Hawaii Governor Vetoes Amazon Tax Law
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle has vetoed a bill that would have required online retailers such as Amazon.com and Overstock.com to collect and pay sales tax on their affiliate programs within the state.
Earlier this week both Amazon and Overstock had notified affiliates in the state that they would be ending their programs there due to the new tax requirements.
Microsoft Takes A Shot At Real-Time Search
Real-time search may (together with semantic and/or mobile search) be the next big thing; with some individuals putting out scores of public messages per day, we need a way to organize them. And now, Microsoft’s taken a step in the right direction by "bringing a bit of Twitter to Bing."
YouTube About to Become Higher Quality
YouTube has doubled the size of what users are now able to upload at a time. Until now, users were only able to upload 1GB, and now they can upload 2GB. This means longer videos with higher resolutions.
YouTube product manager Ryan Junee also points out that users can upload large HD files directly from their cameras. Essentially this means, we will start seeing a lot more quality (at least picture-wise) videos on YouTube.
Bing Starts Summer Travel Photo Contest
The photos that rotate through Bing’s homepage are, at least from an aesthetic standpoint (we mean no disrespect to the search engineers), one of the best things about the site; it’s always a pleasure to stop by and see some interesting scene. And now artistic types are getting a chance to contribute thanks to the new Bing Photo Contest.
Google Makes Language-Based Product Announcements
Today Google made a couple of announcements involving the expansion of offerings into more languages. They’ve announced that the new optimized SERP pages for iPhones, Android devices, and feature phones are now available in over 60 countries and 38 languages. In addition, the company has announced an advanced translation feature in the newest release of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer.
The Mobile SERPs
Gmail Adds Drag and Drop Capability
Gmail is consistently rolling out new features for your emailing pleasure. Just a few months ago Gmail added some keyboard shortcuts and some new buttons to make labeling simpler. Today, Gmail is adding even more to their labeling arsenal.
Entertainment Sites Attract 55 Million Americans In May
Nearly 55 million Americans visited an entertainment news site in May 2009, representing a 7 percent increase over the previous year, according to a new report from comScore.
Online video has also played an increasingly important role for content in the category, with the number of videos viewed growing 53 percent in the past year.
The New Firefox Has Arrived
Update: Mozilla is showing the real-time downloads of the new Firefox. It should approach a million downloads (worldwide) very soon:
Facebook Talks new Privacy Features
Murdok just sat in on a conference call and webcast with Facebook, where the social network’s upcoming changes to privacy settings were discussed. These were designed to give users more control over what they share with whom. Are you looking forward to privacy changes with Facebook? Share your thoughts.
Boston Globe Rolls Out Digital Newspaper
The Boston Globe announced today the launch of GlobeReader, a new digital version of the newspaper that can be read offline or online.
With GlobeReader the content of the Globe is downloaded daily to a subscriber’s desktop, laptop or netbook, in a format aimed at resembling the look and feel of the print version of the Boston Globe. A preview edition is currently available to Globe subscribers. Plans for further expansion are in the works.