Social Media/Social Bookmarking Sites

1. StumbleUpon: You?ll open your online presence up to a whole new audience just by adding the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser and ?channel surfing? the Web. You?ll connect with friends and share your new Website discoveries,? as well as ?meet people who have similar interests.? It?s loads of fun.

2. Articlesbase: Upload stories and articles on reddit to drive traffic to your website or blog. Submit items often so that you?ll gain a more loyal following and increase your online presence.

3. Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

4. Digg: Digg has a massive following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and many more.

5. Technorati: If you want to increase your blog?s readership, consider registering it with Technorati, a network of blogs and writers that lists top stories in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.

6. Ning: After hanging around the same social networks for a while, you may feel inspired to create your own, where you can bring together clients, vendors, customers and co-workers in a confidential, secure corner of the Web. Ning lets users design free social networks that they can share with anyone.

7. Squidoo: According to Squidoo, ?everyone?s an expert on something. Share your knowledge!? Share your industry?s secrets by answering questions and designing a profile page to help other members.

8. Furl: Make Furl ?your personal Web file? by bookmarking great sites and sharing them with other users by recommending links, commenting on articles and utilizing other fantastic features.

9. Tubearoo: This video network works like other social-bookmarking sites, except that it focuses on uploaded videos. Businesses can create and upload tutorials, commentaries and interviews with industry insiders to promote their own services.

10. WikiHow: Create a how-to guide or tutorial on wikiHow to share your company?s services with the public for free.

11. YouTube: From subjects like, ?How to dribble a basketball,? to naughty party boy ?Corey Delainey,? everyone has a video floating around on YouTube. Shoot a behind-the-scenes video from your company?s latest commercial or event to give customers and clients an idea of what you do each day and how you like to do it.

12. Ma.gnolia: Share your favorite sites with friends, colleagues and clients by organizing your bookmarks with Ma.gnolia. Clients will appreciate both your Internet-savviness and your ability to stay current and organized.

13. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.

14. Facebook: Facebook is no longer just for college kids who want to post their party pics. Businesses vie for advertising opportunities, event promotion and more on this social-networking site.

15. MEETin.org: Once you?ve acquired a group of contacts in your city by networking on MEETin.org, organize an event so that you can meet face-to-face.

16. YorZ: This networking site doubles as a job site. Members can post openings for free to attract quality candidates.

17. Xing: An account with networking site Xing can ?open doors to thousands of companies.? Use the professional contact manager to organize your new friends and colleagues, and take advantage of the Business Accelerator application to ?find experts at the click of a button, market yourself in a professional context [and] open up new sales channels.?

18. Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on ?connecting business people? through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.

19. Care2: Care2 isn?t just a networking community for professionals: It?s touted as ?the global network for organizations and people who Care2 make a difference.? If your business is making efforts to go green, let others know by becoming a presence on this site.

20. Gather: This networking community is made up of members who think. Browse categories concerning books, health, money, news and more to ignite discussions on politics, business and entertainment. This will help your company tap into its target audience and find out what they want.

21. Ryze: Ryze lets members organize contacts and friends; upcoming events; and even job, real-estate and roommate classifieds.

22. Tribe: Cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Chicago have unique online communities on tribe. Users can search for favorite restaurants, events, clubs and more.

23. Ziggs: Ziggs is ?organizing and connecting people in a professional way.? Join groups and make contacts through your Ziggs account to increase your company?s presence online and further your own personal career.

24. Plaxo: Join Plaxo to organize your contacts and stay updated with feeds from Digg, Amazon.com, del.icio.us and more.

25. NetParty: If you want to attract young professionals in cities like Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Orlando Fla., create an account with the networking site NetParty. You?ll be able to connect with qualified, up-and-coming professionals online, then meet them at a real-life happy-hour event where you can pass out business cards, pitch new job openings and more.

26. Networking For Professionals: Networking For Professionals is another online community that combines the Internet with special events in the real world. Post photos, videos, rsum s and clips on your online profile while you meet new business contacts.

27. Naymz: A search engine optimised professional networking site which ranks out of ten, ones professional reputation amongst reviews from ones peers and those who know you.

28. SEO TAGG:SEO TAGG: Stay on top of news from the Web marketing and SEO (search-engine optimization) industries by becoming an active member of this online community.

29. Pixel Groovy: Web workers will love Pixel Groovy, an open-source site that lets members submit and rate tutorials for Web 2.0, email and online-marketing issues.

30. Mixx: Mixx prides itself on being ?your link to the Web content that really matters.? Submit and rate stories, photos and news to drive traffic to your own site. You?ll also meet others with similar interests.

31. Small Business Brief: When members post entrepreneur-related articles, a photo and a link to their profile appear, gaining you valuable exposure and legitimacy online.

32. Sphinn:Sphinn: Sphinn is an online forum and networking site for the Internet marketing crowd. Upload articles and guides from your blog to create interest in your own company or connect with other professionals for form new contacts.

33. BuzzFlash.net: This one-stop news resource is great for businesses that want to contribute articles on a variety of subjects, from the environment to politics to health.

34. HubSpot: HubSpot is another news site aimed at connecting business professionals.

35. Tweako: Gadget-minded computer geeks can network with each other on Tweako, a site that promotes information sharing for the technologically savvy.

36. Wikipedia: Besides creating your own business reference page on Wikipedia, you can connect with other users on Wikipedia?s Community Portal and at the village pump, where you?ll find conscientious professionals enthusiastic about news, business, research and more.

37. Newsvine: Feature top employees by uploading their articles, studies or other news-related items to this site. A free account will also get you your own column and access to the Newsvine community.

38. 43 Things: This site bills itself as ?the world?s most popular online goal setting community.? By publicizing your company?s goals and ambitions, you?ll gain a following of customers, investors and promoters who cheer you on as you achieve success.

39. Wetpaint: If you?re tired of blogs and generic Web sites, create your own wiki with Wetpaint to reach your audience and increase your company?s presence online. You can easily organize articles, contact information, photos and other information to promote your business.

40. Frappr: Embed a Frappr map and guestbook into your company?s Web page so that you can pinpoint exactly how users find your site, discover in real-time what they have to say about your company profile and services, and create an ?interactive, fun and engaging? spot for visitors.

41. Yahoo! Answers: Start fielding Yahoo! users? questions with this social-media Q&A service. Search for questions in your particular areas of expertise by clicking categories like Business & Finance, Health, News & Events and more. If you continue to dole out useful advice and link your answer to your company?s Web page, you?ll quickly gain a new following of curious customers.

42. Mycareer: A popular source of jobs for the job hunter in Australia. Owned by Fairfax media who bring us the Sydney Morning Herald everyday. Post your CV for recruiters to find. Get detailed personality type information.

43. SEEK: Australia?s #1 recruitment, career and employment site. It has special sections for 100k plus executives and offers helpful tools and job hunting sector statistics.

44. CollegeRecruiter.com: If your firm wants to hire promising entry-level employees, check CollegeRecuriter.com for candidates with college degrees.

45. Monster: Post often to separate your business from all the other big companies that use this site to advertise job openings.

46. Sologig: Top freelancers and contractors post r�sum�s and look for work on this popular site.

47. AllFreelance.com: This site ?offers self-employed small business owners links to freelance & work at home job boards, self-promotion tips? and more.

48. Freelance Switch Job Listings: Freelance Switch is the freelancer?s online mecca and boasts articles, resource toolboxes, valuable tips and a job board.

49. GoFreelance: Employers looking to boost their vendor base should check GoFreelance for professionals in the writing, design, editing and Web industries.

50. CareerBuilder.com: Reach millions of candidates by posting jobs on this must-visit site.

51. Career Journal: The Wall Street Journal?s Career Journal attracts well-educated professionals who are at the top of their game. Post a job or search r�sum�s here.

New Google policy make Google Docs more public

Google has announced a new policy which will make Google Documents files such as text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations more likely to appear in public searches.

Google has changed the way in which certain Web documents created with Google Docs applications, will be handled by search engines, including Google’s own. A Google blog said that “in about two weeks, we will be launching a change for published docs. The change will allow published docs that are linked to from a public Web site to be crawled and indexed, which means they can appear in search results you see on Google.com and other search engines…This is a very exciting change, as your published docs linked to from public Web sites will reach a much wider audience of people.”

The only documents which will be so indexed, according to the blog posting, are those which are published using the the ‘Publish as Web page’ or ‘Publish/embed’ options, and those which are linked from a public Web page. Many Google Docs documents, of course, are published specifically to reach the widest audiences and thus the new rules will be good news since they will bring a larger readership, according to a CNET article.

Still, there is no real way to tell from the Google Apps master listing which documents are viewable by the public and which are not, since there is no way to tell which are linked from public Web pages. It is therefore possible that some documents which were intended as private will now be listed in search engine returns. Google has said that the user can certainly unpublish those documents, but how to tell which ones to unpublish is not clear. It may be that a new method is needed to determine which Google Apps documents are public and which or not, i.e. to provide a finer granularity than is currently available. At the very least, users should go through their list of Google Apps-created documents and unpublish those which are intended to be private.

Source:

Google Developing Micropayments And Subscription System To Save Newspapers

Google (GOOG) is developing an online subscription and micropayment system that will enable online content providers to more easily charge for their content.

We're skeptical that consumers will want to pay on a per-page basis for online content, but we're big believers in the subscription model. Google's planned system, which the company described in a proposal to the Newspaper Association of America (embedded below), emphasizes subscriptions but enables micropayments as well.

Within the next year, we expect that hundreds of newspapers and magazines that currently give away their content for free online will start charging in one way or another. The scale and distribution of Google's planned system could greatly facilitate that.

Read More..

Caffein explain By Matt Cutts

An SES event is always a good place to run into those in the industry who can give you that little bit of extra information on a specific topic. When it comes to Google, Matt Cutts is someone you like to run into at a SES because he is always willing to explain and talk.

Last week he sat down with WebProNews and talked about Caffeine and what webmasters should be looking at. The only thing that was missing seemed to be a cup of coffee, and Matts’ haircut offcourse…

Facebook going Lite to take on Twitter

Seems a lighter version of Facebook is on the cards. The world's no. 1 the social-networking site has sent out invitations to select

users to beta test the site, termed Facebook Lite

According to TechCrunch, it has been inundated with social networkers who have been asked to try out Facebook Lite saying that, surprise, it is more Twitter-like.

The message sent out to beta testers reads, "You have been selected as a beta tester for Facebook Lite! We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It's not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far."

Check out Facebook Lite now at http://lite.facebook.com.

Facebook recently announced that it is buying FriendFeed, an up-and-coming social media startup, that allows people to share content online in real time across various social networks and blogs.

The service is similar to, though less popular than Twitter, the microblogging site that Facebook tried to buy for $500 mn in 2008, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Read More..

Google Earth Admits Goof-up on Arunachal

Google has admitted that it committed a mistake by wrongly depicting certain parts of north-east India's Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory, and promised to correct the maps soon.
According to a statement by a Google spokesperson, "Earlier this week, as part of routine update to Google Earth, we published new data for the Arunachal Pradesh region that changed the depiction of certain place names in the product. The change was a result of a mistake in our processing of new map data."

There was speculation in media circles that Chinese hackers had attacked Google Earth which led to the wrong depiction of Indian territory as Chinese in the maps on google Earth. "We would like to clarify that this issue did not impact our depiction of international borders," the Google spokesperson said.

Google Earth is a service offered by Google that lets users to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings.

Google Earth had earlier been in the center of another controversy when Indian security agencies had complained that Google Earth exposed Indian defense and other sensitive installations.

Source: CXOtoday.com
And techtree.

Priyanka has 21,770 followers on Twitter

New Delhi (IANS): Priyanka Chopra has got as many as 21,770 followers on social networking site Twitter within a month, overtaking Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag. And the credit goes to her regular updates.

The 27-year-old actress, who is currently down with fever, catches up with her 'Tweeps' (Twitter friends) while in the car, on a shoot or when she is lounging around. The list of her 21,770 followers exceeds those of Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag, who are equally in love with the site, said a source close to the actress.

While Gul has 12,917 people following her updates, Mallika lags behind with 11,199.

Priyanka has also cashed in on her online popularity with "The 'Kaminey' Contest" on her Webpage. The contest requires interested participants to answer three questions regarding the movie.

The winners will get a personally autographed audio CD of the movie, in which Priyanka has teamed up with Shahid Kapoor.

"Thanks for your overwhelming response to the contest...I'll be sending the 50 CDs with all my love soon..," Priyanka has posted on the website.

People will always remember me as Sujal: Rajeev

Actor Rajeev Khandelwal is trying hard to carve a niche in Bollywood but admits that he will always be remembered as Sujal Grewal from the hit TV show "Kahiin To Hoga".

"People will always remember me as Sujal. There are certain characters that remain etched in the mind of viewers," Rajeev told IANS.

"People remember me as Rajveer Singh Shekhawat of 'Left Right Left' as well.

There are a lot of girls who come to me and say 'Hi Captain Rajveer'. But 'Kahiin To Hoga' had a wider audience. Not that I have suffered being remembered as Sujal," he added.

He forayed into Hindi films with thriller "Aamir" and says his TV image hasn't marred his film journey.

" 'Aamir' was appreciated enough. I don't think Sujal ever came in my way - that character has instead always walked along with me," he added.

Read More..

Flickr Updates Search Feature

Flickr is one of the largest and most used photo sites, but its search function hasn’t always been the most intuitive. This week the company announced a noteworthy redesign that makes searching for photos easier.

For starters, the new “View” control (located at the top of the page, just below the search box) will display results in a thumbnail gallery view across different sizes and formats (small, medium, detail, slideshow). As Flickr’s blog states,”both small and medium views have an ‘i’ icon on every thumbnail.” Clicking on it will generate a full-sized image of the photo, which means you no longer have to navigate away from the page to get up close and personal with your favorite photos.

Read more..

'Happiness meter' analyses blogs, tweets

A method of measuring happiness based on blogs and Twitter has helped researchers highlight the happiest days in recent US history.

The software created by Dr Peter Dodds and Dr Chris Danforth of the University of Vermont, collects sentences from blogs and 'tweets', zeroing in on the happiest and saddest days of the last few years.

"We wanted to capitalise on the explosion of blogs and now Twitter to build an instrument that would give us some measure of the emotional signal from a large collective of people," says Dodds co-author of a paper that appears in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

"All this new data is basically helping us gain insight into social phenomena that didn't exist a few years ago."


The scientists started at the website wefeelfine.org, which combs through 2.3 million blogs looking for sentences that begin with "I feel" or "I am feeling."

The words that came next were ranked on a happiness scale of 1 to 9. A total of 1034 words were ranked, with "triumphant" registering at 8.87 on one side of the scale and "hostage" measuring at 2.20 at the other end.

Read More..

Google Doc Now Supports Office 2007 File Formats

Google on June 1, 2009 declared that its Google Docs will support Office 2007 file formats such as docx, xlsx, pptx and so on. The extensions .doc, .odt, xls, .ods, .ppt, .csv, .html, .txt, .rtf, and others were already supported. Now it will support

* For spreadsheets: .xls, .xlsx, .ods, .csv, .tsv, .txt, .tsb
* For documents: .doc, .docx, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf
* For presentations: .ppt, .pps

Google Docs is an web application or service provided by Google that you can use to share, create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with people all over the world. It offers you free Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form application. Advantages are clearly visible. You never need to worry about overlapping revisions or heavy email attachments. Above all, you can store everything online, that implies you need no additional back up and that you can access the files from anywhere you like. With so much to avail and all for free, I find its a great tool to manae your documents online. Still when Microsoft Launched Office 2007 started stuck. This now has solved and you can enjoy Google Docs in full fledge.

Read More..

Update Sulumits Retsambew - Blogging Tips

1. Consider your audience
Even if your blog is generally personal, still, it would be better to consider the minds of your readers. You have to think of something that would interest them.
After all, most of the reasons of people who write blogs are not at all confined to their own personal motives. Most of them would love to be “heard” (or read) and would love to be known, in some way or another, even for just a minute. Hence, it is very important to come with a write up that everybody can understand, not necessarily that these people can relate to it but they can understand it.

2. Pictures speaks a thousand words
To make your blogging worth the browsing effort of your readers, it would be extremely nice if you will put some pictures in it. It does not necessarily mean you have to place a picture of yourself. Any photographs will do as long as it does not pose danger or insult to anyone who will be reading your blog.

3. Make constructive and beneficial blogs
Even if you are free to write anything you wan to say to the world, still, it would be better to create some write-ups that would be beneficial to your readers. After all, its information technology that you have there so better be inclined to provide information rather than sheer quirky entertainment.

4. Avoid making multifaceted and complicated blogs
In order to have an interesting blogs, try not to use some highly technical and highfalutin words. After all, it is not a science discourse or a debate that you are making, so better stick to simple facts and short blogs. Bear in mind that most people who use the Internet usually do more scanning than scrutinizing each site word for word. Therefore, it would be better to come with blogs that will not bore your readers just because you have these lengthy articles.

5. Make it interactive
As much as possible and if your capacity will allow it, make your blog interactive. Yu can do this by placing some video or audio clips in your blog.

You can even place an area for comments or for some feedbacks. In this way, you can get some impressions or reactions of other people. Who knows, you might even gain some friends just by making them feel at home in your blog site. Indeed, blogs are not created just for the mere fun of it. It also has its own purpose in the world of the Internet. therefore, for people who wish to harness their craft, as far as writing is concerned, blogs are the best way to do it. And as they say, blogging is the contemporary term of creative and commercial writing.

Surce:

Bet on Office Web Apps Over Google Apps, Analyst Says

Microsoft may have had its hand forced by Web-based alternatives, but the software giant will deliver a free Web version of Office, called Office Web Apps, that will launch in tandem with the paid, desktop version of Office 2010, which is in technical preview now and due to launch in the first half of next year.
With both online (Office Web Apps) and offline (Office 2010) versions of Office forthcoming, Microsoft seemingly has all the bases covered: a new, feature-rich desktop productivity suite and a lightweight online version to compete with emerging Web-based free alternatives such as Google Docs and the Zoho suite.

Slideshow: A Visual Overview of Office 2010

But Microsoft is also in a challenging position where it must avoid cannibalizing sales of its own lucrative desktop productivity suite ($20 billion in revenue forecasted for 2009), yet not lose out to online alternatives.

Sheri McLeish, analyst at Forrester Research, says that Microsoft's expansion of Office will be good for the industry and provide Microsoft with a worthy one-two punch.

"If we didn't have these free alternatives from Google and Zoho, surely Microsoft would not be doing this," says McLeish. "But all the competition in the productivity tools space benefits businesses and consumers."

Web-based Apps a Consumer Thing for Now

Details about the features of Office Web Apps have been scant, but we do know that consumers must have a Windows Live account to access Office Web Apps. There are 400 million active users worldwide using the free Windows Live Online Service, according to Microsoft.

This is a way to drive people to the Bing search engine and other Windows Live online services such as e-mail, storage and blogging tools. Google has the same strategy of directing people to its search engine via Google Apps and its many other online services.

Because consumers are more comfortable with Web-based apps that they can access through a browser on a laptop or smartphone, they are more likely to embrace Office Web Apps than business users.

"I don't think we'll see a huge increase in the usage of Web-based versions of Office at enterprises," says McLeish. "Today businesses are still mostly using desktop tools and e-mailing files around. But Microsoft needed to have that Web-based option out there."

Office Web Apps' Enterprise Edge

Although Web Apps may be a better fit for consumers and enterprise adoption of online apps will be slow, the two worlds will blend eventually, says McLeish - and this is where Microsoft will have an advantage over other Web-based alternatives.

"The big differentiator here is that Microsoft is providing more options to businesses in the ways which Web-based apps can be deployed," says McLeish.

For instance, for businesses licensed for Microsoft's Software Assurance maintenance program it is not a requirement to access Office Web Apps through the Windows Live Online Service or through a subscription-based model. Microsoft is allowing companies with Software Assurance to run Office Web Apps as a free service within the company's firewall, and then give workers access to the apps via the Web. This will give skittish IT managers more control over potentially sensitive online content.

Also in Microsoft's favor is that consumers and business users may be more likely to use Office Web Apps because Microsoft Office already has broad reach on computers everywhere, with approximately 80 percent of businesses that run production tools using Office, according to Forrester data. This level of trust and comfort is a luxury that Google does not have.

McLeish notes that giving companies the option to run Office Web Apps behind the firewall may help convince them to use Web-based productivity tools because it "reduces risk for businesses managing online content."

Just as important, she says, is that Office Web Apps offers this feature and Google Apps and Zoho do not - but maybe that won't last for long.

"They will probably catch up and offer the same thing soon," says McLeish

Source:pcworld

Top 5 non-obvious feature enhancements to Office 2010

The question has been asked, who really needs to use Microsoft Office these days? The answer is, anyone who is in the business of professionally generating content for a paying customer. Word 2010 may not be the optimum tool for the everyday blogger, and Excel 2010 maybe not the best summer trip planner, just as a John Deere is not the optimum vehicle for a trip to the grocery store. But in recent years, Microsoft is the only software producer that has come close to understanding what professional content creators require in their daily toolset.

So far, the improvements we've found from actually using the Office 2010 Technical Preview released Monday (as opposed to the ones Microsoft told us about) can mainly be described as usability enhancements -- tools that appear to be responses to how people actually use the products. Compared to Office 2007, which threw out the old instruction manual with regard to how applications should work, Office 2010's changes are subtler, slicker, and less ostentatious. Of those we've noticed in our initial tests, here are five which we feel will make compelling arguments for at least some users to upgrade:

5. Embedding Web videos in PowerPoint presentations. Technically, it's possible to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint 2007 presentation, but you need a third-party plug-in to pull it off. Otherwise, PowerPoint is only geared to play locally accessible files, essentially using a Media Player component.








One of the very few functional changes to PowerPoint 2010 is the addition of a mechanism that enables you to embed YouTube and other videos into a presentation the same way you'd embed them into a Web page: by copying the HTML code directly in. PowerPoint 2010 (gauging from the Technical Preview) will allow you to preview the video in-place without having to view the presentation as a slideshow first, which demonstrates the depth of functionality Microsoft truly intends for this component -- apparently an in-place Adobe Flash object. It will be even nicer when this feature works; in our tests, the new component often did not locate the video online and looked for it in the "My Documents" directory instead.

A new restricted editing feature in Word preserves the formatting while enabling named editors to add and change content.4. Restrict Editing command in Word 2010. Many publishing organizations use Word as their principal tool for editing textual content, which means collaborators shuttle multiple documents between authors, editors, and proofreaders. Microsoft's collaboration tools are supposed to enable only certain parties to make changes. But in the publishing business, formatting codes are the keys to the final formatting of a production document, and if someone who has access rights can change those paragraph formats, even accidentally (which is easier to accomplish than you might imagine, thanks to customizable document templates belonging to each user), the entire production process can be held up, sometimes for days, while formatters work out the kinks.

This simple tool may go a long way toward preventing these kinks from popping up. On a per-user basis, Restrict Editing (located in the Developer panel, which is not displayed by default) can prevent named individuals from making certain types of changes to a document, even if he's generally permitted to make changes. Among the available restrictions are changes to styles, which creates the possibility for a safeguard that publishers can use to prevent authors from changing manuscripts willy-nilly to suit their tastes. (Can you tell I've been in the editing business?)

Read More..

Microsoft planing free, online version of Office

The technology titan tries to stop Google Docs from encroaching on its turf.

Everyone predicted Microsoft Corp. wouldn't take long to fire back against Google Inc.'s latest foray into its home turf.

It took less than a week.

On Monday, Microsoft said it would offer a free version of its popular Office software suite that would run on the Internet.

The Redmond, Wash., company didn't mention its archrival by name, but analysts saw Monday's move as a strategy by Microsoft to protect one of its most profitable businesses against Google, which already dominates the Internet search market.

The Web-based version of the Office suite will be available next year.

"Microsoft was forced to provide a free product" as an answer to Google Docs, a suite of free, browser-based document and spreadsheet editing software, said Sheri McLeish, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It's a very competitive market out there, and this was Microsoft's opportunity to one-up Google by offering a much better product."

The announcement, made at Microsoft's developers conference in New Orleans, is the latest tit-for-tat in an intense competition between the two technology giants.

The Mountain View, Calif., search giant said last week that it would develop an operating system designed to attract users away from personal computers, where Microsoft is ubiquitous. Google's Chrome OS and software would run on the Internet, where Google has a commanding share of the Web audience.

Last month Microsoft released Bing, its answer to Google's popular search engine.

By giving away versions of its Office software, Microsoft risks cannibalizing one of its most profitable products. The company's business software division, which includes Office, made $9.3 billion in profit from $14.3 billion in sales during the first three quarters of its 2009 fiscal year. The unit also has revenue from other software applications and services such as Microsoft Exchange, but the bulk of its sales comes from Office, which includes the Word and Excel applications.

About 80% of companies recently surveyed by Forrester use Microsoft's Office. Less than 8% use other document editing software, including IBM Corp.'s Lotus Symphony, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice and Google Docs.

For Microsoft, the imperative is to maintain its dominance, according to Melissa Webster, an analyst with IDC. She said a recent survey found that nearly everyone who used Web-based document editing software such as Google Docs also used Microsoft Office.

Many, for example, create a document using Excel, then upload it to the Web to share with colleagues, who may read and edit the spreadsheet using a Web-based program such as Zoho Sheet or Google Docs.

"Web-based tools are not taking share away from Microsoft's desktop Office suite," Webster said. "But to the extent that these products are complementary, Microsoft needs to get in the game. They risk losing users as people get more comfortable using Web-based tools. And they risk losing their edge."

Microsoft's group product manager for Office, Chris Bryant, said its customers were increasingly using the Web to share and edit documents.

"It's something our users have said they'd like," Bryant said. "Customers are telling us they expect to use the Web-based applications as companions to their desktop software."

Bryant declined to outline how Microsoft would make money with the move, but hinted that business models could include advertising and fees for premium services such as online storage of large files.

The free versions won't include all the features of the desktop software, priced between $70 for a basic student version and about $350 for the professional version. For the upcoming software suite Office 2010, Microsoft plans to let users edit video in PowerPoint and manipulate images in Word -- features that would be unavailable in the free versions.

Investors didn't appear to be concerned about Microsoft's proposed giveaway. On Monday its shares gained 84 cents, or 3.7%, to close at $23.23

Source:

SEO's And Microsoft Search

Microsoft has remodeled their search engine over and over again. The Microsoft Network, or MSN whose origins started as an ISP and an online portal when Windows 95 came out grew into a search engine that was always trailing as the 3rd most used search engine behind Google and Yahoo in terms of search engine usage with the United States. From MSN.com to Live.com and finally Bing.com...

SEO Need-To-Know

is now branding itself as a "decision engine." Do they mean Bing has some unique decision algorithm in giving relevant results that it can decide on what are the best sites for you to look at? Not really. It is a decision engine that it gives you various types of results that may help you decide on what you are looking for. In my opinion this just sounds like Google Universal Search Results, just gave it a new name from Live to Bing and slapped a full marketing campaign on various advertising mediums to spread the word of the Gospel of Bing everywhere.

Should I even care about Bing?


From daily SEO interactions from SEO friends working at an SEO firm, SEO friends on forums I interact with daily, to some SEO competitors who joined Sulumits Retsambew SEO Contest, a large percent of SEO professionals do not even care about Bing because they believe Google has the majority search usage world wide. Based on some research data by comScore, last April 2009, Google websites receive about 8 times more search queries than Microsoft websites.






Is this the case forever? We cannot really say as Microsoft is really pushing their search engine all out in this marketing campaign of Bing that there are some sites showing Bing gaining in market share. As for the usage, several news site and blogs are showing an increase in Bing search traffic but this can still be due to the campaign that makes everyone curious about Bing and everyone checks it out. And in the end, it will still boil down to how please the search engine users are in being able to look for what they are searching for. So we still have yet to see in the next few months if Bing's traffic sticks or continues to increase or will drop again as being the 3rd used search engine again.




Going back to the question, should you even care about Bing? Well if Bing is only 8.2% of all search queries, that can still be a big number. The US has 220 million Internet users and about 73% of those use search engines for shopping, that is an estimated 13 million people searching Bing in the US. Still a large market to target. Ok you can say my numbers are not accurate. My B2C Local Business Search data was from Neilsen back in September 2007, even 50% of 13 million is still a significant amount of people using Bing.

I'm an SEO and what do I need to know about Bing?


Ok SEO people, what do we need to know? Since Live.com, we have been seeing Microsoft reach out to SEO people, when they came out with their own XML Sitemap submission area, with some basic top 5 backlink info, and making an MS Excel plugin for keyword research from Microsoft's AdCenter, now with Bing, they have released a Bing webmaster guideline document for the SEO people that cared about Bing to read.

Most SEO concepts are the same throughout search engines. Good SEO best practices are valid for most search engines. And in this 24 pages of information of Bing's webmaster guidelines, after reading all of it, I will try to sum it up into 3 key bullet points below that may be unique to Bing:


1. Target Category Keywords that appear on the upper left of the SERPs. You want to make sure you appear on all of them that are good converting keywords for your business. People usually narrow down search results by adding in keyword modifiers and Bing suggest these so people do not have to think or type and may find it convenient to click. It is even placed on the top left sidebar where navigational menus people normally click on.

2. Optimize the Document Preview of your pages. All SEO people know that the Title tag and Meta description tag does not only help in the ranking process but if written well, these can be more compelling to click and increases CTR. Now aside from these two, Bing now has the Document preview which based on current observations it is pulling in the initial content found on the page. Thus your first few paragraphs would be ideal to write something very idea to click on.

1. 
   
   
   
   

1. Having your address and phone number which is a normal practice for Local SEO is a good thing since Document Preview will try to look for this information and place it in the preview window.
If you do not want this feature enabled, you can use the nopreview tag.


2. Implement SEO Flash Best Practices. Bing has expressed their sophistication in their technology specifically stating this:

When titles and/or meta descriptions dont exist on an HTML page, at runtime Bing creates a best-effort caption from relevant external sources of reliable information to populate the caption with meaningful data for the searcher. Bing, in the effort to improve searcher experience and avoid empty captions, can even construct captions using keyword inbound link text from external, authoritative websites to help create basic captions where no publisher data exists.


Initially this sounds good. But sometimes any information based on other websites may give you a limited amount of control. Every business has enemies and sometimes even if the enemies are a minority, they can sometimes be the "noisiest" online and could be creating a significant amount of negative publicity about your business. You do not want Bing to show this information thus as a precautionary measure, always do Flash properly.



Everything else mentioned in their webmaster guideline whitepaper are all standard SEO best practices applicable to other search engines, such as good content, unique title tags and meta tags, avoid duplicate content, etc.

So if you know SEO already these are the 3 main differences above you might want to look at when optimizing for Bing.

Source:

Google Seen Posting 2Q Growth, But At Slower Pace

Despite the troubled economy and sagging prices paid for the search giant's online advertising, Wall Street expects Google Inc. (GOOG) to issue an earnings report next Thursday showing profit and sales gains for the second quarter ended in June.

Still, the anticipated numbers are also thought to reflect a decline compared to first quarter, which ended in March.

Analysts expect Google to post second-quarter earnings excluding special items of $5.05 a share, and $4 billion in net revenue, according to estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

That compares to earnings excluding special items of $4.63 a share and $3.9 billion in net revenue for the same period a year earlier - which ended before the economy began dramatically tipping into a recession.

The expected results nonetheless reflect a decline from the first quarter, when Google posted earnings of $5.16 a share excluding items. Google itself doesn't offer financial guidance.

Justin Post, an analyst covering the company for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, told clients Thursday he thinks Google will meet Wall Street's second-quarter expectations, though management's comments on trends in the overall economy will be of more interest. Post noted that Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has made public statements recently indicating he feels the economy should begin to recover soon.

"The Street, in our view, is largely looking past [second-quarter] results and will be focused on management's tone and comments on the economy (as a gauge for cost-per-click outlook)," Post wrote in a report.

Post maintains a $480 price target for the company's shares. Google shares have risen more than 33% year-to-date, outpacing the Nasdaq Composite Index. The shares closed at $410.39 Thursday afternoon.

   Paid-Click Slowdown

Google's paid clicks, or the number of times Internet users click on the company's advertisements and generate revenue, are expected to have increased in the quarter compared to the period last year - though not quite at growth rates seen in the past. Post estimates that paid clicks grew 14% in the period, whereas they were growing at a rate of 20% as recently as the first quarter of last year.

Read More..

IntroducingNew OS : Google Chrome OS

It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.

Source:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Google Voice Invites Begin Trickling Out

Google Voice, which was relaunched in March from the "ashes" of GrandCentral, has remained closed to non-GrandCentral users since then. On Thursday, Google announced it was again beginning to give out invitations to the still-not-fully-public service.

Since Google had gone months since adding any new users, you can see that there is probably quite a backlog of requests for entry queued up. In their blog post announcing the move, Google said:

Read More..

Facebook Tightens Privacy Controls

A beta version of Facebook's publisher gives users more control over who can see their content. The move is meant to improve security and privacy on the social networking site.

Facebook is testing out granular privacy controls for its users that will allow them to exercise more control over who sees published content.

Just recently, Facebook made a beta version of its publisher available to some of its users that allows them to configure the settings for who can view their information. The new capabilities allow users to configure settings to display certain content to just their confirmed friends, their friends and members of networks they belong to, "Friends of Friends" or everyone.

The new settings are an attempt by Facebook to improve privacy and increase security, and to address complaints by users that they could not control who could see their status updates.

You may have some posts you want to share with a wide audience, such as whom you voted for or how great the weather is today," blogged Facebook engineer Olaoluwa Okelola. "Other times you may have more personal updates like your new phone number or an invitation to join you at your favorite restaurant for dinner that are meant for only close or nearby friends."

Forrester Research analyst Chenxi Wang agreed that the settings add a needed level of privacy for the average user.

"I've got personal friends on Facebook and also business associates," Wang said. "These days I give a talk at a conference and afterwards I'd get three or four Facebook friend requests from audience members, people I don't really know. I'd very much like a private profile and a public profile to differentiate between inner circles and other, more loosely connected, individuals. And this new settings would allow me to do that, which is great."

When it comes to enterprise IT security, the new privacy controls may not do much to assuage concerns about social networking by employees. However, limiting the amount of public information out there may make the social engineering aspect of phishing trickier for attackers.

"From an enterprise's standpoint, one potential implication is that since there will be less private information out there, phishing attacks via Facebook will be more difficult," she said. "That's good news for enterprises. But on the flip side, it's more difficult for HR folks to do Facebook background checks, which is a downside."

Opera Unite: A New Way to Share

Opera is stepping up efforts to grab share of the Web browser market. To do that, the tiny Norwegian company released a version of its software that's designed to give users more control over the information they upload and share via the Web.

The way things work now, much of the information sent over the Web, from photos saved on Facebook to chats via instant-message software, is handled by servers run by big companies, typically outside the average user's control.
The Next Step in Cloud Computing

Opera Unite, part of the June 16 release of the Opera 10 browser, aims to change that by letting registered users make the contents of their hard drive accessible to friends and colleagues anywhere in the world, and host activities like chatting and message boards directly from their computers, instead of via servers owned by providers of commercial Web services. Peer-to-peer companies like Napster have in the past also let users share files directly from their hard drives, but Opera's product expands the range of files users can publish.

Opera (OPERA.OL) says the new feature will be useful for Internet users who are uncomfortable sharing their files and interacting with friends over privately owned Web sites, which set their own rules for privacy, and can't always be counted on to store files permanently. "If you upload your photos to a site that is owned by someone, you're basically uploading your life—and you might be giving away certain rights," says Christen Krogh, Opera's chief development officer. Opera Unite lets users set passwords for access to selected files on their computers. Additionally, Krogh says Opera Unite helps users save time they would otherwise spend uploading files to the Web or sending them in an e-mail.

In a trend known as cloud computing, individuals and companies increasingly are shifting computing tasks, including storage of sensitive data, to servers maintained by outside companies such as Google (GOOG), Facebook, Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT).

Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner contends that computer-to-computer transactions like the ones Opera Unite encourages are simply the next step in cloud computing. "We are actually making the cloud a lot bigger" by adding more, dispersed connections across the Web, von Tetzchner says.

The new Opera 10 release includes six applications that take advantage of the added sharing capability: file sharing, a virtual message board called the "fridge," a media player for streaming songs to other computers; photo-sharing; a chat room called "the lounge," and a server for hosting your own Web site.
Bringing Unite to Mobile

Opera is a relatively small player in the tussle for share of the Web browser market. "While all browsers want to ensure that they have the same features in order to have parity, they need to differentiate themselves in some way," says Sheri McLeish, an analyst at Forrester Research (FORR). Microsoft is the largest, though its Internet Explorer has lost ground by about 7 percentage points over the past year. It held about 66% in May, according to researcher Net Applications. Mozilla's Firefox had 22.5% and Apple's (AAPL) Safari held 8.4%. Since its launch in September, Google Chrome has eked out almost 2% of the market; Opera remains below 1%.

Opera may be a laggard in Web browsing, but in mobile it's king. This month, the mobile version of Opera—used on phones running Nokia's Symbian operating system and Windows Mobile, and Nintendo's (7974.T) DS gaming handheld—claimed more than 24% of the mobile browser market, surpassing the use of Safari on iPhones, according to data aggregator StatCounter.

The company is dropping hints that Opera Unite could eventually be optimized for mobile phones. "This is starting off on the PC side, but I think you can see how this can be used in all kinds of devices as well," says von Tetzchner. Such a service might mimic the type of mobile applications currently offered by companies like Evernote and SugarSync, which provide users with on-the-go access to documents stored on their home computers.

10 Important Points For : Personalized Facebook URLs

Ladies and gentlemen, get on your marks: The race to grab your very own Facebook URL is about to begin. Facebook will allow users to register custom usernames for the first time starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT Saturday. The usernames are bound to go fast, and if you aren't prepared, you may end up empty-handed -- or, worse yet, with a number-happy AOL-style name (think "JSmithLOLz313451").

Here, then, are 10 things you need to know before the floodgates open.

1. Facebook's usernames will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you're dying to get "johnhenderson," you'd better not go to bed early. Facebook will start handing out usernames at precisely 12:01 a.m. EDT. Odds are, most common names will be gone by 12:02.

2. Once you pick a name, it's yours for life.

Each Facebook account gets only one username, and you can never change it. You can't transfer it to someone else, either. Even if you delete your Facebook account, Facebook says the name won't go back into the pool.

3. You don't necessarily have to use your real name.

While Facebook is encouraging the use of real names, you aren't limited in that regard. The system will suggest a few available options based on your first and/or last name, but it'll also provide a blank field in which you can type something completely unrelated.

4. You won't be able to get a 'generic word' as your username.

Hoping to snag facebook.com/blogger? Don't count on it. Facebook says "generic words" won't be available for usernames. A full list of included terms hasn't been released, but "pizza" and "flowers" were given as examples of what won't fly.

5. You'll have to use at least five characters.

The Facebook usernames will have to be at least five characters in length and can only contain letters, numbers, and a period. Trying names with special characters -- you know, symbols like $#@% -- will only waste your time.

6. If you created your Facebook account after 3 p.m. on June 9, you won't be able to get a username yet.

Facebook is only letting users who had accounts prior to 3 p.m. on June 9 register for usernames this week. The social network says it's a precaution to help prevent people from creating accounts just for "name squatting" purposes. If you registered your Facebook account after that time, you'll have to wait till June 28 at 12:01 a.m. to get your new name.

7. The restrictions are even greater for Facebook Pages (public profiles).

Owners of Facebook Pages -- public profiles for companies, organizations, or public figures -- must have been registered before May 31 in order to be eligible for a custom URL. Additionally, the Facebook Page must have had at least 1,000 fans as of May 31 in order to get a username now.

8. Facebook does plan to protect trademarks.

Facebook says it'll work to protect intellectual property and trademark rights. You can report rights violations here.

9. Your current privacy settings will apply to your new URL.

Your new Facebook username will immediately become your new URL (e.g. facebook.com/username). Depending on your privacy settings, though, people may not be able to see much there. Whatever settings you currently have on your account will apply, so if your profile is set to be private, it'll remain private -- even on the new address.

10. Your Facebook username may be used for more things in the future.

As of now, the Facebook usernames will be used for custom URLs. In the future, however, the company has said it plans to unveil other uses for the names. Specifics have yet to be revealed, but know that whatever name you pick will likely pop up in even more places down the road.

Now Facebook to offer personalized Web addresses

SAN FRANCISCO — Like concert goers lining up for a coveted ticket, Facebook users are queuing up to claim their digital turf.

Late Friday and early Saturday, the world's largest social-networking site was to begin offering its 200 million users the chance to claim a personalized Web address on a first-come, first-served basis.

The move will allow them to create a distinct online address for their personal profile with a name of their choosing, such as Facebook.com/jonswartz. It would also let them use their Facebook page like a personal home page, as a vast majority of members of rival MySpace already do.

The late-night change (12:01 a.m. Saturday ET) had some anxious Facebook members changing their Friday night plans to grab their name before someone else did.

"As a sole proprietor, it is very important to me," says Scott Roewer, a professional organizer in Washington, D.C., who uses Facebook and Twitter to promote his business. "I have no choice but to sign up at midnight."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: MySpace | Facebook | Twitter

Facebook member Bryan Christmas, 27, wanted to be sure he had Internet access at 9:01 p.m. in San Francisco, altering his weekend plans for a few precious minutes.

The intent of so-called "vanity URLs" is to make it easier to find profiles through Web searches, says Facebook. Currently, Facebook profiles contain a sequence of numbers.

But the change could lead to a virtual land grab. Once someone snags a name, for example, no one else can use it. And after that name is confirmed, it cannot be changed.

The lure of "vanity URLs" might lead, in some cases, to courtroom disputes over trademark rights, say legal experts.

One possible scenario is a third-party improperly registering the name of a celebrity or brand name.

"It could be a quagmire," says Howard Weller, a trademark attorney in New York who represents celebrities. "We could have another case of cybersquatting," when squatters claimed domain names during the early years of the Internet in an attempt to sell them at a profit.

Last week, baseball manager Tony La Russa sued social-networking site Twitter, claiming an authorized profile used his name.

Facebook says it has taken steps to prevent cybersquatting. Tens of thousands of names have been restricted, including those of well-known companies and brand terms, celebrities, politicians and profanity.

In addition, for several days Facebook members were also able to submit requests for terms they didn't want used, spokesman Larry Yu says.

Facebook users won't be able to transfer their names to others, and Facebook will only allow users to claim a name if they had an account before the feature was announced June 9. That restriction lifts June 28.

Facebook says it's unclear how many people will sign up. It has, however, taken steps to ensure the site's service isn't adversely affected, Yu says.

New Tool Helps Twitter Users Manage Interactions

If Twitter is going to be a long-term tool for social networking, it's going to need to evolve -- quickly -- because many users are already abandoning their accounts, according to a research scientist from Purewire, a Web security applications developer.

"It's fairly well known that some characteristics of social networking tools become a graveyard [of dormant users]," said Steve Webb. "People get excited about them but that excitement dies very quickly. That effect shows up in Twitter."

In fact, that trend seems to be happening at a faster rate than other popular social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, Webb said.

"The main difference between Twitter and Facebook is Twitter is a lot more work. With Facebook, you have friends in the real world and you can say, 'Let's find these friends' with bi-directional links. On Twitter, you can find friends, but it's not the same bi-directional linking."

Purewire conducted research that found that 40 percent of Twitter users have not tweeted since their first day on Twitter. In addition, approximately 25 percent of Twitter users are not following anyone and about two-thirds of users are following fewer than 10 people.

With Twitter, it's difficult for new people to break into well-established circles, Webb said. "If you look at the most popular [subject for] tweets, it's about trying to figure out Twitter or learn Twitter. Twitter is a simple concept, but it's difficult for the average person to figure out what to do with it. There's not a lot of rich content coming out of it. If you don't have a lot of people following you, there's no reason to continue to post updates," Webb said.

In addition, while Twitter has become a medium for receiving information, it's lagged behind other tools as a way to interact with others, according to Webb. Purewire found that 80 percent of users have fewer than 10 tweets and 80 percent of Twitter users have fewer than 10 followers.

"It's a very powerful medium to get a message out to people from big, social media moguls. From that standpoint, I don't foresee that going away. Massive groups will keep seeing new pictures that Ashton [Kutcher] is putting up or what Shaq [Shaquille O'Neal] is doing in the off-season," Webb said. "But if they want a longer shelf life, they need to appeal to people that need something to do. Just showing up and typing a few messages about people who don't care what you're saying doesn't help. I expect them to come up with something."

As a means to improve Twitter usage, Purewire this week launched TweetGrade, a tool that grades Twitter users based on their usage and reputation. It allows users to better determine whom they should be interacting with, Webb said. "It's like a credit bureau for Twitter. It's at least some data point to take and go from there," he said.

Eventually, Purewire plans to integrate TweetGrade into its Purewire Trust service, which offers security and authentication across multiple social networking tools, Webb said. "We try to establish who can you trust? Will this person give you a malicious link or send some malicious data in the feed? That's our primary responsibility," he said.

For example, Purewire notes the "Best Video" scam that recently attacked Twitter users by directing followers to a video wanting viewers to purchase rogue antivirus software.

TweetGrade is Purewire's "contribution to the community at large," according to Webb. It's a free tool, as the company drives its primary revenue through enterprise analytics applications, he said.

"It's difficult to associate trust and your reputation to online personas. You can get a new friend request, but it's difficult to know whether you can trust that person or have a relationship with that person. We give one good data feed to who is trustworthy, who is not. If they get an F, you may not be as interested in interacting than if they had an A or A+," Webb said.

Facebook vanity URLs coming this weekend

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook's 200-plus million members will be able to customize the URLs to their profiles starting at midnight Eastern on Saturday, according to a post on the Facebook blog. Currently, users' profile URLs have been structured as a string of numbers. At least for now, it doesn't look like the switch is mandatory.

This is a move that will help Facebook profiles get better traction in search engines, potentially upping traffic--and give people-search sites a run for their money in the process. For brands whose "fan pages" are a crucial part of Facebook's marketing and advertising strategy, it'll make their pages easier for people to access without needing to click around much.

But there's fine print! "Think carefully about the user name you choose. Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it," the post by Facebook's Blaise DiPersia read. "If you signed up for a Facebook Page after May 31 or a user profile after today at 3 p.m. EDT, you may not be able to sign up for a user name immediately because of steps we've taken to prevent abuse or 'squatting' on names."

There's something significant here: not being able to change or transfer your Facebook name means that it's less likely there will be a big market for them on eBay, Craigslist, or elsewhere, something that could easily get out of hand otherwise.

Also: "We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook user name in the future," DiPersia wrote. Presumably, this means that you'll be able to use it for Facebook Connect log-ins on external sites, rather than your e-mail address.

Shuts Out AOL, Yahoo CEO Keeps Microsoft Deal Door Open

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) Chief Executive Carol Bartz said Monday the struggling Internet giant can "take on" rivals Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Google Inc. (GOOG), and she dismissed the idea of striking a partnership with Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX) AOL unit.

Bartz, however, declined to rule out a search partnership with Microsoft, which tried to buy Yahoo last year and remains open to some sort of deal that could bolster its search capabilities to compete with market leader Google.

"If you talk about search in general, you could partner with somebody," she said in an interview with Fox Business News' Liz Claman.

Bartz's statement appeared to be her latest attempt to calibrate her position on Microsoft. She told an investor conference last week that Yahoo's future would be "cleaner" if it didn't strike any sort of deal with Microsoft, a comment that sent Yahoo shares tumbling 5%.

Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have talked about forming a partnership on search but the exact nature of those discussions has not been clear.

Bartz also appeared to rule out any sort of partnership with AOL, which Time Warner recently decided to spin off.

"Yahoo-AOL would not happen anytime in the forever future," she said. "Yahoo is a much stronger property in a different direction and there's no sense confusing all of that."

Bartz once again downplayed Microsoft's newly revamped search engine, dubbed Bing, which for a day surpassed Yahoo in market share.

Yahoo is the No. 2 U.S. search engine, with 20.4% market share in April, according to market research group comScore. Microsoft continued to lag far behind with about 8% of the market, while rival Google Inc. (GOOG) increased its share by half a percentage point in April to 64.2% of the U.S. market, its highest level ever.

Shares in Yahoo closed down 2.7% at $16.19, while Microsoft fell 0.4% to $22.05. Google shares fell 1.3% to $438.77 and Time Warner was up 2.4% at $25.91.