Amazon.com has announced it will allow customers to trade-in used videogames for credit on its site, a move that will challenge game retailer GameStop.
The company has launched Amazon Video Games Trade-In in beta. "Our video game trade-in process is easy. Go to www.amazon.com/tradeingames and discover games that you want to trade among hundreds of titles," the Amazon Game Room’s Blog states.
Yahoo May Be Working On Vodafone Search Deal
On the last day of 2008, Vodafone, the mobile telecommunications company, had 289 million customers. Now, a new report indicates that Yahoo might be on its way to becoming Vodafone’s default search provider in Europe.
MPAA Study Calls For Piracy Patriot Act
A new study commissioned by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and produced by RAND links the film piracy trade to terrorism, drug cartels, and human trafficking, and calls upon governments to do more about intellectual property protection. But what it really is is another attempt to convince governments to spy on everybody on behalf of one mafia trying to muscle out other mafias.
Utah Aims At Keyword Advertising Again
The last two times the Utah legislature attempted to regulate keyword advertising didn’t turn out very well. It’s probably a surprise to many then (maybe not though) that the governmental body is giving it a third try, this time with a version as watered down as it is vague.
Facebook’s New Twitter-Like Elements Highlight Real-Time Search Need
As previously reported, Facebook is set to launch changes to its news feeds that will give it more Twitter-like functionality. The changes are set to launch next week, and will update feeds in real-time.
In addition to that, the status box is becoming a publisher box. Rather than only allowing users to update their status, it will now allow you to post content – links, photos, videos, etc that will go to the news feed stream in real-time.
Google Offers Money Saving Tips With Tip Jar
With the economy in a recession and people looking for more ways to save money, Google is offering help with a new money saving site called Tip Jar.
Google says the site is an experiment that it hopes will offer users the most effective ways to save money. Tip Jar is powered by Google Moderator, which itself began as an experiment for the Google App Engine.
Facebook Altering Pages and Feeds
Facebook announced today that it will be launching some changes next week. These changes are related to your home page and to pages for public figures and organizations.
Pages for said figures and organizations will no operate like the profiles of the common folk. This should inspire greater communications between them and fans.
Import/Export Gmail Filters with New Labs Feature
Google has created a new feature in Gmail Labs that allows Gmail users to import and export filters. It lets you download a file containing some or all of your filters or upload one to create a set of filters.
Software Engineer Luke Blanshard shares the following uses for the feature at the Gmail Blog:
Schmidt Shuts Door On Dividends, (Most) Acquisitions
Investors hoping for a little extra money – and small startups hoping for a lot – are going to need to find someone or something other than Google to provide it. The search giant’s CEO said yesterday that he intends to let his company’s checkbook collect a little dust.
YouTube Attracts 100 Million U.S. Viewers
Online video continues to make gains in the U.S. with Internet users viewing 14.8 billion videos during the month of January, representing an increase of 4 percent over December, according to comScore.
YouTube was the most popular property, accounting for 91 percent of the incremental gain in the number of videos viewed versus December, as it exceeded 100 million viewers for the first time.