News and Information Blog 01 2010

Online Video Viewing Soared In 2009

The media sector performed well in 2009, recovering $200 billion of value, or 63 percent of what it lost in 2008, online content providers and distributors made up more than half of these gains, according to a new report by consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The largest gains were in China, where the media sector market value increased by 200 percent. The report indicates that the trend toward online media cannibalizing traditional platforms could push the industry toward a "zero-sum game" and increase the pressure on existing companies to sharpen online strategies.

Online video viewing minutes increased in 2009 by 50% in the U.S. and 30% in Spain, with TV shows and movies accounting for around half of these minutes. "These averages, however, mask the full extent of the change among the subset of the population that watches long-form content online," said Robert C. Fox, a Partner in Oliver Wyman's Communications, Media, and Technology practice.

"In the U.S., for example, among those who watch long-form video online, 15% of their total long-form viewing is online and their linear TV and DVD viewing decreased in 2009. Similarly among all 18-34 year-olds, a key advertising demographic, all forms of viewing other than online and mobile dropped in 2009."

"The pace of growth in online-video viewing is striking," said Mr. Fox. "However, while the platform is still in its infancy, the behavior of today's online population suggests that much of this growth will come at the expense of traditional platforms. Video could be headed for a zero-sum game," he added.

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Microsoft Chases Windows 7 Battery Drain Problems

Some people say Windows 7 made notebooks' battery life fall to as little half an hour.

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Bathroom Scale Now Connects To Google Health

We know, we know: many individuals will view this as an invasion of privacy, or at least a potential cause for embarrassment. Still, you may find it interesting to learn that a bathroom scale is now able to inform Google Health (along with users' Twitter followers) of a person's weight.

No one's kidding around here. According to an official press release, "[T]he Withings WiFi Body Scale can provide updates to a user's Google Health profile wirelessly in real-time using its built-in WiFi connection. . . . [T]he scale will automatically update the user's weight and fat mass to their Google Health profile."

As for the Twitter integration (which isn't enabled by default), that's actually been in effect since November. It just seemed worth mentioning.

Now, for the ramifications. The Withings scale costs a somewhat pricey $159, so this development isn't likely to have any big effect on everyday life. Still, since it's not unaffordable, doctors who like the idea of Google Health may start recommending the scale to patients, giving it real traction.

From there, the price of the tech would almost certainly go down, and more models would come out, leading to a greater market share.

Or not. Internet-connected ovens, washers, and dryers haven't been overly successful, and there's no question that the Withings WiFi Body Scale would take a lot more getting used to.
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Wind turbines approved at Field’s Point

Three wind turbines at the Narragansett Bay Commission’s Field’s Point Wastewater Treatment Facility have been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

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Windows 7: Seven Tips for a Smooth Migration

If you’re thinking about migrating your small business over to Windows 7, we’ve got the lowdown on making the transiton as easy and painless as possible.

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Amazon Earnings Soar in Q4

The e-commerce giant tops estimates and says fourth-quarter sales were up 42 percent over a year ago.

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Microsoft Reports Great Quarter, Credits Windows 7

Don't be shocked if one or more shrines to Windows 7 are erected in Redmond today. Microsoft released its quarterly earnings report this afternoon, and thanks in large part to the new operating system, the company's numbers look quite good.

Analysts thought Microsoft might report something like $17.84 billion in revenue and earnings per share of 59 cents. Microsoft overshot those forecasts by a significant amount, posting $19.12 billion and 74 cents, instead.

That puts the company up 14 percent and 57 percent, respectively, on a year-over-year basis. And it would be an understatement to say that victories of this nature don't occur every day, particularly given our economy's current condition.

So if you're happy (and as you'll see in a minute, investors are), think well of Windows 7. A record for Windows units was set last quarter, and Peter Klein, Microsoft's CFO, said in a statement, "Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company. Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth."

Unfortunately for Microsoft, things didn't go so well in every respect. The Online Services Business lost a whopping $466 million, which makes for a significantly worse performance than last year (when it lost $320 million).

Then, one other possible cause for skittishness is the fact Microsoft hasn't yet given any guidance. Windows 7 can't sell well forever, after all.

Still, investors have received Microsoft's news with open arms and fists full of dollars. Even though the Dow and Nasdaq both sank today (by 1.13 percent and 1.91 percent), Microsoft's stock is up 1.47 percent in after-hours trading.
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Zoning change request denied by CRMC

The R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council rejected a request Wednesday by the city of Providence to rezone the waters next to the former Shooters nightclub property at India Point.

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Small Businesses Embrace Web Payment Plays

American Express Open's Accept Pay and BillShrink.com's BillShrink for Business are a pair of new online tools that small businesses can use to streamline their accounting processes and improve their bottom lines.

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Web-Based Services Help You Get Money, Keep Money

American Express Open’s Web-based invoicing service, AcceptPay, aims to help small business owners get paid more quickly. And to help them keep more cash, BillShrink.com introduces BillShrink for Business.

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5 Reasons Why The iPad Fails To Impress

On January 27th Steve Jobs unveiled Apples latest “it” product, the iPad. Essentially the iPad “fills the gap” in between smartphones and laptops. One question remains to be answered, is there a need for a device to bridge the gap in between the two technologies? We're not sure yet, but there is one thing we know, the iPad has some issues... below are 5 of the most glaring.

Are you planning on purchasing an iPad? Let us know.

1.) The Name

Numerous names were being thrown around in the months/weeks leading up to the release (iTablet, iSlate, iPad) but which name was Apple going to choose? I had grown accustomed to referring to the device as the iTablet, I could even see calling it the iSlate… but iPad never seemed quite right. Why would Apple want to name their new product something that sounds so familiar to the iPod? Some people are objecting to the name referring to it as the “iTampon”.

Talk about foresight, this Mad TV iPad skit aired several years ago... and easily became 10x funnier.

2.) No Multitasking

Are you serious… who thought this was a good idea? How can the iPad even compete with Netbooks if you can’t multitask? This means that if you're writing a document you can’t listen to music, you can’t have TweetDeck open if you want to check your email, you can only do one thing at a time, which has always been a complaint with the iPhone.

3.) No Camera

Why is there no camera on the iPad? It’s got a microphone… but no camera. Look at the size of the case that surrounds the screen, there is ample space for a camera. The iPad should’ve at least came with a 3-megapixel camera built in. As it stands, this means no iChat/Skype chat for you. Good move Apple, good move.

4.) Huge Ridiculous Adapters

Want to access your camera or plug in something USB… well there’s an adapter for that, actually 2 separate adapters both excessively huge.

5.) Same Touch Keyboard

The iPad needed to re-revolutionize the keypad for touchscreen devices, make it easier to use. So what did we get… just a larger version of what we already had. It’ll be incredibly hard to type on, unless you're lying flat with your knees holding the device up, or you buy the iPad Case (essentially an book cover).

BONUS: No Flash (We just couldn't stop at 5)

Most of us are probably accustomed to Apple devices not being Flash compatible, but if Apple is truly wanting to compete with other Netbooks they need to remedy this. With a larger screen comes more responsibilities, i.e. you can't just leave gigantic holes in the middle of webpages if you claim it to be "the best web experience you've ever had".

The iPad is still in its infancy, so we're sure that it'll get better with time. Only time will tell if Apple's iPad will be a success or an iFlop.

What are some other problems you see with the iPad? Leave us a comment.

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On Sunday, Mass. joins Powerball nation

Massachusetts will hit a potentially $25 million annual jackpot with the addition of Powerball to its roster of lottery games, while the addition of Mega Millions to Rhode Island lottery games stands to bring $6.7 million to the Ocean State.

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Top 5 Social Networking Tips You Need to Know

Social networks provide ample opportunity for you to communicate with customers. These best practice tips will help you interact with people in a way that builds community, loyalty and — ultimately — your business.

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Has Google Begun Changing How it Indexes the Web?

Last summer Google announced a new project called "Caffeine", which was described as a re-write of Google's web search architecture. Around that time, Matt Cutts discussed Caffeine with WebProNews, comparing it to the "Big Daddy Update" of 2005, which consisted of changes to the way Google crawls and indexes websites. It appears that more people are now seeing the effects from Caffeine out in the wild.

Have you seen possible Caffeine effects in use? Tell us about it.

Back before the holidays, Google made it a point to assure everybody that Caffeine would not be rolled out (except for at one data center) until after the holidays were over - January at the earliest. The reason for this was that Google didn’t want to shake everything up during a key time for businesses (they didn't want a repeat of the Florida update).

The company let everyone know about its intentions at PubCon in November. In fact, a few days ago, Google's Matt Cutts posted a video running through his presentation from that event on his blog. He also provided the slideshow. It covers much more than just Caffeine, but if you missed it, you may want to consider watching it anyway (Caffeine discussion starts at about 22:10 in the video and at slide 29 in the presentation).

"It's a re-write of our indexing infrastructure. It's taking the old way that we used to index things that we'd crawled around the web, and we're replacing that with new architecture that's fresh and that had been written to be more scalable, more flexible, [with] the ability to attach different types of data, and in the process of indexing, the ability to do more documents for a more comprehensive version of the web, and the ability to do it faster," Cutts says of Caffeine.

But enough background. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a WebmasterWorld forum thread where administrator Tedster claimed to have seen Caffeine in action at a number of IP addresses. He wrote:

I'm seeing the Caffeine data-set being served via this set of IP addresses: 64.233.169.147, 64.233.169.105, 64.233.169.103, 64.233.169.104, 64.233.169.99,64.233.169.106

It seems to take 5 IP addresses to build the complete SERP, where in the past it often took only 3.

Schwartz also pointed to another member's post (Whitenight), who said:

Well, just tripled checked with offices/employees in Texas, Colorado, and Indiana. All 5 "control" keywords/sites showed live Caffeine.

That member's latest post says that the Caffeine Dataset is also on http://66.102.7.99 and http://66.102.7.104.

We don't know for sure if this is all really Caffeine in action though. Google hasn't commented on it, and has not made any announcements regarding Caffeine since what Matt said above. Some people don't believe this is Caffeine at all. As Schwartz notes, we'll have to wait for Google to say something.

Still, January is almost over, and Google said it would wait until after the holidays, specifically mentioning the month of January. It's about time for this to be rolling out to some extent. Speed has been emphasized a significant amount in Caffeine discussion, and Cutts told us that page speed would likely become a ranking factor. Regardless of whether or not you are witnessing Caffeine in action yet, rest assured that it will be here sooner or later, and any edge you can give yourself in the meantime is for the good of your own site's performance. Speed will not only supposedly help you in search going forward, but it just makes for a better user experience.

Share your thoughts about Google's Caffeine update.

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Carcieri urges tax relief for small business

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri on Tuesday pledged to create more jobs through tax relief and tax credits for small businesses and balance the budget through regulatory reform and structural changes to reduce and restrain municipal spending, all without the …

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Is Microsoft's Office 2010 'a Couple of Months' Away?

CEO Ballmer drops a hint that the next version of Office could ship early, while Microsoft finally makes the systems requirements for the product official.

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Bill Gates Sides With Ballmer, MSFT On China

About 10 days ago, Steve Ballmer indicated that he didn't share Google's views with regards to China; Ballmer said that Microsoft would continue operating in China regardless of recent hacks and a policy of censorship. Today, Bill Gates more or less echoed those sentiments.

Some free speech advocates might have hoped Gates would feel otherwise; after all, now that he's let Ballmer take the reigns at Microsoft, Gates seem to have focused his energies on doing good in the world, and Google's claimed the moral high ground in this dispute.

Nonetheless, according to Reuters, Gates said on Good Morning America, "You've got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you're in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there."

Gates also argued, "The Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited. It's easy to go around it, and so I think keeping the Internet thriving there is very important."

There's further confirmation that Microsoft will stay the course in China, then. Of course, we have yet to see what will become of Google's own protest.
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R.I. Housing to sell $306M in bonds

Rhode Island Housing expects to raise $306 million through the sale of bonds to private investors and the federal government.

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Highlight Link Script

This script highlights the link by blinking the link when you roll over the mouse, just like the tag does to the text in Netscape. But, this one has an advantage: the blinking speed is customizable!

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Marketing Tips: How to Sell Misunderstood Products

Plus, tips on how to find a supplier for your new small business and the wonders of scarcity marketing (hey, it works for Disney).

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Google Cranks Up Number of Sitemaps Allowed

Google has at some point quietly increased its sitemaps limit from 1,000 to 50,000. In a discussion on a Google Webmasters forum thread back in April of last year, Google employee Jonathan Simon said that each sitemap index file can include 1,000 sitemaps.

Just recently, however, David Harkness posted to that same thread, pointing to official Google documentation for sitemap errors, which says under the "Too many Sitemaps" error:

The list of Sitemaps in your Sitemap index exceeds the maximum allowed. A Sitemap index can contain no more than 50,000 Sitemaps. Split your Sitemap index into multiple Sitemap index files and ensure that each contains no more than 50,000 Sitemaps. Then, resubmit your Sitemap index files individually.

The larger number was confirmed by Simon, who came back to the conversation, saying, "Thanks for resurfacing this thread as we've improved our capacity a bit since then. The limit used to be 1,000. The Help Center article you point to is correct. The current maximum number of Sitemaps that can be referenced in a Sitemap Index file is 50,000."

As Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, who stumbled across this post points out, "This is a huge increase in capacity...Still, each Sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs, so technically 50,000 multiplied by 50,000 is 2,500,000,000 or 2.5 billion URLs can be submitted to Google via Sitemaps."

In other words, you can have a lot of sitemaps in one sitemap index file. That's some good information to know, and it is a little surprising that there wasn't a bigger announcement made about this.

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Apps Coming to Amazon Kindle

By taking a page from Apple's iPhone, App Store, and possibly, the widely expected Apple tablet, Amazon's move aims to broaden Kindle's capabilities for e-book publishers.

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Navy open for business in Newport

Millions of dollars in planned improvements at Naval Station Newport represent a potential boon for contractors facing a tough economy. At left, a new bridge under construction at the base will be built by American Bridge Co.

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Majority Of Children Familiar With Video Game Ratings

The majority (82%) of parents and children (75%) who play video games are familiar with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings system, according to a new survey by The Harrison Group conducted on behalf of Activision.

Additionally, 63% of parents with children who play games consider themselves gamers with the number increasing to 83% for parents ages 35 and younger, and 70% of parents pay close attention to the ratings when purchasing a game for themselves or their families.

"Parents rely on and value the ESRB ratings in helping them decide which games to allow their children to play," said Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing.

"Our 'Ratings Are Not A Game' education initiative underscores our commitment to helping parents better understand and utilize the ratings system as they select age appropriate games and determine the best way for the entire family to enjoy the gaming experience."

Other key survey findings include:

Gamers devote 32% of their leisure time to entertainment with video games accounting for the largest share - approximately 19%.

76% of parents agree that video games are a part of their family's life, and are something they're very comfortable with.

Among parent gamers, 52% of their video gaming playing time is spent with their children.

Approximately 62% of parents conduct research before purchasing a video game that their child wants.

Cheaper lots tease land trusts

Aquidneck Land Trust President Edward Clement Jr. last year closed a deal on a conservation easement covering 126 acres in Portsmouth that left him rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Due to the down economy, he was able to purchase the easement for at …

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Marketing Tips: How to Price a Brand New Product

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Yahoo Possibly Interested In Yelp

Fair warning: this is not a report upon which you should rearrange your stock portfolio. Please don't even bet anyone a significant amount of money. Just the same, Carol Bartz appears to have given a hint that she's interested in acquiring Yelp.

Brian Womack recently interviewed Bartz, and at one point, asked her about buying the site known for its fast-growing collection of local reviews. Bartz, who is in turn known for speaking plainly, didn't give a "yes" or "no" (or "heck yes" or "heck no") answer.

Instead, Yahoo's CEO said, "Local is extremely important. People do some outrageous percentage of their commercial spending five miles from their home." Which kind of sounds like "that's a good idea."

Of course, even if Bartz had answered in the affirmative, the odds don't favor anything happening. Late last year, the rumor mill indicated that Google trying to acquire Yelp, and if Google's popularity and deeper pockets couldn't secure a deal, it's hard to imagine Yahoo succeeding.

So again, this isn't a concrete, "Yahoo will acquire Yelp" announcement so much as an exercise in parsing CEO's sentences. Hat tip goes to Jay Yarow.
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Northeast sees 2.8% rise in CPI for 2009

Inflation slowed to 0.1 percent in December, as the continuing weakness in the economy prevented companies from raising prices.

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HyperOffice Reinvents Its Online Collaboration Suite

New Web 2.0 underpinnings and new capabilities let employees collaborate on documents, share contacts, schedule meetings and more from any Web-enabled device.

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eBay Software Pirate Gets Jail Time

A federal judge sends one crook up the river, but it's a drop in the bucket when it comes to the massive amount of piracy claimed by the software industry.

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FinCom chair questions stimulus spending

PROVIDENCE – House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino badgered state department heads Thursday about why they haven’t moved faster to spend the state’s share of the federal stimulus package.

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Do You Know What's About to Bring Down Your Network?

We review ipMonitor 10, a simple yet powerful network monitoring software that alerts you to issues before they become problems.

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Cursor Link

Forget actually clicking on links anymore, if you put your cursor over them, you go there! (with this JavaScript at least) If you use this script, please remember that it can be annoying, even a pain for them to have to come back if they really didn't want to follow the link. With that said, go check out the code!

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Google Reveals Factors for Ranking Tweets

It's ok to say "no" to Twitter if that's your thing. There's a chance that it just doesn't fit into your strategy or help you achieve your goals. That's cool. However, if it is your thing, you may be interested in how Google ranks tweets. That is if search marketing is your thing.

Do you see Twitter as important to an effective search marketing campaign? Share your thoughts here.

Google and Microsoft almost simultaneously announced deals with Twitter a few months back, that would give the companies access to tweets in real-time to fuel their respective search engines' real-time results. Microsoft immediately launched their version, but it was separate from the regular Bing search engine. Google waited a while, but eventually started incorporating real-time results right into regular Google SERPs (including not only tweets, but various other sources).

After the Twitter deals were announced, Bing came out and said, "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

Google was not as vocal about how it would rank tweets and other real-time results, but the company has now shed a bit of light on that via an interview with MIT's Technology Review. David Talbot interviewed Google "Fellow" Amit Singhal, who has led development of real-time search at the company. According to him, Google also ranks tweets by followers to an extent, but it's not just about how many followers you get. It's about how reputable those followers are.

Singhal likens the system to the well-known Google system of link popularity. Getting good links from reputable sources helps your content in Google, so having followers with that some kind of authority theoretically helps your tweets rank in Google's real-time search.

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

But that's only one factor.

Do you commonly use hashtags in your tweets? If your goal is to rank in Google's real-time search index, you may want to cut down on that practice, because according to Singhal, that is a big red flag for a lower quality tweet. This seems to be part of Google's spam control strategy.

Another noteworthy excerpt from the interview:

Another problem: how, if someone is searching for "Obama," to sift through White House press tweets and thousands of others to find the most timely and topical information. Google scans tweets to find the "signal in the noise," he says. Such a "signal" might include a new onslaught of tweets and other blogs that mention "Cambridge police" or "Harry Reid" near mentions of "Obama." By looking out for such signals, Google is able to furnish real-time hits that contain the freshest subject matter even for very common search terms.

Well, we certainly know more about Google's strategy for tweet ranking now, but there are still plenty of questions about it. What is Google's stance is on Ghost Tweeting? Are Google's ranking factors a good reason to create and follow more Twitter lists in hopes for gaining more reputable industry followers?

The factors mentioned aren't the only ones Google employs. It's not like Google is going to tell us everything. It also helps to keep in mind that real-time search spans far beyond just tweets. Still, Twitter is clearly a big part of it, and even the significance of tweets themselves will evolve in time.

Google says it hopes to factor in geo-location data (with regards to tweets) into the real-time search results at some point. Google and Twitter engineers frequently collaborate on real-time search, which Google itself says is evolving.

By the way, it stands to reason that Google's strategy for ranking tweets probably shares similarities for how it ranks content from other sources drawn from for real-time search.

Is ranking in Google's real-time search important to your strategy? Discuss here.

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Clariant to leave Coventry; 50 jobs going

Clariant AG said Wednesday it will close its Washington Street plant, which employs about 50 people, by the end of September. At left, Clariant’s headquarters near Basel, Switzerland.

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Microsoft Misses Updated Office Deadline

i4i injunction kicked in on Monday, so where were Office and Word Updates?

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Some Microsoft Volume Buyers Still Locked Out

Still apologizing, Microsoft scrambles to fix access problems to its volume licensing site.

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Google May Quit China

Google released a stunning blog post that details a "sophisticated and targeted attack" on Gmail that "resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google".
Google notes that the attack was not just on Google infrastructure but also on more than twenty other companies from various industries. Google states that they are working with the authorities in the U.S. and will be notifying the companies of the breaches.
The attack, Google says, appears to be aimed at "accessing the Gmail accounts of Chines human rights activists". Google does not believe the Chinese gained that objective and states that the Chinese hackers were only able to obtain information such as subject lines and dates, not the content of the emails themselves.
Google's Chief Legal Office David Drummond states that "these attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered-- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China".
Additionally, Google blogs that they "are no longer going to censor search results on Google.cn".
From the Official Google Blog:
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government report (PDF), Nart Villeneuve's blog andthis presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China's economic reform programs and its citizens' entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

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EB sees job growth at Quonset facility

NORTH KINGSTOWN – Electric Boat expects to hire about 400 people at its Quonset facility over an almost two-year period starting later this year, a spokesman said Tuesday.

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Day of Week Redirection

If you would like to redirect your visitor to a different page for each day of the week, this script would be perfect. It will first detect what day of the week it is and then forward the visitor to the appropriate page. I also might mention that this is a perfect JavaScript example to learn from even if you don't use it. Just look at it!

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A Small Business Guide to Linux Desktop Software

A Linux operating system is an affordable alternative to Windows and Mac, but the choices can be confusing to the uninitiated. Here’s what you need to know to make an informed decision.

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Online Holiday Spending Rebounds, Up 4%

Online retailers end the year on a positive note, posting a modest uptick amid a still-sluggish economy.

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Rumor: AOL May Be Buying Mashable

In mid-2009, all-things-social-media blog Mashable surpassed TechCrunch as the top tech blog in terms of traffic. Now, Mashable is rumored to be on its way to becoming an AOL property.

In late 2009, AOL revealed its new strategy away from Time Warner. That strategy is content, content, content, and that is something there is no shortage of from Mashable.

Gawker's Valleywag appears to be the source of the rumor after hearing from "a source at the Internet conglomerate" that AOL was interested in buying Mashable. Mashable owner Pete Cashmore has since told the publication:

"We don't comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts."

However, since then, famed tech blogger Robert Scoble has posted the following tweet:

It's still only a rumor at this point, but it will be quite interesting to see how this one unfolds. Valleywag thinks the only hold up might be negotiations.

Mashable certainly fits the profile of what AOL is trying to do these days. They cover a wide spectrum of topics (horizontally, if you will), while staying somewhere within the realm of social media, for the most part. One has to wonder if the writers would stay the same if such a deal were to go through.

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R.I. construction work force shrinks 10%

Employment in the Rhode Island construction industry in November was 10 percent below the level of a year earlier, according to an analysis of federal figures by the Associated General Contractors of America.

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Find It for Less on the Web: Free Business Cards

VistaPrint offers free business cards and a host of fee-based options, plus a site to keep you updated on all the latest topics and a search source for video that goes beyond YouTube.

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Google Increases Lead In Online Video

There may come a point at which Google's popularity maxes out, but we haven't reached it yet. A new report from comScore concerning online video sites indicates that the search giant's properties attracted considerably more eyeballs in November than the previous month.

In October, comScore counted 126.3 million unique viewers in connection with Google's sites. In November, this number increased to 129.0 million. Meanwhile, Google's share of videos viewed rose from 37.7 percent to 39.4 percent.

This didn't bode well for second-place Hulu in one respect, as the site's share slipped from 3.1 percent to 3.0 percent. Still, Hulu drew in about 1.3 million more unique visitors on a month-over-month basis, and comScore stated, "The average Hulu viewer watched 21.1 videos during the month, representing another all-time high for the property."

As for the rest of the videos viewed rankings, Viacom Digital came in third place, a significant move up from its former position in fifth. Microsoft placed fourth, and Yahoo followed it in fifth. Then came Fox Interactive Media, the Turner Network, the Tremor Media Video Network, CBS Interactive, and AOL.

Finally, here's a bit of news about the overall state of things: in November, comScore saw the number of videos viewed online from the U.S. go beyond 30 billion for the first time ever.
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CVS girds for union fight on ‘card check’

CVS Caremark Corp. and other companies with large U.S. work forces are bracing for a renewed battle this year over the so-called card-check legislation backed by union leaders and President Barack Obama.

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Hitwise: Facebook Beat Google On New Year's Day

As Facebook employees went back to work this week, they may have been smiling more (or at least less frowning less) than most other people returning from vacation. Their site performed admirably over the holidays, actually attracting record-breaking amounts of traffic.

On Tuesday, we documented the fact that Facebook received more traffic than Google on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That made it the most visited U.S. site for the first time ever.

This afternoon, Hitwise's Bill Tancer provided some more data. He wrote, "Facebook was able, albeit by a slighter margin, to recapture the #1 position on Friday, New Year's Day." Tancer also created the graph you see below.

Obviously, it doesn't look like Facebook's destined to attract more individuals than Google on a permanent basis. Still, the social network's done quite well over the last couple of weeks, closing the gap that somehow opened up during the first half of December.

This repeat occurrence of Facebook beating Google on a holiday also creates the question of how often it'll do so in the future. Will a switcheroo occur on Valentine's Day? St. Patrick's Day? No Housework Day? We'll see.
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How To Make Image Maps in PowerPoint 2003

Helen Bradley explains how to create clickable hotspots, or image maps, that simplify navigating a PowerPoint presentation.

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Ski Market files for bankruptcy

Winter sports retailer The Ski Market Ltd. Inc., which has a location in Warwick, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week.

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Budget fix includes sale of R.I. property

The Carcieri administration has made the sale of state-owned land such as Providence’s Veterans Memorial Auditorium, left, a key part of its midyear budget revisions as it looks to close the state’s projected $218 million budget shortfall for …

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Google Loses Domain Name Dispute

Google's empire hasn't exactly crumbled, and to be honest, the average person will probably never even realize what's happened. But what's happened is this: for just the second time in its history, Google's lost a domain name dispute.

Google submitted a complaint about a site called Groovle to the National Arbitration Forum (which ICANN lets decide domain name disputes) on November 6th of this year. The search giant argued that Groovle is "nearly identical or confusingly similar" to its own name.

Complicating matters is the fact that Groovle markets itself as "your groovy custom search homepage," while noting on every page, "Groovle.com is not owned, operated, or sponsored, or endorsed by Google."

Anyway, a bit of back and forth ensued. Then the National Arbitration Forum sided with Groovle, and in a document released today, it explained the decision.

"Respondent argues that the disputed domain name is not a misspelling of Complainant's mark; Respondent asserts that the disputed domain name contains the significant letters 'r' and 'v' which serve to distinguish the sound, appearance, meaning, and connotation of 'groovle' from Complainant's GOOGLE mark. Furthermore, Respondent contends that its alterations clearly transform the predominant word of the <groovle.com> domain name to 'groove' or 'groovy,' not GOOGLE. . . . The Panel agrees . . ."

This is a blow for Google in a symbolic sense, at least - it's participated in 65 disputes - even if the development has no measurable effect.
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Content Syndication Is Your Friend

Content duplication has been a buzz topic in SEO for a while now. You can read about it til you puke and never have to leave WebProNews.com. It's one of the modern webmaster's favorite things to fret over and has been for at least two years.

Google doesn't like duplicate content. We all get that now. There is still the lingering perception that there is some sort of duplicate content penalty despite repeated assurances from multiple Googlers to the contrary. Maybe there is no penalty; maybe there is some sort of mechanism at work that webmasters perceive as a penalty... it really matters very little. At the end of the day, if you aren't showing up for your own content but somebody else is... you probably aren't the happiest little webmaster.

As a result, syndication has been quite unfairly vilified. Traditionally speaking, having a site link to your content has always been perceived as a compliment of sorts (Google certainly thought it was a fair indicator of quality). That said, syndicating content... having your great content actually picked up by a larger, more influential site was even better in a lot of ways. The syndicated content was put right in front of a whole new user base without them having to click a thing. Generally you also got a nice link back to your site to boot. If you produced a great piece of content, why not have it show up everywhere you possibly could?

Penalty or not, it is clearly the case that the site where content originates may not always rank best for that content. Google wants to do their best to make sure they keep the content of their results pages as distinct from one another as they can. In short, Google doesn't want to have a result page where 4 of the 10 results are all essentially the exact same article.

Here's the thing though syndication is good. It can drive traffic to your site. It can establish your reputation and credibility within a niche and it can generate high quality inbound links. If you are upset because the larger, more recognized and more popular site's syndication of your content outranks your own then I'd have to say you might need to rethink that one a little bit. So what if it does? You are there because you want to be exposed to the larger site's community. You want the links, attention, reputation and all the good things that go along with that don't you? Of course you do. So if you do a search and find that the big site is number one on a good search query with your content, you don't get upset - you say 'yay'.

Why do you say yay? Because your super great content would never have that top position if not for the fact that Google found it on the larger more authoritative site. Sure, if it's that good you can probably get a decent ranking but it won't be as good. Beyond the ranking, even if your site is #2 and the big site is #3 for the same article, guess which one is likely to get clicked thru more; the link to your site, which is not all that well known? Or the link to a site that somebody has heard of?

If you aren't a household name or a recognized authority in whatever areas you are covering, the fastest way to build that reputation and credibility is to become associated with the brand that is. What's the best way to do that? Get your name, your company and your link on their domain. Because at the end of the day the likelihood of you just outranking them on your own for similar subject matter is probably going to be a tough order.

Abby Johnson talked to Eric Enge from Stone Temple Consulting at SES recently about the syndication vs. duplicate content problem. Eric has some great tips in the video for minimizing the negative aspects of duplication on a syndication model. Three specific items he talks about are syndicating excerpts, including a no-index tag, and writing 'alternative' versions of your content expressly for syndication. He also talks about how effective a syndication model can be. One site he'd worked with increased their traffic by over 50% using syndication almost exclusively.

Google is also working on some stuff to help us help them (isn't that just awesome of them?). Read up on their new cross domain canonical tag. It's new, none of the other search engines support it yet, and it remains to be seen how effective it will be, but it's a start. Whatever you do, don't throw the proverbial baby (syndication) out with the bathwater (duplicated content worries). There is a lot of upside to an effective syndication strategy.

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Top 10 Small Business Tech Predictions for 2010

Technology can be a small business owner’s best friend…but only if it solves a problem and boosts the bottom line. What’s in store for 2010? Analyst Laurie McCabe makes a (very) educated guess.

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Butler drops Jewelry District move plan

A senior official at Butler Hospital has confirmed that a plan to sell the hospital’s historic East Side campus, left, and build a new facility near Rhode Island Hospital has been set aside “for the foreseeable future.”

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