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Lyro offers 1st Digital Business Card Marketplace

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lyro.jpg Lyro is offering the world’s first open, fully searchable online business card. It allows people to freely promote themselves on the internet by creating, passing, and collecting internet-searchable digital business cards.

To date, there are about 100,000 digital business cards stored in Lyro, a trivial number compared to more than 66 million US professionals and another 130 million worldwide. Nevertheless, the number is a strong indicator of user acceptance given the short existence of the company.

One of the truly novel features of Lyro is control. The internet is saturated with publicly available data on just about everybody, but little if any of this information is manageable at the individual level. Lyro acts as a trusted resource for information that was created and published by the user.

“The one common denominator of Lyro is our endless desire to get other people to find out more about you and connect with you one-on-one,” said founder Lief Larson. “As part of our commitment to our users, we are continuously pushing ourselves to find ways to cut through the digital noise and attract attention on your behalf.”

Originally posted on May 18, 2007 @ 2:21 pm

Online marketing boosts obesity

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coke.jpg The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), a consumer watchdog dedicated to preserving the openness and diversity of the Internet, has issued an open letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate youth-targeted marketing initiatives implemented by leading food and beverage companies.

According the group’s new report titled “Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age”, several online marketing efforts by these food and beverage companies contributed to the growing obesity in US.

“As this digital marketing system moves swiftly into place, we have a relatively brief period to establish policies and marketing standards that could help prevent today’s young people–and future generations–from suffering the serious health consequences of poor nutrition,” said CDD executive director, Jeff Chester.

Leading companies guilty of doing such act are McDonald’s Coca-Cola, Burger King, Mars, and Wendy’s.

The new report will also be delivered today to Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission.

Originally posted on May 19, 2007 @ 8:07 am

OpenNet: 25 countries blocking Web sites

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block.jpg Studying 40 countries including Palestinian territories, Internet censorship and surveillance group OpenNet Initiative has concluded that at least 25 countries exert extra effort to block Web sites catered to political, social, and pornographic topics. This is a clear indication of Internet’s increasing importance in shaping culture and trends worldwide.

However, the study did not observe the effectiveness of these blocking efforts. Additionally, it did not cover countries like US, Western Europe, North Korea, and Cuba.

Top Countries Blocking Political Sites
China
Iran
Myanmar,
Syria
Tunisia
Vietnam

Top Countries Blocking Porno, Gay, and Lesbian sites
Iran
Oman
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Tunisia
United Arab Emirates
Yemen

Conversely, researchers discovered there is no filtering in Russia, Israel, and Palestinian territories notwithstanding the political tension surrounding these countries.

Originally posted on May 18, 2007 @ 10:23 am

YouTube founders remain strong in the face of challenges

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youtube1.jpgYouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are unfazed despite several setbacks in the form of media’s recent legal and competitive challenges.

Although the Internet video pioneer is silent in last few months, they are very much active and keenly focused on developing different tools to police violation of copyrights.

Earlier this year, Viacom Inc. filed copyright infringement against YouTube with $1 billion claim. Other companies followed suit. To worsen the scenario, several media companies like NBC Universal and New Corp are also launching their own Internet video channel.

Nevertheless, YouTube believes its strength is firmly grounded on amateur, homemade videos. That’s why pulling out of professional videos will not completely erode its business.

Also, its much-anticipated new platform for showing video ads is expected to be out in a couple of months. Recently, YouTube is in talks with popular video contributors for revenue-sharing agreements. These initiatives are expected to expand customer base and increase its profitability.

Streaming more than 200 million videos daily, YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon.

“YouTube is becoming much more than an entertainment destination,” Hurley said, citing the political, news and instructional videos that have poured into YouTube in recent months. “We want to entertain, inform and empower people with video around the world.”

Originally posted on May 19, 2007 @ 9:06 am

Online surfing now a routine activity in UK

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nielsen.jpg

Gone are the days when Internet is the hub of techno-geeks and introverted young men. According to Nielsen NetRatings, net surfing in UK is now a mainstream activity across gender and age.

At this time, Internet usage is evenly divided between men and women – 48.4 percent female and 51.5 percent male. Moreover, men aged 50 and over are the largest male group online.

What’s more interesting is that women age 18-34 years old are the single most prevalent demographic group, accounting for 18% of all active online Britons.

“The Internet is no longer dominated by young male adults. Times have changed considerably and many will be very surprised to see that women aged 18-34 are now the most prevalent group online and that a quarter of the online population is at least 50 years of age. Companies who understand this composition when providing services or content through the web or simply advertising online will maximize their chances of success in the Internet of the future,” says Nielsen//NetRatings European Internet Analyst, Alex Burmaster.

Mature online markets like US and Europe attribute this seismic shift to high Internet access. Conversely, countries with limited Internet access are still dominated by young male adults.

Originally posted on May 19, 2007 @ 6:54 am