Microsoft will not pursue keyword trade mark users in US

Microsoft will no longer investigate complaints that words used to trigger search adverts constitute trade mark infringement in the US. The change to its search advert policy in the US mirrors Google's existing policy.
The rules governing search adverts in the UK remain unchanged and forbid the use of keywords in a way that infringes trade mark law.
Keywords are terms which companies bid on so that their adverts appear when users of search engines search for that word or phrase. Trade mark owners have sought to have courts rule that one company using another's trade mark as an ad trigger breaches trade mark law.
Those companies have been largely unsuccessful. A number of US lawsuits have failed, and in a case involving Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that trade mark rights are only infringed by ads that cause confusion about the identity of the advertiser.
Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in the US, reported the change to Microsoft's US policies for its adCenter search ads system.
"Starting March 3, 2011, adCenter will no longer review trademark keyword complaints. However, adCenter will continue to investigate brand owner complaints related to trademark use in ad text," said an email from Microsoft, according to Goldman.
Microsoft's policy for the US states that it will still investigate complaints about the misuse of trade marked terms in the text of an advert.
The company's UK policy says that it will still look into UK instances of trade mark use in keywords.
"You may not bid on as a keyword, or use in the content of your ads, any term whose use would infringe the trademark of any third party or otherwise be unlawful or in violation of the rights of any third party," it said.
The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution calling for search engine companies to be prevented from allowing one company to bid on keywords that were trade marked by another company.
"[The Commission should] modify the limited liability regime for information society services in order to make the sale by search engines of registered brand names as advertising keywords subject to prior authorisation from the owner of the brand name in question," said the Parliament resolution.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.

Google Social Search Improves, Still Has Major Hole

Google announced that it has updated its own social search. Google social search results will now appear mixed throughout the organic results, as opposed to just at the bottom, as they have done in the past.

It's a good move, as I believe that often times, results from people you know is a big factor in relevancy. It's easy to ignore such results when they're at the bottom of the page. Still, missing from the mix is Facebook, however. Since most of your social activity and your real friend connections are most likely occurring on Facebook, this is a pretty big hole in the social search experience. According to recent estimates, Facebook has about 600 million users.

Google says you'll see updates from Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, and "publicly available sites". LinkedIn is also shown in a screenshot.

Unfortunately, I can't see the available accounts in the settings yet. Google says they're just starting to roll the feature out, and we'll see it in the coming week.

According to Matt McGee at Search Engine Land, you won't even see public Facebook Page results. Google's Mike Cassidy told him, however, "This is just the beginning, and we're going to be doing much more to improve the comprehensiveness of Google Social Search." He also has a graphic that seems to indicate Google will include YouTube, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Quora, Delicious, and Digg as well. "

Greplin still has some advantages over Google as far as social search (Greplin results could be awesome, mixed in with Google's results). Adding other Google services to the mix would be helpful (and more Greplin-like). Why not include Google Reader, Docs, Picasa Web Albums, Gmail, etc.?

Google has added some elements to its social search though - apart from just mixing the results in. They've added notes and links people have shared on Twitter and other sites (before, they just showed results people created and linked through Google profiles). They've also given more control over how you connect accounts. In addition to simply adding an account to your Google profile, you can add an account privately, just so you can get the results in search.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.

Google Chrome 10 beta - Faster JavaScript, GPU acceleration, and more!

Google has just released Chrome 10 beta (10.0.648.82 for all you perfectionists) and it brings with it a whole slew of new things to play with.
Google has just released Chrome 10 beta (10.0.648.82 for all you perfectionists) and it brings with it a whole slew of new things to play with.
First off, there’s a significant JavaScript performance boost thanks to the updated V8 engine. According to Google, this version of the V8 engine offers a 66% performance advantage over the current stable release. That alone is pretty impressive.

This beta also adds GPU acceleration for video. For those running video in full-screen mode this can mean a decrease in CPU usage of as much as 80%. A good thing for those living off battery.
Another new feature is that the browser setting page now opens in a tab of its own rather than in a separate window. A small change but one that makes a lot of sense. There’s also a handy search box to allow you to find the specific setting you are looking for. Might not be needed by geeks, but dead handy for everyone else (Hey, Microsoft! Here’s a setting that would be really handy for IE users … fire up those photocopiers!).
Syncing now includes saved passwords, along with bookmarks, preferences, themes and extensions. Synced passwords can be encrypted with a separate passphrase.
Download Google Chrome beta 10 here.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.

Champions shaping up for browser battles

Google on Friday released a revved-up version of Chrome as rivals Microsoft and Mozilla beefed up their own champions for the competitive Internet browsing software arena.
In keeping with the arrival of the lunar year of the rabbit, Google product managers Jeff Chang and Li Chan touted the latest test version of Chrome as "quick as a bunny."
The latest Chrome release came a week after Microsoft fielded an Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) "release candidate" boasting improvements in speed, security, privacy, and website graphics capabilities.
IE9 had been downloaded more than two million times as of Friday, according to Ryan Gavin, the senior director of the IE team.
"We are especially excited to see the number of partners and developers embracing IE9 and taking advantage of the performance capabilities," Gavin said in a blog post.
Mozilla last week released a test version of its Firefox 4 web browser with enhancements that included a "Do Not Track" feature people could use to signal websites that they don't want their online activities recorded.
"We've continued our work to improve performance and stability, while also implementing a 'Do Not Track' privacy feature to provide more control over online behavioral tracking," Mozilla said.
Firefox debuted in 2004 as an innovative, communally crafted open-source browser released as an option to Internet Explorer.
Google last month released extension software for its Chrome browser that lets users opt out of being tracked by a growing set of companies adopting industry privacy standards regarding online advertising.
"Keep My Opt-Outs" lets people opt out of having snippets of code referred to as "cookies" installed on their computers to track online behavior for the purpose of targeting ads.
Microsoft "Tracking Protection" was built into IE9, but users need to be savvy enough to activate the feature and create lists of the third-party websites that they do not want to track their behavior.
Internet Explorer is the most widely used Web browser in the United States followed by Firefox, Chrome and Apple's Safari.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.

Apple iPhone nano? Try iPhone budget

Remember all that chatter about how Apple was cooking up the iPhone nano as a way to target the masses? The New York Times has thrown ice water on the concept.
Instead of the iPhone nano it’s more like the iPhone budget. The Times reports that Apple is looking to keep the same iPhone form factor, but make a more inexpensive model. The idea is to make something for prepaid plans abroad where phones aren’t subsidized.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal said Apple has prototypes for a smaller iPhone. I liked the idea given that phones are creeping up to the size of tablets. The Times says the iPhone nano is bunk—at least for now. Among the key points:
• Apple is focused on the iPhone 5.
• There are no immediate plans for a smaller iPhone.
• A smaller phone wouldn’t be cheaper to make and could be harder to operate.
• And developers may have to rewrite apps and Apple wants to avoid that scenario.
That latter point is notable. Notice how the more dominant an ecosystem becomes the more important reverse compatibility becomes.
Also: Could an ‘iPhone nano’ work?
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes noted on Monday that he had his doubts about whether Apple could make an iPhone nano work. He said:
First off, I’m not convinced that this rumor is anything more than just that - an attention-seeking rumor. I’ve been hearing rumors about an ‘iPhone nano’ for some time now, and after the iPad, a device which is four times as big as the iPhone, there’s a certain poetry to the idea of a device half the size of the iPhone. But we need more than poetry to make this rumor work.
Apple is interested in using voice commands to better operate the phone. Voice control is one area where Android is strong—voice search, texting and navigation works well. Apple is also planning a free version of Mobile Me because consumers haven’t shown much interest in paying for it.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.

5 Ways of Making Money with Facebook

Facebook has an audience that has surpassed 500 million recently, and have re-designed all rules of engagement with customers. In this articles we will briefly expose 5 ways of tapping into this market where people spend more than 700 billion minutes every month. Would you like to get a piece of that?

Make Money on Facebook by Developing an Application
All you need is a good idea and you might be our next internet entrepreneur. You don’t have to be fluent with any software languages like PHP or Javascript. You can find tons of programmers you can hire to do your dirty work. It’s true, you really could be the next big buzz! Farmville is an application that was introduced recently, and now has been downloaded over 110 million times.
Selling Products in The Facebook Marketplace
Facebook has a marketplace that is excellent for business. If you’ve grown tired of the ones that came before, like Craigslist and Ebay, then check out this virtual mall for marketing your products. It has everything from books to baby clothes and is well worth putting some of your own products on.
Facebook Ads
On Facebook, you’re provided with a self-serve system offering highly targeted advertising. You’ll find this available both for CPM basis, which is ‘cost per 1000′, and a CPC basis, which is cost per click. With such a huge audience and an unlimited ad inventory, it can also insert ads into highly specific demographics. Any advertising space on here is pure gold. Smart media buyers all buy their ads and sell their traffic using ad networks.
Become An Expert in Facebook Marketing
This new world called Facebook is a marketing tool way beyond many thousands of marketers out there. If you understand how Facebook works, then why not try offering your services to other agencies and companies, both large and small? Just like Google changed how search engines advertised, now Facebook is using social networking to dive ahead into the future. You can really help people out with your product, and make yourself some serious money at the same time. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Make Money With Market Research
Facebook gives you massive focus groups, just waiting to voice their opinions.Audiences are easily targeted and easily accessed on Facebook’s arena. Just the time it takes to complete surveys is reduced to just a fraction of other well known methods. If your bag is market research, then you need to give some careful consideration to the way social media can boost your business in a way that no other can. Get ready for the future of the industry of consumer opinions.

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG BY: EMAIL
: ">.