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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Nov. 10, 2006:

Archived blogs for the week of Nov. 6, 2006

1264 - Nov. 8, 2006 - 5.12 PM EST

Web 2.0 Corp. acquires search engine ByIndia

Web 2.0 Corp. has acquired ByIndia.com, a strategic property that the company says it will help it capitalize on one of the fastest growing online communities in the world.

Created by Indians for Indians, ByIndia.com has the potential to dominate the search field in a country that promises to be one of the biggest online population in three to four years from now.

The acquisition which was initiated following a limited consumer test in August, gives Web 2.0 Corp. a rapidly growing entry in the specialized Indian market.

ByIndia.com has experienced a rapid climb in traffic and site rankings since it expanded its test programs in September. The company plans to add new Web2.0 social networking, auction, classifieds, video and syndicated advertising elements to ByIndia.com over the next few weeks.

ByIndia.com is similar to Internet properties such as MySpace, Craigslist, YouTube, and Google's Adwords/Adsense service. The new functions have tested well with the Indian audience in limited releases and Web 2.0 Corp. expects it to gain significant traction.

"We believe we are in early with a great product," said William Mobley, Chairman and CEO of Web 2.0 Corp. "India is a massive market that is gaining economic footing. ByIndia.com is the best product available for this audience and we plan to improve upon it.

We see a Baidu-like opportunity to create the definitive community for this vast population."

Designed by a small group of Indian programmers, ByIndia.com was designed to recognize the cultural and language issues of the world's fourth-largest current Internet population.

The ability for Web 2.0 Corp. to acquire such a property had much to do with its vision for the future. The initial developers needed infrastructure (network operations and server capacity not readily available throughout India) and a marketing force to realize the value of ByIndia.com.

"They recognized a need to step up their game in order to become meaningful to India," said Mobley. "We had a meeting of the minds. They saw where we wanted to take ByIndia.com and together we will work to take it there."

Posted on Businessblog™

1263 - Nov. 7, 2006 - 6.22 PM EST

Boosting conversion rates for advertisers

Ex Alta-Vista founder and CEO Jim Barnett wishes to compete against Google in the online advertising field with a system that puts links and banner ads on thousands of different websites.

Despite Google's amazing success with its AdSense program, Barnett believes the system has many flaws, and he's betting his new venture, Turn, will be able to take advantage of those holes.

"It's mind-boggling," Barnett said of the upcoming fight against Google. "They're extremely good competition." In recent months, San Mateo, CA.-based Turn has attracted $18 million in venture backing from Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital and Shasta Ventures.

Turn has about a thousand advertisers in its system, which displays ads on approximately thirty sites.

Posted on Businessblog™

1262 - Nov. 7, 2006 - 7.02 AM EST

Google's Wi-Fi project at risk?

A new report from ABI Research indicates that this year, the number of commercial Wi-Fi hotspots will reach 143,700 worldwide, representing a 47 percent worldwide growth rate from last year's figures.

However, San Francisco's Wi-Fi network project has become mired in city politics. Even though the city's RFP process was carried out in full and wrapped up in April 2006, the city's board of supervisors requested in September that they city now study proposals from vendors other than EarthLink and Google.

The board wants to determine whether it might be cheaper in the long run for the city to build and operate the network on its own instead of contracting with EarthLink and Google.

EarthLink and Google responded by reaching out to San Francisco's citizenry via several community forums during which the companies said they talked to residents about the benefits of a citywide municipal wireless network. More meetings are scheduled to take place between now and Dec. 7.

The companies said Google intends to offer free citywide service at speeds of about 300 kilobits per second, while EarthLink plans to deliver a paid-for, higher-speed offering with speeds up to 1 megabit per second.

EarthLink said it also plans to offer 1 Mbps access available on a wholesale basis to other Internet service providers as part of its Open Access wholesale program along with making business class services available for the municipal government, enterprises and institutions.

The two companies put out a press release laced with ego-massaging and chest thumping. "San Francisco is one of the most progressive cities in the world and our joint proposal with Google will bring the promise of the Internet to San Francisco, the high-tech capital of the world," touted Don Berryman, executive vice president of EarthLink and president of the ISP's municipal networks unit.

And from Google's Chris Sacca, head of Special Initiatives, "At Google, we see building this network as an opportunity to be an inspiration to the world.

Posted on Businessblog™

1261 - Nov. 6, 2006 - 4.26 PM EST

Google to sell advertising space in newspapers

Google is to sell advertising space in fifty large U.S. newspapers, expanding the company's efforts to provide advertising services and making it easier for advertisers to display products in print.

According to news reports, a group of more than one-hundred Google advertisers will be able to place bids in newspapers owned by the New York Times, Gannett, the Tribune Company, the Washington Post and Hearst Publications during a 3-month test period.

Some newspaper executives look at Google's newly-proposed system as a way to boost sales, at a time when all newspapers struggle with lower readership numbers and overall increased competition from online advertising.

The affected newspapers downplayed any risks of letting Google handle their relationships with advertisers.

"Overall, we go into this with both eyes wide open," said Mike Lemke, senior v.p. for sales and marketing at Seattle Times.

Google's move also enables it to gain more customers during its pursuit of print, radio and TV advertising.

"As a whole, print adds value the Internet doesn't have," said Tom Phillips, who runs Google's print operations. "It is a different browse-able reading medium."

Posted on Businessblog™

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