Microsoft Urges it's IE Users not to Install Google Chrome Frame

Microsoft's recent urge to it's IE8 users regarding the usage of Google Chrome Frame has not gone down well with the web community. According to a Microsoft representative who spoke with ars technica said;

"With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers. Given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take."

And that at least to me sounded really fishy. To me it was just a reflection of Microsoft's growing anxiety regarding Google. Yes,There were security issues with Chrome at it's nascent stage, but they have sorted it out now. And the most funny thing was that why they are only concerned about the IE8 version! And that too when the version still could not achieve the success that it was meant to. Isn't it a fact that more people use IE than Chrome and so the hackers also mainly target IE rather than Chrome. So their concerns in the security issue looked more of a protective grudge to me.

Read more »

Adobe buys Omniture for $1.8 billion.

In a surprisingly fast development, Adobe has announced that it will take over web analytic software company 'Omniture'. This take over will be costing them about $1.8 billion. This buy by Adobe will definitely force Google to revise its strategies for the web analytic market. Many are thinking that Google might come out with an 'Enterprise' version of their web analytics service.

Adobe Systems Inc. said Tuesday it will buy the Web analytic software company Omniture for about $1.8 billion, giving the maker of content-creation software a way to let marketers monitor the effectiveness of such content.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. said it will buy Omniture Inc. for $21.50 per share in cash, a premium of 24 percent over Omniture’s closing stock price Tuesday.

The announcement came as Adobe said it earned $136 million, or 26 cents per share, in the fiscal third quarter that ended in August, down 29 percent from the same time a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, Adobe earned a profit of 35 cents per share, a penny above what analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting. The maker of Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat software says its revenue fell 21 percent to $697.5 million.

As nobody was expecting the entry of Adobe in the web analytics market, and that too so early, it will take some time for the web geeks to come out with their own versions and thoughts regarding this development. This has already started showing its effect in their shares(NASDAQ:OMTR), as it has pushed Omniture shares up $4.43 a share, while Adobe's share went down about 4% to $34.10.
According to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan, this was an important game changer for both Adobe and their customers. He has also said that this 'Omniture take over' wil enable advertisers, media organizations and e-tailers to realize the full value of their digital assets.

Read more »

Google Looses Kai-Fu Lee in their Chinese Crusade

Just when everything seemed to be going alright for Google, they recieved a very disguised jolt from the Google china's head Kai-Fu Lee, as he left Google to nourish his own venture, 'Innovation Works'. It was on the cards according to many. Kai-Fu Lee has served Google for four years. And just when every one was sensing that Google might at last take a bite of it's share off the China's search engine market, that is one sidedly dominated by 'Baidu', the cards fell down. Though it might seem from the surface that it's just another job switch of a high profile Googler, there's more in to it. Google had started to penetrate the Chinese 'Oasis' search engine market after years long try and the timing could not be worse. Though Kai-Fu Lee has said that he for the time being will get fully absorbed into his venture which is about helping young and talented Chinese engineers and entrepreneurs to develop fresh internet and mobile computing technology. This new endeavor, 'Innovation Works' will hire the budding talents from China and nurture them for one year and then finally let them go open.
This is no doubt a very noble initiative and quite appreciable, but what if Kai-Fu Lee thinks of building a new Chinese search engine by mobilising these pool of talents. And with the invaluable Google experience that's definitely quite viable. No matter if it does not succeed to overpower 'Baidu', even a decent attempt can bid Google's Chinese search market dream a premature good bye forever. And that is definitely the last thing Google wants.
My assumption got closer to get transfared into belief after talking to several fellow web wizards. Now it will be really interesting to see, how Google reacts to this, what strategy they incorporate to enforce their Chinese crusade, who replaces Kai-Fu Lee and what vibe he spreads.

Read more »

Google Finally Owns the Patent to its Homepage Design

After five long years of legal procedures Google finally got hold of the patent to its very simple yet so powerful homepage design. So any one from now on, trying to take a piece out of its design could very well be dragged into legal trouble. Many Search engines who either consciously or subconsciously got influenced in their design aspect by Google, have definitely not accepted this patent episode in open minds. They are fearing a possible Google lash out from legal grounds sooner or later. They are thinking that with this new found ammunition, Google might go for the kill to extend its monopoly by finishing off the smaller rivals. And with the merging of Yahoo and MSN search technologies, it definitely looks quite a decent possiblity to clarify their no-fuss stand.

Read more »

Yahoo Launching English Version of Meme

After achieving fair success in the Portuguese and Spanish versions, Yahoo is getting ready to launch the English version of its microblogging platform 'meme'. From the recent developments it gets quite vivid that yahoo is playing all its cards to impress 'Twitter'. But may be acknowledging the huge competition its now concentrating upon developing its own 'twitter' version. The Portuguese version was shown the daylight earlier this year and they soon followed it up with a Spanish version. This service comes with almost all the features that could be found in twitter. It provides the scope for sharing photos and videos with fellow users. It also dishes out the option of reposting the messages of other users. I, like many other over enthusiastic net freak waiting eagerly for this service to get launched. It will be really interesting to see how yahoo tries to elbow out twitter on their very own ground.

Read more »

Now its Microsoft-Yahoo-Amazon vs Google in the Book Settlement issue

The challenge has become tougher for Google in the Book Settlement issue, as America’s largest online retailer and web biggie Amazon joins the hand with Microsoft-Yahoo against them. And to add salt to their wound, strong supports have been enunciated from many quarters. With a steadily growing support, this coalition is now looking to pose a serious threat to dismiss the deal that Google had struck with Authors Guild last year.

According to this deal Google gets the right to make the published books available on the Internet and in return they give back a certain percentage of revenue generated from the ads that run along these books. This deal was struck after almost a three and half year old tussle between Google and Authors Guild over the dispute regarding publishing of the books online by Google through their book search segment. But just when it was looking everything has been sorted out, it suddenly went wrong from Google's point of view. It seems that their steady growth and envious success has amplifying their enemy list rapidly.

The reason behind this new dispute is stemmed out of the concern that this deal will provide Google with an unfair advantage over other players in the digital book market.

As several groups of authors, libraries and publishers are uniting against the deal, and libraries like Special Libraries Association and the New York Library Association, supported by American society of Journalists and Authors are joining the coalition, it seems that Google is going to have a tough time ahead.

Read more »

Twitter soon to make available it's 'Geolocation' feature.

Do you want to let others know from where are you tweeting ?

If you do, then it will soon be brought to reality by the Twitter team. After getting poplular through iPhone, now its turn to get popular in the webworld for "Geolocation" feature. Like iPhone, where you are asked several times for permission to enable several features of Geolocation, the Twitter version of it will also offer you to turn off this feature.

But the question is, are they somewhere compromising with the privacy of the users. Specially when you are already getting updates 24x7 from an user about his movements, was it really necessary to make this feature available where you are actually offering the users to know others geographical locations. Am I being a bit too sceptical, may be yes. But its not just me, many in the web community is getting sceptical about it. Arnold Zafra, of SearchEngineJournal also didn't hide his inhibitions about this new kid from Twitter's stable.

Well the feature is cool, but this will definitely offer the wicked members of the web community with a thick opportunity to intrude. this will definitely open up a new proxy lane for them. Though they will ofter you to turn this feature off, but still many unsuspecting member will overlook it as just another stupid security advice pop up. And this can seriously put them on high risk of playing with their social and even in some cases personal security.

Read more »

Google Ranked #1 in Search Engine Satisfaction

According to a recent report published by American Consumer Satisfaction Index, who compares customer satisfaction among and across a number of companies and e-business and several other domains, Google succeeded to better its satisfied custer toll this year with last years comparison. This report also suggests that all the search engines basically improved their performance for this quarter as compared to last year.

The report says Google managed to achieve a overall satisfaction rating of about 86%, while all the other search engines managed to score just 78%.

This report published just right after the announcement of the Microsoft-Google tie up. So the effect of the deal could not be reflected in the report. But the report definitely suggests that 'Bing' has performed surprisingly better than expected. And this can give a mild pain in the neck to the leaders, Google though the maintained their supremacy, but the race was way too closer than expected. The main difference that differentiates the leader from the pack is the search volume and of course the search relevancy. But Bing is definitely by far the best bet pitched against Google ever.
Apart from the search engines, Internet Portals also did fairly well in the first quarter, which witnessed a 3.8 percent up in last year’s comparison.

Read more »

Google hits back at Microsoft with its Go Google Campaign

Google launches its most vicious campaign against Microsoft till date. The war under the banner name of "Go Google" is one serious move taken against the collaborative offensive of MIcrosoft-Yahoo coterie.

"Go Google"is pitched basically against Microsoft's monopoly over business office application. Though Google Apps are in the scenario for quite some time now, it definitely could not be termed among the most successful ventures of Google. Though liked by many, some how it has still not been successful in its attempt to penetrate the hard core MS Office users heart. Google's not so impressive promotional campaign for this niche might be counted among one of the reasons behind it. But Google has decided to make up for the lost time with its newly worked out hostile ad campaign.

This campaign is also using social medias like twitter, facebook, orkut and others. And google has also gone to the extent of ditributing freebies to all its present users of Google Apps through out this August.

Read more »

Microsoft Yahoo seal 10 years deal

Well its official now, Microsoft and Yahoo have finally sealed the deal under which, Yahoo
will be using Microsoft's Bing, while Yahoo will mastermind to push the global sales for the
both. This was such a critical and important deal not just for the two, but for so many people, that many have already started to term it as the biggest deal ever sealed in the web industry. Now this deal has definitely rang the bell of a serious search war in coming days. As a result of this agreement, Microsoft will be able to report a greater share in the search market through Bing, while Yahoo will be relieved from spending any more money behind its slowly dying search engine.
After last years unsuccessful show down, when Microsoft's Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, wanting to go for a all out aquisition clashed with then Cheif Executive of Yahoo, Jerry Yang it was definitely a shy of relief and moral booster for both the camp. The credit for the deal definitely to a great ectent goes to the current Cheif Executive of Yahoo, Carol Bartz, who took the batton of command in last January, and almost immediatley she went for sealing the deal. And so far she can be considered as the conqueror of the first battle. Though the deal is done, still a lot is left to be sorted out.
According to the agreement 88% search revenue will go to the Yahoo Inc's bank account for the first five years, and this has left many in the Yahoo camp unhappy.
Specially when Carol Bartz said that the deal will fetch Yahoo great value rather than great money, it is quite obvious that Microsoft has definitely made the most out of Yahoo's current financial slump. Which is a bit disappointing according to some loyal Yahoo employees, as this reflects a compromising surrender from Yahoo's part.

Read more »

MySpace cofounder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe raising money for his new venture, "Vertical".

It definitly hurts to get replaced in any sphere of life. And when after building the biggest site in the Internet from scratch, you get replaced, the pain is definitely felt in a different way. So after establishing MySpace, as arguably the biggest site in the Internet, when Chris DeWolfe got rudely replaced by Owen Van Natta, he couldn't take the incident sportingly. It was more so hard because of his eccentric nature. And if our sources are to be believed, He is now busy raising money for his new venture, VERTICAL. Now what this projest is all about is still kept tightly under wrapper, and we couldn't get a peek at it so far. But going with the dynamic nature of Chris, it can be said that, something unique, and never heard of 'thing' is coming out of his sleeves. Reportedly, he has been pitching up a number of private equity funds to raise his money. According to our source the approximate budget of the project is arround $100 million.

If every thing goes right, it will not take much time for the project to see day-light. And a person who could help a company reach from no where to every where within just the span of 5 years, is definitely capable of making it again.

Read more »

Twitter Redesignes it's Home Page

It was known to all that Twitter would come out with a new design, but it would be this fast! nobody expected it. They wasted almost no time in launching their revamped new home page, which sports a distinctly clear search box meant specially for the new comers, so that they can find out, how great twitter is, apart from being just a social media site. They have used darker blue color in their design, and the design looks really sleek. It will definitely help them in catching the attention of any new visitor and impressing them. The search box instantly provides a visitor with an opportunity to explore the tweets, and get connected with it instantly. From the recent advancements, one thing gets clear, Twitter is in no mood for being tagged as just a meer micro blogging network any more. They want to make it bigger, and they want to do it in a hurry.

Read more »