Coming Soon: Web Ads Tailored to Your ZIP+4
Routers from Juniper Networks such as this MX960 will soon include Feeva's zipcode tracking software, assuming ISPs want it.
Your internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood. If your local pizza joint wants to find you, they will have a new way to do that. National advertisers will be able to market directly to neighborhoods with like characteristics across the whole country using demographic data they’ve been gathering for decades.
As websites continue to push for higher advertising rates, similar to what print publications command, this technology could allow them to boost their rates slightly. Every bit counts.
Juniper Networks, which sells routers to ISPs, plans to start selling them add-on technology from digital marketer Feeva that affixes a tag inside the HTTP header, consisting of each user’s “zip+4″ — a nine-digit zipcode that offers more accuracy than five-digit codes — delivered in coded form that is readable by participating ad network partners (updated). Juniper hopes to sell the software to ISPs starting this summer, having announced a partnership with Feeva earlier this year.
“Our technology fundamentally changes the industry,” Feeva vice president of advertising solutions Mike Blacker told Wired.com. “Nobody can deliver accuracy at the neighborhood level online or accurate demographics.”
Why is that so important? Advertisers have been gathering demographic information about zip codes for decades, yet lacked a reliable way to harness that data in the online world. IP-address detection is only accurate within 25 miles or so, and cookies that track users’ surfing habits don’t tell marketers about users’ location. Neither system meshes directly with all the demographic data marketers gathered about neighborhoods in the offline world.
Of course, privacy is a potential issue, but Feeva claims its software doesn’t tell marketers anything about web surfers except for their nine-digit zip codes. All their other personal information remains safe with their ISP.
“[This technology is] unleashing the underlying foundational data that [marketers] happen to have, but translating it into a language that [they] can use in such a way that the consumer is not in any way stripped of their privacy,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, advisor to Feeva and head of marketing giant Publicis’s future unit early last year, well before Feeva will begin marketing this product to ISPs.
Even federal regulators who scrutinize other ad firms over their targeting practices are apparently okay with this, in part because the zipcode is encoded and can only be ready by “trusted third parties.” That might reassure privacy advocates that personally identifying information is not at risk here (unless you’re the only person in your nine-digit zipcode, which would only happen in an incredibly remote region).
“The privacy folks in Washington love what we are doing,” claims Blacker, “because we never see any personally identifying information, we don’t track online usage like behavioral [advertising does], and we only aggregate at the neighborhood level.”
Feeva was founded in 2005 at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Incubator, and has a patent that "enables demographic information and user preferences to be distributed to any website or online advertising or media server."
The system cuts ISPs in on the advertising game in a new way, without them having to expend much effort. They can add Feeva tags to the HTTP headers that already tell online advertisers a person’s IP address, referring URL, language and browser, and they can do it using the same aggregation routers that already authenticate whether a given subscriber is paid up and should be allowed to connect.
ISPs have something not even Google has (something of a rarity these days) — the user’s zip+4 – and they can use it to take a chunk of the market currently dominated by that advertising behemoth, by charging ad networks for that valuable zipcode information.
“ISPs love Feeva, because we help them participate in the ecosystem instead of being just dumb pipes” said Blacker, “and letting Google make all the money from their expensive infrastructure.”
Of course, one big reason the internet matters at all is that it was not instantly co-opted by the same corporations in charge of other forms of media. We largely owe that to routers that are “dumb,” in the sense that they treat each bit passing through them the same regardless of where it’s coming from or where it’s going. Smart software that sits on routers threatens to undermine that system, by shooting bits through faster to certain users, or serving only specific subscribers a certain piece of content.
Assuming Juniper succeeds in selling Feeva’s software to ISPs, another potential use of its technology will be to go beyond the zip code and authenticate individual users with a higher level of certainty than a username and password could ever provide.
For instance, HBO could partner with an ISP to verify, at the network level, that a certain user subscribes to HBO, and so should be allowed to watch its programming for free on Hulu. Users might be annoyed that they can’t use a username and password to watch the channel from a computer outside their homes, but content providers will appreciate the way this system can prevent users from sharing accounts.
Juniper Networks, which says its current customers include the top 100 service providers globally, plans to start offering the Feeva add-on to ISPs in July or August.
Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/coming-soon-web-ads-tailored-to-your-zip-4/all/1#ixzz0rgWBhY2H
How Does Google Adwords Really Work?
If you are using Adwords but you are not exactly sure how it works, then you need to watch this video…If you are still not using Adwords, then you really need to watch this video!
Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, explains in a simple way how Google Ad Auction really works. You’ll see- it’s really about good thinking for better results for your prospects AND for you.
You have to realize that if you have a website but no strategy in place to bring people to your site…well, you’re really wasting your time and money.
Pretty much like having a phone number but not giving your phone number to anyone…you won’t get many calls…same for your website!
From Facebook to $$$$
Equine Dentist Builds Relationships With Facebook
How do you turn a regional service business into an international destination for industry thought leadership?
Facebook.
At least that’s what worked for Geoff Tucker, an equine dentist based in Palm City, FL.
In a business driven by relationships, Geoff says that Facebook allows him to build new ones. “People do business with people who they’re friends with. Period,” he says. “And Facebook is a great way to get to know people. It allows people to see that I’m a person.”
As he builds these relationships using social media, Geoff is also expanding his company’s reach. He says it was his blog, his Twitter feed, and his Facebook account that helped him win appearances on Horse Talk Radio and HorseGirl.tv.
So what’s this done for his business? Geoff says that over the last year, Facebook alone has generated about 100 leads and 10-to-15 customers.
Researchers Create Social Engineering IRC Bot
Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology developed an IRC (internet relay chat) bot that acts as a 'man in the middle' between two unsuspecting users, modifies URLs passed between them and also is capable of steering the conversation. Not only does this work surprisingly well on IRC — they found a 76.1% click rate for potentially malicious URLs — but four out of 10 people on Facebook chat also clicked on links after the bot introduced complete strangers to each other. This would have worked even better if the bot were to clone existing friends' profiles and submit friend requests from those, say researchers.
Twitter Buys Analytics Company
Twitter, which recently announced its Promoted Tweets advertising program, has acquired the maker of a cloud-hosted Web analytics application, Twitter said Thursday.
In April, Twitter launched with a limited number of partners like Starbucks and Best Buy the Promoted Tweets program, which is designed to let companies market their products and services on the popular microblogging and social-networking site.The Smallthought staff has become part of Twitter's analytics team, where they will integrate Trendly features and technology into Twitter's existing systems, as well as help develop new products.
As with all advertising services, a key to the success of Promoted Tweets will be Twitter's capacity to analyze the popularity and effectiveness of these ads so that campaigns can be evaluated and optimized.
The analytics for Promoted Tweets may be more challenging than for other online advertising programs for a few reasons, including the fact that the ad format for Promoted Tweets will be the same as the format for regular "tweets" and that Twitter's usage is going through the roof, with 2 billion "tweets" posted in May, according to Web monitoring company Pingdom.
"Every day millions of people use Twitter to create, share and discover information, and as we grow, analytics becomes an increasingly crucial part of improving our service," reads Twitter's announcement of its Smallthought acquisition.
In April, Twitter launched with a limited number of partners like Starbucks and Best Buy the Promoted Tweets program, which is designed to let companies market their products and services on the popular microblogging and social-networking site.The Smallthought staff has become part of Twitter's analytics team, where they will integrate Trendly features and technology into Twitter's existing systems, as well as help develop new products.
As with all advertising services, a key to the success of Promoted Tweets will be Twitter's capacity to analyze the popularity and effectiveness of these ads so that campaigns can be evaluated and optimized.
The analytics for Promoted Tweets may be more challenging than for other online advertising programs for a few reasons, including the fact that the ad format for Promoted Tweets will be the same as the format for regular "tweets" and that Twitter's usage is going through the roof, with 2 billion "tweets" posted in May, according to Web monitoring company Pingdom.
"Every day millions of people use Twitter to create, share and discover information, and as we grow, analytics becomes an increasingly crucial part of improving our service," reads Twitter's announcement of its Smallthought acquisition.
New Google Search Index 50% Fresher With Caffeine
When Google started, it would only update its index every four months, then around 2000, it started indexing every month in a process called the "google dance" that took a week to 10 days and would provide different results when searching for the same term from different Google data centers. Now PC World reports that Google has introduced a new web indexing system called Caffeine, that delivers results that are closer to "live" by analyzing the web in small portions and updating the index on a continuous basis. "Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale," writes Carrie Grimes on the official Google Blog. "Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day." Now not only does Caffeine provide results that are 50 percent fresher than Google's last index, adds Grimes, but the new search index provides a robust foundation that will make it possible for Google to build a faster and more comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online.
Microsoft Office 2010 Will NOT Support Windows XP
In short, Windows XP and previous operating systems are not supported. XP Mode is also not supported.
Here's the word straight from the horse's mouth (click to enlarge):
Here's the word straight from the horse's mouth (click to enlarge):
Zetetics: Phone Call Lead Tracking
We've launched our new Zetetics Phone Tracking suite.
Have a specific advertisement (billboard, newspaper, magazine, online) that you want to track EXACT ROI for?
Go beyond traditional clicks and impressions to get a true picture of your ROI by measuring the calls delivered from your advertising campaigns.
SmartBox Zetetics tells you exactly which ads, campaigns and channels are bringing in calls, and which aren’t – so you can make changes on the fly to improve your ROI.
Learn more about how it works at: http://smartboxwebmarketing.com/zetetics.htm
Military Taps Social Networking To Hunt Insurgents
The New York Times has an interesting article about the thousands of analysts based in the United States for the Central Intelligence Agency and the US military who are showing how the Facebook generation's skills are being exploited — and paying dividends — in America's wars. Analysts monitor enemy communications and scan still images from drones in Afghanistan, then log the information into chatrooms, carrying on a running dialogue with drone crews and commanders and intelligence specialists in the field, who receive the information on computers and then radio the most urgent bits to troops on patrol. Marine intelligence officers say that during an offensive in February, the analysts managed to stay a step ahead of the advance, sending alerts about 300 or so possible roadside bombs, paving the way for soldiers to roll into Marja in southern Afghanistan with minimal casualties. 'To be that tapped into the tactical fight from 7,000 to 8,000 miles away was pretty much unheard of before,' said Gunnery Sgt. Sean N. Smothers, a Marine who stationed as a liaison to the analysts. New analysts, who were practically weaned on computers and interactive video games, have been crucial to hunting insurgents and saving American lives in Afghanistan. The Air Force, which has 4,000 analysts, is hiring 2,100 more. For the most part, the networking has been so productive that senior commanders are sidestepping some of the traditional military hierarchy and giving the analysts leeway in deciding how to use some spy planes.
Facebook Growth By Age Group: Share of College-Age Users is Declining
With the U.S. now accounting for only about a third of all Facebook users, we are starting to see a gradual shift away from its original demographic of college-age users (18-25): 46% of all users are 18-25 years old, down from 51% in late May. The number of users in the 18-25 segment is growing, but at a slower pace than the other age groups. Among the major Facebook age segments, the fastest growing are teens (13-17) and young (26-34) to middle-age (35-44) professionals, with the growth in teens driven by non-U.S. markets. Also note the strong growth in the much smaller 45-54 and 55-59 age groups:
In the U.S., 51% of Facebook users are 18-25 years old, down from 59% in late May. But when one looks at other large and/or fast-growing Facebook markets, the share of the 18-25 age group is less than 50% in most of them:
And a breakdown of where all these new users are based out of..
AT&T Set to Cancel Unlimited Data Plans
Several readers have sent in followups to Wednesday's news that AT&T was eliminating its unlimited data plan. Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics defends the new plan, writing, "Imagine, for a moment, if we bought electricity the way we buy data in this country. Every month, you would pay a fixed amount of money (say, $120), and then you would use as much electricity as you wanted, with an incentive to use as much as you could. That brings price stability to the end user, but it's a horrible way to manage electricity load." Others point out that this will likely engender more scrutiny from regulatory agencies and watchdog groups. A Computerworld article says that one way or the other, AT&T's decision is a huge deal for the mobile computing industry, influencing not only how other carriers look at data rates, but how content providers and advertisers will need to start thinking about a data budget if they want consumers to keep visiting their sites. AT&T, responding to criticism, has decided to allow iPad buyers to use the old, unlimited plan as long as they order before June 7, and Gizmodo has raised the question of "rollover bytes.
Amazon Seeks 1-Nod Ordering Patent
Amazon.com is famous for its patented 1-Click ordering system. But what about 1-Nod ordering? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is seeking a patent on a system that would let people make purchases with a nod, a smile or even a raise of the eyebrow. Bezos' invention — 'Movement Recognition as Input Mechanism' — envisions a computing device that could interpret certain facial expressions and enhance or potentially replace conventional input devices such as keypads and touch screens.
Does the Internet Make Humanity Smarter Or Dumber?
The Wall Street Journal is running a pair of articles asking whether the Internet is making humanity smarter or dumber. The argument for smarter is that the Internet is simply a change in the rules of publishing, and that the bad material is thrown away; the second story critiques the 'information overload' aspect of the Internet, claiming that we have traded depth of knowledge for velocity and span. What do you think? Does the Internet make you stupid?
Microsoft Cancels Bing Cashback Program
Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Online Audience Business Group, recently announced, 'One of the principles we have here at Bing is to constantly experiment and learn. We do this to ensure we are keeping pace with new social and technology trends, and can continue to deliver great value for our customers and advertisers. As part of this "test-and-learn" mentality, we will be retiring the Bing cashback feature, which means that the last day you can earn cashback will be July 30, 2010.' From the look of the comments, Microsoft has at least 35 saddened users. eWeek does a follow-up attempting to explain the situation in more detail.
The Apple Broadcast Network
In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild. That makes a proprietary amalgam greater than what the TV networks had in 1959 and one that easily serves as a foundation for a pending broadcast network that will be delivered not through tall radio towers, but through small wireless hubs and the Internet. Call it the Apple Broadcast Network. iAd is how Apple plans to pay for it.
Google Says It Generates $54 Billion for U.S. Economy
Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, generated $54 billion in U.S. economic activity in 2009 as businesses turned to online advertising amid the economic slowdown.
The Internet company helped generate revenue for advertisers, website publishers and nonprofit organizations, Google said in a report released today. For the first time, it broke down its economic impact in all 50 U.S. states, with California getting the biggest benefit at $14.1 billion.
“We make most of our revenue from the ads shown next to our search results, on our other websites and the websites of our partners,” the Mountain View, California-based company said in the report. “Through these ad programs, we help many others make a living, too.”
Google, which reported $23.7 billion in revenue last year, is looking for more customers amid competition from rivals such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. The Internet’s share of overall advertising spending is expected to rise to 17 percent in 2012 from 13 percent last year, according to ZenithOptimedia, a London-based ad buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA.
The economic impact described in the report reflects the revenue generated by Google’s search engine and the ads that run next to query results, a program called AdWords. It also includes the amount Google pays to websites that run ads, as well as grants it makes to nonprofit organizations, the company said.
“We conservatively estimate that for every $1 a business spends on AdWords, they receive an average of $8 in profit through Google Search and AdWords,” the company said in its report.
The company said the overall estimates are conservative, leaving out economic benefits such as consumers being able to find information or the effect of spending by local Google employees.
The Internet company helped generate revenue for advertisers, website publishers and nonprofit organizations, Google said in a report released today. For the first time, it broke down its economic impact in all 50 U.S. states, with California getting the biggest benefit at $14.1 billion.
“We make most of our revenue from the ads shown next to our search results, on our other websites and the websites of our partners,” the Mountain View, California-based company said in the report. “Through these ad programs, we help many others make a living, too.”
Google, which reported $23.7 billion in revenue last year, is looking for more customers amid competition from rivals such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. The Internet’s share of overall advertising spending is expected to rise to 17 percent in 2012 from 13 percent last year, according to ZenithOptimedia, a London-based ad buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA.
The economic impact described in the report reflects the revenue generated by Google’s search engine and the ads that run next to query results, a program called AdWords. It also includes the amount Google pays to websites that run ads, as well as grants it makes to nonprofit organizations, the company said.
“We conservatively estimate that for every $1 a business spends on AdWords, they receive an average of $8 in profit through Google Search and AdWords,” the company said in its report.
The company said the overall estimates are conservative, leaving out economic benefits such as consumers being able to find information or the effect of spending by local Google employees.
Ballmer Says Microsoft Wasted Time On Vista
In a chat with fellow CEOs at Microsoft's 14th annual CEO Summit, Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer came close to admitting Vista was a dog."How do you get your product right? How do you help the customer? How do you be patient?" he asked, as if he knew the answer. What he did know was that Microsoft spent too many years building Windows Vista. "We tried too big a task and in the process wound up losing thousands of man hours of innovation," he said.
IE Market Share Falls To Historic Low
Predicting that Microsoft will lose market share from month to month isn't especially difficult. Yet it is amazing to see the downfall of what was once a bastion for Microsoft. It appears that Microsoft can't defend IE against Firefox and, as it seems, Google's Chrome. Net Applications now believes that IE has a share of less than 60%, which is about the range that IE had in early 1999, when IE5 was launched. IE is now officially back in the 1990s. Chrome, by the way, is the fastest growing browser, both in absolute numbers and percentages. It is well ahead of Safari and more than tripled its share within 12 months.
Bing Loses More Money As Microsoft Chases Google
Microsoft posted strong results for the third quarter of its 2010 fiscal year, largely thanks to sales of Windows 7. But the company continues to suffer heavy losses in its Online Services Division as it tries to match Google in the online search and advertising market. ... The division's quarterly loss grew by 73 percent to $713 million, compared to a loss of $411 million during the same period last year.
Fake Antivirus Peddlers Outpacing Real AV Firms
An anonymous reader tips a writeup at KrebsOnSecurity.com detailing how purveyors of fake antivirus or 'scareware' programs have aggressively stepped up their game to evade detection. The posting is based on a report from Google's malware detection team (PDF)."Beginning in June 2009, Google charted a massive increase in the number of unique fake antivirus installer programs, a spike that Google security experts posit was a bid to overwhelm the ability of legitimate antivirus programs to detect the programs. Indeed, the company discovered that during that time frame, the number of unique installer programs increased from an average of 300 to 1,462 per day, causing the detection rate to plummet to below 20 percent. ... In addition, Google determined that the average lifetime of sites that redirect users to Web pages that try to install scareware decreased over time, with the median lifetime dropping below 100 hours around April 2009, below 10 hours around September 2009, and below one hour since January 2010."
Google Traffic Dominates the Internet
Like a giant gravity-bending star, Google has grown so massive it is starting to have a measurable effect on Internet traffic flows, an analysis of the company's activities has found.
The blog analysis by Arbor Network's Craig Labovitz follows on from his company's Atlas Observatory Report of last October which offered a fascinating insight into how the Internet is being moulded by a small and decreasing number of super-carriers, with Google at their head.
Arbor has now provided more detail on the astounding explosion of Google's Internet presence, which as of last summer it estimates as accounting for peak rates of 10 percent of all Internet inter-domain Internet traffic it sees travelling through its servers.
Between June 2007 and a year later, the average traffic percentage grew from around 1 percent to around 2.5 percent; by last summer the percentage was a minimum of 5 percent and growing.
The main reason was Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2007, which consumes huge volumes of video traffic, the application that almost on its own is driving capacity growth at the peer network level.
As significant as their sheer number is how all these Google-related packets move across the Internet. In mid-2007, Google used third-party "transit" (i.e other networks) for a large percentage of its Internet traffic. By this February, Arbor reckons that over 60 percent of Google's traffic was being channelled through direct interconnects that link its massive data centres to one another.
To put this in less technical terms, Google and the customers using its services are not so much using the Internet as Google's own private corner of it, a peered network within a wider Internetwork.
Arbor's Labovitz reminds us that Google has apparently spent the last year installing Google Global Cache Servers (GGCs) in as many as half of all third-party consumer networks in the US and Europe, which extends the edge of its network into even more data centres.
"Unlike most global carriers, Google's backbone does not deliver traffic on behalf of millions of subscribers nor thousands of regional networks and large enterprises. Google's infrastructure supports, well, only Google," comments Labovitz.
Famous for its search, e-mail and YouTube video sharing, Google has quietly and relentlessly turned itself into the first super-carrier of the Internet era.
The blog analysis by Arbor Network's Craig Labovitz follows on from his company's Atlas Observatory Report of last October which offered a fascinating insight into how the Internet is being moulded by a small and decreasing number of super-carriers, with Google at their head.
Arbor has now provided more detail on the astounding explosion of Google's Internet presence, which as of last summer it estimates as accounting for peak rates of 10 percent of all Internet inter-domain Internet traffic it sees travelling through its servers.
Between June 2007 and a year later, the average traffic percentage grew from around 1 percent to around 2.5 percent; by last summer the percentage was a minimum of 5 percent and growing.
The main reason was Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2007, which consumes huge volumes of video traffic, the application that almost on its own is driving capacity growth at the peer network level.
As significant as their sheer number is how all these Google-related packets move across the Internet. In mid-2007, Google used third-party "transit" (i.e other networks) for a large percentage of its Internet traffic. By this February, Arbor reckons that over 60 percent of Google's traffic was being channelled through direct interconnects that link its massive data centres to one another.
To put this in less technical terms, Google and the customers using its services are not so much using the Internet as Google's own private corner of it, a peered network within a wider Internetwork.
Arbor's Labovitz reminds us that Google has apparently spent the last year installing Google Global Cache Servers (GGCs) in as many as half of all third-party consumer networks in the US and Europe, which extends the edge of its network into even more data centres.
"Unlike most global carriers, Google's backbone does not deliver traffic on behalf of millions of subscribers nor thousands of regional networks and large enterprises. Google's infrastructure supports, well, only Google," comments Labovitz.
Famous for its search, e-mail and YouTube video sharing, Google has quietly and relentlessly turned itself into the first super-carrier of the Internet era.
Google TV Is Coming to Your Living Room
Google is working with Intel, Sony and other partners to develop Google TV, a service aimed at putting the Internet search giant's Web offerings in people's living rooms, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Google TV will combine the company's Android mobile operating system and applications with television devices made for the OS, including set-top boxes, the paper says.
The TV technology will run on Intel's Atom chips, the report says, and Google will develop a new version of its Chrome browser for the TV project.
In a similar report, the Wall Street Journal reported some of the same information. Both papers cited unnamed sources for their information.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The use of Android for TV could put applications and other software developed for the OS on TVs in addition to smartphones, the devices the OS was designed for. The companies working on the project, which also reportedly include Logitech, "envision technology that will make it easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel," the New York Times says.
Google will open the TV platform to Android developers as part of the initiative, with a software developer's kit, the New York Times reports.
Several companies have already started using Android in devices made for TVs, including set-top boxes and 2D/3D graphics accelerators, designed around MIPS Technologies' chip architecture. MIPS and its partners have done the development work on Android to tweak it for use in such devices.
Android was designed to work with Arm processing cores, the most popular cores in smartphones, but some companies have ported Android to other chip processing architectures, including MIPS and Intel's x86 processing architecture.
Google TV will combine the company's Android mobile operating system and applications with television devices made for the OS, including set-top boxes, the paper says.
The TV technology will run on Intel's Atom chips, the report says, and Google will develop a new version of its Chrome browser for the TV project.
In a similar report, the Wall Street Journal reported some of the same information. Both papers cited unnamed sources for their information.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The use of Android for TV could put applications and other software developed for the OS on TVs in addition to smartphones, the devices the OS was designed for. The companies working on the project, which also reportedly include Logitech, "envision technology that will make it easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel," the New York Times says.
Google will open the TV platform to Android developers as part of the initiative, with a software developer's kit, the New York Times reports.
Several companies have already started using Android in devices made for TVs, including set-top boxes and 2D/3D graphics accelerators, designed around MIPS Technologies' chip architecture. MIPS and its partners have done the development work on Android to tweak it for use in such devices.
Android was designed to work with Arm processing cores, the most popular cores in smartphones, but some companies have ported Android to other chip processing architectures, including MIPS and Intel's x86 processing architecture.
Facebook Ousts Google As Most Popular Web Site
Facebook has become the most visited site in the US, the first time Google hasn't held the top spot since 2007.
According to internet monitors Hitwise in the week ending March 13 Facebook accounted for 7.07 per cent of web visits, compared to Google's 7.03 per cent.
“The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185 per cent last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased nine per cent during the same time frame,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, in a blog posting.
“Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14 per cent of all US Internet visits last week. “
Facebook was also the most popular site on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day, as well as the weekend of March 6-7. The last time Google wasn't the most popular site was September 2007, when MySpace displaced it.
Facebook's traffic dipped towards the end of last year but the success of games like Farmville have boosted traffic significantly.
According to internet monitors Hitwise in the week ending March 13 Facebook accounted for 7.07 per cent of web visits, compared to Google's 7.03 per cent.
“The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185 per cent last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased nine per cent during the same time frame,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, in a blog posting.
“Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14 per cent of all US Internet visits last week. “
Facebook was also the most popular site on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day, as well as the weekend of March 6-7. The last time Google wasn't the most popular site was September 2007, when MySpace displaced it.
Facebook's traffic dipped towards the end of last year but the success of games like Farmville have boosted traffic significantly.
New Site Launch!
We've just launched our new completely redesigned website at http://smartboxwebmarketing.com/
It's still a hair rough on the edges, but browse around, and if you find any bugs please report them! :)
It's still a hair rough on the edges, but browse around, and if you find any bugs please report them! :)
Microsoft Says, Don't Press the F1 Key In XP
Microsoft has issued a security advisory warning users not to press the F1 key in Windows XP, owing to an unpatched bug in VBScript discovered by Polish researcher Maurycy Prodeus. The security advisory says that the vulnerability relates to the way VBScript interacts with Windows Help files when using Internet Explorer, and could be triggered by a user pressing the F1 key after visiting a malicious Web site using a specially crafted dialog box.
HoneyGrid Reveals 95% of User Generated Content is Spam or Malicious
Websense Security Labs has published its bi-annual State of Internet Security report and, as usual, it makes for pretty interesting if somewhat scary reading.
Covering the last six months of 2009, the report is based upon the findings of the ThreatSeeker Network which is used to discover, classify and monitor global Internet threats and trends courtesy of something called the Internet HoneyGrid.
Makes you wonder if someone searching for you actually finds you, or just the 'noise.'
So what did the HoneyGrid have to report about the Internet security threatscape for Q3/Q4 2009?
Here are the key findings:
Covering the last six months of 2009, the report is based upon the findings of the ThreatSeeker Network which is used to discover, classify and monitor global Internet threats and trends courtesy of something called the Internet HoneyGrid.
Makes you wonder if someone searching for you actually finds you, or just the 'noise.'
So what did the HoneyGrid have to report about the Internet security threatscape for Q3/Q4 2009?
Here are the key findings:
- 13.7% of searches for trending news/buzz words (as defined by Yahoo Buzz & Google Trends) led to malware.
- The second half of 2009 revealed a 3.3% decline in the growth of malicious Web sites compared to the first half of the year. Websense Security Labs believes this is due to the increased focus on Web 2.0 properties with higher traffic and multiple pages.
- However, comparing the second half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Websense Security labs saw an average of 225% growth in malicious Web sites.
- 71% of Web sites with malicious code are legitimate sites that have been compromised.
- 95% of user-generated posts on Web sites are spam or malicious.
- Consistent with previous years, 51% of malware still connects to host Web sites registered in the United States.
- China remains second most popular malware hosting country with 17%, but during the last six months Spain jumped into the third place with 15.7% despite never having been in the top 5 countries before.
- 81% of emails during the second half of the year contained a malicious link.
- Websense Security Labs identified that 85.8% of all emails were spam.
- Statistics for the second half of 2009 show spam emails broke down as 72% (HTML), 11.2% (image), 14.4% (plain text with URL) and 2.4% (plain text with no URL).
- 35% of malicious Web-based attacks included data-stealing code.
- 58% of all data-stealing attacks are conducted over the Web.
De-Anonymizing Social Network Users
The H has an article about some researchers who found a new way to de-anonymize people. Compared to the EFF's Panopticlick, the goal of this experiment is not to identify a user's browser uniquely, but to identify individual users.
The test essentially exploits the fact that many social network users are identifiable by their membership of various groups. According to the researchers, it's very unlikelly that two people on any social network will belong to exactly the same groups. A 'group fingerprint' can thus allow websites to identify previously anonymous visitors. They describe the setup and all details and the results look very interesting.
They also have a live demo for the social network Xing that was able to de-anonymize me.
The test essentially exploits the fact that many social network users are identifiable by their membership of various groups. According to the researchers, it's very unlikelly that two people on any social network will belong to exactly the same groups. A 'group fingerprint' can thus allow websites to identify previously anonymous visitors. They describe the setup and all details and the results look very interesting.
They also have a live demo for the social network Xing that was able to de-anonymize me.
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