Google to acquire DoubleClick by 2007 end!

Google is hopeful to close the web ad supplier DoubleClick deal by the end-2007. The acquisition is estimated to be $3.1 billion. Google is hopeful that the it would be able to complete the deal with DoubleClick as soon as the anti trust investigation is completed by the US federal administration. It may by recalled that Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Inc. have appealed the antitrust officials to examine the association of Google with DoubleClick since the combination could give Google too much control over online advertising. DoubleClick offers digital marketplace services that connects ad agencies, marketers and web site publishers. It is estimated to have more than 1,500 corporate client accounts.

Google acquires Feedburner for $ 100 Million

Google has acquired Feedburner for a consideration of $100 million according to Techcrunch. Feedburner is a web feed management company. The acquisition rumour has been in the air for some time and it is a reality now.
It is believed that Google might integrate its Adsense contextual ad program with Feedburner.
Feedburner has a large inventory of publishers utilizing services provided by it. The acquisition obviously gives advantage to Google to utilize the existing inventory of Feedburner
The existing Adsense publishers will have the option of experimenting with feed based monetization program.
What are the further changes subsequent to the acquisition of Feedburner by Google has to be seen.

Checking SMS showers money!!!!!

Checking the SMS and reading them pays you money! Incredible it may sound, but the concept commercial advertising on mobile phones is picking up in India.
Commercial advertising on Mobile phones has 8 – 9 times more viewer ship than the internet or web based advertisements it is learnt. Using the mobile phones for commercial advertisements is a new concept in India.
In this concept the mobile phone users who wish to receive the commercial advertisements have to register themselves along with their mobile number with the service provider who would be sending the commercial advertisements via SMS.
Mobile users will be sent the commercial advertisements through SMS based on the interests expressed during the process of registration.

Beware!!!!!!Internet Scams.......... (Part II)

SPOOFING: E-mail spoofing describes fraudulent alteration of e-mail “header” to make it appear that message has originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Spoofing the IP Address of a machine is another variation of this. In these attacks, malicious party intercepts a legitimate communication and then controls the flow or alters the information being exchanged between tow friendly parties without each party knowing about it. The distributors of spam commonly use spoofing to hide or modify the origin of e-mail messages, so as to get the recipients to open and respond to their solicitations. Most of the spoofed emails fall into the “nuisance” category and require simple deletion. However the malicious varieties can cause serious problems and security risks.

PHISHING: the word phishing comes from the analogy of scammers using e-mail lures to fish for codes, passwords, and other personal data from the sea of internet users. It involves e-mails appearing to come from legitimate sources such as bank or a credit card issuer, with an earnest request to to verify personal information or account details. Such e-mails usually contain a hyper link and urge the addressee for online verification of his banking or credit card information, to avoid suspension or closure of her / his account. Th hyperlink however directs the users to a bogus website set up only to steal the users information. Thus phishing is based on impersonation and is a criminal activity. Most fishers use some form of technical deception to make the link in e-mails appear legitimate, so that the users do clickthrough and reach the spoofed websites. Once the users are aware of one trick, perpetrators adopt newer ways to phish.

SPEAR PHISHING: These e-mails appear to come from company’s human resource or technical support division and target a single user or a department within an organization. Once the phisher acquires sensitive information, they use it to create fake accounts in victims name, access victims accounts, ruin a victims credit or even prevent victims from accessing their own accounts.

VISHING: Vishing is a combination of voice and phishing. It leverages Voice Over Internet Protocol phones instead of misguiding hyperlinks to steal personal and financial information from the public. In this activity, a dialer calls out customers in a given region and an automatic announcement advises them to call back on certain local telephone number.
When customers call up, computerized IVR guides them into a verification routine and the visher fraudulently captures bank or credit card details of callers. In the Indian context, phone banking, net banking and online shopping are all in the early stages. Therefore it is very important for the banks credit card issuers and shopping portals to run special drive to educate the customers on new age frauds and train them on effective habits for safe and secure use of online services.

Beware!!!!!!Internet Scams..........(Part - I)

HACKING: Hacking is the act of unauthorizedly accessing the internet in disguise due to the ignorance and carelessness of the users.
PHARMING: Is an act hwere the hacker redirects the traffic from a legitimate website to another fake website, thereby prompting the users to provide the confidential information like the user name, pass word, and other security questions or PIN numbers of debit and credit cards.
In the act of PHARMING even if the user types in the correct URL or the web address the hacker will still be able to redirect the user to a fake site.

All new Hotmail with 2 GB space launched

Micosoft has launched its all new e-mail service in 36 different languages on Monday in 12 markets in Asia including India.
The new Hotmail service offers offers a storage space of 2GB. It is learnt that the new look Hotmail resembles the Outlook Express, the mail application in windows platform. To further augment the live experience to the users Microsoft is contempating to introduce drag and drop feature, instant messaging in the mail itself similar to the Gmail service.
The new changes incorporated are based on the basis of the input provided by an estimated 20 million beta users says a company report.
It may be recalled that the Hotmail service was launched in 1996 as a free web mail service by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith who later sold it to the Microsoft in 1998 for a consideration of $400 million.

The following are the new features in Windows Live Hotmail

• Windows Live Hotmail offers the messages preview without leaving the inbox
• Drag-and-Drop organization
• Easy importing of Microsoft Outlook contacts
• One click control over junk and scan e-mails
• Right click power-reply, delete and forward
• 2 GB storage

Self expression and sharing stories influence blogging

Creative self expression and sharing the stories are reasons for maintaing a blog and to blogging for many people says a survey report conducted by Pew Internet organization. For a detailed report click here http://www.pewinternet.org/

Free broadband service to all Indians by 2009?

The Indian government is planning to offer free high speed broad band connections to all its citizens by the year 2009. The facility will be extended through the state owned BSNL and VSNL which are the leading telecom service providers in India. It is contemplated that by providing the high speed internet connectivity, the economic activity in the country will be on the rise.
It is known that the internet facility will be provided with a speed of 2 MBPS
Though this is news to cheer for the consumers, it would definitely dent the profitability of the telecom operators in the country.

Broadband connectivity on the rise

Broadband connectivity is expanding very fast all over the world. Broadband refers to an internet connection of 200 kbps in at least one direction, including ADSL, cable, satellite, fixed wireless, fibre, powerline and WiAMX. United States and China are the two largest markets in the world with 54.6 million and 46.6 million household connections respectively.
It is estimated that there are about 250 million broadband household connections throughout the world.

Country -------------- Broadband households ------%of total households
USA --------------------------------54.6 -----------------------45.9
China -------------------------------46.6----------------------- 12.6
Japan -------------------------------23.7----------------------- 52.3
S Korea -----------------------------12.7----------------------- 78.8
UK ----------------------------------12 ------------------------47.1
Germany ---------------------------11.8----------------------- 30.8
France ------------------------------11.2---------------------- 42.3
Italy --------------------------------7.9---------------------- -34.4
Canada -----------------------------7.4----------------------- 58.0
Spain -------------------------------5.5----------------------- 41.7
Brazil -------------------------------4.9---------------------- 10.6
Australia ----------------------------3.5----------------------45.4
Mexico ------------------------------3-----------------------12.3
India --------------------------------2.3---------------------- 1.2
Argentina-------------------------- 13.1--------------------- 13.1
Worldwide------------------------ 251.2 ---------------------10.5
Source: eMarketer

Yahoo launches mobile software

Yahoo and Motorola have joined hands together to let users find weather, news, stock quotes and sports information on their mobile phones. This move by Yahoo is seen as an attempt to retain its number one position in delivering information and online services to mobile phones. The software launched by Yahoo is called Go for Mobile 2.0 was launched at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.
It may be recalled that Google has announced a partnership with Samsung to launch its mobile software.
It is widely believed by the experts in the industry that the days ahead belong to the mobile internet.
For a detailed story click here.

WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

I WISH YOU ALL
A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

PayPerPost acquires Performancing.com

PayPerPost has signed a LOI to acquire Performancing LLC, a popular internet community for bloggers. With the acquisition of the new company the PayPerPost will have the advantage of adding 28000 professionals already signedup with Performancing. For a detailed report click here.

India: Telecom manufacturing to attract $2billion

"Times" top 50 sites in 2006

India: BSNL boosting broadband services

The Indian government owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited(BSNL)is investing close to Rs.2000 Crores in the coming year on the broadband infrastructure both in rural and urban terrain of the country. Going aggressive in providing telephone and broadband services, the company has announced to increse the broadband speed to 2 mbps. Currently the company is offering broadband at 256 kbps.

The company has a broadband customer base of about 2 million.

340 Indian sites hacked!

About 340 Indian websites were defaced during the month of November and the most defaced websites by the hackers fall under the .com domain says report published by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team(CERT-In).

In November 73% phishing, 24% unauthorised scanning and 3% incidents related to virus/worm under the malicious code category were reported the report adds.

For more detailed report click here.

Digg.com in acquisition talks

Rumours are agog that Digg.com is in serious talks with a number of companies over its acquisition. The companies that are vying for the acquisition include News Corp, Google, Microsoft etc., News Corp seems to be the frontrunner in the race to acquire Digg.com.

It is believed that the companys upset price is about $150 Million.

Four Soft acquires Danish firm

Four Soft, a Hyderabad(India) based transport and logistics software technology company has acquired Transaxiom Holding, a Danish company for about $10 million in a cash cum stock deal.
Transaxiom is also a transportation and logistic software solution provider.

The present deal is expected to expand the presence of Four Soft in Australia, New Zealand and other Scandinavian countries.

The company also plans to start a BPO centre for the logistics sector with an investment of $ 1 million in Hyderabad towards the beginning of the second quarter in the coming year. The BPO centre is going to be joint venture project with an undisclosed Japanese firm.

Top 10 searches on Google.com in 2006

Google.com has released the top ten searches for the year 2006.
And the top terms that people typed into Google to search are:
1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

Google to launch mobile phone!

Google is working in association with Orange, the mobile phone operator to launch the Google Mobile Phone which would have many web facilities in it, reports The Observer published from London.
The association between the internet and the telecom giant would in all probability bring the internet usage on the mobile phone as easy as it can be accessed on the laptops and desktops.

Google would be providing the software to the mobile phones it is learnt.
The two giants logos would be appearing on the to be launched mobile phones adds the report.
The contemplated services to be offered on the phone include the location based search, to include the tailor made information like the local restaurants, movies, maps, images from Google Earth.
The phone may be available for sale during 2008 the report adds.

Voice email launched

NowPos a voice mail service developed by NowPos Online Services, Hyderabad, India was launched recently.

The company claims that it is the first of its kind in voice mail service in the world

The technology enables the users to record and send the voice messages similar to the emails.

The brain behind the free voice mail service is Ayyappa Nagubandi who designates himself as the Leader of the company.

The company is contemplating to provide media solutions in the KPO area also.

Recently appearing in a TV interview Ayyappa proudly reveals that the user base of the company has already reached 3 lakh customers and the ambitious youngster adds that he would like to see his company move into the Forbes 500 list.

Ambitious Ayyappa....wish you good luck!

Google Earth adds Wikipedia content

Google Earth has added user descriptions and photos from Wikipedia.
Using this facility the surfers can go to any point on the globe and see what people have written, photographed or posted.
So why wait? Go surfing and watch out what Google has added and see how fascinating world is!

"Pixelotto" new venture from Million dollar homepage wizard

The Milliondollarhomepage wonderboy Alex Tew who made a million dollars with his innovative idea has come back again with a new venture.
His new venture is named "pixelotto".
This time the pixels are sold at the rate of $2 per pixel.
In his new venture the wonderboy is offering a chance to win $1,000,000 just for clicking the ads.

Wish you all the best Alex Tew!

Motorola funding MobileComplete

Mobile Complete that provides mobile application services announced the second round of funding by Motorola Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Motorola Inc., The quantum of financial deal was not disclosed by the company. Innovacom VC the earlier investor also participated in the round announced the company.
Mobile Complete would utilize the funds to expand its Deviceanywhere.com to more global locations

Google funding Chinese Thunder?

It is a widely held rumor that Google is investing nearly $ 100 Million in Xunlei a P2P a Chiense file sharing network operator in association with another Shanghai based venture capital firm called Ceyuan.
Till date there have been 75 million software downloads approximately from Xunlei says a report.
Literally translated into English, Xunlei means thunder.
The company was started by two Chinese entrepreuners who earlier worked in the Silicon valley and moved back to Chine.
To settle the rumor mill Google is yet to make an official announcement on the investment plan.

Top internet deals.....

Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft for a whopping 400 Million US dollars from Sabir Bhatia in the year 1998. Hotmail is a free mail service launched by Sabir Bhatia.


Interactive Search Holdings was acquired by Ask Jeeves for an estimated 343 Million US dollars in the year 2004.

To be continued....