Online Backups Could Use Google’s Expertise

It’s all well and good that Google has promised a speedy, secure operating system designed for a Webby world. But why can’t the company — which buys so many darned hard drives — tackle a smaller project first and give consumers something they really want and need: easy-to-use, cheap data backup?

A so-called GDrive has been rumored for years. According to the speculation, this would be a service that lets people manage all of their files online – not just e-mail, photos and documents – and gives people access to their data from any computer with a network pulse.

It’s not a terribly novel concept, and there are ways to perform these types of functions today. Average consumers, however, certainly haven’t tapped into this type of technology in any meaningful way. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

EBay Denies Partnership With G.M.

SAN FRANCISCO — As General Motors emerged from bankruptcy protection on Friday, it appeared to get its signals crossed with the e-commerce giant eBay.

In a statement heralding its new corporate structure and revitalized outlook, the automaker said it was working on new ways to make buying a car more convenient, including forging a partnership with eBay in California to sell new cars on its eBay Motors auction site.

“We’ll be testing this and other ideas with our dealers over the next few weeks and hope to expand and build upon them in the coming months,” Fritz Henderson, G.M.’s chief executive, said in a statement. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Microsoft Mystery Announcement Next Week Prompted Chrome Announcement

Omnipresent Net personality Robert Scoble made his name working for Microsoft as a blogger. So it’s credible when Scoble claims that “Microsoft has a big announcement coming on Monday (I’m embargoed).” Google’s Chrome OS announcement did seem a bit odd, in a why-are-they-announcing-this-now sort of way. Let’s see if Microsoft can keep its secret until Monday.

Business Week has an inkling of this as well. In the June 24 cover story on Steve Ballmer and Office 2010 by Peter Burrows, the magazine noted that Microsoft would offer details about its plans related to Office 2010, which will have many web-based functions similar to Google Docs, on July 13. Office 2010 will also have a free, ad-supported version that competes head-on with Google Docs. Microsoft is also said to be working on Gazelle, a Chrome-like web browser. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Power.com Fights Back Against Facebook

Power.com is suing its frenemy, Facebook.

On Friday, Power.com, a site that lets users sign in to several social networks from one place, plans to respond to the lawsuit that Facebook filed against it with its own suit. It alleges that Facebook is prohibiting its users from accessing their Facebook content through Power.com and that it is attempting to monopolize the social networking market.

Power.com’s idea was to create a portal through which people could enter various social networking sites. Right now, people can enter their log-in information for MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hi5 or Orkut and see their social network updates and contacts from all their networks at once. But some of the social networks are not so happy about Power.com trying to keep users on its site.

When Power.com opened in the United States in December, it included an option to log into Facebook, but that is no longer on the site. Facebook sued Power.com in January for copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition and violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, among other things.

After starting in Brazil, Power.com attempted a big unveiling in the United States in December. It was helped along by its big-name investors, which include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the venture capital firm, and Esther Dyson, the technology investor and analyst. Power.com’s chief executive, Steve Vachani, said at the time that he wanted the site “to be the center of the world.” Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Google To Announce Major Identity Initiative for 1 Million+ Companies and Schools

Google plans to announce in coming weeks that it is turning each of the one million plus Google Apps customer domains into an OpenID provider, enabling millions of people to log in to OpenID-supporting websites with their work, school or organization ID.

“For these organizations,” Google Security Product Manager, Eric Sachs, wrote on the public OpenID Board mailing list this morning, “Google Apps can now become an identity and data hub for multiple SaaS providers.” Sachs appeared to believe his email was not being posted to a public board; he asked that it not be circulated so that some unusual technical work could be completed and political support shored up in the face of likely community and press cynicism. There’s good reason for that - it may not be the good news it seems to be.

But First, A Word from OpenID’s New Sponsor

OpenID is important not just because it makes logging in to sites around the web easy, with one username and a secure password, but because it’s a way for people or organizations to maintain control over their own identities and data. There are no policy changes you don’t approve of when you’re in control.

Google’s Sachs explained in his email that in order to pull this all off, OpenID relying parties will need to be redirected from the domain provided at user login over to Google’s OpenID service. In order for this redirect to happen, all relying parties will need to start looking for a new OpenID extension that Google has developed and implemented in conjunction with one relying party technology, JanRain’s RPX. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

CoTweet Opens Public Beta: Now You Can Tweet Like Starbucks

The majority of companies on Twitter rely on a variety of tools to allow multiple employees to post to one unified Twitter account. CoTweet is one of the most popular of these tools and it is currently being used by major brands like Starbucks, CocaCola, and Whole Foods, as well as by celebrities like Britney Spears. Starting today, anybody can tap into the power of CoTweet, as the company just announced a free public beta program. In addition, CoTweet also announced that it has raised $1.1 million in VC funding.

Features

CoTweet has a number of nice features that make it a great choice for any business that wants to get serious about using Twitter, and the fact that it is now available for free also gives small businesses and cash-strapped startups a chance to play the game at the same level as the big brands.

As you would expect from a tool like this, you can easily invite multiple users (up to 6 in the free version), hand out assignments to members of your team (which can be accompanied by notes), and create persistent searches (for your brand name, for example). Other interesting features in CoTweet include the ability to schedule tweets, see statistics from bit.ly in a sidebar right on the site, and set up email alerts for replies and direct messages.

Thanks to keyboard shortcuts and a no-nonsense design, using CoTweet is extremely easy, and even though it is meant to be used by multiple users, it’s actually also a great Web-based Twitter client in its own right. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Blame It on MySpace: Ad Spending on Social Networks Expected to Drop 3% This Year

According to a new report from eMarketer, paid advertising on social networks in the US will drop 3% in 2009. In 2008, advertisers spent $1.175 billion on ads on social networks, but eMarketer predicts that this number will fall to $1.14 billion this year. The main culprit here is MySpace. EMarketer expects that ad spending on the social network will fall 15% in 2009. At the same time, it expects to see a 9% growth in ad spending on Facebook, and most other social networks are also doing just fine. EMarketer expects that this drop will be short-lived, however, and predicts a 13.2% increase in ad spending in 2010.

It’s important to stress that except for MySpace, most other social networks are still doing just fine, and advertisers have actually increased their ad spending on Facebook and other social networks. Also, while most advertisers only spend a relatively small amount of money on ads on widgets and applications, the amount of money companies spend on advertising on these platforms will actually increase from $40 million to $70 million.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, though, it is also important to note that eMarketer predicted a 10.2% growth in ad spending for 2009 in December 2008. For the upcoming years, eMarketer predicts that the market will rebound and it predicts a 13.2% increase in ad spending in 2010. However, given how far off eMarketer’s prediction for 2009 was, we will just take this projection with a grain of salt. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Media execs wonder how Twitter will make money

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — It turns out the media elite aren’t so different from a lot of less affluent people: They think Twitter is a great communications tool, but can’t figure out how the online messaging service is going to make money.

The recurring doubts about Twitter’s moneymaking potential cropped up again Wednesday as an exclusive media summit hosted by investment banker Allen & Co. got underway at the posh Sun Valley resort.

One of the first sessions focused on how to capitalize on digital media. Twitter quickly became a focal point of the discussion because it has emerged as one of the Internet’s fastest growing services this year.

But Twitter hasn’t attempted to profit from its popularity yet, leaving everyone guessing about how the 3-year-old start-up intends to pay its bills after it exhausts its $55 million venture capital.

The participants on the panel moderated by media writer Ken Auletta of The New Yorker magazine predicted Twitter will face major challenges when the San Francisco-based company finally tries to generate revenue. Reporters were barred from the session — like all other meetings at the media summit — but Auletta confirmed the tenor of the Twitter talk afterward.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Warren Buffett | Barry Diller | Google | IAC/InterActiveCorp | Mark Zuckerberg | Evan Williams | Eric E. Schmidt | Ken Auletta | John C. Malone | Allen & Company

Two of the panel participants, veteran media executive Barry Diller and cable television magnate John Malone, reiterated their skepticism about Twitter’s moneymaking potential in separate interviews.

“I think it’s a great service. I just don’t think it’s a natural advertising medium,” said Diller, who is currently chief executive of online conglomerate InterActiveCorp.

Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, also believes Twitter will be hard-pressed to sell advertising on its messaging service without alienating users. Twitter’s best bet, Malone said, probably is to simply get people so addicted to the service that they might eventually pay fees. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Twitter Tips: How to Find Experts in Your Industry

After you join Twitter, who do you follow? Deciding this can be an overwhelming task, especially if your goal is to avoid the noise on Twitter and trade messages with trusted colleagues and thought leaders in your industry.

Millions of people tweet everyday. Consequently, it’s hard to find the best experts or luminaries. What are their Twitter handles? Are they even on Twitter?

Like many challenges facing users who meander through the burgeoning social network each day, there isn’t a perfect solution. But we caught up with some social media experts who offered useful tips on how best to find the right people on Twitter, based on your interests.

Simply Search

For starters, Twitter offers some basic search tools that help, such as the “Find People” tool, which you access next to the “profile” link in the upper right corner of your home page. After you click on it, you will be brought to a page with four tabs. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts

Why Google Chrome OS Matters Already, on Day 1

At last. At long last, there’s a real challenger to the Windows desktop, and its name is Google Chrome OS.

Why is Google Chrome OS going to be real trouble for Windows? After all, technically, desktop Linuxes like Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu, long ago left Windows in the dust. Mac OS X Panther is also darn good and it and its upcoming successor, Snow Leopard, are easier to use than anything else out there. So, what’s so special about Google Chrome OS? I’ll tell you.

The most important single fact you need to keep in mind is that everyone who uses a computer already knows Google, and most of them trust it. Only PC power users know about Linux, and the ones who know what’s what about such top-Linux desktop distributions as MEPIS 8 and Mint 7 are numbered in millions compared to the hundreds of millions who know Windows. Pretty much everyone knows Apple, but, even as Apple has gained some desktop market share, CEO Steve Jobs has never moved from his stand that Macs are high-end PCs. Apple builds sports cars, and it’s not interested in selling you a truck, an SUV or, heaven forbid, a station wagon.

Everyone knows and can afford Google, though. They may not know much about Google Docs, but they trust Google for their searches and many of them are already Gmail users. You see, unlike the other alternatives to Windows, Google has the singular advantage of already being well known and well liked. That will make all the difference in the world. Read more…

Some of resources: CAD Services, Handwriting Experts