Bill O'Reilly's Web Site Taken Down By DoS Attack

Bill O'Reilly's Web Site Taken Down By DoS Attack

Over the course of two days, the controversial conservative pundit's site was repeatedly "bombarded" by the efforts of a botnet.

The official Web site for Bill O'Reilly was taken down by a repeated denial-of-service attack this week.

The site for the controversial conservative pundit was hit over the course of two days, according to an advisory posted on the Web site. "BillOReilly.com was attacked repeatedly by a malicious technology called a 'botnet,' " reads the statement. "This means that the site was bombarded by data that overloaded our firewalls. We had to take the site down in order to protect it, and so we could make sure that every possible countermeasure was being taken."

Paul Ferguson, a network architect with security company TrendMicro, says this is a wake-up call for Web sites with a political bent, much like O'Reilly's. As the upcoming presidential election heats up, more and more candidates, pundits and everyday bloggers are taking to the Net to weigh in. That, says Ferguson, will draw a new wave of attacks.

"Somebody just decided to point their botnet at his Web site and get their jollies by taking his Web site off the Net for a period of time," he says. "People should open their eyes and realize their public Internet presence can be subjected to abuse, especially with the presidential campaigns coming up. If you're going to run a Web site, particularly a controversial political one, you've got to focus on security."

Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute and chief technology officer for the Internet Storm Center, says attacking politically oriented Web sites is nothing new but he, too, thinks this denial-of-service attack may be a bellwether event.

"The thing is they're very random and hard to predict," says Ullrich. "It's not necessarily cheap to protect yourself because you do it by buying more bandwidth. And sometimes with a bigger attack, it's too expensive to protect yourself and you just have to roll over and take it."
Ferguson says the timing of this attack was perfect in terms of sending a message to other pundits and candidates.

"The timing was immaculate with the political season heating up," he adds. "Left-wing bloggers, right-wing bloggers, candidates, and spin doctors are getting a lot of attention. If they're taken down and their messages don't get out, then that's a big factor for them."

MySpace Age-Check Bill Debated In Connecticut

MySpace Age-Check Bill Debated In Connecticut

Intended to protect children from sexual predators, the bill proposed by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal would be the first of its kind in the United States to imposestrict regulations on social-networking sites.

HARTFORD - Connecticut lawmakers debated a bill Thursday that would require social-networking Web sites such as MySpace to verify users' ages and force minors to obtain parental consent before posting profiles.

Intended to protect children from sexual predators, the bill proposed by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal would be the first of its kind in the United States to impose strict regulations on the fast-growing sites, which are a virtual hangout for millions of American teenagers.

"There is no such thing as a fool-proof, magic bullet system," Blumenthal said, "but this one provides a much greater degree of security for children and it empowers parents to protect their children."

His office said 10 to 20 other U.S. states were considering similar legislation.

In Connecticut, at least six alleged sexual assaults involving older men and underage girls have been tied to MySpace in the last year, while there have been dozens of similar arrests nationwide, Blumenthal said.

He said an applicant would submit a driver's license or other form of official identification, and the Internet site should use public information on record to check the age, address and date of birth.

Sites that fail to verify ages and fail to obtain parental permission to post profiles of users under 18 would face civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, he said.

The legislation also allows individuals to bring private lawsuits against sites such as MySpace, the Internet's biggest social network, which is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

"This system would be effective in reducing criminal assaults on kids, inappropriate content, and parents failing to know what their kids are doing," Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in testimony to the state legislature's General Law Committee.

The committee in the Democratic-controlled legislature approved the measure to another board for further review. No representative from MySpace or other Internet sites testified.
Committee Chairman Chris Stone, a Democrat, said he supported the measure.

"This is not about putting companies out of business, this is about helping parents," he said. But a Republican on the committee, Len Greene, said some issues were raised with the use of a driver's license as identification.

"It's in the rough stages. There needs to be some more work done on the language, it's very broad right now," he said.

eBay Arms Its Site For Security

eBay Arms Its Site For Security

''Security on the Net is actually an arms race in its most classic form,'' says CEO Meg Whitman.

As threats against e-commerce mount, online auction site eBay is building up its arsenal of security technologies and tactics, president and CEO Meg Whitman said Thursday at Visa USA's security summit in Washington, D.C., adding, "Security on the Net is actually an arms race in its most classic form."

Phishing has been a huge challenge for eBay and its PayPal subsidiary, and it's crucial that they identify as quickly as possible fraudulent sites duping customers into providing their payment information. eBay and PayPal find out about many of these fraudulent sites from users, who can report suspicious sites to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com. Once eBay and PayPal confirm a fraudulent site, they'll report that site to companies such as Mark Monitor that aggregate blacklisted sites and contact the site's ISP to have the site shut down.

While Whitman allowed that eBay isn't to blame for phishing scams, they've certainly become a big problem when as they've managed to erode trust in online transactions. The solution to phishing is, of course, to prevent customers from ever seeing an e-mail containing a phishing site. To help prevent Web users as a whole from being duped by phishing scams, eBay has worked with Microsoft to include anti-phishing features in the new Internet Explorer 7.
To ensure that legitimate eBay e-mails can accurately be identified, the company includes a digital signature on every one of the e-mails it sends. The company is encouraging ISPs to route only e-mails that contain this signature.

A further security measure eBay is pushing is a PayPal security key that creates a random transaction code used to authenticate a transaction, much like the key fabs offered by some banks. "It's a combination lock for your PayPal account," Whitman said. The PayPal security key has been in beta for about a month, and this beta version is available to any eBay user who requests one. The company has not determined when the keys will be generally available to all users and who will absorb the cost of buying and distributing the keys.

One of the first, and still the most efficient, outlets eBay offers to keep fraud in check is its online feedback system where buyers and sellers provide a system of checks and balances. "It works brilliantly because it's transparent," Whitman said, adding that eBay has stored every single feedback comment since the company launched in 1995; approximately 5 billion comments.
When Whitman took the helm of eBay in 1998, most payments were made using checks, money orders, and even cash sent via the mail. (That year, 8% of all merchandise sold on eBay were Beanie Babies). eBay's acquisition of PayPal in 2002 incorporated key payment system into eBay's strategy. eBay's goal is to expand PayPal so that its services are used by a greater number of large businesses--iTunes, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard already offer it as a payment option.

For eBay, which made its bones as an online community where people worldwide could buy and sell just about any product, trust is essential. "eBay is a level playing field where everyone has the same chance of success," Whitman said Thursday. In fact, "90% of those who conduct business using PayPal have less than $25,000 per year in sales."

eBay, which has 222 million users worldwide, has become a force in online sales. Whitman noted that a car is sold every minute via her company's site, which makes eBay the largest channel for used car sales in the world. But eBay's success is not a given. "These transactions require a lot of trust," she said.

Nothing diminishes trust faster stolen customer data, particularly when the thieves make off with payment account information that can be used to commit fraud. Whitman noted, however, that the merchants and other victims who are the targets of the attack are often the last to know about it. Bank card networks receive information about fraudulent transactions days and sometimes weeks before merchants do, and that's a major problem, Whitman says. eBay wants to know about fraudulent payment accounts before its users get stung by shipping goods but not receiving payment.

Microsoft To Blast Google For Its Copyright Policy

Microsoft To Blast Google For Its Copyright Policy

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. is set to launch a blistering attack on rival Google Inc. Tuesday for what the software giant argues is the Web search leader's "cavalier" approach to copyright protection.

In prepared remarks to be delivered to the Association of American Publishers, Microsoft Associate General Counsel Thomas Rubin argues that Google's move into new media markets has come at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software.

The Microsoft attorney's comments echo arguments at the heart of a 16-month-old copyright lawsuit against Google brought by five major book publishers and organized by the Association of American Publishers, an industry trade group.

"Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and IPOs," says Rubin, who oversees copyright and trade secret law at Microsoft.

"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop," said Rubin, noting that Microsoft takes the position of seeking the copyright owner's consent before they copy.

Competition is heating up this year between Google, the world's dominant provider of Web search services, and software giant Microsoft, which recently entered the Web search market.
At the same time, Google has recently expanded into the business software market with a set of Web-based subscription services it sees as a major revenue generator which could chip away at Microsoft's 15-year dominance of computer software.

Rubin invokes criticism that Google has faced since its acquisition late last year of YouTube, which has come under fire from several major media companies for allowing widespread copyright infringement of professionally produced video.

"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us - you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,"' Rubin argues in his speech.
"But Google's track record of protecting copyrights in other parts of its business is weak at best," he said.

David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google works with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and has recently added the BBC and NBA basketball league as YouTube video partners.

"We do this by complying with international copyright laws, and the result has been more exposure and in many cases more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content."
Rubin cites anecdotal media reports that a handful of Google sales people were caught encouraging advertisers to capitalize on the demand for pirated software on the Web.

Rubin sides with publishers in criticizing Google's ambitious plan to scan millions of published works in the world's great libraries and make them available to consumers via its Google Book Search system. He said by scanning copies of published works without first seeking copyright holders' permission, Google opens the door to massive infringement.

The attorney also says Google's defense of 'fair use' is overly broad. "Concocting a novel "fair use" theory, Google bestowed upon itself the unilateral right to make entire copies of copyrighted books," Rubin argues.

Drummond replied: "The goal of search engines, and of products like Google Book Search and YouTube, is to help users find information from content producers of every size."

The publishers' lawsuit against Google, filed in October 2005 in the U.S. District for the Southern District of New York, remains in the discovery process with no trial date set.

Microsoft's move bears parallels to an attack five years ago by the Redmond, Washington-based company on so-called "open source" software, which has emerged over the past decade as the biggest alternative to Microsoft's Windows software franchise.

WordPress Combats Hack Attack With Blog Software Update

WordPress Combats Hack Attack With Blog Software Update

The fix comes after a hacker gained access to one of the WordPress servers and installed a Trojan horse in the code for a security update to the blog publishing software.

WordPress has released a new version of its blog publishing software to combat a hacker attack that resulted in users downloading a Trojan horse onto their systems with a security upgrade that was released a few days ago.

Whomever broke into the WordPress network gained user-level access to one of the servers that powers wordpress.org, according to a blog by WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg. The intruder then used that access to modify the download file, according to an advisory on the WordPress Web site. The hacker added malicious code to the source code for the 2.1.1 update, adding a Trojan that would allow for remote PHP execution. PHP is embedded scripting language that creates dynamic content on Web pages.

WordPress did not disclose how many users downloaded the infected version.

"This is the kind of thing you pray never happens, but it did and now we're dealing with it as best we can," says Mullenweg in his blog. "Although not all downloads of 2.1.1 were affected, we're declaring the entire version dangerous and have released a new version 2.1.2 that includes minor updates and entirely verified files. We are also taking lots of measures to ensure something like this can't happen again, not the least of which is minutely external verification of the download package so we'll know immediately if something goes wrong for any reason."

The new software release can be found at the WordPress download site. The company has also set up this e-mail address to field related questions: 21securityfaq@wordpress.org.
The U.S.-CERT is advising people to upgrade immediately.

Masaki Suenaga, a security response engineer at Symantec, wrote in a blog that while a Web server may be running the hacked version of the software, a user who visits a Web page on a server containing the hacked WordPress software is not at risk, so long as the server has not been compromised by other malicious threats downloaded by the back door.

Is The Google Phone Its Next Super-Secret Project?

Is The Google Phone Its Next Super-Secret Project?

Insiders believe Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers to help develop voice and data services.

Now that the Apple iPhone has made the transition from rumor to promise, talk has turned to the possibility of a Google phone.

Blogger and VC Simeon Simeonov provided the latest installment of "Google's Next Super-Secret Project" with news from a "inside source" detailing a future Google phone.

Previous episodes have explored Google's plans to: buy up dark fiber to route around hostile cable and telephone companies; collaborate with Wyse Technology to make a thin-client PC; place data centers in shipping containers around the country; and fabricate its own processors.

Simeonov identifies Andy Rubin, founder of Danger, Inc. and Android, a 2005 Google acquisition, as the leader of a 100-person team working on a Google phone. He describes it has a "Blackberry-like, slick device" with "many services, including VoIP" that runs a C++ core in conjunction with Java and possibly Linux and includes vector-based presentation similar to what Google acquired when it bought Skia.

"Apparently, Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers by allowing them to minimize subscription and marketing costs," says Simeonov in a blog post. "In other words, Google will market the phone online and carriers will fulfill."

That begs the question: Why bother? Google has already struck a deal with Samsung to get software like Google Search, Google Maps, and Gmail on Samsung handsets. It's a player in the phone software market. Having its own phone hardware makes no sense absent the sort of device competency Apple has demonstrated.

It might make sense, however, if Google is making a multi-function portable device that happens to handle voice communications. On the IP Democracy blog, Cynthia Brumfield, president of media consultancy Emerging Media Dynamics, Inc., makes this very point, wondering whether the rumored Google device should really be called a phone. "My phone stinks and can't do much that's interesting, while these gadgets support everything from video viewing to Internet access to word processing to easy information sharing," she laments.

Her dissatisfaction is a common theme among mobile phone users. Mobile phone services drew 31,671 Better Business Bureau complaints in 2005, more than any other industry.

When Apple announced its iPhone, one common disappointment cited by bloggers, pundits, and journalists was that Apple had re-invented the phone but not the mobile phone industry, which restricts the portability and functioning of its hardware far more than the computer industry.

Columbia law school professor Tim Wu last month published a paper calling for wireless industry reform, hoping to end the network discrimination and product and feature crippling practiced by mobile carriers.

If there really is a Google phone, pray that voice communication is the least of its capabilities.

Amazon Launches Video Download Service On TiVo

Amazon Launches Video Download Service On TiVo

To entice potential customers, Amazon is offering $15 worth of free movie or TV show downloads to TiVo subscribers who register for the new service by April 30.

Amazon.com on Wednesday made its video download service available on all broadband-ready TiVo boxes, opening a channel for taking movies and TV shows from the Web to the big screen in people's living rooms.

The move places Amazon's Unbox in front of more than 1.5 million subscribers of TiVo's Series2 or Series3 digital video recorders. Before the launch, content could only be viewed through a PC. Amazon had been testing the download service since February with a small group of TiVo subscribers.

To entice potential customers, Amazon is offering $15 worth of free movie or TV show downloads to TiVo subscribers who register for the new service by April 30. TV shows cost $1.99 an episode, and movies sell for $9.99 to $14.99. Movie rentals are available starting at $1.99, with most costing $2.99 or $3.99.

To activate the service, TiVo subscribers have to register on Amazon.com's Web site to establish a link between their TiVo account and Unbox. In launching the service, Amazon.com and TiVo announced that Sony Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have agreed to offer movies to subscribers. Other content providers include CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Making the connection between the Web and the home TV is seen as a potential advertising bonanza. Other companies heading in that direction include Apple and Microsoft. The former is expected to ship in mid-March the Apple TV, a device that would bridge the company's iTunes music and movie download service with the TV. Microsoft, meanwhile, hopes to become a leading distributor of digital content through its broadband-ready Xbox 360 videogame console.

Google Releases Google Desktop 5 Beta

Google Releases Google Desktop 5 Beta

The sidebar now blends into the image on a user's desktop and the various Google Gadgets sport interface and design improvements.

Google has released a new version of its desktop search software, Google Desktop 5 Beta, featuring a new sidebar and revamped gadgets.

Like a chameleon, the sidebar now blends into the image on a user's desktop. And the various Google Gadgets, or widgets if you prefer, sport interface and design improvements.

There are two major additions: the ability to preview search results from within Google Desktop and the addition of Google's Safe Browsing malware warnings when clicking on links that Google associates with disreputable sources, whether the links are in a browser, IM, or e-mail.

Google has shown increasing concern over the prevalence of malware. Last month, it began providing Web site owners with more detailed information about URLs associated with dangerous content. It also began showing warnings about potentially harmful sites on its search results pages.

Google Desktop continues to be regarded with suspicion by some corporate IT departments because administrators see its Search Across Computers option as a security and/or compliance threat.

Search Across Computers allows users to index their local documents -- which copies them to Google servers -- and then view those documents from another Internet-connected computer, provided Google Desktop is installed on that machine. This feature can be disabled by administrators, however.

C-SPAN Shares More Of Its Video Online

C-SPAN Shares More Of Its Video Online

The television station of the U.S. government adopts a liberal copyright policy based on a popular licensing format.

Acknowledging the growing importance of online video sharing, C-SPAN on Wednesday announced two initiatives to expand public access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events.
The first is a more liberal copyright policy. The second is a plan to offer better online access to C-SPAN video content through its capitolhearings.org Web site.

"C-SPAN did a really, really good thing today," observed author, professor, and entrepreneur Carl Malamud in an e-mail sent to David Farber's Interesting People mailing list. "Our public civic life will be much richer because of [its] actions."

"Giving voice to the average citizen has been a centerpiece of C-SPAN's journalism since our network's founding in 1979," said Rob Kennedy, C-SPAN president and co-chief operating officer, in a statement. "As technology advances, we want to continue to be a leader in providing citizens with the tools to be active participants in the democratic process."

C-SPAN's new copyright policy was inspired by the Creative Commons license. It allows noncommercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, as long as C-SPAN is identified as the source. The new policy covers current, future, and past video of "any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency." C-SPAN's studio productions and coverage of non-federal events, political campaigns, and other feature programming remain under traditional copyright protection.

C-SPAN intends to improve its capitolhearings.org portal with congressionally-produced Web casts and other content in the coming months.

Fast And Yahoo Renew Their Search Technology

Fast And Yahoo Renew Their Search Technology

The two companies independently revised their core business offerings in hopes of slowing down the Google juggernaut.

Fast Search & Transfer and Yahoo rolled out new search advertising platforms on Monday, each hoping to find the answer to Google.

Yahoo introduced the final piece of its Panama project, a new search marketing ranking model that takes ad performance into account when calculating where an ad will be placed on a page.
Previously, Yahoo awarded the best page position to the advertiser willing to pay the most for a given search keyword. But as Google's recent financial filings have shown, ads that not only pay well but play well -- get lots of clicks, in other words -- return better results for everyone.
As Tim Cadogan, Yahoo's VP of search marketing put it, encouraging advertisers to focus on the quality of their ads delivers a better search experience for customers.

However, as Fast sees it, publishers would do better with a search experience that doesn't involve handing over half their revenue to Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo. To help publishers profit (and to drive adoption for its enterprise search platform), Fast has announced Fast AdMomentum, a white-label contextual advertising system that lets publishers manage and monetize search advertising on their sites without a search engine partner.

The goal of Fast AdMomentum, says Perry Solomon, VP and general manager of media solutions for Fast, is "to allow publishers to take control of contextual ads rather than outsourcing them to third-party providers."

AdMomentum allows sites to sell ads locally or nationally through a self-service system that's similar in concept to Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing. Solomon says Fast's new system will enable publishers to develop business intelligence applications to extend search data "beyond the search box."

Google Profits Nearly Triple In Fourth Quarter

Google Profits Nearly Triple In Fourth Quarter

Partner sites through Google's AdSense programs contributed $1.2 billion to the search engine's coffers.

Google on Wednesday reported that profits nearly tripled in the fourth quarter, as online ad revenue soared.

The Mountain View, Calif., company its said net income in the quarter ending Dec. 31 surged to $1.03 billion, or $3.29 a share, from $372.2 million, or $1.22 a share, during the same period a year ago. Revenues rose by 67% to $3.21 billion from $1.92 billion.

Analysts polled by Thompson Financial prior to the filing expected the online search engine to report earnings of $2.90 per share.

"Our impressive performance in the fourth quarter demonstrates the continuing strength of our business model across Google properties and those of our partners," Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, said in a statement. "Our growing organization allows us to deliver ever increasing amounts of information and content to our users both through investments in search and ads as well as through strategic partnerships."

Google-owned sites generated revenues of $1.98 billion, an 80% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Partner sites through Google's AdSense programs contributed $1.2 billion, or 50% more than a year ago.

Schmidt also noted that in 2007, Google expects to, "continue to make significant capital expenditures."

NewsTrust Aims To Go Deeper Than Digg

NewsTrust Aims To Go Deeper Than Digg

The site is looking to judge news articles online by quality, rather than simple popularity, with a more finely grained evaluation of news stories than one gets from the gladiatorial thumbs-up, thumbs-down votes by which stories live and die on Digg.


A little over a month ago, NewsTrust began a public beta test, hoping to help Internet users find good journalism online. This might seem like reinventing the wheel, given the excess of news aggregation sites like Digg, Findory, Newsvine, and Reddit, not to mention Google News, Yahoo News, bookmark sharing sites like Del.icio.us, and millions of blogs that point to news stories.
But NewsTrust isn't necessarily looking for the most popular stories online; it aims to present the best journalism. "Because journalism is so important for democracy, for citizens to make informed decisions," explains Fabrice Florin, executive director of NewsTrust, "we want to offer a way to identify quality journalism based on standards other than popularity. That's not to say that popularity doesn't have a role, but as a primary measurement, it weakens the effectiveness of the material that get promoted."

For Florin, a former journalist who spent twenty-five years at technology companies like Apple and Macromedia, this is an issue of critical civic import. "I really think that the mission of this initiative has to remain nonprofit, even though it makes the job a lot harder for us," he explains. "That's partly because we really want to put the public interest first, rather than the shareholders interest, and we couldn't do that in a for-profit."

Whether or not you share Florin's view about the necessity of a vibrant Fourth Estate as a safeguard for democracy, it's clear that NewsTrust and Digg, for example, promote different types of stories.

The top story on NewsTrust at the time this article was written was "Majority of Americans View Media Coverage of Iraq as Inaccurate." The top story on Digg in the last 24 hours at the time this article was written was "Ten Things I Wish I Knew Before I Switched to OS X."
NewsTrust, in essence, aims to counter the fascination of the inclusive crowd -- picture Britney Spears on a Linux-based iPod sold by Microsoft -- with the wisdom of the vetted crowd.
NewsTrust's news-rating system is based on 10 inputs supplied by users: recommendations, balance, context, evidence, fairness, importance, information, sources, style, and trust. The result is a much more finely grained evaluation of news stories than one gets from the gladiatorial thumbs-up, thumbs-down votes by which stories live and die on Digg.

"The average consumer, due to the Internet, is deluged every day by a tsunami of information that makes it difficult for a single individual to filter and sort," says Florin. "By joining forces with other individuals and adopting a set of principles to filter the news together, we think we can be more effective as a community than we can individually."

The blogosphere was supposed to save the world from the lazy, partisan mainstream media, but as Florin sees it, blogging is more focused on conversation than qualitative analysis.
What's more, says Florin, many bloggers make insufficient effort to be objective. "The issue you have is many bloggers are absolutely fantastic journalists," he explains, "and many are professional journalists, but you've got some folks who are just getting started and don't necessarily have the discipline to review journalism they comment on with rigor. Often they let their own opinions interfere with the evaluation of the story."

NewsTrust hopes to avoid politicized story evaluation by encouraging transparency among its news reviewers. On ideologically divisive stories that might encourage interest groups to game the rating system, Florin says, NewsTrust plans to convene an ad hoc panel that adequately represents views across the political spectrum to arrive at a fair rating.

Whether Florin's crusade to wean the Internet community from junk news will prove more successful than ongoing efforts to improve the American diet remains to be seen. It's arguable that Digg and its ilk represent democracy in action rather than its downfall. Nonetheless, Florin appears to be committed to his cause.

"We would like to offer the equivalent of a Weight Watchers for information, to help each of us balance our news diet over time," Florin explains in a quote posted on the NewsTrust site. "For example, future versions of NewsTrust could check if you've been viewing too many partisan opinions or entertainment news. We might encourage you to balance your diet with more factual information, more international coverage, or read more viewpoints that you don't agree with. Tools like these can help each of us broaden our perspective, become more discriminating thinkers, and make more informed decisions."

If that sounds a bit like an admonition to eat your vegetables, well, open wide.

Google Reader Adds Trend Analysis

Google Reader Adds Trend Analysis

Google's browser-based RSS reader now includes a Reader Trends page.

Google Reader can now help you analyze your feed reading habits.
Taking a page from Google Trends, Google software engineer Mihai Parparita said on Wednesday in a blog post that Google's browser-based RSS reader now includes a Reader Trends page.

Google Reader's new Trend page shows the user his or her subscriptions, starred items, read items, and shared items. It tracks the number of items posted by a given RSS source and the percentage of them the user has read. It details tags added by the user to categorize posts and it presents bar graphs of user-reading habits.

For Google Reader users, particularly those with hundreds of RSS subscriptions, trend analysis may offer some useful insight into where one's attention is being spent.

"If you have any New Year's resolutions about time management or are a chart geek like me, trends should be useful and fun," Parparita says in his post. "You may discover things about your reading habits that you didn't know."

And after you measure how keeping up on the blogosphere impacts your productivity, perhaps you'll want to share that information with your supervisor. Or not.

Yahoo Buys Community Site MyBlogLog

Yahoo Buys Community Site MyBlogLog

MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

Yahoo has bought MyBlogLog, a Web site that builds online communities around the blogs people like to read. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition, announced Jan. 8, fits Yahoo's strategy to keep its global audience of half a billion people on its Web properties longer by engaging them in social activities. MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

"If blogging was originally about building a community and having a conversation with people in that community, then MyBlogLog provides the missing link that makes those connections more real," Chad Dickerson, senior director of Yahoo Developer Network, said in a company blog announcing the deal.

MyBlogLog, founded in 2005, is Yahoo's latest purchase in a string of acquisitions of sites offering social networking, including Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Upcoming.
Besides community features, MyBlogLog also offers analytics that provide some insight about what pages are being visited. Bloggers, for example, could use the feature to post the top five most-clicked links.

Yahoo didn't plan to make any immediate changes to the Web site or branding. MyBlogLog has five employees led by Chief Executive Scott Rafer and founders Eric Marcoullier and Todd Sampson. Workers and management would become a part of the Yahoo Developer Network Group, Dickerson said.

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share

Microsoft saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5%, despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market.

Google And Yahoo Gain Search Share Microsoft saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5%, despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market. By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek January 16, 2007 03:00 PM Google and Yahoo continue to increase their share of the online U.S. search market share at the expense of competing search engines.

Last December, Google sites fielded 47.4% of U.S. search queries, a 0.4 percentage point rise from November 2006, according to comScore Networks, an Internet metrics company. Yahoo sites in December saw 28.5% of U.S. search queries, a 0.3 percentage point increase from the previous month. This is particularly good news for Yahoo, which in December opened its upgraded Panama search marketing platform to new advertisers.

A Yahoo spokesperson wasn't immediately available for comment. It's not so encouraging for Microsoft, which saw its U.S. search share slip half a percentage point from 11% to 10.5% despite its ongoing effort to win more of the online search market. Previous months have seen a similar decline from Microsoft, according to figures published by comScore, HitWise, and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Whether the release of Microsoft Vista will reverse this trend remains to be seen. Even worse perhaps for Microsoft is that comScore's numbers seem to underestimate the extent of Google's dominance. Using statistics supplied by Hitwise, another Internet metrics firm, Google captured 63.15% of U.S. searches in December. Yahoo, MSN/Live.com, and Ask had 21.62%, 9.46%, and 3.72% of the U.S. search market, respectively.

At InformationWeek.com last December, Google's share of search engine referrals -- a related but not identical figure to total searches performed -- was even larger. Google.com was the source of 63.7% of search engine referrals to our site, and other Google properties from Canada, India, and the U.K. accounted for an additional 9.4% of search referrals. Yahoo was the source of 15.5% of searches that brought users to our site. MSN brought in 1.9% of our visitors, while Live.com brought in 0.7%.

Blog Traffic Triples at Newspapers' Web Sites

Blog Traffic Triples at Newspapers' Web Sites

Opportunities abound for staff writers that have expertise in certain areas, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Blog traffic at the top 10 online newspapers more than tripled in December compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Internet market research firm Nielsen//NetRatings.
Online newspapers saw interest in blog pages grow by 9% during this period, rising from 1.2 million viewers in December 2005 to 3.8 million in December 2006. Unique viewers overall for online newspaper sites increased from 27 million to 30 million.

"The blogging arena is a good opportunity for online newspapers to really leverage assets they already have," said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics at Nielsen//NetRatings. "And by that I mean their staff writers, their expertise in certain arenas. If you think of it from a marketing perspective, it also allows direct communication with their consumers and their staff, which always a good thing, to engage folks that way."

The online audience at these newspapers is disproportionately male -- 60% are men and 40% women. Among readers of blog pages, the statistics are even more out of balance, with 66% men and 34% women. Creekmore attributes this to a male proclivity for being early adopters of technology and content preferences.

"In general, the news category in the top newspapers will skew slightly male to begin with," said Creekmore. "And in the blogging arena, we're seeing that a little more emphasized. But I think that depends largely on the type of content. If there's more lifestyle or entertainment focused blogging within this blog section of a newspaper, you may get that female presence more than you might in a sports section, for example."

Nielsen//NetRatings also reported the top 10 Web site brands during December 2006 in terms of unique visitors and time spent per visitor. Microsoft led the list with 121 million unique visitors who spent an average of two hours and three minutes on its sites. Google came in second, with 112 million visitors whose visits lasted an average of one hour and fifteen minutes. Yahoo placed a close third, with 111 million visitors to its properties who spent an average of three hours and two minutes online.

The surprisingly long average time spent online by visitors reflects not just browser usage but also application traffic, according to Creekmore. Thus, Microsoft's users might have been using Windows Live Messenger or Windows Media Player rather than, say, navigating its Web site for two hours straight.

Yahoo To Debut Improved Search Ad Ranking Model Next Month

Yahoo To Debut Improved Search Ad Ranking Model Next Month

Ad quality -- how effectively the ad elicits consumer interest -- will be considered when determining where ads are placed on search results pages.

Yahoo plans to roll out its new search marketing ranking model on Feb. 5, CEO Terry Semel announced during the company's earnings conference call on Tuesday.

What's new? Ad quality -- how effectively the ad elicits consumer interest -- will be considered when determining where ads are placed on search results pages, in addition to search keyword bid price. In terms of ad placement, higher is generally better. Yahoo hopes this will make its ads more relevant to users, resulting in higher ad revenue for the company.

Google has used ad quality or ad performance as a metric in its online ad system, a fact that's widely seen as a major reason why Google's ad revenue has exceeded Yahoo's in recent years. When ads that generate little interest are monitored and automatically replaced by more popular ones, more people click on the ads, more products get sold, and the search advertising company makes more money.

Yahoo expects to see the financial impact of its recently upgraded search advertising platform and its improved search marketing ranking system toward the end of the second quarter of the year.

Yahoo To Launch 100 Branded Entertainment Sites

Yahoo To Launch 100 Branded Entertainment Sites

The portal plans to gather a brand-loyal audience in a single site this year where consumers can entertain themselves and advertisers can thrive.

Yahoo has embarked on a new ad strategy that will wrap all its content and social networking tools around a single entertainment brand that the portal hopes will attract a passionate audience for advertisers.

Called Brand Universe, the initiative involves launching by the end of the year 100 separate Web sites that take information and services scattered throughout the portal. It then brings them together and funnels them into one branded place. "What we haven't done up until now is to aggregate all of the information and services into one location to have them more easily connect to each other in a social context," Sean Atkins, head of programming and development for entertainment and games at Yahoo, said.

The idea is to gather a brand-loyal audience in a single site where they can entertain themselves, while also becoming an easy target for advertisers. The strategy is similar to how marketers buy time in the offline world around a particular TV show. On the Web, however, Yahoo can use its massive data-gathering system that's based on visitor behavior to find the people advertisers want to reach, "We can speak to a particular audience," Atkins said. In general, the new sites will target people 13 to 34 years old, a demographic sweet spot for many marketers.

Yahoo's performance has recently lagged in the online advertising market, particular in the area of contextual ads delivered around search results. In addressing investor concerns, the company has rolled out a new ad platform called "Project Panama." In addition, Yahoo plans to launch this month a new system for determining placement of ads on search result pages to offer more relevant ads to visitors.

Charlene Li, analyst for Forrester Research, said Brand Universe appears to be a good idea from a money perspective. "Lots of advertising dollars flow to brands," Li said. The question, however, will be whether Yahoo can build the audience. "It's a good idea from an advertising perspective, but how are you going to get visitors there."

To create buzz, and keep eyeballs at the sites, Yahoo is hoping to build an online community around the brands by giving people the ability to chat with each other, share photos and bookmarks, and do any other social activity Yahoo currently offers.

Yahoo has already created a test bed site around the Nintendo Wii video game console. By the end of the first half of the year, Yahoo said it plans to launch six more, one centered on the children book character Harry Potter as well as the video games Halo and The Sims, the television shows Lost and The Office, and the Transformers toy line. The remaining 100 sites are scheduled to launch in the second half of the year, Atkins said. He declined to name any of the upcoming brands.

Yahoo doesn't believe it needs to get the permission of the brands' owners to build the sites. The portal, however, is ready to partner with any of those companies, and would pull the plug on any site, if the brand creator objected. Atkins, however, said no company has objected to Yahoo's use of their brand yet.

Atkins believes the initiative will benefit Yahoo's audience through entertainment, benefit advertisers by providing a target audience, and benefit brand creators by giving them a chance to build loyalty with their audience. "It's a win, win," Akins said.

Digg Dims List Of Leading Lights To Curtail Corruption

Digg Dims List Of Leading Lights To Curtail Corruption

Founder Kevin Rose responds to thwart attempts to manipulate the social networking site.

In a blog post on Thursday, Digg.com founder Kevin Rose said that his popular community-driven news link site would no longer list "Top Diggers" who "are being blamed by some outlets as leading efforts to manipulate Digg."

This change comes even though Rose in the same post said, "We strongly believe attempts to game Digg are ineffective."

Other sites that rely on user input have issued similar denials. Google used to insist that search result manipulation wasn't a problem until it recently took steps to diminish the impact of so-called "Google bombs." It continues to claim that click fraud is overstated and under control.
At Wikipedia, a constant target for manipulation, correcting "corrections" has become more or less a continuous task. Microsoft was recently pilloried online for offering to pay a blogger and developer to revise certain Wikipedia articles seen as biased against the company. And no doubt another such scandal awaits discovery.

Whether or not Digg can be gamed, Web marketers appear quite keen to try. In a post on the Pronet Advertising blog, University of Chicago economics student Muhammad Saleem published an e-mail that he claims represents an offer to pay top Digg users for votes to promote the sender's Web site.

The wisdom of the crowd faces a potent challenge from the venality of the connected.

Google Offers Better Link Reporting Tool

Google Offers Better Link Reporting Tool

Backlinks are taboo, but site owners can now download up to a million external links.

Google is offering Web site owners more insight into who is linking to their sites though a newly improved set of Google Webmaster Tools.

Previously, site owners could glean some information about inbound links using the Google search engine's link: operator. But the resulting list of linking sites, or backlinks in Web site parlance, is only "a sub-sampled list of backlinks." The conventional wisdom is that Google conceals the full list to prevent search engine manipulation, which is more or less a full-time job for many search engine optimization firms, not to mention spammers.

Google, however, has decided to be somewhat more open about its data. It's not making backlinks available to anyone, but site owners can now download up to a million external links from the Webmaster Tools control panel.

Of course there's an argument to be made that ignorance is bliss. In a comment posted on Google Web spam czar Matt Cutts's blog, one Web site owner complains, "I just used it to check my backlinks and found some guy who is stealing my entire site except that adsense account in the site is now his and not mine, so he is making money and I'm not. Any suggestions on how to stop this and protect against it in the future?"

Soldiers' Blogs Monitored

Soldiers' Blogs Monitored

The suit claims the Defense Department violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to expedite the Electronic Frontier Foundation's request for information and for withholding agency records.

It's no secret that the military monitors soldiers' Web postings, can remove certain items, and will punish those posting content that violates military rules.

Still, recent publicity about a special military group monitoring soldiers' blogs and other Web postings has gained widespread attention and led to a lawsuit.

After the Army News Service published a short feature article about the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell, several media outlets followed up with stories about the unit. Then, advocacy groups began to question exactly how the monitoring works, what data is collected, and what privacy protections are in place.

Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation requested information about the Army's Web site monitoring and asked for an expedited release. Now EFF is suing in a Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court. EFF claims that the Defense Department violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to expedite EFF's request for information and for withholding agency records.
The group argues soldiers' views are particularly important because of the war in Iraq, and the public has a right to know how military personnel's blogs and Web sites are controlled. It also argues that the need to know is urgent.

"It's important to hear what active-duty military personnel have to say," an EFF spokeswoman said during an interview Tuesday. "Some outlets said last year that they're not blogging anymore, more or less because of the monitoring."

EFF points to news reports stating that the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell monitors hundreds of thousands of Web sites each month and notifies Webmasters and bloggers of inappropriate information.

"Some bloggers have told reporters that they have cut back on their posts or shut down their sites altogether because of the activities of the AWRAC," EFF wrote in a prepared statement.
EFF is seeking information about monitoring procedures as well as orders to revise or delete information.

"Soldiers should be free to blog their thoughts at this critical point in the national debate on the war in Iraq," EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said in a prepared statement. "If the Army is coloring or curtailing soldiers' published opinions, Americans need to know about that interference."

The military has disclosed some information about Web monitoring for information that can compromise the security of soldiers and their families. During previous interviews, a spokesperson for Multi-National Corps -- Iraq confirmed that a written policy states that military personnel owning official or unofficial Web pages, portals, and sites are required to register with their unit's chain of command. They must provide their unit, location, as well as the Webmaster's name and telephone number.

Hofmann said the EFF wants to know if military policies are restricting publication of soldiers' opinions as well.

Some blogging soldiers claim they were demoted after posting information and opinions their superiors deemed inappropriate.

An Army spokesman said the military does not comment on pending litigation.

Google Still Plays Catch-Up With eBay

Google Still Plays Catch-Up With eBay

Traffic figures for the competing e-commerce sites are on opposite ends in the spectrum, according to an Internet metrics company.

When it comes to e-commerce, Google can't touch eBay.

Last week, Google Base received 844 times fewer visitors than eBay and Google Checkout received 71 times fewer visitors than PayPal, according to figures released on Friday by Internet metrics company Hitwise.

Google Base in particular appears to be suffering. The search giant's free submit-it-yourself content repository experienced an 18% decline in traffic between July 2006 and January 2007. Google Checkout saw a 362% gain in visitors during the same period.

Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott attributes Checkout's traffic growth to aggressive promotion.

eBay and Paypal showed gains of 1.3% and 1.9% respectively during this period.
eBay also led in terms of session time -- the amount of time users spent at the site. eBay visitors spent an average of almost 20 minutes on the site, compared to 8 minutes for Google Base. For ad-supported sites, longer session times are generally better.

For transaction-oriented sites, shorter session times are more desirable (assuming the transaction gets completed) and there at least Google appears to have performed better than the competition. The average session time for users of Google Checkout was roughly two minutes less than the average session time for PayPal users.

MySpace Tests Filter To Block Unauthorized Videos

MySpace Tests Filter To Block Unauthorized Videos

The tool from Audible Magic scans videos for unique digital fingerprints and then compares them with those in a database. If there's a match, the videos are blocked from the site.

MySpace, which is under pressure by media companies for unauthorized showing of copyrighted material in videos, on Monday said it's testing filtering technology that would block such content from being posted on the popular online community.

The software tools from Audible Magic scan videos for unique digital fingerprints and then compares them with those in a database. If there's a match, the videos are blocked from the site.

The technology is being used to block music videos and other content from Universal Music Group, the Vivendi SA unit that sued MySpace last November for copyright infringement. That suit is still pending.

The filtering tools are available for free to other content creators, as well, MySpace said. NBC/Universal and Fox are also participating in the pilot program. MySpace and Fox are both owned by News Corp.

"MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community," Chris DeWolfe, chief executive and co-founder of MySpace, said in a statement. "For MySpace, video filtering is about protecting artists and the work they create."

MySpace already uses filtering technology for audio clips. The newest filters should be particularly helpful in ensuring that video taken down at the request of copyright holders is blocked from being reposted on the site. MySpace users often repost unauthorized content that has been taken down.

Nokia Partners With YouTube

Nokia Partners With YouTube

Announced at the 3GSM Conference, the deal will allow Nokia customers to view YouTube content on their handsets via broadband links.

BARCELONA, China — Nokia Corp. President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo announced at the 3GSM World Congress a new partnership with YouTube that will allow Nokia customers to view YouTube content on their handsets via broadband links.

With the YouTube deal, Kallasvuo uttered the universal marketing theme of the 3GSM show: "You can now watch the content you want, when you want it, on the move."

YouTube is scheduled to launch its mobile site shortly. It will initially pre-edit YouTube clips, encode them in the H.264 compression format and optimize them for mobile viewing, according to Nokia executives. Nokia has developed new application software called Nokia Video Center designed to provide a single interface for finding, viewing and storing video on Nokia N-series multimedia phones.

Nokia's move illustrates rapidly changing market demands for diversified video delivery to mobile handsets. Cellphone vendors are preparing for not only mobile TV broadcast technology but also broadband connections with an easy-to-use video application software. To enable YouTube video-on-demand, handsets also need wireless LAN or 3G connection capabilities. Nokia's N95 and the recently announced Nokia N93i provide the links.

Although Nokia insisted that both mobile TV broadcast reception (via DVB-H) and video-on-demand via broadband connection will complement each other, the company acknowledged that the two video delivery technologies will not converge on the same Nokia handset until 2008.
For now, Nokia's N77 handset, based on S60 software on the Symbian operating system, receives DVB-H-based mobile digital TV broadcasts but does not enable YouTube video-on-demand capabilities on handsets.

The N77 comes with a dedicated TV key to provide access to DVB-H broadcasts. The N77's is priced at 380 euros ($492), "a big reduction" compared to its previous mobile TV handset which cost 600 euros ($777), according to Jonas Geust, vice president for multimedia. The DVB-H-enabled mobile TV handsets are designed to work on 3G, Edge and GSM networks.

Nokia's CEO called the N77 a handset that "takes mobile TV to the mainstream market." He said the price of DVB-H chip set, including antenna, will be "around 7 euros" in 2008. Asked whether the price may be too aggressive, Geust responded, "We know the price because we buy them."

Nokia's CEO projected that the global DVB-H handset market will grow to "5 to 10 million units in 2008," reaching "20 million by the end of 2009."

EBay Pleased With Yahoo Ads, As Google Tests Start

EBay Pleased With Yahoo Ads, As Google Tests Start

The online auction site is ratcheting up its use of Yahoo search advertising to help boost buyer activity, after initial U.S. testing produced positive results.


SAN FRANCISCO - EBay Inc. is ratcheting up its use of Yahoo search advertising to help boost buyer activity, after initial U.S. testing produced positive results, an executive of the auction site said Tuesday.

The online auctioneer has found few conflicts between these ads and traffic to existing sellers, Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan told investors at a Merrill Lynch investor conference in New York.

Some sellers feared that incorporating Web ads alongside online auction listings would siphon away customers. Last year, eBay struck deals with Web search ad suppliers Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. to use Web search tools to help eBay buyers find products to purchase.

The online marketplace leader also started testing search ads on international sites with Google last week, but this will not affect financial results for several quarters, Swan added.

"We wouldn't really see any impact until the second half of the year because we are just beginning testing now," he told investors at the presentation, which was Webcast.

Swan also reaffirmed that he is comfortable with its earnings and revenue outlook for 2007, with growth coming both from its core auctions market and from newer businesses.

The company's 2007 outlook is for earnings per share growth of 20 percent to 23 percent over 2006, on revenue growth of 18 percent to 22 percent.

In January, the San Jose, California-based company had said it expected 2007 revenue to range between $7.05 billion and $7.30 billion. Full-year earnings, excluding one-time items, were expected at $1.25 to $1.29 per share, eBay had said.

Shares of eBay dipped 2 cents to $32.78 in late session trading on Nasdaq on Tuesday.

Firefox Tops 300 Million Downloads But Loses Market Share

Firefox Tops 300 Million Downloads But Loses Market Share

It's not clear from a recent survey whether Firefox lost market share to Microsoft or Apple.

Mozilla's Firefox Web browser, in all its versions, has been downloaded more than 300 million times since its initial release on Nov. 9, 2004, but last month for the first time in more than year, it lost market share.

In January, Firefox saw its share of the browser market drop to 13.67% from 14% in December, according to Web metrics vendor Net Applications. During this same period, Microsoft Internet Explorer reversed a year of consistent decline, to reach 79.75% market share, a gain of 0.11 percentage points from the previous month.

It's not clear from Net Applications' numbers whether Firefox lost market share to Microsoft or Apple. In January, Apple's Safari browser also gained market share, rising to 4.7% from 4.24% in December. Netscape, Opera, and other browsers all showed declines in January.

On Jan. 8, Microsoft said that Internet Explorer 7 had been downloaded 100 million times. In a post on the IE blog, Tony Chor, an IE group program manager, said that more than 25% of all visitors to sites in the United States were using IE 7 and that "We expect these numbers to continue to rise as we complete our final localized versions, scale up AU [Automatic Updates] distribution, and with the consumer availability of Windows Vista on January 30, 2007."

At InformationWeek.com, Firefox enjoys significantly greater usage than indicated by Net Applications' figures. During the month of January, traffic breakdowns to our sites show visitors were using: 34.8% Microsoft IE 6; 20.1% Microsoft IE 7; 19.2% Mozilla Firefox 2.0; 10.2% Safari 2.0.4; 10% Mozilla Firefox 1.5; and 5.7% Other.

Firefox enjoys about 15% market share on average worldwide, according to a Mozilla.org spokesperson, with higher rates in parts of Europe. Net Applications' statistics represent data culled from Web sites in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia and the Pacific Rim, and parts of Asia.

Cold To Google, Viacom Partners With Joost

Cold To Google, Viacom Partners With Joost

The downloadable video playback application uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute video files in a secure environment.

Viacom Inc. today announced a content distribution partnership with Internet TV startup Joost, just weeks after the media giant's relationship with Google fell apart.

Under today's agreement, Viacom's MTV Networks, BET Networks, and Paramount Pictures will supply television and film content for Joost's supposedly "piracy-proof" online video platform. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Joost is a downloadable video playback application that uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute video files in a secure environment. The company was co-founded by Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis, who also co-founded Skype.

The Joost application is available for Microsoft Windows or Apple's Mac OS X (Intel hardware only) to select beta testers. A Linux version is in development.

Last August, Viacom's MTV announced that it was working with Google to distribute ad-supported content from MTV through Google's AdSense program for Web publishers. That arrangement represented a "time-capped test," according to a Google spokesperson, and has been discontinued.

Earlier this month, Viacom's relationship with Google suffered an abrupt reversal when Viacom, unsatisfied with Google's ability to police the posting of unauthorized content on YouTube, demanded the removal of more than 100,000 video clips to which it claimed ownership.
On the IP Democracy blog, Cynthia Brumfield, president of media research consulting firm Emerging Media Dynamics, observes that the Viacom/Joost deal represents a repudiation by major media companies of Google's approach to copyrighted content.

"There can be no doubt that this is a humbling piece of news to the Googlers who have managed to tick off most of the traditional media businesses with their purported hard-ball negotiations," says Brumfield. "Google, it is said, lobbed a veiled threat to Viacom (and other TV content providers) that it would not use its content protection system for filtering copyrighted video on YouTube works unless it had a deal in hand with the content provider."

Joost's future, however, remains far from assured. The company has to convince Internet users to download its application in order to view what's already more or less available in a Web browser through YouTube, not to mention a legion of similar sites and services. Content deals with the likes of Viacom may provide sufficient differentiation to make Joost popular, but there's a risk that content owners, in trading Google's reach for Joost's security, may end up shying away from their online audience.

Google Sees Video Anti-Piracy Tools As Priority

Google Sees Video Anti-Piracy Tools As Priority

To head off a media industry backlash against YouTube, Google will implement anti-piracy measures to thwart unauthorized video sharing.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc., racing to head off a media industry backlash over its video Web site YouTube, will soon offer anti-piracy technologies to help all copyright holders thwart unauthorized video sharing, its chief executive said Wednesday.

"We are definitely committed to (offering copyright protection technologies)," Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in an interview. "It is one of the company's highest priorities," he said.

"We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago," Schmidt told Reuters when asked what Google was doing to make anti-piracy technologies widely available to video owners. "It is going to roll out very soon ... It is not far away."

YouTube, which Google acquired late last year, plans to introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users.
But, to date, the tools are only being offered as part of broader licensing talks, media industry insiders complain.

Schmidt declined to give a specific timeframe of weeks or months to cover all potential users, saying that any move would take time to cover all Google's services, including YouTube, and to be made available to all copyright holders wishing to use the anti-piracy technology.

"It is not some product you can just build and leave alone," Schmidt said. Protecting copyrighted material is likely to involve an endless cat-and-mouse game to keep pace with hackers bent on breaking such security tools.

MySpace, the popular Internet

Schmidt said Google plans to make video anti-piracy tools generally available to copyright owners. "We have to do that," he said, but cautioned that, "It takes a while to roll this stuff out" on a wide basis.

Earlier this month, Viacom demanded YouTube remove more than 100,000 Viacom video clips from the site after the two sides failed to reach a distribution agreement.

In a prepared statement last week, YouTube said the process of identifying copyrighted material is not an automated process and required the cooperation of media company partners.
For instance, a clip of a TV show owned by one company might contain music produced by another, making the process of identifying ownership difficult.

"These matters are very complicated and we are working with our partners to identify and solve these problems," YouTube said in an e-mailed statement issued last week.

Tech Vendors Look To Cash In On Google's New App Offering

Tech Vendors Look To Cash In On Google's New App Offering

Several companies are jumping on the Google Apps bandwagon because they see an opportunity to offer add-on products to the search king's office software products.

A number of companies are jumping on the Google Apps bandwagon in an effort to take advantage of the search king's move to place office software products online.
"You'll see all kinds of Web 2.0 outfits in different shapes and forms taking advantage of this," said Google watcher Stephen Arnold in an interview Friday, the day after Google formally unveiled its brace of office products. "Companies now have an alternative to running their own servers and desktops. It reduces operational costs."

Google Apps brings together a brace of Google tools including Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk. One firm that joined the Google Apps bandwagon with an immediately available Web 2.0 platform is Microcost, which joined the Google Enterprise Professional program. "By aggregating Google Enterprise components with those of our carefully selected technology partners including Citrix Systems and SalesForce.com (on) our standards-based Microsoft Fusion platform, we are able to provide secure access anywhere, anytime to all corporate information via the new personalized Google Start Page user experience," said Sam Johnston, Microcost CTO, in a statement.

"Best of all," Microcost said, "it's all hosted by Google, so here's no hardware or software to download, install or maintain."

In another example, Avaya said it would merge Google Apps Premier with its communications technology; the integration will enable users to use the office software with local and hosted communications technologies.

A firm that Google was once rumored to want to acquire -- ThinkFree -- is another example of a company likely to benefit from the Google announcement. For several years, ThinkFree has offered a Microsoft Office online clone. ThinkFree has considered the time now to be ripe for it to make major inroads into Microsoft's office software, because users are already faced with a move to upgrade to the software colossus' Office 2007.

Many firms see an opportunity to offer add-ons to Google Apps because its flagship office software -- Docs & Spreadsheets -- isn't considered to be a robust product yet.

"Docs & Spreadsheets probably sucks," said Arnold. "But it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be very good because it opens up the enterprise. Google Apps is a clear demonstration of Google's confidence that it can deliver (these applications) online and no one else can say that."

Google's head of enteprise partnerships Kevin Smith endorsed Microcost's role as a consulting partner in the Google Enterprise Professional program, hailing Microcost's ability to provide consulting, training, and implementation expertise to customers.

"This is all part of Google's strategy to become the Microsoft of tomorrow," said Arnold, who has written a book on Google and is writing another. "This is the start of Google's takeover of the enterprise."

Imprisoned Blogger's Supporters Say Egypt No Place For U.N. Internet Talks

Imprisoned Blogger's Supporters Say Egypt No Place For U.N. Internet Talks

Several human rights groups have condemned the sentencing of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman to four years in prison.

Human rights activists around the globe are expressing outrage over a four-year prison sentence given to a blogger for criticizing his government and university.

Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have condemned the sentencing of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman. Human Rights Watch said it is the first time an Egyptian court has sentenced a blogger to prison. Reporters Without Borders called Thursday's sentence a "disgrace" and urged the United Nations not to choose Egypt as a location for the 2009 Internet Governance Forum.

"Such a choice would completely discredit the U.N. process for debating the future of the Internet," said the free press advocacy group in a statement. "It is time the international community took a stand on Egypt's repeated violations of press freedom and the rights of Internet users."

Reporters Without Borders and other groups said the sentence was meant to intimidate other Egyptian bloggers and would likely chill free speech.

Suleiman, who blogged under the pseudonym Kareem Amer, was arrested in November. Authorities accused him of spreading rumors likely to disturb the peace, inciting hatred of Islam, and insulting President Hosni Mubarak. He received three years for inciting hatred of Islam and one year for insulting Mubarak, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student at Al-Azhar University, wrote that he supports human rights and opposes groups that oppress them. He called his school the "university of terrorism," according to an account on a Muslim news site based in the United States.

Bahraini blogger Esra'a Al-Shafei, who created FreeKareem.org to call for the blogger's release, was one of many readers to conclude that some of his writings were offensive -- and still supports his right to express his views.

"I cannot support his imprisonment merely because he said a few things that insult my identity," Al-Shafei wrote in a statement posted on FreeKareem. "Freedom of expression and open exchange of ideas must be respected."

Human Rights Watch said the laws that authorities accused Suleiman of violating contradict the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Egypt ratified 25 years ago. The agreement guarantees free expression through art and media. Egyptian laws, however, prohibit the dissemination of information, including news, which could disrupt security, spread horror, or harm the public interest. They also allow imprisonment for offending the president and for discrimination based on race, origin, or belief, if the "instigation is likely to disturb public order," according to excerpts published by Human Rights Watch.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the Eyptian government should honor its commitment to free expression and release the blogger immediately.

Yahoo Sees Better Results With New Ad Platform

Yahoo Sees Better Results With New Ad Platform

Project Panama's success is critical in Yahoo's effort to boost revenue and recapture market share from Google.

Yahoo's new search advertising system appears to be working. Since the introduction of Yahoo's new ad ranking model on February 5, the second phrase in the rollout of the company's Project Panama ad platform upgrade, Yahoo sites have seen better sponsored search click-through rates.

During the week ending February 11, 2007, the click-through rate for Yahoo-sponsored search ads rose 5% over the previous week, according to Internet metrics company comScore Networks. During the week ending February 18, 2007, the click-through rate showed rise of 9% over the baseline week of February 4, 2007.

"Yahoo's new search marketing ranking model is already having a positive impact on the click-through rates for Yahoo's search advertising," said James Lamberti, comScore senior vice president of media and search solutions, in a statement.

Project Panama's success is critical in Yahoo's effort to boost revenue and recapture search market share from Google.

Yahoo also saw more clicks directed at sponsored search ads, which generate more revenue than algorithmically generated ones. Sponsored clicks represented 10.6% and 11.1% of total click volume in the weeks ending February 11 and February 18, respectively, up from 10.1% during the week of February 4, according to comScore.

Last month, during a conference call detailing Yahoo's Q4 2006 revenue, CEO Terry Semel predicted that Yahoo would see the revenue impact of Project Panama in the second quarter of the year.

BitTorrent Launches A Legal Video Download Store

BitTorrent Launches A Legal Video Download Store

BitTorrent hopes a well-stocked digital film store with thousands of titles at reasonable prices can wean its audience away from pirated video.

BitTorrent launched its long awaited BitTorrent Entertainment Network Monday, hoping that its well-stocked digital film store with thousands of titles at reasonable prices can wean its audience away from pirated video.

Claiming 135 million users, the company said its software features a digital rights management system that blocks users from copying and sharing files. In an effort to convince its audience -- primarily young males -- to use the network, the firm has deliberately set content prices low. New release movies are priced at $3.99, for instance.

"Because the site is backed by BitTorrent's proven peer-assisted technology," said company spokesperson Rebecca West in an e-mail, "the download speed of each media file increases as the file becomes more popular."

The site is being launched with more than 5,000 titles including movies, TV shows, music and games content. BitTorrent said it has partnered with more than 35 providers including MGM, 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group.

The service will compete with other providers like Apple's iTunes, WalMart, and Joost. With an eye to the traffic overload that slowed iTunes to a crawl during the recent holiday season, the BitTorrent and Joost systems utilize P2P technology that speeds up traffic with increases in volume.

"Digital distribution represents a significant new revenue stream for the entertainment industry, but up until now it has been hindered by the combination of long download times and the lack of good content for people to download," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group in a statement. "BitTorrent has aggressively addressed both problems; first with their unique technology, which moves content closer to the customer and dramatically lowers the amount of time it takes to acquire it, and second with their unusually strong content library."

BitTorrent tipped its hand about its planned digital rights store last November when it revealed it had signed deals with 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures to offer titles. Before that, movie and TV producers complained the site was used by some peer-to-peer file sharing networks to deliver pirated content.

The BEN site will offer movies for rent for 24-hour periods at $3.99 for new titles and $2.99 for older catalog titles. TV shows and music videos are offered at "download-to-own" at $1.99 each. In addition, a wide range of user-generated and other entertainment content will be offered free.

"We're leveling the playing field for independent artists who have been turned away by publishers who are traditionally bound by scarce distribution alternatives and limited shelf space," said Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent, in a statement. "Our entertainment network is a true marketplace that embraces and welcomes contribution from the independents, allowing them to reach a vast user base."

Microsoft Says Google Success Was 'Wake-Up Call'

Microsoft Says Google Success Was 'Wake-Up Call'

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, talks about Windows Live and other efforts to mine the business potential of the Web.


SEATTLE -- The success of Google Inc. opened Microsoft Corp.'s eyes to the riches available in Web advertising, the chief technologist for the world's largest software maker said Tuesday.
"It was a wake-up call within Microsoft," company Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference in Las Vegas.

Google's success alerted Microsoft to the financial power of advertising and how it might complement revenue from subscriptions for its desktop software, he said.

"This very clearly caused an inflection point within our industry and within Microsoft of understanding advertising as an economic engine," Ozzie said in a question-and-answer session monitored online.

Ozzie stepped into the top technical position at Microsoft last year, replacing co-founder Bill Gates and spearheading an important transition for the $44 billion company to extend its reach beyond the computer desktop.

Google derives almost all of its $10.6 billion in annual revenue from advertising, while Microsoft's loss-making Internet arm generated $2.3 billion in sales last year. Microsoft makes most of its money from its dominant Windows operating system and Office software suite.
"It is critical for Ray Ozzie to rethink how Microsoft competes in the Web world, because it is a totally different landscape out there and if Microsoft doesn't adapt it will get left behind," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran.

The challenge for Ozzie is to deliver a host of Web services alongside Microsoft's classic out-of-the-box software to remain competitive with online rivals like Salesforce.com , Yahoo Inc. and others without compromising its core business.

"In most cases it's not going to be cannibalistic, but on the fringes there will be some substitution of one thing for another," said Ozzie.

For example, Ozzie said some small businesses may opt for Office Live -- an online service that helps set up Web sites, company e-mail and Web applications for collaborative projects -- instead of a company server running on Windows.

Microsoft believes new Web services will work in tandem with software installed on the computer, a vision that differs from "software as a service" advocates who expect services delivered over the Web to eventually replace software that resides on local PCs.

"The services opportunity is ... really more than just taking what's on the PC and putting it up on the Web," said Ozzie, who gained respect as a technology guru by developing ground-breaking software including Lotus Notes and who has made only a few public appearances since taking over for Gates.

When Microsoft responded to a strong competitor in the past, the Redmond, Washington-based company discovered new, and sometimes unintended, business opportunities. Ozzie said he expects the Web services fight to be no different.

Out of Microsoft's competition with Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 video game console emerged the strategy for its Xbox Live online game platform, the backbone of its current entertainment strategy, according to Ozzie.

A side effect of its competition with Google, Ozzie said, is that Microsoft can now support businesses with advertising when traditional licenses wouldn't have worked. Also, the data centers and services platforms that Microsoft is building for itself could eventually be made available to customers.

"That's going to present tremendous business opportunities," said Ozzie, who joined the company in 2005 when Microsoft acquired Groove Networks, a company he started.
Shares of Microsoft closed down $1.20, or 4.1 percent, at $27.87 on Nasdaq in line with declines made by other major technology shares.

IBM To Pipe Google Gadgets Into Company Sites

IBM To Pipe Google Gadgets Into Company Sites

IBM has reached a deal with Google Inc. to bring the consumer Internet into the office by piping YouTube and thousands of other Web programs into IBM software used by millions of office workers.

SAN FRANCISCO - IBM has reached a deal with Google Inc. to bring the consumer Internet into the office by piping YouTube and thousands of other Web programs into IBM software used by millions of office workers.

The pact brings together Google, one of the world's most popular consumer Web technology companies, and IBM, the biggest supplier of employee portal software which big businesses use to offer a kind of personalized home page for office workers.

In coming months, millions of users of IBM WebSphere will be able to choose from 4,000 existing Google Gadgets services -- mini-Web applications that users can add with the click of a button onto public sites or internal office intranets.

These include practical business applications such as maps, language translators, package delivery trackers or instantly updating weather and news services, audio search or Wikipedia.
"These sites are not just valuable to consumers. Businesses want the same content. Why would we keep these two universes separate?" said Larry Bowden, vice president of the IBM Lotus division for portals and Web services.

While Internet access, and thereby Google Gadgets, may be easily available to consumers, many businesses restrict access to the latest Web applications for security reasons, to make network management easier and to limit employee distractions.

By allowing Google Gadgets to work within its WebSphere Portal, IBM is making it easier for companies to give employees access to popular Web applications while keeping control over how they are used. Companies can decide which Google Gadgets they can see.

"The end user decides: We no longer need to go off and call a technician," Bowden said. "The power has been turned over to the people who know best. You know best."

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IBM WebSphere is the global market leader for portal software with a roughly 30 percent share, according to Gartner and IDC surveys. It competes with SharePoint from Microsoft Corp. and rival software from BEA Systems Inc. , Oracle Corp. and SAP AG.

IBM supplies the software to customers ranging from banks to energy companies to foster collaboration among employees. The national government of India uses it to deliver information to the country's 1.1 billion citizens.

Customers such as German airline Deutsche Lufthansa and Disney hotel operator Starwood Hotels will now be able use Google Gadgets to embed features on their customer service sites, Bowden said.

Beyond the novelty of running Google Gadgets on corporate networks, the IBM-Google deal lays a foundation for IBM to deliver hybrid applications that infuse consumer ease of use into existing business applications, Bowden said.

IBM said Google Gadget features are available at no cost to companies who have purchased WebSphere Portal Version 6.0 and also customers of WebSphere Portal Express.
Separately, IBM also said that later in 2007 it plans to offer a search utility to make it easier for published content to be located by Web searchers inside companies.

Google Reports Minuscule Click Fraud Rate

Google Reports Minuscule Click Fraud Rate

But ClickForensics' numbers suggest the rate of click fraud across different ad industry sectors and different search providers varies widely.

Google on Thursday dropped a bombshell that calls into question years of hand wringing about the future of pay-per-click advertising: The rate of click fraud for which advertisers seek a refund represents less than 0.02% of all clicks.

Google has long maintained that the risk of click fraud has been overstated by online ad auditing companies, and even gone so far as to suggest they have a financial motivation to exaggerate click fraud.

Of course the same can be said of the entire computer security industry and that doesn't diminish the reality of the threat posed by spam and malware.
And it's also fair to say that Google has a vested interest in dismissing click fraud, given that by its own account, "every percentage point of invalid clicks we throw out represents over $100 million/year in potential revenue foregone."

So how to reconcile Google's numbers with those of, say, ClickForensics, which puts the click fraud rate at 14.2%?
First, it helps to define the statistics, because the 0.02% figure Google is talking about refers to reactively detected click fraud -- clicks an advertisers questions and Google, upon analysis, agrees should not be paid for.

The 0.02% figure differs from the number of clicks that Google's systems detect proactively that never make it to a customer's bill.

It's also differs from ClickForensics' overall average of click fraud across the search industry. In much the same way that the overall crime rate in a city may not reflect the safety of a particular neighborhood, the rate of click fraud across different ad industry sectors and different search providers varies widely. Those buying expensive keywords as triggers for their search ads, for example, are more likely to be targeted by click fraudsters than other advertisers.

To further complicate matters, trying to determine the intent of someone clicking on an ad is inherently unknowable. The question then becomes how to bill uncertainty? Should advertisers pay for clicks made by mistake, with no intent to defraud? Should they pay for clicks made by the curious or those with no plan to buy? There's no easy answer here, particularly given that search ad providers and advertisers tend to have different sets of Web metrics data.
Nor is there an easy answer to another question: How much click fraud is going undetected? The fact that it's undetected makes it hard to say.

Online ad models like cost-per-action, where advertisers pay only for specific actions, like the sale of an item, can be better evaluated in terms of return on investment but they've not taken off and aren't as useful for brand awareness campaigns. Search ad providers also aren't keen to give up profiting from the inefficiencies cost-per-click advertising -- therein lies a nice margin.
Google's version of the ClickForensics' figure of 14.2% is "less than 10%." Like objects in a curved mirror, these two figures may be closer than they appear, since the click auditing firm measures the average click fraud and includes a variety of second- and third-tier search engines, which lack Google's click fraud detection resources.

ClickForensics plans to start publishing click fraud rates for specific search providers in the second quarter of the year, which will make reconciling click fraud statistics much easier. It won't resolve the issue but it will represent a step toward increased transparency, which pretty much every online ad buyer would like to see.

Google Gets BBC Content For YouTube

Google Gets BBC Content For YouTube

The BBC hopes exposure on YouTube will encourage online video viewers to avail themselves of its proposed iPlayer service, which lets viewers see BBC shows on their computers for seven days after airing.

Even as major media companies like Viacom play coy about wanting their content shown on YouTube, Google continues to find partners keen on exhibitionism.

The British Broadcasting Corporation and Google today announced a partnership to bring BBC content to YouTube.

"We're delighted to be joining forces with the BBC to bring the best TV programming available to the YouTube community," said Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman of Google, in a statement. "We will continue to invest in our platforms and technologies to help our partners make the most of the enormous opportunities presented by the billion people now online."

Practically speaking, that means Internet users worldwide will soon have access to selected clips and "specially commissioned promotional content" -- don't call them ads -- for series like Doctor Who and Life on Mars.

BBC World will offer some 30 clips a day of ad-supported news and analysis. And there will be an entertainment channel called BBC Worldwide that features clips from Top Gear, Spooks, The Catherine Tate Show, The Mighty Boosh and other shows you've probably never heard of unless you live in the U.K.

This being YouTube, viewers will get to post comments online, a decided improvement on more primitive forms of feedback such as shouting at the television.

The BBC hopes exposure on YouTube will encourage online video viewers to avail themselves of its proposed iPlayer service, Windows-only software that lets viewers view BBC shows on their computers for seven days after airing. The iPlayer is part of a broader BBC initiative to monetize its international audience.

Is Microsoft's Impact On The Economy Bigger Than Google's?

Is Microsoft's Impact On The Economy Bigger Than Google's?


Donna Bogatin asks a thought-provoking question: Who has more impact on the economy, Microsoft or Google?

During his annual predictions for 2007, futurist Mark Anderson said that Google and Microsoft represent two very different types of money. Microsoft is plumbing money, Anderson said, while Google is ad money.

A Microsoft-commisioned study claims the following:
In New York, each dollar of Windows Vista-related revenue earned by Microsoft in 2007 will generate more than $19 in revenue for the ecosystem beyond Microsoft. We expect that in the first year of Windows Vista shipments, this ecosystem will sell more than $7 billion of Windows Vista-related products and services in New York.

That's pretty impressive and if cast against both the U.S. and world economies, it's obvious that Microsoft's Vista release will be good for the global IT market.

Looking back at the Anderson dinner last month:
On the technology front, Anderson differentiated between Microsoft, a company that is "making plumbing," and Google, a "river of money." This means that Microsoft makes technology that businesses and consumers need for everyday tasks while Google is sitting on top of a macro-trend as advertising dollars drift online.

Anderson stressed that "plumbing money" is different than ad money and that the differences in money would continue to define these two companies. Countering prevailing thinking, Anderson said that Microsoft isn't going anywhere. He also repeated an earlier warning about Google, calling it one of the "most fragile" financial structures ever.

Microsoft's impact on the economy is still bigger than Google's, but is Anderson right? Will Microsoft remain the backbone of the global IT market? Or will Google soon become the bigger player?

Is 'Voice-Over-Google' The Next Search Paradigm?

Is 'Voice-Over-Google' The Next Search Paradigm?

Everybody's wondering what'll be the next big thing in search-engine technology. From the looks of a patent awarded to Google, it could be speech-driven searches.

The patent in question, number 7,027,987, was awarded to Google on April 11, 2006, for a Voice Interface For A Search Engine. It's described in the patent as "a system [which] provides search results from a voice search query."

If it seems on first glace that such a patent is simply taking an existing idea -- speech recognition -- and applying it to another existing technology -- search -- Google has a rejoinder to that.

According to its patent application:
"Current speech recognition technology has high word error rates for large vocabulary sizes. … Current voice interfaces to search engines address the problems by limiting the scope of the voice queries to a very narrow range. At every turn, the user is prompted to select from a small number of choices. For example, at the initial menu, the user might be able to choose from "news," "stocks," "weather," or "sports." After the user chooses one category, the system offers another small set of choices. By limiting the number of possible utterances at every turn, the difficulty of the speech recognition task is reduced to a level where high accuracy can be achieved.

This approach results in an interactive voice system that has a number of severe deficiencies. It is slow to use, since the user must navigate through may levels of voice menus. If the user's information need does not match a predefined category, then it becomes very difficult or impossible to find the information desired. Moreover, it is often frustrating to use, since the user must adapt his/her interactions to the rigid, mechanical structure of the system.

Therefore, there exists a need for a voice interface that is effective for search engines."
Interestingly, Google appears to have already conducted some small-scale testing on this approach, in the form of its Google Voice Search Demo. The technique promises to let users "search on Google by voice with a simple telephone call." Unfortunately, the test demo is currently unavailable. The status of the project is unclear; Google suggests users check back at some unspecified future time. There are some message threads on the technology, but all are low activity, suggesting not much is going on right now.

Another effort of note is apparently ongoing at Microsoft Research, where a project dubbed Speech Technology (Asia) is looking into voice-driven search for Chinese-speaking users. This is a particularly apt area for speech recognition, given the pictographic complexity of the Chinese character set.

Way off the beaten path, a search engine called Midomi purports to let you search for music files by humming or singing part of the song into your computer. (I'll try it after I close the door to my office.)

Obviously, efforts such as those of Google and Microsoft are flying below the radar screen (after all, the patent I'm so excited about above was awarded nearly a year ago. But the appeal of voice-driven search is intuitively obvious and merits, if nothing else, a big shout-out, at least from this blogger