Google Translate adds new languages

Google Translate has always been a useful web tool because it allowed users to translate texts and websites with a single click. Moreover, just like most other Google services, it was available for free.

However, Google Translate only provided a number of 26 language pairs because it only allowed users to translate texts to and from English, German, Spanish, French and a few others. Today, Google rolled out a major update to Google Translate, implemented several new languages which brings the total number of language pairs to 253.

The newly featured languages include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish.

As expected, the translation is not 100 percent accurate but, just like in the past, users have the possibility to "Suggest a better translation" in order to help Google provide better translations.

Nationwide Wireless Network

Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner have all come together under the name of Clearwire, in an effort to produce a nationwide wireless network. The deal is estimated to be approximately 14.5 billion dollars. The investment by the five strategic investors will be based on a target price of $20.00 per share of Clearwire's common stock, subject to a post-closing adjustment. This adjustment is based upon the trading prices of new Clearwire common stock on the NASDAQ Market over 15 randomly selected trading days during the 30-trading day period ending on the 90th day after the closing date. The price per share will be based upon the volume weighted average price on such days and is subject to a cap of $23.00 per share and a floor of $17.00 per share. In addition, Trilogy Equity Partners, led by wireless veteran John Stanton, will invest directly in the new Clearwire's common stock.

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of all companies involved, is expected to close during the fourth quarter. The company will apply for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker "CLWR."
The new company is looking for a US network deployment reaching 120 million to 140 million people by the end of 2010. Company officials said they'll need up to $2.3 billion more in funding by getting additional investors or borrowing. They also could simply shrink the size of the network.
The network is predicted at being so fast that it will deliver video and advertising as well as text and simple Web pages.

Benjamin G. Wolff, chief executive officer of Clearwire, said, "The combination of robust next-generation mobile WiMAX technology and nationwide spectrum that we believe is optimal for delivering mobile broadband services - coupled with substantial new financial resources, a team of experienced wireless industry veterans, and distribution and technology agreements with some of our nation's leading communications, technology and content companies - creates what I believe to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "

In addition to its investment in the venture, Google will integrate many of its online services with Sprint’s forthcoming WiMAX networks. The Mountain View, California-based search engine will become Sprint’s default mobile search provider, and Google Maps Mobile and YouTube accessibility will be offered on all new Sprint handsets.

"This exciting new venture enables Time Warner Cable to help shape the next generation of wireless services in ways that will complement and enhance our products and services," said Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable's president and chief executive officer. "We're committed to giving our customers more control over how and where they can easily connect to what's important to them - entertainment, information, and each other. The agreements we're announcing today are a financially prudent way for us to add mobility to our offerings when our customers demand it."

Mobile WiMAX is a standards-based wireless broadband technology designed to operate multiple times faster than today's 3G wireless networks. With embedded WiMAX chipsets in laptops, phones, PDAs, mobile Internet devices and consumer electronic equipment, mobile WiMAX technology is expected to allow users to wirelessly access a range of multimedia applications, such as live videoconferencing, recorded video, games, large data files and more - anywhere in the network coverage area.

Watch here the full story from Reporter Abby Prince.

Source WebProNews

All people do SEO

According to wikipedia: "Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines."

I saw that many people started to talk about it, there are many blogs and tutorials about this subject. I was curious to see the growth of seo in google's trends.

If you'll search for SEO, you'll see this graphic:

It seems that SEO doubled the searches in the last 4 years.
The main search places were:


If you'll search for "search engine optimisation", you can see that it evolved from 2006 to 2008, with several spikes:


The main regions for this search were:


It seems that the main seo specialists live in USA, UK, India, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.

But Romania, Japan, Philippines are coming fast from behind. These countries must eliminate the black seo and spam.

Google receives more than 60 percent of U.S. Searches every month

NEW YORK, NY – April 7, 2008 – Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, announced that Google accounted for 67.25 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending March 29, 2008. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.29, 5.25 and 4.09 percent respectively. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.72 percent of U.S. searches.

Percentage of U.S. Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers:

Domain Mar.-08 Feb.-08 Mar.-07

www.google.com 67.25% 66.44% 64.13%
search.yahoo.com 20.29% 20.59% 21.26%
search.msn.com 6.65% 6.95% 9.01%
www.ask.com 4.09% 4.16% 3.48%

Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending 3/29/08, 2/23/08, 3/31/07) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.

Gartner: 10 trends of IT industry

Gartner 's predictions for IT Organisations 2008:

1. Mac will double its market share

By 2011, Apple will double its U.S. and Western Europe unit market share in computers. Apple's gains in computer market share reflect as much on the failures of the rest of the industry as on Apple's success. Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility; continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software; and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices (such as iPod and iMac cross-selling).

2. Half of business travelers won't take their laptops

By 2012, 50 per cent of traveling workers will leave their notebooks at home in favour of other devices. Even though notebooks continue to shrink in size and weight, traveling workers lament the weight and inconvenience of carrying them on their trips. Vendors are developing solutions to address these concerns: new classes of Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-$400 level; and server and Web-based applications that can be accessed from anywhere. There is also a new class of applications: portable personality that encapsulates a user's preferred work environment, enabling the user to recreate that environment across multiple locations or systems.

3. Open source will penetrate 80% of enterprise software

By 2012, 80 per cent of all commercial software will include elements of open source technology. Many open source technologies are mature, stable, and well supported. They provide significant opportunities for vendors and users to lower their total cost of ownership and increase returns on investment. Ignoring this will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage. Embedded open-source strategies will become the minimal level of investment that most large software vendors will find necessary to maintain competitive advantages during the next five years.

4. A third of all software purchased will be by subscription

By 2012, at least one-third of business application software spending will be as service subscription instead of as product license. With software as service (SaaS), the user organization pays for software services in proportion to use. This is fundamentally different from the fixed-price perpetual license of the traditional on-premises technology. Endorsed and promoted by all leading business applications vendors (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft) and many Web technology leaders (Google, Amazon), the SaaS model of deployment and distribution of software services will enjoy steady growth in mainstream use during the next five years.

5. Many new businesses will buy IT infrastructure as a service

By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure as a service. Increased high-speed bandwidth makes it practical to locate infrastructure at other sites and still receive the same response times. Enterprises believe that as service oriented architecture (SOA) becomes common, cloud computing will take off, thus untying applications from specific infrastructure. This trend to accepting commodity infrastructure could end the traditional lock-in with a single supplier and lower the costs of switching suppliers. It means that IT buyers should strengthen their purchasing and sourcing departments to evaluate offerings. They will have to develop and use new criteria for evaluation and selection and phase out traditional criteria.

6. Power efficiency will become a key criteria in IT purchases

By 2009, more than one third of IT organizations will have one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria for IT-related goods. Initially, the motivation will come from the wish to contain costs. Enterprise data centers are struggling to keep pace with the increasing power requirements of their infrastructures. And there is substantial potential to improve the environmental footprint, throughout the life cycle, of all IT products and services without any significant trade-offs in price or performance. In future, IT organizations will shift their focus from the power efficiency of products to asking service providers about their measures to improve energy efficiency.

7. CO2 footprint will become part of PC purchasing criteria

By 2010, 75 per cent of organizations will use full life cycle energy and CO2 footprint as mandatory PC hardware buying criteria. Most technology providers have little or no knowledge of the full life cycle energy and CO2 footprint of their products. Some technology providers have started the process of life cycle assessments, or at least were asking key suppliers about carbon and energy use in 2007 and will continue in 2008. Most others using such information to differentiate their products will start in 2009 and by 2010 enterprises will be able to start using the information as a basis for purchasing decisions. Most others will stat some level of more detailed life cycle assessment in 2008.

8. Green sourcing will drive vendors to provide green

By 2011, suppliers to large global enterprises will need to prove their green credentials via an audited process to retain preferred supplier status. Those organizations with strong brands are helping to forge the first wave of green sourcing policies and initiatives. These policies go well beyond minimizing direct carbon emissions or requiring suppliers to comply with local environmental regulations. For example, Timberland has launched a Green Index environmental rating for its shoes and boots. Home Depot is working on evaluation and audit criteria for assessing supplier submissions for its new EcoOptions product line.

9. End user preferences will drive half of all IT purchases

By 2010, end-user preferences will decide as much as half of all software, hardware, and services acquisitions made by IT. The rise of the Internet and the ubiquity of the browser interface have made computing approachable, and individuals are now making decisions about technology for personal and business use. Because of this, IT organizations are addressing user concerns through planning for a global class of computing that incorporates user decisions in risk analysis and innovation of business strategy.

10. 3D printers will grow 100-fold

Through 2011, the number of 3D printers in homes and businesses will grow 100-fold over 2006 levels. The technology lets users send a file of a 3D design to a printer-like device that will carve the design out of a block of resin. A manufacturer can make scale models of new product designs without the expense of model makers. Or consumers can have models of the avatars they use online. Ultimately, manufacturers can consider making some components on demand without having an inventory of replacement parts. Printers priced less than $10,000 have been announced for 2008, opening up the personal and hobbyist markets.

Source: Gartner

Google helps to build submarine cable

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Web search company Google Inc has agreed to build an undersea cable with five telecoms operators that will link the United States to Japan, and provide the capacity to sustain a surge in Internet traffic between the continents.

Google and the five telecoms companies said in joint statement that the 10,000 km (6,200 mile) undersea fiber optic cable, connecting the United States to Japan, will cost $300 million.

Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corp, Pacnet, and Singapore Telecommunications.
The cable will provide much-needed capacity to sustain unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States.

The consortium said it has picked NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system, which is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.

It seems that Google forgot his plans for wireless spectrum.

See more here

cDc's Goolag googles for vulnerabilities

LUBBOCK, TX, February 20th - CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc), a hacker group,announced the release of Goolag Scanner, a web auditing tool. Goolag Scanner enables everyone to audit his or her own web site via Google. The scanner technology is based on "Google hacking," a form of vulnerability research developed by Johnny I Hack Stuff.
Goolag is open source and comes as a standalone application with GUI. You can read the specifications here
"It's no big secret that the Web is the platform," said cDc spokesmodel Oxblood Ruffin. "And this platform pretty much sucks from a security perspective. Goolag Scanner provides one more tool for web site owners to patch up their online properties. We've seen some pretty scary holes through random tests with the scanner in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
If I were a government, a large corporation, or anyone with a large web site, I'd be downloading this beast and aiming it at my site yesterday. The vulnerabilities are that serious."

More info here

Telekinesis: Free iPhone Remote

Telekinesis is an open-source application from Google, that will allow you to do just this. Install the software on your Mac, connect to it with your iPhone, and perform some or all of these functions:

• Stream music and videos from your computer
• Screen capture with mouse click and basic typing support
• Simple iTunes Remote control
• Browse your files
• Run applescript remotely
• iSight image capture
• Basic Spotlight search
• Easily create and add more applications

How to use it:

• Run iPhone Remote (Requires OS X 10.4)
• Choose a web login/password
• Open to https://:5010 from your iPhone. If you want to access your computer from outside of your local network, you may need to configure your router or firewall to support it.

You can find more here




To control your computer with your iPod touch there is also UltraVNA.
You can find it here: UVNC
Watch these videos first:

Google's Health Service

Yahoo News reports that Google will be storing patients' medical records while testing a health service. Health profiles will include prescriptions, allergies, and medical histories, and will be password-protected just as your Google Account is.

This is an opt-in only program, so your health records won't be available unless you want them to be.

For those who have opted in, however, there is raising concern that this is tied to your Google password, and Google doesn't encourage separate passwords for any of their accounts.

Internet is more popular than TV

A new study from IDC shows that on average people spend 32.7 hours online a week and only 16.4 hours watching television. Newspapers and magazines get only 3.9 hours of our attention. IDC surveyed 992 Americans aged 15 years and older.

Does this actually mean that the Internet is twice as popular as television? The total weekly media consumption comes to 70.6 hours in the survey. The press release also doesn’t indicate whether there was simultaneous media consumption.

Barring simultaneous consumption, with seven hours of sleep a night and eight hours of work a day, that leaves about an hour a day for everything other than media consumption. I’d like to think that even I don’t consume that much media in my spare time. The study doesn’t specify whether these hours are only “leisure” time—and I’m gonna bet that most people can’t get away with channel surfing during work.

The study also looked at online activities:

The data also show that consumers tend to use the media they grew up with. The older the respondents, the more they consume TV, newspapers, and magazines; the younger they are, the more the Internet displaces usage of traditional media. Using search engines (84% of respondents), mapping and navigation services (83%), personal research (77%), and using email (76%) are the most frequent online activities.

The 16% that didn’t use search engines would have said yes had the question said “Google” or “Yahoo.” (I’m not entirely joking—I was explaining what I do for my grandfather once. I asked him if he used search engines. He said he didn’t. I asked him if he used Google. He said he did.)

Odd, though, since I know that the stats I gave to clients two years ago said that 88% of Internet users used search engines (NFO Research, though the discrepancy there is probably within the margin of error) and even more used email (90% to 95%). I find it hard to imagine that nearly a quarter of American Internet users aren’t using email at all.

Is the Internet more popular than television? Apparently. But it’s also more portable and more universally accessible (especially from work). Is this even a fair fight?

See more here: IDC

Gmail on DoCoMo’s i-mode handsets

J-Com and NTT DoCoMo launched a new service that allows DoCoMo’s i-mode users to receive push emails from their Gmail accounts. Every time a new email arrives to Gmail server, J-Com’s service pushes it to recipient’s mobile phone Blackberry-style with a notification sound. Besides viewing the emails, mobile user can actually write responses as well. J-Com also will leave a copy of received and sent email on Gmail server ensuring a synchronized experience between PC and mobile phone. A similar push email service from J-Com is also available for users who have Mac email accounts. While the J-Com’s service is very useful, their billing model seems to be draconian for users. Based on an agreement between J-Com and DoCoMo, the mobile operator will collect a yearly fee of JPY4,800 ($45) and will bill for the incurred data traffic as you go, meaning users can’t apply their flat data plans to enjoy the service.


For more info look here: J-Com

NTT DoCoMo joined Google in Mobile Internet Services

NTT DoCoMo, the world's largest wireless internet provider, and Google formed a partenership that includes providing search services, search-related advertisement and potential applications to i-mode users.
The two companies will also collaborate to enhance the user-friendliness of i-mode services by making various Google services easier to access through i-mode mobile phones. The default pre-loading of Google Maps application into upcoming DoCoMo i-mode handsets is one of the initial initiatives being discussed.

Through the partnership with Google, i-mode users will be served Google search results for mobile and PC web sites via the i-mode portal search-box. Launch of the expanded search services is scheduled in spring 2008. The new search-box will be placed on the top-page of the i-mode portal, increasing the immediate accessibility and convenience of searches on i-mode.

Simultaneously with the launch of the new search services in spring 2008, key-word based advertisements using Google's ad platform AdWords will also be provided on the search-result pages in conjunction with the search results.

The parties intend to make it easier for i-mode users to use Google services such as Gmail, YouTube and Picasa by giving users more seamless and immediate access over the mobile phone. Furthermore, in all upcoming DoCoMo full-browser capable handsets, Google will be set to appear as the default start-page on the full-browser.

DoCoMo and Google will also continue to study the possibility of bringing Android based handsets to the Japanese market. Android, a revolutionary platform for mobile phones, was announced by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) last fall, in which Google was the key initiator of the Android project.

Mobile Fair-Wireless fair set to stage mobile Web battle

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Cell phone makers, telecoms carriers and Internet groups are squaring up for a fight for dominance of the mobile Internet, finally ready for market after years of promises and hundreds of billions in investments.

Wireless broadband is coming of age, making rivals of companies such as Nokia Oyj, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc, who previously could afford to coexist relatively peacefully.

Mobile networks are now capable of delivering the Internet as smoothly to a mobile phone as to a PC, with the clunky handsets, stuttering downloads and network jams of the recent past almost forgotten in many developed markets.

And the scramble to capitalize on that opportunity will loom over all other business at next week's Mobile World Congress.

"Web, Web, Web -- if you ain't walking onto the stand hand in hand with a Web guy you ain't no one," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at UK-based telecoms and IT research firm CCS Insight.

The outcome of the struggle to win the mobile Web will not only be crucial for the combatants but will decide how the mobile Web is experienced by billions of people.

At the fair, visitors will be on alert for sightings of prototypes of the Gphone -- phones built on a Google open software platform that will help it loosen up the market and extend its online advertising power into mobile search ads.

Chip designer ARM Holdings Plc, for one, will show Google's so-called Android platform in action at the four-day fair that starts in Barcelona on Monday, a source close to the company has told Reuters.

Read more here: Reuters

Google enters wide-open wireless world

Can you imagine Google running a cell phone company?

You may love Google, ignore Google or fear Google. But one thing is certain – it innovates. And it’s not far-fetched to believe it would do the same in the cell phone business.

The wireless industry is atwitter these days with the possibility that Google may actually get a chance to turn the cellular industry on its head.

That’s because the 700 megahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum (the nation’s airwaves) is up for sale in an auction being conducted by the Federal Communications Commission. Technically speaking, the FCC doesn’t sell the airwaves, but rather sells licenses to companies in exchange for the right to operate within a particular radio frequency.

And the licenses that have attracted the most buzz are in the 700 Mhz slice, referred to by auction-watchers as the C Block.

It’s the portion being vacated by analog television signals when TV makes its big switch to digital next year. Part of the rationale for switching TV to digital signals was that it would free up valuable airwave real estate which would, in turn, lead to creation of new wireless services and a big payday for the federal government. The anonymous bidding on the 1,099 total licenses available in this auction topped $18 billion this week after more than 30 rounds of bidding.

The so-called C Block is attractive to companies for several reasons.

First, the FCC is auctioning a nationwide license (as well as some regional ones) in the C Block. A company that places the winning bid can then build a nationwide wireless network, as opposed to building a network that only operates in parts of the country.

Secondly, electrical engineering gurus say the 700 Mhz slice lets signals easily penetrate walls and go farther than other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. That gives the winner’s phones and gadgets some distinct advantages over competitors’ phones and gadgets.

Read the article here: TimesLeader

Microsoft-Yahoo fussion may let Google grab mobile ads

Among the benefits Microsoft could get from acquiring Yahoo for $44.6 billion is a chance to compete in the emerging mobile advertising market. But while Microsoft struggles to take over Yahoo, both Microsoft and Yahoo could be distracted while Google becomes dominant in still another market.
While Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo appears to be aimed at capturing a share of the rapidly growing online advertising market dominated by Google, some observers think the move would also position Microsoft in the emerging market for mobile advertising.
Robert Scoble, vice president of media development for PodTech.net and a former Microsoft blogger, wrote on his Scobelizer blog that the leveraged buyout will actually benefit Google by distracting both Microsoft and Yahoo from the mobile front.
"The real race today" Scoble wrote, "is for ownership of your mobile phone." He noted that six million cell-phone users are added every month in China. "So every month that Microsoft and Yahoo will be stuck in some courtroom arguing out why this is a good deal means money in the bank for Google as they close mobile-phone deal after mobile-phone deal," he said.

Huge Emerging Market

While mobile advertising was an emerging $106 million business in the U.S. and Europe in 2007, researchers such as Local Mobile Search predict it will balloon to $5 billion by 2012.
Even so, it's probably unlikely that mobile advertising was the driving force in Microsoft's interest in Yahoo, said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, in a telphone interview. "There's opportunity there, certainly, but the fly in the ointment is that mobile services are very much an emerging market," he said.
Yahoo is a strong player in the emerging market, though. In addition to making its many services such as e-mail and IM available on mobile devices, Yahoo owns a 40 percent stake in Chinese search company Alibaba and operates a strong division in Japan. "Those two markets are among the fastest-growing and most sophisticated in the world," King noted.

Time on Google's Side

While the mobile advertising market is still too young for any one company to be considered dominant, it will advance very quickly. "Anyone who wants to compete in that market needs to get to the front of the line," King said. "Time is a critical factor because of the speed at which the market is growing."
To some degree, Google's dominance in searches may spill over into the mobile space. "Google's mindshare in search is pretty remarkable. Once they tend to engage users in their service, it's really tough for competitors to dislodge them," King said. "If they can do with mobile advertising what they've done with search," Google may be quickly able to achieve dominance in mobile.
With European and U.S. regulators certain to give the deal intense scrutiny, whatever advantanges Microsoft and Yahoo gain from combining won't happen for several years. That gives Google a huge head start, King said. "Time is definitely on Google's side; they've proven they can move very quickly when they want to."

Cultural Conflict

Microsoft, on the other hand, "plays a good long game," King said. "The company is so successful commercially they can devote the time and effort and resources to enter a market -- even if it takes years to do so." While buying Yahoo would give Microsoft a "definite leg up," King said, it may not happen soon enough to block Google.
Besides the time for the acquisition to clear regulators, Microsoft faces large integration issues in swallowing the Silicon Valley icon. This deal, for example, is twice as large as HP's acquisition of Compaq in 2000. That acquisition, like the infamous merger of AOL and Time Warner, faltered mostly "on cultural issues," King said.
"Often you'll hear about immense technical benefits of an acquisition, but unless the cultural components are dealt with successfully, the acquiring company can wind up with a handful of ashes," King added.

Google reveals new apps

Google is releasing a new edition of its hosted applications suite that end-users can bring into the workplace, without the involvement of their IT department.
It means that IT managers who fret about employees using unauthorised software at work will have another tool to worry about, especially in industries where information management is heavily regulated, like health care and finance.
The new release, called Google Apps Team Edition, is due to be available Thursday for free. It is aimed at employees who are interested in using Google Apps but whose employers haven't signed up for it, said Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager.
Team Edition contains the core communication and collaboration services and applications from other editions, like the word processor, spreadsheet, Start page, Talk instant messaging and calendar, but not Gmail, which requires IT participation to re-route the company's email flow.
So far, more than 500,000 mostly small organisations have signed up for Google Apps, but the other versions - Standard, Education, Partner and Premier - require IT to implement the suite because its services are linked to an organisation's Internet domain.
That changes with the Team Edition, which will let employees set up Google Apps workgroups as long as they have valid email addresses with their organisations' domains, Sheth said.
"Google Apps has been, by definition, an IT project, and now we want to let people use it without IT involvement," Sheth said.
Once signed up with Team Edition, people can see who else in their organisation's Internet domain is also a user, and invite those who aren't, Sheth said.
"It provides a quick way for workgroups to start collaborating," he said.
IT departments shouldn't get angry about Team Edition, according to Sheth, because, unlike other software that employees use without IT approval, it provides an upgrade path to IT-manageable versions.
"The IT department always has the option to sign up for the Standard Edition for free if they want to provide control over this," Sheth said. "This is a solid, happy medium."
Team Edition can also be upgraded to the other editions, like Education, which is free, and Premier, which costs $50 per user per year. Although Gmail isn't part of Team Edition, Google is exploring ways to make it a part, Sheth said.
By its very nature as a Web-hosted software suite, an unmanaged Google Apps deployment can represent a concern for IT departments, since the applications and the data generated are stored outside organisations' firewalls in Google datacentres.
However, Team Edition will be far from alone among the hosted software that employees use in their organisations without getting approval from the IT department, said Erica Driver, a Forrester Research analyst.
The IT department reactions to Team Edition will depend on the organisation's culture, which range from those in "lockdown mode" to those more tolerant and aware that Web 2.0 technologies are seeping in from the consumer world to the workplace, Driver said.
Team Edition, with its bottom-up, end-user-driven focus, fits in with Google's traditional strategy of appealing to individuals, grown out of its consumer services, and will likely boost the adoption of Google Apps in companies, government agencies, educational institutions and other organisations that don't currently use the suite, said Matt Cain, a Gartner analyst.
"The Google model is to prime the well at the end-user level and assist IT somewhere along the way, but the demand generation for the suite will definitely be at the rank-and-file level, not at the IT level," Cain said.
Google needs to make sure it strikes a balance between rallying end-users and giving IT managers a way to enter the picture and exert control, he said. "Google will encourage end-user adoption but it can't disintermediate the IT staff, which will have to ultimately clean up any mess that's created," Cain said.
See more at: google apps

Will Microsoft buy Yahoo?

Microsoft is looking to buy Yahoo as a way of staving off Google, according to sources speaking with the New York Post. The newspaper claims that the Redmond software company is considering a deal that could be worth $50 billion to buy Yahoo to improve its distant third-place standing in search advertising, which is dominated by Google. The frustration is said to have reached a boil in recent months as Google has bought many of the companies Microsoft had been interested in, especially web advertiser DoubleClick. This in particular may have been the tipping point, as shown when Microsoft argued that Google was creating a monopoly.
Google considers the possibility of a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo anti-competitive and possibly threatening to the Internet as a whole, says company Chief Legal Officer David Drummond in an official blog. The official argues that Microsoft's historic approach of establishing and extending proprietary standards is opposite to the very notion of the Internet; a Yahoo deal could potentially recreate Microsoft's leverage with Office and Windows on a much wider level, Drummond says.
"Between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet," he explains. "Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?"
Microsoft has issued a formal rebuttal to the argument, dismissing notions that an acquisition of Yahoo is an attempt to create a monopoly and contends instead that Google's 75 percent control of search revenue means that an acquisition of Yahoo would create more competition rather than less. "The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith claims, also arguing that Microsoft supports openness.
Regardless, sources within Yahoo are allegedly reporting that the search engine firm is investigating the possibility of allying with Google as an attempt to stave off a hostile Microsoft takeover. The plan would revive earlier talks between the two companies and may have been spurred along by a call by Google chief Eric Schmidt to Yahoo's own chief Jerry Yang, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Other large financial, media, and technology firms have also expressed interest, though no bids have been made apparent, the insiders say. Yahoo is believed by some to be aggressively seeking alternative offers after considering the Microsoft offer as a threat rather than the invitation suggested by the latter's official reasons behind the proposal.
Microsoft may need to abandon its longstanding financial independence to complete a takeover of Yahoo, the company said late yesterday. Despite its large cash reserves, the company's Chief Finance Officer Chris Liddell acknowledged that the $44.6 billion proposed deal might require that the firm borrow money and accumulate debt. While the $21 billion in reserves owned by the Windows developer would cover nearly all the cash portion of the proposed deal, a loan would help Microsoft avoid wiping out these reserves and leaving itself without options if it needs more cash in the near future, according to the executive.
The willingness to rely on loans indicates Microsoft's commitment to its proposed bid, which is widely understood to be an attempt to thwart Google's control of search and web advertising. The company has officially claimed to be creating a viable alternative in the market.
However, reports have surfaced that Yahoo considers Microsoft a threat and that the company is considering an alliance with Google or other alternative firms as an attempt to make a Microsoft deal impractical or impossible. Google has commented on the deal and warned that Microsoft might translate its monopolies with Office and Windows to the Internet by creating proprietary web standards.

Youtube.com & uTube.com

UTube is a business selling tubes, pipes, “tube mills” and other machinery. The company, with just 17 employees, got 68 million hits on its site in August, making it one of the most popular manufacturing websites. They complained a few weeks back that the site was being downed by heavy traffic as users looking for YouTube landed on their site instead, presumably by typing the wrong domain name. This downtime cost them a great deal of money in lost customers, they said. How big was the traffic spike? They claim unique visitors went from 1,500 to over 2 million per month. UTube has been forced to move hosts 5 times to cope with the traffic, with bandwidth bills increasing by a factor of 100, they claim. They registered the domain way back in 1996, so they have every claim to it - what’s more, they also argue that the UTube name is strongly tied to their identity.
How does it feel to have the same name as a company that's wildly popular with millions of people? Ask Ralph Girkins of UTube. Girkins walks through a giant warehouse that houses UTube. Welders work on 40-foot-long pipe-making machines. They look sort of like giant, green tractor engines. "
"This is an enormous expense and distraction for us. We thought we were doing a great marketing job. But they weren't looking for us. We've had to move our site five times in an effort to stay ahead of the youtube.com visitors. Before YouTube, there were about 1,000 real customers visiting utube.com each month. Today, there are about 150,000 people a day typing "u tube" the wrong way, and winding up on our site. We couldn't keep our server up. That's what happened. Contact with our customers has been disrupted, so I fear we have lost sales. We have even been contacted by police in Australia accusing us of having child pornography on our Web site. I resent this personally and this confusion is hurting our business." said Ralph Girkins, Universal Tube's president. His website was overwhelmed by millions of people looking for YouTube, so he sued the online video-sharing,YouTube.com portal.
The lawsuit asks that YouTube stop using the youtube.com domain name or reimburse Universal Tube for the cost of establishing a new corporate identity.
"We were there first--by 10 years. Now I see a potential re-branding that could take years to complete," Girkins said. "I'm not the kind of person who looks for lawsuits, but my business is being threatened by this situation."
You might think that's not such a big deal. This company is rebuilding industrial machinery. It's not exactly an Internet outfit. But Girkins says that 75 percent of his sales come in over the Web site. And with each one of these large tube-making machines costing a few hundred thousand dollars, he just can't have his Web site going down. And then there's the nuisance factor. Some confused people call the phone number on his company's Web site.
The suit comes about three weeks after YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in stock. A YouTube spokeswoman said the company declined to comment on the matter.
As the lawsuit puts it, these unwanted visitors, "often fill out Plaintiff's sales request form, seeking more information in a vulgar and belligerent manner. Exhibit 1 is a message left by one visitor who asks, 'WHERE THE F*** ARE THE VIDEOS??? 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS PIECE OF S*** WEBSITE? GOOGLE GOT TAKEN.'"
According to UTube manager Laura Smirin, a lot of the phone calls and e-mails were very rude. "They were just nasty," Smirin says.
Girkins has hundreds of them on his computer in his office. He sits and scrolls through them: "Idiot, idiot, idiot," he reads. Some of the hate mail is about the lawsuit. Some YouTube enthusiasts seem to be worried that this equipment company might be threatening their favorite alternative video site, even though Google's YouTube is clearly the bigger company.
"We're just the little guy," Girkins says.
A judge has already dismissed some of the claims in the lawsuit. Google says the remaining claims lack merit and that it will vigorously defend itself. Some legal experts say Universal Tube might have a legitimate case. But they say such cases usually settle before trial.
Meanwhile, Girkins is trying to take advantage of the extra visitors to his company's Web site. He has ads selling ring tones and dating services to meet hot singles. Girkins says, so far, the banner ads are covering his legal fees and Web site hosting costs.
With 2 MILLION visits per day, if they were to put some pay per click ads on their site, or even convert the entire page into a pay per click landing page, they could probably bring in several thousands of dollars per day EASILY. I would really be interested to see how much they could make by doing this.
Personally I think it's worth more like $10,000,000, so I think they are wise to hold out. The domain could easily make 1 million dollars per year with the right PPC ads on it.
Look at this graphic to see what traffic they have, comparing with other variants of "youtube":












The above graphic compares the utube with "google" variants: