News

U.K.-based software development company Fuzzle Media has released its latest application for Facebook, the social networking site that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MFST) recently bought a 1.6 percent stake in for $240 million.

Workboard will offer Facebook users free classified ads to promote anything from upcoming weddings to job vacancies. The application can be installed for free on a user’s profile. Other users, particularly contractors, freelancers, recruiters, and jobseekers, can use Workboard to apply for or bid on advertised work directly from their Facebook profile. Features of the service include the Qualification Profile to help users advertise their skills or company. Users can also receive applications and bids for Service Classifieds from potential suppliers across the Facebook network.

Fuzzle Media has plans to add premium business services to integrate the WorkBoard application directly into marketing and customer relationship functions.

Five US newspaper’s are taking steps to create a national online advertising network they hope will help them recapture revenue being lost to online website’s.

Sources said Gannett Co., Tribune Co., Hearst Corp., Media News Group and Cox Newspapers may jion together to form a common ad sales force that could offer national advertisers “one-stop shopping” for ad space on big-market Web sites across the nation.

The consortium, which would both overlap with and compete against another network set up last year by Yahoo Inc., would capture seven of the top 10 U.S. markets. The hope is that it would grow by attracting such other companies as the Washington Post Co. and McClatchy Co.

Upingme is a new free classified ads service in the UK that allows people to post adverts directly from their mobile phones. They call it “Classified ads 2.0″ because of Upingme’s real-time and active (rather than passive) “nature.”

Users post their adverts by sending an SMS text “U” a space and then a message to +41-79-381-6010. After the message is sent, Upingme forwards it to the people who have what you want or who want to meet you. For instance, using Upingme you’ll be able to quickly and easily sell your stuff and/or services, find a place to stay, a party to go to, or anything that you can imagine.

In order to use Upingme, you can use any mobile phone that can send and receive text messages — meaning most mobile phones sold today will work with the service. And the best part (at least for the people living in the UK), following the successful London trial, Upingme is rolled out nationwide with the world launch to follow in 2008… More information is available on Upingme’s website.

Viacom Inc., owner of MTV and the Paramount film studio, said third-quarter profit rose 80 percent, fueled by cable advertising, the film “Transformers” and the sale of its Famous Music publishing business.

The stock advanced as much as 5.1 percent after sales and profit beat analysts’ estimates. Net income increased to $641.6 million, or 96 cents a share, from $356.8 million, or 50 cents, a year earlier, New York-based Viacom said today.

Sales advanced 24 percent to $3.27 billion, prompting Chairman Sumner Redstone to say on a conference call that the rewards of replacing Tom Freston with Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman last year are “becoming more and more apparent.” The film “Transformers” helped spark a return to profit at Paramount, the top studio in ticket sales this year.

NYTimes.com has launched a new version of its technology section, which includes aggregation of news from around the Web.

NYTimes.com/Tech Editor Saul Hansell told Read/WriteWeb in an email that Blogrunner “is our answer to Techmeme, integrated with our main site. It is technology we’ve built ourselves, based on Blogrunner, a company we bought last year.” Further, Hansell said that “unlike Google News and Techmeme, we aren’t trying to prove machines can be better editors than people. We have a hybrid model, with Web Crawlers and Editors both helping find and ranks posts.”

Website advertising firm, itsmymarket.com, has added new features to its free classifieds service, in an effort to enhance and improve customer interface satisfaction. Through the promotion, itsmymarket.com aims to further build the number of users and advertisers on the site and encourage more people to buy products within local areas.

The first feature titled ’50 Pound Fridays’ offers advertisers the opportunity to win 50 pounds in cash every Friday. Any advertiser that places a classified advert on itsmymarket.com in the week preceding the weekly Friday draw is automatically entered into the competition. The winner is drawn at random through a computer generated system and is notified on the following Monday.

The second new addition to the classifieds site is a premium listings service that allows advertisers to pay 1 pound per day for up to 14 days to ensure their advertisement is placed within the top three listings. While Itsmymarket.com is a free classified listings site, this premium listing service helps advertisers sell in a quicker time frame and receive more recognition for the items they sell. If an advertiser sells before their premium listing order runs out they will receive a refund.

Tom Probst, Managing Director at itsmymarket.com commented, ”Since its launch last year, itsmymarket.com has seen tremendous levels of interest, handling around 6,000 advertisements per month. We now want to give our customers something back for the support they have shown. Our aim is to become the number one classified listings site in the UK and we will continue to reward our customers for their loyalty.

www.itsmymarket.com is the trading name for Community Ads Online Ltd. itsmymarket.com is predominantly a local and free classified ads website incorporating other community focused services such as community websites, blogs, competitions, weather forecasts, traffic reports, cinema listings, and dating, among other interests. Itsmymarket.com launched in Cornwall using local radio in August 2006. From day one, traffic to the site has been outstanding. In July 2007 itsmymarket.com had around 100,000 visitors and handled over 6,300 adverts.

To learn more, please visit: www.itsmymarket.com.