Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Nokia is pushing hard for consolidation, looking to make their smartphones the go-to device for communication. One of the major announcements at Nokia World 2008 this year is about their Nokia Messaging solution. It is essentially a multi-platform messaging solution that enables email considerably more gracefully than the original Symbian interface. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/02/nokia-world-2008-nokia-messaging 12/2)

A common concern for advertisers is the worry of having their brand appear online next to suggestive or smutty material. YouTube weighed in on the controversial topic of racy user generated content by outlining stricter standards for postings it considers only appropriate for viewers 18 or older. While nudity and sex are always flagged for removal, videos that skirt the line will be henceforth “algorithmically demoted” so as not to appear in Most Viewed, Top Favorites or other prominent browsing pages. Also, the site will select thumbnail images for videos rather than auto-generating them at predefined points in a video. (Cynopsis 12/4)

After a tepid start, online holiday sales seem to be picking up a bit. Online sales on Cyber Monday as measured by comScore were a healthy $846 million, up 15 percent from last year’s Cyber Monday. Online sales since Thanksgiving are up 12 percent to $2.4 billion. But overall online sales in November of $12 billion are still down 2 percent. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/03/online-holiday-sales-making-a-comeback-or-barely-holding-their-own 12/3)

Yahoo continues to outsource lots of businesses it previously built and maintained directly. Especially in music – In February they shut their subscription music service, and in September they announced a deal to allow full song playbacks through the Rhapsody service. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/03/yahoo-to-relaunch-launchcast-next-year-with-cbs-radio 12/3)

Google may get three times more search traffic than Yahoo, but, SearchWiki aside, most of the innovation seems to be coming from Yahoo and Microsoft’s Live Search as they strive to gain a larger slice of the search market share.  Last year Yahoo introduced Search Assist, an advanced autocomplete feature that recommends related searches as you type your query into the search box. Autocomplete isn’t a new concept – Google has offered it for years through Firefox and its browser toolbar (and recently integrated it into its homepage). But Yahoo takes it a step further, going beyond just guessing what word you’re typing by suggesting possible related searches. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/03/yahoo-search-assist-adds-image-previews-i-wish-google-had-this 12/3)

Online tracking service Trendrr unveiled a new tool that tracks and graphs usage of words and phrases on Twitter. The service, currently available for no charge, creates usage graphs that illustrate the number of posts per hour, per day or longer made by Twitter’s 3.4 million users.  Results can be measured against other data via the site’s Scratchpad tool including blog and news buzz. (Cynopsis 12/4)

I tried it out and it is pretty snazzy.  Wondering how accurate it is though.

(Below) This bit of news makes me want to run around the office kissing people.  Affordable broadband to rural areas and hopefully underprivileged neighborhoods?  Damn, it feels good to be an American.  Oh wait, we charge more for broadband than most other countries around the globe.  Damn, it WILL feel good to be an American.

A coalition of companies and organizations including Verizon, Google and the American Library Assoc. unveiled recommendations for a comprehensive National Broadband Strategy on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The treatise calls on President-elect Obama to stimulate investment in broadband infrastructure by deploying tax incentives, grants, subsidies and other measures. Bringing affordable broadband to rural areas remain one of the key challenges in the U.S. as more than 10% of Americans still have no broadband access. (Cynopsis 12/4)