Twitter is steadily climbing to reach the 50 million tweets per day mark. This huge social network now represents a large proportion of the information shared on the web. More and more people are discovering breaking news through its trending topics (millions found out about the Haitian earthquake via Twitter).
Now Yahoo! have just signed a deal to be put on what Twitter calls it’s Firehose. This means Tweets will now be continually indexed by Yahoo!.
“Similar to the partnerships we have made with other large internet companies, Yahoo! will receive what has been dubbed “Firehose”—a full feed of public tweets sent to Twitter and our partners every second of every day from all around the world.”
Through this arrangement, you’ll be able to find tweets through Yahoo! Search amongst other Yahoo! services Mail and Sport. It is also said that Yahoo! will be building unique Twitter clients to enable people to tweet from inside the Yahoo! network.
Twitter hit the nail on the head when they discussed how Tweets are vital to the social news scene and their inclusion in other big Internet services is vital:
“Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information. As the Twitter information network grows and expands, it becomes more valuable for everyone who participates. Our open approach helps us get closer to providing universal connectivity to a global network of immediate information.”
Two universities, funded by the Chinese military to train computer scientists for use in their forces, have had their computers used on the recent cyber attacks on major companies such as Google. This news comes as Google contemplates its withdrawal from China following disagreement with the Chinese government over censorship.
Interestingly enough, the universities are also part of a network which is operated by Baidu who stands to gain millions of users upon Google’s departure.
The Chinese government has denied any involvement of sanctioning of these cyber attacks upon US-based web companies and stressed it has been the victim of many cyber attacks itself.
“Computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School in China reportedly played a role in the attacks, according to unnamed sources cited in The New York Times.” reported Information Week.
Cyber attacks are on the increase and are frequently becoming a method for governments to send diplomatic messages to one another. When the US asked Twitter to keep the service up (as apposed to taking it down temporarily for maintenance) during the Iran elections, it became clear that social networks and internet giants are the key targets in all of this. But how long will it be until utility companies and government databases are targeted on a big scale?
Need proof that Google can simply barge into whatever industry they want to and be given the go-ahead? Take one look at how they’ve been given clearance to buy and sell energy having just put in a request to do so a little over a month ago and you’ll see what I mean..
Basically, Google can now buy and sell energy just like any other electricity company in the US. This could involve targeting the commercial market or even residential. As for now though, it appears as though they will be using their new found rights to get some cheap energy for their own use. Running huge servers and data centres uses up a lot of energy so getting it at wholesale prices wouldn’t be bad for business at any rate.
That said, it might not be too long until we have Google bills coming through our letter box as they’re currently toying around with the idea of becoming an ISP too!
I know, I thought it was weird when I first read it but the story checks out. Last year, fashion designers who participated in a designer program in partnership with big industry publications and organisations such as Vogue were asked to design scarves which were inspired by the massive internet giant Google. Well, the results are in and the top three scarves have gone on sale, amongst other items.
To me, they look like a badly stitched, rushed attempt at making some sort of double-ended sock. But then I don’t know fashion. I mean, they must look good if they’re selling for $300!
Flora Gill designed an oversize, multi-yarn, intarsia hand-knit scarf incorporating silk bias trim with wool and nylon yarn. Inspired by Google’s multi-functionality and diversity, the scarf features Google’s signature colors and is designed to be worn in several ways.
Even more bizarrely, Google are also pedalling things like a ‘Vintage T-Shirt’ which is inspired by Google Maps and an old fashioned magnifying glass which will cost you $200. Well, I guess every company has to diversify their income stream.
Yesterday, we posted the advertisement which Google aired during the 3rd Quarter of the Super Bowl. Since then, it has become a hit. And when anything becomes a hit on the Internet you’ll have the obligatory knock-off videos.
This one comes from UCB Comedy. Some of the clip is just recycled from the original, but rest assured, they’ve put their own little spin on things. They’ve named the video “Parisian Oops” and given it the tagline “Romance, Consequences, Awkwardness. Search On.” All will become clear when you watch the video. Check it out below.
Millions of Americans, and indeed people around the world, tuned in to watch the highlight of the US sporting year, the Super Bowl. As Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, hinted yesterday, Google did indeed run an advertisement during the Super Bowl for the first ever time.
The ad has since become a hit around the Internet, especially on sites such as YouTube on Twitter, all within a few hours of being broadcast in the third quarter ad break of the Super Bowl. I watched it on YouTube, and I have to say it’s pretty well done. It basically summarises Google’s search functionality in a way which I’m sure has millions of US families going ‘Awwwwww’. Check it out below.
Since its launch, the default search engine on the Safari browser on the iPhone has been Google. The two companies had a somewhat ‘snug’ relationship with Google CEO Eric Schmidt even being a director at Apple until he left in 2009 because of “a conflict of interest”.
Since then, competition has flared up. Apple are buying up competitors of Google to stop Google taking over the market. Also, the iPhone will very soon be pitted against the Google phone when it is released this year. So Microsoft has become Apple’s new best friend – well, Bing at least. I don’t think they’ll ever get along in the OS wars.
This latest rumour comes from Business Week who have been keeping a close eye on the development between Apple and Google.They say, “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle”. So it looks like iPhone users will be unwittingly siding with the not-so-popular Bing for their mobile web usage!
Firefox plugins are extremely useful. I’ve made the switch to Google Chrome as an experiment to see if I can live without the plugins, but I find myself opening up a second browser from time to time because the plugins are just so useful. I for one love capturing video from sites for a variety of reasons. It’s not always easy, especially if it’s a Flash embed, you’ll more than likely end up having to remember the URL or bookmark it in order to come back to it.
Well for those of you who have not been made aware of some of Firefox’s handy plugins to pull videos from the sites you visit, Crenk is sharing the top four plugins we think you’ll want to use in 2010 to get the videos you need.
This is the mother load in terms of what you can capture on sites. Not only can you capture videos from the site, but you’ll also get photos, and audio files. It’s not always the most user friendly plugin out there, but when you need to mass download content from a site, this plugin is hard to beat. I include it only because it’s so versatile, but the rest are going to be straight video downloaders.
This unique downloader is one that I just plugged into my browser last week. What I like about it is that I’ve yet to come across a site it can’t strip the video from. I surf a lot of sites and not everything is posted on YouTube so we’re not sharing only YouTube plugins only because we figure our audience wants something a little more diverse. Ant.com definitely falls into the diverse category, not only offering you the ability to download but also the ability to instantly watch what you download in their built in video player. It’s a nice way to make sure you got what you wanted without having to dig into the folders on your system.
This no nonsense downloader claims to be able to download from 200+ sites. While other plugins simply mention that it’s rare when their plugin does not download videos, at least this one gives you a good idea of how many sites it’s been put up against. Most of us, being creatures of habit, will explore the same video sites over and over again, so once we know it works on those particular sites, we’re golden. The plugin pulls from sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Break, and more, but it also has the power to pull mp3′s, mp4′s, and flash games.
A nice combo in this plugin. You get the ability to capture movies, but also capture that Flash video that was once unattainable due to the format. This particular plugin takes out the complexities by making it easy as one click. With one click you’re downloading content from popular video sites, but you also have the ability to capture games, much like the Flash Video Downloader above.
Ever watched a movie clip around two years prior then needed it for a project or something? Me too.
Things like documentaries, famous speeches and old fashioned shows are hard to find on sites like YouTube and Vreel – especially when all you have to go on is a quote or extract.
ReelSurfer however aims to change all that. They take a huge volume of content from the Internet and break each video up into thirty second segments. Then, they index all spoken words on the video as though they were text. Thus, when you search for your quote the thirty second segment pops up. You may be asking, why do they bother splitting up the video at all? Well this is purely so you’ll hear your keywords right away. Imagine watching an entire movie whilst praying it’s the right one!
This is similar to AnyClip, however there is one core difference. ReelSurfer will allow you to create your own account for your company or college thus allowing you to upload meeting, lectures etc… This would come in very handy for students looking for information on a chosen topic while revising or an employee quickly catching up on the conference call he missed.
Over the past week, Yelp and Google have been in heated debates concerning Google acquiring the service which was founded by two former PayPal employees and allows users to submit reviews of their local services. After days of deliberation both parties had agreed on a price – half a billion dollars. It seemed that everyone was quite happy with the deal until the CEO of Yelp Jeremy Stoppleman notified Google over the weekend that the deal was off.
What happened?
Well nobody knows for sure but it must have taken something big for Yelp to walk away from half a billion dollars and pressure from internet giant Google. My guess is that another offer has been tabled. Obviously, Yelp wan to keep their cards close to their chest should this deal fall through and need to go back to Google. Perhaps one of Google’s rivals such as Microsoft or Apple have decided they want Yelp?
Need proof that 
