by Admin on March 12, 2009
Welcome back!
Facebook made some big announcements last week, including new Facebook Pages perfect for social media marketers, but it looks like users will now be able to reap the rewards of the much talked about real-time homepage features.
So what’s new for you? Apart from the tweaked look and feel of the page, there are quite a few updates that are going to change the way you interact with your Facebook home page, but most notably is the real-time stream of information and “The Publisher.”
As we’ve noted previously, the news feed stream will now consist of all real-time items being shared by your friends, so you can get instant glimpse of the social activity happening in you and your friends’ worlds. Also, Facebook’s increasingly popular status update box is getting refreshed, so The Publisher will ask users, “What’s on your mind?” and give them the ability to not just update their status but also attach links, photos, and videos to their updates.
The Highlights boxes in the right hand column have also been redesigned to show the most important activity happening over longer period of times, based on Comments, Likes, and other metadata. Think of Highlights as the counterparts to the real-time items flying by.
Facebook has also enhanced stream filters so members can use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to filter the updates for the people and content they want to read the most. The News Feed is the main filter, but users can add new filters based on Friends Lists and applications.
The new home page update is being rolled out to users starting today, so some of you can probably take advantage of the new features already, while others of you can continue to hit F5 and wait to see the change.
We’re excited about the updates to the user home page, but as we’ve mentioned before, Facebook is clearly making its content more digestible in real-time format which pits it directly against sites like Twitter and FriendFeed. With all the instant news items, commenting, and liking features, Facebook’s positioned nicely to keep members active and engaged on their site for the time being.
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by Admin on March 10, 2009
Google Inc. said Monday it will block U.K. users from watching music videos on its popular video-sharing site YouTube after negotiations with Britain’s music royalty-collecting body broke down.
Google said it would begin blocking British users starting Monday night. The Internet titan said it knew the move would cause “significant disappointment.”
But it said its hand was forced by PRS for Music, which it said is asking for royalties that would cause Google to lose money every time a video was played on YouTube.
“Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we’ve been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us,” Google said in a statement. Until a solution is found, it added, “we will be blocking premium music videos in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels.”
PRS for Music, which collects money on behalf of writers and publishers worldwide, said it was outraged by Google’s move.
“Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing,” the group said in a statement.
Neither group revealed how much money is at stake in their negotiations.
YouTube has become an increasingly popular destination for record labels squeezed by declining sales for compact discs. The Web site has deals with three of the four major record labels but some rights-holders have balked at their cut of the advertising revenue.
In December, Warner Music pulled all of its music from YouTube, saying the payments it received did not fairly compensate the label or its artists and songwriters.
It was not clear how long the music videos would stay blocked. Both PRS for Music and Google said they hoped their dispute could be resolved quickly.
The video Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love,” licensed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment U.K. Ltd., which has garnered more than 83 million hits, was still visible from the U.K. late Monday.
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by Admin on March 10, 2009
A single check box deep in the guts of the next version of Windows is giving Microsoft Corp. watchers a peek at how the software maker plans to keep European antitrust regulators from marring a crucial software launch.
Windows 7, the successor to the much-maligned Vista, isn’t expected to reach consumers until next year, but more than a million people are already testing early versions. A pair of bloggers tinkering with settings stumbled upon one they hadn’t seen before: The ability to “turn off” Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer browser.
Microsoft lost a long-running battle with EU antitrust regulators in 2007 over the way it bundled media player software into the Windows operating system. The dust had barely settled when a similar claim was filed, this time over Internet Explorer’s place inside Windows. Opera Software ASA, a Norwegian competitor, claimed the practice gives Microsoft’s browser an unfair advantage.
In a preliminary decision in January, the EU agreed. Since then, makers of the open-source browser Firefox and Google Inc., which entered the browser market six months ago, have offered to provide more evidence that Microsoft is stifling competition.
In the media player dispute, the EU heavily fined Microsoft and forced it to sell a version of Windows without the offending program installed. This time, Microsoft appears to be offering the check-box solution as a way to head off a similar ending.
The company declined to comment Friday on the connection between the check boxes and the EU’s preliminary decision. But in a recent quarterly filing, it said the European Commission may order PC makers to install multiple browsers on new PCs and force Microsoft to disable parts of its own Internet Explorer if people chose a competing browser.
The check boxes, which were described on Microsoft enthusiast blogs http://www.aeroxp.org and http://www.chris123nt.com, also give Windows 7 users a way to disable the media player and hard-drive search programs, among other components, both of which have drawn scrutiny from regulators.
After Windows Vista landed with a thud, Microsoft needs a hit, said Michael Cherry, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft. Beyond appeasing the EU, he said he didn’t see much use for the Internet Explorer check box.
“Windows 7 is becoming more and more important for Microsoft,” he said in an interview. “You don’t want anything that gives anyone even a doubt as to whether or not they should upgrade.”
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