Posts for 'Business on Web' Category

Your Business And Web Filtering: Web filtering is one of the most controversial subjects in relation to Internet use. However with 52% of businesses reporting a misuse of Internet resources in the work environment is web filtering an essential to ensure productivity?

Web filtering, also known as content control software, determines what content will be available on a particular machine/network. It is all about access control and ensuring that users only get access to content that they need whilst stopping potentially offensive material. It stops wasted working hours that are spent browsing the internet for personal use rather than working.

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The current wave of social networking phenomena seems to spawn a new website or next big thing on a weekly basis. Facebook is hot, MySpace is fading, and Friends Reunited is simply dead. However, the social networking trend has already begun to stray beyond the bounds of keeping up with friends - business is starting to take advantage of the technologies spawned by the social networking revolution. Web 2.0 changes the way businesses interact with customers having economic, communal and technological impacts.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a business-driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating your business as linked, repeatable business tasks, or services. These functions may be provided locally, remotely, or via an external system. SOAs effectively build applications out of existing software services. Using an SOA methodology or mash-ups (the difference being that mash-ups are always web-based whereas SOA is not) to bring in useful communication and information services could see an online convergence of services like email, news aggregation, account management and so on. The standardised technology within most business (XML, HTTP, AJAX, REST, RSS) provides almost boundless possibilities for creating business oriented, efficiency-increasing Web 2.0 applications.

‘Mash-ups' are created by drawing together internal and external information and applications, leveraging them to reach a new level of business competitiveness.

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In its newest report, the Pew Internet and American Life Project has revealed that nearly 30 percent American adults used the Internet to read or watch "uncensored" campaign material, whether it be footage of debates or announcements or transcripts of speeches and so on.

The report found YouTube and other video Web sites having soared in popularity with 35 percent American adults having watched a political video online during the primary season. It found 10 percent of adults as having used social networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace for political activities. It found video- and social- networking to have increased since the last presidential election.
An interesting revelation: Pew found online fund-raising to have gone up to six percent as compared to just two percent in 2004. Democrat Barack Obama was found to be particularly good at raising funds online; Obama supporters were found twice as likely as those of Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican John McCain to have made an online contribution to the campaign.

To top it all, the Pew report found that though so many Americans were obviously using the Internet to get a bird's eye view of the campaign, as many as 60 percent did not trust the Internet fearing widespread misinformation and propaganda.

Japan's top advertising firm Dentsu Inc. said Monday that it was entering Internet advertising in India, predicting potential for major growth.

Dentsu said it was starting a joint venture, tentatively to be called Clickstreamers India Pvt. Ltd., in a joint venture with Mumbai-based Connecturf India Pvt. Ltd.

The venture, which will open offices in New Delhi and Bangalore, aims at tapping into the "fast-growing Indian Internet advertising market," a Dentsu statement said.

Some 46 million Indians were using the Internet as of September last year, a jump of nearly 43 percent from one year earlier, Dentsu said.

Revenue from Internet advertising in India is expected to rise by more than three and a half times from current levels to be worth more than 200 million dollars in 2012, it said.

Dentsu has set a strategy of expanding digital and overseas operations to make up for a lacklustre market for traditional advertising in Japan.

Comcast Corp. said Tuesday it has increased upload and download speeds for business customers of its high-speed Internet service.

The Philadelphia cable, phone, Internet and media company said it is now offering its business Internet customers download speeds of up to 16 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to two megabits per second.

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA,CMCSK) offered the boost on the heels of its launch of its Business Class Bundle, a combination video, phone and data offering aimed at business customers.

The company said it will continue to increase download and upload speeds as it rolls out a new data-transmission technology.

Major Internet stocks rose Friday, with Google shares soaring after the Web search leader reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings.

Google shares rose $96.69, or 21.1 percent, to $546.23 in afternoon trading. In the past year, the stock has traded between $412.11 and $747.24.

Late Thursday, Google reported its profit climbed 30 percent in the first quarter to $4.84 per share, handily beating analyst estimates and soothing investors' fears that Google would be hurt by broader economic weakness.

Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali upgraded the stock to "Buy" from "Hold" in a client note, citing "impressive improvements in monetization, no signs of weakness from the economic downturn and upside potential from display, video and mobile over time."

The analyst said that although the company's total paid clicks grew 20 percent year over year, growth has slowed in the last year. However, he noted Google's management maintains this is due to quality improvements the company has been making, not economic issues.

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Internet icon Yahoo Inc., under pressure of a three-week deadline from Microsoft to accept its $41 billion buyout bid, said Monday it doesn't oppose a deal with the world's largest software maker but wants a better offer.

The statement comes after Microsoft warned Saturday that if a deal isn't reached by April 26 it will launch a hostile takeover at a less attractive price.

In premarket trading Monday, Yahoo shares fell 51 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $27.89, while Microsoft's stock added 53 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $29.69.

In Yahoo's lengthiest statement about the bid to date, Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock wrote in a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that the current offer is "not in the best interests of shareholders" of Yahoo.

"We are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders," Yang and Bostock said in the letter. "Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders."

Microsoft's offer for Yahoo, made public on Feb. 1, would create a stronger rival to Google Inc., which dominates the online search advertising market.

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Fewer Americans fell for Internet fraudsters last year but those who did parted with a record 239.09 million dollars (152.5 million euros), an annual report by the FBI said Thursday.

Just under 207,000 complaints of online fraud were reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2007, down from 207,492 complaints the previous year and more than 231,000 in 2005, the report said.

But the total dollar loss to the fraudsters was 239.09 million dollars in 2007, up from 198.44 million in 2006, the report said.

"We're seeing more schemes involving bigger ticket items, get-rich-quick and work-at-home schemes that involve higher dollar losses," FBI special agent John Hambrick, who is in charge of the IC3 unit, told AFP.

"But I'm optimistic that people are starting to catch on to some of these scams and we will continue to try to educate them to the dangers of Internet fraud," he said, commenting on the decrease in the number of victims of online crime.

The preferred method of ensnaring a victim online was through spam email, the source of 75 percent of Internet scams, the report said.

"A cyber criminal is only looking for a less than one percent return on all the emails he sends out, and he can still make money hand over fist," said Hambrick.

 Genesis10, a New York City-based leader in business and technology consulting, has partnered with HotGigs Inc., an innovator in web-based contract workforce solutions, to build Genesis10 Select  a customized and secure online portal that facilitates interaction between Genesis10's clients and consultants. "Genesis10 Select is an extension of the Genesis10 brand that will deliver private, secured, online access for our clients to view a select group of consultant profiles," said Jim Kelly, Genesis10 managing partner and director of business development. "Over 70 percent of managers responsible for procuring project resources are not only conducting research online, they are procuring consultants directly online because of the immediate access to available resources and the ease of the transaction," said Tom Stewart, Genesis10 director of online business and head of the Genesis10 Select initiative. "Genesis10 Select will provide a different experience for clients and consultants than the traditional "exchange" services on the marketplace today," said Stewart. Genesis10 will leverage its reputation for consistently finding the right program and project managers, business analysts and technology consultants for the project by adding the ease of online selection through Genesis10 Select to its already successful recruiting and delivery engine. "Genesis10 Select is on the leading edge of the rapidly changing consulting industry by providing clients this on-demand portal which gives them instant access to their consultant portfolio, so they can proactively search, preview profiles, rates, and select team members in advance," said HotGigs co-founder and Chief Gigster Doug Berg. "This is an excellent use of HotGigs ContractCentral platform which allows companies and firms to manage their contract workers." "Genesis10 is changing the game, and will differentiate themselves significantly from other firms by providing clients with proactive access to their consultant profiles, and empowering them to select the resources they want, versus traditional firms that only show clients the limited consultant profiles they select for them to view," said Berg, a long-time staffing industry executive, and web entrepreneur.

When a second trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" premieres online this week, it should spread as fast as the first, thanks to a widget.

Paramount is counting on the small, portable applications that can be posted on blogs and social networks to maximize the exposure for its trailers. The first "Skull" trailer, released in February, has racked up millions of views.

Paramount turned to widget provider Clearspring for "Skull," and will offer a contest with the release of the second trailer. The two fans who manage to distribute their "Skull" widgets most will win trips to the world premiere of the movie and the chance to be red-carpet correspondents in footage that will be streamed onto the "Skull" widgets after the premiere.

"I think the reason that studios are excited about widgets is that word-of-mouth and buzz is what Hollywood is after all the time," said Peggy Fry, senior vice president of sales and client services at Clearspring. "If you think about it, what a widget is, it's a digital version of word-of-mouth."

Clearspring also is creating widgets for Paramount's Mike Myers comedy "The Love Guru," which will include exclusive viral videos of Myers in character. The widgets, which launched Monday, will live on Myers' Guru Pitka MySpace page, where his character will blog about love advice, as well as on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites.

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