Internet & Websites News - Page 87

Google have rolled out their new Reader design over the last few days and it now sports the Google+ features that were mentioned a week ago. Reader now features a new look that is cleaner, faster and nicer to look at. It also includes the ability to +1 a feed item (which replaces "Like"), with an option to then share it with your circles on Google+ (this replaces "Share" and "Share with Note").

Google say that integrating Reader with Google+ helps them streamline Reader overall, so with the rollout, Google have cut away friending, following, shared items and comments and replaced them with similar Google+ functionality. Google are loving the new layout and have also rolled the layout onto GMail also. Personally, I use Reader every single day for my news here at TweakTown and I really don't like the new layout.

It rocks on a tablet and it has a very Android 3.0/Honeycomb feel, but I don't like it on the Mac/PC. I have two browser windows open at once, one on the left side of my screen, one on the right. The legacy Reader was awesome - it was spaced out perfectly, the new Reader rocks if you're only looking at the single window, but if you're using side-by-side windows, it just doesn't feel as good. But, that's my thoughts.

Naughty, iiNet! iiNet's recent ad on TV has been taken down after it was found it breached the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice as it included a subliminal message. The message in the ad read:

Wow. Impressive. You not only spotted this in our TV ad, you found a way to read it. That can't have been easy. This whole page only lasted two frames. That's less than one tenth of a second. Well done, sir or madam. We're going to reward your awesome pausing powers with a little gift. Type this link into your browser: iinet.net.au/2framefreebie. And yes, you can tell your friends. But let's keep it to a minimum of a hundred, OK? And hey, watch for more two-frame freebies in our next TV campaign.

The link sends you here, but the limit of 100 entries has already been met. You can however, still enter your details for the chance to win one of five iPads. The message itself is fine, it won't make you a zombie for iiNet products, but it was enough of a breach to enable Free TV Australia to take it down. The Code of Practice states that information conveyed in a manner that is "below or near the threshold of normal awareness" is unacceptable.

Chinese search engine Baidu posted their earnings today, and they've got some very impressive results. Total revenue in Q3 rocks along at $654.7 million, an 85.1-percent increase from the same period last year, net income was up 80-percent to $295 million. Diluted earnings for Q3 were $0.84; non-GAAP earnings were for the $0.86. Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu says:

Baidu recorded stellar results in the third quarter driven by rapid growth in customer spending and user traffic. In particular, spending by large customers significantly outperformed our expectations as we continued to build strong relationships with high quality companies. China's search industry is still in its early stages, and as the clear industry leader we see enormous room for continuing growth as users and online marketing customers become increasingly sophisticated.

Baidu's operating profits in Q3 were $349.1 million, an impressive 88.5-percent increase from 2010. Online marketing revenues for Q3 were $654.4 million, another big increase of 85.1-percent from 2010. Baidu had approximately 304,000 active online marketing customers in Q3, this represents an 11.8-percent increase from 2010, and a 2-percent increase over Q2, 2011. Revenue per online marketing customer for the third quarter was approximately $2,148, a 65.1-percent increase from 2010 and a 19.1-percent increase from Q2.

Facebook are eyeing down a fine worth $139,000 after an Australian law student discovered that Facebook held 1,200 pages of personal data about him, much of which he had previously deleted. Max Schrems, 24, requested a copy of his data after attending a lecture hosted by Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg whilst he was on an exchange program at Santa Clara University in California.

Facebook sent him a CD of his data and Schrems was shocked to find information through his three years of having an account despite having deleted most of the information. Among the 1,200 pages of data were rejected friend requests, information regarding incidences where he had removed friends from his list and his entire conversation history.

Also included in his personal data CD were images that he had removed tags of himself, every event he had attended and every event he never responded to, poked and email addresses of people he'd corresponded with.

CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo has revealed some statistics about Twitter's insane growth. Twitter now has over 100 million active users and that signups via iOS have tripled since the launch of iOS 5. It was only back in June that Twitter was hitting 200 million tweets per day, but this number has expanded out to 250 million tweets per day. If we rewind back to January 2011, there were around 100 million tweets per day.

Quite the growth, huh? Costolo revealed the stats during an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. With those 100 million active users, half of them login daily. Costolo says:

We had 30% of our monthly active users loggin in every day at the beginning of the year. Now it's over 50%.

YouTube, if you didn't already know, is seeing 3 billion videos viewed, per day. But, its also seeing 800 million people per month visiting the site, Google revealed in their third-quarter earnings report. Today, YouTube is announcing the ability to sell merchandise, tickets and more via the site. The new feature is called Merch Store, where YouTube partners will be able to sell artist merchandise, digital downloads, concert tickets and other experiences to fans and visitors.

YouTube has partnered up with a number of companies to launch these stores. Topspin is helping power merchandise sales, concert tickets and experiences; SongKick will dabble in selling tickets for concerts; and iTunes and Amazon will power transactions for music downloads. YouTube says the Merch Store will rock out to music partners globally over the coming weeks. YouTube remained silent on what the financial split will be for these sales, but did say that it takes a small percentage of sales just to cover costs.

However, the artist gets the same revenue no matter if they go through the Merch Store or through the affiliate on other channels. The new feature of the merchandise sales, ticket sales, digital downloads and more, really adds a few angle for artists with their fans. YouTube has now transformed from a place where people would visit just to watch music videos, to something that could really change up the industry for both fans and artists alike.

Google are shutting down Google Buzz, its non-started Gmail-based social network that paved the way for such things as Google+. Google VP Product Bradley Horowitz wrote today in an announcement post on the Google Blog:

We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+.

Old Buzz content is still ok, and will be visible on users' Google profiles, users will also have the ability to export their data from Buzz before it becomes unavailable. This should be in a few weeks. Google is also shutting down some other social products such as Jaiku and iGoogle social features, not only that, but Code Search and a program that gives academic researchers API access to Google Search results.

This news bit is short and sweet, and doesn't add to your love handles, just in case you were wondering. iCloud gives you 5GB of free storage, not bad, eh? Well, Box.net are actually offering [for the next 50 days], iOS users the chance of grabbing 50GB of free storage. Free, that means $0. Not only is the deal bloody amazing, but there is no fineprint. No asterisks, no buts, nothing. Most of these types of offers expire after a certain amount of time, or are only open to fresh, new users, but this one is neither.

It is open to anyone and everyone and lasts forever. 50GB of free storage for iOS users thanks to Box.net, nice one!

This promotion starts at midnight tonight and runs for only 50 days, so get your free space in the cloud by following these steps:

Zynga is holding a press event tomorrow in San Francisco dubbed "Zynga Unleashed", where it is expected to share its plans on how they're going to use Facebook's new HTML5-based mobile platform. Facebook's platform was announced this afternoon and runs on Apple's iOS devices as well as across the mobile Web. It will allow game developers such as Zynga to connect versions of the same application on PC and mobile devices.

In order to achieve this, developers will build applications in HTML5, rather than the commonly used Adobe Flash technology. Zynga is expected to launch "selected titles" tomorrow, with other developers set to follow such as EA, Moblyng, Storm8 and Wooga. Zynga are quite on what they're bringing to the table tomorrow, saying to AllThingsD they "will have HTML5 games coming soon the Facebook's mobile apps site".

SVP at EA Interactive, CJ Prober said:

After months of speculation, opinion, leaks and other events, Facebook have today launched what people have expected: a mobile app platform as well as Facebook for iPad. Before this, Facebook users had to use their computers for gaming and app needs (or obsessions) where now, they should be able to play and participate from almost any device with a web browser. This experience amplifies if you're on an Apple iOS-based device.

It was rumored that Facebook were totally against Apple, with iOS 5 having Twitter integration but this news is joy to the ears of Facebook and Apple users. The reason is simple. Facebook apps and more importantly, games, don't work on phones or tablets because iOS devices don't support Flash. Facebook has now helped a select group of developers, Audiovroom, Branchout, EA, Flixster, Gilt Groupe, Huffington Post, Moblyng, Storm8, Wooga and Zynga, all create HTML5-based versions of a selection of their apps and game titles that will work within Web browsers.

HTML5 doesn't quite offer the performance that many apps require, so if the developers have created native versions of their app, they can also connect Facebook users directly to that native application. For example, a friend sends you a request to play Words With Friends and you view it on the Facebook app on your iPhone, you can click to play and be taken directly to the Words With Friends app. If you don't have the app, that's fine, as you'll get directed to Apple's App Store. If you're on an Android device, you'll be taken to an HTML5 version in your mobile Web browser.