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Chris
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Homepage: http://www.areatrade.co.uk
Posts by Chris
Yahoo Search Ads Now Served by Microsoft
Oct 28th
What that means is that all advertising on both Bing and Yahoo search is now powered by Microsoft’s adCenter. That gives advertisers access to the combined inventory of both services, which accounts for about 27.9% of all searches according to the latest numbers from comScore.
Yahoo started serving search results powered by Bing back in August. However, it’s important to note that the two companies are continuing to develop their own features around the same set of algorithmic search results. For instance, Bing recently launched Facebook integration that surfaces results based on what your friends have “liked.”
For its part, Yahoo says that it “remains focused on delivering unique consumer experiences … and on increasing user engagement in our owned-and-operated search products to help drive high-quality traffic into the combined marketplace.” To that end, the company unveiled some big changes to its interface earlier this month.
Do you think they will ever catch Google?
Firesheep Hijacks Facebook, Twitter Cookies
Oct 27th
Did you think you were safe when logging into your social media accounts? Think again.
A free Firefox extension called Firesheep was released this week that exploits a hack known as sidejacking to help users gain access to the social media accounts of other people on the same network. The creator, Eric Butler, developed this extension “to demonstrate just how serious this problem is.” The exploit, which hijacks the unencrypted cookie files sent between the user and the website, can be utilised on a large number of popular websites including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.
Most websites encrypt the username and password you use to log in when they are transmitted to the server. However, they often fail to encrypt other data including the aforementioned cookies, which, if obtained by a hacker, can be used to ‘spoof’ a log in session and access your account fraudulently.
We believe that this software has been written to raise awareness of the problem and compel the faulty sites to fix the issue as possible. However, many have noted that fully encrypted all communication between the user and the server can increase the required bandwidth by up to 20 times, making full encryption very costly.
Are you More >
Google Extend Autocomplete Globally.
Oct 26th
It’s been more than a year since Google launched localized versions of Google Autocomplete (formerly Google Suggest) that offer relevant search predictions tailored for different regions. More recently, they took these tailored predictions to a new level in the U.S. by targeting to specific metro areas like San Francisco and Chicago. This week, they have extended these hyper-local predictions around the globe to every country that has Autocomplete. This means that the list of predictions beneath the search box will seem more locally relevant than ever updating the searches with the areas you are searching within.
For example, when you’re in Barcelona, Spain and you start typing [rest] there’s a good chance you’re actually looking for restaurants in Barcelona:
However, if you’re in Madrid, you’ll probably want to check the restaurants there:
Sony Retires the Cassette Walkman After 30 Years
Oct 26th
After retiring the floppy disk in March, Sony has halted the manufacture and distribution of another now-obsolete technology: the cassette Walkman, the first low-cost, portable music player.
The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once these units are sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer.
The first generation Walkman (which was called the Soundabout in the U.S., and the Stowaway in the UK) was released on July 1, 1979 in Japan. Although it later became a huge success, it only sold 3,000 units in its first month. Sony managed to sell some 200 million iterations of the cassette Walkman over the product line’s 30-year career.
Somewhat ironically, the announcement was delivered just one day ahead of the iPod’s ninth anniversary on October 23, although the decline of the cassette Walkman is attributed primarily to the explosive popularity of CD players in the ’90s, not the iPod.
China Launches Online Map of the World
Oct 23rd
China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has launched an official online map service called Map World.
The service is simple to navigate, even though it’s in Chinese. A zoom slider on the left and various views (map or satellite) populate the upper right corner. Zooming into most parts of the world will only result in a blank page after a certain zoom level, except in China and Taiwan where the images are available in higher resolutions.
The 2D part of the service is similar to Google Maps. A 3D viewing tool, that should make the viewing experience similar to Google Earth, is also available.
According to Asiaone News, 31 companies have been granted a mapping license, including Nokia, Baidu, Alibaba and others which could spell trouble for Google Maps in China.
Still, the Google Maps service is currently available (in a censored form) in mainland China at the address ditu.google.cn.
The map is available at www.tianditu.cn or www.chinaonmap.cn.
Google Broadband Gets Its First Trial
Oct 22nd
Google’s ultra high speed fiber network — which they claim can offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second —is about to get its first trial outside the Googleplex.
The trial is pretty small and is only being rolled out at Stanford University, not far from the Googleplex to a samll group of faculty and staff owned homes on campus.
Google has again stated it has no plans to get into the ISP business, as many originally speculated. They have said it is just a move toward making the Internet faster.
Do you think this is another bold move by Google to take over the world, or improve the world?
Hey, Entrepreneurs – $250 Million sFund For Social Media Entrepreneurs
Oct 22nd
Facebook, Kleiner Perkins, Zynga and Amazon have launched a $250 million sFund their message for all entrepreneurs: our help could be yours.
The sFund is designed to provide support to companies in the social media space. Investments can be as low as $100,000 or as high as $100 million. In addition to Zynga, Amazon, Kleiner Perkins and Facebook, Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Company are also committed investors. On top of funding, these companies will provide guidance, advice and “relationship capital” for anyone funded by sFund.
The sFund lead manager, Bing Gordon pitched to Entrepreneurs with a poem – see below.
Hey, Entrepreneurs
We are convened in the “House that Friends Built”, Where the tipping point is in full tilt, Where brilliant devs are told to be bold but rash, And everybody likes to Flash.
I never thought I’d be on stage With Zuckerberg, Pincus, Bezos & Doerr. It sounds more like the name of a law firm, Than where the Internet (Internet) is going toward.
I don’t have Zuckerberg or John Doerr’s genius, Pincus’ intensity or Bezos’ laugh, Hey, entrepreneurs, their help could be yours, If you add them to your company’s social graph.
We’re sitting on a quarter of a billion George Washington’s, And More >
49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones
Oct 22nd
At present we are seeing more smart phones being sold than actual computers. This will the inclusion of iPads and other such mobile devices such as laptops and bluetooth headsets old technolgies such as pagers are a distance memory.
According to a recent Foresters Survey of nearly 10,000 small business owners, it seems that a huge 49% of small business owners are reported to own smartphones. The stats break down like this:
35% – BlackBerrys 33% – iPhones 25% – Androids 7% – Windows Mobile devices.
The survey also interestingly shows that even though 82% of Americans own a phone, 50% have internet on their phones but only 17% actually have smartphones. It would seem at the moment most users are opting for a cheaper model.
Viewing A Mobile Phone Website Design Versus Viewing Website Designs On PC’s
Whichever way you look at it website design / Ecommerce Web Design needs to cater for this new wave of mobile digital experience. Viewing a website design on a computer is a completely different experience to viewing the same website on a mobile device, smartphone of no smartphone.
An average time spent viewing a website on a computer is between 3 – 4 minutes (depending on the website), whereas More >