Internet

Backupify has announced the private beta launch of CloudSight Search, the industry’s first unified search and archiving service for cloud computing. CloudSight Search enables Backupify users to quickly locate data across multiple cloud services and to analyze, download and restore items to their original location. The service supports Facebook, Twitter, Google Apps, and other popular services managed by Backupify. Access to the CloudSight Search private beta program is limited. For more information and to request access to the beta program, visit http://www.cloudsight.com.

“Emerging social search engines are exciting but limited in that they only let you locate information – not restore it if it was deleted or view it if your cloud service is unavailable”

“Emerging social search engines are exciting but limited in that they only let you locate information – not restore it if it was deleted or view it if your cloud service is unavailable,” said Rob May, Co-Founder and CEO, Backupify. “CloudSight Search from Backupify is the first service of its kind that gives you the ability to not only find information across the social sphere, but also interact with, and restore it when necessary.”

Currently in beta, CloudSight Search will be available to Backupify users and will be active once their initial backups occur. The service provides an intuitive search interface for locating data across all services and filtering results based on keyword, by date, and by service type. CloudSight Search spans all cloud services to give users quick access to the information they’re looking for, whether it is stored in a Gmail message, in a Flickr photo comment or on a Facebook Fan Page. Resulting items are displayed, by priority, in real time, allowing the user to view, download or restore them to their original location.

For businesses, CloudSight Search offers powerful data management capabilities that solve critical problems encountered by the increasing amount of corporate data moving to the cloud. The service gives social media and compliance professionals an automated audit trail of customer-facing corporate online communications across all major social media and cloud platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Gmail. Also, Google Apps domain administrators can use CloudSight Search to query the archives of all their users. In the case data was deleted, CloudSight Search can make it even easier for the IT professional to restore the document on behalf of a Google Apps user.

For consumers, CloudSight Search provides a comprehensive view of one’s online life, making it easy to locate pictures, online conversations with friends, documents and more, across any number of photo-sharing sites, Web-based email accounts and social media sites.

For more information, including a video and signup form for the CloudSight Search private beta program, visit http://www.cloudsight.com

CloudSight Search will be available for demonstration at the SXSW Interactive conference starting Friday, March 11, in Austin, TX. Users that sign up for Backupify CloudSight Search with the promo code “#SXSW” will be given priority access to the service as it is made available to beta users. To celebrate the launch of its groundbreaking unified search service, Backupify will be cosponsoring, alongside HubSpot and oneforty, the “Boston in Austin” cocktail hour at 5:00PM on March 13, 2011. For more information, visit http://bostoninaustinsxsw.eventbrite.com

Google has announced the arrival of it’s Chrome browser 10.0.648.127 to the Stable Channel for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame.

Version 10 addresses 23 security vulnerabilities.

Chrome 10 features improvements including:
New version of V8 – Crankshaft – which greatly improves javascript performance

New settings pages that open in a tab, rather than a dialog box
Improved security with malware reporting and disabling outdated plugins by default

Sandboxed Adobe Flash on Windows

Password sync as part of Chrome Sync now enabled by default
GPU Accelerated Video

Background WebApps

webNavigation extension API

More info: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/03/chrome-stable-release.html

Virgin Media announced it will throttle both P2P and Newsgroup traffic at peak times to prevent slowness in other areas such as online multiplayer gaming.

Trialing of the new traffic management plans started on March 2 and only applys to upstream traffic, download speeds will be unaffected.

The new traffic management plans will apply on top of the existing traffic shaping Virgin Media has in place and will affect all packages, including the previously unmanaged 100mb service.

Virgin Media said:

“After the successful out of hours trial of our combined upstream and downstream file sharing traffic management policy we will be trialling this new policy between 17:00 and 00:00 for one week starting on Wednesday 2nd of March.

Between these times P2P and Newsgroup upstream traffic will be managed in a similar way to our current downstream traffic management. If the trial is successful we’ll launch the new policy immediately.

We’re interested if you could tell us how this affects your gaming experience over the next few days and if you see any general improvement in latency and ping at peak times.

We moderate the total volume of file sharing traffic on our network between 5pm and midnight on weekdays and midday and midnight on weekends. This policy, which applies to all broadband packages, is restricted to Peer to Peer (“P2P”) applications and Newsgroups (which are commonly used to distribute large amounts of data). This policy does not impact any applications other than Peer to Peer and Newsgroups, so things like watching iPlayer, online gaming, making calls via Skype, downloading music tracks from iTunes or streaming them from Spotify and sending an email or normal browsing are unaffected.”

Skype today announced the launch of advertising in Skype software, which will appear in the Home tab of Skype for Windows starting this week. This move represents the first time that advertising will appear in Skype, giving brands a unique opportunity to be part of the Skype experience, which has enabled millions of people around the world to do things together when they’re apart through voice and video calling, instant messaging, conferencing, and more.

Skype has partnered with leading advertising companies: Meebo in the US, Ad2One in the UK, and Ströer Interactive in Germany to sell advertising for Skype in each of their respective markets.

With 145 million average monthly connected users for the fourth quarter of 2010 and 29 million concurrent users at peak times, Skype’s reach and engaged user base makes it an attractive platform for brands to market their products. The first advertisers to sign up with Skype include: Groupon, Nokia, Universal Pictures, and Visa.

“We’re really pleased by the initial response among advertisers. We believe advertising on Skype helps fill a creative gap by giving brands a platform that has broad reach and global engagement, while also supporting large-format, rich and interactive ads,” said Doug Bewsher, Chief Marketing Office for Skype.

Skype “Home” provides a sponsored large masthead space at 650 × 170 pixels expandable to 650 × 340 pixels for advertisers to display ads that can include audio or video. Since the ads are on Skype, advertisers can add a Click & Call button in the ad as another call to action. In addition, it allows people to share the ad to their Facebook or Twitter accounts, and with one-click, ads can also be closed with the Close Ad button.

“The user experience on Skype is always job number one. So, we’ve spent a lot of time working through the best way to show advertising in the Skype environment. We believe our daily sponsorship ad from one brand per day is valuable for premier advertisers, but doesn’t detract from the experience for our users,” said Bewsher. “We are just taking our first steps in this space and we expect to test and learn a lot as we move forward.”

“Many people log into Skype as part of their daily routine, just like they check Groupon” said Rob Solomon, president and COO of Groupon. “We look forward to leveraging Skype’s new display advertising to connect Groupon to an even larger captive audience”

“Skype is known for great value with its low-cost calls to mobiles and landline phones, and free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls. We believe that advertising, done in the right way, will help us continue to add more value into the Skype experience as a whole,” said Bewsher.

Skype’s advertising sales partners in the US, UK, and Germany will help present advertisers with the opportunity to market on Skype.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Meebo, Ad2One, and Ströer Interactive. They give us great sales teams, reach and meaningful advertiser relationships, right from day one,” said Andy Sims, director of advertising for Skype. “All three partners are leading providers of advertising services, have deep relationships with top advertisers and agencies in their markets, and have experience selling high-impact brand advertising.”

For more advertiser information, go to www.skype.com/go/advertise.

Facebook has finalized their list of accepted ad networks for use within Facebook Apps. Google AdSense is omitted from the list, meaning their use is a breach of Facebooks TOS.

Accepted As providers are (at present):

ad:C media
Ad4Game
Adap.tv
Adconion Media Group
AdJug
Adknowledge – (Cubics and Super Rewards)
Admeld
Adperio
ADTELLIGENCE
Advertising.com
Alfy Video Network
Applifier
APP Prizes
appssavvy
BannerConnect
Bizmey
Blue Noodle
BrightRoll
Casale Media
ClickForce
CPX Interactive
Criteo
DoubleDing
DSNR Media Innovations (DMI)
EpicSocial
Fox Networks
Harren Media
Httpool
igapi by Social Game Universe
IndieClick
Intergi
Jun Group
Lifestreet Media
Live Gamer
MakeMeReach
Malepar
MATOMY
Mediastay
MediaWhiz
Nabbr
One iota
Open Inventory media
Paymentwall
Peanut Labs
PubMatic
RadiumOne
RockYou
Rubicon Project
Sharethrough
smartclip
Smowtion
Social Games Ad Network – SGA
SocialVideoBytes
Sometrics
Specific Media
SponsorPay
SpotXchange
SupersonicAds
SVnetwork
Tapjoy
TokenAds
TrialPay
Underdog Media
Unruly Media
ValueClick
WildTangent
XTEND
Ybrant Digital

Facebook TOS for Advertising Providers: http://developers.facebook.com/ad_provider_terms

Most devices certified as IPv6-compliant by the IPv6 Forum are full of implementation bugs, reports Network World.

“The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab held an IPv6 consumer electronics Plugfest on Feb. 14 and CableLabs has scheduled two more for this year. Most home routers and DSL/cable modems certified as IPv6-compliant by the IPv6 Forum are so full of implementation bugs that they can’t be used by ISPs for IPv6 field trials.”

Read more: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/030411-ipv6-home-routers.html

Microsoft has introduces Daily Deals on it’s Bing internet search engine for desktop and mobile (m.bing.com) internet users.

Bing have partnered with The Dealmap, to launch Bing deals.

“Bing’s mission is to help you cut through the clutter of the Web to make decisions more quickly, whether that’s through our own innovations or by teaming up with industry experts. . The Dealmap is a leading source for people to find and share the best local deals, so naturally it made sense for us to team up with them to bring you the best experience.”

More info: http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/03/03/bing-launches-deals.aspx

LeadMaster announces new functionality, synchronization with Google calendar.

Using the new Google calendar synchronization feature, LeadMaster CRM users may sync LeadMaster and Google calendar events bi-directionally. This enhancement is available for all LeadMaster users free of charge.

This product enhancement further allows LeadMaster users to ramp up productivity and reduce inconsistencies due to double entry and/or lack of up-to-date calendar data. Since Google calendar integrates with a wide variety of cell phones and computer calendars changes in one calendar will be reflected in all calendars that are synchronized with Google. This allows for keeping appointments and information up-to-date regardless of the calendar the information is entered into.

The Bing search engine overtook Yahoo! for the first time worldwide in January and increased its lead in February according to web analytics company, StatCounter. Its research arm StatCounter Global Stats finds that globally Bing reached 4.37% in February ahead of Yahoo! at 3.93%. Both trail far behind Google’s 89.94% of the global search engine market.

In the United States Yahoo! at 9.74% still retains its lead over Bing at 9.03%. Google’s share in the US is 79.63%. In July 2009 Microsoft announced an agreement whereby Bing would power the Yahoo! search technology. This has been implemented in the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

“It is significant that Bing overtook Yahoo! globally for the first time on a monthly basis but it remains a tough battle to claw back Google’s market share,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Although Google dipped below the 90% mark in February worldwide for the first time since August 2009 it shows little sign of losing its global dominance any time soon.”

StatCounter, which specialises in website visitor analysis for organisations and bloggers, provides free lifetime stats and free detailed analysis on the latest 500 hits. Members can upgrade to access more detailed stats from $5 a month.

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample of over 15 billion page views per month from across the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

StatCounter, which provides free website traffic information, publishes search engine stats in its StatCounter Global Stats, a free online research tool. It also monitors internet market share battles including browsers, Social Media and operating systems including mobile.

Google has announced that they will be making User Managed Storage available to Google Apps customers at prices ranging from $5 to $256 per year for 20GB up to 1TB.

User Managed Storage is a service that has allowed users to purchase more storage space when they fill the allotted quota on their personal Google Accounts. This service will be rolled out for users of Google Apps accounts as well, allowing the purchase of extra storage for Google Docs, Picasa Web Albums, and photos from Blogger.

Any of these products that is over its storage quota can use the extra storage on a first-come, first-served basis. Users that upload lots of files to Google Docs, sync their Office documents to the cloud using Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, or store and share pictures using Picasa or Blogger can now expand the storage space available for these files.

User Managed Storage can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). Note that the Google Checkout service must also be enabled to allow end users to purchase additional storage. If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

More info: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/03/now-available-with-google-apps-user.html

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, recently took a thorough look at 11 broadband packages, which collectively account for over 90 percent of all British broadband subscriptions, and found that actual download throughput was less than half (only 45 percent) of the advertised “up to” speed, reports Engadget.

The worst offenders were resellers of BT’s ADSL lines, with Orange dipping below 3Mbit on its 8Mbit lines and TalkTalk occasionally offering only 7.5Mbit to users paying for a 24Mbit connection, while Virgin’s cable connectivity won out by sticking most loyally to its listed rating.

Full story: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/shocker-uk-regulator-finds-average-broadband-speeds-are-less-t/

Google has recently made a change to it’s search algorithm which is said to lower search results returned from content farm websites.

The change is so far said to have affected 12% Of US Google search Results.

Sistrix a German SEO company has posted an article detailing changes.

“During this week, Google announced a significant algorithm-update which aims to increase quality in Google’s search results. Domains containing low-quality content are supposed to be found less often, high-quality pages are to achieve better rankings. At the moment this update is active in the US-Index, more countries are about to follow.”

More info at: http://www.quora.com/SEO/Which-websites-dropped-the-most-in-the-Google-algorithm-change-of-February-2011