Internet

One of the Internet's most popular free web hosting services, GeoCities, is closing down for good. Yahoo, which has owned the service for the last decade, announced in April it planned on shutting off the pages remaining in operation, and yesterday ... the lights went down on GeoCities for the very last time. Started back in 1994 under the title "Beverly Hills Internet," GeoCities early on adopted an operating design that emulated its name. For example, a site about celebrities might fall under the city-themed title "Hollywood," while those constructed for the purposes of blogging about PC ... (view more)

The battle between Bing and Google has heated up with both sides agreeing to deals with micro-blogging site Twitter. In addition, Microsoft has reached a separate agreement with Facebook, while Google is launching its own, unique search tool for ... social networking sites. User demand is behind decisions by Microsoft and Google to include social networking in search results . While both search sites update their index of web pages regularly, they still struggle to cope with very recent information such as current events. While both Google and Bing have dedicated searches of news websites, that ... (view more)

It seems more and more folks are 'tweeting' with Twitter these days. According to a new study, almost 1 in 5 Internet users are using Twitter or a similar service to share personal and work happenings with their friends and colleagues. Helping the ... incredible rise in Twitter's popularity are Google and Microsoft (via Bing), whose search engines have actually begun indexing Tweets, otherwise known as "common status updates." Google, MS Index Filtered Tweets Microsoft announced yesterday it had begun a new beta feature in Bing that provides real-time Tweet updates alongside relevant ... (view more)

A marketing firm has offered Twitter $500,000 USD to carry a banner advertisement for just one day. However, the ad to be carried by Twitter is not guaranteed to be accepted because the advertising firm in question has a controversial reputation. ... The CEO of uSocial, Leon Hill, said of the offer "While half-a-million dollars may seem like a large amount to invest in one banner for one day, we believe that the investment will be more than worth it." (Source: adoimagazine.com ) However, Twitter does not currently carry advertising; therefore, even if it wanted to take up this offer, it's ... (view more)

When you buy something online, sometimes waiting is the hardest part. Waiting several days, a week, or even longer is simply painful for many consumers, particularly as the holiday season approaches -- which is why Amazon announced late yesterday ... that it would begin shipping packages to homes in seven select cities, arriving the same day. Residents of Boston, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, and Las Vegas will soon have the opportunity to order and receive goods from Amazon.com in the very same day. It's expected that those living just outside these cities will also be ... (view more)

Shannon Jackson of Hendersonville, Tennessee has been arrested for Facebook "poking" a woman who had filed a legal order of protection against her. The case calls into question the spatial qualities of the Internet and could force today's legal ... system to better define the many unique functions of social networking. It's not yet known why the order of protection was filed against Jackson, but what we do know is that if the poke is classified in the same category as a phone call, email, instant message, or face-to-face visit, she could be on her way to prison for as long as 11 months and 29 ... (view more)

While an increasing number of businesses are encouraging their employees to listen to music in the hopes of making them happier and thus increasing production, most U.S. bosses are taking an opposite approach to social networking sites like Twitter ... or Facebook, with more than half of all companies banning them from the workplace. The finding comes from a recent study by Robert Half Technology, an IT company -- appropriate, since most of the time it's a company's local IT rep who's responsible for setting out which sites are okay and which are not for employees to visit on company time. ... (view more)

Bloggers could face fines of $11,000 for failing to mention free samples and other payments they receive from advertisers. In theory, the rules could even affect people writing on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, though officials indicate they ... are unlikely to be targeted. The rules have been issued by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, which says it is merely clarifying existing principles for the Internet age. The relevant guidelines had not previously been updated since 1980. In explaining the changes, the FTC said "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review ... (view more)

The torrent of bad press over Facebook's privacy policies has led to the demise of its much-disliked advertising program called "Beacon." The program, which was considered a marketing coup when first unveiled two years ago, has been phased out in ... accordance with the settlement of a year-old class action lawsuit. At the heart of the lawsuit was the contention that Facebook had failed to properly inform its many users of the privacy compromises introduced by Beacon, which used the data collected from member pages to help third-party sites tailor more effective advertising schemes. ... (view more)

Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, recently announced that it has 300 million active monthly users around the globe. Facebook was not expected to turn a profit until 2010 but has also announce their cash flow is started to trickle ... in. Reports suggest that revenue is supported by applications sold through the site and also by online advertising. (Source: theatlantic.com ) Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently blogged on the importance of their achievement, and he remains ambitious about the site's future. "This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a ... (view more)