is turning to Page to stay ahead of its competitors over the next decade.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said Google experienced tremendous growth under Schmidt, becoming a search and advertising powerhouse, but the company has also arguably had a number of missteps and missed opportunities.

"A case can also be made that the company has not built any new material revenue streams, was late to building for the mobile market, has no effective social solutions, overbuilt its headcount and placed itself in the crosshairs of government regulators," Gillis said.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com (), said Google's biggest challenges now are to "prove that they've got their Mojo back and that nobody needs to fear them."

"You have investors and others saying 'Gosh, Facebook seems to be doing so well. Why aren't you the hot new thing?'" Sullivan said.

"And nobody's made a movie about Google yet," he added in a reference to "The Social Network," the Oscar-nominated film about the birth of Facebook.

Sullivan said "social networking in particular is seen as hot and Google is seen as a company that ought to be doing something there."

At the same time, he said, Google's critics "neglect the fact that they actually have successful products and quite a range of them."

The other major issue for Google is "they are engendering a lot of fear in various places: people wondering about privacy, whether they're favoring themselves... governments investigating them for anti-trust claims," Sullivan added.

Wedbush Securities social media analyst Lou Kerner dismissed claims Google does not have a social strategy and said the company is well-placed in the booming mobile telephone market with its Android mobile operating system.

"Facebook is the world's biggest social network and Google is not going to come up with another social network," he said. "But they already have a massive social presence.

"YouTube is the third biggest website in the world and massively social... Email is still the primary social communication media and Google is the fastest growing email provider in the world.

"And they've got the largest blogging platform in the world so they are already a massive player in social," he added.

In a conference call with financial analysts after the surprise announcement that Page would replace Schmidt in April, co-founder Brin indicated the company would be putting more effort into the social arena.

"We've touched just one percent of the capabilities that could be deployed in that realm," said Brin, who will be in charge of strategic projects and new products in the new management structure.

BGC's Gillis said Google has had scant success with products it has developed on its own, such as Google Buzz, Google Wave and Google TV but acquisitions such as Android, YouTube and DoubleClick have flourished.

He said he will be looking to see whether Page, the CEO, "can better increase the integration of Google's technology with business models to generate new revenue."

Wedbush's Kerner said the new management structure could prove more nimble than the troika of Schmidt, Page and Brin, which has been in place for the last decade.

"What I do think Facebook has shown Google is that they're moving too slow," Kerner said. "Facebook is moving at the speed of light and Google isn't.

"Having three people running the company, making the decisions, was slowing it down," he added. SearchEngineLand.com

Orange seen eying stake in Dailymotion: report (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – France Telecom's Orange is in talks to buy a stake of between 30 percent and 50 percent in video-sharing web site Dailymotion, a blog on the website of French weekly L'Express said on Friday.

Orange declined to comment on the report, which did not cite a specific source.

Dailymotion was not immediately available for comment.

In an e-mailed invitation on Friday, France Telecom said its chief executive Stephane Richard will hold a news conference on January 25 to unveil "a new development in Orange's content strategy." It did not provide further details.

France Telecom, also known by its brand name Orange, is changing its content strategy as part of a plan by Richard to spur growth and restore worker morale after more than 30 staff committed suicide.

Earlier this week, Orange and French pay-TV group Canal Plus unveiled a strategic partnership, merging their cinema channels.

The blog put the value of Dailymotion at around 200 to 250 million euros ($270.7 million to $338.3 million), a far cry from the $1.65 billion Google paid to buy YouTube in 2006.

France's sovereign fund FSI, owner of close to 14 percent of France Telecom, invested 7.5 million euros in Dailymotion in October 2009.

($1=.7389 Euro)

(Reporting by Julien Ponthus and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

New Google Coupon Service Will Challenge Groupon (NewsFactor)

Having been rebuffed in its nearly $6 billion offer to buy Groupon, Google has decided to set up its own social-coupon site. According to web reports, the new Google Offers service is gearing up for launch.

The service will closely resemble Groupon or Living Social. An e-mail goes to users who have signed up, offering the local deal of the day for a limited time. Once a sufficient numbers of users have signed onto that deal, it becomes available. There will also be options for sharing the offer through Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and Reader.

Early Payment Is 80 Percent

According to the reports, the search giant is signing up businesses and has put together an operational and editorial team. Google is expected to pay 80 percent of the revenue to participating businesses within three days after an offer is posted, and the remaining 20 percent within 60 days, in order to cover any refunds.

A Google Offers fact sheet, posted on the Mashable site, notes that businesses only pay to spread the word about their business when the offer is purchased.

Other benefits cited in the fact sheet include getting the word out to more potential local customers, bringing in new customers, exposure across the Google ad network at no additional cost, easy management of offers and ROI, and quick payment with no out-of-pocket expenses.

Mashable has also posted a statement from Google that confirmed it is "communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a prepaid offers/vouchers program." The statement added that this is part of Google's ongoing effort to connect businesses with customers in new ways.

Google's entry into coupons is only the next stage of the emerging coupon wars. Amazon.com has invested $175 million in Groupon -- and now Google Offers -- competitor Living Social.

'A No-Brainer'

Such social-coupon ventures, said Current Analysis' Brad Shimmin, are "a no-brainer." He added that "everybody wins" and there's no risk for any of the parties -- the customer, the business, or the social-coupon service. Shimmin pointed out that businesses can set a threshold for a coupon's activation, so they're not just "casting ad dollars" to see what they catch.

Instead, he said, businesses are "inviting the fish into the net." Shimmin added that "Google has always been very good at creating ways for ad dollars to be directed at customers interested in that product or service."

Since Google obviously has the resources to set up its own social-coupon service, the question is why it was so eager to acquire Groupon. Shimmin said it's because Groupon "already has a large number of business relationships set up," and the software giant would have been buying "a head start."

Shimmin said he expects Google Offers to be tied into location-based services so when enough people are physically near the same location, a special deal is triggered -- a kind of "flash mob" bargain.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Music industry working on global copyright database (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – The music industry is working to create a global repertoire database to make it easier and faster for new online music services to come to market.

The industry estimates that 100 million euros each year could be saved in copyright administration fees and returned to song writers and the industry by simplifying the current system.

In recent years, music labels and publishers have worked hard to license their music on an array of platforms including mobile networks, mobile handsets, websites, Internet service providers and pay-TV groups.

The long, complex process makes it difficult for many new services to get off the ground, as a new offering has to sign licensing agreements with the many groups that hold the recording rights and the music publishing rights.

Within publishing -- the part of the business that makes money every time a song is played on the radio, in adverts, films or online -- payments have to go to all the song writers on each track. One song can have many writers and they are often all signed to different publishers.

A service that operates in different countries would also need to agree terms with the royalty collection societies of each country it operates in, making for a very tangled affair.

However there is currently no database or central point showing which publisher or song writer unequivocally owns which rights, meaning it is hard to know where to start.

Now, consultancy Deloitte is working to develop a global repertoire database (GRD) for the publishing industry following input from Universal Music Publishing and EMI Publishing, some of the major royalty collection societies and retailers such as Amazon and iTunes.

The groups were asked by the European Commission to look into the issue.

"As an industry there have been many false dawns over the years but at last we seem to have woken up to the fact that we have to change," Neil Gaffney, Executive Vice President at EMI Music Publishing UK told Reuters.

"This GRD is a game changer because for the first time we will have an assured, common, trusted view of what we represent, own and manage.

"One of the complexities for a new services is people say they didn't know who to pay. It gets rid of one of the fundamental issues and means we can turn our attention to those people who use music illegally."

Deloitte partner Neil Allcock said they hoped elements of the database would be up and running very quickly, and aim to be fully functional within 18 months to 2 years. A similar project is also being looked at for the recorded music business.

(Editing by David Cowell)

Fashion Designer Turns to Polyvore to Find Fashion Week Stylist (Mashable)

Accessories designer Rebecca Minkoff is staging her first show at New York Fashion Week next month, and she's turning to online styling community Polyvore to find a stylist for the show.

From now until the morning of January 24, users can create fashion collages with pieces from Minkoff's spring collection and submit them to the contest. Minkoff will select her favorite look and fly the winner to New York City for three days to help her style the show. He or she will also have a seat in the audience during the event.

The lucky winner will perhaps be seated next to the winner of another recent Minkoff-sponsored contest on Polyvore, in which more than 4,000 users competed to design the brand's next "morning after clutch" using photographs of materials selected by Minkoff herself. The winning clutch will go on sale this spring under the Rebecca Minkoff label.

Polyvore is just one of the many platforms the brand has recently begun leveraging to engage users online. Minkoff recently named former independent fashion blogger Daniel Saynt the new Chief Marketing Officer for the company. Previously, Saynt consulted with Minkoff and a number of more established brands, including Burberry and Louis Vuitton, on social media initiatives, and is now pushing the company onto new platforms.

Saynt is working aggressively to align Minkoff with the creators of what he sees as the next generation of media, mainly by developing partnerships with blog networks such as Bloglovin, as well as individual fashion bloggers. In addition to branded promotions, chosen bloggers are now invited to borrow Rebecca Minkoff accessories for everyday use, a privilege previously limited to celebrities and the editors of major magazines.

Saynt is also looking at younger platforms, such as SCVNGR and GoldRun to create new kinds of experiences.

"I think it's important for brands to take calculated risks," he says. "You want to be ahead, doing what's next and ahead of the curve. It's not about Facebook and Twitter anymore, it's about so much more online."

In addition, Saynt is planning to fill the front row of the company's first fashion show not just with celebrities, buyers, editors from traditional media and fashion bloggers, but also with influential CEOs in the tech industry.

"We want to work with companies that are pushing where media is going, we want to be associated with them," he says, citing Tumblr as an example. "We're a brand growing phenomenally, and we want to make sure we can associate our brand with [those companies] in every way possible. They are determining the future of retail."

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Google developing competitor called Groupon offers (AP)

NEW YORK – Google Inc., which has expanded beyond its core search operations into mobile phones and other products, is developing a local coupon service similar to Groupon.

Like Groupon Inc., the service, Google Offers, will offer time-limited deals from local vendors, such as restaurants. Ten dollars, for example, might buy $20 worth of food at a local cafe.

"Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program," said Google Inc. spokesman Nate Tyler.

Google would not say when Offers would be available or provide any more details about its plans.

While Groupon is Google's most obvious competitor when it comes to offering local deals, the field of coupon sites has rapidly grown to include sites such as LivingSocial and Tippr. Flash sales site Gilt Groupe and the newsletter DailyCandy also offer local deals.

Google has signaled it wants to expand in local advertising. Last year, it promoted Marissa Mayer, who oversaw the company's core search products to grow the company's geographic and local services business, and gave her a seat on the company's operating committee of top decision-makers.

The company also has reportedly tried to enter the local deals business by buying prominent companies in the field. Last year, Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., reportedly considered acquiring Yelp for more than $500 million. And last month, it reportedly tried to buy Groupon for somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion, but was rejected. Groupon has since raised an additional $950 million in venture capital funding.

Currently, Google's Places service lets local businesses set up pages where the owners can post photos and other promotional information, and customers can write reviews. Then, these places can appear as pinpoints on Google's popular map network, Google Maps.

Shares of Google rose $1.12 in after-hours trading after falling $14.94, or 2.4 percent, to close Friday at $611.83.

Google targets spam-laden websites (AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google on Friday said it has made it harder for spam-packed websites to rank high in results at the world's top Internet search engine.

While the amount of "webspam" in query results is less than half of what it was five years ago, the California-based Internet firm has seen a "slight uptick" in recent months, according to Google principal engineer Matt Cutts.

"Webspam is junk you see in search results when websites try to cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines," Cutts explained in a blog post.

"We recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly."

The new classifier better detects words or phrases typical of "junky, automated, self-promoting" comments repeated on pages at spam websites, according to the engineer.

Google also "radically improved" its ability to detect when legitimate websites have been tainted by hackers in the kinds of attacks that were a major source of spam last year, according to Cutts.

Other spam-fighting tactics being considered at Google include identifying websites laden with content copied from elsewhere on the Internet, he added.

Cutts stressed that having Google-powered ads on pages did not elevate them in search results or bar websites from repercussions of violating quality guidelines.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Google: Search Engine Spam on the Rise (PC World)

If you've noticed lately that Google's search results are a bit spammy, you're not alone.

In a blog post, Google Principal Engineer Matt Cutts acknowledged that "we have seen a slight uptick of spam in recent months," and that tech watchers are growing critical. Cutts then outlined a few new initiatives to improve the quality of Google's search results.

Among them: Google has a new "document-level classifier" that's better at detecting the hallmarks of spam, such as oft-repeated keywords; Google is improving its ability to detect hacked sites, which were a big source of spam last year; and the company is evaluating other changes, including a crackdown on Websites that primarily copy other sites' content.

But on the issue of "content farms," Cutts didn't have all the answers. If you're not familiar with the term, you've probably stumbled upon some content from purveyors. For example, many in the media call sites Demand Media and AssociatedContent content farms. Rich in search keywords and produced on the cheap, content from these sites appears prominently in search results but seem geared solely towards appeasing search algorithms.

Although Google tweaked its algorithms last year to give content mills less prominence, the problem hasn't gone away, and Cutts' blog post offered no further solutions. "The fact is that we're not perfect, and combined with users' skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception," he wrote. "However, we can and should do better."

Cutts reiterated that Websites don't get preferential treatment by purchasing or displaying Google ads. Their rankings don't improve and they're just as likely to be punished for violating Google's quality guidelines.

I suppose it's comforting to hear Google address issues of search quality, especially as criticism grows louder. Notably, new search competitor Blekko has created a spam clock to count how many spam pages have been created since the start of the year. Google says its results have half the spam they did five years ago, but that count is meaningless if low-quality content mills are able to game the system and get high page rankings.

With Google co-founder Larry Page stepping up to chief executive, the pressure's on to improve search while cultivating newer ventures such as software and social networking. Hopefully Cutts' blog post is just the beginning.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Verizon Challenges Applying Net Neutrality Two Wireless (NewsFactor published)

Verizon Communications announced Thursday that it has filed a legal challenge to the Net-neutrality plan adopted by the Federal Communications Commission. The company said it is "deeply concerned by the FCC's assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself."

Approved last month, the FCC plan requires network providers to treat all content the same, without favoring some kinds of content which could, for example, compete with the provider's own offerings. Despite the legal move, the company said it is still "committed to preserving an open Internet," adding that it has worked extensively with "all players in the Internet and communications space to shape policies that ensure an open Internet."

Same Court as Comcast Ruling

Verizon's suit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. This is the same court that ruled last spring against the FCC order that Comcast refrain from blocking a file-sharing application that could offer movies competing with Comcast's. At the time, the court said the FCC didn't have the authority it cited, and the recently approved Net-neutrality plan was intended, at least in part, to address that ruling.

Verizon's argument in its lawsuit similarly rests on the idea that the FCC doesn't have the authority. Michael E. Glover, the company's senior vice president and deputy general counsel, told news media that the FCC's "assertion of authority goes well beyond any authority provided by Congress." In fact, Verizon has asked for the same panel of judges that decided the Comcast case.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said that he expected one or more court challenges, and that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave the FCC the authority to carry out the new plan.

The FCC's argument for its legal authority appears to rest on instructions in the 1996 law that the FCC should expand broadband Internet, should make sure the public has access to Net-delivered media and communications, and should ensure that wireless networks are used for the benefit of the public.

Not Enough 'To Appease'

A key question is what Verizon's position actually is on Net neutrality. Some observers have noted that the FCC's new plan, which has been criticized by consumer groups and neutrality advocates as too weak, is similar in some respects to the proposal that Verizon and Google jointly offered last the summer.

On the surface, many of the approaches of the FCC plan, and those in the proposal offered by Verizon/Google, seem similar. One difference is that the FCC's plan will prevent wireless providers from blocking access to sites or services that compete with the providers' own, while the Google/Verizon proposal doesn't explicitly do so.

Free Press counsel Aparna Sridhar said Verizon's lawsuit "demonstrates that even the most weak and watered-down rules aren't enough to appease giant phone companies."

The wireless provision appears to be Verizon's key interest, as one might expect. Some consumer groups, including Free Press, have attacked Verizon for venue-shopping to get the most favorable court for its wireless licenses. Issues on regulations affecting wireless licenses are handled by the D.C. court, while the court that will hear lawsuits against general FCC policy is supposed to be determined by lottery.

Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion, at a Valuation of $50 Billion (PC World)

Facebook has raised US$1.5 billion in its latest funding round, putting its total valuation at $50 billion and leaving no doubt about its swift ascent in recent years to become a major Internet player and challenger to Google.

Facebook will use the money to boost its cash reserves and gain "financial flexibility" without significant dilution to current shareholders, the Palo Alto, California, company said Friday.

Not long ago, industry observers worried that Facebook wouldn't be able to turn its massive popularity into a business strong enough to withstand competition from Google and others, as well as acquisition attempts.

Facebook raised $500 million from Class A common stock in December, bought by Digital Sky Technologies (DST), The Goldman Sachs Group and funds managed by Goldman Sachs.

On Friday, Goldman Sachs completed an "oversubscribed offering" for clients abroad who invested in $1 billion of Facebook Class A common stock. The two investments together value Facebook at about $50 billion.

"Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing," said David Ebersman, Facebook's chief financial officer, in a statement.

Initially, Facebook intended to let U.S. investors participate in the funding round, but Goldman Sachs decided later to limit it to investors abroad, afraid that the media attention might make it illegal under U.S. securities laws, the bank told the Wall Street Journal this week.

Because Facebook is exceeding the 500-shareholder mark, it plans to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30 of next year, Facebook said.

Monday, January 10, 2011

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR BLOGGER TITLE TAGS


Those of us using Google’s Blogger platform have previously been unable to change our title tags to optimize them for better rankings in search engine results. Until recently, our blog name appeared in the title before the actual name of our posts, like this:
Blogger Generated Title
Luckily, the Blogger team have created a new template tag which generates title tags differently, allowing you to feature only the post name as your page title, like this:
Better title tags for SEO
This option is much better for those hoping to optimize their Blogger templates for better rankings in search engines. Google and other search engines will use the title tags of your post page to find the most suitable results for searches, so using this technique ensures keywords in your post titles are discovered more easily.
For those creating new blogs with Blogger, or those who change their template to one of Blogger’s default designs, these tags will already be included in the template’s HTML code.
However, for those already using Blogger (or who decide to use a customized template) you will need to make a small (and very easy) alteration to your template code for these new title tags to work.
Here is what you should do:
  1. Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.
  2. Find this line of code:
    <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
    And replace this entire line with the following section of code instead:
    <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
    <title><data:blog.title/></title>
    <b:else/>
    <title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
    </b:if>
  3. Finally, save your template.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Oracle Angles MySQL for Web Apps


With the release of MySQL version 5.5, Oracle is marketing the open-source database for Web application duties, while targeting its namesake Oracle database for enterprise applications.
"We see them as being very distinct for different use cases," said Monica Kumar, Oracle senior director of product marketing.
On Wednesday, the company released version 5.5 of the open-source MySQL database, the first major upgrade to the software since Oracle acquired it when it purchased Sun Microsystems in January. Now that Oracle stewards two general-use relational database systems, it must distinguish where each one should be deployed in the enterprise.
"MySQL is a great database for Web-based applications, for custom departmental applications and for embedded uses. And the Oracle database is the leading enterprise database for high-end packaged applications: enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, online transaction processing, large data warehouses and business intelligence applications," Kumar said.
"The two products complement each other and fill in a variety of use cases," Kumar said.
Which is not to say you couldn't use the Oracle database for Web applications, but historically MySQL has been mostly used with the Web, Kumar said. She mentioned how MySQL is part of the LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Python/Perl) stack, which is widely used for deploying websites and Web applications. "It's been very successful in the Web-based application space," she said.
Another consideration for choosing mySQL over Oracle in the Web space is personnel. In many cases, a LAMP administrator would be more familiar with MySQL than with the Oracle namesake database, said Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL engineering. "It makes it easier to run with MySQL if for no other reason than the actual developer is used to MySQL."
In addition to the usual round of bug fixes and general tweaks, the newly released 5.5 version of the software also features a number of significant features and capabilities. Chief among those is better scalability and improved replication.
In terms of performance, the software doesn't slow as dramatically as it once did when it handles a large number of concurrent connections. For Web servers that may accept up to 1,000 connections at once, this can be a welcome addition. The software can also offer additional performance gains when increasing the number of server cores beyond four, which previous versions were unable to do.
General performance has been improved as well. In internal benchmarks, Oracle showed that MySQL 5.5 showed a 360 percent improvement in reads and writes over version 5.1 running on Linux. On Windows Server machines, that performance gain jumped over 1,500 percent. "We get higher throughput in general with 5.5," Ulin said.
In terms of replication, the software now includes the ability to do semi-synchronous replications. Previous versions only offered asynchronous replications, meaning the backup copy of the database would not be updated as soon as new data was entered to the original.
"Once you've committed something on the master side, you couldn't be sure when it would get to the slave side," Ulin said. With semi-synchronous replication, the application committing data to the database doesn't receive confirmation that the data has been entered until it has also been copied to the backup database as well.

Firefox 4 Beta Provides Support for 3-D Graphics : NEW FIREFOX VERSION


Mozilla launched a new Firefox 4 beta release for PCs and laptops Wednesday featuring expanded support for 3-D graphics, together with a revamped Firefox add-on manager. And on the mobile side, Mozilla introduced several enhancements to the mobile version of Firefox 4 beta for smartphones based on Google's Android and Nokia's Maemo platforms.
The popular browser's new 3-D enhancements are based on WebGL -- an open standard for accelerated 3-D graphics rendering on the web that eliminates the need for users to install special plug-ins. As a result, developers will be able to render amazing visual experiences directly within the browser window, noted Firefox Product Manager Mike Beltzner.
"Firefox 4 beta now supports WebGL for most modern built-in graphics cards, making it easier for developers to create interactive 3-D games, vivid graphics, and new visual experiences for the web without the use of third-party plug-ins," Beltzner wrote in a blog.
Browser-based 3-D
Applications that formerly would have been possible only on the desktop or with plug-ins become possible in any modern browser that supports WebGL, noted Principal Firefox Engineer Vlad Vukicevic. "3-D games, interactive product displays, scientific and medical visualization, shared virtual environments, and 3-D content creation all become possible on the web," he wrote in a blog.
WebGL is based on OpenGL ES 2.0 -- the same 3D API used for Android and iOS development, Vukicevic observed. By including WebGL -- together with Mozilla's work on HTML5 video and audio support -- Firefox 4 beta now supports "a full set of web technologies" for building rich and compelling applications on the web, he wrote.
"WebGL focuses on OpenGL ES 2.0 feature compatibility to ensure content compatibility with mobile devices," Vukicevic explained. "However, ES 2.0 is behind the latest advances on the desktop today, [and] in the future various desktop features may become available in WebGL in the form of extensions."
What's more, Firefox 4 beta updates add-ons automatically to ensure that the user's browser is always up to date. "This should happen without you even noticing, keeping add-ons safe and fast while eliminating the hassle of [manually] updating," wrote Firefox team member Jennifer Boriss in a blog.
Syncing Devices
Firefox 4 beta now includes a streamlined Firefox Sync setup for acquiring the same address-bar history, bookmarks, open tabs, and passwords across PCs and laptops as well as smartphones running Android or Maemo. For example, developers have made some significant UI improvements to make setting up new accounts or devices for Firefox Sync easier and faster, noted Ragavan Srinivasan, project manager for Firefox Sync.
"You are no longer required to come up with a secret phrase or a sync key," Srinivasan wrote in a blog. "It is automatically generated for you."
Like its PC counterpart, the new mobile version of Firefox 4 beta makes the discovery of add-ons easier and simplifies Firefox Sync setup. The latter is important for mobile users because it reduces the amount of typing needed to securely access browsing history, bookmarks, tabs and passwords, noted Firefox team memberStuart Parmenter.
Users of compatible smartphones also are now able to save web sites as PDFs for later reading, Parmenter wrote in a blog. Additionally, the new mobile version of Firefox 4 beta offers "support for 'copy and paste' in the URL bar," he added.