YouTube A Breeding Ground For Ponzi Schemes
Google might be struggling to make money off YouTube, but pyramid schemers are apparently doing just fine. They’re doing so well, the Better Business Bureau has issued an alert warning of “little Bernie Madoffs” running all around the video site Call it user-generated scamming. .
A search for “cash gifting” on YouTube brings back over 25,000 videos and, at the rate they were going last week, the videos have been viewed over 60 million times.
Google Making Changes to Search Referrals
Update: Google now says: We initially reported that Urchin Software might require a patch to handle the new URL structure, but after some additional testing, it turns out no patch is needed. Urchin can handle both the current and new URLs.
Original article: Google is changing referral URLs on results pages. What up until now has looked something like this:
YouTube Symphony Orchestra Reaches Final Stages
The YouTube Symphony Orchestra project represented a neat idea: use the Internet to have musicians from all over the world perform a single piece of music. And now it’s reaching the final and most interesting stages of development as a mashup’s been compiled and everyone’s set to perform at Carnegie Hall.
The Savvy PR Of Crocs
Living in Boulder, Colorado, I am surrounded by entrepreneurs and startups, but we don’t have a lot of national brands based in our small town. There are two that you’ve heard of, however: Celestial Seasonings and Crocs.
The former makes tea. Really good tea. The latter? They make those ubiquitous rubber shoes with the holes punched in ’em, and a whole lot more.
Majority Of Americans are Influenced By Online Reviews
The majority (84%) of Americans say online customer reviews have an influence on their decision to purchase a product or service, according to a new survey from Opinion Research Corporation.
Only 28 percent of respondents said they had posted their own feedback online while 66 percent had checked some type of online review forum when looking to purchase a specific brand of product or service.
Twitter Sees Big Growth in March, Co-founders Talk
Research from comScore shows that Twitter has jumped 131% in March to 9.3 million visitors in the U.S. This is an increase of 5 million visitors from February.
New Venture Hopes To Make Newspapers Money Online
Three veteran media executives have partnered to launch a company with the goal of helping struggling U.S. news papers and other traditional media make money online by charging readers for content.
Journalism Online says it " will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, a magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce."
Study Claims Spam Is Hurting The Environment
Can spam cause damage to the environment and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions?
That’s what a study from McAfee and climate-change researchers ICF have concluded. The study "Carbon Footprint of Spam" released today, found the global annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 33 terawatt hours (TWh).
That’s equal to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes, with the same green-house gas as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gas.
Why “Pick Your Five” is So Popular on Facebook
The other day, we looked at how the Facebook redesign has shaken up app popularity. The top apps lost their spots, and LivingSocial’s "Pick Your Five" has taken over as the most popular app on Facebook.
Facebook Making Big Gains In Europe
Facebook is now the sixth most popular Web site in the world with 275 million visitors in February, a 175 percent increase over the previous year, according to comScore.
Facebook has experienced strong growth in Europe, where the site has seen a 314 percent increase to nearly 100 million visitors.