News and Information Blog 12 2009

What Is Green IT, and Why Should You Care?

Laurie McCabe offers up strategies and tips and resources — suitable for any small business — that are good for the environment and good for the bottom line, too.

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Amazon Tops in E-tail Customer Service

Inches ahead of Netflix to take the lead in ForeSee Results' latest ACSI study.

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In-Page Search Option

Add a Google/Yahoo search option to your Web pages. Using radio buttons, you can search each engine individually or both at the same time.

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Liberal Twitter Users Rejoice at Rush Limbaugh's Hospitalization

I just read the news on TMZ that Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital with chest pains while vacationing in Hawaii. The story was about an hour old and didn't have many details so I searched Twitter to see if people on the scene would have more news.
I didn't see any further information but I am amazed at how dominant haters of conservatives are on Twitter. They seem so proud to voice their rather baseless opinions. Most Twitter posters seem to hope Limbaugh dies! They seem to think Limbaugh (and all conservatives) are full of hate. I know that is untrue because I am a conservative and conservatives I know are about individual freedom and less government, not hate. But, that's besides the point.
The real issue to me is why can't Twitter posts be about information, informed opinion and thoughtful disagreement instead of bashing, group think and hate. This kind of knee jerk twitterism is useful for nothing and makes a great service like Twitter less great.
Here are a few sample hate tweets taken from thousands about Rush Limbaugh:
Key_Air_Uh: Rush Limbaugh might be dieing? My Christmas wish came true!
MaxCJensen: PLEASE USE HASHTAG #DIERUSHDIE IF YOU HOPE RUSH LIMBAUGH DIES. DONT BE ASHAMED, IT IS FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF AMERICA.
DevinBlake: Rush Limbaugh in the hospital with chest pains, please let this be the end of his reign!!! This would be a great end to the decade!!!
aramina: FOR THE RECORD, UNIVERSE, IT WOULD BE FANTASTIC TO START THE NEW YEAR WITHOUT RUSH LIMBAUGH AROUND. JS.
Bane117: Rush Limbaugh rushed to hospital w/ chest pains. Santa actually listened this year.
---------
What do you think about hate tweets? I won't delete your comments even if you bash.

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Morfessis withdraws from EDC position

PROVIDENCE – Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s choice to head the R.I. Economic Development Corporation has abruptly withdrawn her name from consideration, the governor’s office announced Wednesday afternoon.

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How to Troubleshoot and Repair Your PC

The most common hardware failures typically involve hard drives and memory. We take a look at several handy utilities to help you diagnose and repair these pesky hardware problems.

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Google Phone Excitement Builds Ahead Of Jan. 5 Event

The cat has at least started to come out of the bag with regards to the long-rumored "Google phone"; details about the Nexus One have been leaking for weeks. It looks like the rest of the figurative feline will soon appear, too, as a T-Mobile announcement and invitation to a Google event were issued today.

Let's start with the T-Mobile announcement - which, it's important to note, was an internal one. This morning, TmoNews published a document that in part read, "Google, with support from T-Mobile is scheduled to launch an Android device in early January. . . . T-Mobile will offer service support including billing, coverage, features and rate plans."

Then here's the clincher: Google's asking journalists to attend an Android press gathering on January 5th. This won't be a random meet-and-greet, either. It'll take place in Mountain View at the Googleplex, and a press conference, presentation, Q&A session, and demo session are supposed to last for a not-inconsiderable three hours.

One more interesting detail: January 5th falls two days before the start of the Consumer Electronics Show, so it looks like Google's planned its announcement for maximum impact.

Unfortunately, a lot of other details remain unknown. No one seems to have a clear idea of idea how much the Nexus One will cost, for example, or how rate plans will work or when the device will actually be available for purchase.

Still, one week from today, Google's likely to answer everybody's questions.
Related Articles:
> November Showed Significant Growth For Android
> Android Crowds iPhone In New comScore Report
> New Google Phone Has Tech Community Licking Chops

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R.I. TV stations fight to keep airwaves

The owners of three Rhode Island television stations have joined broadcasters across the country in urging the Federal Communications Commission not to take airwaves now reserved for television from them for use by wireless-phone companies.

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Apple App Store Sees 1,000% One-Day Gain

For the first time, the iPod Touch is outdrawing the iPhone. Meanwhile, Android posts growth but still lags.

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Fix Slow Browsing — and More — With OpenDNS

OpenDNS gives your small business’s Internet connection an extra dose of speed, security and control.

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Hulu Falls Short In Comparison To Blockbusters

If you massage the stats enough, Hulu's an entertainment giant, hanging neck and neck with this year's most popular movies. If you adopt a more objective perspective, however, it becomes pretty clear that the video-centric site hasn't exactly achieved blockbuster status.

In a report released this afternoon to NewTeeVee, Buzzpoint put Hulu just behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and ahead of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Up, and The Hangover in terms of revenue and opening weekend gross. The catch is that Hulu's revenue for all of 2009 ($120 million) had to be counted to keep it in this group.

Similarly, Hulu topped Buzzpoint's list related to visitors and audience members at opening weekends. By quite a lot, too - 42.5 million pairs of eyeballs focused on the free site, while runner-up New Moon attracted just 20.0 million watchers.

But the Hulu data covers the whole month of October, not a couple of days. And it's hard to imagine that every Hulu visitor spent two or three hours completely focused on the site.

The Buzzpoint report concluded, "While Hulu's content strategy is obviously centered around television shows rather than movies, these comparisons to Hollywood nevertheless help illustrate the lengths Hulu needs to travel in order to become a true blockbuster."
Related Articles:
> Hulu Partners With "American Idol" Creator For Web Reality Show
> Hulu Is Seeing Record Numbers
> MySpace's "New Moon" Webcast Brings In 3m Viewers

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Chafee set to announce run for governor

WARWICK – After a series of false starts, former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee – the Republican turned independent - plans to officially announce his campaign for governor on Jan. 4.
In a brief …

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Press Releases Can Have a Long Search Shelf-Life

As a follow up to a recent article we ran on how press releases can be great for search, a representative for PRWeb, a press release distribution company, contacted us with another interesting example. This one looks at the shelf-life press releases can have, with regards to search traffic.

"A small business called Leatherup.com, which sells peripheral gear for motorcycle riders issued a news release on November 6, 2008, titled, 'LeatherUp.com 2008 Sales Explode to over $20 Million,'" the representative tells WebProNews. "This year alone, this release has received more than 11,000 unique page views excluding advertising (I can see that Leatherup.com used this release as a landing page for some Doubleclick ads which boosted the total unique views to more than 20,000, so have excluded them)."

"Once I had the 11,000 number, with the exclusion, I looked at the entrance sources," he says. Among the top ten, these include (all numbers are unique views):

Google: 2,832

Direct: 1,551

AOL: 696

search.rr.com 247

"Moreover, peak views included December 11, 2009 – more than a year after the release was published," he continues. "The flat periods before April 7, 2009 are due to the fact that we had not yet implemented Google Analytics at that time, and the flat period in June 2009, is when PRWeb.com migrated over to a new Web site – the point being these search results could well be higher."

There are a number of reasons that press releases can be great for search. They're great for spreading word to the media (journalists/bloggers), they can contain links, when used with credible news wire services, they are often looked upon with some authority, and as discussed above, their shelf-life can be significant.

Related Articles:
> Search Engine and Social Traffic from Press Releases
> Press Releases New SEO Back Door to Top Rankings
> Getting the Media to Cover Your Business

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R.I. biotech sector awaits tipping point

Despite its current small size, boosters of the state’s biotechnology industry say it is poised to become an important part of the Rhode Island economy. At left, a worker prepares samples at Alexion Pharmaceuticals in Smithfield.

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What's Happened in Social Media Over the Year

As we did last year, we have gone back through our archives and picked out some of the most noteworthy social media items we have covered since 2009 began. Now that 2009 is almost over, it was worth going back and seeing what all has happened.

If you come across missing items, please feel free to share them in the comments.

January

In January, Twitter announced that it hired Kevin Thau as Director of Mobile Business Development, and that he would be working on a variety of different fronts as Twitter's "first official business development guru." LinkedIn introduced a new Polls feature, and launched a bookmarklet for IE. MySpace Music made deals with Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare to bolster its catalog by hundreds of thousands of songs. YouTube expanded its e-commerce platform and started letting people delete their own comments. Digg launched the "People who Dugg this also Dugg" feature.

February

In February, LinkedIn launched a set of HR Tools and launched a German version. MySpace launched a mobile redesign, and Digg updated its algorithm. Facebook introduced polling ads, changed its terms of service, made some design changes to profile pages for businesses, opened its corporate blog to comments, introduced the comments box widget, and launched the "like" button. Google introduced the Social Bar and launched Friend Connect integration with Blogger.

March

In March, Twitter brought its search box to most people's Twitter home page, and changed the "replies" tab to the "@username" tab. Twitter also adjusted the title tags for member pages. Where they used to go "Twitter / username" they would now go "User's Real Name (username) on Twitter". Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis offered to buy a spot on Twitter's Suggested Users list.

Facebook launched a redesign, started including updates from Pages in the news feed, changed pages to operate like profiles, and changed the status box to the publisher box. They launched the ability to let users chat within apps, added ad spots to Pages, relaunched Facebook Marketplace to be powered by online classified service Oodle, launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch, launched some new ad targeting options, and enabled Page owners to let people sign up to become fans via text message.

Google began implementing Portable Contacts, launched the Friend Connect API, blended user-generated content into search results on Google Maps, made Google Reader more social with commenting, allowed for richer Gmail messages, and started its own Twitter accounts.

YouTube changed the name of some video sections, LinkedIn did some redesigning of its own and enhanced Direct Ads, and MySpace was stamped on a credit card.

April

Google launched an event gadget for Google Friend Connect, the Digg-like "What's Popular" gadget, and the "Get Answers" gadget for Friend Connect. Google also gave profiles vanity URLS and started putting profiles into search results.

Facebook made it easier to organize friends, opened its stream up to third-party developers, added electronic signatures for public pages, worked with the blind on accessibility, began making app recommendations, and readied its next steps in governance.

Twitter started integrating search into its interface more, and CNN showed that you can buy/sell a Twitter account. Scientists created a brain-Twitter interface.

StumbleUpon broke away from eBay and enhanced its "web stumbling." Digg launched the controversial DiggBar. Reddit launched a video site, AOL launched SocialThing, and Yahoo shifted its focus to social altogether. YouTube launched the beta version of YouTube RealTime. MySpace got some new management.

May

In May, Yahoo 360 went away, Digg dropped shouting, LinkedIn upped usability on the Action Bar, the Wall Street Journal gave its employees social media rules, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its social advertising best practices and social media ad metrics.

Google introduced Google Wave, launched a recommendation gadget for Friend Connect, launched comment translation for Friend Connect, and added more social features to Google Reader. Twitter launched full two-way SMS support for Telus, Virgin Moible, and Koodo Mobile, making it available on every major operator in Canda. Twitter also changed how users view replies.

Iran lifted its ban on Facebook, and Facebook rolled out real-time streams, announced an app directory overhaul, added pop-up notifications, and linked accounts with Gmail. YouTube launched a new way for brands to engage audiences, and began letting you log-in with your Google account.

June

In June, Facebook began offering keyword suggestions for advertisers, simplified the inbox, began letting users get friends' updates via text message, and launched the Live Stream Box.

YouTube launched a page for movie trailers, FriendFeed added file sharing, LinkedIn got a new CEO and updated its search tool for recruiting, MySpace cut a big chunk of its staff, StumbleUpon launched a URL shortener, and Digg started showing Digg Ads.

July

In July, Google launched its Facebook page, MySpace launched its email service, and LinkedIn introduced custom profiles for companies. YouTube launched its 3D experiment, doubled the size limit of uploads, and gave users the ability to share YouTube Insights stats.

A Twitter documentary was announced, and Twitter itself gave businesses a new resource and started making hashtags link. Facebook addressed privacy and photo use for ads, gave businesses a way to increase their Facebook fans, and added the ability to create events from the publisher.

August

In August, Facebook was readying a new ads manager, made subtle changes to its design, announced plans for privacy improvement, started integrating directly with Twitter, launched its own real-time search, implemented restrictions on sponsored status updates, updated open stream APIs, acquired FriendFeed, and began letting developers sell physical merchandise for virtual currency.

Twitter quietly took a step toward security, and announced plans to launch a feature that makes the service location-aware. Izea launched "Sponsored Tweets," and Tweetmeme brought analytics to retweeting.

Google reader got more social features, YouTube placed more emphasis on search and launched its own AdSense-like promoted videos. Delicious showed off new features for sharing, search, and its homepage. StumbleUpon made some big changes to its toolbar.

September

In September, Google turned the whole web into an exclusive social network with SideWiki. Yahoo launched a new contacts API, Yahoo profiles became social media profiles, and the company launched the Twitter-like Yahoo Meme in English. Microsoft added MySpace activity updates to Windows Live, and Bing announced it was readying sharing features for search results.

A sick poll was discovered on and removed from Facebook, and Facebook announced its translation plans, and that it had roughly the same amount of people as the entire U.S. population. Facebook also added tagging from status updates, and launched Facebook Lite in the U.S. and India.

MySpace Music launched in Australia, and Myspace users started being able to sync updates with Twitter. LinkedIn made profile organization easier, a record label was launched for YouTube stars, and YouTube began readying a friend-finder feature.

Pizza Hut and other brands used Twitter to help feed the hungry, Digg made changes to its nofollow policy, the Washington Post's leaked social media policy faced criticism, and real-time search engines Collecta and OneRiot launched APIs.

October

In October, Bing scored deals with Twitter and Facebook, while Google scored one with Twitter. Mozilla shared its plans for integrating social media and email into one inbox, and Twitter partnered with its first charity. LinkedIn announced that it surpassed 50 million users.

MySpace introduced new music features, StumbleUpon launched a new design with more of a search focus, YouTube got real-time search for comments, and the only known video footage of Anne Frank appeared on YouTube.

Facebook confirmed testing of a new design, made share buttons more useful, gave groups walls, tried harder to get page owners to verify, and presented new obstacles for application developers. They also launched the Create Application API.

November

In November, Google eased the retrieval of SideWiki entries for entire sites, Google Wave got a feature for following, and Google launched some new features for Google Friend Connect.

Facebook tested new design changes, and continued work on privacy changes. Facebook and Twitter both made their way into dictionaries and onto video game consoles. Twitter made geotagging tweets possible, and talked about plans which would make its suggested usres list more like Twellow's. Twitter also changed launched Twitter Lists, gave apps access to people search, rolled out the controversial retweet feature, and changed "What are you doing?" to "What's Happening?".

LinkedIn opened up its platform to developers, Yahoo began showing tweets for news results, MySpace launched new music charts, Salesforce announced its "Facebook for the enterprise," YouTube connected news outlets with citizen reporters, PayPal launched new APIs to take over mobile and social apps, Microsoft launched a big redesign of MSN, Opera launched Opera Unite, Digg launched Digg Trends.

December

In December, Google, Facebook, and YouTube all got new URL shorteners. Twitter continued expansion into new languages, and announced plans for business features. Google launched real-time search in the search results.

LinkedIn began testing a new design, and launched faceted search, Facebook began giving translators awards, adjusted privacy controls, and formed a board for online safety, MySpace launched new APIs, upgraded users' mobile experience, and acquired iMeem, Bing launched new maps with apps, and Yahoo deepened its integration with Facebook. Digg released a new version of its API. Also, the new FTC guidelines went into effect.

Wrapping Up

Of course, there has been much more that has happened over the year in social media. I think it might be close to impossible to cover every single thing. Were there things that happened that you think should have been included here? Add them in the comments. That will only serve to make the piece more comprehensive for future readers.

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Top 15 Things You Loved to Talk About in 2009

Just as we did at the end of 2008, we have gone back through our entire archive for the year 2009 and picked out the articles that received the most conversation from our readers. As we approach the new year, we thought it would be fun to go back and reflect on some of the things that got people talking in the one that's wrapping up.

Note: Please keep in mind that some of the articles are a bit outdated now as new developments have occurred throughout the year.

1. eBay Wants its Sellers Back

This article received the most commentary by far from WebProNews readers out of every article we produced this year.

2. Top 10 Frustrations for eBay Sellers

Another article on a related subject was also discussed frequently.

3. Does DMOZ Still Have a Place in Search?

Indicating that DMOZ is still definitely a topic worthy of discussion, DMOZ's value was debated thoroughly in the comments on this article.

4. Do You Respect DMOZ After 11 Years?

DMOZ was also a hot topic after the company had its 11th birthday. It was quite interesting to find out what people thought after 11 years of the directory's existence.

5. eBay Competitor Bonanzle Continues Big-Time Growth

As was made clear in a number of eBay articles we ran, a lot of users of that site were not very happy. Competitors took advantage. This was a look at the success of one competitor in particular.

6. House Says Bloggers Don't Count As Journalists

The bloggers vs. journalists debate is always a hot one. Of course when the government gets involved with that debate, some heavy commentary will ensue.

7. Apple Fans Respond To The "Droid Does" Advertising Campaign

Apple fans love to talk. So do Apple haters. That point was very clear in the comments we received on this article.

8. Netbooks: Moving in Right Next Door to Useless

Mike ruffled some feathers with his criticism of the Netbook phenomenon. Although he certainly had plenty who agreed with his views.

9. Can eBay Win Back Sellers with a Shift in Focus?

eBay sparked some interest yet again when it announced its focus on the "secondary market".

10. eBay Unleashes Changes Galore for Sellers

Any time eBay makes changes that affect sellers, you can pretty much guarantee that people are going to talk.

11. Is MySpace Toast?

MySpace's future is discussed as Facebook takes over as the dominant social network.

12. Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010

Google's Matt Cutts dropped a hint that page speed may be considered as a ranking factor by the search engine soon. Some think this is a great idea, others think it's horrible.

13. The AP's Desperate Attempt To Outlaw Search Engine Links

A discussion about the Associated Press and fair use of content.

14. Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

News Corp. CEO Murdoch said some interesting things about how it plans to distribute its content in the future. This is still a hot topic.

15. Shocker: Facebookers Not Happy With Redesign

I'm sure you recall the big Facebook redesign. A lot of people are still bitter about it.

Looking back at some of these articles, it's hard to believe they've all come from just this year. It's amazing how much has happened in search, e-commerce, and social media. The rate at which everything changes and evolves is really quite astounding. I guess that can be attributed to the real-time nature in which we consume information now, and the sheer amount of content that is poured onto the web every minute of every day.

To get an idea of what I mean, just go to any of our tag pages and look back through our coverage of any given topic. Go to the Google tag, for example, and look at the enormous amount of things Google has been a part of this year alone.

What kinds of topics would you like to see covered more in the future? Share your thoughts here.

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Sungro picks new CEO to guide growth

Sungro Minerals Inc., a gas, oil and mining exploration company that lists its headquarters in Warwick, has appointed an interim CEO Thursday following the resignation of its previous top executive.

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Optimized Popup

Opens a new full screen browser window optimized for the visitor's browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, or Other). As well, the properties of new window can be customized -- such as the toolbars, scrollbars, menu bar, location bar, the status bar, and whether it is resizable or not. Great!

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Web Retailers Bet on Eleventh-Hour Deals

The waning hours of the holiday shopping crush caps off a season of surging sales.

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MySpace Updates imeem Users on Playlists

Update: MySpace has sent an email around to imeem users giving them an update about playlists.

The MySpace Music team is working around the clock to duplicate your imeem playlists and make them available to you on myspacemusic.com as soon as possible. In the coming weeks, we will be emailing you with instructions on how to claim your playlists on MySpace Music, using your MySpace login. If you don’t have a MySpace account you can sign up for one here.

If you have questions about MySpace, please visit http://faq.myspace.com/app/home.

(Via HypeBot)

Original Article: MySpace announced today that it has completed a deal to acquire "certain assets" of the popular social media music service imeem. imeem is now redirecting to MySpace Music.

"MySpace Music and imeem share a common vision and commitment to further enabling the socialization of content across the Web," says MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. "This deal will allow us to leverage imeem’s industry leading technology and over time, meaningfully integrate their products into the MySpace Music experience."

"Since its inception in 2003, imeem has built a highly engaged music community of more than 16 million users worldwide," says Van Natta. "imeem helped pioneer the ad-supported digital music model and created the Web’s first embeddable music and video playlists enabling users to embed songs and playlists virtually anywhere on the Web, including MySpace."

MySpace will be taking on imeem CEO Dalton Caldwell, CTO Brian Berg, COO Ali Aydar and VP of Sales David Wade as consultants to help manage the transition. Financial terms were not made available in the announcement. Mike Arrington says it's less than $1 million.

MySpace says that in the coming weeks, they will be working as quickly as possible to take aspects of imeem and migrate them to MySpace Music. The company says they'll be working to offer users the imeem playlists they created.

Related Articles:
> MySpace Music Launches In The UK
> MySpace Reaches Deal With Another Music Label
> MySpace Launches New Music Charts

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A Small Business Guide to Online Collaboration Tools

While the right collaboration tools can help small businesses be more efficient and productive, sifting through the tangle of options available can be a daunting task. Our buyers’ guide has what you need to know to get the job done.

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R.I. gets $1.5M to map, plan broadband

The U.S. Commerce Department awarded Rhode Island about $1.54 million in federal stimulus money Tuesday to map broadband availability in the state and create a plan to increase access. At left, a Verizon technician installing FiOS cables.

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Web Tools That Save You Money: Free Web Design

Imagine a free tool that lets you easily build a Web site that’s actually attractive. Plus, fabulous freebie site for software you’d actually use and a resource where you can buy high-quality printed envelopes.

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Mozilla Exec: Mobile Version Of Firefox Almost Here

The mobile version of Firefox - also known as Fennec - is almost ready to launch. Indeed, a Mozilla exec was recently quoted as saying that a release could be "days away," so it's possible that the new mobile browser will appear in time for some tech-inclined individuals to play with it on New Year's Eve or even Christmas.
Word of this short-term goal comes via the BBC from Jay Sullivan, who's Mozilla's vice president of mobile. Apparently Fennec's going through a last phase of testing, and, barring any "showstoppers," will be available quite soon.

The catch relates to compatibility, meaning this rollout won't put Fennec in everyone's hands. Owners of Nokia's N900 phones will be the first to get their hands on the mobile version of Firefox. Then, as the BBC reported, "The organisation is also developing versions for Microsoft's Windows mobile and Google's Android operating system."

Something for the iPhone might follow, but not in the near future.

Still, given how long Fennec's been in development (well over a year), any release will still count as a major step forward. And this (probable) launch is especially interesting given that Firefox 3.5 recently topped all other desktop browser versions on a global basis.
Related Articles:
> Chrome Ad Campaign Nets Positive Results
> Firefox 3.5 Currently Most Popular Browser In The World
> Opera Turbo Sees 60% User Growth In One Month

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Home sales rose in R.I., Mass. last month

Single-family home sales increased significantly last month in both Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass., compared with a year earlier, according to figures released Tuesday.

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MicroNet Rack-Mount Storage Delivers Up to 16TB

MicroNet has expanded its SMB-focused MaxNAS storage family. One of the two new rack-mountable options can store up to 8TB of data — the other tops out at 16TB.

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Facebook Publishes 2009's Top Status Trends

Facebook users are a pretty important group of people; after all, in recent months, it's been established that there are more of them than there are individuals in the United States. So to wrap up 2009, Facebook's provided a list that helps spell out what its users have been thinking about all year.

You can view the list of top status trends below. It was made possible thanks to something termed "Facebook Memology," and as you can see, has been a bit simplified (condensing Farmville, Farm Town, and Social Living into "Facebook Applications," for example).

We'll respect your intelligence by just hitting some of the items that might not be completely obvious. Here's a quick one: at number two, "FML" stands for "f*ck my life." Which makes sense given the economy's nosedive.

Then, at number eleven, "years" is nothing more than a reference to dates like 2008, 2009, and 2010. Apparently a lot of folks thought about life on something other than a day-to-day basis.

Finally, "yard" is simply a reference to the green things that surround houses. To explain this word's presence, data scientist Lars Backstrom theorized on the Facebook Blog, "[H]ipsters' moms and dads are also on Facebook, and these folks have yards that require some tending." Or it might have something to do with the housing stimulus and a fair number of young people getting yards for the first time.
Related Articles:
> Facebook Releases User Diversity Data
> Facebook Directs Companies, Celebs To Preferred Developers
> Facebook Gives Translators Awards For Their Services

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Duffy & Shanley holiday card goes viral

Instead of creating a standard holiday card this year, the marketing firm Duffy & Shanley decided to lampoon the entire enterprise in a Web video that is being talked about in trade publications and on Twitter.

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Email Marketing Budgets Set For Increase In 2010

Nearly half (40%) of email marketers plan on increasing their budgets for the channel in 2010 and 47 percent said their budgets would stay the same, according to a new survey by Silverpop.

In the coming year, more than half (52%) of email marketers said increasing customer loyalty was a top email marketing goal. Overall, 51 percent of respondents want to drive incremental revenue with their email program; 65 percent of those with larger email budgets says that's that their top goal in 2010.

"When consumers' purse strings tighten, savvy marketers remain respectful but attentive, so their brands are top of mind when their customers are once again ready to buy," said Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop.

"Today's marketers are mindful of the important role relationship building plays in a successful marketing strategy, and they understand the unique ability of email to engage customers."

While marketers remain positive about the role email will play in meeting their goals in 2010, they are also prepared to face related challenges. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said the biggest challenge in the coming year will be "inbox clutter.

Overall, more than eight out of 10 (84 percent) plan to include social media into their email programs in the coming year, and 38 percent will add SMS. Marketers with budget increases are even more likely to add these to their programs; 89 percent will incorporate social media and 44 percent SMS.

"Linking email to popular social networks can be a very successful strategy," Nussey said. "If the messages are timely and relevant, recipients will share them with their networks, and the opportunity for additional exposure increases exponentially. And as customers become more mobile, their marketing must reach them in more timely ways and through channels such as SMS."

Related Articles:
>10 Reasons Social Media Isn't Replacing Email

>Emails With Coupons Achieve Higher Open Rates
>Majority Of Consumers Want To Interact With Brands Online

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YouTube Partner Program Turns Two

It's no secret that people work harder when given a financial incentive, and that companies also like to make a little money. Now, the program that YouTube created to capitalize on these facts has turned two years old, and YouTube's having a little celebration.

As Shenaz Zack, a product manager, explained on the YouTube Blog, the Partner Program is pretty much a huge success. He pointed out, "[M]any partners are earning real dollars from their videos. Some users have quit their jobs to concentrate on YouTube full-time, including several who make six figures a year from the site."

There have been some other interesting real-world effects as a result of the Partner Program, too. Fred's set to become a movie star. Brownbagfilms already has, with a video entering the Oscar runoffs. And Zack wrote, "Others have earned such awards as a Tech Award in Education, Digista Award in Japan, and the distinction of being one of TIME's 50 best inventions of 2009."

This string of successes is almost sure to continue. Indeed, since YouTube controls access to the program, it could open the figurative floodgates at any time, allowing all sorts of content creators the opportunity to step up their game and share revenue from ads.

Of course, this would mean having ads on all sorts of content, and would in turn generate a lot of revenue for YouTube.
Related Articles:
> What The Most People On YouTube Watched In 2009
> Watching YouTube Videos On Your Microwave
> YouTube Promoted Videos Branches Out Again

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In Cranston, a theater is reborn

For nearly eight decades, until it closed its doors in 2002, Cranston’s Park Theatre had been a cultural benchmark for those growing up and living in Cranston. It reopened in late October as the Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts at the …

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Marketing Tips: Pricing Your Products and Services

Plus, marketing guru Andrew Lock shares the best place to find dependable mailing lists; offers a great resource for market testing and tracking; and highlights Ikea’s event-based strategy.

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Opera Turbo Sees 60% User Growth in One Month

Opera announced that five million people are using Opera Turbo, its compression technology, which is present in both Opera 10 and Opera Mobile. Opera Turbo reduces the size of Web pages by up to 80%, according to the company, dramatically improving browsing speeds over slow networks and saving money on "pay as you go" connections.

Opera Turbo saw an increase of 60% in user growth in a single month, from October to November. "This rapidly increasing usage rate denotes a distinct market need for Opera‚s turbo-charged technology, and reflects the universal burden of slow surfing speeds," Opera says.

"The numbers have spoken. Opera Turbo is resolving the universal discontent with slow browsing. This is not an issue particular to one country or one type of device; it is an issue that affects us all at one time or another," says Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. "Now, no matter where in the world Opera 10 users find themselves, they know that Opera Turbo is available to assure quick and efficient Web surfing."

The five million Opera Turbo users viewed about 1.5 billion compressed pages in November. That's a 36.6% increase in page views since October. Opera Turbo served more than 72 terabytes of data to users in November.

In November 2009, Opera Turbo served more than 72 terabytes of data to users. The average compression rate for Opera Turbo in November was 63.6 percent, meaning that those users would have received 199 terabytes of uncompressed data if they were not using Opera Turbo. Since October 2009, data traffic has increased by 38 percent.

"The average compression rate for Opera Turbo in November was 63.6 percent, meaning that those users would have received 199 terabytes of uncompressed data if they were not using Opera Turbo. Since October 2009, data traffic has increased by 38 percent," the company says. The top five countries in terms of unique users of Opera Turbo were: Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and the United States.

Users can activate Opera Turbo by clicking the Opera Turbo icon in the lower, left-hand corner of the Opera 10 browser.

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No Christmas parties again at Citizens

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and its local subsidiary Citizens Financial Group Inc. are among the lenders limiting entertainment budgets this holiday season to reflect massive government bailouts and tough economic times.

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Android Crowds iPhone In New comScore Report

In several key respects, the Android platform has almost caught up to the iPhone, according to new statistics from comScore. There are still a lot more iPhones floating around in the great, wide world, of course, but otherwise, Android's doing extremely well.

Let's start with the table below. It illustrates that, more than the average smartphone user, Android users do a lot of things other than talk. This is important since it could mean that Android devices aren't becoming buy-and-forget paperweights; owners actually enjoy using them.

And indeed, Android's numbers are almost neck-and-neck with Apple's.

Then there's the simple matter of what people have said they intend to buy. A comScore statement reported, "[O]f those American consumers in the market for a smartphone, 17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone."

So again, Android's almost caught up with the iPhone.

Given a few more months and the release of another Android device or two, it's not hard to imagine that we'll see a tie or new leader.
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3 Tools Make Phone the Center of Small Biz Universe

Web sites, e-mail and cloud-based services garner all the attention, but the majority of interaction for most small businesses still centers around the phone. These three new tools help you make the most of it.

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Chamber chief eyes $50M small-biz bond

Newport County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Keith W. Stokes, shown far left with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, has proposed a bond referendum to boost the state’s economy and provide capital for small-business owners.

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Top Ten Mobile Tools for Small Business

We pick 10 essential tools and services to help mobile professionals get the job done on the run.

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Opening Page Link

To get the attention of your surfers to some particular links, you may want to include some link animations. In this animation, the link over-lines itself back and forth.

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Google Fast Flip Gets More Publications

Update: Google announced that it now has 2 dozen more publishers representing over 50 publications on board the Google Fast Flip train (which is still in experiment status). New sources include Tribune Co. newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, McClatchy Company newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO and U.S. News & World Report.

Original Article: For being nothing more than a "labs" project for Google, Fast Flip has received an overwhelming amount of attention as well as criticism. In case you have been under a rock, Fast Flip is a lab Google launched, that has been talked about before under its codename, "Flipper."

What it does is let you "flip" through news articles on the web, as you would do with a magazine. In Google's words, "Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers."

Google partnered with the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica, and Newsweek to launch the lab. According to Google, partners will share revenue earned from contextual ads shown with articles. Google says that encouraging readers to read more news is "part of the solution" to the woes of the publishing industry, though the company does acknowledge that there is "no magic bullet."
It would appear that many certainly agree that Fast Flip isn't a magic bullet either way. Here are a few sample critiques of Fast Flip from around the web:

"It doesn't seem very fast and also doesn't flip pages, but slides them across the screen," says David Coursey at PC World. "I want to like anything Google does that makes life easier for readers, but Fast Flip can make news harder to access, not easier."

"I can say with absolute certainty that Fast Flip is fast and it will put more ads in front of the users who use it," says Clint Boulton, at eWeek. "But I'm not sure users are ready for Fast Flip to replace the way they currently view Google News -- link by link."

"Overall, Fast Flip just seems like a disappointing product," says Frederic Lardinois at Read Write Web. "The cooperation with content producers is interesting, though we wonder if a single AdSense unit on the site will really make newspapers any money."

Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider has some particularly harsh words for the iPhone version of Fast Flip, which he deems useless. "Unlike on the desktop, you can't actually read anything. The text is far too small," he says. "And when you click 'zoom,' it doesn't zoom into a version of FastFlip where the text is larger, fitted to the iPhone's screen size, and actually readable. Instead, it expects you to pan around the page to read the text..No thanks!"
And like in the Blogosphere, there are of course varied opinions of Fast Flip floating around Twitter:

The important thing to remember here is that Fast Flip is just a Google Labs feature. That means it's not a proper release or a final product, though it is interesting that there are partners making money (allegedly) from the release. Google's own description of Google Labs:

Google Labs is a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly to the engineers who developed them. Please note that Labs is the first phase in a lengthy product development process and none of this stuff is guaranteed to make it onto Google.com. While some of our crazy ideas might grow into the next Gmail or iGoogle, others might turn out to be, well, just plain crazy.
Most Google labs releases never make it out of labs status, though there have been exceptions. The fact that partnerships are involved could make the transition to actual release, and maybe a full-fledged feature of Google News, but as long as it's a lab, it's not going to be perfect.

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Auction of unsold 903 condos cancelled

The 233 unsold condos at The 903 Residences in Providence will not be going on the auction block Thursday after all, according to a notice on the Web site of the firm that was to have conducted the auction.

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Android Passes the 20,000 Apps Mark

Milestone for the mobile platform backed by Google but the iPhone still has quite a lead.

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Microsoft Addresses Search Privacy

Sree Kamireddy, Bing Program Manager and self-proclaimed "Privacy Champ" has written a post on the Bing blog discussing how Microsoft handles your Bing search history information. More specifically, Kamireddy explains how this is actually in users' hands.

Kamireddy explains that Bing Offers the following:

- Off/On switch: With one click, you can choose to turn history on or off directly on the search results page or, if you’re returning, on the homepage. About to perform a search that you don’t want to remember as part of your history? Just click Turn off and new searches are no longer remembered. Want to get back to building your search history? You can just as easily turn it back on. Your on/off state will be maintained indefinitely, as long as you don’t clear your browser cookies.

- Transparency: Click See all to get a complete view of the history data that Bing is storing for you. For this release, you’ll find all queries you make using our web search and the sites you click associated with that query. We’ll be checking customer feedback to see what additional information might make search history more useful, and how to better expose it to our customers.

- Control: Too many systems provide us with choice, but little control. We’ve created Bing Search history with multiple layers of control. You can remove your entire search history right on the search results page or on the homepage (just click Clear all). For finer-grained control, you can delete individual queries or sites from your history by clicking See all and then removing individual items from your history. You can also clear your entire search history directly from that page. Once you delete an item, it’s gone – it won’t appear in search history again.

Search History on Bing is available for four weeks at this point. Removing history removes it from the actual service and prevents the history from being displayed on the site, but it doesn't actually delete the info from Microsoft's search logs.

The search logs are retained and anonymized as described in the Bing Supplement to the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement. Bing stores searches users make separately from any account information that directly identifies them, such as email address, phone number, etc.

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How Small Businesses Can Attract New Customers

These five inexpensive, Web-based strategies can help you reach new customers and increase sales.

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State awards $1M for planning updates

PROVIDENCE - The R.I. Statewide Planning Program awarded $1 million to 17 recipients who will utilize the money to study transportation and development issues.

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3 Handy Web Resources: Free PR for Small Businesses

Want to get the word out about your business or expertise? We’ve got a tool for that. Plus, a travel site that saves you money and time and an invaluable Web site that helps you bypass Byzantine phone trees and speak to an actual human.

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Facebook URL Shortener Makes Appearance

Long URLs cut into character limits, are difficult to remember, and simply look awkward. Quite a little industry has sprung up in response. Only it looks like a major player is now entering the game, as a URL shortener created by Facebook has been sighted.

Ryan Spoon first wrote about links built around the characters "FB.me" this weekend. Since, then, more and more examples have been found, and although Facebook has yet to announce anything official, there's no reason to believe that FB.me won't go live for everyone at some point.

This could spell doom for entities like Bit.ly, Is.gd, and Ow.ly. FB.me works as a standard shortener, but with the backing of Facebook, it's likely to prove more reliable, and will also have a marketing/name recognition head start.

Then it's got one extra trick: as Saad Kamal noted, "[I]f your Profile URL is say - http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks, now you can even write it as http://fb.me/starbucks and it will still go to the exact same page."

Of course, Facebook isn't guaranteed victory in the URL shortener field. Aside from the existing competition, it's possible that Google (or Goo.gl, if you like) will act as a rival.
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Gov.'s plan targets local, education aid

PROVIDENCE – The state budget would be balanced by cuts in spending for local education, aid to cities and towns, one-time land sales that include the Veterans Memorial Auditorium and other …

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Google Asks For Help With Transcriptions

Although spell checkers have been around for about 30 years, they still miss or incorrectly flag a whole lot of stuff (try "eye wonder weather this is write" and "monetize"). Google wants its transcription software to become better more quickly, and so is asking for users for a hand.

On the Google Voice Blog, Vincent Paquet, a senior product manager, recently wrote, "Until now, the only feedback you could give was to let us know if the quality of the transcript was good enough to be useful or not, by checking the corresponding box next to the message. You can now go one step further by letting us figure out why it was good or bad. When you rate a transcript, you will be asked whether you would like to donate the message."

Paquet then explained the meaning behind that phrase by continuing, "The messages you donate may be listened to, manually transcribed by us and/or used to gauge transcription improvements over time, but they will never be made public or used for any other purpose than improving the transcription quality."

For every Margaret who's tired of being called "maggot rot" and Taylor who doesn't make clothes for a living, this is a nice option. Even people who don't opt to donate messages may appreciate it, since it reinforces the idea that Google doesn't eavesdrop on conversations by default.

One other important note: this may represent a step towards launching Google Voice in the U.K. and Australia.
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Some banks seeking Facebook friends

Newport Federal Savings Bank became a pioneer of sorts on the local banking landscape when it made its foray onto Facebook last month. Other lenders are still figuring out their social media strategies. At left, NewportFed’s Susan M. Ouellet shows …

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European Online Holiday Shopping Off To Strong Start

European online Christmas shopping season got off to a strong start this year in the U.K., France and Germany, according to a new report from comScore.

Visits to retail sites were up 18 percent during the first week of November compared to an average week during the prior two months, and increased even more throughout the month to reach a 41 percent growth rate during the week ending November 29.

France saw solid gains, resulting in the same 41 percent growth rate during the last week of November, while Germany showed slight lower growth at 16 percent.

"That we're seeing such strong growth in visitation to retail sites in three of Europe's leading countries prior to the December pre-Christmas rush is, hopefully, a positive sign for the overall European economy," said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

"Right now the U.K. and France appear to be demonstrating the highest rate of traffic growth to retail sites, outperforming the U.S. by a considerable margin. While German growth has been slightly slower, the heavy part of the country's online shopping season should begin in earnest during the first week of December."

During the month of November, average weekly visits to online retail sites grew 35 percent in the U.K. compared to the prior two months. Among the top 5 online retailers as ranked by average weekly visits, Play.com sites experienced the largest growth at 62 percent, closely followed by the Home Retail Group (61%) and Tesco (50%).

Visits to online retail sites in France were up 36 percent during the first week of the month and remained steady during November. Groupe PriceMinister has the fastest growth rate at 188 percent, followed by Amazon and Cdiscount, both at 40 percent.

In Germany, visits to online retail sites got off to a slightly slower start than in France and the U.K., but still showed 17 percent average weekly growth. Amazon was the fastest growing retail site during November, up 46 percent, followed by Neckermann Gruppe (up18%).

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Banks look beyond their brick walls

Is a Big iTunes Revamp in the Works?

The purchase of a music streaming company and a billion dollar datacenter hint changes are coming.

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No Wi-Fi? Try Belkin's Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit

If you need a wireless network in your home office, but the layout isn’t conducive to Wi-Fi, you’ll appreciate the Belkin Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit for its easy setup and snappy performance.

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Must Visit From

If other sites links directly the sub-pages of your site or if previous required pages are being skipped, you can now require your visitors to come from a certain page! Those that did not come from the required page are alerted then send back to the required previous page. Clever!

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Google-Backed Undersea Cable Project Moving Forward

Quite some time ago, Google and a number of other companies announced their intent to create something called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC). This week, there was confirmation that the undersea fiber optic project is progressing.

Bobbie Johnson wrote today, "The agreement to build the submarine cable was first proposed three years ago, but negotiations finally came to a close on Wednesday as officials signed what they promised was a groundbreaking deal."

Bharti (of India), Globe Telecom (the Philippines), KDDI (Japan), Reliance Globalcom (Bermuda), and Telemedia Pacific (Hong Kong/Indonesia) will all be involved in addition to America's favorite search engine. As for the cable itself, it'll stretch between China, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore at first, with extensions possible in the future.

The SJC should allow individual and corporate Internet users in the region to transfer information (including ads) at much higher speeds and lower costs. It might create a couple of redundancies, too, in the event that earthquakes or anchor-dragging ships disrupt existing lines of communication.

The SJC should be completed by the second quarter of 2012. It carries an estimated price tag of $400 million.
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R.I. scores big in appropriations bill

WARWICK – The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010, which provides $446.8 billion to fund “critical priorities and programs” in health, education and transportation, would bring more than $30 million to various organizations and programs in …

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What's Better: PPC or SEO?

At SES Chicago, there was an interesting session in which a group of search marketing professionals debated the issue of which is better between PPC and SEO. Participants included Dave Naylor, Chirstine Churchill, Michael Gray, and Karen Weber, and Rand Fishkin.

Does PPC have more benefits than SEO? Comment here.

Churchill pointed to a study from Engine Ready on conversion rates by source of traffic (PPC vs organic). The study found:

- Conversion rates: PPC just barely beat SEO

- Average Order Value: Paid won

- Average time on site: Paid won

She gave the following as advantages of PPC:

- Gives immediate online presence

- Have a new site? Have ads in an hour

- Start getting ROI sooner

- No ramp up time

- Great for seasonal items or time sensitive promotions

- Great for testing

- Easily test effectiveness of new marketing message or site design change

- Quickly gather feedback

- Regulate traffic volume

- Sales pipeline empty? Use PPC to push traffic

- Overloaded? Pause campaigns or cut back spend

- Have limited sales season? Saturate market while demand is high

"PPC is very agile. It's also has targeting advantages," said Churchill.

For targeting, she says PPC provides opportunity for high visibility in multiple channels (search engines, content sites, mobile phones), expands results beyond search results, and gives you control over placement on SERPs and better control over landing page/message.

It's often easier to sell PPC to management because the concept is similar to traditional advertising, and provides for direct accountability. It's easy to track measures of success. It's an effective way to drive qualified traffic to your site, and it allows you to expand your opportunities.

Weber says the top five reasons why "PPC rules," are: speed, flexibility, it's unlimited, it's goal-driven, and it's controllable. You can quickly manipulate keywords to those that drive conversions, you can quickly change bid prices, and you can quickly get in and out of the market. You can turn your campaign on and off, and change ad copy, keywords, etc. You can target a much wider range of keywords, adhere to a budget, and have an immediate impact on sales.

Fishkin pointed out that PPC gets 10% of clicks, but 90% of spend. He said SEO is more challenging and less controllable, but the spend is there and the fact that people click organic results.

Gray said he believes that PPC could make SEO better, but Google is banning people now, so it makes things more challenging. Naylor said he believes SEO is more "open." Weber and Fishkin both said they would outsource PPC over SEO.

Gray said it's important to get in the top during the early part of the research phase, especially since Google is personalizing results for everyone now. Churchill noted that Google's personalization is a better argument for PPC. Like iEntry CEO Rich Ord recently noted, the addition of personalized results could "make people less reliant on organic search results for their traffic and in turn increase their use of Adwords."

Another point was brought up as we recently discussed - that the search engines are pushing organic listings down with mixed media (blended, universal) results.

Certainly there are many advantages to both PPC and SEO, and they can compliment one another. Actually, a recent study from a couple of NYU Stern professors found that organic search engine results can play a direct role in whether or not a paid listing is clicked.

Which do you think is more important - SEO or PPC? Share your thoughts here.

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report.

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PowerPoint 2003: How to Animate a Slide Background

Helen Bradley explains how to create a moving picture background that, when used sparingly, makes a more compelling PowerPoint slideshow.

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Sellers cut prices on 28% of R.I. homes

The asking prices had been cut on 28 percent of homes on the market in Rhode Island as of Dec. 1, according to a report released Wednesday by Trulia.com, a Web-based real estate service. The average home price was reduced by 11 percent.

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Symantec Brings Storage, Security to Amazon EC2

Security software vendor now offering endpoint security and storage foundation apps through Amazon's cloud.

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Handy Web Tools: Outsourcing Through Guru.com

Plus, a way to send big files from within popular software (think Outlook, Office and Photoshop) and a full-featured printing service that ships anywhere in the world.

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The Future Of Online PR

In the olden days, PR professionals might have gotten an hour or more of face time in which to sweet talk someone over a meal. Now, they occasionally make pitches in 140 characters. So you can imagine how the information shared during a conference session titled "Online PR: Where to Next?" could prove quite useful to a lot of people.

(Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Beth Harte, who wears a number of hats (including that of Community Manager) for MarketingProfs, started by stating that press releases and visibility are just part of the game. Advertising, issues management, public affairs, lobbying, and investor relations all count, as well, and she stressed, "Real public relations is relationships."

Harte also said, "Social media tools will change. People being social won't." She recommended listening, communicating, partnering, telling your story, and getting people to talk as a result.

Next, Marty Weintraub, President of aimClear, talked about the intersection of PR and SEO. Stay interested in links, and write SEO-savvy press releases. Get social media profiles ranked, and do guest blogging stints if possible. Finally, provide people a reason to rebroadcast your name (and do a little good) by helping charities. Weintraub suggested, "Give and give and give some more."

Then came Duncan Alney, President and Social Media Strategist of Firebelly Marketing. He discussed the visual component of PR, stating, "Online video is used more than all major TV networks," and indicated that continued growth is likely. Video is very shareable, Alney pointed out, so PR professionals should start refining their strategy and execution and accumulating experience now.

At last, Andy Beal, the CEO of Trackur, wrapped up the session. He pointed out that there is advanced technology for monitoring industry trends, competitors' buzzwords, your own reach, and potential allies. Take advantage of it. And as for the future, Beal predicted that there will be dynamic content in press releases, link tracking across platforms, performance-based press release pricing, and RFID for your content.

WebProNews Reporter/Anchor Abby Johnson contributed to this report.
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N. Grid, Deepwater in wind power deal

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s effort to secure the nation’s first offshore wind farm off Rhode Island cleared a key hurdle on Wednesday as developer Deepwater Wind LLC and National Grid Plc announced the signing of a 20-year power-purchase …

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Alan Meckler in Expansion Mode Again

Alan Meckler who has bought and sold more B2B web properties than anyone else is... according to his Twitter post, back to buying again.
We hope to close an acquisition late next week or early the next. And perhaps another by month end. Both exciting. More...
Our present platform plus coming deals will make us one of the more exciting blog networks in the BtoB space.
Rafat Ali suggested the possibility that Meckler is interested in either Silicon Valley Insider or Mashable in this tweet:

Henry Blodget of The Business Insider, Inc. mocked the rumor a bit in his blog post:
"Holy sh&$! Are we being bought? Where are some investigative journalists when we need them?"
----
My guess is that of the two web properties the purchase of Mashable is most likely because of their recent steep pageview growth. It's also interesting that there hasn't been a tweet or a blog post from Pete Cashmore of Mashable commenting on this rumor.

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Hasbro, RISD explore deeper side of play

A unique collaboration between Hasbro Inc. and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is using Cranium and other popular games to explore what makes a game a success. At left, a group at play.

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Lawmaker Turns Up Heat on Shady Web Ploys

"There are more than 4 million American consumers whose credit cards are being charged by mysterious membership clubs after shopping online, and most of these 4 million consumers don’t even know it’s happening," Sen. Rockefeller says.

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In-N-Out Burger: 4 Big Marketing Tips for SMBs

Andrew Lock goes on location to demonstrate how small business owners can easily apply the marketing strategies that help this fast food company stand out from the crowd.

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Yahoo and Microsoft Finalize Deal

Update: Microsoft and Yahoo have closed the deal. WebProNews received an email from a Yahoo representative saying that they have "finalized and executed the definitive Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement in accordance with the letter agreement announced in July."

Statements from the two companies are as follows:

“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”

Original Article: Kara Swisher of Boomtown, who is normally a pretty reliable source of industry scoops, is reporting that Yahoo and Microsoft may be very close to finally signing their much-anticipated search and advertising deal. According to Swisher, though she has not received confirmation from either party, the two companies may have their agreement in place by the end of the week.

"If all goes well, the various Microsoft and Yahoo execs–who have been ferreted away over the last weeks busy dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s on the massive document–could even turn in their deal homework to their bosses for signature by the end of the week," says Swisher. She cites "sources close to the situation" as the basis of her lead.

The deadline for completing the agreement was October 27, but both companies basically chalked up the lack of completion to the size and complexity of the document. They want to make sure all of the details are in there and are clear.

The deal isn't just waiting on the two companies to finalize a document, though. It also requires the approval of a bunch of government regulators, and not just in the U.S.

"And, several sources said those government approvals are now nearing completion at the Justice Department, even though the Federal Trade Commission might still ask for more assurances on privacy issues related to online advertising and consumer data issues," writes Swisher. "International regulatory approval is another story, especially in Europe, which could further delay the implementation of the partnership, since it is unlikely the pair would move forward without clearance globally."

Yahoo and Microsoft are both still expecting the deal to officially close early next year. Do you think it will happen? Share your thoughts here.

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Plan USA CEO resigns; successor sought

W. Ahuma Adodoadji, left, resigned last month as president and CEO of the Warwick-based nonprofit Plan International USA Inc. after two and a half years in the job, and a search for his replacement is under way.

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How to Run Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

Yes, you can move on up to Windows 7 and — thanks to its Windows XP Mode — still run older, mission-critical applications. Joe Moran shows you how it’s done.

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YouTube Wraps Up Another Content-Sharing Deal

More professionally-produced, full-length programming (along with a lot of clips) is coming to YouTube, thanks to a deal with a television channel called Five. Five, which operates in the UK, should bring more than 3,000 hours of content to the table.

YouTube reached another agreement with a foreign entity, Channel 4, in October. The deal was similar in size and nature, involving around 3,000 hours of content and complete shows. Also, both deals are nonexclusive, and the content they revolve around will only be available to YouTube users in the UK.

There doesn't appear to be any cause-and-effect connection, though, aside from the fact that YouTube seems to be on a roll.

Otherwise, Chris Tryhorn reported, "Five will sell all the advertising that runs in its programmes on YouTube. Typically, ads appear where breaks would have been during broadcast transmission, but only two at a time."

And "Five is also going to use YouTube to engage with fans of its shows in new ways, including offering UK residents the chance to audition via YouTube for a guest role on Neighbours."

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Only R.I., Mich. lost residents in 2006-08

Rhode Island and Michigan were the only states whose populations shrank from 2006 to 2008, and of the two, Rhode Island lost a larger share of its residents, according to a new study and an analysis by Providence Business News.

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(Mostly) Free Web Tools: Manage Your Money with Mint

Plus, a Pandora-like site for video, boffo graphics to make your own media covers, and a corporate-quality e-mail marketing service that won’t cost you a cent.

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Microsoft Sells Fast Search & Transfer Businesses

Perhaps Yahoo has started a trend. Yesterday, we learned that the company will shut down part of a business it bought two and a half years ago. Today, there's word that Microsoft's sold some things it picked up while acquiring Fast Search & Transfer in early 2008.

It's important to note that this deal isn't going to cripple Bing or give birth to another Google competitor; Microsoft's not getting rid of any secret search ingredient. Instead, the Folio and NXT products and services, which "facilitate the management of online content," are what were sold.

This move does indeed seem reminiscent of Yahoo's newfound approach of cutting non-core offerings, then.

Whereas Yahoo's just sort of abandoning the Right Media Exchange, though, Microsoft's handed the Folio and NXT businesses off to Rocket Software for safekeeping. Rocket Software CEO Andy Youniss said in a statement, "We are pleased that Microsoft selected us to take over the development, service, and support for all Folio and NXT customers. This is a great fit for Rocket, and we look forward to working with the customers to provide the features and functions they need to be successful with their investment in the products."

Unfortunately, the terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Delta drops Cincinnati-Providence route

Delta Air Lines, which currently has nine daily departures from T.F. Green Airport, has announced plans to eliminate direct flights between T.F. Green and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in February.

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Cisco Expands Its Small Business Portfolio

New additions and enhancements to the company’s networking, security and communication product lines solidify Cisco’s commitment to small business.

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Cyber Monday Rakes in the Cash

It's an e-tailer's dream as the day's sales totals soar from last year and top even Black Friday's take.

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NY AG Works With Facebook And MySpace To Remove Sex Offenders

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today that more than 3,500 registered state sex offenders have been removed for social networking sites Facebook and MySpace.

Under New York's e-STOP law, which was written by Cuomo, Facebook was able to identify and disable accounts linked to 2,782 registered New York sex offenders, and MySpace was able to identify and shutdown accounts linked to 1,796 sex offenders.

Some registered sex offenders had profiles on both sites, leaving a total of 3,533 individuals removed from Facebook and MySpace. New York State has more than 8,100 sex offenders who registered emails with the state. That means over 43 percent of those sex offenders have identified accounts linked to Facebook or MySpace.

Andrew Cuomo

"We created e-STOP to help put an end to sexual predators using the Internet as a tool to prey on the innocent," said Attorney General Cuomo.

"Facebook and MySpace are successfully using e-STOP to help make the Internet safer, and it's time for all social networking sites to do their part to keep others from being senselessly victimized."

Under the e-STOP law many sexual predators are banned from using social networking sites on the Internet while on probation or parole. Also convicted sex offenders must register all of their email addresses, screen names, and other Internet identifiers with the state. That information is then shared with social networking sites so they can remove potential predators from their properties.

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Kent settles, starts patient care initiative

WARWICK - Kent Hospital on Tuesday said it will create an institute to promote patient safety and spend $1.25 million to “redesign the care process,” following the settlement of a civil lawsuit filed by the estate of Michael J. Woods, who died …

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Kindle Outselling All Other Amazon Wares

Leading Internet retailer reports that e-reader device is most popular item on the site.

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What is SEM, and Why Should You Care?

Now that you’ve got your business Web site up and running, how will prospective customers find it? Laurie McCabe explains Search Engine Marketing and how it can give small businesses a big advantage when it comes to driving traffic.

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Google Puts Black Friday Searches Up 20 Percent

People may or may not have mobbed stores this Black Friday - your humble author hid inside and didn't watch any live TV - but they definitely spent some time at their keyboards. Google has stated that searches for "Black Friday" increased by more than 20 percent on a year-over-year basis.

That's actually a sort of low number, too, at least among the group of them that Google tossed out.
A post on the Google Retail Advertising Blog also stated, "Value minded shopping continued to reign, as searches for 'printable coupons' on Thanksgiving and Black Friday were up about 50% over last year and searches for 'sales' were up by more than 25%."

Plus, "Searches for 'black friday sales' and 'black friday ads' were both up by more than 50%, year over year."

Of course, comScore and Experian Hitwise had already published statistics proving that a lot of retailers did well on Black Friday, so all of this may not come as too much of a surprise. But it's at least another sign of Google's dominance that so many ordinary people turned to the search giant.
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Domestic Bank sold to investor group

CRANSTON – Domestic Bank, which was fined $1.8 million last year for bad lending practices, has been sold to a group of private and individual investors, bank officials said Monday. At left, the ribbon-cutting at the opening of a Domestic branch …

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