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Google has been discussing with Twitter about potential acquisitions and recently News Corp walked into the picture, becoming the potential acquirer. The discussion is said to be in the finalizing stage.

Just got confirmation from a very reliable source that News Corp…has closed a definitive purchase of Twitter for ‘at least $750 million in cash

Rumours has been spreading around and everyone, even columnist writers are discussing whom should be the winner. Michael Wolff, a columnist writer for Vanity Fair believes that it makes sense for News Corp to purchase Twitter.

Who will it be?

A British Man, Paul Smith, has decided to travel around the world with only twitter as his walking stick. He hopes to use twitter to help him find accommodation and travel offers from people who are part of this social network. Apparently there are three rules to this project. The first rule is to only accept offers from Twitter users. The second rule is to ban himself from making travel plans more than three days in advance. And lastly, he must leave each locations within 48 hours of arrival.

He aims to travel from Campbell Island to Stewart Island in New Zealand, by passing Netherlands, France, Germany and the United States within 30 days.

Lets wish him luck.

Continuing from my previous post, iiNet, a Perth based internet service provider, have now withdrawn from the Australian Government’s internet filtering proposal. They claim this whole plan is ‘fundamentally flawed’ and believe it will be a waste of tax payers money.

Michael Malone, the Managing Director of iiNet, explained that iiNet pulled out due to the “irreconcilable differences over the ideology behind the trial”. Michael emphasized that there isn’t a clear line of what is ‘unwanted content’ especially having the communication minister, Conroy, extending the line of what is allowed to be shown in the system. The recent leaked blacklist revealed the extent of banned websites. The list included gambling sites, pornography, anti-abortion activist and a local dentist. No information can be found for businesses whom are put on the list by mistake.

“You have SMEs that have been put on this list. The whole thing is a debacle. We have a minister for communication who cannot appear to communicate.”

The ‘top secret’ blacklist of banned websites, managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), was leaked out to the public through the infamous Whistleblower website, Wikileaks, whom now are in the blacklist. They claimed that the ACMA are banning innocent websites such as a local dentist and any links to these blacklisted websites, will be fined up to $11,000 a day. The question is, how would you know that you are linking to these banned site? and why are legal websites being blacklisted?

ACMA themselves are unable to give an explaination to why this is the case but have claimed that the publication of the Wikileak lists are unreliable and denied its the offical blacklist. They will be investigating closely with the Austrlian Federal Police.

In separate statements, the ACMA and Conroy, the communications minister, acknowledged that the official blacklist and the version published by Wikileaks contained sites common to both lists. But Conroy said several addresses on the published list have never appeared on the official blacklist.

The authority proposed that the lists only contain of websites that are promoting child pornography and sexual violence. However they refuse to release the ‘real’ list to the public.

Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy is now proposing that Australian internet service providers should implement this lists. Therefore Australia will then become one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries. Internet Providers are protesting against this proposal and argues that:

“A filter could slow browsing speeds, and pointed out that illegal material such as child pornography can be traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would not be covered by the filter.”

True or false, support or against lets wait and see.

Google is planning to introduce an advertising method in which they will deliver tailored ads based on the users interests, taking into consideration their website browsing history. The aim of behavioural targeting is to make online advertising more relevant and useful to users, building a connection between the users and advertisments.

These ads will associate categories of interest - say sports, gardening, cars, pets - with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads. - Quoted from Google’s blog

However, the major downfall to this project is the privacy concerns of users. As Marc Rotenberg from Electronic Privacy Information Center said in an interview, Google will be aggregating too much information and data.

“It’s a disaster… Google long maintained it would not do this type of advertising. Indeed, they claimed they didn’t need to, and they went after others who did.”

Google came back and defended itself emphasizing that users are able to opt out of the system and alter its advertising categories that are more interesting to the user. This can be done through the use of a new tool known as the ‘Ad Preferences Manager’. The Australian version will be out later in 2009.

Looking at the recent GDP data, it has been confirmed that we are heading straight to recession. Ever since the economic crisis hit, the environment around us has turned negative. Everyone thinks, looks and acts in a negative way. This time round, we should turn this negative news into something positive. So now, we have a fall in GDP, what so good about it?

1. Comparing to the past few decades, we going to save more money.

The household saving ratio (household savings measured against net disposable income) rose from 3.4% to an 18 year high of 8.5% in the December quarter

2. In the December quarter, the private sector were actually spending.

Private spending grew by 0.2% in the December quarter, proving individuals and businesses are still investing. But government spending surprisingly went backwards by 0.3%, dragging the GDP figure into the red.

3. Companies are being serious and sensible, cutting back inventories

Firms were aggressive in ridding their shelves of unwanted stock amid expectations of economic conditions getting much worse.

4. Compared to many countries, Australia is doing better than everyone else

Australia’s GDP growth slipped to -0.5% in the December quarter. But compare that with Japan (3.3%), the US(-1.1%), Korea (-5.6%), Thailand (-6.1%), Singapore (-4.2%) and Britain (1.9%)

Last and not least, although we are unsure when the recession will end, or if we have hit the bottom. There is always a light at the end of tunnel. Each day we are a step closer to recovery.

Source: Smart Company

According to Marshall’s latest research, approximately 29% of internet users confirmed they have purchased products that are advertised through spam. The results from the poll proved that people who have purchased from spam will have made mutiple purchases, on an average, two purchases per person.

Products which are commonly purchased via spam are usually goods which are used to spice up love life and counterfeit luxury goods such as sexual enhancement pills, adult materials, software - mostly are pirated material or knock-off brands.

“The internet provides convenience and a degree of anonymity to people who want to buy illegal or restricted goods. It is a black market and spam has become a conventional means of advertising to a willing audience of millions of people who are purchasing from spam.” -Quoted from a stateent by Marshal’s Bradley Anstis

There are approximatelty 250 million people who are interested in purchasing products through spam. From the perspective of a spammer, it is equivenlent to Japan’s population times two:

“As a spammer - how do you reach that market without knowing specifically who these people are and with the bare minimum of expense? Easy, send lots of emails to everyone,”

Everyone knows that Google wants to make money from YouTube and they finally figured it out. Recently, YouTube announced they will offer the ‘Download’ option to their users. BUT the catch is, you will need to pay a fee to download popular videos.

They are working closely with several of their partners to offer either free or paid downloads, giving their partners the option to set their own prices and for them decide how the downloadable video will be licensed to the user.

The videos will be available in the MP4 format, and can be copied to other providers. Downloads are already available from Stanford, Duke, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UCTV, while Household Hacker, Khan Academy and Pogobat are offering paid downloads for a dollar.

Source: Tech Crunch

Great news for the Australian online advertising industry. According to latest report from IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure, they have forcasted that in the next 12 months, the online advertising expenditure will hit the $2 Billion mark.
From the December 2008 IAB report, they found there was a strong growth in the online advertising expenditure especially in the Search and Directories segment which increased by 27% from 2007.

 Search & Directories Advertising Expenditure

This clearly shows that marketers and businesses are accepting online advertising. This is great evidence that the confidence in the online sectore has massively grown.

“The figures clearly show that online is now seen by a growing number of marketers and agencies as a ‘core’ advertising medium, and they are continuing to shift their investment where they can more cost effectively reach and engage their consumers with their brand and direct response messages,” IAB Australia chief executive Paul Fisher says.

Back in September 2006, A three minute long phone video was uploaded to one of Google’s website showing four teenages bullying a down’s syndrone classmate. After two years, the Italian authorities are charging four Google execs for defamation and failure to exercise control over peronal data. The video was posted for almost a month until it was taken down when the complaints started to pour in.

The search giant removed the video within a day of receiving the complaints. But Italian authorizes argue that company execs broke the law by allowing the posting in the first place

Since the trial, Google decline to make any comments regarding about the case but provided a statement:

“As we have repeatedly made clear, our hearts go out to the victim and his family. We are pleased that as a result of our cooperation the bullies in the video have been identified and punished. However, we feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong. It’s akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post. What’s more, seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open internet. We will continue to vigorously defend our employees in this prosecution.”

The story will pause for now till the next hearing on February 18th 2009.

Source: Register.co.uk