Archive for December, 2008

A new piece of Israeli software claims to be able to spot upcoming pop stars months before they hit the big time, by watching people share music on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Instead of A&R men spending hours hanging out in gigs, they could analyse the local spikes in interest in a particular artist, says a report in New Scientist. The creator of the software Yuval Shavitt from Tel Aviv University says on average, 30% of the acts his system flags up succeed at a national level, and that it could be useful to record companies.

Some lucky stars of YouTube are beginning to make a living from their online video hobby. One year after YouTube invited members to become partners and add advertising to their videos, some of the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the site and at least a few are earning a full-time living.The partner scheme sees YouTube place ads within and around the partner videos and split the revenue with the creators.

Bebo, the social network popular with teens, is jumping onto the aggregation bandwagon. It has launched an in-box that culls and collects feeds from social sites like Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube and others as well as check email from Gmail, Yahoo and AOL. It’s the latest move from a social network to attempt to become the hub and default homepage of its users.

Google has swiftly moved its Chrome browser out of beta status meaning that Chrome can now be considered by computer manufacturers like Hewlett Packard and Dell as part of the bundle included on PCs and laptops. This move out of beta is quick for Google. Gmail is still labelled beta despite having millions of users and being launched in 2004.

Google and MySpace are collaborating to counter the expansion of their joint rival Facebook. The two internet companies are working on a universal login system that will enable their users to connect seamlessly with their social circles while moving around the web. Facebook sold a 1.6 per cent stake to Microsoft for $240 million last year.

Microsoft has offered to reduce the length of time it holds onto search data, if its competitors Google and Yahoo do the same. A European Privacy Panel has been placing pressure on the search engines to keep search records no longer than six months before making the data untraceable. Microsoft’s legal team has said that it would be at a commercial disadvantage if it acted alone. Currently, Microsoft’s MSN Live Search currently retains search data for 18 months. Yahoo keeps data for 13 months and Google for 9 months.

Yahoo has approached Arun Sarin, the former CEO of Vodafone to lead the troubled Silicon Valley company. Sarin has yet to decide whether to take the position and is also considering roles at other US companies including a private equity firm. Insiders say that Sarin has been approached about the role of chairman, as well as CEO. Sarin led the UK-based mobile phone operator for five years.
In November, Yahoo announced that its co-founder Jerry Yang would step aside from the position of CEO as soon as a replacement could be found.

Conde Nast’s teen social network, Flip.com will close down on December 16. The launch of the teen site was announced in 2006 and has been beset by problems since then from employee defection to a failure to build a mass user base. After the site’s beta launch last year , the company tried to make it more about partnerships with other social networks like MySpace and Facebook, but it didn’t work.

An increasing number of companies are using social media like Wikipedia, YouTube and SlideShare to communicate with investors. Over 80% of the 150 largest companies in Europe place information about themselves on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, according to Hallvarsson & Halvarsson, a financial communications consultancy. Meanwhile, more than half palce photography on Flickr, videos on YouTube and presentations on SlideShare.
French companies make the best use of social media, according to H & H, followed by the British, Germans and Portuguese. The automotive, beverages and tobacco, telecoms and consumer goods sectors have the largest presence in social media, led by Siemens, Vodafone and BP.

MySpace, the online social network owned by News Corp, says it is on the hunt for cheap acquisitions as the economic downturn makes life tough for start-ups. The co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe has said that companies worth between $200 million and $300 million just six months ago are now running out of money and willing to sell themselves for less than one-tenth of that value. He believes these companies will become even cheaper over the next few months. MySpace is especially interested in companies that could help it build a presence in international markets, build its music offering and develop applications for mobile phones.