Digital Marketing Forum

You have to give Steve Ballmer and Microsoft credit. After years of sitting on the sidelines playing defense and catch-up, this year they have definitely been on offense. Whether it's the ad wars, releasing Bing, the deal with Yahoo!, the retail strategy or its latest move, a deal with Nokia …

[URL="http://www.itv.com"]ITV[/URL] has finally put all the rumours into perspective and sold [URL="http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk"]FriendsReunited[/URL]. It's lost millions in doing so and there's no getting away from it - it was a bad deal. It's worth noting a few details about FriendsReunited. It began as a tiny business putting people back in touch …

The Twitter Platform Team is recommending to all Twitter developers that they make sure their applications support 64-bit integers because the popular service has almost reached the limit of 32-bit unsigned integers. "Twitter status ids are fast approaching the maximum 32-bit *unsigned* integer value (4,294,967,295)," [URL="http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-api-announce/browse_thread/thread/8f7f1b3cef846f98/0900170fa2f92e27?show_docid=0900170fa2f92e27&pli=1"]posted[/URL] Marcel Molina, identified as …

Yesterday was the major league baseball trade deadline and lots of teams made [URL="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4369463"]big deals[/URL] and took huge gambles for short-term gain, while possibly risking the future in the form of younger, cheaper, but unproven talent. [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/31/EDQR191T6C.DTL"]Microsoft and Yahoo![/URL] also made a trade of sorts when they signed an historic …

Convention and visitors bureaus -- perhaps more than 300 of them -- are increasingly using Twitter to help market their locations, and a [URL="http://www.aboutdci.com/dci/media/docs/CVB%20Twitter%20Report%20Final.pdf"]recent study[/URL] examined how they do that. Development Counsellors International, a New York-based tourism firm, said it looked at the convention and visitors bureaus representing the nation’s …

The independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industry, OFCOM, was charged by the government to reveal consumers' experiences of electronic communications services, including broadband provision, and the results do not make for happy reading. The research saw in excess of 60 million separate service performance tests carried …

According to a new Gartner survey, despite companies driving down overall IT budgets this year things are looking good for global software spending in 2010. Well, I say good, but perhaps I should say a teensy weensy little bit better than this year. Gartner reckons that organisations surveyed indicated that …

A recent panel sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation [URL="http://www.glaad.org/Page.aspx?pid=183"](GLAAD)[/URL] discussed the issue of gay characters in online games, some of which forbid them. Games produced by Bay Area-based Electronic Arts Inc., such as the Sims properties and Spore have no restrictions about revealing the fact one …

An interesting story on the BBC site says there's yet another search facility starting up, following the launch of [URL="http://www.bing.com"]Bing[/URL], [URL="http://www.wolframalpha.com"]Wolfram Alpha[/URL] and Google wave. This one's called [URL="http://www.splashtop.com"]Splashtop[/URL] and the idea is that you can be searching the Net withing seconds of switching on. In other words, it's a …

[URL="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10291462-93.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1"]Today Yahoo! is releasing[/URL] a new version of its search tool with many changes. This is significant for a number of reasons: [LIST] [*]Yahoo! has been in the news lately mostly as Microsoft's take-over target. The make-over provides the company with a news opportunity that's actually about an upgrade to …

[I]It's not always easy, And sometimes life can be deceiving, I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together ~Jack Johnson, Better Together[/I] News leaked out this morning on the [URL="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090716/yahoo-search-ad-deal-with-microsoft-down-to-the-short-strokes-but-caution-also-advised/"]All Things Digital Blog[/URL] (and subsequently widely carried by the New York Times, PC Mag Online, Wired and …

When Microsoft first announced their retail strategy back in February I wrote a post called [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4030.html"]Microsoft Retail Strategy Doomed to Fail[/URL] and I haven't changed my view. Today,[URL="http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3358"] it became clear[/URL] that in the face of all common sense they are continuing to push forward with this wrong-headed idea. Remember, …

It's said about writers that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. But United Airlines has learned not to get into fights with musicians who have videocameras. As Dave Carroll, of the folk-rock group Sons of Maxwell, reports on his [URL="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=306453459&blogId=498887803"]blog[/URL], it …

I've[URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4290.html"] speculated in the past[/URL] that nothing could keep Google from moving Android from a phone to a computer. After all a phone is just a hand-held computer, so it should come as no surprise that [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html"]Google officially announced[/URL] yesterday that it was getting in the computer operating system business …

Yesterday, [URL="http://www.google.com"]Google[/URL] [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html"]announced[/URL] that they are entering the Netbook operating system market with the Google Chrome OS--a Linux-based, web-oriented effort. On the surface, I see this as yet another ploy to take my Netbook from me. No, Google won't realize any direct profits from taking over my little blue Netbook …

In what must go down as one the biggest tech u-turns of the century so far, the ISP that was quite happy to undertake Internet snooping trials without informing those customers being spied upon has changed its mind about Phorm WebWise. BT, the biggest Internet Service Provider in the UK, …

[URL="http://www.comscore.com"]comScore[/URL] has just published data from the Video Metrix service which shows that the number of online videos being viewed here in the UK is up 47 percent on a year ago and fast approaching 5 billion in April 2009 when the measuring period ended. Google did best out of …

If Richard Posner, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, gets his way, blog postings like this one could be illegal. On his [URL="http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/the_future_of_n.html"]blog[/URL], Posner recently suggested that copyright law might need to be expanded. "Expanding copyright law to bar online access …

Most often, when someone talks about a filesystem or file system, they're referring to disk filesystems such as NTFS, FAT, ext2, ext3, ext4, ISO 9660 and many others but can also refer to network file systems such as CIFS (Common Internet File System aka Samba) and NFS. A filesystem is …

I hate bloggers and Twitter users that bandwagon something like the tragically early demise of Michael Jackson. This isn't the right platform for tributes even if I were his biggest fan anyway. Nonetheless, there is a lesson to be noted in terms of technology. The fact is that the Internet …

Over the years there has been plenty of [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20745/53/"]speculation regarding the sanity[/URL] of Steve 'Monkey Dancing' Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO. But what is it with Microsoft and this obsession to pursue the search supremacy dream at any cost? Sure, I know [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3327.html"]Ballmer has sworn to kill Google[/URL] before but the …

Speaking about consumer search [URL="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/06/18/ballmer-we-should-have-built-search-sooner/"]last week[/URL], Steve Ballmer said he now regrets that Microsoft quote "didn't start earlier" unquote. But it seems to me that Microsoft has been all in for a long time and they just haven't been very successful at consumer search. It wasn't so much they gave …

One of the big rules of online advertising as I understand it is that you count success to a great extent based on how many people click through to your site. It's really the basis of how people get paid by Google for [URL="https://adwords.google.com/select/AdSenseLoginToAdWords"]Google AdSense[/URL]. If you get click-throughs you …

[I]"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." [URL="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore"]John Gilmore[/URL], founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in 1993.[/I] In the same way that people in Mumbai used Twitter last fall to [URL="http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/28/mumbai-twitter-sms-tech-internet-cx_bc_kn_1128mumbai.html"]publicize[/URL] news of terrorist attacks in that Indian city, Iranians are using Twitter to let the world …

I've seen a lot of love for Microsoft's newly branded search engine, [URL="http://www.bing.com/"]Bing[/URL] lately and frankly I just don't get it. Bing landed a couple of weeks ago with a huge ad budget (as I wrote in [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4372.html"]Microsoft Ad Wars Turn to Google[/URL]) and a big splash, but I've used …

Given that some courts have found that people can be [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3596.html"]charged[/URL] for violating the terms of service of a particular site, it's important to keep track of what the terms of service are so you don't inadvertently violate them. (Incidentally, some other [URL="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/mass-sjc-tosses-calixte-warrant"]courts[/URL] are finding that violating terms-of-service policies are …

Just as British MPs line their pockets with taxpayer cash, just as Hollywood epics re-write history with happy endings, so Google was always going to want to compete with the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4111.html"]Wolfram Alpha[/URL] computational engine head on. And so it is that we get a sneak look at [URL="http://www.google.com/squared"]Google Squared[/URL] in …

This is interesting, as we are all used to reading about online resources being optimised for mobile devices. Take YouTube which has been successfully shrunk to fit the iPhone and other mobiles, but has now been writ large by way of a change. Google informs me that it has now …

The Google Android OS is coming to the Acer Aspire ONE netbook, and sooner than you might imagine. As a happy ONE owner myself, and a keen observer of all things Android, the news that it could be as soon as Q3 this year really pleases me. Jim Wong, President …

Here is an interesting dilemma: if 99 percent of Generation Y consumers have an active social networking profile, why do only 22 percent of them use Twitter? Could it be that celebrities are killing the micro-blogging service? A newly published study by the Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University reveals …

Lots of talk about [URL="http://wave.google.com/"]Google Wave[/URL] last week, but after reading five articles that all described it in a similar fashion, I still didn't quite get what all the fuss was about. Finally, at the behest of one of my [URL="http://twitter.com/CharJTF"]online friends[/URL] I looked at the first 40 minutes of …

In what may be a first, a company has bought rights to a Facebook page -- in a bidding war, even. OraBrush, a company that makes tongue cleaners, has outbid Hershey's for the rights to the [URL="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Kisses/35152599010?ref=s"]"Kisses"[/URL] public profile, according to the [URL="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/05/27/orabrush-buys-11-million-kisses-fans-marketers-actively-bidding-for-facebook-pages/"]Inside Facebook[/URL] blog. Pricing was not disclosed. The …

It's never a dull moment when it comes to Google, Microsoft and Apple (which is why I write about them so much), and this week Google and Microsoft made some big announcements. For Google, it was [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html"]Google Wave[/URL], an incredibly hyped new communications interface (more on that it in a …

As [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4304.html"]expected[/URL], Representative Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, has introduced [URL="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2267:"]legislation[/URL] that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress. The legislation would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that serve American customers, according to the [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/us/politics/26cong.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics"]New York Times[/URL]. Under the current …

I've been to a couple of conferences recently where I was surprised to see representatives of the U.S. military on panels discussing various uses of technology, but I was shocked to learn that the military was on the cutting edge of the technologies being discussed. To be honest, my perception …

[URL="http://twitter.com"]Twitter[/URL] has struck again according to reports. The German elections had their results leaked online, both on Twitter and over the open Internet. In the same week that the UK heard that it was going to have insufficient broadband bandwidth to meet the needs of the [URL="http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx/"]Digital Britain[/URL] initiative, critics …

I have to admit that [URL="http://www.twitter.com/happygeek"]I Tweet[/URL] from pretty much anywhere and everywhere, the beauty of the medium is that you don't know if I am on the toilet or in the theatre, at my desk or naked in my bed. Or, for that matter, even on holiday. A survey …

[URL="http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136847"]Ad Age reports[/URL] that Microsoft is ready to spend $80M to try and turn people's attention away from Google, the dominant search market leader, and toward Bing, Microsoft's latest search engine offering. Much like Microsoft's attempts last summer to prop up Vista, trying to turn consumers to a new product …

I have just been reading about the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4365.html"]YouTube Porn Day scandal[/URL] and it reminded me that I had been meaning to pass this little snippet of information on, direct from a YouTube Team Member and serving to illustrate just how popular the Google owned video clip sharing site has become. …

I am not a great fan of online translation services, or at least not the free variety which almost invariably end up making some huge gaffs. However, Google obviously likes the idea as it has been providing just such a tool for a while now in the shape of Google …

The continuing saga of Craigslist vs. the state attorneys general took another turn, with South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster [URL="http://www.scattorneygeneral.org/"]contending[/URL] that the continued presence of ads for "erotic services" on the site constituted a criminal violation for which Craigslist management was personally responsible, and with Craigslist management firing back …

First let's deal with the big negative I've seen on a number of websites including the BBC: [URL="http://www.wolframalpha.com"]Wolfram Alpha[/URL] is American-centric. Well, yes, it kind of is. This will be because it's starting up and America is the biggest market it has to serve. Personally I find that understandable - …

It has not been the best of days for Google. First there were the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4339.html"]reports about Gumblar[/URL], a Google SERPs manipulation that is growing at an unprecedented rate. And now it seems that porn has been thrown into the Google mix, or at least into the Google Gadgets mix. I …

I was watching an ad the other day for Panasonic where it showed people watching YouTube on a big flat screen TV in the living room. Yet most people don't watch content from the web on TV, probably because it still takes a technical leap that's simply too difficult for …

People are continuing to find new and interesting things to do with Twitter. One is [URL="http://www.we-love-the.net/Stweet/"]Stweet[/URL], a combination of Twitter and Google Map's Streetview that uses georeferencing. Select a city from the picklist (or enter another city at the bottom of the screen) and it'll show you the most recent …

[URL="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10234622-93.html"]Ms. Mayer went to Washington[/URL] the other day to defend Google against recent attacks that it is responsible for the ongoing problems of newspapers. Marissa Mayer, who is the Vice President, Search Products and User Experience at Google testified before a Senate sub-committee on '[URL="http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=7f8df1a5-5504-4f4c-ba34-ba3dc3955c61"]The Future of Journalism[/URL].' Not surprisingly …

The cheap Netbooks you see advertised at discount stores might not turn out to be so cheap after all. If you see a Netbook advertised at $100 or less, beware--it will end up costing you many times the regular price of $275-$400 USD. As I predicted in my post, "[URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4188.html"]Branded …

Looks like Google could be in deep water, along with the Open Handset Alliance and some 40 or so companies, over an apparent trademark infringement. Now you might think that there had been some pretty heavyweight due diligence before Google and the OHA determined to call the open source mobile …

Along with a number of other changes brought forth by President Barack Obama’s administration, another one might be the re-legalization of online gambling -- particularly poker -- in the United States. Online gambling in the U.S. was made much more difficult, though not technically illegal, in 2006 by the Unlawful …

Last evening, my friend [URL="http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow"]Jason Perlow[/URL], IM'd me and told me to go to this [URL="http://download.cnet.com/Presto/3000-2094_4-10910300.html?tag=mncol"]link[/URL] and download a program called [URL="http://www.prestomypc.com"]Presto[/URL]. He had just returned from some "green" IT show in New York City and apparently had seen, or heard about, this Presto thing--a new Linux operating system that …