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Facebook Is Display Advertising King
Facebook’s U.S. advertising revenue will reach roughly $2.2 billion in 2011, toppling Yahoo Inc to collect the biggest portion of online display advertising dollars, according to a new study.
Facebook’s U.S. advertising revenue will give it a 17.7 percent share of the market for graphical display ads that appear on websites, according to a report released on Monday by research firm eMarketer.
Last year Facebook garnered 12.2 percent share of the U.S. market.
The figures highlights the growing clout of Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network. It has seen its valuation soar to roughly $80 billion in recent transactions for its shares on the private markets as some investors anticipate it could have an initial public offering next year.
While Facebook has grabbed the top ranking, eMarketer analyst David Hallerman said the overall market for display ads, which include banner ads, video ads and Web page sponsorships, is growing robustly enough that it is benefiting numerous companies.
Verizon Ending Unlimited Data Plan In July
June 26, 2011 by admin
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We are closer to reaching the end of Verizon Wireless’s limited-time offer of unlimited data, says the Wall Street Journal‘s AllThingsD. The website reports that the wireless carrier plans to introduce new tiered pricing plans next month for new smartphone customers — including those buying Apple’s iPhone 4.
If true, the report hardly comes as a surprise. Back in January, when Verizon became the second carrier in the U.S. to offer iPhone service, the company said it would offer subscribers a $30-a-month unlimited data plan for the iPhone’s launch, but highlighted the fact that the offer was for a limited time only.
More Citigroup Accounts Compromised Than Stated
June 21, 2011 by admin
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Citigroup was apparently hit harder by a cyber-attack in May than what was originally reported; which is now 360,000 of its customers. Unfortunately, this number is double the number that Citigroup initially stated.
Citigroup is one of the biggest banks in the US and ranks number 3 overall. The breach occurred on May 10th and was confirmed by Citigroup on June 8thth. That said, around 360,080 North American Citigroup credit card accounts were impacted by the breach, Citigroup stated; which is around 1 per cent of their North American card customer’s base.
Yahoo Creates Search Tools For Smartphones
June 19, 2011 by admin
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Yahoo wants to aid in smartphone owners finding mobile applications and information about them.
On Thursday, the company is debuting a feature in its search engine called App Search, as well as application search tools for Android and iPhone devices named AppSpot.
Both the new App search feature and the mobile search tools can be used to seek applications for iPhone and Android devices, although the company expects to expand that scope in the future.
For now, Yahoo has indexed the mobile application catalogue of the Android Market and of the Apple App Store, and is convinced that it can do a better job than the search tools of those two online shops.
Finding information about mobile applications, like descriptions, ratings, reviews and recommendations, is at a rudimentary stage similar to web search in the mid-1990s, Seth said.
The way Yahoo sees it, many people today struggle to find the right mobile application among the hundreds of thousands available for Android and iPhone devices.
Chinese Government Questioned About Cyber-attack
June 18, 2011 by admin
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The U.S. State Department questioned the Chinese government regarding an attack that had temporarily shut down the website Change.org after the site hosted a petition urging Chinese authorities to release artist Ai Weiwei from custody.
U.S. deputy assistant secretary Daniel Baer raised concerns about the attack in April with China’s foreign ministry, according to an official letter sent from the State Department to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Change.org obtained a copy of the letter and released it Tuesday.
The nature of those talks is still somewhat vague. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it had no current information on the matter and deferred to the State Department. China’s foreign ministry has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Change.org, an online petitioning platform, was the victim of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack originating from China on April 17. The attacks nearly brought down the site for days.
DDoS attacks can do this by using hundreds or thousands of hacked computers to drive traffic to a website. The data will become so overwhelming that the site will become inaccessible to users.
Change.org said the DDoS attacks from China continue to bring down the site intermittently. The FBI is investigating the case, said Benjamin Joffe-Walt, an editor with Change.org.
Apple’s iCloud Could Have A Secret Objective?
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Many analysts have come to the conclusion that Apple’s iCloud may not be designed to appeal to new customers. Apple’s iClouds service true objective is to keep existing customers locked into Apple’s iOS environment. Forester’s Charles Golvin went on to say that for people who own one or more iOS devices, they’re going to discover an even better experience.
Charles Govin also said Apple’s iCloud will keep customers because once they’ve used the service; they will hesitate to leave the Apple ecosystem because they will lose all the data they have stored. Since they do not have to worry about where their content is stored, it will make them feel that much more satisfied with their smartphone or tablet, and means that the next time they go to buy one, they’re more likely to buy from Apple.
Furthermore, Carolina Milanesi of Gartner told Computerworld, “The most important thing is that it is a complete cloud package. It shows the benefit of living in the Apple ‘house. It will be a way for Apple to retain customers in the face of a rising tide of Android-based smartphones, and growing competition from media tablets that run Google’s operating system.”
Download Defense Added To Chrome Browser
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Google has updated Chrome to version 12, adding a new feature that warns users when they’ve downloaded files from dangerous Web sites.
New to Chrome 12 is a tool that flags questionable files pulled from the Web. Chrome now shows an alert when users download some file types from sites that are on the Safe Browsing API (application programming interface) blacklist, which Google maintains.
The messages reads: “This file is malicious. Are you sure you want to continue?” If they wish, users can ignore the warning and install the file on their system’s hard drive.
“This warning will be displayed for any download URL that matches the latest list of malicious websites published by the Safe Browsing API,” said Google last April when it debuted the feature in an earlier edition of Chrome.
Safe Browsing already identifies suspicious or unsafe sites, then adds them to a blacklist. Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari all tap into Safe Browsing to warn users of risky sites before they actually visit them.
RSA To Replace SecureID Tokens
June 10, 2011 by admin
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In an acknowledgement of the severity of its recent systems breach, RSA Security said Monday that it will replace SecureID tokens for any customer that asks.
Customers have been left to ponder whether or not to trust RSA’s security tokens since March, when the company confirmed that it had been hacked and issued a vague warning to its customers. Then, two weeks ago, government contractor Lockheed Martin was reportedly forced to pull access to its virtual private network after hackers compromised the SecureID technology.
In a letter sent to customers Monday, RSA confirmed that the Lockheed Martin incident was related to SecureID. Information “taken from RSA in March had been used as an element of an attempted broader attack on Lockheed Martin,” RSA Executive Chairman Art Coviello stated in the letter.
Coviello said the company remains “highly confident in the RSA SecureID product,” but acknowledged that the recent Lockheed Martin attack and general concerns over hacking, “may reduce some customers’ overall risk tolerance.”
Mobile App Locates Cheaper Prescriptions
June 9, 2011 by admin
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Medco Health Solutions and Verizon Wireless teamed up last month to release a mobile application that aids smartphone users in locating places where they can buy the lowest-cost prescription drugs.
Verizon stated the new Medco Pharmacy mobile app can also identify potentially harmful drug interactions based on Medco members’ medication histories.
Medco, which provides pharmacy services to more than 65 million customers, said its pharmacy mobile app is available for BlackBerry and Android smartphone users. It provides information about out-of-pocket costs for any prescription drug and lower-cost options specific to a person’s prescription drug plan, even if a patient is being treated by several doctors or fills prescriptions at many different pharmacies.
Cell Phones Can Be Dangerous
June 5, 2011 by admin
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It appears that an Australian brain surgeon has called the latest report in reference to the report on the potential harmful effects of mobile phones as a wake-up call to users and the telecommunications industry.
Dr Teo, said he was “pleased” that at last there came conclusive proof that mobile phones caused brain tumours. He also went on to say that the report should serve as a ”wake up call’ that should alert both the public and the mobile phone industry to the link between mobile use and cancer.”
As you know a report was released by the World Health Organisation’s cancer research wing that said radio frequency electromagnetic fields generated by cell phones are “possibly carcinogenic to humans” and heavy usage could lead to a possible increased risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer.