How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

Wired Magazine: "Want to know how Google is about to change your life? Stop by the Ouagadougou conference room on a Thursday morning. It is here, at the Mountain View, California, headquarters of the world’s most powerful Internet company, that a room filled with three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives figure out how to make their search engine even smarter. This year, Google will introduce 550 or so improvements to its fabled algorithm, and each will be determined at a gathering just like this one."

Spotify now makes record labels money

Telegraph: "Spotify has already taken over iTunes, in terms of revenue levels, in its native Sweden. Per Sundin, head of Universal Music Group in Sweden, told The Swedish Wire last year: “In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes.”

The service is expected to make its US debut in the first half of this year."

L.E.K. Consulting's Media Survey Shows 'E-reader Republic' Comprises Hungriest Consumers of New Media

PRNewswire:
* The 'E-reader Republic' is driving growth in the book and magazine market and has a voracious appetite for new media. While iPod owners consumed about nine hours per week of new media, e-reader owners consumed more than 18 hours a week.
* Consumers are willing to pay cable providers for access to online video content. Up to 38% of consumers reported they would definitely or probably pay a $19 fee on top of their cable bill to gain access to their cable content online and on their mobile phones.
* Consumers are rampantly multi-tasking while online. One out of every three consumers spending time online is simultaneously watching television, and one in five is simultaneously listening to music.
* Internet radio is finally becoming relevant. 32% of respondents used Internet radio services, logging an average of 5.8 hours weekly per user -- eclipsing satellite radio in popularity.
* If they are online, older people (ages 50 to 64) spend significantly more time there than younger people (ages 25 and 39). Online activities among these age groups differ, with older people spending more time e-mailing whereas younger people spend a higher percentage of their online time on social networking sites."

Google Is to Introduce Nexus One, a Rival to the iPhone

NYTimes.com: "In recent decades, the power of industry giants like I.B.M. and Microsoft, which once seemed unassailable, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet. Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift."

New Survey Shows Android OS Roiling the Smart Phone Market

Change Wave Research: "21% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days say they'd prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone – a monstrous 15-pt jump in just three months."

How Alike Are Android and iPhone Users?

eMarketer: "Usage patterns for Android and iPhone owners were very similar, and tended to differ from those of other smartphone users as well as from those of feature phone owners. There was a notable gap in e-mail usage, with Android users far behind iPhone owners, but mobile media consumption and browser and app usage tracked very closely."

NYC Lost Nearly 60,000 Jobs In Communications

wcbstv.com: "The report says San Francisco lost a third of its information industry jobs. Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas lost more than one quarter."

Cashing In on Interactive TV Advertising

WSJ.com: "As Comcast gets close to a deal for control of General Electric's NBC Universal, the big cable operator and Madison Avenue think the merger could lead to some major changes in the $65 billion U.S. television advertising market."

Trouble At Twitter: U.S. Visitors Down 8 Percent In October

TechCrunch: "Twitter is obviously committed to making its service better on its own Website (these numbers do not measure usage on mobile or desktop clients, which is easily half of all Twitter usage). But while it fiddles, rival Facebook keeps moving further and further ahead."

Interview with Ken Auletta, author of Googled - the end of the world as we know it

I Want Media: "Google is not composed of cold businessmen; they are cold engineers. The difference is that Google is not obsessed with killing competitors; they're obsessed with eliminating inefficiencies. They're not trying to harm the New York Times with Google News or NBC with YouTube. In some ways, they help them. A reason NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' is reaching a younger audience is because it winks as YouTube downloads its skits.

But Google and the Internet do disrupt traditional media business models. More than a few traditional media executives fervently believe Google aims to conquer the world. By obsessing about Google's 'evil' intentions they spend too much time playing defense and not enough time figuring out their own digital offense."

Is Facebook a Paradise for Scammers?

Newsweek.com: "This week, Silicon Valley blogger Michael Arrington caused a ruckus by suggesting that Facebook itself has been turning a blind eye to the scams because it is sharing in the spoils. Arrington, who runs the influential TechCrunch blog, is on a crusade to pressure Facebook to clean up its act.

“Ultimately this is Facebook’s fault,” Arrington says. He says the social-networking site isn’t enforcing its own rules against scam ads. “It’s like with Major League Baseball and steroids. If the rules aren’t enforced, which is what’s happening on Facebook, then people are going to break the rules. Facebook needs to stop this.”"

Google Declares War on Facebook

The Daily Beast: "Google announced this week that it is putting a few new bells and whistles on its Friend Connect software. Users visiting sites that have the application installed will be able to fill out little profiles of themselves and see the profiles of others who have been there. Presumably, regular visitors of the same sites will seek each other out based on shared opinions and preferences. And make friends. Think of it as Facebook functionality without the Facebook."

Study: Internet use leads to more diverse networks

Yahoo! Tech: "Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The study refutes research earlier in the decade suggesting that people's growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connections.

'Social isolation has not changed that much since 1985,' said Keith Hampton, the main author of the study professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. This means that very few adults — 6 percent of the population — say they have no one to talk to about important matters in their lives."

As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter

ReadWriteWeb: "Over the course of the year, there have been countless reports - some more substantial than others - but all with the same message: Generation Y is just not interested in Twitter. The reports generally cited members of this demographic as saying Twitter was 'pointless' and 'narcissistic.'

Apparently, that's beginning to change. Well, maybe not their perception of Twitter, but certainly their use of it. Today, Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites. Its median age is 31. MySpace's is 26, LinkedIn is 39, and, as noted above, Facebook is 33."

Google Accounts for 6% of All Internet Traffic

NYTimes.com: "Now, instead of traffic being distributed among tens of thousands of networks, only 150 networks control some 50% of all online traffic. Among these new Internet superpowers, it's no surprise to find Google listed. In fact, the search giant accounts for the largest source (6%) of all Internet traffic worldwide."

The PC is becoming the new TV, survey shows

latimes.com: "A survey by the nonprofit Conference Board released Tuesday showed that nearly a quarter of households in the U.S. now view television programs online. That's up from 20% last year."

Social networking sites grab big slice of Web ads

Reuters: "The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 percent of U.S. Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 percent of those ads."

Facebook Sets Sights On Online Payments Business

SmartMoney.com: "This month, the company revealed it is testing a system for users to buy physical merchandise, like real roses, through Facebook's payment platform. It also launched a test to let some users buy Facebook Credits by billing their mobile phones."

Media multitasking doesn't work say researchers

Reuters: Multitaskers of media activities like watching YouTube, writing e-mail and talking on the phone are not very good at any of their tasks, according to a Stanford University report on Monday.

"Heavy multitaskers are lousy at multitasking... The more you do it, the worse you get," said Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass.

Addicted to the Internet? $14,500, please, at first US rehab

Ars Technica: "A rehab center has opened in Washington state that aims to treat Internet Addiction Disorder with counseling, psychiatric help, and other activities geared toward getting patients back on track with normal life. If you believe in the disorder, then this is a great first step—but not everyone does."