Yahoo and Google will Turn E-Mail Into a Social Network

Google and Yahoo are moving to to turn their e-mail systems and personalized home page services (iGoogle and MyYahoo) into social networks.

Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph — the connections between people. Yahoo and Google realize that they have this information and can use it to build their own services that connect people to their contacts.

Joe Kraus, who runs Google’s OpenSocial project, he said: “We believe there are opportunities with iGoogle to make it more social.”

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Google Launches OpenSocial

Google Launches OpenSocial. OpenSocial is a set of APIs that will allow independent developers to build applications that run on any participating network, using the data stored by that network.

Techcrunch, which posted the first details of the announcement, claims that OpenSocial’s hosts, or the participating social networks, include Google’s Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

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Man sues Yahoo and Google over their names

A man in has filed a lawsuit claiming Yahoo and Google stole their names from Tanzanian tribes. An he claims he is a member of both tribes.

The lawsuit states that Google was taken from the Gogo tribe, and Yahoo from the Yao tribe. The claim is asking for $10,000 be paid to each tribe member for the past three generations.

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Ever heard of Google 411?

Google 411 is the service from Google is likely many have never tried before. It's a Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

search for a local business by name or category.
get connected to the business, free of charge.
get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.

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Google to buy Feedburner for $100 million

Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly upfront.

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Microsoft to buy Yahoo

The New York Post reports that Microsoft is urgently trying to buy Yahoo in part because it lost the opportunity to buy DoubleClick.

"They're getting tired of being left at the altar," said one banking source who has recently had talks with Microsoft. "They now seem more willing to extend themselves via a transaction to get into the game."

Wall Street sources put a roughly $50 billion price tag on Yahoo!

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Is Google-DoubleClick Merger Safe?

Well, many advertsiers are not too sure. According to PC World: "...some rivals calling for regulatory intervention -- but for customers, trust may be of greater concern than antitrust."

Google follows users through cookies and through their user names when they log on to Google services. DoubleClick tracks visitors through cookies associated with the banner advertisements served up on the Web sites they visit.

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Google Buys DoublClick for 3.1 billion

It's not Microsoft it's Google who buys DoubleClick.

Google announced on Friday that it will acquire Internet advertising company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash.

The deal, expected to close by the end of 2007, is the largest acquisition in the company's history, coming six months after Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube.

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Microsoft to Buy DoubleClick?

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to buy DoubleClick. Double Click owners Hellman & Friedman are seeking a $2 billion.

"The purchase would give Microsoft tools to battle Google Inc. for ads that appear on Web sites. DoubleClick works with advertisers to create online campaigns, such as streaming video clips to promote New Line Cinema's movie "The Number 23." The New York-based company's Dart technology monitors the performance of Internet ads for marketing companies."

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Yahoo to Offer Unlimited Storage on Free E-Mail Accounts

Yahoo has announced plans to offer unlimited e-mail storage to its customers starting in May, upping the ante in the free e-mail space where Google offers 2.8GB for free and Microsoft 2GB.

"We are giving them no reason to ever have to delete old e-mails," Yahoo co-founder David Filo told Reuters. "You can keep stuff forever."

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Viacom Sued by YouTube Parody Creators

Viacom, which recently filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube, was itself sued on Thursday by activist groups representing the producers of a parody video who say Viacom made an illegal request that the video be removed from YouTube.


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Gmail blocks Yahoo Group emails

Reports come from Google Groups that Yahoo! Group emails are not being delivered to Gmail users.
Seems Google does not like Yahoo Groups much :) . Sources say that Google has been aware of it for 3-4 days and the problem still has not been corrected.

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Viacom Sues Google, YouTube for 1 Billion Dollars

Viacom announced that it has filed a $1 billion federal copyright infringement lawsuit against video-sharing site YouTube and Google.

Viacom said that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming -- the company's holdings include Paramount Pictures, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon -- have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times on YouTube.

"Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws," Viacom said in a statement.

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Google Accused of Aiding Movie Pirates

One more for Google...

Media firms including News Corp., Viacom, Sony, NBC Universal, Disney and Time Warner have accused Google of enabling piracy by selling keyword ads for sites that offered illegal movie downloads, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Google held negotiations with the media firms on Friday, and said that it would remove objectionable ads and refrain from selling ads to sites that sell pirated content.

P.S. Attention Google Salespeople: you enable software piracy by allowing sites to sell illigal software, please stop that as well.

Google Loses Newspaper Copyright Case

Google lost in a copyright case where Belgian newspapers accused Google of infringement for posting their news articles without permission.

The court also ordered Google to pay a fine of about $32,400 for each day it did not comply with the ruling, down from an earlier ruling in September that put the fine at $1.3 million a day.

Google said it will appeal the ruling.

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