Section: Web, Websites
You can expect louder product announcements from Yahoo! after the Deal that Didn’t Happen. Jerry Yang and Co. want to get the word out in a hurry about new features and services to boost the stock, quench shareholder anger and convince everyone that faith in its future is justified.
Releasing the beta of SearchScan may help. Yahoo is using McAfee’s SiteAdvisor to alert users of any potential for spam, viruses or other malware. The feature appears in the upper right hand corner of your Yahoo! search results - right under the company logo - and is active by default.
There is a tiny bit of boilerplate to consider: “SearchScanBETA displays McAfee alerts optimal for the Yahoo! search user and does not include all McAfee SiteAdvisor red ratings.” Critics will probably say it offers no more value than the security dialog boxes that pop up in Microsoft Vista (irony of ironies, huh?) and should have been one of the first features added since the company announced it was blazing its own search technology trail in early 2004. But it can also be argued that any amount of help for the consumer to keep their drives nice and clean should be noted and appreciated.
It’s interesting that some of the comments to Yang’s Yodel Anecdotal blog from those who supported the decision to turn down the Microsoft takeover bid offered suggestions on turning the company around, and focusing on search - the core business - was high on their lists.
Read [Yahoo Search Blog]
Full Story » | Written by Renay San Miguel for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Renay San Miguel on May 7th, 2008 with no comments.
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Section: Web, Websites
Best Buy and Geek Squad have announced partnership with FixYa, a community contributed website that offers product care support. The group has launched a co-branded website which will allow Best Buy and Geek Squad customers to help each other out with support issues. FixYa boasts 7 million users who post around 100,000 support questions and solutions each month. It is a welcome reprieve from the often complex and frustrating world of company tech support solutions, which often involve long hold times, language barriers, and less than helpful or canned email responses. From their press release:
“Best Buy is renowned for its commitment to its customers and once again demonstrates its leadership in customer service by adding another dimension in online social tech-support. We’re pleased to be able make this opportunity available directly to customers,” said Yaniv Bensadon, founder and CEO of FixYa.
Geek Squad will add to FixYa’s solution database. Fixya’s community currently boasts more than 30,000 expert contributors, and Geek Squad will help expand that base through its own contributions. With expertise spanning computer and peripheral support, home theater installation and optimization, and mobile electronics, Geek Squad offers proven solutions to a variety of problems in both the virtual and real worlds.”
Customers can access the new website by going to the Best Buy website and clicking on the “Customer Service” tab.
Read [GeekSquad Fixya]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Sue Walsh on May 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
If you envied Chris Clark while reading our previous post on the profit he made from selling his pizza.com for $2.6 million after keeping it alive for 14 years, well here comes another domain name up for bid at eBay, 1-pizza.com. There are many reason why 1-pizza.com would be a viable domain name even if the keyword rich domains pizza.com and pizza.net are already up. And Numbers That Work, has listed several of these reasons.
Based on an appraisal and marketing analysis of 1-pizza.com, the domain can ride hot on the heels of the buzz created by the recent sale of pizza.com and pizza.net which were sold for $2.6 million and $1.1 million respectively. Other reasons cited by the market analysis on why 1-pizza.com is worth more than the two pizza domains, include; 1-pizza bears the TLD “.com”, contains a hyphen, it has the “pizza” keyword and it’s a short domain name having only 7 characters.
The study also cited that 1-pizza.com is shorter than 18 of the domains the Google SERPs display for the term “pizza”, and in SEO work, the shorter your domain name is, the more friendly Google will be to your site. Likewise, world market value for domains with hyphen is becoming valuable in the US other than Europe and China.
Granted that 1-pizza.com is a valuable domain, whoever intends to bid for it at an amount of $1.4 million will certainly be in dire need of competing with pizza.com and pizza.net. Or somebody who is planning to put a pizza delivery service. But still, I don’t think $1.4 million is a viable investment, unless Pizza Hut is planning to change its name to 1-Pizza or Pizza One.
Via [eBay] Via [Numbers that Work]
Full Story » | Written by Arnold Zafra for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Arnold Zafra on May 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
The Internet access while tightly controlled does not seem to be stopping Cuban bloggers from telling their story. Computers have just recently became legal for Cuban citizens to own and even with the hard to come by Internet access many are turning towards the web to share their story.
Some of the blogs, have been going on for longer than the two-months that computers have been legal to access. A site we have mentioned before, “Generacion Y” which is written by Yoani Sanchez receives more than one-million hits a month. But for Sanchez and other Cuban bloggers, most of whom choose to do so anonymously getting their stories posted is not as simple as sitting in front of a computer and typing away.
For example Sanchez has to pretend to be a tourist in order to obtain her web access, which costs about $6 an hour from local Havana hotels. Others are willing to pay upwards of $40 a month to get black-market dial-up access. Regular or authorized service includes access to an island-wide network that allows for sending or receiving emails, this is available at youth clubs, post offices and a handful of cafes however the rest of the web is blocked.
While its still illegal and potentially dangerous for bloggers such as Sanchez to write as she does, especially under her real name, she is quick to note that “with each step we take in that direction, it’s harder for the government to push us back.” Hopefully, as we have seen the recent relaxing of what Cuban citizens can legally purchase electronics wise, we will soon see the same to happen with other services such as unfiltered or unblocked Internet access.
Read [USA Today]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Robert Nelson on April 29th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
PayPal has been asked by the IRS via court order to provide records regarding the use of offshore credit cards. The request is part of the IRS’s off shore compliance program. Many members of the online gambling community are protesting the action, calling it violation of Internet privacy. PayPal was involved with online gambling from 2000-2001, but the IRS claims they are simply trying to bust tax evaders who failed to report offshore accounts. While the popular online payment system says they value their member’s privacy, they have agreed to turn over the records, saying they feel obligated to do so.
“In my opinion this is a huge breach of personal privacy - they should not be allowed to comb through citizens’ accounts on a fishing expedition for illegal activity,” one tax consultant told Gambling911.com, asking to remain anonymous. “I have a feeling, that while they were only in the gambling industry for a year - information obtained from this sweep could be used to nail a lot of people on unclaimed income.”
The order came from the US District Court for the Northern District of California and was entitled “In The Matters of the Tax Liabilities of John Does.”
Read [Gambling911]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Sue Walsh on April 28th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
China has moved past the U.S. to become the world’s largest group of Internet users. Over 221 million Chinese currently use the Internet, which is up over 10 million from last year.
“Despite a rapidly increasing Internet population, the proportion of Internet users among the total population was still lower than the global average level.” said the Chinese Information Ministry”
As a whole 16-percent of China’s population are Internet users, compared to an average of 19.1-percent for the world’s total population. All things considers that is a lot of users especially considering the Chinese government heavily censors the net, using a complex system of filters as well as human monitors. Despite that, it is still used as tool by Chinese supporters outraged by the recent rise in anti-Chinese sentiments in the Western world as a result of China’s treatment of Tibet. Just last weekend ago a group of Chinese hackers were able to knock CNN’s website offline in protest of what they called the network’s anti-Chinese propaganda. The upcoming Olympic games in Beijing have also served to bring even more attention to the issue and has led to various protests by pro-Tibet supporters along the route of the Olympic torch relay.
Read [Reuters]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Sue Walsh on April 26th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
A Michigan woman faces 30 years in prison for several charges, including intent to commit murder resulting from her attempt to hire someone to kill her lover’s wife. Authorities say Anne Marie Linscott, 49, used the popular site Craigslist to recruit a hit man. Respondents to her advertisement of a “freelance position” were told she was looking for “silent assassins” and asked to “eradicate” the victim for $5000.
She also provided personal info on the victim such as name, age, and place of employment. Linscott met her lover, identified only as Duane, when she took an online course several years ago. As part of a deal made between Linscott and the government, prosecutors dropped charges that she had left an explosive device outside the victim’s home in April of 2007. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.
This is not the first time Craigslist has made the news. Earlier this month, police in Rye Brook, NY used the service to conduct a prostitution ring, leading to a half dozen arrests, and last month an Oregon man lost everything he owned after someone posted an ad on the site offering the contents of his home for free. Scams involving Craigslist seem to be increasing at the same time as the site’s overall value. In fact according to a report by researcher Classic Intelligence Craigslist is poised to make over $80 million in revenue this year. So far there has been no comment from Craigslist regarding this latest misuse of the site.
Read [Reuters]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Sue Walsh on April 23rd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Section: Web, Websites
eBay will be shutting down its live auction service by the end of 2008. The move is part of eBay’s latest move to try and recreate its own business model. For those who are not familiar with eBay Live Auctions, the service is similar to your traditional auctions but the Live Auctions last until there are no longer any people bidding for the item. Unlike eBay’s regular online auction which has a set time frame before the auction expires. Winning bidders also paid a premium of 12.5 or 15-percent based on the final bid. The decision to shut down Live Auctions was announced amidst the cry of several hundreds of eBay sellers who participate in the Live Auctions. Well, at least they can always go back to putting their items up for bid at eBay’s regular online auction service.
Via [The Register]
Full Story » | Written by Arnold Zafra for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by Arnold Zafra on April 21st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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