YouTube’s Partner Program has, as a general rule, allowed in only content creators who produce original and heavily viewed clips on a consistent basis. This was a smart and safe approach. But it’s an approach that also excluded a lot of very popular one-off videos, and YouTube’s now seeking to correct the problem.
Short URL Spam a Big Threat in August
Spammers are taking particular advantage of the heightened interest in health-related issues like swine flu and healthcare reform to distribute large shortened-URL spam runs using the Donbot botnet, according to Symantec’s MessageLabs.
eBay Unleashes Latest Changes for Sellers
Update: eBay is starting to test the badges. The company made the following announcement:
Over the next few weeks you may see a new seller badge appearing on some item pages and in search results. This badge is part of the new eBay Top-rated seller status announced last week and launching in October. Starting this week and over the next few weeks, we’ll be testing the badge in search results and item pages for a small percentage of eBay traffic.
Local Video Display Ads On the Rise
Online video advertising platform Mixpo is sharing some stats regarding the growth of local video and interactive display ads.
"Year-over-year, Mixpo has seen, primarily, local TV advertisers, extend their broadcast strategy and campaigns to the Web by more than 300 percent," a Mixpo spokesperson tells Murdok. During that time, according to Mixpo, over 1.2 million minutes of video display advertising have been watched. That translates to over two years of 24/7 non-stop TV viewing.
U.S. Broadband Speeds Still Lacking
The average download Internet speed in the United States between 2007 and 2009 increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009, according to a new report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Google Wants Your Location for Live Traffic Reports
Google is expanding its traffic layers in Google Maps. They’re now showing traffic conditions on arterial roads in selected cities, but is working on doing this to cover all U.S. highways and arterials when data is available.
Survey Finds 30% of College Faculty Use Twitter
Faculty Focus released some interesting findings from a survey about Twitter usage and trends among college faculty. They surveyed about 2,000 faculty members and found that about a third of the respondents say they use Twitter. Over half say they have never used Twitter at all.
Opera Reports Global Mobile Browsing Trends
Opera released its monthly report on the state of the mobile web. The report looks at the link between downloads and usage by Opera Mini users. Reports say that Opera Mini is the most widely downloaded mobile app, so this is quite significant.
Music Publishers Sue Websites Over Lyrics
National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) members have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against two businesses for publishing unlicensed lyrics on four websites.
Peermusic, Warner/Chappell and Bug Music filed an action against LiveUniverse, and its owner Brad Greenspan, co-founder of MySpace, in the Federal Court of the Central District of California for willful copyright infringement on a vast scale.
The Ups and Downs of Paid Tweeting
Update: Izea has launched thier paid tweeting service (discussed in the original article) on its own site at SponsoredTweets.com.