Internet Changes Everything

August 31, 2005

What is RSS, and Why Should You Care?

What is RSS, and Why Should You Care?

By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor
August 30, 2005

This week, SearchDay takes a close look at RSS, a web publishing format that's transforming information delivery for both publishers and users.

RSS has been around for some time now, and savvy users have come to rely on their RSS "feeds" as a fundamental channel for keeping up with current events and discovering new information. But RSS is still somewhat confusing for many people, and with good reason—it's an emerging technology that's still going through massive growing pains, even as it changes the way we consume information.

Today, I'm going to attempt to get my arms around a definition of RSS, what it is and isn't, and why it's important for both searchers and search marketers. Tomorrow I'll look closely at RSS search tools and how they work. Thursday will be dedicated to RSS readers, the software that makes it easy to find, subscribe to and read information published in RSS format.

What is RSS?

Depending on who you talk to, or which version of history you choose to believe, RSS has a number of meanings. According to the Wikipedia entry on RSS, the acronym has morphed several times due to squabbling over standards.

RDF Site Summary (RSS) came first, introduced with the My Netscape portal in March 1999. My Netscape was one of the first customizable portals, and RSS was a key component that allowed users to add specific types of content from a wide variety of sources with relative ease.

Rich Site Summary followed shortly thereafter, in July 1999. This RSS standard was jointly created by Dan Libby, author of Netscape's RDF Site Summary, and Dave Winer, author of a similar format called ScriptingNews.

At this point, Netscape lost interest in the standard. Winer moved forward with his own work, but another group called RSS-DEV produced a different flavor of the standard. In August 2002 Winer put forth an enhancement to his version of RSS, calling it Really Simple Syndication.

Confused? Wait! There's more! In June 2003 yet another working group formed to propose a new format called Atom. Controversy still runs high in the standards community. The good news is that we non-technical types don't really have to worry much about acronyms, standards or other minutiae to use RSS.

The bottom line is that the providers of RSS tools have worked hard to make it very easy for anyone to both create and consume RSS feeds. Once you have a basic (very basic) understanding of the technology, you can pretty much ignore all of the controversy and simply take advantage of all of the rich content available in RSS format.

Acronyms aside, RSS fundamentally is a relatively simple specification that uses XML to organize and format web-based content in a standard way. Content owners create an RSS feed, an XML formatted web page which usually consists of titles and brief descriptions of ten or so articles elsewhere on the site. Because feeds are created using the RSS standard, they can easily be read by a software client called an RSS feed reader or aggregator. Most feed readers can handle all of the current standards.

What's different about RSS feeds vs. straightforward web content? Not much, really, but one key difference is crucial: Content published in an RSS feed is typically set up to send out notifications whenever new material is available.

This makes the new content immediately available to feed readers and RSS search engines. Contrast this with ordinary web pages, which are essentially passive and generally aren't accessible to most of us until search engine crawlers find and index them. And then, once indexed, these pages stand relatively little chance of being surfaced by web searchers.

That's why RSS is important, and why its something every serious web searcher should be using. RSS feed readers allow you to subscribe to feeds that you know contain important or useful information, and your feed reader will notify you immediately whenever new content for your subscriptions is available. In short, once you've identified a useful resource that publishes an RSS feed, you can virtually skip searching for it altogether.

RSS has other virtues, as well. Because RSS is popular with both bloggers and news media organizations, you can use RSS search engines to find information in near real-time. For example, with the Indonesian tsunami or the London bombings, RSS search engines allowed users to locate information, images and videos posted by people on the scene hours before traditional media sources had similar eye-witness coverage.

How do you identify web sites that publish RSS feeds? That's the focus of tomorrow's SearchDay, RSS Search Engines.

August 31, 2005 at 03:39 PM in Blogging & feeds | Permalink | TrackBack (63) | Top of page | Blog Home

ClearContext 2005 Email Usage Survey Overview

Its not clear to me, what the population / source used for this survey of 300 respondents, but the skew is clearly towards gmail for web mail access.

ClearContext 2005 Email Usage Survey

Here are the preliminary, raw results of the ClearContext 2005 Email Usage Survey. Thanks to the over 300 survey respondents and our partners who helped get the word out. See our survey summary page for more detail.

Question:
Which, if any, webmail providers do you use?
Responses
Gmail 33.4%
Hotmail 26.3%
Yahoo! 25.5%
MailBlocks 0.2%
Other 14.7%

August 31, 2005 at 10:50 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home

Privacy Issues Plague Google's Gmail (apr 2004)

PCWorld.com - Privacy Issues Plague Google's Gmail

Search giant may be willing to make changes before the service is launched.

Laura Rohde, IDG News Service
Thursday, April 15, 2004

Since announcing Gmail two weeks ago, Google has been forced to defend the planned Web-based e-mail service against accusations that it may violate users' privacy. In the face of the attacks, especially vociferous in Europe, which has strict privacy regulations, Google has begun to express willingness to be flexible about how it offers the service.


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"This is one of the hottest issues we've ever dealt with in terms of Internet issues," says Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, a privacy advocate group.

"This is one of the hottest issues we've ever dealt with in terms of Internet issues," says Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, a privacy advocate group.

Gmail, announced April 1, is planned as a free, Web-based e-mail service, similar to Microsoft's MSN Hotmail and Yahoo's Yahoo Mail, though its 1GB of storage is much more than these other popular free services offer. But Google is planning to scan e-mail and add advertisements that it thinks are relevant to the messages. Additionally, the Gmail privacy policy warns that messages, even if "deleted" by a user, may still be stored in the system, even long after users have closed their account--something that some privacy campaigners believe may be in conflict with U.S. and European data protection and privacy laws.

Since the Gmail announcement, Spymac Network has launched a free online e-mail service that matches the 1GB of storage that Google is offering, but has pointedly said it will not do keyword searching and will not tie advertisements to the service.

Stiff Opposition

Last week, Privacy International filed a formal complaint with the U.K.'s information commissioner office (ICO) requesting that action be taken against Gmail. Additionally, California state Democratic senator Liz Figueroa says the privacy issues are leading her to consider proposing legislation to stop Google from launching its Gmail service in its present form.

In the face of such opposition, Google has given signs that it may be rethinking how the Gmail service is structured. The service would require all users to participate in the ad service--that is, users would have to accept the display of ads and the scanning of their e-mail messages--but that could change, as could many other things, since Gmail is in early testing phase, a Google spokesperson says.

"Google has the highest regard for the privacy of our users' information. We have taken great care to architect Gmail to protect user privacy and to deliver an innovative and useful service. While we're still in a limited test of Gmail, we welcome and appreciate feedback on how we can improve the offering for our users," he says.

The technology that presents users with relevant Gmail advertisements operates in the same way as all popular Web mail features that process e-mail content to provide a user benefit, such as spam filtering or virus detection, the spokesperson says.

"We are confident that Gmail is fully compliant with data protection laws worldwide. Google actively solicits user feedback on our privacy policies. If they can be made clearer or otherwise improved, we want to hear about it. We look forward to a detailed dialogue with data protection authorities across Europe to ensure their concerns are heard and resolved," he says.

Mixed Reaction

A spokesperson for the ICO says that as long as Google makes the conditions of its service transparent to people when they sign up, the proposed service should not violate U.K. data protection laws. "As long as Google makes it clear that it is monitoring e-mail usage and passing that information on for marketing purposes, there shouldn't be a problem. But I want to make it clear that Google has not even launched the service yet, and has agreed to work with us to make sure that its notification process is very clear," she says.

The ICO spokesperson adds that representatives from Google working with the ICO have been surprised by the reaction to its proposed e-mail service. "I don't think they thought this was going to be a problem," she says.

Not only has the data privacy issue cropped up as a potential problem for Gmail, it appears to be a problem that won't easily go away.

"I'm a bit angry at the ICO because they've been putting around the idea that the Gmail service as planned is okay, simply if you make it clear that they are going to scan and then permanently store your information: That is not the point. This is about having rights over your own e-mail and Google is going to have to give you control over your own e-mail. This is virgin territory," Privacy International's Davies says.

Privacy International is concerned that Google is treating a serious privacy issue purely as a public relations issue and has vowed to press the matter further if the ICO doesn't pledge to gain a series of guarantees and protections from Google for potential users of Gmail.

"We will be filing simultaneous complaints with the data privacy regulations of every other European nation on April 22 should we not receive a satisfactory response from the IOC," Davies says. "Germany, for example, has much stricter policies regarding privacy and they wouldn't blink at taking severe action. Sweden, as well, has shown a willingness to addressed similar issues."

Watching and Waiting

Jeanna Thorslund, senior information officer of Sweden's Data Inspection Board, says that though the board has not received any complaints about Gmail, it is aware of the planned e-mail service and would continue to monitor the situation. Representatives from the data privacy agencies in Germany, the Netherlands, and France could do immediately be reached for comment.

In a similar fashion, representatives from the European Commission--the European Union's executive body--say that they are also aware of the proposed Gmail service and are ready to look into potential legal conflicts should the need arise.

"We are not in an active stance of waiting for complaints about Gmail and we are not at the moment investigating anything specific but we will keep an eye on the situation," says Commission spokesperson for enterprise and information society issues Peter Sandler.

As an example of a potential problem with Gmail, Sandler points to the "opt-in" directive that was added to the statute books of the E.U. member states last October. The measure puts the onus on companies to obtain permission from individual users to send them unsolicited commercial e-mail. Additionally, theoretical issues about confidentiality may also arise with Gmail, he says.

"The EC has a framework in place that requires confidentiality. There is an obligation of member states to make sure that the confidentiality of messages are insured. So that could have implications for companies that are scanning and tracking information," Sandler says.

Juan Carlos Perez of the IDG News Service contributed to this report.

August 31, 2005 at 10:42 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home

Google Expands Gmail Access

PCWorld.com - Google Expands Gmail Access

For the first time, site visitors may be able to try the free e-mail service.

Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Google opened up its Gmail Web mail service to a wider scope of users this week by randomly offering, for the first time, accounts to some visitors of the main Google.com page.

Until Monday, to get a Gmail account, a user had to be invited to the service by either Google or an existing Gmail user.

"We just started offering Gmail accounts to a randomly selected sample on Google," says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. "It's a natural step to leverage the wider user base of Google.com to grow Gmail."

About one in 20 Google.com visitors are getting the Gmail account offer, Mayer says. "Based on the success of this one-in-20 scope, we'll be ramping it up over the next couple of weeks," she says.

Generating Buzz

Gmail, a free service, is still in a beta, or test, phase, but there has been much speculation about when it will be launched officially and opened up to Web users in general.

Gmail rocked the Web mail market when it was announced in April 2004 due to its then unprecedented 1GB inbox storage. Since then, Web mail providers large and small, including big players Microsoft and Yahoo, have reacted to Gmail by increasing significantly their inbox storage capacity.

Gmail also brought Google, in Mountain View, California, a good amount of controversy due to its inclusion of contextual text ads in the messages based on their content, which prompted privacy advocates to criticize the practice.

Google defended itself by saying that the ads are generated automatically with text-scanning technology and without human intervention.

August 31, 2005 at 10:40 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Google's Gmail could be blocked

BBC NEWS | Business | Google's Gmail could be blocked
Tuesday, 13 April, 2004, 10:55 GMT 11:55 UK
Gmail, the planned free e-mail service from Google, could be facing strong legal opposition in California

A draft law is being drawn up by local Democratic Senator Liz Figueroa, who calls Gmail "an invasion of privacy".

Google is being asked to rethink the product, which plans to offer 100 times the storage offered by some rivals.

The problem, Ms Figueroa says, is Google's plan to make revenue from users agreeing to their incoming e-mail being scanned for targeted advertising.

Objections

Californian Senator Figueroa describes the service as being a bit like "having a massive billboard in the middle of your home".

The targeted adverts would use key words after scanning your private e-mail - posting adverts for pharmaceutical products, for example, if a message mentions a medical condition.

Google's plans have already come under fire from privacy campaigners objecting to adverts linked to the content of messages, and to the permanent storage of email.

UK-based campaign group Privacy International has complained to the UK's Information Commissioner about Google's plans to send users links to advertising based on a computer scan of their correspondence, and presumed interests.

It also pointed out that Google's terms of service did not allow users to delete their emails permanently, despite European data protection legislation which gives users full control over their own communications.

Current practice

At present, users of Google's internet search engine receive advertisements for commercial sites linked to their search topic arranged down the right-hand side of their screens.

Gmail would use similar technology to scan emails and offer advertisements.

Other websites - including rivals such as Yahoo - use similar methods to select which banner adverts appear on top of a search page.

Google said in a statement that it intends to work with data protection authorities across Europe to ensure concerns are resolved.

It says the content of users' email would remain private because the process would be fully automated.

The internet search engine company has promoted free storage for each user of the equivalent of 500,000 pages of email among Gmail's benefits.

Google says this will enable users to retrieve vast amounts of old emails, and that it will back this up with superior spam filtering.

Google is privately-owned, but expected to float on the stock market later this year, a deal that could value Google at up to $25bn (£14.7bn) - slightly more than listed online retailer Amazon.

The California-based company was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Your comments:

I don't think your privacy can be invaded if you know what the service is doing before you sign up. It's a free service and nobody forces you to use it and have your e-mails screened.
David Cox, Southampton, UK

This is no different to Google's search engine giving you advertisements based on what you search for. As long as information on which adverts have been picked for you is not stored, and the process remains entirely automated, I wouldn't have any problem with using a service like this.
Alex Oughton, London, UK

If anyone has a problem with the service offered they can choose not to use it. This seems to be 'nannying' of individuals. If the user base does not want this sort of targeted advertising in exchange for free storage, the product will die a death. If it proves popular regardless of or potentially because of the advertising - what's the problem?
Andrew Foster, UK

People should get a grip. Our personal "privacy" is already invaded at a far more intrusive level by tele-sales, direct marketing and most worryingly by government. If a company offers a product in exchange for an advertisment platform as long as the rules are made clear where is the problem?
David Price, USA

Yes it's an invasion of privacy but you have the choice to use GMail or not - in other words, you have the choice to have your privacy invaded or not. So I think it's a good idea but it's not a service I'll be using.
Robert Stephenson, Altrincham, England

Anything that scans emails for content / key words is an invasion of privacy. It would be like the Royal Mail opening letters and placing adverts inside the envelope
Allan Jacques

Of course it is an invasion of privacy - just imagine somebody asking you to give them the right to read all your letters, keep a copy of each and flood you with advertising leaflets based on what they think you might buy! Nobody would ever say yes to such an "offer". But then there is a simple way around this: just don't use Google's Gmail; nobody is forcing you to use it, so just don't. If everybody were just to ignore them, Gmail would soon disappear again.
George, Cambridge, UK

Yes. It is the equivalent of having someone open your post and putting some junkmail inside. I don't think I will be using it!
Nick, Madrid, Spain

Gmail sounds excellent and I have no problem with targeted ads. The Gmail advertising method will be much less intrusive than the ads found on Yahoo or Hotmail. People should read the terms and conditions and if they are not happy with what they must agree to to use the service, then don't use it.
Stephen, London

No doubt in my mind that Google has already shown itself to be a leader in snooping. They already make public EVERY post you make on newsgroups/discussion groups. They may be big and powerful but I will never use their email system and if any of my friends do, I will notify them that I will not reply or write to a Google email system.
Robert, St Louis MO USA

Assuming the ads would be displayed in a similar way to that employed on the search engine (i.e. that they would not send me spam, merely add ads into my regular email) I would be happy to sign up to such a service. For once, the adverts being displayed may actually be something I am interested in, and it would be a much better way of targeted advertising. I realise very little is truly "free", and the only way they can offer such an immense amount of storage is by charging more for the ads, as they can assure advertisers that the ads are targeted well. As for the storage, anyone who uses a free online email system should expect it not to be perfectly private, and if Google really want to keep copies of my jokes, forwards, daft comments, innuendos, and indeed the spam I receive, good luck to them! I have no problems with the service at all, provided the T&Cs are clear when the user signs up.
Philip Holbourn, Coventry, West Mids, UK

This has nothing to do with invasion of privacy and stinks of politics. A bit like "having a massive billboard in the middle of your home"? Has the good senator not noticed the number of homes with TV sets showing 24/7 adverts with occasional short 'programme' breaks?
Dave P, Frome, UK

No more than it is already invaded by the authorities. It is a bit rich for a legislator from the USA to attempt to block Gmail on the grounds of invasion of privacy when we all know that the US government has a facility monitoring and reading all and any e-mails it pleases. Ditto GCHQ in the UK.
Mike Edwards, Blackpool UK

Junk mail drops through letterboxes, TV programmes interupt every 15 minutes, billboards everywhere. Most is poorly targeted. Google does target scientifically and as e-marketing begins to dominate over TV and paper this will eventually save many trees and us all many wasted hours. Importantly, research show us that people accept targeted ads. As for privacy, this probably is a technical and privacy issue. Forcing it should bring clarity and a legal framework. Google will never be the sole email provider, but good on them, we hope to be @gmail one day.
iMakeWebSites Ltd, Manchester Lancs

I don't have such a high opinion of myself to think that anyone would want to read my email, and even if they did I wouldn't care. Due to the way email works, it is far from private anyway. If I have anything to send that I want kept private I use PGP. My only concern is that with the amount of junk mail advertising certain body enlargements, the GMail system might think that's what I am into, and then display even more adverts for it!
Marc, Reading, UK

Google shouldn't be allowed to scan e-mails for any purpose. It's like Royal Mail opening everyone's mail, personal and business, reading the mail, making a note of any 'key words' and then resealing the mail including any applicable adverts. This is quite clearly not only an invasion of privacy but to my mind it would amount to opening up the channels for any kind of 'snooping' of mails. How can we as a culture expect to move forward by depending upon technology if we cannot be assured of its security, even at the most basic of levels? If G-mail was to go ahead then the user should be given an 'extremely' clear choice of whether their mail can be scanned for these alleged 'key words' and the implications of such scanning. Additionally once the mail has been 'downloaded' from the G-mail server then the stored server mail should be deleted.
Jason , Basingstoke, England

August 31, 2005 at 10:35 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Update: Google expands access to Gmail

Update: Google expands access to Gmail | InfoWorld | News | 2005-03-16 | By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

Google ramps up user base by offering Gmail accounts to random visitors on Google.com

By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
March 16, 2005

Google (Profile, Products, Articles) opened up its Gmail Web mail service to a wider scope of users on Monday by randomly offering, for the first time, accounts to some visitors of the main Google.com page.

Until Monday, to get a Gmail account, a user had to be invited to the service by either Google or an existing Gmail user.

"We just started (on Monday) offering Gmail accounts to a randomly selected sample on Google," said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. "It's a natural step to leverage the wider user base of Google.com to grow Gmail."

About one in 20 Google.com visitors are getting the Gmail account offer, Mayer said. "Based on the success of this one-in-20 scope, we'll be ramping it up over the next couple of weeks," she said.

Google's move to expand the scope of Gmail users is a noteworthy step, considering that Gmail registrations have been so restricted, an analyst said.

"Gmail has been like a club to which you need to get invited, so this is a step in opening it up to the public," said Su Li Walker, a Yankee Group analyst.

Gmail, a free service, is still in a beta, or test, phase, but there has been much speculation about when it will be launched officially and opened up to Web users in general.

Gmail rocked the Web mail market when it was announced in April 2004 due to its then unprecedented 1GB inbox storage. Since then, Web mail providers large and small, including big players Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) and Yahoo, have reacted to Gmail by increasing significantly their inbox storage capacity.

Some have said that the longer Google waits to launch Gmail to the general public, the more Gmail loses its initial buzz and momentum. However, others believe Web mail isn't a core service to Google and that, as such, it shouldn't be a priority.

"Google doesn't need e-mail. There are more important products for Google to work on, such as toolbars, local search and advertising programs," said David Card, a Jupiter Research analyst. "E-mail is an interesting opportunity for them to increase user loyalty, but I don't think Google should feel any anxiety in hurrying up a Web mail offer."

Gmail also brought Google, in Mountain View, California, a good amount of controversy due to its inclusion of contextual text ads in the messages based on their content, which prompted privacy advocates to criticize the practice. Google defended itself by saying that the ads are generated automatically with text-scanning technology and without human intervention.

August 31, 2005 at 10:33 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Gmail Steals Users From Hotmail

Personal Tech Pipeline | Gmail Steals Users From Hotmail

Courtesy of TechWeb News

Most of the gains in users by Google's free Gmail Web-based e-mail service have come at the expense of Microsoft's Hotmail, an e-mail switching service said Wednesday.

Consumers who used Return Path's e-mail change of address tools were almost twice as likely to switch to Gmail from Hotmail than from Yahoo, the New York City-based company said.

Fifty-seven percent of the users with a new Gmail account were changing from Hotmail, said Return Path's 2004 data, while just 27 percent were switching from Yahoo. The remaining 16 percent was split between AOL, MSN, and Comcast.

The prominence of former Hotmail users in the Gmail ranks isn't due to a higher number of Hotmail users overall, said Return Path, since across the board, former Hotmail and former Yahoo users are consistently even.

Gmail, which is still in beta -- Google is known for labeling products as "beta" for years -- was the first free service to offer a gigabyte or more of free storage space. When it debuted nearly a year ago, it set off a space race among rivals. Microsoft Hotmail, for instance, upped its storage allowance to 250 megabytes for its free accounts beginning last summer.

August 31, 2005 at 10:32 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (22) | Top of page | Blog Home

Media Alert: EmailLabs Tells Marketers to Prepare for Future Impact of Google's Gmail

Media Alert: EmailLabs Tells Marketers to Prepare for Future Impact of Google's Gmail

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Nov. 30, 2004) - EmailLabs (www.emaillabs.com), the leading Web services provider in the email marketing space, announced today that despite the hype around Gmail, Google's free e-mail service, marketers have time to prepare for its future growth.

As outlined in recent ClickZ.com E-Mail Delivery columns by EmailLabs' Loren McDonald and Kirill Popov, the company's analysis of B2B and B2C email lists indicates that while Gmail has received an overwhelming amount of media attention and overwrought concern among email marketers, Google's free email service (still officially in "beta") actually has an extremely low "list penetration" of well under half of a percent. This compares to a typical B2C list penetration by Hotmail and Yahoo of around 15 percent each.

"Gmail's estimated user base of 1.5-2 million is quite impressive for an email service that is still in beta, but our list analysis reveals that these users are not yet switching their current subscriptions away from their Hotmail, MSN and Yahoo accounts," noted Loren McDonald, EmailLabs' VP of Marketing.

"In the next few years Gmail will clearly become a force to reckon with, likely reaching at least 10 million users, and taking some market share from Hotmail, MSN and Yahoo," adds McDonald. "Because of Gmail's current low penetration, now is a good time for email marketers to begin taking necessary steps, including testing and tweaking their emails, to prepare for Gmail's future growth and specific challenges."

For now, according to McDonald, the reality is that marketers' concerns about Gmail are overblown. Except for Gmail's displaying of ads in marketers' emails that may compete with their own ads or offers, most of the concerns about how Gmail treats and renders emails are identical or similar to issues presented by Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo and email clients such as Outlook. In recent ClickZ.com E-Mail Delivery columns, EmailLabs has outlined these issues and strategies for dealing with them, including:

-- Contextual Ads -- Email recipients may see an ad from a competitor inserted alongside the body of the email message.

-- Blocked Images -- Images in HTML messages are not automatically displayed, users have to click on a "Display External Images" link to have images rendered.

-- Content Formatting -- Gmail strips virtually all CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) code out of HTML messages.

-- Spam filtering -- It is unknown which spam filtering technology Google is using with Gmail, but EmailLabs analysis suggests that Gmail is deploying a content-based filter.

-- Gmail Notifier and Snippets -- Gmail's Notifier and Snippets present users excerpts from emails on your desktop and within the Gmail client to help users determine if they should open individual emails.

-- Subject Line Length -- Gmail limits the subject line length to 57 characters, but adds the snippet text after the subject line.

To read more about EmailLabs' perspectives on Gmail, visit:

Gmail Concerns? Don't Press the G-Panic Button Yet www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/email_delivery/article.php/3426321

Gmail's Coming -- Are You Ready? www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/email_delivery/article.php/3365031

August 31, 2005 at 10:23 AM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 30, 2005

ID theft ring escapes shutdown

BBC NEWS | Technology | ID theft ring escapes shutdown

An ID theft ring that has hit thousands of people is proving hard to shut down.

Discovered by US security fim Sunbelt Software, the scam used keyloggers to steal data stored by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

Variants of the original bug are popping up and sending data to other servers and are continuing to harvest data from unwitting victims' machines.

Tools are now appearing to help people find out if they are infected and to remove the sophisticated bug.

Victim list

Sunbelt came across the server at the centre of the ID theft ring by accident while investigating the ways that spyware can infect Windows PCs.

A search of the server revealed log files containing megabytes of data stolen from PC users by a variant of a well-known virus. Sunbelt estimates that up to 30,000 people were caught out by the keylogging bug since it appeared in late July.

Initially Sunbelt contacted those it found named in the files but the sheer number of people caught out has made it impossible to keep up. Instead, it is telling Ebay, Paypal and banks about the accounts that have been compromised.

Sunbelt contacted the FBI and soon after the server at the centre of the ID theft ring was shut down, only to return to life shortly after.

Now as this central server is shut down again, others are taking over to collect data sent to them by variants of the original keylogger.

The FBI has also reportedly started an investigation into who is behind these servers.

Sunbelt has given the malicious program the name Srv.SSA-KeyLogger and has produced a free tool that scans computers to see if they are infected. Users can check for themselves by searching for a file called winldra.exe.

Publicity around the keylogger has led many anti-virus and security companies to add the bug to the list of malicious programs their software catches.

August 30, 2005 at 07:53 PM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home

Toronto, Calgary may join Intel Wi-Fi project for cities

ITBusiness.ca

8/18/2005 5:00:00 PM - Global initiative seeks to expand municipal services wirelessly

by Sarah Lysecki

Two Canadian cities have indicated their interest in a vendor-led program to implement wireless infrastructure in communities worldwide, according to Intel Corp.

While Calgary and Toronto have expressed their desire to participate in Intel’s Digital Communities Initiative, which has 13 proof-of-concepts (POC) around the globe, there are no Canadian cities involved in the initial pilot project.

“There are two communities that are interested and are at varying stages of engagement,” said Anand Chandrasekher, vice-president and director of Intel sales and marketing group, speaking at a teleconference Thursday about the project. “There’s nothing set in stone yet. There’s lots of interest and discussions ongoing.”

There are, however, a number of wireless initiatives in cities and governments across the country. The City of Toronto, for example, recently issued a request-for-proposal to put in a public access wireless hotspot on a six-month pilot basis at Nathan Philips Square, a city official confirmed Thursday. The RFP has now closed but the City has yet to reward the contract to the successful bidder as the proposals are under review by the City’s legal and purchasing departments, said Michael Franey, director of computer operations and telecommunications services for the City of Toronto. The City expects to implement the project before the end of the summer.

“We have to look at the business case to see if the cost of the service warrants it beyond the pilot period,” said Franey. “This is something that’s experimental. If there’s no business case to do that we’d have to reconsider our plans.”

Once implemented, anybody within the Nathan Philips Square vicinity will be able to use their mobile laptops or PDA devices to check e-mail or browse the Internet. Franey said the City will try to offer the service free-of-charge or at minimal cost to taxpayers.

Cost of wireless access, however, became a contentious issue recently when Philadelphia’s city government -- one of the 13 POC cities that participated in Intel’s pilot project -- decided to sell wireless access to downtown residents last year. Lobbyists in the U.S. are currently pressuring Congress to decide whether governments or private companies should be selling Internet access.

In Western Canada, the City of Calgary launched a federally- and provincially-funded initiative in 2003 called Wireless City, which includes four hotspots in the downtown core. These include the Calgary Municipal Building, the W.R. Castell Central Library, Olympic Plaza and Stephen Avenue Walk. Other wireless initiatives include the City of Fredericton, which offers free wireless Internet across the city, and the City of Hamilton, which is currently engaged in a six-month trial in which Wi-Fi networks are being used to read 200 smart meters. Hamilton plans to install 100,000 smart meters, which measure customers’ electrical consumption per hour and report it back to the Hamilton Utilities Corporation, by the end of 2007.

Countries involved in the initial pilot project include the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hungary, Germany, Israel, Monaco and Brazil. City officials from Taipei, Taiwan, Cleveland, Ohio and Corpus Christi, Tex. were on hand to discuss their experience with the project in their cities. The initiative, funded in part by Intel and several other large tech vendors including Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc. and Microsoft Corp., aims to help cities improve and expand their municipal services through the use of wireless technology.

“Intel’s role in this initiative is providing the technology in the form of Wi-Fi and Wi-Max,” said Chandrasekher. “Proof-of-concepts are moving from unwiring to delivering mobilized services.”

Applications of the technology include automating mobile workers such as meter readers and building inspectors and enabling emergency service workers to remotely monitor vehicle locations.

The City of Taipei, for example, has equipped 63 subway stations with access points and .8 sq.-km. of the 202 sq.-km. city is covered. Taipei plans to cover 90 per cent of the city by year-end and 100 per cent of it by early next year. Out of a population of 2.6 million citizens, currently 75,000 people are using the service with an increase of 200 users per week.

“We have embarked on a very ambitious plan to establish the first-every wireless city in the world by installing 10,000 access points in densely-populated areas,” said Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou. “It’s not difficult to have wireless in MacDonald’s or Starbucks but if you want to try to cover a city, it’s not that easy.”

August 30, 2005 at 07:52 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

B.C. credit unions band together to fight fraud

ITBusiness.ca

8/30/2005 5:00:00 PM - Organization teams with Fincentric for heightened security

by Russ Francis

B.C’s 53 credit unions are taking steps to boost online security, fearing that fraudsters who have so far attacked mostly the large banks will turn their attention to the province’s growing credit unions.

“They could become a target,” said Credit Union Central of B.C.’s product marketing manager, Barbara Symons. She points to recent mergers involving some of the province’s larger credit unions.

Credit Union Central of B.C. is the umbrella organization for the province’s credit unions, which have 347 branches, 7,000 employees, almost 1.5 million customers and a total of $32 billion in assets.

“From a fraud perspective, they’re going to play the numbers game, and play with larger customer bases,” Symons said in an interview. “Credit unions haven’t been a big target yet, but that could change.”

While the higher security will cost money to implement, and will make it more difficult for customers to use the system, that must be balanced against the potential threat, she said.

“It’s really a trade-off,” said Symons.

In concert with banking software provider Fincentric Corp., Credit Union Central is planning to upgrade security for their credit unions’ online banking systems.

Among the features being considered is “two-factor authentication,” so that customers would need more than just a password to log on. The other factor could be an electronic token, a fingerprint, or voice pattern.

Last December, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation recommended that financial institutions upgrade from password-based, single-factor authentication to two-factor authentication.

A new formal alliance between Credit Union Central and Fincentric will make for smoother implementation of these and other upgrades.

Also under consideration, added Symons, are new methods of electronic funds transfer, including between accounts at different financial institutions, possibly via e-mail.

Announced this month, the alliance means there will now be a direct technical interface between Credit Union Central’s web banking system, called MemberDirect Services, and Fincentric’s retail banking system, Wealthview Banking.

Though the two organizations have worked together informally in the past, under the alliance, Credit Union Central and Fincentric will co-operate closely in a range of areas from product development to operational support.

Terry Wong, Fincentric’s director of product management, said that under the old, looser arrangement between Credit Union Central and Fincentric, communications about support were less efficient.

When customers found a problem, they would be unsure as to which organization was responsible, meaning that valuable time was wasted in tracking down the source.

“Through this partnership, regardless of where the problem resides, they can phone Fincentric or Credit Union Central and we will get it resolved, no matter what,” Wong said. “The customers will see Credit Union Central and Fincentric as one in this area.”

As well, both organizations continue doing product development, he said, which will now happen faster.

“In the past, customers haven’t always been able to take advantage of some of the enhancements, because they need the other side to also make changes to their system,” Wong said. “With our partnership, we are tightly integrated with respect to our development plans, such that between the two of us, we will try to make the functionality available in both our solutions. There’s real impact on our customers in that.”

Updating products will also become easier, he added.

“Customers can be more assured that we will keep their releases in sync with ours,” Wong said.

Comment: info@itbusiness.ca

August 30, 2005 at 07:50 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Maturing net growing more slowly

BBC NEWS | Technology | Maturing net growing more slowly

After years of huge increases, the rate at which net traffic is growing is slowing down, say analysts.

During 2004 the amount of net traffic travelling on backbone cables between nations grew by 104%, reported the consultancy Telegeography.

By contrast in 2005 the growth slumped to a less stellar 49%.

Telegeography said the change could be the result of a global slowdown in the numbers of people signing up for high-speed net services.

Big numbers

Just how fast net traffic has grown over the last few years can be seen via statistics from the London Internet Exchange (Linx), where more than 150 net service firms swap data between each other.

In a little over a year the amount of traffic flowing across Linx has risen from approximately 30 gigabits per second to more than 67 Gbit/s. In 2000 it was barely hitting 5 Gbit/s, the equivalent of a DVD film every 10 seconds.

Alan Mauldin, senior research analyst, said that in any other field annual growth of 49% would be incredible. It was only the fact that the net had grown so fast, so quickly for so long that now made such a figure less impressive.

"But it's still fairly robust growth," he told the BBC News website.

Growth rates in some territories was staying high, said Mr Mauldin, at 76% in Asia and 70% in Latin American but even these were down on 2004.

Currently the amount of traffic flowing between nations is approximately one terabit per second. If growth rates hold up this is likely to hit three terabits per second by 2008.

Much of the growth over the last few years has come about because of the rise in the popularity of file-sharing that encourages people to swap and share large media files, said Mr Mauldin.

In general, he said, the net was maturing in the sense that the numbers of those going online was slowing and those already online were using it as much as they were likely to.

Another sign, he said, was a stabilisation in the prices for net backbone access which fell sharply before 2005.

Mr Mauldin was keen to point out that the measurements it was taking were not a snapshot of all net traffic. This was because Telegeography does not count the amount of data flowing over cables within national boundaries which, he said, was likely to be at least as large cross-border traffic.

However, he said, international net traffic was a good indicator of the general direction and strength of net growth.

Telegeography can produce figures for 2005 because its annual count runs from April to April.

August 30, 2005 at 05:19 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Top of page | Blog Home

Email users get a reputation

Email users get a reputation - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

By Joris Evers, CNET News.com

Data about how much spam various email servers, and other machines, send out is now available on the Web

A new Web site aims to help determine whether a specific computer has been sending legitimate email or spam.

The TrustedSource Web site uses data from reputation filters, which are billed as the next big thing in email security. Makers of spam-fighting tools collect data on email senders and use that to assign "reputations" to email sending computers and Internet domains. Those who send a lot of spam get a negative rating and their messages are more likely to be filtered out.

CipherTrust is one of those email security vendors. The company has sold more than 4,000 of its IronMail appliances to customers worldwide. CipherTrust is now sharing some of the reputation data it has gathered through those machines with the public through the TrustedSource Web site, the company announced on Monday.

The Web site is designed to be a reference tool. Entering a domain name generates a list of the IP addresses of machines that send email for that domain. Users can then drill down and click on each sending address to see if the specific machine has been sending junk mail or legitimate messages.

TrustedSource could be useful for the occasional check, for example when configuring a spam filter or just to learn the reputation associated with a specific domain. It may be more helpful for organisations to identify which systems on their networks are sending email, said Dmitri Alperovitch, a research engineer at CipherTrust. Typically, on a corporate network, only designated email servers should be sending email.

"Often companies don't realize that they have zombie machines on their network that have been sending email," Alperovitch said. Zombie machines are computers that have been commandeered by cybercriminals and are often used to send spam.

The Web site also provides information on the adoption of fledgling email authentication technologies. There are lists of Internet domains that send email using DomainKeys Identified Mail and Sender ID. Both technologies are designed to improve spam filters and prevent the spoofing of email addresses.

TrustedSource can help IT staff implement Sender ID, or to make sure that the implementation was done properly. Sender ID requires a so-called Sender Policy Framework record. This record should list the IP addresses of computers that may send email on behalf of a domain. TrustedSource lists all the IP addresses that are actually sending mail.

In addition to the TrustedSource Web site, CipherTrust on Monday also released two new anti-spam products, which both use reputation services to filter out unwanted mail:

* The IronMail Gateway 6.0 is an improved version of CipherTrust's e-mail scanning appliance. It offers better enterprise integration, implementation, management and reporting features than its predecessor, according to CipherTrust.
* IronMail Edge is a new first line of defense against bad e-mail. The appliance — designed for large enterprises — scans e-mail at the outer edge of a company's network, preventing unwanted traffic from using up valuable bandwidth.

August 30, 2005 at 01:31 PM in email | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 29, 2005

Piracy crackdown spurs shift in online file-sharing

Piracy crackdown spurs shift in online file-sharing - Yahoo! News

By Adam Pasick Mon Aug 29,10:30 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Traffic in the popular file-sharing network BitTorrent has fallen in the wake of a crackdown on piracy, but file sharers have merely shifted to another network, eDonkey, new data released on Monday showed.

Popular movies like "
" /> Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" have surfaced on BitTorrent before they even appeared in theatres.

A study by the Cambridge-based Internet analysis firm CacheLogic found that eDonkey is now roughly on par with BitTorrent in the United States, China, Japan and Britain.

It is the dominant peer-to-peer file-sharing network in
South Korea, which has the world's highest percentage of high-speed Internet use, and also in Italy, Spain and Germany.

"This is almost assuredly a result of the increased legal action toward the once-ignored BitTorrent -- a game of P2P hide-and-seek," said CacheLogic's chief technology officer Andrew Parker.

Last year, BitTorrent was consuming up to a third of the Internet's total bandwidth as users traded huge movie and television files. Hollywood struck back with a slew of lawsuits to shut down Web sites that provided "tracker" links, which tell the network where to look for files.

The United States has also seen a surprising return to popularity of the
Gnutella file-sharing network, which had faded after an earlier crackdown by music companies.

"Gnutella was once seen as dead so may be off the radar" of the music and movie industries, Parker said. "It's proof that legal pressure from industry groups results in the mass migration of file sharers to an alternative network, whether old or new. This cat and mouse game will continue."

About 60 percent of the Internet's total bandwidth consists of P2P traffic, according to the CacheLogic study. P2P, which sends data from user to user, is often difficult to shut down because networks don't rely on a centralised server to distribute data.

In a precedent-setting ruling earlier this summer, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled against P2P firm
Grokster, saying that because the company's intent was to encourage copyright infringement, it could be held liable for the movies and music traded on its network.

But any hopes from Hollywood that the Grokster ruling would result in less P2P traffic have not been fulfilled, according to CacheLogic.

"The Grokster case did not result in a rapid decline in P2P usage," Parker said.

August 29, 2005 at 10:45 PM in Business Models | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

Alterna Savings turns to Web services model

ITBusiness.ca

8/29/2005 5:00:00 PM - Credit union takes customer services app online to consolidate data
by Alex Anderson

Credit union Alterna Savings has rolled out a Web-based system that it expects will enable it to compete with the big banks.

The Web-based Summit iSpectrum solution uses a Web services approach to pull all client data into one place
so Alterna Savings can deliver much faster customer service than traditional mainframe green-screen systems allow.

“If we are going to compete with the large banks everything has to be quick, cheap and easy to use,” said Norman Ayoub, Alterna Savings’ chief operating officer. “Web technology is more flexible, less complex and less expensive to maintain. This system allows us to do things quickly, efficiently and to respond rapidly to a changing marketplace.”

The new system is expected to streamline the process of delivering members’ portfolio statements, enabling better product offerings, more efficient account management, faster loan decisions, and increased access to joint accounts.

Traditional mainframe systems can be inflexible, complex and costly to maintain. This has led many Canadian credit unions to outsource core processing to a third-party through an ASP model. rather than maintain in-house technology and the IT department required to run and support it.

Summit iSpectrum alleviates this complexity with its Web services model. Built on an application server farm architecture to ensure 24x7 operations and to support Alterna Savings’ 84 ATM machines and Internet banking, Summit iSpectrum was built from the ground up for the Canadian financial services industry by Summit Information Systems of Corvallis, Oregon.

According to David Brim, iSpectrum’s chief architect, initial discussions with Alterna Savings involved a more traditional mainframe system, but as the process progressed Summit realized that a unique opportunity was presenting itself: come up with a completely new system that utilizes the latest Web-based approaches using Alterna Savings’ real-world customer requirements as a development guide.

“It’s a more reliable system,” said Brim, of the server farm architecture. “If you’ve got one box and something happens to it then you are down. If you spread the processing load across multiple box as this system does, then the customer probably won’t even notice if there is a maintenance issue with one box.”

In addition to reliability, other demands for the new system included flexibility, scalability, ease of use and interoperability with other systems both within the credit union and externally through alliance partners such as mutual fund and insurance companies.

“We are literally changing the way branches operate,” said Christine Pearson, Summit’s vice-president of Marketing. “If I was a customer service rep and a client came in and wanted three or four different types of transactions in the past I would have typically needed to access several different systems with all their individual passwords and screens. That takes a lot of time.

“We are clearing the forest of applications that front-line staff need to know in order to help their customers. It’s becoming a clearinghouse where they can get all the information they need to serve customers. This is what the market needs and where it wants to go.”

Ayoub agreed. “Where there is a lot of human interaction, the focus is on getting things done. It’s going to allow us to spend less time on transactions and more time treating our customer’s well.

“We are very focused on changing the way we work from the outside in, i.e., from the customers’ requirements rather than blue sky ideas we come up with internally,” said the banking executive. “We are really trying to get inside the minds of our customers.

“There’s no point in building a better mousetrap. Everyone else already has one. The key is in responding to what customers actually want and delivering it. iSpectrum does that for us.”

August 29, 2005 at 07:02 PM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home

Hurricane Katrina Breaks Internet2 Link, But Performance Not Affected

From Washington Post - Internet1 lost a key link today, but remained "up".

Security Fix

The private, high-speed Internet2 network serving education and research institutions around the nation took a physical hit today as Hurricane Katrina began battering the Gulf Coast, but traffic speeds on the network remain largely unaffected for the time being (the black line in the link above indicates total loss of connectivity between the two cities).

August 29, 2005 at 03:41 PM in Internet evolution | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 27, 2005

Phishers move to counteract bank security programmes

Finextra: Phishers move to counteract bank security programmes

Online fraudsters are increasingly using sophisticated "screenscraper" software in their efforts to thwart bank anti-phishing technologies, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

APWG researchers are reporting a marked increase in the use of screenscraper technology by phishers, which has been designed to counter the graphical keyboard systems that some banks are using to protect against the keylogging Trojans.

Earlier this year Citibank said it had added an on-screen keyboard to its Internet banking service in the UK in a bid to protect customers against fraudsters that use key-logging programs. The keyboard appears on screen when customers are asked to enter passwords or answers to security questions. South Africa's Standard Bank has also introduced a virtual PIN pad log-in system to counteract the threat from spyware.

But APWG says phishers are now using screenscraper technology to neutralise these programmes. When the user mouseclicks a character on the graphical keyboard, the screenscraper takes a snapshot of the screen and sends it to the phishers' server for inspection, in one example intercepted by the researchers.

Dan Hubbard, senior director of security for Websense and APWG analyst, says crimeware continues to evolve and advanced techniques are now being used to steal information: "These Trojan horses are moving beyond keylogging to now capture screenshots to obtain end-user credentials."

The APWG says the growth in the use of ID theft crimeware is now eclipsing conventional phishing methods which use spam e-mail to direct users to fake Web sites in order to deceive them into giving personal financial data, or spyware which records customers' logins and passwords.

The organisation received some 14,135 unique phishing reports in July, down slightly from 15,050 in June. In July 2005, 71 brands were reported as being phished, down from a high of 107 different brands being phished in May 2005.

But financial institutions were still the main target of phishing attacks and made up 86% of all phishing targets, down slightly from a recent high of 91%.

The APWG is also reporting an increase in the number of variants and new banking keyloggers in July. There were some 174 phishing-based Trojans detected in July, up from 154 in June.

Phishers were also found to be moving away from traditional marquee name banks last month and targetting a wider base of smaller financial institutions. Peter Cassidy, secretary general, APWG, says phishers have employed Internet marketing practices of list creation and affinity marketing to target and leverage the trust of small institutions.

August 27, 2005 at 11:54 AM in Phishing & identity theft | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

BBC plans to put channels on net

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | BBC plans to put channels on net

The BBC's TV channels could be made available on the internet, one of the corporation's top executives has said.

A simulcast of BBC One or BBC Two, letting UK viewers see programmes on the web at the same time as they go out on TV, is being planned.

A player to let viewers watch shows on the internet for a week after they have been broadcast on TV is in development.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Ms Bennett said she hoped to simulcast a channel within the next year.

'Wake-up call'

"It's a great way of getting public service content, which people have already paid for, out to people in a different way," she said.

The BBC received a "wake-up call" about the demand for new technology in March when the first episode of the new Doctor Who was leaked on to the internet, she said.

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A BBC spokesman said the corporation was aiming to simulcast a channel permanently but would restrict it to UK viewers only.

"These plans are subject to the approval of the board of governors and the resolution of rights clearance issues on content like music and imported shows," he said.

Internet debuts

As well as the simulcast plan, more shows are set to follow the lead of BBC Three comedy The Mighty Boosh and appear on the internet before TV.

Sketch show Titty Bang Bang, sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Johnny Vegas' show Ideal will be made available on the internet first.

Clips from the shows will also be made available on mobile phones.

The makers of the new Doctor Who series are among the producers who have been developing ways to use mobile phone and portable players.

And extra content has been filmed for broadband to accompany BBC One's autumn contemporary Shakespeare series.

August 27, 2005 at 12:44 AM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 26, 2005

The Evolution of AJAX: Jason Kottke Beats Me To The Punch

And building on previous post re GoogleOS, here is a related one.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - The Evolution of AJAX: Jason Kottke Beats Me To The Punch

Last week I had lunch with Joshua Allen and mentioned that I was planning to write a blog post about the game changing effect of some entity adding generally accessible offline support to the AJAX capabilities of traditional web browsers. It seems Jason Kottke has beaten me to writing this with his post GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS? , he even has a roll call of the usual suspects who might build this and why.

August 26, 2005 at 08:27 PM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (24) | Top of page | Blog Home

GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?

Interesting prediction about the future of browsers and operating systems, which may (my interpretation) have some predictive comments about Vista.

GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS? (kottke.org)

Before we get going, here are some alternate titles for this post, just to give you an idea of what I'm trying to get at before I actually, you know, get at it:

* You're probably wondering why Yahoo bought Konfabulator
* An update on Google Browser, GooOS and Google Desktop
* A platform that everyone can stand on and why Apple, Microsoft, and, yes, even Google will have to change their ways to be a part of it
* The next killer app: desktop Web servers
* Does the Mozilla Foundation have the vision to make Firefox the most important piece of software of this decade?
* Web 3.0
* Finally, the end of Microsoft's operating system dominance

August 26, 2005 at 08:24 PM in Microsoft | Permalink | TrackBack (9) | Top of page | Blog Home

Google's 'Intelligent' Desktop 2

Google's 'Intelligent' Desktop 2 - Yahoo! News

By Yuki Noguchi, Washington Post Staff Writer Tue Aug 23, 1:00 AM ET

Google Inc. yesterday released new software that collects information based on a computer user's behavior and displays updates of news, weather, Web sites and unopened e-mail messages on a toolbar on the side of the screen.

The test product, called Google Desktop 2, is the second incarnation of a program launched last fall. By using Google's trademark search software, it aims to be a more personalized version of products such as Apple Computer Inc.'s Dashboard and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news)'s Konfabulator, programs that deliver icons to the screen and keep photo, alarm clock, scheduling, music, currency converters and news applications running while the computer is in use.

"It functions as an intelligent Web agent," said Nikhil Bhatla, Google Desktop product manager. The software indexes a Microsoft Windows user's previous Web searches, pages visited and photos saved, and automatically customizes the toolbar to reflect those preferences.

At least initially, the software won't generate money for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, which does not currently plan to sell advertisements on Desktop 2, according to Bhatla.

But it gives Google a higher profile on the computer monitor, and that in turn gives the company potentially greater control over the user's behavior, said Greg Sterling, an analyst with the Kelsey Group, a firm that researches the directory and local media business.

"They want to make themselves an entry point for all of your needs," he said. If users find Desktop 2 useful and download it in large numbers, for example, it may begin to compete with the browser as an entry point into the Web, siphoning traffic away from Microsoft Corp.'s popular Internet Explorer.

If a user has searched for weather in Arlington, for instance, the Desktop toolbar will show the day's weather and the next-day forecast. If the user checked up on a stock the previous day, Desktop will display the latest trading price of that stock, updated every minute. News clips from frequented sites are updated every 10 minutes. Blog clips are updated every 30 minutes. At the bottom of the toolbar is a tool that allows the user to search content on the computer, as well as the Web.

Windows of information can be turned on or off, according to the user's preference. So, for example, a Google e-mail user can add a window to display the newest incoming messages on the toolbar.

As Google adds more features to the toolbar, Sterling said, "it circumvents the need to do things on a Microsoft [operating system]."

But Desktop 2 faces some hurdles. With so much software already available, and with threats of spyware and viruses on the Internet, many consumers are weary of downloading additional software, Sterling said.

August 26, 2005 at 07:27 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (20) | Top of page | Blog Home

Analysis: Google Unlikely To Change Fragmented IM Market Aug. 24, 2005

InformationWeek > Instant Messenging > Analysis: Google Unlikely To Change Fragmented IM Market > August 24, 2005

In launching Google Talk, the search company is hoping for interoperability with the major networks built by AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. Experts say it's unlikely.
By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb News

As the new kid in the instant-messaging market, Google Inc. wants to be friends with everyone, but it's unlikely the seasoned players will let rivals get close to their subscribers.

In launching Google Talk , the Mountain View, Calif., search engine called for interoperability with the major networks built by America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Yahoo Inc.

"It's the Holy Grail," Joe Wilcox, analyst for JupiterResearch, said of interoperability.

It's unlikely, however, that the granddaddy of IM, AOL, will open up its base of 41.6 million subscribers to competitors. In comparison, Yahoo, which has the second largest network, has less than half the subscribers of AIM at 19.1 million, according to web metrics firm ComScore Networks. MSN has 14.1 million subscribers.

"AOL isn't letting anybody into their network, if they don't have to," JupiterResearch analyst David Card said. "There's no incentive for AOL to cooperate with anyone."

That incentive, however, could come in time, if IM vendors decide to take the service beyond the ability to have immediate text conversations with friends, family and colleagues. The portals have already added PC-to-PC voice calls and have extended IM to cellular phones. They could go much further in developing a communications platform that tightly integrates email, voicemail and IM, making it all accessible through multiple devices.

The heart of such a communications hub would be the contacts directory, Card said. Besides grouping people by their relationship with the IM subscriber, such as a family member, friend or colleague, the directory also establishes whether they are reachable. That could one day be expanded to add how the person wants to be reached, by PC, cellular phone or some other device.

Microsoft, according to Card, is very much focused on IM as a broader communications platform.

While the evolution of IM could be a potential battleground for the major portals, telecommunication companies and wireless carriers, it's more likely that partnerships will occur, and communication networks will open up, much like email is today, Card said.

"It makes everything more valuable, if the network is bigger," he said.

In the meantime, AOL, Yahoo and MSN are connecting IM to more services, such as online music, in order to build loyalty and help keep subscribers. Locking in customers would also be a strategy behind the building of a unified communications platform.

Google Talk, however, is notable in that Google has not linked its IM client to anything but its web mail service GMail. Therefore, it's difficult to see where Google is heading.

"It's very Spartan," Wilcox said of the new product.

August 26, 2005 at 12:07 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 24, 2005

Google launches instant messaging service

PC Advisor - Expert Advice you can trust

by Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)

Talk is cheap

Google is continuing to expand beyond its core search-engine business into web-portal territory with its launch today of an instant messaging (IM) service with voice communications capabilities.

"At a high level, this indicates that, whether it likes it or not, Google is officially a web portal and media company," said Allen Weiner, a Gartner analyst.

The consensus has been that Google has to branch out from its search-engine roots and build a suite of online services as varied as the ones from Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and AOL.

The main reason why observers feel Google needs to build up an arsenal of web-portal services is that users aren't very loyal to search engines. However, users are loyal to web-portal services such as instant messaging, photo sharing and webmail because they provide ways to communicate with others.

The other reason observers say Google needs to broaden its suite of services is that Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have spent the past year aggressively venturing into the search space, Google's stomping ground.

Industry observers have speculated for many months that Google would develop a consumer-oriented IM service to compete against those from AOL, Yahoo and MSN. The speculation is over now that Google's IM service, Google Talk, is finally here.

Weiner said that to gain users, Google Talk will have to be a compelling service with as many bells and whistles, such as emoticons, as the other IM services, as well as complementary applications.

One thing Google has on its side is its decision to build Google Talk on the open XMPP (extensible messaging and presence protocol) framework, which might make Google Talk more attractive to developers than other networks built on proprietary protocols, according to Weiner.

Google Talk is in beta (or test) mode and requires that its users have an account with Google's free webmail service Gmail, according to Google, because Google Talk and Gmail are tightly integrated.

For example, Google Talk users' login information will be the same as the details they use for Gmail. Also, users will be able to access their Gmail inbox from within the Google Talk interface and send emails from there. Google Talk will alert users about new messages received in their Gmail account.

Another point of integration is that users' Gmail contacts will be loaded automatically into their Google Talk interface, making it possible to exchange IMs with those who have downloaded the IM software.

Google Talk users will also be able to invite people in their list of contacts to download the IM application, and even contacts who aren't Gmail users will receive an invitation to sign up for Gmail so they can get Google Talk.

Gmail, launched in April 2004, is still in beta mode and new users have to be invited by an existing user to sign up for the service. Gmail users typically have 50 invitations available.

To talk to contacts on Google Talk, users should click on a ‘call’ button in an open chat window or on the phone icon next to names on the contact list. A user can have multiple voice sessions open but only one can be active at any given time. To use this feature, users need a PC with a speaker and microphone or a headset.

Regarding the current lack of interoperability among the three largest consumer IM networks - Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger - Google said it is committed to work with IM service providers to establish links between its service and others.

Users can download the necessary Google Talk software at www.google.com/talk/. The software runs on PCs with Windows XP or Windows 2000.

In addition to Gmail and Google Talk, Google has other non-search online services such as the Picasa application to share and organise digital photos, and the Orkut social networking service, whose access remains restricted via invitation-only, like Gmail.

Google has a blogging service, called Blogger, which is one of the most popular of its kind. Google also has given users the option of populating its notoriously sparse home page with syndicated feeds, weather information, stock quotes, news and other information.

August 24, 2005 at 11:40 PM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Rogers test drives WiMax connectivity

ITBusiness.ca

8/24/2005 5:00:00 PM - Company calls it first Canadian example of Wi-Fi's successor

by Shane Schick
SAN FRANCISCO – Rogers Communications Inc. made a cameo appearance at Intel’s Developer Forum this week when it demonstrated what executives called the first ever WiMax connection in Canada.

s part of a keynote presentation
hosted Tuesday afternoon by Sean Maloney, executive vice-president for Intel’s mobility group, hundreds of developers were shown a live video feed from a cottage on Lake Rosseau in the Muskoka area north of Toronto featuring David Robinson, Rogers’s vice-president of business implementation. Rogers set up the connection through Redline Communication’s RedMax equipment, which incorporates the Intel PRO/Wireless 5116 WiMax modem silicon.

WiMax refers to a protocol based on the 802.16 standard that allows mobile devices to connect at broadband speeds and over a longer distance than Wi-Fi, which are usually confined to short-range areas called hotspots. Intel has been working on a system-on-a-chip design supporting WiMax code-named Rosedale that was discussed at last year’s IDF.

In his brief video conversation with Maloney, Robinson called wireless broadband the next stage of high-speed Internet access, adding that Rogers has high hopes for WiMax. “It will allow (us) to offer access in underserved parts of the country, both in and out of Rogers Cable areas,” he said.

Other WiMax connections demonstrated during the keynote included a cargo ship in the Netherlands, a school in Argentina and an Intel factory in China. Maloney said it was important that WiMax development follow the same open standards-based approach that has allowed Wi-Fi access to thrive in major metropolitan areas.

Intel also used IDF to announce an extension of its mobility and security partnership with Cisco, which will see the two firms collaborate on what executives called the Business Class Wireless Suite. The software will be designed to make it easier to set up wireless networks using Intel-powered laptops, said Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer at Cisco.

“We could try to make it easy to use inside the network, but if it’s not easy to use on the notebook, we’re not getting anywhere,” Giancarlo said.

Maloney said Intel and Cisco will be working on enhanced voice-over-IP over Wi-Fi, as well as optimal access point selection, which he described as a “handshake guarantee” that the wireless connection a mobile system finds will have the appropriate bandwidth to run a user’s applications effectively.

“Most of the time your device is searching for the closest connection, but it’s not necessarily the strongest connection,” Maloney said, adding that mobile users need to make better use of broadband. “Your notebook is multi-tasking, whether you like it or not.”

Intel’s next-generation mobile processors will be grouped under a platform called Napa, and will include energy-saving features that tie in with the “performance per watt” theme that is running through this year’s IDF. Napa will include a dual-core processor code-named Yonah, for example, that will consume much less power than its predecessor.

Other components of Napa include a version of its 945 Express chipset that will offer enhanced 3D graphics capabilities. On the IDF exhibit floor, meanwhile, Canada’s ATI Graphics is quietly telling customers that it will be allowing its CrossFire boards will work with Intel’s Express 945 chip set, marking the first time the Toronto-based firm has offered interoperability with a third-party board.

“We wanted to reach a broader market. It hasn’t been formally announced yet,” said ATI spokeswoman Carrie Maynard, who added that while the company’s roadmap is not closely tied to Intel’s mobile strategy,“we’re always watching what they do.”

IDF continues through Thursday.

August 24, 2005 at 07:23 PM in Wireless | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

From your lips to Google's ear

TheStar.com - From your lips to Google's ear

Popular search engine adds next level
Will launch Internet voice chat service

EMILY CHUNG
BUSINESS REPORTER

It all began with a little search engine that could. Then, as we Googled away, other applications appeared — news, maps, email and a desktop organizer. As of today, you needn't leave the comfort of Google for even a gab with your friends.

With the expected launch of Google Talk, its new instant messaging program with voice-over-Internet capabilities, the company once viewed as the antithesis of Microsoft is another step closer to cyber world domination.

"To get ... instant messaging into the picture, it's just another step along the way of kind of being a complete destination," said Jon Arnold, a telecom consultant with an interest in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol, which allows phone conversations over information networks such as the Internet).

Google's e-business model has so far spun its popularity as a search engine into advertising dollars like none other, Arnold says. Its email, news, and mapping services are already giving other services a run for their PayPal credits, despite its late entry into those arenas. Last week, the company launched Google Sidebar, a desktop search and organization application. That was punctuated by the announcement of plans to raise $4 billion in a secondary stock offering — which some analysts speculated could be used to fund far-flung projects such as Internet telephony.

And now, Google Talk is being released in a beta test version (a preliminary version launched to test for bugs and solicit user feedback) for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It will be available to users who have or sign up for an account with the company's free Gmail email system. The voice chat requires that both the caller and recipient have speakers and a microphone hooked up to their computers. The new Google program features a basic user interface with few graphics, much like the main Google search site.

"We'll have an uncluttered interface that allows you to search over your contacts pretty easily," said Georges Harik, director of product management at Google. "It just stays out of your way unless you want to connect to someone."

Google based its software on the Jabber open standard (a list of publicly available technical specifications for instant messaging software), which will work with smaller networks that are based on the same technology. Text messages can be exchanged with users of Apple Computer Inc.'s iChat, Cerulean Studios' Trillian and the open-source Gaim program.

Google also is inviting programmers to build its technology into their software, including computer games.

With Google Talk, the company hopes to capture a potentially huge audience. AOL's messaging program has about 41.6 million U.S. users, followed by Yahoo Messenger with 19.1 million and MSN Messenger with 14.1 million, according to ComScore Media Metrix's July report.

"Once you can bring voice (and) messaging together, you've really got the consumer pretty tied up," Harik added, "and then that advertising model that Google has done so well with can really be taken to a whole other level."

Tied up is about right. During her holidays, Dawn Verhart, 27, of Toronto spends 12 hours a day signed into Microsoft's MSN Messenger. The Richmond Hill special education teacher has been typing conversations with her friends and family for eight years via text-based instant messaging, first with ICQ (now owned by AOL), and now with MSN. Her contact list includes her sister and brother-in-law in the U.S., who met via instant messaging, and about 30 other people all over southern Ontario.

"I'll go by (my computer) and see who's on and if there's anybody I want to talk to, I'll talk to them," she explains. She likes the fact that she can tell if people are available. "It's cheaper, too, than long-distance phone calls."

Harik said Google has no intention of trying to become a popular bridge to the other major instant-messaging providers. "We're not going to do anything like force other networks to inter-operate with us."

But without compatibility with programs such as MSN and Yahoo Messenger, sceptics argue it will be difficult to get users like Verhart to switch from established programs.

She agrees. "I think people like just using what they know," Verhart said, explaining she switched to MSN from ICQ because most of her friends were on MSN.

However, outside developers who incorporate Google Talk into their programs might try to enable such inter-operability.

Whether or not that happens, Arnold thinks good voice features could potentially win users over from text-dominated messaging programs like MSN and Yahoo Messenger. "They have modest capabilities to do voice, but they don't have really good capabilities to do voice."

He said the recent success of Skype, a VoIP service that has gone from 2 million to 47 million users since the start of 2004, illustrates the potential. And he added with Google's business might and know-how, the company's late entry into the messaging and VoIP world might not be a serious handicap.

"It's all right to be late to the party when so little money has been made," he said. "The voice game is still very early days."

Unlike Internet phone services such as Vonage and Skype, Google's voice service does not support calls to the regular telephone system.

On the other hand, Arnold notes, "Google is a much bigger name than Skype." Almost everyone has used Google, and that might make them willing to give Google Talk a try.

"Google's got some good things," said Verhart, "so if it's up to the same standard as their search engines and their map programs, it's probably okay."

With files from associated press

August 24, 2005 at 10:16 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home

First Associates invests in e-mail archiving

ITBusiness.ca

8/23/2005 5:00:00 PM - Regulatory compliance urges financial institution to revise system

by Sarah Lysecki

Costly lawsuits like the recent Enron-related settlements made by two of Canada’s five big banks are one of the main drivers behind a Toronto-based financial firm’s recent decision to implement a hosted e-mail archiving and compliance solution.

First Associates Investments Inc., along with two other financial institutions, recently rolled out an e-mail archiving and compliance solution from Toronto-based e-mail archiving provider Fortiva Inc., which has 10 customers in the financial sector. These also include GMP Securities and Research Capital.

The broker dealer has currently migrated half of its 650 employees to the Fortiva Archiving and Compliance Suite and expects to have the project completed by the end of next month. Fortiva, which stores one million-plus of its customers’ e-mails at its Toronto data centre -- it also has another site in Houston -- said users can access this information in seconds rather than hours. An appliance that sits at the customer’s site integrates with their existing infrastructure and encrypts all e-mail before leaving the premise. Customers can access the data via a Web browser interface using a user ID and password to search the data centre.

“It makes it a lot easier for the business to search the data,” said First Associates information security officer Brian Erdelyi, adding that First Associates sends and receives between 500,000 to 700,000 messages per month. “We can delegate some of that to human resources and legal departments.”

Erdelyi added the compliance department will be monitoring and supervising how e-mail is being used across the organization while legal will be able to recover messages.

Next to litigation, regulatory requirements and e-mail storage are also increasingly forcing organizations like First Associates to re-think their e-mail policies. For example, recent amendments to the Investment Dealers Association of Canada bylaw 29.7 require securities firms to retain e-mail communications pertaining to advertising, sales and related documents for a period of five years from the date of creation.

“Part of the issue is when companies don’t have a proper e-mail archiving solution in place, a lot of the time they decide it’s easier to settle than to go through backup to find the relevant e-mail,” said Fortiva Inc. CEO Paul Chen. “A lot of litigation lawyers are taking advantage of the situation right now.”

To avoid hefty payouts, Erdelyi said organizations need an archiving solution that will enable them to search and obtain the data in a fast and efficient manner.

“There are times when we have to recover messages for litigation purposes,” said Erdelyi. “If somebody requires information, we want to be able to provide it quickly and dispute any allegations of wrongdoing.”

In addition to defining the length of time a company should retain correspondence, Chen said organizations’ policies should also set out protocols for using and controlling access to e-mails.

“The policies should also define what is an acceptable use of an e-mail infrastructure to employees,” said Chen. “They should also define a supervision policy to allow what is the proper use and retention of e-mail.”

Aside from storing and accessing e-mail, Erdelyi said First Associates is also looking at using search capabilities for business continuity purposes like recovering old messages that are not part of its backup strategy and to reduce the amount of e-mails stored on employees’ desktops by allowing employees to search their archived e-mails.

An archiving and compliance solution from Fortiva costs approximately $6 per employee per month, said Chen.

August 24, 2005 at 12:38 AM in Financial Services | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home

August 23, 2005

Google 'set to launch' voice messaging

Google 'set to launch' voice messaging - Industry sectors - Times Online

By Rhys Blakely, Times Online

Google is set to introd