Amid all the throwaway lines and bullish spin, Rupert Murdoch and his executives always bury some truths in their comments about quarterly profits. Yesterday’s quarterly profit announcement was no exception.
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Google’s next target: Facebook
Google is making moves into the social networking world with a bunch of improvements to its Friend Connect feature. It’s a blatant “declaration of war” on Facebook, says Douglas Rushkoff, and one Google will most likely win.
Google Dashboard: what is it and do you really need it?
Google has released its latest toy: Google Dashboard, a one-stop-shop for users to access all their Google-related junk (gmail, Google docs, chat, etc). It’s neat, and potentially time-saving, but do you really want so much personal data in one place?
Australia’s most hated brands
The 2009 Brand Asset Valuator study reveals Australia’s most popular brand names — which this year include Google, Nokia and Vegemite — but far more interesting are the brands we like the least, which include Grazia magazine and Aurora Coffee.
Just don’t search Freebird: Google turns DJ
Google has added playable music clips to its search results, with a new feature dubbed “Music OneBox”. Will the next front of the aggregation wars be fought against the music industry?
Google has its head in the clouds over biggest deal yet
Google has nabbed its highest-profile client so far, with Los Angeles City Council voting to dump its Microsoft Office applications and transfer over to Google Apps’ ‘cloud computing’ based services. Is Microsoft’s dominance of the office software market under threat?
What will the web look like in 5 years? Chinese
Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts what the Web will look like five years from now: Chinese-language sites will dominate, social media will continue its epic rise, and will all come in real time via super-fast broadband.
Is FarmVille the next Google?
Mobile phone apps aren’t all iPee Drunk style games. The app economy is booming, with Zynga, creators of FarmVille, being touted as the next big thing, while Apple’s App Store dominates the market.
Microsoft vs. Google: who’s winning the social media search wars?
Yesterday, both Google and Microsoft announced deals with Twitter to add tweets to their search results. But which company scored the better deal? And which will do a better job? The blogosphere weighs in.
Not so fast, Microsoft: Google scores a Twitter deal of its own
Just hours after Microsoft announced its big coup in inking a deal with Twitter to include tweets in its search results, Google has announced its done one too. Close, Gates, but no cigar.
Take that, Google: Microsoft teams up with Facebook and Twitter
Microsoft has struck another blow to Google in the search engine wars, inking a deal with Facebook and Twitter to include their content in its Bing search results. You can already try out its Twitter search here.
Crikey Says: Murdoch works the news cycle
When it’s time to hold News Corp’s AGM over in the Big Apple, Rupert Murdoch knows exactly when to run it so it gets lost in “put out the trash Friday”. A nice way of avoiding the Aussie news.
Facebook stalk your way to your dream job
Stop stalking your ex, start stalking your potential employers. The more information you know about them — from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc — the more you can use that info to your own advantage in an interview.
News Ltd’s hypocrisy: Don’t aggregate us (but do Digg, Reddit and Tweet us…)
According to Rupert Murdoch, Google and other content “kleptomaniacs” are stealing and profiting from his content. But what do you find at the end of the every News article? A “Share This” request for readera to promote the story on the very sites that Murdoch decries.
Rupert the Sun King’s moral posture takes on a slouch
Over the weekend, Rupert Murdoch used some nasty language at the so-called World Media Summit in Beijing to slag off the likes of Google and Yahoo, describing them as content “kleptomaniacs” because they aggregate News Corporation’s content.
Tech kings overthrow the media mogul empire
The media empire is dead. Tech moguls like Apple’s Steve Jobs of Apple and Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page now control the distribution of news, and the era of old-school moguls like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch has come to an end.
Google CEO: We have a “moral responsibility” to help newspapers
Regardless of what newspaper publishers may think, Google isn’t out to get them. In fact, it wants to to help, says the search giant’s CEO Eric Schmidt — just don’t expect any handouts.
Are you geeky enough to work at Google?
Google’s latest hiring strategy: putting up signs around tech-geek mecca MIT with a code and the phrase, “If you can figure this out, you may have a future with Google.” No-one at the uni has cracked it yet — can you?
The world’s most valuable brands
Interbrand has released its annual report [PDF] on the world’s most valuable brands. Coke came in at number one for the ninth time running, while Google and Amazon have shot up the list.
Has Google flipped out?
Google has released a new content browser called Fast Flip that allows readers to “flip” through online news articles as they would a magazine — and they’re even going to share some of the revenue with the contents’ actual publishers. Genius or gimmick?
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Who’s lining Google’s pockets?
A whopping 80% of online advertisers do their advertising through Google, with ads accounting for 99% of the search giant’s revenue. So who are the biggest advertisers, and how much are they spending?
Google launches Internet Stat Center
Google has quietly launched a neat new resource: Google Internet Stats, which aggregates interesting facts and stats about Internet trends and usage. Great for newshounds and the just plain nosy.
Can newspapers and aggregators ever be friends?
At Google News, business product manager Josh Cohen is the man who deals with angry newspaper publishers, many of whom blame the company for the current media industry slump. Will the two ever kiss and make-up? Cohen shares his thoughts.
Google: “‘Open’ need not mean free”
Google — the bane of newspaper companies everywhere for its free aggregation of their news — is now developing a micropayment platform for media outlets to charge for their online content. A foot in both camps? Read their pitch to the Newspaper Association of America here (PDF).
How Google can help save the world’s ecosystems
The complex web of the world’s environment is not so different to the complex web of the internet: scientists have discovered that Google’s unique “PageRank” algorithm can be used to accurately work out which species’ extinctions would lead to ecosystem collapse,.
