Microsoft Seeks Partners For a New Run at Yahoo

Microsoft positioning itself for a new run for Yahoo Inc.'s search business, has approached other media companies in recent days about joining it in a deal that would effectively lead to Yahoo's breakup, say people familiar with the discussions. More>>

Harvard Says The Long Tail Is Really Short

According to Harvard associate professor Anita Elberse the The Long Tail popularized by Chris Anderson is flawed. It was a compelling idea: In the digitized world, there’s more money to be made in niche offerings than in blockbusters. The data tell a different story. The report analyzes the implications for retailers and marketers and how they can prosper from the phenomenon.

1. The Shape of Consumption
2. A Taste for Obscurity?
3. Implications for Strategy
4. Advice to Producers
5. Advice to Retailers
6. Who Will Prosper?

Related: Turning The Long Tail Into The Big Tail

Microsoft Launches Subscription Services For Office

Microsoft announced the launch an all-in-one security and productivity software subscription service for consumers called Equipt that combines Microsoft Office and Windows Live OneCare. There service will be sold through Circuit City starting in this month. The service will cost $69.99 for a one-year subscription. Each subscription will be good for three home computers.

According to Ina Fried of CNET, the idea behind the subscription service is to convert more new PC buyers into Office buyers. It plays on the fact that although most people don't buy Office at the same time as a computer, many do purchase a security software subscription and Microsoft is trying to tap into the fact that while many people would rather find a copy of Office that they don't have to pay for (either an older version or a pirated copy) they are willing to pay for security software.

Web Usability Video

Here is the video of the Web Usability Event on June 25 featuring Tom Chi, Senior Director - User Experience, Yahoo!, Jeremy Ashley, Vice President, Applications User Experience, Oracle, and David Nelson, Sr. Experience Designer, Adobe Systems.

Cisco To Invest In Web Startups In Russia

Cisco's chief John Chambers routinely says "Market transitions are built on catching them right, and if you miss them it's almost impossible to recover." Hence Cisco hopes to capitalize on the next market transition by teaming up with Russia's Almaz Capital Partners to create a $60 million fund for the region's technology, media and telecoms sector. "Targets could include communications service providers, media companies, and content development companies," said the company. In April 2007, Cisco made its first Russian investment putting in $18 million in etailer Ozon. "We see a lot of innovation in Russia. It's been developing for quite a while. I think it's the right time, and the right transition in the market for us to participate," said Hilton Romanski, Vice President of Cisco's Global Corporate Development. It's being able to have visibility and insight and learning into new technologies and new markets. In Russia in particular, it's being able to understand what kinds of innovations are going on in the startup community," said Romanski.

Ask.com Drops Maps Switches To Microsoft Earth

Ask.com has migrated off of their mapping platform and onto Microsoft's Virtual Earth platform. Ask follows suit of many portal sites letting Microsoft make the heavy investments in infrastructure, imagery, photography acquisition, data updates, etc hence allowing them to focus on developing applications that benefit end users. Other portals incorporating Microsoft's Virtual Earth include YellowPages.com, Superpages.com, and WhitePages.com among many.

600 Million Internet Users At Risk Due To Browser

This diagram shows the Web browser Insecurity Iceberg, which represents the number of Internet users at risk because they don’t use the latest most secure Web browsers and plug-ins to surf the Web. This paper has quantified the visible portion of the Insecurity Iceberg (above the waterline) using passive evaluation techniques - which amounted to more than 600 million users at risk not running the latest most secureWeb browser version in June 2008. More >>

Google Learns To Crawl Flash Files

Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Google has improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe's Flash Player technology. In the past, web designers faced challenges if they chose to develop a site in Flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. They needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find. More >>

Jerry Yang's Investor Presentation

Here is the presentation Jerry Yang will make to shareholders on August 1, 2008. It was filed with the SEC today.

In it, Yang will make the case for:
1) Supporting the current board slate
2) Provides Details of Microsoft Discussions
3) Benefits of Google Agreement
4) Progress on Strategic Plan

View presentation >>

Dell Offers Video Chat Application

Dell has teamed up with SightSpeed to deliver "Dell Video Chat" a communications application now being bundled with Dell's new Studio laptops. The application also includes instant messaging and Internet voice phone capability for a full suite of communications options. Video chat is gaining acceptance as a way to stay in touch with friends and family across the country or the globe.

The application is pre-installed on the systems and is activated with one mouse click. SightSpeed has also made it easy for users to share the application with their friends and family who can simply download the "invitee" client program by visiting http://www.sightspeed.com/dellvideochat.

The video chat will include the following features:
· A completely redesigned and streamlined Dell user interface
· Free, unlimited video chat worldwide
· Free, unlimited voice chat worldwide
· Free, unlimited text chat worldwide
· 4-Way Group Chat (voice, video or text)
· Low-rate worldwide calling to ordinary phones – 2 cents per minute in the United States and Canada
· 5 minutes of free phone calling is included with every Dell system
· The ability to purchase custom phone numbers and area codes
· Presence indicators
· Message Center: All video/voice calls Inbox
· High-quality Video Mail
· Video Mail recording of up to 3 minutes
· Storage of an unlimited number of Video Mail messages
· Notification of missed calls and receipt of Voice/Video mail and e-mail
· Reporting of Video/Voice call history

Because SightSpeed is based completely on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and global standards for setting up and ending voice and video calls over the Internet, it works across a wide variety of computing platforms. As a result, users will be able to conduct video, voice and/or text chat with users of devices on any platform. SightSpeed claims it offers the highest-quality, full-motion, 30-frames-per-second video with clear audio and no delay; it delivers a superior video and audio experience with low to no latency over variable bandwidth conditions; and their patented technology provides superior rate control for any bandwidth, handling of firewalls and video-codec optimization.