This may be easier said than done, and among their biggest competitors in this effort is obviously Google.

While Facebook is essentially a social network it has been trying to incorporate search into social. On the other hand, Google which is basically a search engine has been working hard to get a foothold in social through their social network Google +.

Facebook certainly has a much larger user base than Google +. This could work in its favour as they will be able to attract more people to see their ads. However, certain features of Google +, are more attractive than those on Facebook.

While users of Facebook are mostly connected only to their friends due to the privacy settings of that network, it is easier to get in touch with a wide variety of people on Google +.

This kind of networking obviously leads to more stimulating and informative discussions, rather than the discussions on Facebook where people usually talk to each other about their day to day schedule or days events.

Also users can access many more sites such as Places, Maps and Navigation, YouTube and others through Google +.

Based on these observations one will have to wait and watch which social network will ultimately attract more advertisers and thus generate more revenue.

This finding was based on a survey conducted by Opera to study the demographics of mobile browsers. The global study surveyed over 34,000 users. The study compared how users in different countries prefer to use Opera Mini or Opera Mobile, as the case may be.

One of the most interesting facts found was that in some countries, about 50% of new users connect directly to a mobile device and have never used a traditional desktop computer.

Mobile-only Internet connections by country. Source: Opera Software

56% of Opera users connect to the Internet directly through their mobiles, while 43% of users on other browsers do the same. Users of Opera were also found to be much more likely to buy music or games via the Internet than users of other browsers.

These findings are not really surprising. Industry experts had long predicted that users in developing countries were likely to jump straight to mobile Internet usage as many rural areas in these countries lacked landline connectivity but could be serviced by mobile networks.

Even in developing countries, young Internet users are found to favour mobile connections and could contribute further to driving the disparity between new mobile and desktop connections.

Google’s cloud storage service is called ‘Drive’, while Microsoft has named their cloud storage service ‘Sky Drive’.

Both services allow users easy access to all their stored data across all the devices that they use, be it a desktop, a mobile phone or a tablet computer. To do this, the user has to download the feature to all his computers. He can then easily create, share and collaborate all his information from any of the connected devices.

Both GDrive and Sky Drive have some pros and cons and only time will tell which of the two is really more useful than the other.

It is easier to store data on Google’s cloud storage system because of the ease with which Google Docs operates. It is possible to store data in various formats including Microsoft Word. On the other hand, Microsoft’s SkyDrive operates with Web Office which is a little more cluttered, and it also allows storage only in Office format. Loading data on Google Docs is also faster than on Web Office.

Google Drive also has better search features compared to SkyDrive and also offers video previews, making it easier to select which video one wants to download. Google’s service also offers users a larger variety of paid storage options ranging from 25 gigabytes for $2.49 per month to 16 terabytes for $800 a month.

On the other hand, Sky Drive offers 7GB of free storage capacity, which is better than the 5 GB free storage offered by Google. Moreover, Microsoft is offering 25 GB free to existing users who upgrade to the new service. SkyDrive offers fewer paid storage options, but the service is cheaper with an offer of 50 GB extra for $25 per year or a maximum of 100 GB at $50 year. 100GB is generally thought to be more than enough for most regular users.

SkyDrive gives better remote access to users via SkyDrive.com. Editing a document is also easier on Microsoft’s cloud storage system than it is on Google’s Drive.

Industry opinion currently seems to favour Microsoft’s offering. However, individual users might go for Google simply because the brand has greater leverage than Microsoft and they trust Google more. That said, businesses might prefer Microsoft’s offering because of its seamless integration with Microsoft Office, which is still the leading productivity app for enterprise.

20 members of the European Union have already decided to agree to the terms of the treaty. However, the final say remains in the hands of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in Brussels.

The guiding “rapporteur” for the treaty David Martin MEP, has already advised, fellow members of the European Parliament to reject the terms of the treaty.

In his written recommendations he says, “The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties. Given the vagueness of certain aspects of the text and the uncertainty over its interpretation, the European Parliament cannot guarantee adequate protection for citizens’ rights in the future under ACTA.”

If Europe does indeed reject ACTA, the 20 members who have agreed to its terms will also have to back out. This will then leave the U.S. along with a few other countries such as Australia, Canada, South Korea and Japan to fight for the treaty.

David Martin says that one of the main reasons why this treaty should be rejected is the secrecy that governments can adopt while dealing with this clause.

In 2010, ACTA had been rejected because of its three-strike clause, that allowed persistent file-sharers and copyright infringers to be forced off the web after three warnings.

David Martin has further said that “Fear and rumour about ACTA still remain. There is a belief that ACTA will alter the nature of the internet by putting legal pressure on Internet Service Providers to police their service.”

He does however clarify that even if ACTA is rejected, the commission will be proposing new directives and legislation to this end, and they have already started work in this direction.

A study conducted by The Boston Consulting Group has revealed that of all the G20 nations, U.K. ranks first as far as generating part of the GDP through the Internet is concerned.

The study reveals that in 2010 internet based businesses contributed ₤121 billion to the U.K. economy, which is 8.3% of the GDP. In contrast the average contribution by internet based businesses in other developed countries was 5.3%.

This amount was higher than the amount generated by other more traditional industries such as construction and education.

The impact of the Internet on the economy is also set to go up further in due course. It has been estimated that by online sales in the U.K. would account for 25% of all shopping in the country. U.K. would be followed by Germany at 11.7%.

The internet actually contributes an even larger but unmeasured share tot eh economy as it has been found that a further 11.5% of shopping in the U.K. is researched online before being bought offline.

This information reinforces the belief that providing education regarding the World Wide Web can only be a good thing for the future of the country.

The whole controversy first started when a Stanford University graduate student, Jonathan Mayer, said that Google was bypassing the privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser and tracking users on iPhones and Macs.

Soon thereafter, Microsoft followed with similar allegations.

Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet Explorer at Microsoft, has said that “Google is employing similar methods to get around the default privacy protections in IE and track IE users with cookies.”

According to him, Microsoft has already contacted Google and asked them to stop tracking users of IE and other browsers, in writing.

He has also advised users to use The Internet Explorer 9, in order to protect their privacy.

He says, “By default, IE blocks third-party cookies unless the site presents a P3P Compact Policy Statement indicating how the site will use the cookie and that the site’s use does not include tracking the user. Google’s P3P policy causes Internet Explorer to accept Google’s cookies even though the policy does not state Google’s intent.”

Google has of course, countered the allegations by saying that the P3P policy used by Microsoft is outdated since it was started in 2002, and therefore is not practical to follow. They have also cited a report of 2010, which shows that over 11,000 web sites were not issuing valid P3P policies.

A study conducted by KPMG has shown that while users are not very keen to pay for streaming TV shows, about 64% of U.K. users do not mind having to pay for streaming movies.

The percentage of users willing to pay is also likely to increase as more streaming services now become available, thereby increasing choice and eventually lowering prices due to competition.

The awareness of online streaming services is also growing rapidly according to the BBC. The popularity of these online streaming services, though, is growing at the cost of the popularity of other traditional media channels such as reading and watching TV.

In fact, it has been found that the reading of newspapers, magazines and even books, online is growing at a very rapid rate. The use of these online services is growing not only for desktop users but also among users of mobiles and tablets.

At the same time, however, online piracy continues to proliferate and is turning into a major issue involving international sting operations by the FBI as with the arrest of Kim Dotcom, the founder of the file sharing site Megaupload in New Zealand last week.

The U.S. Congress is also trying to pass new, more stringent legislation against online piracy in the form of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but this is being vehemently opposed by various sections including Facebook and Google, who feel that this would amount to censorship. Wikipedia had even undertaken a total online blackout for 24 hours to protest against the proposed legislation.

Such dramatic news from the USA is also likely to influence consumers in the UK to subscribe to movie streaming services in order to avoid persecution for downloading or streaming copyrighted content illegaly.

The last CEO, Carol Bartz, had been asked to go by chairman Roy Bostock quite unceremoniously last September, and CFO Tim Morse was named as Interim CEO of the beleaguered company.

Yahoo! has now announced that they have found a suitable candidate in Scott Thompson, to lead the company. He has been the president of online payments firm, Paypal, which is a subsidiary of eBay.

Mr. Thompson has a tough task ahead of him, to say the least. He will not only have to focus on rebuilding the core business of Yahoo! but he will also have to carry out a strategic review of what new investments to make and existing business lines to dispose off.

According to Stuart Miles of technology blogsite Pocket-lint, Thompson will have to decide on whether they should concentrate on product innovation or content creation.

Yahoo! was founded by David Filo and Jerry Yang in January 1994 and was incorporated in March 1995. The company had a great run for the first decade or so. It was around 2005, with the rapid growth of Google that their troubles started. In 2008 they had to lay-off several employees, but when Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to take over the company at $33 per share, they refused the offer, saying that they were being under-valued.

However, the company has never fully recovered from that set back, and the share price continues to hover around $15 ever since. Will Scott Thomson change Yahoo!’s fortunes?

The study was conducted across six countries – Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The most important reason for this surge in usage of the internet is the increasing accessibility to broadband networks through Wi-Fi services, smartphones and other gadgets such as tablets, in addition to the continuing proliferation of traditional PCs in the region.

Users in Singapore were found to use the Internet the most among these countries, averaging about 25 hours per week. Among the other countries surveyed, Indonesians use the Internet the least, clocking an average of just 14 hours per week.

Time spent online in Southeast Asia

While PCs (desktops as well as laptops) continue to be used, devices such as smartphones and tablets are starting to cut into their market share. In Indonesia, 78% of users have got Internet-capable mobile phones as compared to just 29 percent who owned notebook computers or 31 percent with desktops.

While communicating through email is the most popular activity in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand, users in Vietnam and Indonesia were more interested in accessing the news. Social networks are also becoming quite popular in this region and expectedly Facebook is the dominant network here too. YouTube is also among the top 5 sites visited in these countries.

Consumers in the region are also taking an interest in communicating with various brands online and often use the Internet to make decisions before purchasing any item. They also tend to post their own reviews later.

However, online advertising is still not a very popular medium of communication in this region. However, with the increasing use of the Internet, online marketers should concentrate on this region as it can only be good for them in the long run.

Melanie Ingrey, Nielsen’s research director for the APMEA region says, “Online activity is only going to increase in the years ahead as more consumers obtain smartphones, and 3G and broadband access become more common and affordable.”

Delicious was part of the Yahoo! network and used to be one of the most popular sites in its category. In December last year, there was news that Yahoo! intended to shut down the website.

Following this, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who had earlier developed and then sold YouTube, decided to buy it over from Yahoo! Delicious was taken over as part of their new company called Avos, which they had formed in April 2011.

Both Hurley and Chen had been thinking about the fact that there is always a flood of information on the Internet, and it is very difficult for users to go through all of it and reach the information that they are really looking for. With the revamp of Delicious, they hope to be able to simplify this process for users.

The new Delicious is supposedly a place where users can see the most recent links shared around topical events. On the homepage, users will now see browseable “stacks”, which are collections of images, videos or links to a particular topic.

Stack on Delicious about the TV programme, Merlin

Speaking about the newly launched site, Chad Hurley sa, “We want to simplify things visually, mainstream the product and make it easier for people to understand what they’re doing.” If this idea catches on, Delicious could soon become far more popular than it ever was in the past.

However, the first mover advantage that Delicious once had is no longer the case. Sites like Facebook and Google+ already have far more viewers and are extremely popular for social sharing. StumbleUpon has steadily grown in popularity as a social discovery tool.

Since the demise of Delicious a number of bookmarking sites have stepped in, but none have become quite as popular. While the organisation of information that the new service offers is great, conceptually, the new owners of Delicious might find that their absence from the market has cost them dearly and that they’ve missed the boat to become a social media powerhouse.

During working hours, in the day time, users mostly use desktop computers. In contrast to this, tablet devices such as the iPad and Android Tab, which are also becoming quite popular, are used mostly in the late evening or night time.

Smartphones and other mobile phones are used at a fairly steady pace throughout the day. This means that people make use of mobiles when they are at work, at home and also when they are traveling to and from home or work.

Percentage of day’s queries by hour from tablet, mobile and desktops

What is most striking about this finding is the fact that even though tablets are portable devices, just like smartphones, they are used mostly in the leisure and comfort of one’s home, while it is the mobile phone that gets used at work as well as on the go.

These findings are especially useful to advertisers, who may be wondering which screen is the most effective when trying to reach a target audience at a particular time of the day.

The most logical inference is that all the screens are important, as each one fulfills a particular requirement, and is used at a different time for a different purpose. Hence, it would be best for advertisers to make use of all the types of screens in order to reach the maximum possible number of users and create maximum brand awareness. That said, different messaging could be used when targeting each device type, while keeping in mind the typical time of day when such a device is likely to be used.

The study found that nearly 45% of users were using the mobile phone to access the internet as compared to about 31% in 2010 and only about 23% in 2009.

Expectedly, the highest rate of growth was seen in the 16-24 year olds age group. In 2009 33% of users in this age group were using the mobile internet, while 71% do so now. In contrast only about 8% of those above 65 years of age use mobile internet connections.

The survey also found that nearly 77% of households in the country now have an internet connection. Nearly half of the remaining 23% felt that they did not need an internet connection.

It was also revealed that the use of wifi hotspots in places such as restaurants malls etc. has gone up dramatically. There are over 3 million such hotspots in the country now.

About 4.9 million people or 13% now use this facility. This is a seven fold increase compared to 2007, and the figure has also doubled since last year. The figure of connects through this means is expected to reach 120 billion by 2015.

These findings suggest that in spite of the growing popularity of 3G services, free and paid-for wireless services continue to remain popular.

The riots first broke out on the 6th of August in retaliation to police shooting a 29-year-old man named Mark Duggan in Tottenham (North-East London) on the 4th of August.

Local residents started to protest outside the Tottenham police station, but the protest then spread to a much larger area, involving about 20 neighbourhoods. The protest quickly turned into a violent riot.

A lot of the rioters resorted to using the Internet as a means of coordinating their “protests”. Possibly the most popular means here has been Blackberry Messenger, which allows people to communicate through its instant messaging technology in-built on all Blackberry handsets.

Other services such as Facebook and Twitter were also used, of course.

Not only were people instigated to take part in the riots through the use of these services, but photos and videos of arson were also uploaded and circulated widely. This further instigated otherwise casual observers to join in on the rioting and looting.

The other side to this story is the fact that the very technology that helped spread the violence is now being used to identify and locate the perpetrators of the violence.

Metropolitan Police using Flickr to catch London looters

Blackberry’s instant messaging service RIM will now be used by the police to find those who instigated the public to eventually led to so much of damage and destruction.

It is believed that the police are already making use of the data provided by RIM, and working within the guidelines of the Data Protection Act they will be able to make use of this information to nab the culprits.

Some civilians are also helping the police with this investigation. A group of people from Google have formed London Riots Facial Recognition. This is a group that requires membership and will make use of technology to help identify the arsonists.

Even more admirably, a number of civilian groups also used social media to band together and fight off looters as well as to organise clean-up groups to rectify the damage in their neighbourhoods without waiting for the government to act on it.

While London is quickly recovering from the shock and remedying the damage already done, most have been remind that while technology can be harmful in the hands of the wrong people, it can be extremely helpful when used by the right people with the right intentions.

Microsoft Advertising recently recently posted the results of research analysing how Indians spend their time online. The study, titled “Living with the Internet” was carried out by Microsoft Advertising, MEC and Mindshare, and it provides interesting results.

Indians were found to spend:

• 49% of their time communicating
• 35% of the time seeking information
• 22% of their time on entertainment activities
• 14% of the time creating content on digital spaces (status updates etc)
• 12% of their time making online transactions.

In addition, it was also found that 81% of time spent reading the news or looking for information, is planned. Similarly, 81% of activities such as communicating, online chatting and networking are also planned. Even downloading or streaming videos, playing games or listening to music are planned 60% of the time.

In contrast, activities such as updating blogs, uploading photos and online transactions are unplanned nearly 50% of the time.

Another issue being studied is the popularity of laptops versus smart phones. While it was found that both gadgets are equally popular for searches on the go, laptops are more popular for other activities.

Laptops were used for communication 51% of the time compared to smart phones 46% of the time. Laptops were used for entertainment 23% of the time versus 17% for smart phones and laptops were used for transactions 13% of the time compared to 8% for smart phones.

This information is especially important to marketers and brands planning to target the Indian subcontinent as the data shows a definite maturing of the online market, thereby enabling advertisers to connect better with their target audience online rather than having no option other than to advertise on television, billboards and newspapers.

Newzbin 2 is a members-only site, that allows its users to access illegal copies of movies and TV programmes.

The case was under Justice Arnold, who has ruled that BT must block access to this website, as he believes that BT has knowledge of persons who use this service and cause copyright infringement.

The judgement states, “In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.”

Rights holders have stated that Newzbin, the original site of Newzbin 2, which had been banned earlier, makes £1m a year from 700,000 members, but does not have any licence to do so.

While this judgement is a clear victory for the MPA, it is quite certain that BT and Newzbin 2 will appeal against it.

In the meantime, the MPA has every intention of following up, by targeting other services that also infringe on their copyright.

The judge has directed BT to use their CleanFeed technology to prevent Newzbin 2 from accessing content illegally. On the other hand, Newzbin 2 has threatened that if this is done, they will have to break the BT filters, which they do not think would be very difficult to do.

Digital Rights groups such as Open Rights Group have disapproved of the verdict. A statement issued by them says, “Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won’t work to stop infringement or boost creative industries.”

Either way, this judgement is a landmark ruling and could open the floodgates for a number of other copyright owners to sue similar services and get them blocked or shut down in a misguided attempt at resurrecting the out-of-date recording industry.

According to Charles Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group,  spelling errors are resulting in losses of millions of pounds in terms of revenue generation.

Duncombe, whose company runs travel, mobile phone and clothing websites, says that an analysis of online sales figures shows that even a single spelling mistake can reduce online sales of a product by half.

A simple test conducted on one of the group’s own websites measured the revenue generated per visitor with and without a prominent spelling mistake. They found that the revenue doubled after a spelling mistake was corrected.

It is a widely-held belief that spelling errors could lead to concerns about credibility, in a day and age when online fraud has become rampant. The spellings of words become important on the Internet because the selling itself is done by the written word online.

If we extrapolate Duncombe’s findings across the whole of online retail, then it’s easy to see how millions of pounds worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes.

The Confederation Of British Industry (CBI) has also issued similar statements, warning that often employers have to invest money in improving the literacy of their staff. The CBI’s head of education and skills, James Fothergill says, “Our recent research shows that 42% of employers are not satisfied with the basic reading and writing skills of school and college leavers and almost half have had to invest in remedial training to get their staff’s skills up to scratch.

Among school and university leavers, spelling mistakes and poor grammar are very common. Some people even use “text speak” in their job cover letters and official business communications. One of the reasons for this could be a growing dependence on social sites such as Facebook, where spellings and grammar are not given due importance.

William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University says that “In these instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a mis-spelt word could be a killer issue.”

The fact is that Yahoo! is not only big, but several of its properties are number one in their respective fields, while many others are at the number two position. Alex Linde, Yahoo! Director of Mobile Advertising, said during the OMMA Tablet Revolution Showcase at Internet Week New York 2011that “Yahoo! is the premier digital media company”.

Linde explained that Yahoo! reaches about 680 million users every month, which is about 50% of the online global population. They also reach about 187 million users in the U.S., which is almost 90% of PC users in the U.S.A.

Similarly, Yahoo! has a large clientele on sites like Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance and several other sites such as Flickr. Linde says, “We are the most trusted brand on the Web.”

According to the April 2011 comScore Media Metrix report, Yahoo! is the number one overall Web property and twelve of their properties are number one in their respective vertical sectors.

Yahoo! News Network, with 88 million users is far ahead of popular sites like CNN and MSNBC. Similarly, Yahoo! Finance is far ahead of Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and others. Yahoo! Sports is also far ahead of ESPN. Moreover, these Yahoo! properties have retained the number one position for the last several months.

In spite of this, Yahoo! seems to have lost the favoured position which it held, in the 1990’s.

Yahoo!’s Executive Vice President of the America’s region, Ross Levinsohn claims that this is just an evolution phase that the company is passing through. He describes it as “a generational thing. Not a Yahoo! thing.”

However, the company’s historical mis-steps have cost it in the long run, and even though it might continue to get visitors, it is unlikely to return to glory unless the management team at Yahoo! take some serious steps to bring the brand back into the limelight.

Researchers at Nielsen have found that consumers between the ages of 12 and 17 watch mobile videos more than any other age group. During the last quarter of 2010 they watched 7 hours and 13 minutes of mobile video per month on an average. This is almost twice as much as the average 4 hours and 20 minutes of mobile video watched by the general population.

Teenagers use mobile text messaging more than twice as much as people of other ages do. In the first quarter of 2011 they sent an average of 3,364 texts, compared to 1,640 texts by those between 18-24 years of age. They are also more receptive to mobile advertising than others. 58% of them said that they “always” or “sometimes” watch mobile ads.

These youngsters are also quite addicted to social media. While they account for just 7.4% of the total number of social media users, they account for 78.7% of visits to social networks and blogs.

On the other hand, teens talk much less on the phone today than teens did in the 80s and 90s. They spoke an average of 515 minutes on the phone compared to 750 minutes by those between the ages of 18 and 24. The only demographic to talk less on the phone are users over 65 years of age.

Television viewing among teens is  much less than other age groups. While this might seem to be a good thing for their health and development, it actually isn’t. Their time is spent much more in front of a mobile or computer screen. The average American watched 34 hours and 39 minutes of TV per week. 12-17 year olds watch only 23 hours and 41 minutes per week. Teenagers also use home computers much less than older people. 18 year olds spent 39 hours 50 minutes online, of which 5 hours 26 minutes were spent streaming videos.

Children under 10 typically spend a lot of time watching TV, but now they are being exposed more and more to digital activities such as playing online games, watching videos and using social networks.

According to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, 30% of 3 year olds spend time on computers and 80% of 4-5 year olds do so. 90% of those in the 6-8 year bracket use computers regularly.

They have selected Accenture PLC to build their official website, and Accenture in turn has decided that Google and their Video site YouTube are best equipped to handle the event.

It is estimated that about 400 million people will watch the event online. While this is a huge figure, nearly 2 billion are expected to watch on TV.

The official Google website will be the main source through which all authorised information will be relayed.

The revelation of the bride’s wedding dress is expected to generate much curiosity as also the kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Live feeds will also be posted on Twitter and Facebook.  Other broadcasters like BBC and CNN will also be relaying the events and it is hoped that the internet will not collapse under the pressure.

In the past events such as the death of Michael Jackson and the inauguration of Barack Obama have generated a lot of interest but this event is expected to be bigger.

While experts believe that the internet will be able to hold out, it is hoped that the mobile networks, which will also see a lot of pressure will not collapse.

Prince William’s spokeswoman has said, ‘We can’t predict what is going to happen with the Internet, but we are doing this with Google and YouTube — and if anyone has the experience to do this, it’s Google and YouTube.”

The Kindle is already very popular and is set to become even more popular in due course. The new model will cost U.S. $114, which is $25 lower than the price of the standard model at present. It is due to be shipped on the third of May.

Special offers from advertisers will be displayed on the screen of the new version of the Kindle. Among the sponsors will be brands like Visa, Olay and Buick.

Some of the special deals on offer include $10 for a $20 Amazon.com gift card, $10 for $30 worth of products from the Amazon Denim or Swim shops, $16 for 6 audible books (actual price $68).

Amazon has, however, promised that the ads will not distract readers as they will be displayed only at the bottom of the home page or when the device is idling.

A feature called AdMash will allow users to vote for their favourite screen savers. The most popular screen savers will become sponsored screen savers.

This new version of the Kindle is expected to help Amazon to better fight competition from Apple’s iPad and other tablet devices as well as Google’s upcoming e-book retail service.

Amazon has refused to comment on whether or not they will launch a similar version in The U.K.

In order to help out with these shortcomings, and to make sure that users receive accurate and latest information on the subject, Cancer Research UK, a charity that also has its own website, has decided to work on improving content on Wikipedia, which ranks higher on Google for searches relating to most types of cancer.

Henry Scowcroft, Scientific Communications Manager for Cancer Research UK says, “It has been our intention for a long time to be involved in the online discussion outside of our own website. Wikipedia is nearly always at the top of an Internet search for cancers. It’s not always that easy to understand and sometimes it can be inaccurate or not completely up-to-date. We want to increase the accuracy and clarity.”

Considering the fact that Wikipedia has a very large user base – they received over 3.5 million page views for ‘Cancer’ in January 2011 – this is a very good move on the part of Cancer Research UK.

However, this is really quite a mammoth task, and will require a lot of manpower as well as time. The project has already started off with an entry on the ‘Hallmarks of cancer’ and screening for the Human Papilloma Virus, a lot of thought and effort needs to be put in regarding the number of people required to contribute to this project, and also how much time each person will have to dedicate to each wiki.

One of the major hurdles that must be overcome, is the necessity to stay up-to-date with the information at all times, as new research and information are constantly coming up on the subject and to continuously monitor the Wiki pages in order to prevent others from editing the correct information and replacing it with lies or falsifications.

Several music recommendation services such as Pandora and The Echo Nest have sprung up recently, to help users to find the music of their choice. Orpheus Media Research conducted a study in February 2011, which was reported by Mashable, to find out how useful these services are.

The study was conducted a across a sample of 500 users over 18 years of age. Of the people surveyed, 61% were casual listeners of music, 35% were music enthusiasts and only 4% were indifferent to music. 40% of the respondents had over a 1,000 songs in their personal music library, and 59% felt that music played a key role in their social lives.

The study reveals that 54% of the respondents had used a music recommendation service, and 40% of them use such services quite regularly, ranging from a few times a week to daily.

While only 15% (77 individuals) of the total number of people surveyed said that they found the type of music they liked while using music recommendation sites, 92% of these people had gone on to become fans and had even recommended the music to their friends.

However, 40% of the participants said that the services proved to be accurate less than 50% of the time, and 22% even said that it was nearly impossible to find the music of their choice.

57% of the users said that they still refer to the radio or word-of-mouth method to find the right kind of music. 14% use main stream media, while 10% use music streaming services.

Room for Improvement

No single service provider is a clear winner in this market. Most users create profiles across a number of services and use a combination of sites and apps to find the music of their choice. 43% of those surveyed, wished it was possible to discover new music through one website.

This could be good news to both current players in the market as well as aspiring new entrants, as there is obvious scope for someone to develop a good service that gains widespread approval and goes on to command the majority of the market.

Dr Greg Wilder Chief Science Officer at OMR said, “People clearly expect more from music recommendation systems. Current search technology is expensive and limited to subjective descriptions of music, which are often just not good enough. We are focused on changing that.”

Alongside this is the growing popularity of the Internet, which is becoming more and more an integral part of all aspects of lives in all parts of the world. Hence, it was only be a matter of time before the Internet would be widely used as a means to facilitate the process of adoption or surrogacy.

The Internet already provides detailed information about how to go about the process and who are the people who can apply for adoption or surrogacy.

Google ads for online adoption agencies

A large amount of adoption and surrogacy research is started online.Over 4.5 million searches are carried out on Google each month on topics related to adoption and about 0.5 million searches are carried out on topics related to surrogacy.

The growing popularity of these search terms has led to searches for adoption or surrogacy-related topics even displaying rather inappropriate-looking ads, such as the one pictured here, which includes a Google Checkout button among search results for ‘International adoption agencies’.

However, indiscriminate use of the Internet for these purposes could come with its own set of problems that are much more serious than a few awkwardly placed searched ads.

A Double-Edged Sword

A while ago, a woman came across a couple online, who were on the lookout for a woman agreeable to be a surrogate mother to their child. The parties concerned then made an informal agreement for surrogacy using the ovum of the surrogate mother and the sperm of the intended father.

Usually people who undertake such arrangements in the U.K. receive a lot of counseling and advice from non-profit organizations. Since the parties mentioned above met through the Internet, they did not have the advantage of such support.

At a later stage, they had some disputes and the surrogate mother refused to hand over the child to the intended parents. The courts also sided with her, keeping the welfare of the child in mind, as the intended parents had not had much interaction with the child.

Similar and various other problems can also occur in cases of adoptions being arranged over the Internet if the parents and child do not receive appropriate counseling.

Need For Offline Control

It may be advisable and indeed necessary, that the authorities concerned lay down certain laws for people who wish to go in for adoption or surrogacy via the Internet, in order to avoid misunderstandings and disputes in future. This would certainly be best for the children concerned.

A study conducted by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) shows that piracy affects the Australian economy to the tune of Australian $1.37 billion a year.

The direct losses due to piracy were to the extent of $A575 million including $A225 million for “secondary piracy”, where users borrow pirated products from others. The study also claims that the piracy resulted in the loss of about 6,100 jobs and reduced spending on recreation, clothing housing etc.

Other related businesses, such as cinema owners, local distributors, producers and retailers also lose income due to the piracy. The government also lost taxes to the extent of $A193 million.

It was largely felt that piracy was detrimental and damaging not only to the movie industry but also to the whole Australian economy, and hence it was believed to be imperative to start educating people about the issue immediately.

However, the Internet advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) believes that the report will not be particularly effective in discouraging piracy. They suggest, instead, that the AFACT should concentrate on providing tools through which users can easily and legally download movies, instead of having to resort to illegal means.

The largest spending was seen in November ($14.5 billion) and December ($18.1 billion). Cyber Monday – the first Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday – broke all records with $1.028 billion being spent in a single day.

Among electronic items, flat panel TVs and mobile devices were the fastest selling, followed by computer hardware.

Online Consumers

Group buying through sites such as Groupon and Living Social gained tremendous popularity during the year. Social networks also continued to grow. Facebook became the number 1 site in August 2010, for time spent online, beating sites like Google and Yahoo! It now accounts for 12.3% of the total time spent online in The U.S.

The amount of time spent on leisure activities online also grew in 2010. Portals represented 20.2% of the share of time spent online, while social networks accounted for 14.4% and entertainment sites for 12.6%.

Social Networks

The growth of social media caused web-based email usage to reduce from 12.5% to 11.0%, especially among the younger generation. Social networking accounts for 14.4% of all time spent online, but its share much higher for youngsters. Women also tend to spend more time on social networks than men.

Facebook also now accounts for 10% of the U.S. page views and has gained millions of new users. MySpace, on the other hand, has seen a sharp decline, losing 27% of its users. LinkedIn, Twitter and several new social sites continue to grow gradually. While it has lost some users in the 35-54 years demographic, the number of users below 18 years and above 55 years have grown significantly. On the other hand, Twitter saw maximum gain in the 18-34 years demographic.

Search Marketing

The search market has also seen innovation with the introduction of instant search by Google. Google continues to be the market leader in the States, with over 60% of the market share, while Yahoo! had 16% and Microsoft had 12% in December 2010. ‘Facebook’ was the most searched term, with 1.9 billion queries in 2010, followed by ‘YouTube’ with 790.7 million searches.

Online advertising has grown by 23% between December 2009 and 2010. Leading brands have now started reallocating a larger share of their ad spend to online advertising. Over 1 trillion display ads were shown on Facebook and 529.4 billion ads on Yahoo! The strategies being used for display as have also improved resulting in better user response especially through retargeting. The online video and TV market are also growing, which is a fact that advertisers should take note of.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants the browser developers to install a system similar to the ‘Do Not Call’ system, which prevents telemarketers from calling users on their phones.

As a result of the pressure from the FTC, developers have started incorporating measures to prevent advertisers from tracking users against the wishes of the user.

Google has built a Chrome Extension that enables users to permanently opt out of ad tracking. The tool is known as ‘Keep My Opt-Outs’. This feature preserves the user’s privacy settings even if cookies are wiped out. Users will, however, have to opt out of ad tracking themselves.

Google Chrome extension ‘Keep My Opt-outs’

Mozilla, on the other hand, provides an HTTP header that lets users declare a preference along with the basic information they provide to any site that they visit. However, there is one major catch in this system – for it to be successful, advertisers will have to agree to honour the user’s preferences as declared in the HTTP header. According to The Wall Street Journal, no advertisers have agreed to be a part of this deal, so far.

Microsoft has also announced that their new browser, IE 9 will include a feature that will provide “Tracking Protection” to their users.

While it is a good sign that browser developers have started moving in this direction, many advocates of user privacy believe that these opt-out features are just not enough.

A number of privacy advocates insist that instead of opt-out features, which leave the task of opting out to the user, thereby going un-noticed by the non-techie majority, the browsers should enable opt-in features, which safeguard user privacy by default. This way, user tracking by default will be forced to end, and advertisers would only be able to track users who have clearly indicated that they are happy to let advertisers study their browsing habits and target ads at them accordingly.

The study was carried out on the instance of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by observing the amount of illegal traffic on 43 file-sharing sites. Their findings do not reveal a happy picture.

It was found that these sites which sell pirated data generate over 146 million visits every day. That totals up to approximately 53 billion visits per year, which is a colossal amount.

In fact, 146 million visits per day is more than the total number of visits for counterfeit physical goods or counterfeit prescriptions in the whole year – 87 million and 51 million respectively.

Of the 43 sites studied, the top 3 are RapidShare.com, Megavideo.com and Megaupload.com. The traffic on these three sites alone is about 21 billion visits per year.

Of course, the number of visits to these sites does not give any indication of the number of unique individuals these sites, or the amount of illegal downloads.The numbers could be inflated by repeated daily visits by individuals. Even so, the number of unique users is likely to be astoundingly high.

What is clear however, is the fact that these commercial file-sharing sites are becoming as popular as other peer-to-peer technologies.

RapidShare.com has come under the scrutiny of the RIAA, the recording industry’s lobby, which wants such sites to install filters to prevent illegal downloads. However, the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf in Germany, has recently ruled that RapidShare need not install such filters, as they feel that “reasonable measures” are already being taken to control piracy.

In contrast, Steve Tepp, Senior Director of Internet counterfeiting and piracy for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says, “Whether it is the sale of counterfeit bags and fake pharmaceuticals or illegal distribution of movies, music, and software, online IP theft is theft – plain and simple. Rogue websites have no place in a legitimate online market. If left unchecked, these sites will continue to flourish at our expense and further hinder our economic growth. The MarkMonitor report underscores the urgency of enacting proactive policies to enhance enforcement tools to shut down these rogue websites.”

The usage of mobile broadband services has been increasing at a very fast rate. This is most likely because of the increased availability of smartphones, tablets, cheap laptops and other portable devices coupled with the availability of several types of data plans to suit each user’s needs.

While the number of mobile broadband connections was just about 200 million in 2008, it crossed the ½ billion mark in August 2010, according to mobile equipment manufacturer Ericsson. They now estimate that this figure will cross the 1 billion mark in 2011, and further predict that this number will go up to 3.8 billion by 2015.

The increased use of mobile broadband services has started adding to the revenue generated by telecom operators and also has caused an increased demand for mobile gear. Telecom firms such as TeliaSonera, Telenor and Tele2 have already reported increased use of mobile Internet services.

Adoption of mobile broadband is most prolific in the Asia-Pacific region, which is expected to account for 400 million users. North America and Western Europe are surprisingly not far behind, contributing an additional 200 million subscriptions each, in spite of the already high number of fixed-line broadband subscribers.

Customer satisfaction with mobile broadband in the Western countries, though, is pretty poor. Most customers complain about slow speeds and low download limits, especially when compared to speeds on unlimited broadband connections via ADSL and cable connections. These services tend to be used in these regions mostly by travelling business personnel.

In many parts of Asia, though, mobile broadband is the only available option, which accounts for the greater number of regular subscribers.

This rule will automatically make the companies responsible for all content on their site and they will thus have to comply with certain rules and regulations including:

• They will have to pay a tax of €500
• Content considered inappropriate for children will have to be restricted to certain times of the day
• Corrections will have to be made within 48 hours, when requested by any person or group who feels they have been slandered or victimised on a video
• The company will be held responsible for all content on the site.

YouTube Would Need To Change Functionality

As far as the restriction of content according to time is considered, YouTube’s current configuration would make this impossible to control. Since YouTube supplies video on demand, unlike conventional TV broadcasters that can schedule their programmes as required, YouTube cannot normally control when users request a video.

In order to comply with the new regulation, YouTube would have to build new functionality that would make requested content unavailable before the watershed hour if it is considered to be inappropriate for minors.

Impossible Task

Also, as far as editorial content and control are concerned, videos are uploaded on YouTube independently by individuals, and YouTube does not have any control over this content. An estimated 24 hours of video footage are uploaded on the site every minute, making it practically impossible for YouTube to censor or control all of the content even if they wanted to.

Rumour has it that these rules have been imposed for the convenience of the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who owns several large TV networks in Italy, and currently has a €500 million law suit going on against YouTube with respect to copyrighted content.

Google’s Options

YouTube’s parent company, Google, has a couple of options available to them under the circumstances. They can block all IP addresses from Italy and redirect users to use some other proxy address. Alternatively, they could do what they did a while ago in China, and withdraw their operations completely from Italy.

If the latter were to happen, the Italian public would raise a hue and cry and demand that these rules be withdrawn.

During a recent presentation held in New York, she has stated that she considers Facebook to be an even bigger competitor of Yahoo! than Google.

During the presentation she said, “Our greatest competitor probably is Facebook, more so than Google. They’re a hot site, but there’s room for more than one of anything.”

So far there has been no comment on the subject from Google or Facebook.

Bartz had been brought in as CEO of Yahoo! to help salvage the company, which had been going through a particularly bad phase. Since then she has made several changes and undertaken cost cutting measures such as cutting out of non-performing products, to help cut costs.

Yahoo! has also recently started a search deal with Microsoft which allows Microsoft to handle the search results, while Yahoo! focuses on advertising, thus bringing in more revenue.

She has also laid stress on sectors like news and sports which always attract a lot of users. She has also focused on acquiring companies which can bring along users, content and engineering technology to help Yahoo! compete with popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

In fact Bartz has also said that Yahoo! had considered buying over Facebook for a sum of $1 billion. While no such take over took place, the tables seem to have turned now.

While Yahoo! currently has a market capitalization of $22.1 billion, Facebook, which now has over 500 million users, is valued at $40 billion according to SharePost Inc. a private share-trading company. Bartz has said that as of now, Yahoo! has no plans of going private.

Statistics from StatCounter have given an overall view of which OS is predominantly used in which part of the world. The data used to gauge the mobile OS market share was taken from the month of October 2010 and is based on mobile Web usage rather than on actual numbers of handsets in use.

Apple’s iOS is the most popular mobile operating system used to access mobile sites in North America, Europe and Oceania, while Symbian is most popular in Africa, Asia and South America. Nokia handsets are relatively cheaper and are thus more popular in developing nations, but have a relatively smaller share in the North America.

Interestingly, BlackBerry, which was behind Apple’s iOS in the U.S. in October has now surpassed it with 34.3%, while Apple has 33%. Also, Google’s Android OS, which had only 8.2 % share in the U.S. in November 2009 now has 23%.

Is Android Not That Big, After All?

Android OS is still not the leader in any continent, by StatCounter’s reckoning. Google’s mobile operating system is the market leader in South Korea with 78.3% but in other countries including Austria, Taiwan and Denmark it has a market share ranging from 27.3% to 16%.

Palm’s Web OS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 also do not account for a significant share of the market. iOS is the most popular in Canada with 83.7% share followed by Cuba, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore and Sweden where it has well over 60% market share.

BlackBerry leads in the Dominican Republic with 57.1%. In the U.K. it has 40.4% while in U.S. it has 34.3% market share. Although BlackBerry originated in Canada it has only 3.6% market share in its home country.

Symbian is the largest OS in over a 100 countries with Chad having 94% share. Libya, Sudan, Iraq and Egypt follow with 93.9% to 83.9%

Not The Full Story

While the numbers provided by StatCounter paint an interesting picture, they do not provide the full story. The data is based solely on mobile Web browsing as counted by StatCounter. The data discounts the fact that a very large number of Nokia users don’t access the mobile Internet.

In fact, only 30% of mobile phone users in the UK have ever accessed the mobile Web. This means that the mobile operating systems used by over 70% of the population are not even considered. This number is similar is most of Europe and North America.

The numbers provided by StatCounter don’t even count Android market place and other app market place usage, which could account for the lower market share for Android, which contradicts the stats on Android’s growth that we’ve seen earlier this year.

Media Tablets are slate devices that support touch, and run a lightweight operating system. Some examples of media tablets are Apple’s iPad and the recently released Samsung Galaxy Tab.

According to Gartner’s forecasts, sales of these tablets are expected to touch 20 million this year, and grow to over 200 million by 2014.

Carolina Milanesi, Vice President of Research at Gartner, believes that the media tablet is closer to a smartphone than to a mini-notebook or a personal computer, and hence, is likely to become very popular. Many would argue that this might not be the reason consumers buy media tablets, but instead could be the reason many don’t! However, it doesn’t change the fact that media tablets have become one of the most talked-about new gadgets of the year.

It is expected that in 2010, North America will be the clear leader in the market for media tablets, with 61% of the market share. By 2014, international markets are expected to hold 57% of the market share.

While the average size of the tablet is about 7 inches at present, it is likely to go up to 10 inches by 2014, due to newer features that are likely to be incorporated.

A media tablet requires a Wi-Fi connection or a 3G cellular connection, or both, to be operational. At present only about 50% of tablets manufactured have both modes of communication in-built. By 2014, this is likely to change as 80% of tablets are expected to have both 3G and Wi-Fi communication capabilities.

It is highly likely that media tablets will initially be perceived only as notebook add-ons for official use. They will most likely evolve and soon be used for personal reasons such as video viewing, playing games and reading books.

Google had sent out cars equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity to collect data for Street View Maps. They also ended up collecting email addresses, passwords and other personal data from unsuspecting residents whose Wi-Fi networks were unsecured and lay on on the Street View cars’ routes.

The Commissioner, Christopher Graham has asked the company to sign an undertaking to ensure against data protection breaches in the future. Google will also be required to delete all the illegal data at the earliest. The commision has, however, not imposed any fine this time, saying instead, that if the error is repeated, Google would face much more severe legal action.

In the U.S.A., the case was also recently cleared, letting Google get away with a little more than a telling off. Google still faces similar charges in Italy, France Spain, Germany and Canada. The French and German courts might not be as forgiving as the English and Americans.

Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer has said, “We are profoundly sorry for mistakenly collecting payload data in the UK from unencrypted wireless networks.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office had conducted a similar enquiry in July, but it was conducted by non-technical members who had given a clean chit to Google at that time. The ICO is also facing criticism for this unprofessional conduct.

Facebook must be extremely jealous of Google’s good fortune. The popular social network seems to be forever getting negative press about privacy issues even though they have never committed as grave an error as Google. And yet, at present Google seems to be getting away without even a slap on the wrist!

In keeping with the basic concept of Skype, which has always been to allow users to make phone calls at no or minimal costs, this new service will allow users to call advertisers for free. The advertisers in turn will also be charged at very nominal rates.

The service has been called Click & Call Advertising With Skype.

Advertisers who choose to use the service will get their phone number highlighted wherever it is displayed online, with a blue button, saying “Free Call”.

A Click & Call ad from Skype

If any user clicks on the button, the Skype software is activated and the user is automatically connected to the advertiser for free. The new service is based on technology by Marchex.

Skype’s Director of Advertising, Andy Sims says, “Working together with Marchex, our objective for Click & Call Advertising with Skype supported by Marchex is to deliver a performance advertising tool that turns the Web surfing behavior of Skype users into calls to advertisers.”

Marchex COO Pete Christothoulou says, “Today, we are seeing a shift in the way consumers find phone numbers, the way they place calls and how those calls are paid for. As a result, coupling Skype’s reach with Marchex’s call advertising technology, sales team and service, we believe we can offer a high quality solution to large and small advertisers.”

According, to the Business Insider, inside sources reveal that AOL is actually looking for a buyer in Microsoft. Even if these rumours prove to be false, anyone who gets the search deal would have an edge for an eventual takeover of the company.

The rumours could be based on the fact that Microsoft has for long been on the lookout for a company that can help boost their share in the search market.

Microsoft can certainly afford to buy over AOL. They would be able to merge several of their features, such as mail, search and maps. They would also acquire a lot of man power, which would help in future projects and ideas. Most importantly, though, they would manage to cut off a major source of revenue for Google and secure another small chunk of the search market.

Google currently has a search deal with AOL. The search giant is not likely to be interested in a buy out of the company. Their interest would only be in renewing the search deal. However, if push came to shove, they might buy AOL just to prevent Microsoft from getting it.

According to experts, Microsoft may wait for AOL’s quarterly results before finalising such a deal.

The iconic Canadian White Pages which contains listings of residential telephone numbers in various locations across Canada was first delivered in 1879. It is consequently now over a hundred and thirty years old.

Over the years, updated versions of this publication were periodically delivered to residents. According to Marc P. Tellier President and CEO of Yellow Pages group, the White Pages have become more or less redundant, especially in urban areas, as people make use of online services such as Canada411 and YellowPages.ca to find out the phone numbers they need.

In 2005, it was decide to send the white pages at a two yearly interval, and interested parties could request a copy in the in between year. The demand was practically nil.

It has thus been decided to discontinue the practice of delivering the Canadian White pages in future in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Quebec City, Montreal Edmonton and Calgary.

Residents who are still interested in receiving the White Pages can specifically make a request to have a copy of it delivered to them.

There have been concerns that the discontinuation of this service will affect the elderly and poorer sections of society, who do not have access to computers or mobile phones.

StumbleUpon has, however, chosen not to make a big hue and cry about it. An employee of the site just stumbled the profile of the new entrant and mentioned that he was their official 10 millionth user. He is a 20 year old male from Colombia, and his user name is Nellzom.

In April 2008 StumbleUpon had registered 5 million users and they have doubled that number in the last two years. In fact, the StumbleUpon blog announced that they had 9,908,350 users just over a fortnight ago, which means they signed up approximately 6,500 new users each day in the past 2 weeks.

Statistics released by the company show that they have seen an 118% growth in the number of active users since 2009 and have delivered 5.4 billion recommendations since April 2009, half a billion of which were in March 2010.

StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay in 2007 for $75 million but separated from eBay in the last year. The company is now faring pretty well in its recently re-acquired start-up status.

According to reports published last month, StumbleUpon drove more traffic to third-party websites than many of the other more popular sites such as Twitter, Reddit and Digg.

An average StumbleUpon user stumbles about 25 times a day. Users of the StumbleUpon add-on for Firefox stumble sites about 400 times a month.

The growing popularity of StumbleUpon can probably be attributed to the fact that it is very easy to operate. Users can discover new sites with just one click and also rate them with a simple thumbs up or a thumbs down with just one more click.

Former deputy PM and member of the U.K. Labour Party, John Prescott, has been urging and instigating his followers on Twitter and supporters to click on Google pay per click ads from their opponents.

Prescott isn’t actually encouraging users to click on ads posted by the Conservative Party rather than on links to his own party. Instead he wants users to click on these ads in order to cost the Conservative Party money and make them bleed through their search engine marketing budget faster.

The logic behind this is simply that the Conservative Party pays for every click their ad receives. They could end up wasting their entire daily budget paying for clicks from Labour supporters and their ads would then stop showing.

In other words, John Prescott is encouraging his supporters to commit Click Fraud.

Click fraud was a major cause for concern for PPC advertisers in 2006, when a number of unscrupulous businesses hired rings of click fraudsters to keep clicking on their competitors’ ads till the competitors’ campaigns ran out of their daily budget, which would then mean that the competitors’ ads would stop showing for the given search term.

The Labour MP’s advice to his followers, may just boomerang on him, as the ultimate aim of any political party is to pass on their message and ideology to voters, which is precisely what is likely to happen when supporters of any party click on ads of the Conservative party and visit their site.

Moreover, voters would most likely tend not to look favourably upon a politician who encourages them to commit fraud, albeit online.

Social media will help the parties get the attention of the public and, in turn, garner more supporters.

Facebook has about 20.9 million users aged 18 and over in the United Kingdom, which is almost the same as the number of people who voted in the last general election.

At the time of publishing this article, the official Labour Party page has 11,922 fans on Facebook. The Conservatives have 31,745 fans and the Liberal Democrats have 11,550 fans.

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook feature prominently on all three major parties’ websites. RSS feeds are just as prominently available for subscription and blogs are widely used.

The extent to which the Internet is expected to help in the U.K. is less than in the U.S. as it is a much shorter campaign and the level of fund raising is much lower.

It is rumoured that the Conservative party’s digital team is spending as much as 20% of their time on Twitter. Sarah Brown, the wife of the current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has a follower count of over 1.1 million on Twitter – which should be a reason for the Tories to worry, as they only have a little over 23,000 followers!

Channels such as YouTube, Delicious, Livestream, podcasting and even email are also expected to play an important role during this election.

This is the first time the Internet will play an important part in the U.K. election process especially by allowing the party leaders to communicate directly with the younger generation – usually the most politically indifferent demographic.

Political parties will be able to show highly targeted ads to the users, which will be much cheaper and more effective than traditional newspaper ads.

The down side of such an increased network presence is that the slightest mis-step by a party leader can go viral and be broadcast to millions of voters in no time. All candidates now need to be more aware than ever of the fact that they can now be tracked almost all the time and their privacy is something they can never be entirely sure of having.

Liberal Democrats on YouTube

Unfortunately, most of the technology giants such as Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook rely on companies that generate their power from coal. The use of coal to generate power adds to the carbon foot print.

It has been estimated that by 2020 data centres will consume 1,963 kilowatts of electricity, which is more than the power that France, Germany, Canada and Brazil jointly consume at present.

Tom Dowdall of Greenpeace said to the BBC that the availability of smartphones and netbooks is increasing the demand for cloud computing, which requires companies to invest even more in huge data centres.

However, instead of trying to use greener sources of energy, most of the companies are only concerned with efficiency.

Facebook, which is developing its first custom-built data centre in Oregon, will use an evaporative cooling system to cool their servers. Pacific Power, the company that supplies Facebook power, uses more coal than the U.S. average.

Over 380,000 people have joined English and Spanish language groups on Facebook set up by Greenpeace to pressurise Facebook to use 100% renewable energy. Facebook, however, claims to be helpless as they have to rely on the local power grid.

Microsoft uses a similar air cooling system but claims to use 100% hydropower in their data centre in Dublin. Yahoo! also uses hydropower for their data centre in Buffalo, New York.

Dowdall says, “We would like to see more examples of companies using purchasing power to drive an increase in renewable capacity.”

Google is the only tech giant that has truly pulled its weight and has invested in a number of environment protection and green energy related initiatives.

Interestingly, only the accounts of foreign journalists and analysts based in China and Taiwan were affected.

The journalists whose accounts were blocked received messages saying “We’ve detected an issue with your account”. They were asked to contact Yahoo! While one such account has been restored by the technicians at Yahoo! details about the other accounts are not yet available.

Yahoo!, of course, has said that they condemn the attacks and will do whatever they can to protect user privacy.

However, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) is not quite satisfied with this statement alone. In fact, they have blamed Yahoo! for not informing all their users about the situation.

As if these allegations were not enough to add to the growing international contempt for the Chinese government, Google, who recently shifted bases to Hong Kong, has also blamed the Chinese government’s censorship tools, commonly known as “The Great Firewall of China”, for blocking Google’s search services earlier in the week.

The services were later restored, so Google has admitted that they do not really know whether the drop in services was due to a technical fault on their end or an intentional move on the part of the Chinese government.

Google’s mobile Web services were also partially blocked later, but no reason has been provided for that.

Usage patterns have changed considerably compared to what they were just one year ago. In the last quarter of 2008, Nielsen found that users accessed the Internet while watching TV for almost two and a half hours every month, and almost 57.5% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

One year later, in the last quarter of 2009, Nielsen found that the amount of time U.S. users spent on the Internet while watching TV had grown to three and a half hours every month, and almost 60% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

Fears that TV viewing would reduce drastically due to the growing popularity of the Internet and mobile videos seem to have been unfounded. TV viewing has actually grown steadily along with the Internet. One of the reasons for this could be access to DVRs, which allow users to watch their favourite TV programmes at their convenience.

DVR systems are now found in 35% of all American homes and are growing in popularity. Viewers between the ages of 25 and 34 watch time shifted TV for about three and a half hours every week while those over 65 years of age do so for just over an hour.

Online video usage has also gone up by 16% in the last year, and surprisingly, almost 44% of online video viewing is done at work.

The number of active mobile video watchers has also gone up from 11.2 million to 17.6 million, which is a rise of 57% between the last quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2009.

Web 2.0, according to Juniper, includes common Web applications that individuals use to generate, consume and interact with digital content. It covers the social Web and other sites that prompt user interaction.

The growing involvement of users with the social Web has a substantial effect on the business models, development strategies and revenues of mobile service providers, equipment manufacturers and other players in the mobile industry.

Mobile Web 2.0 is somewhat different from traditional Web 2.0 due to the technical and physical constraints of mobiles, such as their relative inability to work with Flash and AJAX. As a result, Mobile Web 2.0 substantially lags behind the full-fledged Web 2.0 as far as its technological evolution is concerned.

The development of smartphones and the iPhone and the availability of various services on mobile – SMS, MMS, IM and VoIP – give mobile social media advantages, such as the immediacy of content sharing, which has helped the medium gain a lot of ground in the second half of 2009, and it continues to do so in 2010.

Services such as mobile messaging and mobile Internet browsing are growing rapidly. While such rapid growth raises concerns, it also leads mobile industry experts to believe that mobile social media can be monetised by means of contextual and location targeted advertising in conjunction with premium services and virtual goods.

In fact, Juniper’s studies have also found that mobile Web users are more willing to pay for services provided to them than desktop users are.

Currently, Web 2.0 on mobile is valued at $5 billion by Juniper Research. This value is estimated to go up almost 4 times by 2014.

According to the findings of the survey, a large number of Americans (92%) make use of various platforms to collect their daily news.

The most popular sources of daily news are local and national TV channels, followed in third place by the Internet. National and local newspapers and radio have not surprisingly fallen behind.

On an average day, almost 60% of Americans will access various online and offline sources of news.

Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet and mobile technology, the new multi-platform media environment is now portable, personalised and participatory.

33% of mobile phone users access the news through their mobile phones, thus making it portable. 28% of Internet users access news on topics that interest them personally via news feeds on their homepage, while 37% of Internet users participate in the act of dissemination of news by posting it on sites like Facebook and Twitter, with or without their personal comments.

People are also using their social networks to filter and assess the news. They also exchange stories through email. 75% of online news receivers, do so via email or social networking and 52% of them share the news with others in the same manner.

Most online news consumers do not have a particular favourite news site, and access a variety of sites to collect their daily news.

While 55% of Americans say that it is easier to stay up-to-date about news and information than it was 5 years ago, 70% of those surveyed feel overwhelmed by the number of news sources now available to them.

Their aim is to increase the speed of the Internet by over 100 times the present speed that most Americans have. They will introduce 1 gigabit per second fibre-to-the-home connections.

Google’s goal in doing so is to help make the Internet better and faster than it is at present for all users.

Some of the features they hope to be able to achieve are as follows:

• Next Generation Apps: They believe that developers and users may be able to create new bandwidth intensive “killer” apps with the ultra high speeds.
• New Deployment Techniques: They will test new ways to build fibre networks and to help in informing and supporting deployments elsewhere. They will also share this know-how with others.
• Openness and Choice: They will operate an open access network, which will give users a choice between several service providers.

Google is yet to identify the appropriate communities in which to set up and conduct this trial. They intend to offer this service to anywhere between 50,000 and 5,00,000 people at very competitive prices.

It now turns out that the speculations were true. Peter Burrows at BusinessWeek reported that Microsoft had made Yelp an offer of over $700 million, while the original offer they had received from Google had been in the region of $550 million.

To everyone’s surprise, Yelp, which hosts reviews of local businesses, has gone ahead and rejected the offer from Microsoft as well!

Instead, the company has accepted an investment of $100 million from Elevation Partners, which values the company at just $475 million.

On being questioned about this decision, Yelp CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman told Peter Burrows, “Yelp has the chance to become one of the great internet brands… That for me is the chance of a lifetime.”

Critics and supporters are shocked at the decision. Most believe that this was a colossal mistake, and while Yelp might be doing well right now, they are more than likely at the pinnacle of their success.

Google and Microsoft could very easily build such technology and both are sitting on enough cash to be able to even pay real users to post reviews on their services instead of Yelp.

Only time will tell, though, whether Stoppelman’s hopes will come true and the risk he has taken will be worth it or not.

187 million users are the equivalent of 91% of the total U.S. Internet audience. AOL’s reach reportedly grew by 8% compared to the same month in 2008.

Yahoo! Network, which reaches 180.9 million U.S. users, was ranked second place and grew by 9% in the same period. The Google Ad Network occupied the third place with a reach of 178.1 million U.S. Internet users, and grew by 13% in that period.

Microsoft Media Network has turned out to be the fastest growing ad network, with a growth of 31% compared to the same month one year ago. Collective Network, which grew by 22%, was the second fastest grower and Audience Science, which grew by 16%, was placed third in that category.

According to comScore senior Vice President, Jeff Hackett, “Ad networks continue to be a powerful mechanism for delivering a large audience online with eight different networks reaching 75% of the entire U.S. online population.” Hackett believes that in 2010 ad-networks will continue to innovate and perform well.

Top 10 US ad networks ranked by total unique visitors in December 2009

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, has made it clear during an interview with CNBC & Bloomberg that Microsoft plans to continue working in China, and they will toe the line as is expected of them.

Following a meeting with President Obama at the White House, he told Bloomberg, “There are cyber attacks on all companies, of any size, from all parts of the world, not just China, at all times, so it’s hard for me to understand how that got tied into the whole notion of doing business in China.” He further said, “China’s the second largest market in the world … [Pulling out of China] is not something we’re thinking about. That’s not part of the way for us to grow.”

Google’s announcement stated that the company had been the direct victim of highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks that had originated in China. The attack not only resulted in the loss of corporate infrastructure and intellectual property, but also targeted various human rights activists.

Microsoft, on the other hand, said that they had not been affected by any such attacks and their email system has not been breached. The ethics of bowing to the Chinese government’s cesnorship requirements don’t seem to bother Microsoft.

Microsoft’s market share in China, which is currently estimated at just 0.25%, may grow if Google quits the Chinese search market.

U.S. Government officials have clearly stated that they support Google’s decision to pull out of China. White House spokesperson, Robert Gibbs said, “Our concern is with actions that threaten the universal rights of a free Internet.” While the White House has not yet taken any action against China, Philip Crowley of the State Department said that they will issue a formal message to Beijing and ask for an explanation.

If Google is to be believed, freedom of expression on the Internet is at stake here, as is the future of several companies who wish to do business in China, which is the world’s largest Internet market. Though, that is little more than grand-standing on Google’s part.

Human rights organisations in China have asked other companies to follow Google’s lead and withdraw from China if censorship continues.

So far, however, there is no indication that other companies will withdraw, and China seems adamant on maintaining their policies, since they know that the Western world will not be able to withdraw from their country very easily.

Search results that would have previously been censored now show on Google.cn

When Google was first launched in China, in January 2006, the company received a lot of flak for agreeing to censor some of their search results, in keeping with China’s political policies. However, they felt at that time, that it would be better to provide at least some services in China, rather than none at all. Google was also hopeful that the situation would improve gradually.

Following a series of hacker attacks last month, Google found that at least 20 other major corporations from diverse fields had been attacked. They was also found that apart from stealing corporate infrastructure, the hackers tried to illegally access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Google has taken a very serious view of these attacks and decided to stop playing ball with the Chinese government by refusing to censor search results in China. They will hold talks with the Chinese government regarding this and will shut down their Chinese operations if necessary.

China is currently the largest Internet market and although Baidu is the largest search engine there, Google has a 35% online advertising market share, worth about £620 million last year. However, according to Goldman Sachs, Google’s China earnings are only about 1% of its total revenue, and hence the decision to shut down is likely to be financially inconsequential in the short run.

It is possible, that these developments may affect Microsoft’s plans to operate in China.

While Google’s decision was appreciated by some, many criticised it as being opportunistic, empty posturing and just another blackmail tactic.

Chitika recently conducted a study that revealed that users of Microsoft browsers and operating system have a tendency to click on advertisements more than users of other services such as FireFox, Safari, Chrome etcera. Not only that, even users of Windows click on ads far more frequently than users of other operating systems such as Mac OS or Linux.

The findings of this study are significant as it was conducted using a sample of over 130 million impressions across 80,000 sites.

The details emerging from the study are as follows:

• Internet Explorer users on average have a click-through rate (CTR) of 1.05% compared to 0.66% for Firefox users, 0.50% for Safari users and 0.21% for Chrome users
• Windows users have a CTR of 0.92%, while Mac users have 0.52% and Linux users have 0.46%

These findings have been indirectly validated by TechCrunch, where reports that users of Microsoft’s search engine Bing have a higher CTR than users of other search engines. Bing users have a CTR of 1.74% as opposed to 0.98% for Google users and 1.37% for Yahoo! users.

TechCrunch insinuates that the higher CTRs from Microsoft users is because these users are more gullible and easier to dupe than others, which has ruffled a few feathers, even though it is probably true.

Microsoft users don’t click the most, though. AOL, which is a much smaller network has the highest CTR of 2.5%.