Internet

YouTube, in many cases, represents the open-source wonder and freedom of the Internet. As one of the last media outlet without stringent borders, the web embraced YouTube when it was first launched a few years ago. Google's purchase of the site, ... which allows users to upload just about any type of amateur home video, only vaulted YouTube into the mainstream. Now, it appears Google ownership may lead to limits on the kind of content posted, with the recent disappearance of a video showing John McCain singing -- yes singing -- his hopes to "bomb Iran." McCain, who is currently serving as a ... (view more)

Most of Mozilla's efforts have seemed to center around beefing up its Firefox browser. However, Mozilla now plans to enter a new realm by releasing a social networking project -- a Firefox plugin called the Coop. The Coop will allow users to add ... friends directly to Firefox, and share information directly through the browser instead of via email. In essence, Mozilla is aiming to make interaction more direct. (Source: franticindustries.com ) On the Coop's project page, Mozilla describes how the Coop will work. The page explains that the Coop will "let users keep track of what their friends are ... (view more)

It seems few people use Outlook Express anymore. For many web users, email has moved online, to sites like Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and the ever-popular Hotmail. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, but above all each are tasked with outdoing one ... another in order to gain headway in a competitive market. It's part of the reason Yahoo has recently announced unlimited storage space for those that use its mail service, with another fan-favorite site rumored to follow. Yahoo Mail has been in service for nearly a decade now, but is clearly worried about losing the popular vote amongst web mailers. ... (view more)

One of the men responsible for the creation of Wikipedia.org is now trying to turn the tables against the website he helped bring to fruition. Larry Sanger promises that his new venture, Citizendium.org, "aims to improve on [the Wikipedia] model by ... adding 'gentle expert oversight' and requiring contributors to use their real names." (Source: citizendium.org ) "If there's going to be a free encyclopedia, I'd like there to be a better free encyclopedia," Sanger said. "It has bothered me that I helped to get a project started, Wikipedia, that people are misusing in this way, and yet the project ... (view more)

Oops! It looks like Yahoo has dropped the ball. In releasing an update to increase the speed of the system, a bug has caused Yahoo Groups members' inboxes to be flooded with duplicate messages. While Yahoo touts the speed increase as the "silver ... lining" of the situation, the cloud it's hiding behind seems pretty large. (Source: yahoo.com ) Users commented that messages were arriving faster than they could be deleted, with as much as 25 duplicates arriving per original message. Some users also reported that messages that were not appearing when they should be. (Source: news.com ) Yahoo's ... (view more)

After countless threats of legal action and allegations of a carefree approach to copyrighted material, two of the most powerful media companies are embarking on a joint venture that will showcase their own material on some of the Internet's biggest ... websites. The move puts the two media giants in direct competition with YouTube and the other online video-sharing sites that hold no copyright for the material they provide. The News Corporation and NBC Universal will distribute their latest content, like television episodes and movies, on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. It is estimated that 96 ... (view more)

Cisco Systems has purchased the online meeting and web conferencing company, WebEx, for approximately US $3.2 billion. The acquisition exemplifies Cisco's desire to move beyond their familiar networking technology and into the world of business ... communications. Cisco is perhaps best known for manufacturing routers and switches that direct data over computer networks. The company agreed to purchase WebEx for $57/share; approximately 23 percent over WebEx's closing price of $46.20/share on the purchase date. (Source: nytimes.com ) WebEx produces applications that enable online conferences and ... (view more)

Last Thursday, Yahoo announced a new beta version of its personalized My Yahoo start page. The launch will be gradual and will begin over the next few months. Although only a limited number of Yahoo members will be able to try out the beta version, ... these users will have access to create their personalized space by simply dragging and dropping the content they would like to include on their My Yahoo start pages. Beta testers will also have access to a pre-created My Yahoo page based on the other Yahoo services that they use. For example, members who often use Yahoo's shopping service will see ... (view more)

Be careful what you post on Wikipedia! Although the online encyclopedia boasts that it's essentially an open source intellectual tool that uses publicly submitted articles, not everything is without consequence. While Wikipedia tends to monitor all ... of the posted articles with its own editors, a recent post on pro golfer Fuzzy Zoeller has the subject suing the article's writer for defamation. Zoeller is outraged that a post on Wikipedia labeled him a drug user, alcoholic, and abuser of his family. Report suggest that the poster's IP address has been traced back to an education consulting firm ... (view more)

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia.org is currently a source of major controversy at universities everywhere. Some professors rave about Wikipedia's usefulness, while others have outright banned their students from using it. But love it or hate it, ... Wikipedia's popularity cannot be discounted. It was already among the top ten most popular websites in the world. However, surprisingly enough, there was one country where Wikipedia didn't hold that same distinction -- the United States. In January, that finally changed, with Wikipedia cracking the U.S. top ten in popularity for the first time ever ... (view more)