Webmaster

Microsoft Socl: inside the company’s secret social network

roman — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:00:49 +0000

Earlier this summer, a teaser page appeared at Socl.com revealing Tulalip, an oddly named service from Microsoft promising a new way to “Find what you need and Share what you know.” Facebook and Twitter sign-ins were offered, and the design was reminiscent of Windows Phone’s tiles. It turns out Microsoft has been testing this service with a select group of “friends,” and this week, I got an early look at Socl — “Tulalip” appears to be dropped — a curious site that’s coming out of the FUSE research group that will eventually be rolled out to the public. The site mixes search, discovery, and, go figure, a social network. How’s it hold up? Read on.

DESIGN

Ignoring for the moment that the interface looks a lot like that other social network, Socl offers a bare bones, three column layout, with basic navigation in the left rail, a social feed down the middle, and invites and video party options (more on that soon) on the right. As usual, you can follow other friends, but you won’t find any list-making tools. Core to the experience is the large search field at the top that asks, “What are you searching for?” effectively creating a new type of status update. You can also toggle the field to a traditional status update. With Socl, you’ve got the option to post to your feed either a note that you’re searching for “live Prince covers” or that you’re ‘live at a Prince concert.” Entering a search term or status update drops it into your feed with appropriate Bing results, where your friends will have the option to comment, like, or further tag it. Clicking ‘tag’ adds the search term to your personal list of tags, and you can sort your friends’ searches and status updates by type (i.e. web, video, news, images).

Full Article

Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL team up over ad sales

roman — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:32:28 +0000

San Francisco – Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are joining forces in an online advertising attack on Google and Facebook.

The alliance, announced on Tuesday, is designed to sell some of the less-prized ad space that Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and AOL Inc have had trouble filling on their own.

Even as they share some resources, the three companies vowed to retain their independence and compete against each other with separate sales teams.

For that reason, they said they don’t expect US antitrust regulators to object to the non-exclusive partnership before they begin selling ads together in January.

Ross Levinsohn, a Yahoo executive vice president, hailed the alliance as a “fundamental rethinking” of the internet ad market.

Advantage

That statement also could be interpreted as a bit of wishful thinking. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL all need to change the direction of an online ad market that has been increasingly tilting in the direction of Google and Facebook.

Having already built a moneymaking machine in its dominant search engine, Google has become even more powerful in internet marketing since it bought DoubleClick’s ad service for $3.2bn in 2008.

That deal provided Google with a springboard to leap from text ads that appear next to search results into the graphical messages known as display advertising.

Facebook attracts more advertising as it becomes established as the internet’s most popular hangout. The company accumulates valuable insights into people’s interests as its 800 million users share their passions.

That advantage has helped Facebook become the leader in US display advertising with a 16% share of the online ad market, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc.

Yahoo, the former leader, has seen its share fall from 18% in 2008 to 13% this year. Google’s share of the display market moved from 2% in 2008 to 9%. Microsoft stands at 5% and AOL is hovering around 4%, according to eMarketer.

As it has fallen further behind in internet advertising, Microsoft’s online division has piled up operating losses of $7bn since June 2008. Revenue at both Yahoo and AOL is steadily falling. Yahoo has been struggling so much that its board is mulling whether to sell all or part of the company.

Microsoft may eventually benefit from Facebook’s success. It bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240m in 2007. By some estimates, Facebook is now worth three to five times more than it was when Microsoft made its investment.

By tapping into each other’s technology, Yahoo, and AOL are betting they can save money and sell more advertising.

The partnership will cover a category of advertising that doesn’t typically appear in the prime slots on websites.

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL believe that space will be in higher demand if they can succeed at creating a more efficient, transparent market that helps connect advertisers with the web audiences best suited for their marketing campaigns.

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Microsoft-Yahoo-AOL-team-up-over-ad-sales-20111109

The Groupon IPO: What’s Everyone Worth?

roman — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:03:29 +0000

Individual	Shares	Worth	vote %
CEO Andrew D. Mason	46,934,488	$1,220,296,688	19%
Former CTO Kenneth M. Pelletier	2,698,944	$70,172,544
Former COO Robert S. Solomon	4,055,000	$105,430,000
Brian K. Totty	624,786	$16,244,436
Board member Mellody Hobson	10,000	$260,000
Co-founder Bradley A. Keywell	624,786	$1,071,850,988	10.2%
Lightbank VC Eric P. Lefkofsky	129,239,408	$3,360,224,608	28.1%
Board member Theodore J. Leonsis	1,848,770	$48,068,020
Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz	1,899,336	$49,382,736
New Enterprise Associates, Inc	87,453,072	$2,273,779,872	8.8%
Accel Growth Fund L.P.	33,203,928	$863,302,128	3.4%
MyCityDeal’s Oliver & Marc Samwer	39,168,960	$1,018,392,960	4%

After going from selling slippers with flashlights to being a 10,000 employee-strong business in three years, Groupon had its initial public offering today, to much fanfare and well, the opposite reaction. The offering was priced at $20 and experienced an exuberant opening pop of $28, which after a day of trading settled down a bit to close at $26.

While Groupon’s co-founders and high-level executives notoriously took hundreds of millions off the table in an earlier round of funding, they still had notable skin in the game today, as evidenced by the share allocation on Groupon’s latest S-1. Biggest winner? Lightbank founder Eric Lefkosky, who is now a billionaire three times over with a solid 28.1% voting share. CEO Andrew Mason, by comparison, is now worth $1.2 billion in Groupon stock.

VC firm Accel Partners and the Samwer brothers are also in enviable positions post IPO, each netting about a billion in Groupon equity for their troubles. It’s probably safe to say that just about everyone on this list is on a customary six month lockout with regards to selling their shares, and God only knows what the stock will be trading at then.

Facebook Tests Home Page Redesign That Moves Ads To The Top

roman — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:35:23 +0000

If you check Facebook today for real-time updates in its Ticker feed, you may find yourself staring at ads instead. Some Facebook users are now seeing a redesigned version of the home page that places ad units at the top of the right sidebar. Ticker, Events, and birthdays have been moved down beneath these ads. Similarly, some now see ads relocated above the Timeline profile’s navigation column in the right sidebar. Those in the test with windows wide enough for Ticker to be snapped to the far right see ads above everything else in the sidebar.

By making ads more prominent on some of the most frequently browsed parts of the sites, users may be more likely to click through or at least see them. If Facebook rolls out this redesign to the entire user base it could significantly increase the value of the site’s premium home page and profile ad inventory. Alternatively, by dynamically rearranging the home page and profile sidebar, Facebook could consistently trick users into looking at ads where they were expecting to see the Ticker or navigation column. Either way, the changes could allow it to charge advertisers more and increase revenues.

Facebook rarely places its bottom line above the interest of the user experience but here it has done so quite literally. The whole point of the Ticker was to allow users to consume real-time updates without having to switch to a separate “Most Recent” tab of the news feed. By burying Ticker below ads, users are less likely to notice a friend asking for someone to go to dinner with or a conversation developing around a posted link. They’re also less likely to notice they have Events or friends with birthdays that day.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/05/facebook-home-page-ads/

Samsung Asks Apple To Hand Over iPhone 4S Source Code

roman — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:14:43 +0000

If Apple was a melody and Samsung was a beat, their legal battle would be the song that never ends. On the whole, the war has lasted more than six months, spanned more than half the continents, and is still only in its formative stages. Final decisions have yet to be made in almost all of the cases, and in predictable fashion, the duo are igniting new battles at what feels like a daily rate. This time, Samsung is asking for some juicy deets in its Australian counter suit against Apple.

After Apple won a preliminary injunction on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung vowed to get more aggressive. And so they have, filing for a preliminary injunction against Apple’s brand new iPhone 4S. In doing so, Samsung has requested the source code for the iPhone 4S, as well as details on Apple’s subsidy deals with Australian carriers.

Samsung’s argument is that the iPhone 4S infringes three patents it holds, all concerned with 3G wireless technology and the transmission of mobile data. However, the patents in question are standard essentials patents, which means the technology they cover is a necessity industry-wide, rather than a specific brand innovation. In that case, Samsung is required to offer FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) licensing terms, which, according to Samsung, Apple refused. Apple, on the other hand, says its covered by a third-party licensing agreement made by Qualcomm on the MDM6610 chipset, reports SmartOffice. Still, Samsung asserts that whatever licensing deal is in place may not extend into Australian turf.

In other words, this dueling duo can’t seem to get their licensing deals straight, or are at least doing a helluva job making it appear that way to the judge. Speaking of the judge, the same judge that ruled in the Apple vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab case is taking the reigns here: Judge Annabelle Bennett.

Full Article

Google Launches Native Gmail App For iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Faces Instant Backlash

roman — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:07:08 +0000

Google is launching a new native Gmail application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch today, which is now available in the iTunes App Store. As recently revealed by TechCrunch writer MG Siegler on his personal blog, one of the app’s most important features is its ability to do push notifications. The app will also include search, autocomplete, support for attachments, priority inbox access, labels and other standard email features like archiving, deleting and reporting spam.

For many, the new app should be an improvement over the already available Web-based application for Gmail because of its support for push notifications – something that the iPhone itself can’t do for Gmail without hacking it to work through Exchange. That alone may be reason to switch.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/02/google-launches-native-gmail-app-for-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch/

Twitter Tests “Top News” And “Top People” At Top Of Search Results

roman — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:02:10 +0000

In what appears to be a test among some users, Twitter is adding “Top News” and “Top People” results at the top of its realtime search results. When you search for a hot story like “gmail” (which came out with a buggy iPhone app today) or even “Humanoid” (a new startup I just wrote about), you will see a highlighted boxed result with a link to a top news story along with a thumbnail image from that article or blog post. Similarly, a search for anyone who is Twitter-famous will turn up a “Top People” result with their Twitter profile picture and a link to their stream. Update: a search for “twitter” turns up this post right now.

Again this is an experiment only a small percentage of users can see. I first noticed this earlier today, and I thought it was a paid search ad. But it is actually a way to help users discover the most popular content and people. Presumably, the Top News items are based on retweets and some sort of whitelist Twitter keeps for news sources. Although it seems like the Top News story sometimes rotates to another source if you repeat your search.

Either way, this is a smart move because publishers are going to see a lot more traffic from Twitter if they manage to get their stories in that top slot on Twitter search. The fact that Twitter is testing this with news results shows how focussed it is on becoming the messaging bus for all media.

Beyond news, there’s a business model right there: charge for those top slots just like Google does for paid search. I hope we never see Top News as a paid product (that would result in the worst stories from the most desperate news sites and blogs paying their way to get to the top of search results), but it is not too hard to imagine paid results for searches with commercial intent like “shoes” or “cameras.”

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/02/twitter-top-news-people-search-results/

Google AdWords Advertisers Can Now Bid For Phone Calls In Search Ads

roman — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:05:11 +0000

Google has announced the ability for advertisers to bid for phone calls, in addition to bidding for clicks, for Google search ads on computers and tablets. Currently, only advertisers maximum CPC bid for phone calls factor into ad rank. With bid-for-calls, these bids can also factor into ad rank as well. Higher ranked ads surface higher in search results, and can therefore generate more phone calls (and clicks, too).

For background, bid-to-call ads works in AdWords by assigning and placing a toll-free forwarding number next to an advertisers ad text on Google search pages. When a user sees an ad and calls the number, AdWords registers the call and forwards it to your business. When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code.

Users will also access detailed call reporting right in AdWords, which includes summaries of completed calls, phone-through rate, and phone call costs. You can also see details for each call, including call time, duration, caller area code, and more.

For now, bid-per-call is available only in the US and UK. Click-to-call ads are a growing ad format for Google. In fact, Click-to-Call ads are now driving millions of calls per week. Calls generated from mobile and desktop search ads using call metrics last, on average, six-minutes. And Google has now connected over 12 million calls for thousands of businesses.

Search Site Loku Leverages Big Data To Make Local Search Simpler

roman — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:03:16 +0000

Local search site Loku launches in public beta today, with the aim of helping people quickly find out more about the environs around them — using the vast repository of location-based information available.

Instead of making the user pour through crowdsourced information, Loku uses natural language search to serve up the most relevant articles in a given area through its “Know Local” function, allowing people to look for relevant media around the topics of “Good Eats,””Culture,” etc. It’s “Go Local” function lets people use a slider to sift through a sentiment rank of the places around them.

Classifying itself as “Big Data” for local and holding Google and Yelp as competitors, Loku CEO Dan Street tells me that Loku synthethizes available information instead of just presenting it in a hierarchy.

He likens Loku to “the analytical layer on top of the local Internet.” “We can tell you the aggregated sentiment—the ‘buzz’—about a local restaurant or event,” he explains, “We can pull all the information together and present insights in a lively, single-page, graphical format.”

For its Go Local results, the service uses the Twitter API and machine learning to analyze how people are talking about places on their blogs and social media, and then separates those words into different categories like “Swanky” or “Hipster.” To make the process even simpler, Loku’s results are extremely visual for both the Know Local and Go Local features, serving up results in a visual grid reminiscent of Pinterest.

“There two problems this is solving,” Street says. “There’s no place on the Internet where you can find out what is happening block by block. And it is still way too hard to find a place to go eat or a place to go eat and a place to go out. It’s hard to find very localized information. What you want is just one answer — you want a simplification.”

Loku presently has $1.4 million in funding from angels including 500Startups. Street tells me that he eventually wants to add concerts and events to the service, as well as launch a mobile app asap.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/25/search-site-loku-leverages-big-data-to-make-local-search-simpler/

Top Sites Going Global with Translator API

roman — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:39:56 +0000

The ability to use language and the capacity to translate between languages is one of the characteristics that define us as humans. Over the last decade, world class researchers – both at our own research labs and around the world have been working on the problem of machine translation, the results of which you are able to enjoy today on Bing and in many other Microsoft products.

Last month at the BUILD conference, Satya Nadella, (President, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft) announced the global, high volume commercial availability of the Translator API. This was a significant milestone for us, as we had seen a tremendous increase in demand from partners who see it adding great value to their customers and wanted the reliability, performance and scale of a Microsoft service. It was an added bonus that we were able to deliver this class of service to our partners at a significantly lower price than alternatives. Over the past few months, the diversity and volume of partners using our API has increased rapidly and continues to grow.

A few weeks ago, Facebook rolled out translations powered by our service to many of their major markets across the world. With a user base larger than most countries of the world (barring India and China), and with 75% of the users from outside the US – Facebook is a great example of how the translation API can help partners break down language barriers.

Full Article