Marissa Mayer Talks Real-Time Search, Twitter
In late May, Larry Page stated at a conference that he believes real-time search is a necessity. He also referenced Twitter. Now, Marissa Mayer’s performed a sort of follow-up on both counts, and this might indicate an official corporate interest.
Smaller Circulation Newspapers Hanging In There
If you work for a smaller paper or you have a favorite local paper that you simply don’t want to see fade into the sunset this is OK news. I can’t honestly say that there is real good news. It’s about the newspaper business after all.
Yahoo Adds Capabilities to YQL
Last year, Yahoo debuted its YQL language, which lets users query, filter, and join data across web data sources or services on the web. YQL or Yahoo Query Language is based on a SQL-like language, and it helps apps run faster with fewer lines of code.
Today, Yahoo announced a new feature for YQL, and that is the Insert/Update/Delete feature. A spokesperson for Yahoo tells Murdok this extends the platform by adding “write" capability to its capabilities, including YQL Open Data Tables and Execute."
Yahoo Settles Lawsuit With NFL
Yahoo and the NFL Players Association have reached a settlement over the use of players’ statistics, images and other information in Yahoo’s fantasy football games.
Yahoo sued the NFLPA last month arguing it should not have to pay additional royalties to use players’ data in its fantasy football games because the information is publicly available.
Following Up with Website Abandoners
SeeWhy shared some interesting findings from a survey of over 150 Google Analytics about website abandonment. They discussed "post session remarketing" and say it is going to grow rapidly.
Post session remarketing is basically going after individual users who have abandoned your site. "Of all the techniques out there, remarketing in real-time (thru e-mail specifically) is set to grow 152 percent," a representative for SeeWhy tells Murdok.
Chad Ochocinco and His Tweeting Ways
The football player formerly known as Chad Johnson is ruffling some feathers with the National Football League. He has told the media that he plans to use Twitter during games. I haven’t seen any official statement on this from the NFL itself yet, but sports analysts seem to pretty much agree that it’s just dumb.
Will Google Chrome OS Challenge Windows?
Google has announced that it is working on an operating system based on Google Chrome (their browser). The company says the project is an attempt to "re-think what operating systems should be."
The OS-in-progress is simply called Google Chrome OS, it is open source, and it will initially be aimed at netbooks. The announcement came on the same day that Google dropped the "beta" tag from Google Apps.
Online Opinions One of Most Trusted Forms of Advertising
Nielsen released some interesting findings from a study (pdf) on consumer trust and advertising. The most important takeaway is that consumer opinions posted online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally.
Right off the bat, this tells me that:
Shortened URLs Used in 2% of All Spam
If it’s a tool that can make life on the web easier, you can pretty much guarantee that it will be abused by spammers. That is why it should come as no surprise that spammers are now abusing URL shortener services.
Representatives from Symantec’s MessageLabs contacted Murdok to point out that just in the last couple of days, the presence shortened URLs in spam has skyrocketed. The prominent security company claims that shortened URLs now appear in over 2% of all spam.
Video Game Engagement Continues To Increase
Fans of video games are spending increasingly more time playing games, according to a new survey from Nielsen.
The survey, "The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession," found since the beginning of the year and through May, gamers are spending an additional one to two hours a week playing games, compared to 2006, when Nielsen started tracking video game data.