According to Hitwise data released today, Facebook.com was the top visited website in the US in 2010, taking up 8.93 % of site visits between January and November 2010. Google.com came in second at 7.19%, Yahoo Mail is third with 3.52% and Yahoo.com is fourth at 3.30%. YouTube came in fifth at 2.65 %.
While this is the first time Facebook has been named most visited site of the year (crowding out last year’s winner Google), the visits to Google properties combined still cover 9.85% of all site visits, making Google still a formidable opponent. “Facebook” also ranked #1 for most searched term of the year directly in front of the hilarious “Facebook login” at #2. → Read More
Google is going after local businesses in a big way. It is promoting Google Places any time someone does a local search, it tried to buy Groupon for $6 billion, and it put star exec Marissa Mayer in charge of local products. Since the middle of December, it’s been running a $100 million marketing promotion aimed at small and medium-sized businesses to try to get them to sign up for AdWords.
Small businesses that sign up by December 31 have until mid-February to spend $100 on AdWords, after which they will be given another $100 credit. The promotion is good for “the first one million businesses only.” If one million businesses sign up and spend that $100 the total value of the campaign will be $100 million. Of course, the campaign won’t really cost Google anything. It is spending $100 to acquire these small local business as new customers. It has offered similar promotions in the past. But Google’s efforts go beyond offering these credits. → Read More
What’s the best streaming music service around? My guess would be Spotify, but the only catch is that it’s not available here in the U.S. (unless you’re willing to use a European VPN). In fact, the service is so well-like, so influential that “to spotify” has now become a fully recognized word in Sweden [Swedish, obv], Spotify’s home base. → Read More
It’s a good time to be looking for “the little camera that could.” If you’re willing to spend $300-$500, there are some really compelling options out there. The Panasonic LX series is great, and for a little more you can pick up the excellent Nikon P7000. Now Olympus has a new entry to this particular arena, the XZ-1, and although the price and specs aren’t published yet, I can see from here that it’s got a sweet little lens. → Read More
The future of computing is mobile, and, unfortunately, the future of malware will probably lie there too. Well-funded mobile security startup Lookout has just posted a blog entry detailing what it calls “the most sophisticated Android malware to date”: a Trojan that’s being “grafted” onto legitimate applications. Fortunately, the odds of you being affected are quite low.
The Trojan in question has only been seen on third-party Android app marketplaces in China, which aren’t accessible without turning on “Unknown Sources” from Android’s settings menu (the vast majority of users only download applications via the official Android Market). And the infected applications request access to far more of the user’s data than they normally would (users have to approve these requests before installing an app), which can tip users off that something is amiss. → Read More
Attention, Star Wars fans! The Empire Strikes Back, generally regarded as the best of the Star Wars films, has been added to the National Film Registry. It joins the likes of Airplane, All The President’s Men, and The Pink Panther (the original one, the good one) as the class of 2010 inductees. → Read More
On December 16 Yahoo accidentally told the world they were shutting down popular bookmarking site Delicious. They fired most or all of the Delicious staff. Then they untold that story, saying they intended to sell it off and that the press got it all wrong.
Ok great. So how’s that sale process going?
Not so well, according to a handful of interested buyers I’ve spoken with. I know of five companies and venture firms that have reached out to Yahoo to talk about buying Delicious. Three of them have confirmed to me that Yahoo either hasn’t responded, or hasn’t responded with any serious level of engagement. According to one source, Yahoo has told people that they are planning on starting a sale process in mid-January. → Read More
See that thing over there? It may be itty-bitty, but it seems to pack a pretty gnarly bite. According to a leaker on the Chinese forum IT168, we’re lookin’ at Sony Ericsson’s followup to the X10 Mini. → Read More
A note on Nintendo’s Web site says that children under the age of 6 should not play its upcoming 3DS console, at least not in 3D mode. The warning says children’s eyes at such a young are still developing, and that it wouldn’t be safe to subject them to the 3D effect generated by the 3DS. Of course, youngsters are still welcome to play the 3DS in 2D mode. But where’s the fun in that? → Read More
For the developers of any digital distribution store (be it Steam, or the iOS App Store, or what have you), there’s not much worse than waking up to find out that your system’s piracy protection mechanisms have big ol’ gaping security holes. There’s one thing, though, that can take a bit of the sting off: having the bad news broken to you by a white hat (read: strictly non-malicious) hacker who has every intention of helping you fix it, rather than telling the world how to do it.
Such is the case for Microsoft this morning, who found out by way of a friendly neighborhood white hat that the DRM setup on Windows Phone 7 apps can be torn apart in a matter of seconds. Not only that, but it seems the paid apps can be pulled directly from the Marketplace prior to being cracked, without a cent being offered up. → Read More
Back in early 2009, I was concerned about the development of private stock secondary market exchanges. I was concerned that it would affect retention of top executives if people were able to cash out before an IPO too easily. I worried companies wouldn’t be careful enough about who they would allow to own chunks of them. I thought it would be just a band-aid for a larger industry problem of companies not wanting to go public early and often. And in the wake of the financial meltdown, I was concerned about people getting burned who were buying the shares on a loosely regulated market.
We’ve seen shades of all of these, but mostly my fears were allayed once we saw these markets in practice.
Why? Because it was clear these aren’t shadow public markets. → Read More
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tfh/lumimask-the-sleep-mask-that-wakes-you-up/widget/video.html There are plenty of clocks that “light” the room slowly, flooding your optic nerves with crisp morning luminosity in order to wake you the way Madre Natura wanted us to. But until now there’s never been a mask that will wake you with the same soothing change in luminosity. This device, called the Lumimask, is currently on Kickstarter and $50 gets you a pre-order unit while $100 gets you the device and a pair of pajamas (pre-washed). If it doesn’t get funded it doesn’t get made, so this guy is sending out his heartfelt entreaty to you, the Internet, in hopes that someone out there will help him. → Read More
We love homebrew, custom-made, DIY solutions. They scream geek love and dedication louder than even dumb fanboy tattoos. This Wii laptop, and the word laptop is used loosely, is about the best thing since, well, this Wii laptop. This solution is a tad bit smaller thanks to the exclusion of the optical drive in favor of a game loader chip called SunDriver. Click through for a video look at the impressive portable rig. [via SlashGear] → Read More
One weak point many humanoid robots have in common is that they move too slow, including most super-advanced models. But a robot event, which recently took place in Japan, shows that there are some exceptions. → Read More
Just when we thought the NookColor was just a B&N reading device, hackers have rooted the devices and ported the Kindle reading app to the platform, ensuring plenty of migraines around Barnes & Noble HQ this week. → Read More
In the electronics industry, it often seems like everyone is pretty much suing everyone over something, somewhere.
This morning, I caught that Sony Corporation has apparently filed suit against LG Electronics (right before CES, no less).
LG Electronics is the division of the LG conglomerate that markets and distributes the group’s home entertainment devices (TVs, Blu-ray disc players, DVD recorders and whatnot) as well as its mobile phones and home appliances. → Read More
So the MSI U100W WinPad runs an Atom Silverthorne Z530 CPU with a 32GB SSD on a 10-inch display. Then there’s two USB ports, SIM card slot, HDMI out and a front-facing camera. Sounds solid, right? No, not with Windows as the operating system of choice. NetbookNews grabbed some hands-on time with the Windows tablet at a pre-CES event in Taipei so click through for some visual prove about the future of Windows 7 on underpowered slates. → Read More
Apple’s Magic Mouse has obviously inspired Japanese accessory maker Sanwa Supply: the Tokyo-based company is offering the MA-Touch1 [JP], a wireless mouse with a multi-touch enabled top shell. The main (technical) difference is that the Sanwa mouse doesn’t support Bluetooth but works via a wireless USB connection instead. → Read More
