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Crack down against sex offenders from Myspace

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myspace2.jpgIn light of about 100 criminal incidents (sexual in nature) involving Myspace users, 8 attorneys general requested the popular social networking Web site to turn over the names of registered sex offenders using their site.

Led by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, other states include Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Last December, Myspace has partnered with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to identify and remove sex offenders in US from the site.

“MySpace can certainly take its own action to remove those sex offender profiles from their site. They say they are doing that but we want to know … exactly what steps they are taking,” said Cooper.

Originally posted on May 15, 2007 @ 8:38 am

DoD blocks soldiers’ access to 13 popular Web sites

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youtube.jpg The US Department of Defense (DoD) has waged a new war – this time against 13 popular Web sites including YouTube and Myspace. Claiming that these sites affected network bandwidth and opened numerous security gaps, DoD decided to curtail this benefit to all military personnel.

MySpace, YouTube.com, Metacafe, iFilm, StupidVideos, FileCabi, BlackPlanet, Hi5, Pandora, MTV.com, 1.fm, Live365 and Photobucket are all victims of their own popularity. Removal of these sites are based not solely on popularity but also size and content of the files.

In an interview by TechNewsWorld with DoD’s Joint Task Force, Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO) public affairs officer Tim Madden, he said, “This is a proactive measure that’s intended to maximize the availability of DoD network resources to support DoD missions, and it doesn’t prohibit military or DoD civilian personnel from accessing those sites from another computer. What we need to do in providing command and control for the GIG (the military’s Global Information Grid) is ensure timely and secure Net-centric capabilities across strategic operational and tactical boundaries.”

Originally posted on May 15, 2007 @ 9:22 am

Online Shopping: Apparels Outpace Computer Sales

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Shop In a new study sponsored by Shop.org, online clothing (apparel, accessories and footwear) sales reached $18.3 billion last year, making it the biggest e-commerce segment. For the first time in history, this fast growing category has surpassed sales coming from computer hardware and software.

The study suggests that the apparel and accessories category has experienced strong sales because of an influx of new companies and liberal shipping policies such as free shipping on returns and exchanges. Additionally, apparel and accessories retailers are integrating new technologies onto their sites including rich imaging, where customers can zoom and rotate merchandise or see the item in different colors before buying, all of which eases the mind of a customer who is hesitant to purchase apparel online.

“Apparel retailers have overcome a number of hurdles to encourage shoppers to buy clothing and accessories online,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Retailers are doing such a great job online that in some cases it’s easier to find and buy clothing on the web than it is in a store.”

Another sign that e-commerce has come of age is that profitability throughout the sector has stabilized. Eighty-three percent of respondents to the survey reported profitability and 78 percent said they were more profitable than 2005. Profit as a percentage of revenue did not change, the report notes, because revenue and expenses grew as well.

Originally posted on May 14, 2007 @ 3:48 am

socialDragon brings content providers and advertisers together

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SocialDragon Inspired by the Chinese tradition of putting relationships first before business, a startup online social network called socialDragon connects passionate online users with advertisers looking for “slice of life” videos.

A good demonstration how socialDragon works came from Ephraim Schwartz of InfoWorld:

A personal video of a white-water rafting trip might be tagged as “vacation,” “rafting,” “adventure,” “river.” The number of tags and the names are left up to those who upload their content. A potential advertiser — a travel agency, for example — can use socialDragon to create an ad campaign around a theme such as “rafting adventure” and search through the user created tags for relevant content.

Moreover, the power of buzz or word-of-mouth marketing is believed to be the key to reach younger viewers, who remain cynical against traditional advertising. Recently, pioneer YouTube started sharing revenues to its popular channels that helped create large audience base for the company.

Understand that socialDragon is more of an online business rather than a social networking site, wherein everyday users can easily set their price tag for every personal video uploaded. Now that’s what I like to call mixing pleasure with business!

Originally posted on May 12, 2007 @ 10:31 am

Google to face jury trial

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Google AdwordsGoogle will face a jury trial to defend its pay-per-click advertising system, AdWords, against a trademark infringement case filed by US window blinds reseller, American Blind & Wallpaper Factory Inc. This marks the first case against keyword advertising problems ever to face the jury.

According to Reuters, American Blinds complaint argues that Google’s system violates trademark law by allowing competitors of American Blinds to use Google’s system to buy keyword search terms, such as “American Blind,” which trigger ads from rival companies.

“We spend millions of dollars annually to build brand awareness and cannot stand idle while Google allows our competitors to ride our coattails,” said a statement from Steve Katzman, CEO of American Blind.

Expect this legal scuffle to heat up considering the risks involved. Apparently, AdWords constitutes 98% of Google’s $10.6 billion revenue earned in 2006. Jury selection is slated on November 9.

Originally posted on May 12, 2007 @ 3:57 am