Google’s (GOOG) new initiative to distribute YouTube videos through their AdSense network, wrapped and nicely packaged inside AdSense ads seems to be such a big deal, but it really is not. In fact, it is not quite smart, and shows that Google is still struggling to figure out how to make money from its [...]
Google (GOOG) crossed the $600-a-share threshold today, giving it a market capitalization of around $188.1 billion. The big questions is, how high can it go? $750, $1,000 or (shudder) $2,000 a share?Here is what $188 billion buys you:3,133 Gulfstream G550 jets a $60 million a pop. Basically one for anyone with the title “manager” who [...]
Predictify, a social prediction startup, launched out of private beta today. It’s based on a belief in the wisdom of the crowd, especially when it comes to predicting the future. After all, if nine out of 10 people think the same thing is going to happen, odds are that outcome will occur, right? [...]
Is Facebook planning on launching an MP3 store? Mashable this morning linked to a post on All Facebook that notes an “extremely reliable anonymous source” tipped off blogger Nick O’Neill that Facebook is prepping to launch an in-house competitor to iTunes.Facebook has reportedly “been searching for a CEO to head up this new subdivision” and [...]
Protecting your customers’ private information has always been a pain. Data security is just hard to provide, and thanks to hackers, even harder to protect. Web 2.0 and social networking have only made things worse, providing more opportunities for a breach every hour.Yet web security has long been a last vestige of innovation in the [...]
Are you sick and tired of phishing attacks, those fraudulent emails designed to look like trusted corporations but aimed at stealing your personal account information? Today Yahoo (YHOO), together with eBay (EBAY) and its PayPal unit, started to roll out an authentication technology called DomainKeys that supposedly blocks malicious, fake eBay and PayPal messages from [...]
What if the solution to having too many social web services was another social web service? That’s FriendFeed, a yet-to-be-launched service from some former Google (GOOG)employees that I’ve been trying out this week.Yup, you’ve got to enter in your friends again, and upload a profile pic. But then you depart FriendFeed to do the [...]
Amazon (AMZN), I have often pointed out, is a harbinger of technology trends that eventually gain mainstream acceptance. Contextual matching of information and community-powered feedback and ratings systems are two such examples.Their recent foray into infraweb-services such as EC2 (processing on demand) and S3 (storage on demand) is helping to kick-start interest in “utility [...]
Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, following rumors last week that the software giant is considering an investment that would value the social networking company at $10 billion, is saying the craze for social networks such as Facebook risks being exposed as a “fad.”I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and [...]
MySpace President Tom Anderson posted a blog last week detailing a bunch of recent changes to the site. The new features lead me to believe that the company is finally starting to realize that Facebook, with its anti-spam features, clean-cut layout, and growing traffic figures, might be on to something.One of the most annoying things [...]
