Microsoft Trying Out Social Network Technology
A new social network would, at this point, need to be extremely special. The appearance of something Microsoft’s working on has been described as "strikingly similar to Facebook’s." But TownSquare does have a few unique points, and it’s going to get some spotlight time at an upcoming conference.
EFF Sues Rodeo Group Over Removal Of Videos On YouTube
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a federal court to protect the free speech rights of an animal rights group after its video critiques of animal treatment at rodeos were removed from YouTube because of false copyright claims.The group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) is a non-profit that videotapes rodeos in order to expose animal abuse. SHARK posted two dozen videos to YouTube to illustrate animal mistreatment.
Russian President Wants Cyrillic Internet Domain
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia needs to be assigned an Internet domain name in the Cyrillic script in an effort to promote Russian as an international language.The Kremlin is worried that Russian, once the main language in the Soviet Union is being used less because of local languages and the influence of English.Medvedev said that 300 million people worldwide used Russian media and that a Cyrillic domain name would play an important role in raising the importance of Russian as a language.
Yahoo’s Poison Pill Headed For Court
Last week’s letter war between Carl Icahn and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock was just a preview of what’s to come. Ichan and company have challenged Yahoo’s employee retention plan (Icahn calls it a severance plan) in a Delaware court. Slated to go to trial in July, the legal matter will be settled in advance of the annual shareholders meeting on August 1.
Metallica Now Master of Puppet Bloggers
This may or not be taught in PR 101, perhaps because the general tenet is obvious: Don’t screw up good PR with bad PR. We’ll chalk this one up to Metallica’s management and not to the band itself, just to be fair.
Yahoo Exec Expected To Leave
The executive vice president of Yahoo’s network division may be heading out the door. Jeff Weiner apparently plans to return from a four-week paternity leave, but rumor has it he won’t stick around for long afterwards.
Britannica Takes A Cue From Wikipedia
It wasn’t that long ago the people behind Encyclopedia Britannica turned an academic nose up toward Wikipedia for its populist ways. That may have been a tad premature, especially when one counts 57 million monthly visitors versus Britannica’s three million. Then again, Britannica’s three million are paying visitors.
“Skip Intro” Button Appears In Google’s Search Results
A site’s flash intro may be appealing the first time you see it. The second, third, and four hundredth times, not so much. So what appears to be a new "skip intro" button from Google is an interesting gift.
SEM Canada Reaches Out
Organizing an emerging search marketing conference series is difficult. Beyond the choice of topics and speakers, there are a range of structural and financial issues to be worked through, public relations to be conducted and marketing efforts to be undertaken. Competing with a growing number of other conferences, gatherings and seminars, new search marketing shows have to climb a slope steeper than most.
Social Networks Doing Well In The UK
Earlier today, the subject was blogs. Now we’re on to social networks. It seems people in the UK are becoming quite fond of the things, as statistics in two critical areas has jumped since last year.